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2019.06.30 - Sermon
Scripture - Luke 9:51-62
Luke 9:51-62 (New Revised Standard Version)
51When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; 53but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" 55But he turned and rebuked them. 56Then they went on to another village.
57As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." 58And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." 59To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." 60But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."61Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." 62Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."
One: The Word of Life. All: Thanks be to God.
Sermon -
I remember the days when the internet was a fairly benign place. Sure, there were the dangerous places, but for the most part it was a place to share cute cat videos with your friends...to forward chain letters to everyone in your address book….to build and share Geocities websites all about your hobby of choice and find others who shared your interests and passions...to take meaningless quizzes about which Disney character you are or which era in history you should have been born into.
Ok, so the internet still functions in some of that capacity, and if that continues to be your experience of the world wide web, more power to you.
However, most days, when I sit down at my computer to check Facebook or Twitter...or even to read a news article...there's one important safety rule that I inevitably break - and that is….Never Read the Comments.
It's always a bad idea. Have you just read the most heart-warming story about a group saving baby whales in the Atlantic ocean? I guarantee you there will be at least two or three people who have taken to their keyboards and shared where they've found offense in the story. What about a parenting article about the best places to take your child this summer? The sanctimommies will be out in full force, shaming anyone who disagrees with their parenting philosophies. And forget about it when reading something even remotely controversial or political - the comments section will be a dumpster fire of hatred and vitriol against anyone who expresses a viewpoint other than their own.
Social media feeds this instinct within us and preys upon our lizard brains - that part of us that feels threatened whenever our values or beliefs are perceived to be under attack - and the internet allows us an outlet to express ourselves in a knee-jerk fashion -- We don't have to have an actual conversation with the person we feel threatened by, we can share our thoughts relatively anonymously, we can fire off words and statements without really having to think very hard about what we're saying. Even if we never write out our thoughts, we can share a quick "like" on a picture talking about a political opponent "getting what's coming to them" or "like" someone's outrage over someone else's ignorance or hard-heartedness. We can remain entrenched in our own way of thinking without having to truly engage with a different point of view. We can rain down metaphorical fire upon our foes without having to think twice.
Of course, this phenomenon is not limited to the internet - we all have a tendency to react defensively or out of anger when we come up against an opposing viewpoint, or when we interact with someone who gets under our skin, or to act or speak without thinking through our response. This is what we see going on in our passage from scripture this morning, as Jesus walks with his disciples toward Jerusalem, his ultimate destination. Along their way, there is a Samaritan village, and so they send messengers ahead to prepare the village for their arrival - to get everyone ready to receive Jesus and his teachings, his ministry of healing - and most likely to arrange for lodging. Except, the Samaritans refuse him because his ultimate destination was Jerusalem -- a place that represented pretty much everything that the Samaritan people despised. Remember there was a long history of hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans. So when James and John - known also as the Sons of Thunder - hear that the people of this village didn't want them - they asked Jesus if they could call down fire from heaven to burn down the village. I mean, isn't that the natural consequence for someone rejecting Jesus? Fiery judgment and punishment? Except Jesus doesn't think so; he instead rebukes James and John -- the Samaritans don't deserve death for their refusal to welcome Jesus and his disciples - and they continue on their way.
Jesus interrupts their reactive behavior because it had clouded their hearts against the people of this village. It was a way for Jesus to refocus the disciples - shifting their attention away from taking out their outrage on the people of this village and toward a way of kindness and compassion. The call is to bring life and not death, as Jesus reminds the disciples, to those who choose a different way than what Jesus offers to them; a lesson that they will learn many times on the road to Jerusalem. What matters to Jesus is learning to operate out of a different center, even when we're wounded and hurting, even when we feel threatened or under attack, even when we're incensed that someone doesn't see things our way. It's about learning to respond with gentleness and kindness, of forgiveness and love -- of making that the goal and priority as we follow Jesus as opposed to living out of our own sense of self.
Jesus continues this theme in the second part of the passage, where various people are given the opportunity to follow Jesus, and each person gives an excuse as to why they are unable to respond to the invitation. In the first case, presumably the person is unable to accept the reality that following Jesus will not result in an easy or comfortable life. "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." We want to live comfortably and securely - Jesus gives no guarantee of this.
In the second case, the man wants to bury his father before joining up with Jesus, and Jesus tells him to let the dead bury their own dead. It suggests that Jesus knows that there are times when following him will go against cultural and societal expectations, will cause us to disappoint our families - norms that we all conform to as part of living in this world. Jesus speaks to our burning need to fit in, to conform to the expectations of others around us - and challenges that very desire to say that if that is our priority, we cannot follow Jesus because discipleship will make us look different, will disrupt our families and friendships, and will cause us to shake things up, and we have to be able to deal with the fallout from that because the kingdom of God is more important.
Lastly, one man wants to say goodbye to his friends and family before following Jesus on his way to Jerusalem, to which Jesus responds with: "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." Again, Jesus challenges our temptation to make following him an item on our to-do list - something to get to after we have finished all the important projects we think take precedence over anything Jesus might want or demand of us.
In all these four cases - Jesus interrupts our self-centered, ego-based responses and gives an opportunity to choose a different path - a path focused on Jesus and his responses and priorities - a path that takes us out of our selves and our programmed habits and patterns that reside in that lizard brain part of our being - the part that craves safety and security, that lashes out without thinking, that wants to fit in and not rock the boat, that doesn't demand much of us beyond basic survival, that makes decisions based on threats and fear. Jesus invites us into a different way of being and living - of love and forgiveness, compassion and peace.
Jesus comes and interrupts our programmed responses to remind us of the calling of the kingdom -- like when we find ourselves aggravated by what someone posted online, or what we overheard someone say on the boat, or when we start to feel complacent in our relationship with Jesus and our lives look no different than that of our neighbors, or when we're tempted to take the easy way out when making a decision about the future. Jesus invites us to discern the voice of the Holy Spirit instead of jumping to follow our own instincts and desires.
For Jesus - it matters whether love or fear ultimately governs our hearts. It matters if we follow our own notions of retribution and justice or the love and righteousness of the kingdom of God. It matters that we pattern our lives and our hearts after that of Jesus - who didn't condemn the Samaritans in our passage for not welcoming him, who didn't condemn those who chose not to follow him either, but simply offered a path of love...knowing full well how hard and demanding and challenging and urgent it was….knowing full well that it would require us to die to ourselves to be able to truly live...knowing that our hearts are in desperate need of transformation so that resurrection can happen in our lives and in our world.
That's the invitation Jesus makes to us in this passage - whenever we are faced with a decision to make - whenever we are faced with how to respond to someone who we disagree with, who doesn't share our beliefs or values - whenever we are challenged - as individuals and as a church - to make decisions based on fear and scarcity, security and comfort, status quo or fitting in - to stop instead - listen to the voice of the spirit, and base our full selves on a life in Christ together.
We live in a time where that kind of life in Christ is needed - It's needed in our own backyard with new neighbors seeking asylum in Portland. It's needed on the southern border with the conditions children are living in. It's needed in the way we talk to and with and about each other - online and in person.Our community and our world yearns for the church to be the church - the living embodiment of Christ on earth - and for the people of God to live in a way that bears witness to the great love God has for each and every person, that demonstrates what a life of forgiveness and compassion and mercy looks like, that points to God's restorative and redemptive work in the world.
My prayer for us here is that we be that people for this island. That we move beyond focusing on the things that serve us here in this space, and that look toward creating a community around us that is more loving, more forgiving, more compassionate -- because we as a people have chosen to take Jesus's invitation to be about the kingdom of God instead of our own kingdoms….because we have decided to keep Jesus's priorities as our priorities and not get distracted by the little things that drain us of energy and resources and life….because we have decided to serve our neighbors instead of serving ourselves.
And so may we go forth from this place - focused on Jesus and his work in this world, in this community, and in our hearts - that we also may be inspired and challenged to join him along the way - to choose the path of love and life...for the sake of a broken and hurting world. Amen.
2019.06.16 - Sermon
Scripture - Micah 6:6-8; John 1:9-14
Micah 6:6-8 (New Revised Standard Version)
"With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
John 1:9-14 (The Message)
The Life-Light was the real thing:
Every person entering Life
he brings into Light.
He was in the world,
the world was there through him,
and yet the world didn't even notice.
He came to his own people,
but they didn't want him.
But whoever did want him,
who believed he was who he claimed
and would do what he said,
He made to be their true selves,
their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten,
not blood-begotten,
not flesh-begotten,
not sex-begotten.
The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish.
One: The Word of Life. All: Thanks be to God.
Sermon -
"and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?"
As many of you know, these past few days, Lola and I attended the New England Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church - a gathering of clergy and laity from across our region. We gather as an Annual Conference each year to make decisions about our life together as United Methodists in our area, to network and resource each other, to organize the life of the institutional church together with conference budgets and policies...but also to study and to worship together.
This passage from Micah 6:8 was the "theme" for our time together - and it's a verse that seems so simple on the surface. What does God require of us - easy - doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. And yet, as with many passages of Scripture, it is easy in principle and so, so hard to live out as a community.
When Micah first spoke these words, he was doing so to a divided people. Literally the people of God had split into two kingdoms - Israel in the north with its capital of Samaria, and Judah in the south with its capital of Jerusalem. In addition to this, there was an economic divide - the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. Lands once belonging to farmers and sheepherders were being acquired by wealthy landowners and those who once depended on the land for their livelihoods became unable to sustain themselves or their families and were essentially forgotten. To add to this, the worshipping community seemed not to notice what was happening -- they continued to bring their offerings before God, continued to make the religious observances, continued to go through the motions of faith without concern for or awareness of the exploitation and oppression happening to the poor and suffering.
So when the people finally woke up to this reality, they naturally turned to ask God what they could do to make up for their sin - to atone for neglecting their neighbors - what sacrifices could they bring, what offerings would make up for their failure, what tangible gifts could they bring in worship to make God pleased with them.
Would a thousand rams? Ten thousand jugs of oil? Burnt offering upon burnt offering? The finest calves? The choicest grain? A check for twenty thousand dollars? Expensive new paraments for the altar?
(Interestingly enough….they do not ask for forgiveness or admit guilt -- Israel just wants a way out).
God, instead, asks them to do justice….to love kindness...and to walk humbly with God.
Justice -- to do right by those who have been harmed and exploited and oppressed. To ask the hard questions of why systems hurt and exclude or why cycles of violence and harm continue to cause suffering to the most vulnerable among us.
Kindness -- the Hebrew word is hesed and is hard to translate, but is better understood as "steadfast love" and is largely about that unbreakable connection God has with God's people. To love hesed - to love that steadfast, covenant love God has with the people - means that Israel must also have that kind of connection with their neighbors….bringing it back to doing justice.
Walking humbly with God -- not humble in the lowly or meek sense, but in the sense of giving careful and considered attentiveness to what is before you -- walking attentively with God. The invitation to be always aware of God's call for justice, for God's steadfast love of all people.
What strikes me in this passage is that God's challenge to the people - which was really a challenge to the wealthy worshipping community - isn't about tangible offerings or gifts, isn't about right worship or rituals, but is about the extent to which God's people are willing to give of themselves to others and to God's priorities in the world, that their worship and offerings mean nothing if it is done while ignoring the plight of the poor, the oppressed, and the exploited in their midst.
The situation in our world - between the haves and have nots, between the powerful and oppressed, between the majority and the forgotten, between the comfortable and the suffering - has not significantly changed between Micah's time and our day. The poor are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer. Exploitation and oppression is woven into the fabric of our society and is part of the very air that we breathe, the clothes that we buy, the food we consume, the products we purchase. To bring it closer to home, one in ten families in the US will go hungry at some point this year. Or asylum seekers fleeing violence in their home countries who want to work but can't because of our regulations. Children who fear going to school. Those without homes. Those who have the wrong skin color or the wrong ethnic background.
These cycles of oppression have played out in so many ways for generations in our own country and around the world - kept in perpetual motion by those who have power over others - be it financial, political, religious, or otherwise. And before we count ourselves exempt from guilt, remember that in the world economy, those who make even just $15,000 per year are among the richest 12% of people in the world.
So when God calls us to do justice, to love hesed, and to walk attentively with God, it's not just another religious platitude or some kind of feel-good quote that we can put on a bumper sticker. It's because there are important consequences - life or death consequences - for those who are waiting for justice and kindness.
Elaine Heath, who led morning Bible study at conference, and who has written about being church in this day and age - in addition to being a professor and practitioner of new forms of spiritual community, shared a bit about her life in relation to this passage. She described herself as a newly-graduated seminary student with a three point charge...and the house she lived in was a parsonage that was old and a bit decrepit and in a bad part of town -- literally drugs on every side...the house abutting the backyard was an active drughouse. And she remembered thinking - with Micah 6:8 on her mind - what a great opportunity to practice this verse. Need and suffering was everywhere - how great it would be to bring God to these people. And what her time in that neighborhood brought to her attention, through the relationships and through the ways Jesus met her there - that it wasn't that she had God and they didn't….or even that she had things or skills that they needed from her….she discovered that God was already there, among the people - whether they knew it or not. To truly do justice, to love steadfast love, to walk attentively with God, required understanding that God as the Word made Flesh had already moved into the neighborhood. It was a story that I really resonated with as someone who also, fresh from seminary, held similar ideas about coming in to help save the people of the neighborhood from their poverty and their pain - and who also had to grapple with the notion that it's not me who does any of the saving, that's Jesus's job - and Jesus is already out there doing that work - God's already in the neighborhood - and we will meet Jesus if we engage in what God's about in the world.
That's a hard shift to make - that it's not we who somehow have God, we who have all the answers, we who are doing good works to serve our community to bring God to our friends and neighbors - but that God is already in and among the people and our job is to pay attention to the places where we can practice God's justice, where we can participate in God's radical steadfast love of God's people, where we can join in with what God hopes and dreams for the world around us.
It means taking action - it's not about what we say we believe, or about the statements we make or about our hopes for the future - it's about participating in the creation of the kingdom, it's about active presence within our community, it's about actions because being in relationship with people - doing justice and being in connection with others in the way that mirrors God's steadfast love - requires more than just our words and hopes and dreams. It requires us to do the hard work of prayer...of engaging others right where they are...and seeing where Jesus is already there ahead of us.
What might that look like for us here on Chebeague? What might it look like if we believed that the Word made flesh was already here among us - among our community - had already moved into our neighborhood - and was already active and working and inviting us to come along to do justice - love others with God's steadfast love - and to walk attentively with God? What does it look like for us to engage of acts of justice? Who are the people we need to stand alongside with God's radical, persistent, steadfast love? How can we give ourselves over so fully to what God is doing out in the world?
We may not be surrounded by drughouses here at the church building, but addiction and substance abuse is no less of a problem in our community. What does doing justice and loving kindness look like with those who are in the midst of addiction, those on the recovery journey and their families?
Our children and teens - the burdens they carry on behalf of their peers, even if they themselves don't have suicidal ideations or engage in self-harming behaviors - what would it look like for our church to do justice and loving kindness with our kids?
Those who are lonely on this island - who suffer in silence or act out of pain - what would it mean for this church to bear witness to the radical love of God? Those who struggle with mental illness, those who live with cycles of abuse - the list can go on and on - how can this church become the Word made Flesh for and with those in this community so that we can more fully do justice, love kindness, and walk attentively with God together with our friends and neighbors?
Last week we celebrated Pentecost - the Sunday we remember the Holy Spirit suffusing the first disciples with power and authority and boldness - so much so they couldn't help but respond in a way that dramatically altered the relationships between them and the new followers in a way that changed how they engaged with each other economically by holding everything in common - talk about justice...no poverty among them…, it changed how they ate together -- becoming one family, a radical move that bound people of different cultures and languages together at the same table….loving one another with that steadfast love of God….and worshipping and praying and studying together -- being attentive to God's movement within and around them so that they could be about this new thing God was doing out in the world.
In this time of the church year we particularly remember the mission of the church - the church that was birthed on Pentecost - the church that continues to follow and rely upon the movement and power of the Holy Spirit to live that radical commitment to love and enact Micah 6:8 for our neighbors.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer has this quote - "The church is only the church when it exists for others."
And so my prayer for us as we move into this next season is that we may exist for others. That we might follow the Holy Spirit to see the ways that Jesus is already in our neighborhood, already at work around us...among us….and in us. And that we might join in the work that God requires us to do -- to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God. Amen.
*Hymn - Spirit of God, v. 1 and 2 (FWS 2117)
Scripture - Acts 2:1-21
Acts 2:1-21 (New Revised Standard Version)
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.7Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." 12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" 13But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."
14But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. 16No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.19And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 20The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. 21Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'
One: The Word of Life. All: Thanks be to God.
*Hymn - Spirit of God, v. 3-5 (FWS 2117)
Sermon -
The first time I had ever been out of the United States (aside from Canada) was during my freshman year in college. We had, at Colby, what were called "Jan Plans" where in between fall and spring semester, you were encouraged to take a three week course in a discipline outside your field of study. It was an opportunity for enrichment, to try new things in a low pressure environment, and broaden your educational horizons.
The French department was offering a second level course in Guadeloupe. Guadeloupe is technically a part of France - you go through French customs, your passport gets stamped with a French stamp, everyone speaks French...but it's geographically located in the Carribean. So when my professor put the opportunity out there that there was some room for Freshman students to take the class, I jumped at the chance. I mean, who wouldn't want to get out of Mid-Maine in the middle of winter and bask for three weeks in the warmth of the Carribean sun?
Even though I had been studying French for six years, nothing could have prepared me for the disorientation of being in a different cultural and linguistic environment. Everything was a translation - from hearing conversations around the table with my host family and having to mentally shift their words to English...to the arduous work of figuring out how to respond in French….not to mention the cultural translation of being an American student in a foreign country in the aftermath of 9/11 and how different the world's perspective of our current events was.
It was a rewarding experience, but challenging being in an environment where it was so difficult to (1) understand fully what was going on around me and (2) make myself understood to others. Differences around language - culture - ethnicity - nationality...it was the first time where my identity and how I understood the world was not the norm, where everything was in translation. So those rare moments where I'd be out at the grocery store or walking through town and hear someone speaking American English to me was like a breath of fresh air. Beyond being just familiar words and sounds - it was a signal of hospitality, that I didn't have to work so hard to communicate or be understood.
So I wonder what it must have felt like for the crowd of Jews gathered in Jerusalem on the feast of Pentecost - a festival celebrating the spring harvest and the giving of the law at Mount Sinai - to hear the disciples speaking in their own native languages - Jews from Egypt and Lybia and Rome and Crete and Mesopotamia - speaking the Good News of Jesus not in the language of the Roman Empire, not in the dominant tongue of Aramaic, but in each person's birth language - the language spoken among family and close friends - the language of home.
We can get caught up in the spectacle of this day - the wind and the fire, the accusations of drunkenness, Peter's stirring sermon, the thousands of converts and baptisms in response to the message. We celebrate this "birthday of the Church" when the circle of Jesus followers that was relatively small and intimate - about 120 people - expanded 25 times over. But what I also find remarkable is that even though all the people who responded to this message of Jesus' resurrection and the new day of God's kingdom were Jews - they represented different cultures, different languages, different worldviews. Diversity and inclusivity woven into our very origin story as a church -- that's God's people are both One and Many...and we see throughout Acts, and indeed throughout the history of faith, the ways that God drew the circle wider and wider still, pouring the Holy Spirit out in unexpected ways on unexpected people - the Gentiles, political leaders and emperors, slaves and women, young and old alike...throughout the ages to this very day.
The crowds on that Pentecost day - they weren't confused about the message - they were astounded and perplexed by being able to understand what was being said. That there was no translation required - that there was nothing extra demanded of them to be included into the body of Christ, no cultural navigations, no wordy and awkward translations of Peter's message, no feeling like they were on the outside looking in because of their differences. They Holy Spirit came and spoke in the language of their hearts and homes, drawing them in to relationship with Jesus - God incarnate - God who for the sake of love took on language and culture and human skin to experience life and death as one of us, God who comes and makes a home in us.
The Holy Spirit empowered those first few followers of Jesus to stop huddling in safety, to throw open the doors wide, and to speak across the things that divide us - race, culture, language, ethnicity, gender, orientation, worldview, political affiliation, economic status, and age. To take the risk of encountering difference and to be vulnerable in sharing from the heart because they couldn't help themselves they were so much on fire with the power of the Holy Spirit.
It was risky business for those early believers; they had to move out of their comfort zones to encounter others….they had to trust that something important was happening within them, sharing things and words and sounds they didn't understand, they had to trust that they were a part of something bigger and more powerful - no matter how silly it looked, no matter how derisive some in the crowd were - claiming they were drunk, no matter the social cost.
Even the crowds who heard these words - words spoken in familiar phrases - had to take the risk of trust...to believe that God was drawing them in...and drawing one another in. They, too, had to widen their circles to include the other, the stranger, those who were different.
And into this glorious mess of wind and fire and language and culture - of risk and vulnerability, trust and transformation, - God breathed life anew.
And I believe God wants to do the same with us today.
We took a step forward as a congregation together, trusting God's call to affirm and include all people into the full life and participation of the church. As we heard in our opening hymn - there is a place at the table for everyone here - young and old, gay and straight, woman and man, just and unjust - God meets us here, folds us into one body, there is room for everyone. We celebrate that as we seek to live and embody our welcoming statement and as we join the Reconciling Ministries Network.
That is Holy Spirit work - that work that cuts across the things that can divide us to say to those who are marginalized in our society - particularly those who are LGBTQ - that you are welcome here...that you are wanted here...that you are safe here.
But I believe it is just one step. Inclusion isn't enough. Feeling like everyone can belong isn't enough. What's next is to take the Holy Spirit risk of becoming one even though we are many - of crossing the barriers that divide to offer love and hope to all, to engage and listen with open hearts to those who understand the world completely differently than we do - who might figuratively speak different languages.
As author Debie Thomas wrote on this Acts passage - she writes: "Something happens when we speak each other's languages — be they cultural, political, racial or liturgical. We experience the limits of our own perspectives. We learn curiosity. We discover that God's "great deeds" are far too nuanced for a single tongue, a single fluency...It is no small thing that the Holy Spirit loosened tongues on the birthday of the Church. In the face of difference, God compelled his people to engage. From Day One, the call was to press in, linger, listen, and listen some more."
When that happens - when we truly engage with the other - when we listen and learn from their stories, their experiences, learn their language, their identities - we see Jesus in one another, true inclusion happens. True inclusion isn't just about appreciation of where others come from, or being glad that they feel like they belong or attend our gatherings...it's about celebrating the gift they are to us...the gift they are to this church...the gift they are to the body of Christ….and empowering others to use those gifts for building up the body of Christ.
We read later on in this chapter of Acts that the result of this new diverse, inclusive body of Christ was this radical community that devoted themselves to fellowship and study together, to breaking bread together and praying together, to holding possessions in common together, eliminating economic inequality among themselves, sharing and eating together with glad and generous hearts. And what was going on among them was so powerful, so compelling, so fascinating, that others couldn't help but be drawn in and God continued to draw the circle wider.
And so I can't help but wonder - what would that look like on this island? What if the Holy Spirit blew through this congregation with fresh fire? What if each person here, from the kids in our Sunday School class to our seasonal friends to those sitting in the choir and those who have lived here their whole lives and everyone in between - was so tapped in to the Holy Spirit...so compelled to engage and speak words of love and hope in the language and stories of the people around us - what couldn't God do through us?
It takes risk...it takes vulnerability…it takes trust in the one who promised to be with us always...it takes a willingness to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit to full engagement with one another and with our community….and so my prayer for us this Pentecost is that we call upon the Holy Spirit for the work ahead of us -- to let ourselves be moved beyond these four walls with a message of hope and peace for all people….to speak love in the languages of those we meet...to become a church where all are truly welcome and included. May we call upon that Spirit so that we may be on fire for the healing of all those around us...for our community...and for our world. Amen.
Scripture - John 14:23-29
John 14:23-29 (New Revised Standard Version)
23Jesus answered him, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.
25"I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.27Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
28You heard me say to you, 'I am going away, and I am coming to you.' If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. 29And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.
One: The Word of Life. All: Thanks be to God.
Sermon -
How many of you have tried a self-improvement plan this year? Like a new diet or exercise regimen or gratitude practice or meditation or house cleaning ritual -- any kind of routine that you hoped would lead to a healthier, more happy, more joyous, more peaceful, or a more whatever you?
And there are thousands of books and articles and web guides and YouTube videos all geared to help you create the best version of you possible, right? Most of them available in two easy payments of $19.99 plus shipping and handling, or one click away on your Kindle, or easily available in a weekly e-newsletter delivered straight to your inbox -- all there to help you have it al, that elusive, peaceful, simple life...once you follow the 17 easy steps to your best life now.
I have to say, I found myself caught up a bit in the Marie Kondo home-organization craze a bit earlier this year. I didn't watch the series on Netflix but this idea of simplifying your stuff and surrounding yourself with the things and clothes and items that bring you more joy -- it's not just about the best way to organize your sweaters, it's about experiencing more joy and peace in your life. And who doesn't want that? Especially in anticipation of baby #2 in just a few long/short weeks, there's been this gradual purge of items in our household - but if I'm honest, the goal for me hasn't been just to get rid of stuff so that we have room for all the stuff a second child brings -- it's been about this quest for a simpler life -- as if I could achieve this by rearranging and organizing and getting rid of the extraneous items in my environment to experience greater inner peace.
This kind of dis-ease within ourselves we often ascribe to the culture around us. There is a kind of dislocation we experience and that our modern life exacerbates as we are bombarded with demands about being a good partner to our spouse while being a good parent to our children while being excellent at our jobs and great friends to our friends -- all while being expected to cycle through our appointments, errands, household chores, volunteer commitments cheerfully on the never-ending hamster wheel of life. Life is busy, we say. There's a lot more going on in the world these days that demands more of ourselves, we say. And so we seek to control what we can - our weight, our schedules, our home environment, our attitude - everything within reach around the edges of our life, to bring alignment, happiness, peace, and joy.
Thomas Kelly, a Quaker missionary and writer, has something to say about this sense of busyness and dislocation within us, in his book A Testament of Devotion and offers insight that points to the heart of our scripture passage from the Gospel of John this morning . Kelly writes, "Let me first suggest that we are giving a false explanation of the complexity of our lives. We blame it upon the complex environment. Our complex living, we say, is due to the complex world we live in,...which give us more stimulation per square hour than used to be given per square day to our grandmothers. This explanation by the outward order leads us to turn wistfully, in some moments, to thoughts of a quiet South Sea Island existence, or to the horse and buggy days of our great grandparents, who went, jingle bells, jingle bells, over the crisp and ringing snow to spend the day with their grandparents on the farm. Let me assure you, I have tried the life of the South Seas for a year, the long, lingering leisure of a tropic world. And I found that Americans carry into the tropics their same mad-cap, feverish life which we know on the mainland. Complexity of our program cannot be blamed upon complexity of our environment, much as we would like to think so. Nor will simplification of life follow simplification of environment.
"We Western peoples are apt to think our great problems are external, environmental. We are not skilled in the inner life, where the real roots of our problem lie. For I would suggest that the true explanation of the complexity of our program is an inner one, not an outer one. The outer distractions of our interests reflect and inner lack of integration of our own lives. We are trying to be several selves at once, without all our selves being organized by a single, mastering Life within us. Each of us tends to be, not a single self, but a whole committee of selves. There is the civic self, the parental self, the financial self, the religious self, the society self, the professional self, the literary self. And each of our selves is in turn a rank individualist, not co-operative but shouting out his vote loudly for himself when the voting time comes. And all too commonly we follow the common American method of getting a quick decision among conflicting claims within us. It is as if we have a chairman of our committee of the many selves within us, who does not integrate the many into one but wh merely counts the votes at each decision, and leaves disgruntled minorities. The claims of each self are still pressed. We are not integrated. We are distraught. We feel honestly the pull of many obligations and try to fulfill them all."
Sounds like he wrote this about this day and age, right? He wrote these words over 70 years ago. He talks about distractions like radios and cars -- and now we have distractions that pull us out of ourselves that we carry around with us in our pockets -- How many of us have forgotten our phones somewhere and felt like a piece of us went missing?
The problem is not with the busyness, with the complexity of daily living in our reality, with the external demands upon us -- the problem lies within us, and no amount of self-improvement strategies, of escaping to a simpler life, of controlling or changing our environment will, in fact, change us.
It's that famous saying -- wherever you go...there you are.
Kelly referenced this idea that we are trying to be these several competing selves at once - not under the guide of one master Life, not integrated together into one. This is where I see Jesus's words to his disciples speaking to this issue. Jesus is sharing these final words to his disciples before his death, resurrection, and ascension. He knows he is leaving them very soon, and so is preparing them for life without his physical presence. Jesus knows that the disciples will be pulled in a thousand different directions, that they will be unable to control the circumstances they are about to be faced with, and that they will need to be grounded and centered to keep his message and mission alive. And so Jesus says to them at the beginning of our reading, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."
"We will come to them and make our home with them." - for those who love Jesus.
God at home with us in the here and now, dwelling within us as our center, the ground of our being out of which everything else flows….the Life which brings all our competing selves into alignment, which gives us that otherworldly sense of peace that permeates all decisions, all the things we carry, gives us purpose and clarity so that we aren't pushed and pulled about by the complexity of demands placed upon us. God doesn't become one more voice among the myriad of selves within us but becomes the True Center of our lives - the basis for all our decisions, all our actions, all our words, all our hopes and dreams for ourselves and for the world.
All….if we truly, truly want it….because once we invite God to be at home within our hearts, once we have surrendered all of who we are to let Jesus be our Center, once we choose to follow the guiding and leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives - our lives are not our own; our very selves belong to God.
God comes and makes a home within us as the Holy Spirit, closer to us than the very air that we breathe, restoring us from within, bringing healing and wholeness -- and not through any five step self-improvement plan, not through us getting anything right or perfect -- but only if we make the decision to let that love in and take root in our hearts...to decide to love as Jesus loves...to let God's priorities guide our own. And it's not that life suddenly becomes less complex - there are still the responsibilities and commitments we make as part of families and communities - we still carry the same load…but we do so knowing what is truly important - operating out of a new center, living that new commandment Jesus gave to his disciples - love one another as I have loved you.
Jesus goes on to promise that we will not be left alone - that the Holy Spirit will be present with us to remind us and guide us in the ways that Jesus taught his early followers. Jesus promises that his peace will be ours - peace that comes not as the world gives, but that comes only from life lived in his presence. Jesus promises that our hearts do not need to be troubled - that we do not need to live in fear - all this for those who open their hearts for God to make a home.
I think about this as well for us as a congregation. What would it look like for God to truly be at home - to be present - among us as a church? Not as a place as a literal dwelling - but as a people, whose life together flowed from Jesus as the center? Churches too, as communities, aren't exempt from being pushed and pulled by the complexities of ministering in this day and age, with worries about fundraising enough to meet the budget, with controversy around the color of the carpet, with concerns about aging buildings and aging populations and trying out church growth programs as if that is the silver bullet that will solve all our problems. We focus so much on the externals that we fail to tend to our internal life together - Jesus at the center. God at home within us. Making God's priorities, God's kingdom, the primary source and ground of our being as a church - the literal body of Christ, here in this place for this people at this time...so that others might know who God is when they look at us - in how we carry ourselves, in how we love one another and this island, in how we handle all the challenges and struggles of being a faith community in our world today. Again, it isn't that the demands go away - but instead of letting our hearts be troubled or acting out of fear in response to the struggles we face - it's God's peace and love that form the basis of our decision-making together, it's God's peace and love that drive our ministry decisions, it's wanting God's peace and love for our community that informs how we deal with the challenges before us.
God at home with us - within our own hearts….within our church family here. All if we truly want it to be so. If we decide to let God's heart shape ours...to let God's kingdom reign within us...to let God's hopes and dreams be our hopes and dreams...to let God be home among us.
And so my prayer for us this week - as we go forward from this place...as we head into the busyness of our lives - and the busyness of the summer season before us - both as individuals and as a church - is that we make that decision to let God be at home within us...to let Jesus be our Center...our source and our guide...and to let the Holy Spirit lead us and remind us to love one another as Jesus loves us….so that we might live a life of healing and wholeness…. so that God's peace and grace might be among us….and so that all might know and experience God in and through us. Amen.
Scripture - Acts 11:1-18, John 13:31-35
Acts 11:1-18 (NRSV)
11 Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, 3 saying, "Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?" 4 Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, 5 "I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. 6 As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. 7 I also heard a voice saying to me, 'Get up, Peter; kill and eat.' 8 But I replied, 'By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.' 9 But a second time the voice answered from heaven, 'What God has made clean, you must not call profane.' 10 This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. 11 At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. 12 The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man's house. 13 He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, 'Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; 14 he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.' 15 And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. 16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, 'John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' 17 If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?" 18 When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, "Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life."
John 13:31-35 (The Message)
31-32 When he had left, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man is seen for who he is, and God seen for who he is in him. The moment God is seen in him, God's glory will be on display. In glorifying him, he himself is glorified—glory all around!
33 "Children, I am with you for only a short time longer. You are going to look high and low for me. But just as I told the Jews, I'm telling you: 'Where I go, you are not able to come.'
34-35 "Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other."
One: The Word of Life. All: Thanks be to God.
Sermon -
If you knew you were about to die, what would you tell the people you love? What cherished hope or dream would you share? What last, urgent piece of advice would you offer? What legacy would you want to leave for your loved ones to carry on?
Our reading from the Gospel of John starts what is known as the "Farewell Discourse" - it's Jesus before his death and resurrection preparing the eleven disciples (because Judas has already gone out) for life without him, although they at this point don't fully realize that he will be leaving them so soon. Jesus knows, however, the devastation they are about to face, and so is trying to get them ready - imparting to them his final words of encouragement and advice. The next couple of chapters are full of Jesus giving his final words and instructions to them as they sit around the table and eat together - emphasizing for them the importance of focusing on the mission and outlining the legacy he wants his followers to carry forward - and that legacy is centered around one simple commandment.
Jesus' words seem pretty simple and straightforward, don't they? "Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another."
And then comes the reason this commandment is so important to Jesus. He says, "This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other."
There's nothing ambiguous about them. No provisos, no fine print, no exceptions. Love one another. In the same way that Jesus loved. This is the hallmark of a follower of Jesus. Jesus didn't say "believe the right things" or "pray this way" or "police each other's behavior"….there is nothing about what one believes or says or what one doesn't believe or say….but everything about love.
And for two thousand years, we've been adding qualifier after qualifier to what Jesus has said….to the point where the usual interpretation of this passage has been that Jesus was only talking about loving fellow Christian believers - and even further than that, loving only the Christian believers who are in your own, specific "in" group…and even then, it's amazing to think how much we struggle with it. The irony in this, as New Testament scholar D.A Carson puts it, is that "This new command is simple enough for a toddler to memorize and appreciate, and yet it is profound enough that the most mature believers are repeatedly embarrassed at how poorly they comprehend it and put it into practice."
"Love one another."
More than that - "love one another in the same way I loved you."
As a commandment - not a suggestion or a guideline. A new commandment.
Love - the kind of love that Jesus demonstrated - is more than what we see portrayed by Hollywood and our favorite sitcoms, or might find on Hallmark greeting cards. It's even more than the kind of love we try to inhabit when we know we should do the kind and compassionate thing but don't really feel it - like when we're trying to get two kids to act as if they loved each other by sharing their toys or playing together nicely, or when we collect money for homeless shelters or cards for the sick. Not that these things are bad in and of themselves - but do they fall under the heading of Jesus saying "in the same way I loved you, love one another"?
We talk a lot in the Christian tradition about how love is a choice, it's not a feeling - and to some extent that is true. We make the decision to love, to live our lives choosing to act compassionately and with forgiveness, even when we don't always feel it within us. But Jesus' commandment wasn't "Act as if you love one another." It was to actually "love one another - in the same way I loved you." Which suggests to me that what Jesus is asking for isn't just a shallow gloss of love over our everyday, ordinary actions, but to love as he did - with deep engagement, genuine presence, and sharing of our authentic selves with one another.
And that's really, really hard to do - it's hard to do in our families, in our congregation, among members of our own Christian tribe, or among people who think and act like we do already -- but the command to love one another isn't limited; as we see in our reading from the book of Acts, God's Holy Spirit is being poured out among the Gentiles - among the people that the Jews prided themselves on being different from - and now they, too, are part of the fold. The call to "love one another" expanded to include the Gentiles who were previously excluded from Jewish community. The call to love one another isn't just about loving those who are in….it's about loving each and every person, no matter who they are. Throughout scripture, God keeps expanding the circle of those we are called to love.
And if we look at Jesus himself - and how he loved those he encountered - he shared and gave of himself to those who were particularly excluded from community, who had been forgotten and cast out, and gave of himself in a way that brought wholeness and healing to their lives - loving them back to life in all its fullness. The blind and lame, the sick and the tax collectors - the disciples had seen and experienced the love of Jesus lived out - both in their own lives and in the lives of those he touched. And so the way of love is found in the way Jesus himself loves. He tells the disciples - follow my example. Do what I do. Love as I love. Live as you have seen me live.
"Weep with those who weep. Laugh with those who laugh. Touch the untouchables. Feed the hungry. Welcome the child. Release the captive. Forgive the sinner. Confront the oppressor. Comfort the oppressed. Wash each other's feet. Tell each other the truth, even when it's hard."
Such love doesn't just come from charitable tasks or well-meaning words. This love comes from the core of our being - from the compassion that moves in our gut, from hungering and thirsting for righteousness and justice that we feel in our bones, from letting our hearts be broken again and again by the world's pain -- and rearranging our whole lives to be vulnerable to the brokenness in our world so that we can be led by love to do something about it….all because Jesus commands that we love one another as he loves us….because it is by this that the world will know that we are his disciples.
And friends, the world knows a lot of things about Christians -- but I'm not sure the world really knows that we are disciples of Jesus. All you need to do is pick up a newspaper and read about the hate being espoused by groups of Christians - hate for those who are gay and lesbian, hate for those who are not white, hate for those who have abortions, hate for those who are poor, hate for Jews and Muslims and immigrants and the list goes on and on.
But while we may not find ourselves in those camps, we do our own kind of self-selection, loving people based on our choices and preferences...I know at least this is true for me. I want to keep my boundaries small and safe and manageable, loving those who I want to love, who I like, who are easy to love...rather than loving based on Jesus' nets-cast-wide commandment. It's easy to love those who I chose to love….it's hard and costly to cultivate a heart like that of Jesus.
Yet that is what Jesus wants of us - to love one another as he loves us.
Next week, this congregation has the opportunity to live more fully into that all-inclusive love as we discern and vote together around our Welcoming Statement and around becoming a Reconciling Congregation. We've had opportunities to talk about this together, to pray about this together, to study scripture around this together. It's one step in letting everyone know that this church is a place of belonging for all people - no matter what - and to begin to heal the harm the church has done to our gay, lesbian, bisexal, and transgender friends and neighbors. It is a step forward in loving one another as Jesus loves...and step forward in making real the kingdom in which every single person knows that they are loved deeply and fully by the God who created them.
Because that's what at stake when we choose to love or not to love - when we choose to keep others at arm's length in safe, charitable ways or when we choose to embrace others as Christ did; when we choose to love based on our own preferences and affinities or when we choose to love in obedience to Christ's command….what's at stake is the ability of others to see, touch, hear, feel, sense, experience Jesus alive in and through us. It's through this love that we are embodying Jesus - literally the body of Christ - making Jesus real in a world that needs true, authentic, self-giving love so desperately….and even in our own island community, that deep loving presence of Jesus needs to be shared.
Jesus gives that commandment to us: Love one another. In the same way Jesus loves you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are his disciples—when they see the love you have for each other."
Go forth this week to love as Jesus loved - with reckless abandon, with generous action, with an all-inclusive embrace that restored life to all. Amen.
2019.04.21 - Easter Sunday
Scripture - John 20:1-18
John 20:1-18
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.
11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." 16 Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
*Hymn - Alleluia (FWS 2043)
Sermon -
We've all seen the iconic images of the Notre Dame Cathedral this week - the video of the spire tumbling from on high, snapshots of crowds singing hymns as it burned, photographs of the billowing clouds of smoke and flames surging from the rooftop. On Monday, there was so much speculation as the fire burned on - what would be saved? What would happen to the art, the relics, the stained glass, the organ? What about the centuries old beams of wood that have withstood the test of time?
Everyone started sharing pictures, memories, stories about their connection with Notre Dame - many heartbroken over the devastation. I saw comments on social media saying "It feels like everything good is on fire these days" or "with the burning of Notre Dame, it seems like all of Western civilization is burning down around us."
I don't think we here on this island are strangers to that feeling after the season we've had together where it as felt like one unending string of sadness and traumatic events, one after another. It's that feeling where we're sitting together in the ashes, wondering what comes next; the one where it seems like everything good in our lives is slipping through our fingers, no matter how desperately we try to hold on; the one where personal tragedies and heartbreaks become communal burdens that we bear for one another and yet still we wonder - how much pain and hurt and suffering can we actually bear? We hurt for our friends and neighbors and children, we hurt for ourselves, we hurt for our whole community as nothing will ever be the same anymore.
It makes me think of Mary Magdalene in the garden from the familiar Easter story. I love the version from the Gospel of John that we heard read this morning - because she comes to the tomb alone while it was still dark. Her hopes and dreams - the ones that were flying high as Jesus came into Jerusalem at the beginning of the week - had been dashed. She comes by herself, not with anything in hand to tend the body, but simply to grieve. I can imagine that she had spent a fitful night of sleep - tossing and turning - unable to rest because of her sorrow and grief. So she does the only thing she can think of to do: keep vigil at Jesus' tomb...to cling to that comfort of closeness that helps us in the aftermath of a loved one's death...that even though they are gone, some part of them yet remains for us to honor their memory.
And yet, she is even denied that measure of peace as there is no body anywhere to be found. The stone was rolled away. The tomb was empty. It was the gut punch on top of the horrific events surrounding Jesus' execution - that last physical touch stone, gone. Mary runs to notify the other disciples, assuming the worst -- and two of them run back to the tomb to investigate for themselves. They go in and see the linen wrappings laying neatly rolled up, no Jesus to be found anywhere - and then the story says that they believed - which honestly, annoys me a bit because they didn't see fit to tell that to Mary, who stands there outside the tomb, continuing to weep as they leave her behind. No words of comfort, no hope or encouragement. She remains there in her grief, deepened by the physical loss of Jesus.
The words she speaks to the angels who suddenly appear are full of hurt and longing. "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." They resonate with intimate emotion and affection and Mary is so caught up in the depth of her despair that when she turns away from the tomb, she sees a man there and assumes he is the gardener when, in fact, it is Jesus himself.
In the conversation that follows, she is again desperate for some clue, some evidence that Jesus' body is out there, somewhere, and wants to know where she can go to keep that connection, to have some link to the one she had given her life as a follower. It is not until he says her name - Mary - that she recognizes Jesus for who he is - and I can imagine that she must have reached out to touch him, his hands or his robe, to cling to him in some way so as to reassure herself that he was not going to leave her again.
Yet even in that moment, Jesus withdraws and tells her not to hold on to him - because there is more work for him to do - that he was, in fact, going away - ascending to God, and he commissions her in that moment to share that news with the disciples - he says, "tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."
Even though the other two disciples came to the tomb and believed - Mary is the only one in this story who actually witnesses the risen Christ, who has a conversation with him face to face, who must first wrestle with the news that even though he has risen, he must still leave her, he must still leave the disciples, he still has to leave this world and return to God.
There's both sadness and hope in this moment when Mary and Jesus part - sadness in the reality that things never will be the same...but hope in that the story will continue unchained from the past expectations of who Jesus was and what he came to do. Jesus calls her by name to announce to the disciples and all believers that a new creations is here, a future they never could have imagined on their own is here, and that this reality she sent out to proclaim is only the beginning of an ongoing revelation of what resurrection and all that that implies might mean.
So often when we think of resurrection, we think of restoration, of revival, of something dead coming back to life again as if everything is back to normal, that everything will be the way it was again. But that's not here in this story at all - Jesus may be alive, but he's not staying around so that things will go back to the way they used to be. Jesus' resurrection is the beginning of something completely new - of God fashioning a new creation, something that had never been done before, something that arises fresh out of the ashes of the past. We cannot go back ever to how things were because the past is the past and it is gone. Resurrection doesn't bring that past back, resurrection vaults us into the future where God is doing something radically new - in us, with us, and through us - and by extension, in and with and through our world and all of creation.
Resurrection - true resurrection - means that something new and beautiful will take shape from the dead and broken places in our lives. I love that the choir sang "The Storm is Passing Over" for our anthem this morning - because our whole community certainly has been through a storm this past year. We've been Mary, full of loss and pain. We've kept vigil at the tomb, not knowing what life will look like next. We've been battered by the winds and the rains of grief and felt the rising flood around us. We've seen neighbors and loved ones weighed down and burdened - yet what the Easter story promises us is that new life - that resurrection is on its way. The storm is passing over. The morning light does appear. Our task is not to forget the pain of the past, but to let go of it - as Mary lets go of Jesus - to allow the transforming power of God's resurrection to work to bring about something new and so that we can proclaim that hope will come out of the ashes, that fear does give way to joy, that life does grow out of death. All that is needed is to look to Jesus...and to let go of what holds us back from embracing that love for ourselves...so that we can move forward into the new creation Christ has for us. It's not easy - letting go of what is familiar to us is scary - but the promise is that God will be with us in the new life that will unfold.
It reminds me of another image that was making the rounds in the aftermath of the Notre Dame fire - the one that is on the cover of our Easter bulletin this morning, of the cross shining on the wall in the midst of the rubble of the burned cathedral. It reminds me that no matter what life may bring our way - in moments of joy and celebration...but especially in moments when everything seems to fall apart around us - God is there, Jesus is waiting to meet us - offering us hope and life...carrying us in the moments when we cannot carry ourselves...showing us that our mistakes, failures, heartbreaks, sufferings, struggles - our very brokenness is what makes us able to know and feel the new life that Christ ushered in on Easter morning and that waits for each one of us to claim for ourselves.
And so this Easter - with the storm passing over us - with the light dawning on the horizon - with Jesus risen from the tomb, will we move from pain to joy, from uncertainty to boldness, from mourning to dancing, from death into life - will we enter the resurrection life Jesus brings to us? As we venture, like Mary, into the tombs of our past, will we let go of what holds us back and instead run headlong into joy and love, hope and new life, toward a resurrection so powerful that when we find it, we we too will run to tell the world, "I have seen the Lord."
Christ is risen - Christ is risen indeed. May that resurrection reality become true for you; for us, for our community, and for our world, on this day....and every day. Amen.
2019.04.14 - Palm Sunday
Scripture Reading - Philippians 2:5-11, Luke 19:28-40
Philippians 2:5-11 (New Revised Standard Version)
5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death--
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Luke 19:28-40 (New Revised Standard Version)
28 After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
29 When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, "Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it.'" 32 So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?" 34 They said, "The Lord needs it." 35 Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37 As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38 saying,
"Blessed is the king
who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
and glory in the highest heaven!"
39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop." 40 He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out."
One: The Word of Life. All: Thanks be to God.
*Hymn - Mantos y Palmas (UMH 279)
Palm Sunday often feels to me like the little party before the big party on Easter - after all, it's been a long journey to get to this point! We've been together over 5 long weeks of Lent, delving deep into the broken places in our lives and in our world, inviting God's healing and wholeness into our own hearts and desiring that gift for others. We've been fasting from the things that harm us and our relationship with God, we've been more intentional in our prayer practices or the things that draw us further into God's grace, and perhaps we've even begun to notice those small shoots of new life blooming in our hearts - signs of God's redeeming power and love.
The excitement is in the air, and so we - along with the crowd ushering Jesus into Jerusalem - shout Hosanna! Praise be to God! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Salvation is at hand! We can almost taste the victory to come.
And yet….there is still one more week of Lent...the week that we remember what happened after Jesus entered into the city...Jesus's final days here on earth.
Jesus arrived in Jerusalem amid the preparations for the Passover - one of the biggest festivals when the Jews remembered God rescuing them - saving them - from slavery in Egypt. The Passover was a time for them to remember how God overthrew their oppressors and fashioned them as a people - that God had selected Moses to defy Pharaoh and lead the Israelites to freedom.
This story was very much in the air as Jesus arrived - and the people had placed similar hopes of salvation and deliverance onto him - that Jesus would overthrow the Roman oppressors, make them a sovereign people again, that they would once more be free and be restored to the glory days of King David. There was so much potential for unrest that Pilate, the Roman governor of the area, had to come to make sure order was maintained - a procession full of military glory, pomp and circumstance, power and might.
Jesus's own entry into the city was quite the opposite - he instructs two disciples to borrow a colt for him to ride - and only if someone asks about it, to say "The Lord needs it." A coat is spread over the back of the colt and Jesus and his disciples make their way into the city. It's clearly not the display of power and wealth and glory one might expect from a conquering hero or from someone on whom all these expectations and hopes of deliverance have been placed.
Luke's retelling of this parade into the city actually lacks one of the key things we've come to associate with this processional - anyone pick up on what that might be during our scripture reading?....Palms. Luke's version doesn't emphasize the waving of palm branches in praise and adoration as Jesus enters Jerusalem...what Luke highlights is the spreading of cloaks on the ground before him - an act of reverence and humility and submission. The crowd is laying down what they have in front of Jesus...perhaps this was one of the only things that each person owned - laid down before him.
As we lift our palm branches high and give God thanks and praise...what might God be inviting us to lay down before Christ as we continue the journey toward the cross?
I love how the reading from the book of Philippians pairs with our Gospel reading for this morning, because it highlights how Jesus - who had every right to claim that power and majesty of being equal with God, who could have come down in militaristic might to vanquish the oppressors, who could have demanded every honor and status due him as the Son of God - instead emptied himself in love and humility, coming as one of us in service...coming as one who lived our life, who died our death...who laid down every power and privilege for the sake of humankind. Jesus as God poured himself out in love for each one us….and at the very beginning of that passage, we have that exhortation from Paul to "Let the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus…" -- that same emptying of self...that same pouring out for others...that same laying down of power and privilege in preference for humility and love and service.
Even as we celebrate the coming of the reign of God, as we wave our palm branches high in praise for Jesus and laud him as savior and king...what do we need to lay down before him? What do we need to empty ourselves of so that God's love and life can bloom even more fully in our hearts?
As a few of my colleagues have shared, "As we lift up our shouts of praise on this Palm Sunday, might we also lay down ways of living that do not honor God, our neighbor, and all life around us? As we lift up our voices crying out for an end to injustice and suffering, might we also lay down our lives, allowing Christ to fill them with humility and the new beginnings of hope? As we lift up our palms with songs to bless the One who comes in peace, might we also lay down the superficial cries of victory and triumph? As we lift up our eyes to see a vision of earth and heaven made one, might we also lay down our expectations of how God will change us and our world; of how God will come into our lives to accomplish this? As we lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord, might we also lay down our hearts until they burn with the desires of God's heart? And in our lifting up and laying down, God might just weave us into a tapestry of resurrection."
What Palm Sunday -- and the story of this week to come remind us -- is that the pathway to resurrection and exaltation is never a steady upward climb or a sequence of brilliant successes and triumphs. It doesn't come through the pompous parades or displays of might. Resurrection and redemption - healing and wholeness - come through the mess and the struggle, the hurt and betrayal, the putting aside of self, denying our egos, laying down our own expectations so that we can be open to the transforming power of the God who has conquered the powers of death, who fashions us into new creations, and who will make all things new. Redemption came on a borrowed colt, accompanied by the shouts and accolades of peasants...and who was ultimately executed by the state because of the message of life, love, and hope he shared and exemplified.
And so this coming week, are we willing to lay aside our lives - our time, our energy, our thoughts - to walk this journey with Jesus? What does God call us to lay down - to empty ourselves of - so that God's resurrection power can come forth in our hearts….in our lives...or in this church?
May each of us continue to examine our hearts and our lives so that we - just as the crowd laid down their cloaks before Jesus two thousand years ago - may lay ourselves down so that God's love and hope can be made manifest in our lives...in our community...and in our world. Amen.
Scripture Reading - Jeremiah 31:31-34
Jeremiah 31:31-34 (New Revised Standard Version)
31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
One: The Word of Life. All: Thanks be to God.
We've been on a journey together this season - a time of exploring God's healing and wholeness...a calling to remember ourselves as Holy Vessels of God's love - and to remember that as we move toward healing, the gift is not just to see ourselves in that light, but to desire that gift of wholeness for each other and for all of creation.
Over the past four weeks of Lent, we've written our brokenness on pieces of seaglass and placed them on the altar as an offering to God. They've been here over this season as a reminder of the ways that we are a broken people, each of us seeking healing, and as a reminder of how we have a God who yearns to make us whole.
We've talked about the ways God gathers us together - like a beachcomber collecting seaglass - and holds us for safekeeping. We acknowledged the ways that God accounts for each one of our tears and struggles and heartbreaks and in gathering us together provides us with a safe space for healing. And yet, we remembered that not everyone experiences this gift of community - that there are those in our world who do not have safe spaces because of the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, their ethnicity, or their gender.
We've talked about stories - about how our stories become clear as they come into contact with the life-giving water that Jesus has to offer. Claiming our stories - in all their beauty and brokenness - not only leads to healing for ourselves, but can point others on the pathway to wholeness.
Last week, we talked about how community can allow our true selves to shine as part of something bigger that God is doing in the world. There's power in a community that helps us create new and different pictures about our lives - different than the ones we've told ourselves or had imprinted upon us...and transformation can happen when one small piece becomes a part of a whole.
This week, we are reminded that our journeys toward healing and wholeness all take place in the context of relationship - relationship with the God who is present with us, loves us, bears with us in all things - and continues to offer us the grace we need as we become the people God created us to be.
We see God's relationship with humankind all throughout the scriptures, but I find the language around covenant particularly helpful. We talk about the promises God made with various individuals and communities in the Bible as covenants - where both sides agree to uphold certain commitments and agreements. The stone tablets with the 10 Commandments - which were part of this covenant - were kept in a box called the Ark of the Covenant that moved around with them before the Temple was constructed.
However, again and again in Scripture, the Israelites can't seem to keep up their end of the covenant God made with them. They worship other gods. They fail to care for the orphan, the stranger, and the widow among them. They exploit the poorest in their communities. They constantly struggle with God and with each other. They mess up time and time again - and yet God's covenant love remained with them - even when they broke the laws and commandments. Even more, as our Scripture passage this morning points to - God is willing to enter into another covenant with this people - one that isn't based on laws or words, but is within the very souls of the people - a covenant based on intimate knowledge...on forgiveness...a covenant that doesn't need a physical reminder - stone tablets in a box, laws written on stone - but a covenant that resides within the deepest parts of their being...written on their hearts.
It's a covenant that we understand was made through Jesus - his life, teaching, death, and resurrection - in the ways he demonstrated a new way of being and living with one another and with God, in the ways he offered of himself as fulfilment of God's love, in the ways he gave of himself to those who were hurting...those who were broken...and restored them to life….and in the ways Jesus continues to offer reconciliation and restoration for each of us as we claim God's promises - God's covenant - for ourselves.
Claiming that covenant for ourselves - allowing that knowledge and love of God to rest fully in our hearts, opening our lives to the healing God has to offer, becoming fully the people God created us to be - is a journey. Much like the Israelites, it's one we often don't get right. We mess up, we get hurt or hurt others, we fail to live in to the hopes and dreams God has for us - this is why we regularly in worship have a time of confession together - and yet God is always present with us. God never gives up on us. God always keeps those promises - that no matter what we may experience in this life, God's love will never go away. God's grace will never leave us. There always can be resurrection.
This journey of healing and wholeness is messy and difficult - especially in a community when we're constantly rubbing up against each others' growing edges. It's a slow and difficult process - one that takes time and attention but can't be forced or hurried. It's a process that can be full of unexpected twists and turns, of two steps forward and one step back. It's not linear or even necessarily logical. And yet - God is with each of us. God is present, binding up our wounds, drawing us closer together, bringing us into deeper relationship with God.
Much like jewelry from seaglass...using wire to suspend...or to wrap around with decorative spirals and beads...God makes something beautiful out of our broken places, out of the twisting and the turning.
Our scripture passage from Jeremiah ended with "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more."
If this is something you want to be true for you in your life - no matter if you've been on the journey for your whole life or aren't sure you want to be on that pathway - if deeper relationship with God is something you are yearning for...as we sing our next hymn together, I invite you to come forward, and you'll receive a seaglass pendant that we spent time making yesterday. Each one has been prayed over - that it might be a reminder of God working in your life, creating something beautiful from the broken places...a symbol of God's continuing healing power and presence.
Let us remain seated as we sing together number 394 in the red hymnal, Something Beautiful, and come forward as you are moved to do so. You are also invited to stay at the communion rail for a time of prayer.
May God continue to write words of love...hope….mercy...and grace on our hearts - may we rely on God's promisesof healing and wholeness to guide us - and may we continually allow God to work our lives - broken as they are - into things of beauty. Amen.
Scripture Reading - John 4:5-30
John 4:5-30 (The Message)
He came into Sychar, a Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob's well was still there. Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well. It was noon.
7-8 A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, "Would you give me a drink of water?" (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.)
9 The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, "How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" (Jews in those days wouldn't be caught dead talking to Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered, "If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water."
11-12 The woman said, "Sir, you don't even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. So how are you going to get this 'living water'? Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?"
13-14 Jesus said, "Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life."
15 The woman said, "Sir, give me this water so I won't ever get thirsty, won't ever have to come back to this well again!"
16 He said, "Go call your husband and then come back."
17-18 "I have no husband," she said.
"That's nicely put: 'I have no husband.' You've had five husbands, and the man you're living with now isn't even your husband. You spoke the truth there, sure enough."
19-20 "Oh, so you're a prophet! Well, tell me this: Our ancestors worshiped God at this mountain, but you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place for worship, right?"
21-23 "Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you Samaritans will worship the Father neither here at this mountain nor there in Jerusalem. You worship guessing in the dark; we Jews worship in the clear light of day. God's way of salvation is made available through the Jews. But the time is coming—it has, in fact, come—when what you're called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter.
23-24 "It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration."
25 The woman said, "I don't know about that. I do know that the Messiah is coming. When he arrives, we'll get the whole story."
26 "I am he," said Jesus. "You don't have to wait any longer or look any further."
27 Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked. They couldn't believe he was talking with that kind of a woman. No one said what they were all thinking, but their faces showed it.
28-30 The woman took the hint and left. In her confusion she left her water pot. Back in the village she told the people, "Come see a man who knew all about the things I did, who knows me inside and out. Do you think this could be the Messiah?" And they went out to see for themselves.
One: The Word of Life. All: Thanks be to God.
But before we dive in to the text for this morning, look for a moment at the image on the front of your bulletins. It's a picture depicting seaglass collected from a beach in Seaham Hall, a small town on the coast of the North Sea in the UK. The reason there's such an abundant supply of seaglass - especially rarer colors like yellow, aqua, blue, and red - is because until 1921, Seaham had the largest bottleworks factory in England. It is no longer in business - but the company housed there - Londonderry Bottleworks, at the time would produce 20,000 handblown bottles every day. The practice was that at the end of the day, any discarded and waste glass was dumped into the North Sea - and so much of the sea glass that winds up on the beach is over one hundred years old.
Each bit of seaglass that is found has a story. Sometimes there are unique markings offering clues as to what it might have belonged to. Sometimes the glass is very old and it takes time and care and attention to find the truth behind it.
There is a power to truth-telling - to claiming and telling one's own story as a path to healing. We see this in our Scripture reading for this morning and the story of Jesus's conversation with a Samaritan woman. It's a story that's so familiar that upon hearing this text, it immediately brings to mind many assumptions about what's going on - some of which are true, and some of which aren't there in the story.
First is that Jesus is in Samaria, and that Jews and Samaritans don't get along - which is true. There were irreconcilable differences between Jews and Samaritans - particularly in how they were supposed to worship God - and also because over their history, Samaritans - who shared the same ancestry as Jews - had intermarried with Gentiles, which Jews considered a violation of the law. However, as Jesus and his disciples pass through this village - the Jewish Jesus and his friends are the outsiders here; this is the Samaritan woman's home turf - she is less of an outsider in this community than Jesus is.
Secondly - we often assume that this woman has a salacious past - she has had five husbands and the man she currently lives with isn't number six. Because of this, she's branded as a prostitute or a seductress, shunned by her community for her immorality. We think she's out by the well in during the hottest part of the day because she wants to draw water when no one else would be around and thus avoid the derisive looks others.
However, there is no mention of this in the story. Jesus doesn't condemn her for the situation she is in, nor is there any mention of sin or forgiveness. There is actually a long list of reasons she could have found herself in this predicament - she could have been widowed or have been abandoned or divorced (which amounted to the same thing for a woman in the ancient world). It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that this could have happened to her five times. As far as living with a man she wasn't married to - this wasn't necessarily an unsanctioned situation - women in this culture had to be dependant on someone - in most cases a man - in order to survive. There were also situations where she would be obligated to act as a wife to a man - to produce an heir or some other situation - but not be technically considered married.
Her situation is unfortunate, to be sure. Heartbreaking and tragic, most likely. She's a woman with no agency, dependent on others - someone that in the biblical text isn't even worthy of a name…but not necessarily a sinner - at least in terms of her relationship history.
Taking this view of our woman at the well, we see the conversation between this woman and Jesus unfold in a slightly different way. It's noontime. Jesus, tired and hungry, sits down by the well - and when she comes near to draw water for herself, Jesus asks her for a drink. She's surprised by this...not because she's wearing a scarlet letter, but because Jesus is a Jew asking a Samaritan for water from the well.
This request, however, opens up the conversation around living water - Jesus tells her - "If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water."
The woman doesn't quite see it yet, and still thinks Jesus is talking about literal water, and points to the history of the well -- this well that was dug by their ancestor Jacob (an ancestor that the Jews share as well). Jesus, instead, points out the difference between the water in the well and the water he has to give: "Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life."
The woman, intrigued, indicates her desire for this water...still not quite getting it because she's still thinking about literal water and not having to come back to this particular well again.
So to make it clear that Jesus isn't talking about actual water and that he is something more than just a random traveler, he asks her to go get her husband. When she replies that she doesn't have one, Jesus says, "you're right" and reveals that he knows about her five husbands and current living situation.
Then - she gets it. The moment of revelation for her has come. Jesus has "seen" her - he knows her and her past - he knows her vulnerability and dependance. She realizes that even though he knows all this about her, he has still recognized her and spoken with her and offered her something of precious value...and that in Jesus's eyes, she is, in fact, someone of worth and value - someone worth time and attention - someone worth the gift of life-giving water springing up inside of her.
She realizes, then, that he is a prophet...and in this new light, she risks going to the core question of what has divided her people from the Jews for centuries and what divides her as a woman of Samaria, from him, a Jew. The answer opens up a whole new way of being in the world - not just a pathway for healing the rift between Jews and Samaritans, but a pathway for each person to be in new relationship with God.
Jesus tells her that "the time is coming—it has, in fact, come—when what you're called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter….It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. ... That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. ... Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.""
The woman eventually leaves the well to tell everyone in the village about her encounter with Jesus - about this life-giving water she had received...and because of her story, because of how she came to understand that her own worth relied on nothing but this God-given well of living water within her - many others came to that same knowledge for themselves. Her own story - her past - became clear as it came into contact with the life-giving water Jesus had offered her -- that her own belovedness as a child of God didn't stand on whether she was Jewish or a Samaritan, a man or a woman, married or not, but simply on being herself before God - worthy just because - and that her worship of God was to come out of that authentic place of being loved - not out of duty or obligation or regulation...but out of her spirit...her true self...out of adoration. It was a moment of healing for her that lead to healing for the whole village.
When we look at a piece of sea glass, it has a frosty finish that clears and shines when it comes into contact with water.
What might become clear for us as we claim our stories and when our brokenness is met with living water - as when the Samaritan woman understood her story through her encounter with Jesus?
What part of our history - our stories - may we discover to be in need of healing when we experience the life-giving water that Jesus offers us?
What truths come to light when we see ourselves as a beloved child of God?
There is immense power and healing in coming face to face with our stories - particularly in the ways it allows us to notice God's presence with us throughout our lives - even before we were aware of it. There's a reason that people who have had traumatic experiences are encouraged to talk about it as a means of healing, or why people in recovery attend 12-step meetings to tell their stories, or why in the early part of the Methodist movement, testimony was so important because being able to own your stuff and name and share the ways God was working in your life helped you grow - both as a person and in your relationship with Christ.
We all have a story - and we all have parts of our story that we aren't proud of...parts of our story that continue to wound us...and the main question isn't "how can we hide our brokenness" so that we can feel like we have it all together, so that we can feel acceptable -- the question is "how can we share our stories - put our brokenness - in the service of others?" How can our stories be a source of healing to others?
The Samaritan woman - her story was well known in the village...and Jesus used that story to tell her the truth about herself as a child of God...even though she wasn't a Jew...even though she wasn't married...even though in her life she had seen plenty of heartbreak...and she used that story to let others in her village know about the love and power of Jesus and what life-giving water he could give them.
I'm going to invite us into a few moments of reflection…
Consider your story for a moment - in all its beauty and in all its brokenness...in all the places you still feel wounded...in all the places where you have experienced healing...and consider your story in light of God's life-giving water...the well springs within you that never runs dry...what truths about you become clear? ...Think about these things for a minute...
[Ben plays]
As we sing our next hymn together, come forward as you are moved to do so to pick up a piece of seaglass and place it in the jar of water….as a sign of your willingness to claim your story in light of the living water Jesus offers to each of us...as a sign of your belovedness as a child of God - in all areas of your life, even the places that are yet in need of healing. Let us remain seated as we sing together, Water, River, Spirit, Grace, number 2253 in the black hymnal.
Water, River, Spirit, Grace,
sweep over me, sweep over me!
Recarve the depths your fingers traced
in sculpting me in sculpting me.
*Hymn - Water, River, Spirit, Grace (FWS 2253)
Let us pray. (http://sacredise.com/prayers/type/intercession/around-the-well/, adapted)
We gather around the well of your grace, O God,
As those who thirst for friendship and love;
May we find here the living water of community and connectedness;
We gather around the well of your life, O God,
As those who thirst for joy and safety;
May we find here the living water of playfulness and protection;
We gather around the well of your mercy, O God,
as those who thirst for wholeness and peace;
May we find here the living water of comfort, healing and welcome;
We gather around the well of your presence, O God,
as those who thirst for meaning and connection;
May we find here the living water of service and worship;
May the life we have found in you,
be the gift we share
with all who hunger and thirst,
with all who are outcast and rejected,
with all who have too little or too much,
with all who are wounded or ashamed,
and, through us, may this corner of the world overflow
with you living water.
In Jesus' Name
Scripture Reading - Psalm 56
Psalm 56 (New Revised Standard Version)
1 Be gracious to me, O God, for people trample on me;
all day long foes oppress me;
2 my enemies trample on me all day long,
for many fight against me.
O Most High, 3 when I am afraid,
I put my trust in you.
4 In God, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I am not afraid;
what can flesh do to me?
5 All day long they seek to injure my cause;
all their thoughts are against me for evil.
6 They stir up strife, they lurk,
they watch my steps.
As they hoped to have my life,
7 so repay them for their crime;
in wrath cast down the peoples, O God!
8 You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your record?
9 Then my enemies will retreat
in the day when I call.
This I know, that God is for me.
10 In God, whose word I praise,
in the Lord, whose word I praise,
11 in God I trust; I am not afraid.
What can a mere mortal do to me?
12 My vows to you I must perform, O God;
I will render thank offerings to you.
13 For you have delivered my soul from death,
and my feet from falling,
so that I may walk before God
in the light of life.
This past week was the first time this year I was able to get out to the beach. Ben and Michael were away for the day, and the dog needed a walk, so I leashed her up to her long line and off we went. Of course, I do what I always do when I walk along the beach - which is look for interesting bits of rock and seaglass to add to my collection. I used to just stuff my findings into my pockets, but I've started to take a bag with me as I gather together interesting shapes, textures, and colors.
Now I've heard that if you live on Chebeague long enough, you'll start to amass such a collection that beachcombing doesn't necessarily hold the same appeal after a while - maybe that'll be true for me but probably not, because ever since I was a little girl at the beach by the house where I grew up, I collected bits of rock and shells and seaglass, and somewhere I still have a jar of beach treasures I found as a kid.
I think of beachcombing as an adventure - you never know what you are going to find - if you will find that elusive bit of blue glass - or something even rarer...perhaps a bit of beach pottery with the design still showing...or a heart shaped rock. Even green or brown or white pieces still prove to be an exciting find - gathered up and marveled at. Each piece was once lost - undiscovered, forgotten, buried under sand or cast out far at sea - but is now found, gathered, saved, and treasured.
In the same way, God searches for, finds, and gathers us up - saves us. One of my favorite ideas in the Wesleyan tradition is that of prevenient grace - God's grace that works in our life before we are even aware of who God is. It is the idea that it is God's action in our lives that draws us into deeper relationship - not our own initiative - and that it is God who gathers us together into the Body of Christ, where the lost is found and healing is possible.
The psalm we read this morning points to this offer of hope and healing and the idea that God accounts for us and delivers us. The psalm is one of the ones we know was written by David, at a time when he was fleeing for his life and ran in the heart of enemy territory to escape King Saul - to the city of Gath which was controlled by the Philistines...and was Goliath's hometown. Not exactly the safest place for David to be - recalling that David had defeated Goliath, the Philistine's champion, with a stone and a sling. The psalm is David's prayer to God when he is literally cut off from his people, surrounded by enemies, threatened by all sides - and yet knows that God will still deliver him - save him - from the hands of his foes.
The image that stands out to me from the psalm is from verse 8, where David says to God, "You have kept count of my tossings, put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your record?" The image on the front of our bulletins this morning is from Elaine Heath, former dean of Duke Divinity School, who currently is working on a project called the Garden at Spring Forest - a place of rest and renewal and intentional Christian community. Members work on the farm and are committed to the ministry of hospitality, prayer, and justice.
As they were working on their land, they found an area in the forest where someone decades ago had dumped many bottles and jars. Instead of getting rid of them, they cleaned up the area, washed what could be salvaged, and created the arrangement you see on the cover as a reminder of this verse. Elaine Heath writes, "The bottle in this passage refers to ancient funerary bottles in which mourners would collect tears. God mourns with us in our losses and pain, noting every tear and grieving with us. The lights in our arrangement represent divine presence with us in our grief."
She continues to share that later during the year, her community will create a Tear Bottle trail as a type of prayer labyrinth designed for lament, incorporating these jars as part of that display.
God accounts for our tears - guards and gathers them for safekeeping - and delivers and saves us...for David concludes his prayer with: "You have delivered my soul from death and my feet from falling, so that I may walk before God in the light of life."
God provides a safe place for healing and restoration - gathers us together into the body of Christ - because God sees each of us - God has brought each of us here - God keeps account of each of our tears and struggles and heartbreaks - and God brings us into community together as a safe place for healing, for mending what is broken - gathering us together as a beachcomber gathers glass and treasures to create something beautiful out of the brokenness.
And yet, even as we praise God for the safety we have found in God, as we praise God for the blessing of community - we know that there are so many in this world who are not safe...whose tears God may notice...but go unnoticed by so many because of the cycles of violence, hurt, and harm perpetuated by the powers and principalities of this world....until crisis comes. We saw that in heartbreaking detail this week with the two mass shootings in Mosques in Chistchurch, New Zealand, and the ways that white supremacy has been globalized and exported. There was also a school shooting in Brazil this past week, where two young men killed seven students at a K-12 school - in an attempt to imitate the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. The violence we see and the rhetoric of hate - and its increasing acceptance in our American culture - has as global impact.
These are the events that make headlines, but there is so much that never makes it to the news - the fear that many minorities live with every day - particularly African Americans - of being harmed for the color of their skin, or that Muslims and Jewish people deal with because of the way they worship. There are the domestic violence disputes that wound spirits and bodies, people who are shunned by family and friends because of who they love or who they are, people who are lost to their addiction, children and families fleeing violence who have no place in to call home, people who live in places torn by war and conflict - there are so many who are not safe -- and God sees and accounts for each and every tear and longs for this world to become a place of peace and healing and wholeness for each and every person….each and every community...for the whole entire world.
God calls us as a church to be a place of safety and healing - this is part of why our congregation has undertaken the process of discernment around becoming a Reconciling congregation to make clear our embrace and welcome of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters and their families - because so many churches have not been safe places for them. It's part of the reason we're drafting a welcome statement that states that we will be a place for all people - welcoming those who come through our doors to create a safe harbor of healing - a community that can shelter and restore us before we are sent out into the world to offer that same sense of welcome - shelter - and healing - to those around us. My prayer for us as we take this Lenten journey together is that our own healing will not only be for us personally, but that will lead us toward communal and global healing as we live more fully into being the Body of Christ, a place of "safekeeping", a safe space for all.
Our next song together will offer an opportunity for prayer and reflection - Sanctuary - the word literally means a place of refuge and safety - and as we sing it together, consider the people in this world who do not live in safety - either physical safety or emotional safety….and as you think of those people, come forward and place a piece of seaglass into the jars up front here as a way of being in prayer for them...as a reminder of the ways God gathers their tears and heartbreak into bottles...and as a reminder of how we are empowered by God's Holy Spirit to be agents of God's healing love and grace...a living sanctuary.
Let us remain seated as we sing together….and as we sing, come forward as you are led to do so to offer your prayers for those people who need God's hope, love, and safety in this world.
*Hymn - Sanctuary (FWS 2164)
Lord, prepare us as your people - gathered together as the body of your son Jesus in the world - to offer safety and sanctuary to those we meet. Work in and through us to be agents of your healing love, both in transforming our hearts and in working for the transformation of our communities so that your kingdom may be made real among us and in our world. We pray this in the name of your son Jesus, Amen.
Pastor Melissa Yosua-Davis has been serving the community of Chebeague and its church since July 2015. She currently lives on the island with her husband and three year old son, along with their yellow lab. Read here recent sermon excerpts, thoughts on life and faith, and current announcements for the church community. She also blogs at Going on to Perfection.
July 2019