Body of Christ, Body of Earth

A Sermon for the Plymouth Church of Framingham, UCC
April 28, 2019

Rev. Reebee Girash

Text:

John 20:19-31

19When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews [Jewish authorities]*, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” 24But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.25So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

26A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

*Historically more accurate and appropriate than “the Jews,” see note from Mary Luti used in Holy Week bulletins.

Prayer

Sermon

The moment I saw the text for today and connected it with our Earth Day theme,

I knew I’d preach on the visible wounds of Christ,

metaphorically relating to the visible wounds the earth is suffering in climate change.

For surely the wounds of the earth are deep, and critical.

I thought I’d preach on how some of us still don’t believe in climate change,

how Millenials have believed in it since they were in grade school;

how we must all believe.

But it turns out, with few exceptions,

we, old and young, rich and poor, North American, Central American, European, African,

we believe in the wounds of the earth,

suffered from climate change,

caused by human beings burning fossil fuels.

We believe because we have seen:

Cyclone Idai created an inland ocean in Mozambique a few weeks ago,
and now we are seeing Cyclone Kenneth, in the same region. (https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/24/africa/storm-kenneth-mozambique-intl/index.html) 

Hurricanes Maria, Michael, Harvey, Irene, Sandy, Florence, we are running out of names.

The Coral Reefs are bleaching,
Greenland’s ice is melting,
California keeps burning,
and the refugees and asylum seekers at our southern border flee not just gangs but devastated farmland. ( https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/06/us-mexico-immigration-climate-change-migration ) 

So it is not that we don’t believe

he was wounded –

The earth is wounded

He was crucified

The earth is being crucified.

We believe.  We have no doubt. We have seen the wounds with our own eyes.

Here is what some of us don’t believe.

We don’t believe he could come back from that.

We don’t believe the earth can survive these wounds.

We don’t believe in the possibility of the resurrection

Of Christ

Of the Earth

Some of us have begun to despair.

I have been in this climate action movement for over a decade, but a couple of years ago I dialed back a lot. Not completely, but my attention was drawn away by other social action causes, and my spirit was impacted by the constant barrage of discouraging climate news.  One of the hardest facts out there is this: UN climate scientists tell us we have just under a dozen years to radically reduce fossil fuel use in order to avert climate catastrophe. ( https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report ) And given the lack of global action on climate, it’s hard to believe we could pull together that fast.

It’s hard to believe.

Which is why the prophetic work of the next generation of climate leaders is so profound and so important.

Because they believe.

They operate from the belief that we can avert the worst catastrophes.

They cast a vision of a humanity that will mitigate, repair and adapt.

They can imagine a just transition for all workers; a society that is equitable and sustainable and fair.

They can see before them a wounded, scarred, and resurrected earth.

Kiran Oommen is one of this next generation of prophets. In his early 20s, he’s a musician and sociologist, a gardener and an organizer.  His mother is a UCC pastor, so you know he was raised right. He is a plaintiff in Juliana vs. the United States – otherwise known as the Our Children’s Trust lawsuit. Standing in the traditions of civil and human rights, these next generation folks from 11 to 22 years old are calling our government to be accountable and our country to believe it is possible for the current generation to leave an inhabitable world for the next seven generations. Kiran’s mother Rev. Melanie Oommen asks, “What does it look like to live hope when the very fate of our planet is at stake?  How do we enflesh the Easter Christ who triumphed over death itself in such a time as this?…Our God abides. In the enduring hope of those young plaintiffs, our God abides.” ( http://www.ucc.org/god_s_abiding_presence_in_the_prophetic_action_21_young_people )

Melody Zhang is one of this next generation of believers.  She testified before Congress this month, as a representative of Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, drawing deeply from her Christian faith to call for action. I want to share some of her words:

“As a Christian, I believe God calls us to a total and radical re-imagination and transformation of our relationship with others and the earth…It takes courage, and the creativity, energy, and moral leadership of young people like us. Congress, I invite you to dream beyond this deep-rooted history of partisanship into co-creating a world of wholeness together. To my fellow believers in the room, we live in the era of the resurrected Christ. So then. Let us practice resurrection.” ( https://www.yecaction.org/melody_zhang_testifies ) 

Greta Thunberg is one of this next generation of prophets. This 16 year old from Sweden is perhaps the most prophetic voice on climate in the world, calling us to determined action and leading thousands of teens –  including Framingham High students – to strike for climate action. She told the UN: “We can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis…We have come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not.” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFkQSGyeCWg )

I could speak, by the way, as much about activist retirees as about activist teens – for example my friend Grady is a co-founder of Elders Climate Action and he operates with the same sense of urgency and defiant hope.

They can see before them a wounded, scarred, and resurrected earth.

Can you see it, too?

Can you imagine?

Or do you doubt?

Doubting resurrection is understandable in the face of crucifixion. Doubting that we can hold to two degrees celsius temperature change is understandable given that we are past one degree already. Needing to see him, needing to hear him say, Peace, needing to feel his breath in a repeating of God’s own breath across the waters of creation, needing to touch the wounds, it’s understandable.

He came to them in a locked room. To a group gathered in grief and fear, he offered peace. He offered them the Spirit. He breathed upon them. In the beginning, and in the end, the word and breath of God; the word made flesh; the peace which surpasses all understanding, the wounded and risen Word came to them, through locked doors.

But Thomas wasn’t there.

So he doubted. We can understand why.

We see the news reports. We collect relief buckets for Church World Service, knowing the next disaster is coming.

Friends, there are believers and prophets in front of us, casting a vision of a world – not where climate change is miraculously reversed but a world renewed and healed, a world still living and livable, even with wounds and scars. They know the world isn’t going back – but they are pushing us forward, in defiant and active hope. ( Defiant Hope – a phrase often used by Jim Antal; Active Hope – a phrase coined by Joanna Macy. )

And this is our work, as Easter people. We must choose to practice resurrection.  Hope is the blessing our faith brings to the world.  We know, as Easter people, that the worst thing is never the last thing. It’s hard to believe. It’s easy to doubt. But we do not have to look far to see prophets and believers who have called us to join them.

Our call, I fervently believe, is to join these prophets and believers, even when we doubt, because the time is now, to begin to heal the wounds of the earth; to practice resurrection.

Jim Antal, UCC minister and climate activist, wrote a book last year called Climate Church, Climate World.  Within its pages he gave an invitation:

“For hope to take hold, the church must cultivate moral imagination….We need to believe that the transition to a world free of fossil fuel is possible.” He goes on to quote Desmond Tutu: ‘It is possible to have a new kind of world, a world where there will be more compassion, more gentleness, more caring, more laughter, more joy for all of God’s creation, because that is God’s dream. And God says, ‘Help me, help me, help me realize my dream.’” ( Climate Church, Climate World by Jim Antal, page 168 ) 

Amen.

A Sermon for the Plymouth Church of Framingham, UCC

Palm Sunday

April 14, 2019

Rev. Reebee Kavich Girash

Video available here:

Text:  Luke 19:28- 40

28After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.29When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30saying, “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. 31If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” 32So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”34They said, “The Lord needs it.” 35Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37As 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, 38saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” 39Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” 40He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Prayer

Sermon   

Chester was a Heifer Project ambassador.  He spent almost 25 years caring for a flock of sheep, greeting children in his gentle way, pausing for photos, meandering around somewhat at random.  

Every spring, for many years Chester went on a roadtrip.  All the way to Somerville and he traveled, just to be with church people for their Palm Sunday parades. In Davis Square, he’d start in Powderhouse Circle and in the midst of the crowd, plod down College Ave, nodding to confused people on the sidewalks, listening to a great ecumenical choir singing their way down the block, waving palm branches.  In Arlington, he’d join the Episcopalians first, and then the Methodists, and finally the UCC, where the older children were in charge of meeting him halfway between. He would be pretty tired out by then, so they were instructed to be particularly solicitous of Chester while getting him settled on the church lawn before the final parade of the day.  Then the younger children would do just what children visiting Heifer did – run out toward Chester in glee, pose with him, pet him, and feed him apples or carrots.

Chester, of course, was a donkey.  

Now, once your church has a real donkey visiting annually, you get used to the idea.  It’s hard to give up.

So when the news came one winter that Chester had gone to glory, and that there would not be a successor Heifer Donkey, there was a fair panic amongst clergy and parents in the general vicinity.  That is, until Guapo was found, rented from a party company. Not a few of us said, wait, a Heifer Project ambassador rescue donkey is one thing, but a party rental donkey? Is there an animal rights question here?  Tradition, however, prevailed, and the sublimely ridiculous countercultural donkey parade through the streets of Somerville continued. Guapo was perhaps less amenable to the entire process, having a somewhat nervous digestive system and not really seeming happy about being petted but at least he was willing to nod and bray when posing for photos.

A couple of years later the Facebook post went out, Rest in Peace, Guapo, the Donkey, gone to glory.  Line break. So, anybody have a line on our next donkey?

The next one was rather tall for a donkey, and walked on his hind legs.  His plush polyester costume came in two parts, and animal welfare activists sighed in relief.  But this donkey was also a rental, and so you can imagine the relief in store for the people of Somerville this very morning.  First Church Somerville has purchased a donkey costume.

And so, this very morning:  a protest/parade dutifully depicting the peasants and pilgrims in Jerusalem waving and shouting Hosanna!  There are kazoos. Passersby who have no idea what is going on unknowingly enter into the reenactment as the unknown questioners in Jerusalem, “the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?””

Today’s parade will be as different from Jesus’ entry in to Jerusalem, as Jesus’s procession was different from Pilate’s parade.

 Let’s go back to Jerusalem, the City of Peace that knows no peace.  Let’s go back to the Pax Romana. Let’s go back to a spring day in the early decades of the Common Era, a day of two parades.

In the city that day, there were:

Pilate and his soldiers

The chief priests, elders, and temple leaders

The peasants and pilgrims come for the Passover

The zealots and rabble rousers

And Jesus, with his friends and followers.

Jerusalem was the center of Judaism, home of a re-built / soon to be destroyed temple.  Home of the temple priests who were also Roman appointees. The place where liberation was remembered and liberation was longed for.  The city of peace, the city that knew no peace. And every spring, preparations for the Passover evoked it all.

Pilate led the first parade that day, “from the west, the Roman governor coming into the city to keep order, during the Passover, the Jewish high holy day celebrating Israel’s long-ago release from captivity in the Egyptian empire…Imagine the imperial procession’s arrival in the city…A visual panoply of imperial power: cavalry on horses (horses were only used for war), foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold..the marching of feet…the beating of drums.”” (Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem)  Rome had power over the people, and a theology of power that said the emperor was the son of God, and every governor, every soldier, every war horse was sent in God’s name to maintain God’s power over the empire.  If they’d carried a banner, it would have said: We are the strongest and the greatest. Only we can save you. You are a conquered people, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

There were also in Jerusalem that day, chief priests, temple elders, perhaps watching from the center of the city as Pilate marched in.  The Romans had given them just a touch of power. The governors gave power to the priests so there would be “Jewish” religious legitimacy for Rome’s control.   Lead your people, the Romans said, keep them safe by keeping them controlled, passive, and out of our way. If you do this, we will give you land – taken from peasants who couldn’t pay their Roman tax – we will give you power and wealth.  Pilate’s parade kept the priests in line.

There were also in the city that day, peasants including farmers who grew the food that went to the city, that went to the priests, that went to the soldiers; by the toil of their hands they created the wealth which fueled the Pax Romana but they did not keep it.  Landholders who could not make ends meet and lost their land to empire and temple. Rural peasants were ninety percent of the population around Jerusalem and they came, near the Passover, to the city of their ancestor David, to Jerusalem the city of peace that gave them no peace.

There were also in the city of peace that day, zealots and rabble rousers who sought to overthrow empire and take power.  

And then there was Jesus.

He came from the east, on a humble farm animal, with no horses or swords, no drums, no soldiers, no prestige, no intimidation, no might.  No symbols of power over. Just people, peasants, pilgrims, disciples, calling out, Hosanna, Hosanna. Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Save us!

In spite of every sermon he preached on peace, every mile he walked humbly next to them, the people expected him to take worldly political power. For so many of his followers, his entry was the entrance of a new king.

~~

Human beings cling to systems that we understand, frameworks and structures that we are used to, even when they don’t make sense.

Even when they don’t make sense anymore.

It is is so much easier to tweak an existing system, than to set an entire system aside.

It is so much easier to transfer power than it is to transform what power means.  

Rome in the first century, and the United States and most of the world in 2019, are built on power-over.  Power is a possession and those who have it win. Fear is intrinsic to this model, because power is used to control.  But there is another concept of power, power-with – a collaborative model of power. “Power-with is not a property or a possession.  It arises from what we do rather than what we have.”   (Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy) Jesus, I propose to you, came in to Jerusalem to declare the realm of God, which looked like no kingdom ever before seen by human eyes.  Jesus came in to Jerusalem not to take power but to preach an entirely different concept of power.

When we describe Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem as a protest against the oppression of the  Pax Romana, or as a rejection of the chief priests’ collaboration with Pilate, we are not thinking radically enough to see what Jesus was really up to.  When we say, his parade echoed Pilate’s, we’re missing the point. When we say, well the donkey was a symbol of humility in contrast to Pilate’s warhorses – we are staying too close to the framework set up by Rome.  Jesus was not just protesting the oppression of Rome – he was mocking the notion of earthly power. He was not just claiming power for the powerless, he was redefining power. He was not just allying himself with the peasants in contrast to the priestly class and the Roman occupiers (although let me say clearly Jesus was always on the side of the poor and the oppressed). Jesus was calling all of them away from the power structures that human beings so consistently cling to, calling them toward the power of love.

The people cried out, Save us, Hosanna, Save us, blessed is the king, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, give us the power.  For some folks there is comfort, in a system that you know and understand even when it is a system that hurts you. Because, you think, if I could just switch places. If I could just take power.

 But in response, Jesus proclaimed:   The system is broken. “We do not find our collective salvation in a political system.  We find it in the radical gospel of love.” (The Rev. Amy Butler, The Riverside Church (NYC), Palm Sunday Sermon 2016.)  Jesus said, “the kingdom of God is at hand.”

And is it any wonder, that in a system built on power over, leaders who used power to control, would want to kill this radical vision?  Wouldn’t it go down this same way today?

Perhaps it only seems possible to change the players – Chester to Guapo to donkey-person. King David to King Jesus.  Pilate to Jesus. Perhaps it seems impossible to change the system itself. Well, we’re moving toward Easter, a day when nothing is deemed impossible. So maybe we need to write the story of the power of love overcoming the love of power, and believe that it could be.

Here’s the question I invite you to walk through Holy Week pondering.  What is the power that would save you right now? What is the power that would save our world right now?  What is the story of the coming kin-dom of God in this moment? And whose procession are you walking in? Amen.

We Want Our Children to Know
A Sermon for The Plymouth Church of Framingham, UCC
March 31, 2019

Sermon Video available on Vimeo.

Audio File:

Scripture Reading:

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. ²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” ³So he told them this parable:

“There was a man who had two sons. ¹²The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. ¹³A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. ¹⁴When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. ¹⁶He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. ¹⁷But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! ¹⁸I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; ¹⁹I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ ²⁰So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. ²¹Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ ²²But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; ²⁴for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.²⁵“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. ²⁷He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ ²⁸Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. ²⁹But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. ³⁰But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ ³¹Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. ³²But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

Prayer:

God, creator of all people, whose image we all beautifully reflect,
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts together,
Make visible the beauty and dignity of all our siblings, especially today, our transgender siblings.
Amen.

Sermon:

On the walls of the traditional church sanctuary of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City I saw the most extraordinary set of contemporary paintings. They are part of the Queer Icons collection by visual artist Gabriel Garcia Roman – beautiful, glorious paintings of queer folks of color. The artist describes the folks portrayed as  multi-dimensional, powerful and proud – and includes their own narrative in gold calligraphy on the icons. Many of the folks portrayed identify and transgender or gender non-binary. The icons have been displayed in museums around the country – and in Middle Church’s sanctuary.

Think of what it means for the children of a congregation to walk into the center of their church home, and see in their sacred space paintings that make visible the beauty, strength, and courage of a spectrum of folks whose dignity is underrepresented in our culture.  The child who wonders about their own gender expression and the child who asks, will I be welcome and supported no matter what my gender expression is – knows they are welcome, beloved and supported because that promise has been made visible to them.

Today is Transgender Day of Visibility.  As an Open and Affirming Congregation your deacons and settled pastors chose months ago to mark this occasion in worship. And I am so glad you did.  Selfishly I am glad because it meant I got to sit with a crew of seven of you to talk about how in the world we might celebrate this day and how we might connect the scripture this morning with this theme.  And I want to tell you, the Spirit showed up, in the copy room downstairs.

As you heard from Joyce, we talked about where the usual interpretation of this scripture does not match up with the message of transgender visibility – we are not going to talk about sinful folks repenting and being forgiven, because it is not sinful to be transgender. (Say amen.) The full gender identity spectrum is part of God’s diverse and amazing creation. (Say amen.)

But we kept going and this part spoke to us:

The father watched the horizon for the son because he wanted the younger son to know he was loved and welcomed home.  He ran out to meet his son.

Then we knew what today’s theme would be.

We want every child in this congregation to know they are loved and welcomed.  

We want our children to know.

We want to make it plain.  We want to make it visible. We want to continue to make it public. Because even for an Open and Affirming church it is worth making plain. Because even in 2019 it does not go without saying.  It is not clear unless we make it clear. It is not current unless we have repeated it recently. On this Transgender Day of Visibility, we proclaim: we will run out to meet you, we will throw a party for you.  Our transgender children and our cisgender children and our children who haven’t discerned yet, we want you to know, you are loved, you are seen, and there will always be a seat for you, for every one of you, at our banquet table.

Friends, let me tell you something I have come to understand about this congregation’s story.

There have been multiple children who have grown up at Plymouth Church being affirmed and welcomed always – who have been able to claim a new name and write a new nametag and tell this community their gender identity.  There have been transgender children who have grown up knowing this community loves them.

That means, there have also been children here, whose friends have struggled over gender identity and not known who would support them.  Our children have been able to be good friends.

That means, there have been parents and grandparents here, who have found support in their work to love their children through the transition of their gender identity.

That means, there have been pastors and Sunday School teachers, and choir members, and lay leaders, and youth group mentors, and greeters who have found support in our offerings of love, even when we stumble, even when we’re confused, even when we use the wrong words.

Thank God.  Thank God for the ways this community has supported our kin. Thank God for the party that this community throws, to which everyone gets an invitation.

~

This parable is as much about the father as it is about the son.

It’s about a father who cannot stand that his family is separated, that his beloved child has gone away. It’s about a father who starts to wonder if he could have said something, could have done something, to make it right.  It’s about the father who watches the horizon, hoping and praying the son will make his way home, so the father can do something to make things better, to restore their relationship.

Amy-Jill Levine, a Jewish scholar of Jesus’ parables, suggests we might rename this text, “The father who lost his sons.” (Short Stories by Jesus, page 34) Of course, she writes, of course the father would run out to meet the son. We would, too: “we search, desperately, [if] our family is not whole.” (Short Stories by Jesus, page 69)

If the father in this story is God, it tells us that God will always coming running to meet us.  That God will search high and low for us. That God will throw a party where all of us are invited.  God yearns for wholeness.

But if the father is the church, there’s a bit of a different message.  We are responsible for the sheep, the coins, and all our children. If they get lost, we bear some of the responsibility.  If they feel unable to come home, we are part of that. This is our deep work, as the church, to make clear the welcome, the love, the grace, the support – throughout our children’s lives.

Erin Wiebe’s family figured this out this deep work. It took them a while but they figured it out. Her story and her parents’ story is in a Mennonite booklet on transgender concerns. (  Trans101: A Brief Guide by the Brethren Mennonite Council for LGBT Interests.  Downloaded at http://media.wix.com/ugd/fa8ffe_98093c908043433282e3b58ad5eee6b8.pdf )

“Erin says she wore a metaphorical mask, hiding her true identity and projecting a false self that was more socially acceptable in her community, for the better part of her life. In fact, she didn’t tell anyone about her struggle until she was nearly 40. “I made the decision to forever lock that part of me away because there was nothing I could do about it,” she says. “I was ashamed.”….

When she was 38, she came out to her parents.  And the lovely ending to this story is their response.  Not perfect, but filled with love: Erin’s parents, Art and Alma, who are members of Bethel Mennonite Church in Winnipeg, say they didn’t have any idea that she was suffering from a gender-identity crisis. It was a complete shock when she came out to them when she was 38. “I had no idea how they were going to respond,” Erin says. “My mom said, ‘You mean you’re a woman trapped in a man’s body? . . . What can we do to support you?’”    Her mom says, “I often think of Erin as a butterfly… Erin is a beautiful butterfly, testing her wings in what sometimes seems to be an unforgiving world.”Throughout the process, Art and Alma attended Bethel Mennonite Church and participated in its Pilgrim Group, a support group for lesbian/gay/bisexual/ transgender/queer (LGBTQ) people and their families and friends. In turn, they found the strength to support their daughter through her transition process of taking off a proverbial mask.”

I share this story as an example of courage – Erin’s courage to become her true self – and grace – her parents’ ability to change, to try so hard to understand Erin and love her. Truly, these parents have run out toward their daughter to publicly and joyfully welcome her home.  

Imagine the parties at Erin’s house, these days.

Erin’s story is also a good reminder that our welcome is important not only for the children among us, and not only for those we know well – but also for the grownups and the new folks. Taj Smith told Sojourners Magazine how a church welcomed him as a young adult.  Some of you know Taj as the Faith Director of Yes on 3, last fall’s campaign for transgender rights in Massachusetts. Taj is also a friend and former student of mine at HDS, and this story of his shows what it means when a church community gets it:

“The first Sunday I went back to my church after I came out as trans, I just remember standing in front of the name tags and staring at mine and thinking, ‘I can’t put that on,’” Smith explained. The name on the tag no longer reflected who he really was.

“One of the greeters came up to me, and she says, ‘You need help finding your name tag?’ And she laughed, and I laughed, and I said, ‘No, I think I need a new one. I need a new one, like, forever.’ And she went, ‘Okay!’ And she got me a new tag, and she said, ‘Why don’t you write your name on this one and we’ll have a new permanent one for you next week!’ And she handed me an order of service and I went inside and thought, ‘That was the easiest thing ever!’ That church became a safe haven for me.” ( https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2017/just-i-am   – article by Austen Hartke, sharing Taj Smith’s story )

Thanks be to God for parents who might not get it right every time, but are moving toward love and understanding.  Thanks be to God for churches, like ours, who might not be perfect but are faithfully and joyfully preparing a banquet, who are faithfully and joyfully running out to meet our transgender siblings.  Thanks be to God for every one of God’s beautiful, beloved children, who reflect God’s own image. Amen.

Bearing Fruit

A Sermon for The Plymouth Church of Framingham

March 24, 2019 (Third Sunday in Lent)

Audio File:

Text:

Luke 13:1-9 

1 At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” 6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ 8 He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’ “

Sermon

God gives that fruitless fig tree one more year. In all things God is merciful.

~

God may be merciful, but, that’s no reason to waste your life.

~

God’s mercy still demands fruitfulness of each of us.

~

There it is, that’s my sermon in a nutshell. For those of you who would like to tune out the remainder, you may now pick up your pew Bibles and begin to study.

Reinhold Niebuhr once said, “Christians in America would like to believe in a God without wrath that saves a world without sin through a Christ without the cross.”   No fruit produced there. Dietrich Boenhoeffer considered this kind of faith, “cheap grace.”

So, we come on this third Sunday of Lent, to the question of sin, suffering, and repentance.

There are at least two ways of looking at suffering.

One is to say, it was caused by something. By someone’s actions. A popular variant on that theme is, if you sin, bad things will happen to you, in order to punish you for your sin, or bad things will happen to people you love, as part of God’s punishment of you. There are two corollaries, for those who believe this: If something bad happens to someone, they must have sinned to cause it. And, if you are good, good things will happen to you, because you deserve them.

Jesus blows that set of beliefs right out of the water, when he says: “”Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you…”

So Jesus seems to support the opposite view of suffering: God doesn’t send suffering as punishment for sin. Sometimes bad things just happen, without explanation. God’s judgment of sin is not the cause of all calamity. As the New Interpreter’s Bible says, “life is uncertain, death is capricious…” (NIB 270) Jesus says, there’s no simple explanation here. God is not an arbitrary punisher, but rather one who judges with compassion; one who is merciful in all things. One who gives even unfruitful fig trees more chances.

This, generally speaking, is the mainline, UCC view of suffering: we may not understand it, but we don’t blame God for it. God is merciful, God loves us, God is love, God offers grace to all.

But in the same breath as Jesus says, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you…,” Jesus also says, “but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”

Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “In the South, this is what we call giving with one hand and taking away with the other. No, Jesus says, there is no connection between the suffering and the sin. Whew. But unless you repent, you are going to lose some blood too. Oh.”1

God loves you, God is merciful, God eye is on the sparrow and you know God watches you, God would even have mercy on an unfruitful fig tree.

But that does not free you from responsibility.

In our 21^st century mainline Christian lives, we seem to get off easy. We get to focus on the institution of Christianity, rather than the Christian life. When our work as Christians – either that institutional life, or our own soul searching – gets too hard, we can say, I’m not doing that any more. It’s too hard. I want an easier, more peaceful, more fun, more convenient Christian life. I’d really prefer not to teach Sunday School more than twice a decade, thanks, and don’t even talk to me about tithing, that’s evangelical stuff. Doing more work for church, so that we can be serving the community in God’s name – sorry, no time. Also, I come to church on Sunday morning for peace and refreshment and then I will go back to my real life. Doesn’t matter what I do there, you know, because God is merciful.

Well, that’s bogus. Let’s speak the truth, even the dissonant truth of Lent.

Yes, the Christian message is hopeful, comforting, resurrection-filled. But it is also challenging, calling us to bear the cross, carry the load, shovel the compost, and produce a harvest-full of fruit.

The world is not a better place because you’ve come to church this morning. In fact, you’re not a better person because you’ve come to church this morning.

Maybe, just maybe, the world will be a better place because you take your faith out into it. Maybe, just maybe, you will be a better person because God’s mercy causes you to bear fruit. But it’s not gonna happen unless you seek to bear God’s fruit. You’ve got to put God’s call to you first, regardless of the difficulty.

Lent ought to feel hard. Lent ought to make you squirm in your seat. It ought to make you stare sheepishly down at your shoes and try to avoid God’s eyes. It ought to make you take out your wallet and look deeper into it, wondering where all your money goes. It ought to make you look deeper in your life, wondering where all your time goes. It ought to make you look deeper into your relationships, wondering where all your love goes. And it ought to make you change something.

Jesus’ parable declares: God is a just judge and merciful creator. The two are in balance. God doesn’t send earthquakes, or cruel Roman governors. God sends a Messiah and messages of love and resurrection. But God still has demands of us: that we bear fruit.

This image, of fruit worthy of the divine gardener’s efforts, runs throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and Christian testament.

In the first chapter of Genesis, God tells people to bear fruit.

Jesus says, we will be able to recognize righteous prophets “by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:16) and he says, The kingdom will be “given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.” Matthew 21: 43

But, God is not just the gardener, separate from the plants. Think about John 15 in which Jesus gives us another gardening lesson:

1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower…5 I am the vine, you are the branches.

There is something about being one fig tree, in a vineyard with many others, on a farm full of plants, all rooted in good earth, all tended by the great gardener, that ought to give us comfort. We are not alone. We live in God’s world. We are part of God’s good garden. Christ is the vine, and we are the branches, and we can bear good fruit.

~

Our family friend, John Henry, had been in recovery a year or two. Someone unexpected had invited him to his first meeting, dragged him there, really, insisted that it was time for AA. It probably shouldn’t have worked – I know it doesn’t work when you drag someone – but somehow it did, thank God, and he sat at a recovery banquet and found a new life. He was starving, at least spiritually and emotionally, and there he found food. He started to rebuild, or he started to be rebuilt. He connected, or reconnected, to God, who pruned and watered and spread good compost on John Henry’s roots until he bore good fruit. And when his own fig tree was growing well once again, John Henry started tending the rest of the garden. He started a business, a strange and humble thing: a packing and shipping service, tucked into the back of a mini-mall. For a certain period of time in Nashville, if you mail-ordered candies from small-batch makers, John Henry’s company was responsible for the bubble wrap and the box the candy safely traveled in. And the folks who worked there? They were pretty much all in early stages of recovery. It probably shouldn’t have worked, but that business succeeded, in all senses of the word. That business turned a profit, and helped turn lives around. Someone looked at John Henry’s fig tree and said, one more year. A little more rain and sunshine and compost. Someone loved on him. And having grown into new life, he made it his business to invite more folks to tend the other fig trees in the vineyard to new life and new fruitfulness.

May whatever we do, as individuals, or as a congregation, bear fruit in God’s orchard.

Amen.

¹  “Life Giving Fear” by Barbara Brown Taylor. This article appeared in the Christian Century, March 4, 1998, page 229.

Leaning Forward Into the Vision of God

A Sermon for The Plymouth Church of Framingham, UCC

March 17, 2019

Audio File:

Friends, in light of the terrible attacks on the mosques in New Zealand, I want to say something before the scripture reading and my sermon.   First and foremost, let it be said from this pulpit that we offer support and love to our Muslim neighbors near and far. In the words of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, “We weep with those who weep. We rebuke those who choose the path of division and violence. We vow our solidarity with our Muslim neighbors and our prayers for the grieving and the dead.”  I have written letters of sympathy and solidarity to send to the Islamic Society of Framingham and the Islamic Society of Wayland that you may add your name to after worship.

We have a tradition at Plymouth Church of focusing in worship on the same scripture that Faith Workshop is studying, so I have known today’s passage would be from Genesis 15 for weeks.   But it seems good and worthy and perhaps even Spirit-led that our text today focuses on Abraham – the spiritual ancestor of three faiths, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. All three of our faiths draw from Abraham.

Our passage comes from the time before Abraham gets his new name.  To set Genesis 15 context: in the first 10 chapters of Genesis we hear a cosmic history, and we hear promises made to all of creation. In the eleventh chapter, we move from the cosmic to the individual, from all of creation to one – seemingly random – man and his family. Yet God’s call to Abram, and God’s covenant, are, we are told, will make this family a blessing to all nations (Genesis 22:18), – in them, “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). Abraham’s story lasts many chapters but our focus today is on the promise God makes to Abram in chapter 15, that his descendents would be as many as the stars.  Listen, for the word of blessing God has for us, in this morning’s scripture passage.

Text: Genesis 15:1-12; 17-18

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

2But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” 4But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” 5He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” 6And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

7Then he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.” 8But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 9He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. 11And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

12As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.

17When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates…”

Prayer:

Come Holy Spirit, our souls inspire and enlighten us with your celestial fire for if you are with us then nothing else matters. And if you are not with us, then nothing else matters.  Be with us, we pray in the name your Beloved, Amen. (A prayer often offered by Barbara Brown Taylor before her sermons)

Sermon:

That night, Abram must have feel like the Psalmist:

3When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;

4what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?  (Psalm 8)

We can trace our spiritual lineage all the way back to Abraham.

We are proof of the promises made to Abram on that starry night a few thousand years ago, that his family would grow and grow, to be as many as the stars visible on a clear night, standing outside Abram’s tent.  We, members of the Christian tradition, the Jewish tradition, and the Muslim tradition, our faiths have been nurtured by the assurance and promise God made to to this particular person.

This one particular person, Abram, that God cares for.  God, who in Abram’s faith spoke worlds into being, God who cast the stars into the sky, God loves Abram so much to that to him God makes a promise, unlike any made before.

This is part of the mystery of our faith, that God, the creative force in the universe, the one who transcends time and space, that God is our God.  God cares for each individual one of us the way a mother hen gathers each of her chicks under her wing; the shepherd who counts all of the sheep; the psalms tell us God knows every hair on our heads.

~~

The promises you just made to Juliette are as concrete, as specific, as tender as those God made to Abram.  We walked her down the aisle and showed her the people who will raise her up not to be afraid. Who will give her the stars – or at least a galaxy of love.  Who will journey with her her, wherever life leads.

We, as the church, promised to care for this child. We promised to help her hold fast to that which is good and to return to no one evil for evil. We will love her and show her with our lives how Christians live. We proclaimed that by this affirmation we are inseparably bound with her.

You made these promises to her sister a few years ago, also.

And to countless others who have come before, children and adults, you have made promises on the days of their baptism. God had a beautiful and personal bond with one person, Abram – that became a beautiful and personal bond with every child who came after. You have this kind of beautiful and personal bond with each person here. I have seen you uphold these promises, even in the short time I have been among you.

You have given the same care to those who have not been baptized yet and you have cared for people to the end of their earthly days according to those loving promises.

The ritual of baptism, even more than a moment for a community to make promises, is about repeating and rehearsing and re-living the promises God has made to this child, and to each one of us.

Those promises echo God’s assurance to Abram:

Don’t be afraid.

I love you.

I will be with you, and those you love, now and forever.

Your future is one of great hope.

Those promises are as tender as the moment God puts an arm around Abram’s shoulder and led him out into the still midnight, tilts his chin up to look at the sky, and asks him to count his children as the stars.  

In Abram’s story, we see the relationship between God and one particular person.  We have gone from God’s universal relationship – Adam is an archetype for all people; the rainbow covenant is with all the earth – to God’s relationship with individual people.  And that one relationship foretells God’s relationship with each one of Her beloved children. This covenant that God makes with Abram brings into being God’s relationship with individual people as numerous as the stars.  And that brings the story to Juliette. And that brings the story to each one of our stories. For not only are we among the daughters and sons of Abraham who number like the stars, we are, each one of us, a beloved child of God.

~~

Lest we think Abram’s story is one of a perfect person of perfect faith – and therefore a story our own story cannot resemble – let’s talk for a moment about this man.

If I were picking people to whom to make such promise, I am not entirely sure I would have chosen Abram and Sarai. Abram has Sarai pretend to be his sister in order to pull a fast one on a foreign ruler. Later in the story, Sarai co-opts a family slave into bearing Abraham’s child and then casts her and the child out. And neither one of them believes God when God first says: you will have descendents more numerous than the stars.  Abram questions God’s promise. To put it mildly, Abram is flawed and Sarai is doubtful. And they are the people to whom God chooses to present this promise. God chose Abram and Sarai, flawed people, to be on the receiving end of a covenant. That says something about God. It says, God can use anyone for good. Sometimes you’ll hear folks talk about the strong faith of Abraham, and he was faithful: but also flawed, and God chose him, anyway. Which is good news for me, at least, as another flawed human being – and maybe good news for you, too? God calls and chooses and covenants with people not based on their worthiness, but based on God’s love. This is the first and most important identity we are given: beloved child of God, receivers of the most beautiful and tender promises imaginable.

It must also be said: it takes Abram a minute, to get to the place where he can trust God’s promise.  First he’s got to ask, really? But our text says he does get to that place of trust – “he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”  

It might take us more than a minute to get there, and that is okay. When we are full of question and doubt sometimes what we have to do, even in the moments of questioning and fear, is to turn to another one of God’s beloved children and embody the promise for them, even so. Even in our own doubts, speak tenderly to our sisters and brothers.  Turn to the children who are here in this place, and say to them: Do not be afraid. There is hope. Turn to the neighbors down the road and across the ocean and say to them: you are beloved, you are my sibling, I stand next to you.

We have to lean “forward into the vision of God for the world even when the horizon extends far beyond our own lives.” (W. Dennis Tucker, workingpreacher.org)

As Psalm 27 testifies, we believe that we shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let our hearts take courage; wait for the LORD!

Amen.

Transfigured
A Sermon for the Plymouth Church of Framingham, UCC
March 3, 2019

Audio File (Sermon Only):

Luke 9:28-36

28Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. 29And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said. 34While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. 35Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” 36When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

Prayer

Come Holy Spirit, our souls inspire and enlighten us with your celestial fire for if you are with us then nothing else matters. And if you are not with us, then nothing else matters.  Be with us, we pray in the name your Beloved, Amen. (A prayer often offered by Barbara Brown Taylor before her sermons)

Sermon

When I was 19, I had a religious experience.

The very first night I was back on my college campus, a wild storm came up of the sort that only happens in summer, in flat lands, prairie and big sky places, such as southern Minnesota. I lived that year in a dorm that overlooked the soccer fields, and beyond them, the Carleton Arboretum. The storm rolled slowly and mightily across the sky, lightning building and flashing in small pockets of mile-wide clouds, thunder almost continuously booming. I have never before or since seen a storm like that one. Even so I have no excuse for my completely stupid action: I ran out into the storm. I stumbled down the hill and out to the middle of the soccer fields, which I had entirely to myself, and I laid down on the field and watched the sky and I jumped up and danced in the rain. I was sure I could touch heaven.  And I could see the dazzling glory of God.

I came back into the dorm, soaked, amazed. My roommate gave me a talking to as only a Texan with her back up can do, and I never ever again danced in the thunderstorm, so please do not hear this story as advice for experiencing the presence of the divine.

But, let me tell you, God’s surprising and awe-invoking presence in that one stunning moment helped carry me through a very tough year.

~~

At the top of the mountain, Jesus was at the pivot point of his life. Born for a purpose, baptized with water and Spirit, he had been teaching and healing all around Galilee. His close friend Peter had seen him, seen his true nature: not just a prophet, but the Messiah. And for the Messiah, there was more to do than preach. So now, Jesus had turned his focus toward Jerusalem.

Imagine, what this moment was like for Jesus.

Maybe, just maybe he wasn’t so sure of himself. Look at the people that gathered close to him. They were confused. They made odd choices. Peter, sweet Peter, bless his heart, he could see Jesus was the Messiah but he didn’t know what it meant. And there were James and John, who wanted to be first more than they wanted to serve. And as many people who were healed, just as many rejected Jesus. Maybe Jesus was doubting that he could make it to Jerusalem. Maybe he, fully human we are told, did not feel strong enough. Maybe he got like we do, so deep within the day to do that he needed perspective.

So, he went up the mountain.

Jesus had a prayer practice made plain by Luke’s gospel. He went away to pray. Sometimes alone, sometimes in a boat, sometimes with friends, sometimes up a mountain.

This mountain, traditionally thought to be Mount Tabor – is 1886 feet high, is in Lower Galilee and stands above everything around it. From it Jesus could see clearly the flat lands nearby. But he could not see to Jerusalem, so far to the south. He could not see all the way to the Mount of Olives, his next mountain. So he prayed.

And the text tells us he was transfigured, he became dazzling.

What a gift God gave to Jesus that day, to surround Her son with such a glory.

To put next to him two ancestors who had followed their own challenging calls.

To confirm his power and his path.  To give him strength for the journey to the next mountain.

Jesus could remember the words the dove whispered in his ear or roared from the sky on the day of his baptism, you are my beloved son.

And now the cloud enclosed them, and the voice, “This is my son, my chosen! Listen to him!”

Yes, it was for Peter and James and John, a call to follow.

But for Jesus, heart already turning toward Jerusalem, what must it have meant, to hear one more time:

My Son. My beloved. My chosen. The one I have sent. The one to listen to. You are my son. My beloved. My chosen.

On the mountain, a soul revived & sent.

~~

It turns out, dazzling and glorious mountaintop moments are rare.  We can’t force them to occur. The most dramatic ones are once in a lifetime gifts.  But, encountering God’s loving presence does not have to be so rare.

Our own experience of transcendence begins

with pausing to pray,

climbing the mountain,

retreating from the crowd,

gathering our friends,

listening.

Maybe it is simply

breath caught again after racing,

clarity of reflection,

an opening to gratitude,

a feeling of belovedness,

a strengthening of resolve,

a quiet rest,

a glimpse of glory,

 the peace which passes all understanding.

Or maybe it is a dazzling mystery that astonishes us. That could happen, too.

Often it is the end of this passage that we focus on – when Jesus and his friends came down the mountain to continue preaching, healing, and calling for justice. We are indeed called down from the mountain to minister in his name. But today I want to invite you to be open to encounters with the holy, to holy and mysterious moments. To be open to mountaintop moments.

We go up the mountain for perspective and vision. We go up the mountain so we can believe, when we are in the valley, that the world might not be completely stuck, unchangeable, doomed.  Moments of glory strengthen us – in a letter ascribed to Peter himself, we are told: “You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” (2 Peter 1:19)  Holy moments make it more possible that we can believe that there is a power outside of ourselves, shining in glory, speaking to us Her children: you are chosen, but you are not sent alone. She is strengthening the world for change. And we do not carry the world alone on our shoulders. We go up the mountain to witness the glory of the Lord, so that we may know we are not alone. We live in God’s world.

So that we may know: we are not alone.  We live in God’s world.

~~

This week, pouring over the this scriptural piece of mystery and wonder, I have also been praying for our neighbors in the United Methodist Church.  It is the denomination of my childhood and I feel deep ties to its theology and worship and great love for many friends who are hurting over a decision against LGBT inclusion in the global United Methodist Church.  We would say these words regularly in the church of my childhood: We are not alone. We live in God’s world. My prayer for queer and ally members of the UMC is that in this hard moment, they have some mountaintop moment to draw strength from.  Holy and divine moments in which they tangibly experienced God’s glory and God’s love. Transformative times with courageous mentors and lifegiving partners. I pray they remember hearing God saying to them: You are my chosen, my beloved. I give thanks for the UMC pastors, congregations and seminaries that are saying so clearly: You are not alone. You live in God’s world.  You are beloved, and chosen.

~~

This is my prayer for you, as well:

Whatever strength you need for the journey;

Whatever moment of transformation and wholeness you need to get through the tough times;

Whatever religious experience you need to get through Lent,

May it be yours this Transfiguration Sunday.

Amen.

Benediction

Go forth

radiant with the holiness of God

transfigured by the glory of Jesus Christ

shining with the exuberance of the Holy Spirit

and strengthened for the Lenten Journey ahead.  Amen

Blessed

A Sermon for Plymouth Church in Framingham, UCC

February 17, 2019

Audio File (Sermon Only):

Introduction to the Gospel Reading

This morning we hear a text that is both familiar and surprising.  It includes Luke’s Beatitudes which the Lectionary only includes in the years when the Epiphany Season lasts longer than usual – in fact the Lectionary hasn’t included Luke’s beatitudes in almost a decade.  While they start off sounding much like Matthew’s very familiar beatitudes, I invite you to listen with fresh ears for Luke’s particular interpretation of who is blessed. These beatitudes have an edge and a challenge.  Listen for God’s word to you in Luke 6.

Text:

Luke 6:17-26

17He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. 18They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

20Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. 24“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25“Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

Prayer:

Come Holy Spirit, our souls inspire and enlighten us with your celestial fire for if you are with us then nothing else matters. And if you are not with us, then nothing else matters.  Be with us, we pray in the name your Beloved, Amen. (A prayer often offered by Barbara Brown Taylor before her sermons)

Sermon

Pastor Will made an excellent point last week, highlighting the back story that led to Simon, James and John choosing to drop everything and follow Jesus.

There’s a backstory to Jesus’ words, Blessed are you who are poor.

The writer of Luke wanted us to know, Jesus cared for the poorest and most marginalized folks.

You can trace it all the way back to before his birth, when Mary rejoices in God’s care for the poor, the prisoners, the blind and the oppressed.

You know it from the people who heard the good news first, poor shepherds on the hillside.

You can hear it in Jesus’ reading of the scroll of Isaiah, the first time he preached in the synagogue where he grew up:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,

19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

You can tell from the people he healed and liberated in the early parts of this gospel:

There was a man with a demon – we would say a man struggling with mental illness, most certainly on the margins of the synagogue and community – whom Jesus looked upon with compassion and healed.  A woman, Simon’s mother in law, Luke doesn’t even give her a name but Jesus raised her up from fever. A leper, most certainly poor and struggling – skin ailments in the first century were often a side effect of poverty. A paralyzed man, rich in friends but poor in health and wealth. And on the other end of the spectrum, tax collectors and sinners who through his compassion repented and began anew.  Luke wants us to know that Jesus ministered to and with the poor, the hungry, the folks on the outside, the folks who were rejected, the folks who had reason to weep.

He knew these folks.

He’d been walking around, from town to town, for a little while by then.  This preacher had earned their trust at the bedside.

Some of them, there on the plain, were people he’d already met and healed, who chose to follow him, who chose to bring their neighbors and their family to be healed.

So when he said, you are blessed, he was speaking directly to people he knew, people he had already blessed.

There is another part of the backstory, one we sometimes overlook but that matters an awful lot.

Jesus himself was poor.  

I spent some time this week with the wisdom of Howard Thurman, who wrote in 1949, “Jesus was a poor Jew….The economic predicament with which he as identified in birth placed him initially with the great mass of men on the earth. The masses of the earth are poor….in his poverty he was more truly Son of man than he would have been if the incident of family or birth had made him a rich son of Israel.” (Jesus and the Disinherited, p. 7)  Writing just two years ago, the co-leader of the new Poor People’s Campaign said it similarly: “Jesus comes to his ministry from his own earthly poverty: from his experience of the severe dispossession and subjugation of the Roman Empire….[he is] a savior of the poor who is poor himself.” (Always With Us? What Jesus Really Said About the Poor by Liz Theoharis. pages 76, 77)  Not only was he poor, but 70-90% of the folks around him were poor, under the Roman Empire. (Theoharis, pages 83-84)  Think about that percentage – we’re going to come back there.

It matters, don’t you think, that Jesus was speaking to people whose experience he understood because their experience was his, also.  It matters that God’s child not only became human but lived as a poor and marginalized person. When he preached, Jesus was not just saying to them, I am here for you – he was saying, I am one of you. He wasn’t as much preaching to them, as preaching among them.

He’d taken a retreat, on the hillside, with some of his disciples.  And then he led them down the hillside, onto a level place, into the midst of the people, to show these who would minister in his name what his commitments were.

Perhaps he found there, waiting on the plain, interspersed among the crowd,

Simon’s mother in law and a man who could once again walk and another whose demons were quieted.

And to them he said,

Blessed are you who are poor…

You.

Perhaps as he said it, he was making eye contact with the one whose skin was clear, and to someone who saw that overflowing net of fish.   

They turned to each other and nodded.  They knew it was true.

Blessed are you who are hungry…

You.

Perhaps as he said it, he made eye contact with the tax collectors and sinners who had eaten with him just the other day.

They turned to each other and nodded.  They knew it was true.

Blessed are you who weep…

You.

Five friends, one of whom they had carried to Jesus, turned to each other and nodded.  They knew it was true.

~~~

Luke wants us to know, Jesus had a focus.  A focus and a calling to serve the poor, to re-center the outcast and to liberate the oppressed.  Jesus’ healings, and his teachings, were aimed toward liberation. He ministered on behalf of, and for the survival of a besieged people. (This idea comes from a group Bible & preaching study led by Richard Horseley in November 2018.)  When he said, yours is the kingdom of God, to a people without power in the Roman economy, he was granting power in God’s economy. To a people without dignity, he was blessing. He was turning the tables on Empire by declaring the already but not yet truth of God’s own reign.

What we learn in Luke’s beatitudes, according to Debie Thomas, is:  “If you want to know where God’s heart is…look to the world’s most reviled, wretched, starving, grieving, shamed and desperate people. They are the fortunate ones. They are the blessed ones on whom God’s promise of more and better rests….The very fact that Jesus prefaces this hard teaching by alleviating suffering in every way possible suggests that he does not valorize misery for its own sake. Pain in and of itself is neither holy nor redemptive in the Christian story, and in fact, Jesus’s ministry is all about healing, abundance, liberation, and joy….” ( Debie Thomas,  https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2089-blessings-and-woes )

~~

But then there are the woes.

I’m tempted here to do what Sweet Honey and the Rock do with the Beatitudes, which is to just wrap up on the Blesseds…. Hey, I’ve preached ten minutes already, I can sit on down now.

Because when he proclaims the woes, well, Jesus might just be making eye contact with me.  

Some folks in this room, not everyone, but some of us, might hear ourselves in these words: woe to you who are rich, woe to you who are full now, woe to you who are laughing….for you will mourn and weep.

Friends, there is good news for those of us feeling uncomfortable with the second half of this text, and the good news for us also comes in the backstory.

It’s right there in Luke 5.  His name was Levi and he was a tax collector.  He was one of the people Jesus met who was part of the unjust economic system that had made 90% of the people in the Roman Empire poor.  And to Levi, Jesus made an invitation to discipleship. And Levi responded. In the first months of his ministry, Jesus healed the sick and liberated the oppressed; in the first months of his ministry, Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners and led them to new life, too.

It comes to us in Isaiah 40, the vision God has for the world:

4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.

This is good news for mountain and valley alike, and it is good news for us, the poor and the rich, for everyone who wants to be part of the kindom of God.

I am just getting to know you and to get to know Framingham.

But here are a couple of the things I’ve discovered so far.

In 2018 there were 20000 folks experiencing homelessness in Massachusetts and that was double the rate from 1990.  We had the largest increase in homelessness in 2018 of any state in the US.

I’ve discovered the poverty rate in Framingham is 11.5%.  That’s not the 90% rate of the Roman Empire, but it’s too much.

I’ve also discovered our Outreach group has deep relationships with the shelters and the organizations that are working with folks experiencing homelessness and poverty in Framingham. I’ve discovered that this church is part of good work liberating the poor here in this place and I am sure if you want to know more, people are ready to tell you.

Blessed to be a blessing is the phrase that comes to mind.

And if we turned our attention to places Jesus attention would also be in 2019 – racism, climate change, or homophobia – we would be able to name people and teams working for justice here, thanks be to God.

Friends we are called, poor or rich, hungry or fed, weeping or rejoicing, to be part of the already but not yet of God’s reign, lifting up every valley and blessing everyone who stands in need of liberation. If we are poor then let us rejoice that the already-but-not-yet, blessing and liberation of God’s own reign include us – and agitate for it just like that poor prophet did on the plain.  If we worry that Jesus’ woes are directed at us, then let us determine to be part of the building up of God’s own kindom.

Amen.  

This IS the Day That the Lord Has Made
A Sermon for The Eliot Church of Newton, UCC
Rev. Reebee Girash
November 18, 2018

Audio Recording:

1 Samuel 2:1-10
Hannah prayed and said, “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory. “There is no Holy One like the Lord, no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world. “He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness; for not by might does one prevail. The Lord! His adversaries shall be shattered; the Most High will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.”

Philippians 4:4-9

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

Prayer

Sermon

In the first chapter of Samuel, we hear her story:
They lived in the hill country of Ephraim, fifteen or twenty miles out of Shiloh, the place where the people had so carefully placed the ark of the covenant in the tent of meeting. They lived in the hill country, Hannah and her household. It was an age of polygamy and she was one of two wives of Elkanah.  Perhaps he loved her more, but with Peninnah he had sons. When they went to Shiloh to make sacrifices, Hannah received double portion of the feast for herself, but each of Peninnah and her children received a portion. And Peninnah rubbed in, year after year. Hannah wept and fasted and would not be consoled. Elkanah offered strange comfort, asking her, aren’t I worth ten sons?

We hear in Hannah’s story, her struggle to conceive and have children, the pain so many experience with infertility. The longing to parent, the love for children, these formed Hannah’s sadness. But there was more: in an age of bare subsistence, and in an age of polygamy, Hannah’s very survival depended on her ability to bear sons. When Elkanah was gone, only her sons could take care of her. Men had multiple wives to increase their number of children; women who could not have children were at risk of destitution. No, Elkanah’s love was not worth ten sons.

But then the text says: “Once when they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up.”

She stood up. The Hebrew is quwm (“koom”), meaning she rose up, she became powerful, she persisted.[1]  In the face of infertility, provoked by her rival and on the edge of survival, she stood up. We don’t know what prompted her to move from weeping and fasting to standing up and taking charge. Maybe, as one preacher says, since they were in Shiloh, which was the seat and center of Hebrew worship at the time, maybe an encounter with the spirit of God is what plucked her [up], gave her a fresh read and a new lease, and made her aware of the redemptive power of God and the resilience of the human spirit. Whatever, Hannah stood up. She prayed to the Lord.”

(Rev. Paul Roberts http://day1.org/6372-a_fresh_read/comments)

She stood up, walked to the Lord’s House, and prayed hard. This was a mighty prayer, I think.  Hannah laid it on the line with God. Still weeping, she said, God, this is it. I’m going to have a baby. You’re going to help me and I’m going to dedicate him to your service. She was so determined in her prayer that the priest, Eli, thought she was drunk. But she was not drunk, she was powerful.  She poured her soul out to the Lord.

Modern folks have multiple ways of addressing infertility. We have medical science and we have sperm donors and we have adoption. As an adoptee I know the beauty of creating a family in this way. But Hannah: Hannah, whose infertility put her very life at risk, Hannah had only the power of rising up, and pouring out her soul before the Lord.

And she named her baby Samuel, which means, God hears.

And then she sang. “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God.”

Her psalm became the psalm of a nation, and later, Mary’s psalm echoed Hannah’s, as Hannah’s echoed Miriam’s before her. “The God to whom Miriam, Hannah and Mary sing praise is faithful to the oppressed…This liberating God transforms impossibility into possibility.”[2]

Church you may wonder why I paired Hannah’s story with Paul’s words from Philippians. They don’t have much in common, at first glance.

Hannah’s song is among the suggested lectionary readings for today. And Paul’s invitation to rejoice in all times seems written for Thanksgiving Sunday. But it was not until I began pondering them together that I saw the parallels between Paul and Hannah’s stories.

Their contexts are both severe struggle and hardship. Paul, you know, was a Roman citizen and a member of the Jewish community who spent years persecuting Christians, until one day he was converted in a flash of light on the road to Damascus. Having never met Jesus, he was nonetheless responsible for founding many of the early churches. Then, the Romans came after Paul.

His letter to the congregation at Philippi was written from prison.

The early church was in a fragile state, still tiny and at risk of persecution from Rome. And Paul was in prison, punished for his efforts to spread a narrative counter to the empire’s.

Prison in the Roman empire was a harsh place.

The early church was undergoing growth in the same moment as persecution under Rome.

And Paul, if not in actual chains, was imprisoned.

I imagine him standing with his face seeking sunlight, pondering his own death – he predicted it at the beginning of this letter – and pondering the future of the Jesus movement.

To one of the congregations he founded, he sent a letter of encouragement, with his own commitment to hopefulness and joy. “What is remarkable is to hear this from an imprisoned man…This means his vision of joy and rejoicing is neither superficial nor short-lived; it is a kind firmly anchored in the lord for the long haul, despite obstacles.” [3]

He believed that no matter what happened to him, the church would thrive. He believed in God’s presence and support and because of it, he could face whatever came. From his prison cell he told them, “Do not worry about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

Certainly Paul had enough to be anxious about. Anxiety is not always a choice, it is often an unavoidable reality. Prison was a reality for Paul, and a threatened church.  Paul offered a choice of what to do in the face of.

In our readings this morning we find: praise and thanksgiving. Rejoicing and exultation. From a marginalized woman in a precarious situation, a song of praise. From a man imprisoned for his faith, a call to rejoice.

You might think them passive, naive, Pollyannas, Paul and Hannah. But they were they were assertive and brave. They had plenty to worry about but they chose to write their narrative from a place of courage and blessing. They chose to praise a liberating God. They chose a theology of abundance.

Church, these are your stories, too.  I know you face a moment of difficulty.

You, too, are waiting and wondering what is to come, feeling uncertain about this congregation’s future. Perhaps you are not in Hannah’s place, or Paul’s: wondering about survival. Or, perhaps some of you are.

And yet, like Hannah, you belong to a God of hope.Your strength is in God and there is no Rock like God. And yet, like Paul, you have much to be thankful for. The Lord is near.

You are blessed with resources to offer to God and to our neighbors. You are bold in prayer, and bolder in care and love.

You have the chance, in this season, to tell your story and to write your future.

You may also have come across this paragraph this week:

“I grew up with a disabled dad in a too-small house with not much money in a starting-to-fail neighborhood, and I also grew up surrounded by love and music in a diverse city in a country where an education can take you far. I had nothing or I had everything. It depends on which way you want to tell it.” These words are from the newly published memoir of former first lady Michelle Obama. “I had nothing or I had everything. It depends on which way you want to tell it.” 

It depends on the way you want to tell it, church.

The narrative we build becomes the story of our lives; for the church, the narrative of a congregation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There are two possible Eliot Church narratives.
In this very room, a few weeks ago, I heard one:
Where are the people who once were here? This building is too big. Our budget is out of balance. In 2018, people don’t come to church.
But there is a different way of telling it, just as true: Look at the people who have found blessing here. We have a building in exquisite shape. We have enough money in reserve to back ministry we try. Think of the neighbors who don’t even know we are here: how can we bless them?

Here is the question, church.
Do you build a narrative of strife, scarcity and anxiety?
Or do you, moment by deliberate moment, build a narrative of joy, abundance, welcome, and hope?
Kelly Brown Douglas makes a good case for choosing a narrative of hope:

“We must dare to live proleptically, that is, as if, God’s promised future is already. The manner in which we conduct our living should be but a foretaste of God’s time…Even if these ways of acting are not the ways of our world, we must be daring enough to make them the way of our living.” [4]  

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
May it be so. Amen.

[1]https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/hebrew/kjv/quwm.html

[2] Gail O’Day, “Singing Women’s Song: A Hermeneutic of Liberation”

[3] Troy Troftgruben, Commentary on Philippians 4:1-9, workingpreacher.org

[4] Kelly Brown Douglas,https://feminismandreligion.com/2014/01/21/how-is-it-that-god-speaks-by-kelly-brown-douglas/