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/

Of Bats and Boats

A Sermon for the Eliot Church of Newton, UCC

Rev. Reebee Girash

June 24, 2018

Audio Recording:

 

Mark 4:35-41

4:35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”

4:36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.

4:37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.

4:38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

4:39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.

4:40 He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

4:41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Prayer

Sermon

I have two questions for us today. Who’s in the boat with you? And who are you going to get in the boat with?

But before the boat, a bat.

Imagine, friends, what you might do if a bat was flying around your living room.

I can tell you what I did.

I decompensated. Completely.

I managed only to croak BAHH!, to point wildly, and to lift my laptop up over my head in a desperate attempt to protect my scalp from the critter that I surely thought wanted to land on me.

John was somewhat calmer.

Our cat stayed asleep on the sofa.

Eventually John and I, with blankets over our heads and shoulders, followed the bat through house, trapped it under a cookie tin and released it off of our deck.

By John and I, I mean John.

I’ll tell you who was in the boat with me. It was John.

—

Jesus has called his disciples – several of them fishermen who work this very lake. He has preached and taught. He has crossed religious boundaries by healing on the Sabbath. The power of his words and his touch have brought the crowds to him.

The crowds are so eager to be with him that he has to preach from a boat near shore. And at the end of the day….

Some say he is so tired that he asks the disciples to go across to the other side so he can retreat from the crowds. But, where is the other side? The other side of the sea is full of symbolism that the community of Mark’s gospel would pick up on.

The Sea of Galilee – technically a lake but Mark wants you to think other great sea crossings – is calm one moment and stormy the next. Jesus has not asked them to set out on a peaceful contemplative evening pleasure cruise. And these fishermen know it. Match this up with Hebrew Bible stories of sea monsters for further dramatic effect.

The Other Side – On this side of the sea, they are in familiar territory. On the Other Side, they are at the Decapolis, in Pagan religious territory, even deeper into Roman occupation. On the Other Side, their very first encounter is with demons as Jesus exorcises the Gerasene man.

The Boat that they are all on is also a symbol. Since the earliest decades after Jesus – when this gospel was written – boats were symbols of the Church. (The boat is still today the symbol of the World Council of Churches. Christians would pass the secret symbol of the fish to each other to identify their faith. The boat identified the whole church.)

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”

On that day, after hours and hours of ministering to excited and anxious crowds, Jesus says, let’s get in the boat – church, let us head out into unpredictable waters, let us go to a place of great danger.

The disciples have had some kind of transformative experience with their teacher already because they launch the boat. At which point Jesus falls asleep.

A storm comes up and they panic. Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?? They cry.

Here’s the thing. They are fishermen. He’s a carpenter. Maybe he could have built the boat but they are the masters of the sea. Maybe they wake him up simply to have another person to bail the water out. Maybe they are just confused that anyone could sleep through that storm. Maybe they just suddenly feel very very alone.

But they are not alone. Jesus is in the boat with them. The whole time.

Don’t you know I’m here, he asks them? Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?

I hear a more impatient echo of Isaiah:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.

It’s a good thing that our faith does not have to be perfect for Jesus to show up and call Peace!

Friends, this is the good news: we are never in the boat alone. Jesus is in the boat with us. Sometimes he’s more readily apparent than others. Sometimes he’s in the boat in the form of the body of Christ, the people who are Christ’s hands and feet in this time and place, those who say, let me be as Christ to you.

Ginny Robinson told me something Bill told her, that came back to her this week as she’s grieving for him. Back when he was a Bible teacher in east Tennessee, his first wife died in an accident. It was that college community, including freshmen just back from World War II, who took care of him. They were in the boat with him, in the middle of the storm. (Shared with permission.)

This is church.

Let me be as Christ to you…

If your boat is caught in a storm, don’t panic. We are all in the same boat. Look around and ask yourself, who is in the boat with you?

Who is in the boat with you, when the waters rise? When your family is hurting? When you are sore afraid? A word of advice: if you don’t think someone’s in the boat with you, call out. Call out. Someone’s gonna answer.

But I told you I had two questions, and the second one is this: who will you get in the boat with?

He said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”

Jesus says, let’s get in the boat – church, let us head out into unpredictable waters, let us go to a place of great danger.

It’s a metaphor for this exact moment. Right now, Jesus is calling us to get in the boat with our neighbors, to weather extraordinary storms for the sake of God’s beloved children, to be brave, to go to the other side, to the borders, to offer healing and hope grounded in the power of his words of justice and mercy. Jesus is calling us to get in the boat – to let no one navigate the sea alone.

When Jesus calms the storm, it is a rare moment when his power is used for the benefit of his closest followers. They need to know that his power will strengthen and uphold them when they get to the other side. They need faith in him to have courage when they reach the land of demons and empire. The community of Mark’s gospel needs Jesus’ power even more: they “live in the shadow of the traumatic war of the Jews against Rome that ended in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.” (Sharon Ringe) These folks need to know that whatever challenge Jesus is calling them toward, his words and his power are there. “He speaks, and the eternal word is present, greater than our fear of conflict, greater than our drive for power and dominion, greater than sin, greater than death.” (Kate Layzer)

And now we are Christ’s hands and feet in this world. Now, he is calling us into the boat. Now he is calling us go across to the other side. Now he is calling us to calm the storm. Now he is calling us to speak words of peace and justice against storms of injustice: family separation, poverty. Now he is calling us to stand against literal storms, the storms of climate change. Now he is calling us into the boat.

Let me close with the words of Willie Dwayne Francois III, written about this passage, this week:

“The world needs Jesus-people to awake from our violent slumber…and speak with the unimpeachable authority of our teacher. While all the world loses its head, we can shut up the forces of chaos if we dare open our mouths and speak.” (https://www.christiancentury.org/blog-post/sundays-coming/conversations-chaos-mark-435-41)

So this is my second question:

Who are you going to get in the boat with?

Amen.

Benediction: from Charles Tindley’s Hymn, The Storm is Passing Over

Courage, my soul, and let us journey on,
Tho’ the night is dark, it won’t be very long.
Thanks be to God, the morning light appears,
And the storm is passing over, Hallelujah!

Memorial Day Sermon

May 27, 2018

Rev. Reebee Girash

The Eliot Church of Newton, UCC

 

Deuteronomy 10:12-13, 17-21

12 So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being.

 

17For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, 18who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. 19You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. 20You shall fear the Lord your God; him alone you shall worship; to him you shall hold fast, and by his name you shall swear. 21He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen.

 

Romans 8:12-17

 

12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ 16it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,17and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

 

Prayer

 

Sermon

 

On this Trinity Sunday, I offer you a three point sermon:

Remembrance

Connection

Wisdom

 

Remembering

 

I walk the paths of a local college campus quite often, around the track, then uphill, past the chapel, downhill, past the student center, up the steps at the very corner of campus.  As I ascend the stairs, I ponder the engraved granite markers:

To honor the men and women of this campus / who served their country with unselfishness in time of war / this memorial was built by their classmates and their friends / in grateful appreciation.  1929. Reconstructed 2015. (1)

 

Up the stairs.  The Spanish American War.  Up the stairs. World War I. Up the stairs. World War II.  Up the stairs. The Korea War. Up the stairs. The Vietnam War.  Up the stairs, to the top: Together on one marker: The Gulf War, 1990-1991.  Post 9/11 Conflicts, 2001 -….

 

Post 9/11 Conflicts, 2001 – …

 

We have been in a state of armed conflict since 2001.  On this campus they chose to engrave a permanent marker with no end date for armed conflict, implicitly acknowledging we are in a state of endless war.

 

The number of military and department of defense members who have died in these conflicts:

6959 (as of May 21) (2)

 

I listen to NPR.  Occasionally I hear a piece about the conflicts in Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria but they do not stay in my consciousness. (3)  I do not personally know a soldier serving overseas.  I don’t know who are veterans are here at Eliot, other than Doug Stuart.  I don’t know who we’ve lost in war.

 

I suspect I am in the majority.  Casualties of war – the lives of beloved human beings lost to armed conflict – are far removed from our daily lives, here in Newton.  

 

It was different, I think, in previous generations.  My folks (I was raised by my grandparents) spoke much more frequently of friends lost in World War II.  My cousin sent me with a commission when my class visited DC: to touch the names of our relatives (multiple relatives) on the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial.

 

The numbers bear out this modern disconnect.  In World War II, 12% of the US population served.  In Vietnam, nearly 10%. (4) Right now, 0.4% of the population of the US is active duty military.  (5)

 

That doesn’t mean that fewer people are dying in armed conflict these days.  7,000 service members have died in these 17 years. That is not the 58,000 who died in Vietnam but it’s a huge number. A thousand more have lost limbs.  The number of civilians killed in this ongoing war may be over one million although their names are not always carefully recorded. (6)

 

There are disproportionately more people of color on active duty, disproportionately more from rural areas, and from southern states. (7)  No wonder I don’t know anyone who’s serving.

 

In the words of local pastor Day McAllister,

I am…aware that a disproportionate number of the soldiers, that are on the front lines of our Wars, have always been the poor, the undereducated, and members of Communities of Color.  There is a way to hold firm to our commitment of peace, while acknowledging the often invisible sacrifices within our communities. I pray for the day when the words of Isaiah 2:4 will be the reality of our lives:  “God will mediate between nations and will settle international disputes. They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore.” (8)

 

On this Memorial Day, I want to remember the fallen.  To know the names of these beloved children of God who have died serving overseas.

In 2018, here are just a few of their names:

Jonathan Dunbar

Dashan Briggs

Carl Enis

Andreas O’Keeffe

William Posche  

Christopher Ragusso

Mark Weber

Christopher Zanetis

Christina Schoenecker

And others (9)

 

This morning I also want to make some connections.

It is easy to feel distanced from those who serve, how we are caring for our active duty and veterans,  and from the decisions that lead our country into armed conflict. Yet we need to know, need to make the connections.

 

If I think this is all far removed from me, I have only to look toward the way my tax dollars are used.  The largest portion of our taxes are used on health care. The second largest, nearly a quarter, are spent on Defense – the Pentagon and the military. (10) Education? 4%.  I could go on.

 

But I want to make one more connection. What is it like to serve?  Well, active duty does not always provide a living wage. Thousands of military service members use food stamps.  There is a food pantry for service members at Camp Pendleton – run by a nearby church. One in four children at DOD schools qualifies for free lunch.  (11) Risk your life for your country and you might not be able to pack a lunch for your kids.  Even with that emphasis on military spending, our service members are at risk of poverty themselves.  And poverty extends to our veterans: 1.5 million live in poverty.  (12)  27% of veterans of the current wars are food insecure. (13)

 

Let me say it plainly.  Economically, our country prioritizes military spending over almost anything else we do – prioritizes war-waging over ending poverty, protecting our environment, or educating our children. Our military-focused economy is a key cause of poverty and economic injustice in the United States.

 

The words of Dr. King in his sermon at Riverside Church in 1967 still ring true: “There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.”

 

In that same sermon, he said: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”

 

The very basis of militarism, I would say, is xenophobia and greed.  As near as I can tell, the two ideas that undergird a war-focused economy are these: our country must be protected from all others, our people must be protected from all others.  The rest of the world is dangerous; we are superior. Xenophobia supports greed: there is a lot of money and power to be made from the war economy.

 

Contrast this with Deuteronomy’s instructions to the Israelites:

17For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial (loves every one of her children)

 

and takes no bribe,  (is not caught up in consolidating wealth and power) 18who executes justice for the orphan and the widow (even those from Guatemala) , and who loves the strangers (even those from Yemen), providing them with food and clothing (as opposed to deporting them or shooting them or calling them animals).

 

19You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

 

20You shall fear the Lord your God; him alone you shall worship; to him you shall hold fast, and by his name you shall swear.

 

—

 

It may shock you to learn that I am not a pacifist.  There are wars in our history that in the end I would term just. I used to preach on just war theory as the middle way between war and pacifism, war restricted to a just cause, with right intent, as a last resource and with proportionate actions.  But as I am learning that just war theory only seems to kick in on the brink of violent conflict. I am increasingly compelled by the middle way between just war theory and pacifism: Just Peace theory, which involves proactive, positive, nonviolent, and strategic peace making.  It not only seeks to prevent war but to create right relationships. It makes no profit in war. (14)  It is a way of thinking and acting in the world embraced by many churches, by many veterans, by many social justice activists.

 

I don’t know that just peace theory is the magical answer.  But I do know that when armed conflict seems inevitable and war seems endless, we have to question our theories of war and peace.  We have to try another way.

 

We have, since 9/11, been asked to unite behind one common national security agenda.  Those who have questioned the direction of our military actions or the militarization of  domestic police forces have had their patriotism questioned.

 

This is our economy, this is our country, and it is not unpatriotic to question endless war.  I would say on this Memorial Day weekend it is the height of patriotism to hold our leaders’ decisions to the highest possible moral and ethical standard, because that standard prioritizes human life over profit – people from our country and people from every other. That highest possible moral standard prioritizes solving the problems of poverty, racism and xenophobia over the needs of the war economy.

 

Dr. Barber, earlier this month, said this:

“ I come to this with no hatred for our country, but with a prayerful commitment to join with those who love her enough to be the real kind of patriots that dare to tell her the truth….Overcommitment to militarism and war will drive us down into the graveyard of life; it can create a situation in which we do not know our name or purpose, and when every decision is driven by the military industrial complex rather than what is right.” (15)

 

Even as we support our troops and our veterans, even as we remember the fallen, we must also connect the war economy to poverty and xenophobia.  We worship a God who lifts up the poor and the oppressed, the widow and the orphan, the stranger and the sojourner. We who worship God should have the wisdom to do the same.

 

Let me close with the

Benedictine World Peace Prayer

Lead me from death to life, From falsehood to truth Lead me from despair to hope,From fear to trust Lead me from hate to love, From war to peace

Let peace fill our heart, our world, our universe.  Amen. (16)

 

Endnotes

1Text adapted slightly from Tufts University Veteran’s Memorial.
2 https://www.defense.gov/casualty.pdf
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States

4 http://history-world.org/vietnam_war_statistics.htm
5 https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-percentage-of-americans-have-served-in-the-military/
6
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/us-isis-air-strikes-civilian-deaths-syria-iraq-america-no-idea-how-m
any-dead-the-uncounted-a8066266.html &
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/with-more-civilian-deaths-reported-each-week-the-war_us_5943e11
be4b024b7e0df4b19
7 http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/31/uncle-sam-wants-who/
8 In an email to First Church Somerville, UCC members and friends, May 24, 2018

9 https://thefallen.militarytimes.com/search?conflict=4
10 http://www.ips-dc.org/personal-income-taxes-spent-2017/
11
http://americanhomefront.wunc.org/post/how-many-military-families-need-food-assistance-pentagon-does
nt-know
12 https://nvf.org/veteran-poverty-united-states/
13
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/10/09/why-so-many-veterans-go-hungry-and-the-v
as-new-plan-to-fix-it/?utm_term=.bb9aafd46567

14 https://sojo.net/magazine/december-2016/game-changer

5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G4oJOQWFTA
16 http://liturgy.co.nz/reflections/world-peace-prayer

 

Intersections

A Sermon for The Eliot Church

Rev. Reebee Girash

April 22, 2018

 

Audio Recording (Including Liturgist’s Scripture Reading):

 

 

Text

 

1 John 3:16-24

16We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? 18Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 19And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him

20whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; 22and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

23And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.24All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

 

Prayer

 

Surely, Lord, you are in this place.

    The Charles River, and its watershed.

Surely, Lord, you are in this place.

The land of the Mashpee Wampanoag.

Surely, Lord, you are in this place.

The city of Newton, place of both abundance and need.

Surely, Lord, you are in this place.

This sanctuary, with these your beloved children.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts together be always acceptable in your sight, in this time, in this place. Amen.

 

Sermon

 

On Wednesday of this week, on the most beautiful spring day, between snow storms, I walked this place, this neighborhood.  We are in a beautiful neighborhood, you know? And on Wednesday, the crocuses were still out and the forsythia had bloomed overnight, the daffodils were starting.  I even saw three or four pioneer tulips. The sky was cobalt blue with whispy clouds, the air was crisp but not cold, children were playing in the park and people were out talking to their neighbors.

 

I walked down toward the church and was excited as I am every time to glimpse our shiny solar panels turning the sun’s good rays into electricity that powers every switch in our building. And I thought about our boiler, which is aesthetically speaking quite ugly but hiding down there in our basement is a thing of high efficiency beauty.  And I thought about our Level III Green Church certificate and I was mighty proud of this church, I tell you. Mighty proud.

 

And this naturally led me to think about Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 7 Episode 9.  Actually, everything gets me to thinking about Star Trek. In college my idea of a good time was to watch Star Trek with friends, and heaven help us John and I have been watching the entirety of Next Generation with Zac, including recently Season 7 Episode 9.  What, the plot of “Force of Nature” is not something you have memorized? Let me just tell you: it’s the climate change allegory episode, although IMDB says it’s about a problem with the warp drive. To the Enterprise crew’s shock and dismay, two scientists from an isolated world prove beyond a doubt that using warp drive to zip across the galaxy at high speeds will lead to devastating subspace rifts.  Their planet, is already on the verge of being uninhabitable. And so, the Federation issues an immediate directive: no more warp travel in fragile corridors. No more warp travel over Warp 5 except in emergency. The Federation takes immediate and clear action and saves the galaxy once again.

 

I love Star Trek, I tell you.  

 

The episode ends with Captain Picard staring wistfully out at the stars, waxing eloquently: “I’ve charted new worlds. I’ve met dozens of new species. I believed that these were all valuable ends in themselves,” Picard says. “And now it seems that all this while I was helping to damage the thing that I hold most dear.”

 

The episode aired in 1993.  You know, five years after climate scientist James Hansen told the Senate that global warming was increasing, was human caused, must be addressed in order to preserve a habitable earth.  

 

In a hit-you-over-the-head reference to emerging climate change science, the writers of that episode declared when the science is clear, you must take decisive action.  I love Star Trek. It’s so perfect.

 

Except it wasn’t.

 

See, this radical change in how the Federation would travel through space, this sacrifice for the sake of neighbor and creation?  It’s a footnote in two more episodes – when the crew chooses to break the new limit – and then, magically, in the next Star Trek series they changed the angle of the warp nacelles and magically solved the problem with technobabble.

 

In Star Trek, all you have to do to solve an existential crisis is to make a minor tweak to the engines and then never think about it again.  You can save the galaxy and miss the big picture; you can travel at warp and skip all the intersections.

 

Let me confess that I’ve spent a lot of time in Star Trek land –

Land of the simple fix,

Land of, if we just do this one simple easy discrete thing, everything will be fine, for everyone.

 

In my early days of climate activism I was drawn to climate work because of the risk to everyone, vulnerable populations, poor folk around the world.

 

But neither I nor the organizations I joined were  listening to, or partnering with, any of those people.  Not with Native Americans working to save the water sources on their land nor the women walking miles to get water in West Africa.  Not with folks advocating for cleaner and more frequent buses in Four Corners nor with those whose backyards were bisected by leaky pipelines.  Because I was working on fossil fuels, carbon parts per million.

 

I think in the last couple of years I’ve, at the risk of an overused phrase, woken up a bit.  Seen that in this particular time and place I also need to be thinking about and working on racism, about land use, about militarism, about poverty, about water rights.

 

I was at a racial justice retreat for the Massachusetts Conference of the UCC last year when a certain prophet, a woman of color from Western MA, helped me see how the climate movement is seen by some folks.  We were talking about the conference’s most recent conference email. All that’s ever in there is climate this, environment that.  That’s all this conference thinks is important she said.  We were sitting there at a racial justice retreat sponsored by the conference to help launch racial justice trainings, but around the room there were nods.  She was not the only one who felt there was some tunnel vision. I tried, stumbling, to express that one of the underlying reasons I was committed to climate action was because of racial justice.  It didn’t fly. The folks talking about climate were not the folks showing up at Black Lives Matter rallies or Poor People’s Campaign events. We weren’t working intersectionally. We were traveling in separate ships at warp speed.  

 

I am increasingly converted to what Dr. Barber calls the moral fusion intersectional movement building that works across communities and causes for the greater good.

 

Just one example:

 

Puerto Rico, post Maria, exists at the intersection of

    The most intense hurricane ever

And

    A new tax bill that taxes Puerto Rican goods at foreign good rates

    And

    An island wide blackout 7 months later

        And

    System Racism

And

    Climate Change

 

So an intersectional response has to deal with economic justice, racial justice, and climate change.

 

At the Revolutionary Love Conference at Middle Church, I learned about Middle’s Puerto Rico response.  They are both doing hands on repair work and fundraising – and installing solar panels in partnership with local folks (you know, the only spots not in blackout last week).  Most of the folks in leadership from Middle are Puerto Rican or have relatives there. And of course, they’re doing their work in the interior of the island, so that they can be Middle in the Middle.

 

You heard the scriptural basis for Middle in the Middle in our text:

 

16We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? 18Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.

 

I want to get to the place where my climate action is intertwined with my solidarity with Black Lives Matter; where I show up for the Poor People’s Campaign both to protect our planet and to call for a living wage; where I protest a pipeline as much for its impact on the neighborhood as for its carbon emissions.  

 

Because, it really is true that if we cut carbon emissions to zero, poor and vulnerable people are going to be stuck in the same place.

 

The next steps in the climate struggle are deeper than how many cities will choose 100% renewable electricity.

The next questions are more complicated and require something more of us.

The next steps connect the dots of systemic racism and economic inequality to the health of the planet.

 

Love and justice exist at the intersections.  It is complicated, though, and occasionally overwhelming.  There are soooo many crises in our world – and we have to connect the dots between them?  

 

It was much simpler when I could just keep saying 350 over and over again.

 

But.  The good news is right there in our text:

 

19And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him 20whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and God knows everything.

 

God is greater than our hearts; God is greater than our confusion; God is greater than this complexity; God is greater than all of these problems combined.

 

Put another way – in a verse that stood out for me in Jen’s Bible study this week from Matthew 19: The disciples, asked, Then who can be saved?”

26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”

 

At this moment, we may be beyond the easy fix.  

 

But we’re at a moment where by working intersectionally, it is possible we might live into a world that is a bit more just for everyone, all the same.  We are building the world we want to live in.

 

We will do everything we can,

We will love our neighbors as Jesus commanded us,

We will abide in him,

We will take care of creation while standing in solidarity with our neighbors,

We will notice the intersections,

And we will hope that nothing is impossible with God.

 

Amen.

 

Context Shifting

A Sermon for The Eliot Church

Rev. Reebee Girash

April 15, 2018

Audio Recording:

 

Text: Luke 24 36-48

 

While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43and he took it and ate in their presence. 44Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,46and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things. 49And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

 

Prayer

 

Sermon

 

On a blustery bitter cold winter morning, he was driving down Centre Street to pick up a friend in Watertown Square, and as he came down the bottom of the hill, just out here, his car began to sputter and bump and clatter and generally make terrible noises.  He hit the turn signal and slid onto Church Street where his car came to a stop and would not start again. He popped the hood and tried to figure out a solution on his own, to no avail, so he reached for his cell phone to call a tow truck and his friend, waiting at the bus stop.  He managed to get through to AAA but then his cell phone battery was as dead as the car.

 

But, he was across the street from a church.  Not a church guy, really, but, any port in a storm.  So he made his way into our building, walked down the hallway until he found me, in my office.  I was meeting with someone but we were both willing to pause our conversation to help this man in need.  He used my phone to make a couple of calls, and at some point I invited him to wait in the chapel, where he could see his car and the tow truck when it came.

 

It took a long time, that tow truck.  I went in and out of the chapel to check in.  Eventually his friend walked from Watertown Square to join him in the wait.  

 

They asked me about food.  Did we have a food pantry here?  We get this question all the time, Tasha, Susan and I, from visitors in varying states of need.  So I gave them my well prepared response: we support two food pantries and a community supper, we collect food for them but those seeking food need to go to Arabic Baptist or to Brighton Allston Church.  We do not have a food distribution here. Did you need that information? I can give you info on all of the local food pantries and community suppers, we have all that on a hand out. But, in the middle of my speech, the tow truck pulled up and he thanked me for letting him wait in a warm place and I wished him good luck.

 

Last Thursday, I met him again.  He was walking across our parking lot as I arrived.  Oh, hey there, friend, how are you, I asked? We chatted for a moment, laughing about AAA. He pointed over to where his car was parked, working fine now.  And then he said, would you tell me again about your food pantry?

 

I started my prepared response: we support two food pantries and a community supper, we collect food for them but we do not have a food distribution here.  I was ready to keep going but he said, oh, that’s great, I wanted to know because I’m going to the store to get food to drop off. Tell me, he said, what’s most needed?  

 

Context – shifting.  

 

I had written his entire story in my mind.   He was supposed to be on the receiving end. He was supposed to need my help.  He was not supposed to be the one practicing compassion, gratitude, generosity.   It took me a moment to shift the context, to say, come on in and let me show you the wish list.  

 

—

 

Our passage this morning starts this way:

 

Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.

 

They were startled and terrified.  He was not supposed to be there. He was dead.  They’d seen him on the cross, and they knew where he was buried.   Most of the Easter resurrection appearances start this way: with those who were closest to Jesus, his dearest friends, who had spent every waking moment of three years with him, not being able to recognize his risen self.  A risen Jesus was so out of context their minds could not reconcile it. Their eyes were playing tricks on them, it was an optical illusion.

 

2000 years later we have retold the resurrection stories so many times but it still shocks us when he shows his hands and feet, when he joins them for a fish dinner.  Is he incarnate again (eating fish), is he an apparition (he comes in through a locked door)? Some hear the story metaphorically, others are attached a literal telling –  some of us look at the story they way the optical illusion of the wine glass / face in profile works. One day we see bodily resurrection; the next we see a moment when their memory was so strong they thought he was in the room.  

 

Recall that this happened, according to Luke, the evening of the same morning when the women found the tomb empty.  The evening of the same afternoon that two followers hearts burned within them, from the risen Christ’s teachings. It’s the same day.  It’s just three days after the cross, three days after trauma. These are traumatized people. And Jesus stands before them, alive but scarred, and says, peace.

 

Maria Theresa Davila says, “Jesus’ invitation to the disciples to see his wounds is meant to show God’s salvation, a salvation that did not require the decimation of opposing armies or a the spilling of blood in a coup.  God’s salvific activity in the resurrection embraces and transforms unjust suffering so that the work of building communities of justice and beauty within history can continue. The work of building the beloved community takes place within history and within our wounded bodies.” (Quoted in Podcast for a Just World)

 

He says, Peace, and he eats a meal with them.  And he says, you are witnesses.  From there, the context shifts from grief and defeat to hope and victory over death.  

 

William Barber has a couple of words on Easter.  He says, “If you mess around with the resurrection and the kind of love that flows out of the resurrection, it will radically reconstruct your way of thinking.”

 

Encountering the risen Christ brings about a context-shift in Jesus’ followers.  They have been fearful followers of a small town preacher killed atop a Roman garbage heap; now they are pioneers of the Way of a risen Lord.  They have been in a state of desperate, scared, grief and now they are in the context of new possibility. They have been focused on their own inner circle and now they are invited to turn outward to spread justice and mercy, not just with those few thousand Jesus had encountered, but with the nations.  

 

They had to choose to change their context.  After the fish supper, after Communion on the Emmaus road, after breakfast by the sea. Turning to each other, they didn’t ask – have we all experienced a mass delusion?  No, they asked each other: will we be witnesses? Will we proclaim defiant hope? Will we teach that oppression, death and empire lost, that love and justice will ultimately prevail?  They did this as people who witnessed the cross and met the risen one. They did this as people who saw the wounds, saw his hands and feet. Dr. Barber says, “Hope without going through the cross is optimism, not hope.”    They had to choose to context-shift.

 

Beloved, the same choice is before us: the choice between an inward focus and an outward focus.  The choice between despair in the midst of late winter blizzards and tweet-storms, and deliberate hope.   The choice to huddle in a sanctuary or to be witnesses to love and justice.

 

We are Easter people.  Our context is hope. We choose to be witnesses.

Amen.

Comments from the Rev. Dr. William Barber, II from a sermon offered on April 8, 2018 at the Revolutionary Love Conference, from my personal notes. Maria Theresa Davila quoted in Podcast for a Just World – https://soundcloud.com/forajustworld/alive-in-our-sexuality-and-faith-part-1-with-amyjohnson

 

Benediction:

 

From Ruby Nell Sales: My grandmother would say, you see that wall?  That’s not a wall, it’s just another space to walk through walls.  Friends, keep walking. Amen.

 

 

 

The Feast

A Sermon for The Eliot Church of Newton, UCC

Rev. Reebee Girash

March 18, 2018

Audio Recording:

 

Text: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

1 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.

2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

3 So he told them this parable:

 

“There was a man who had two sons.

12 The 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.

13 A 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.

14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.

15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs.

16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.

17 But 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!

18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;

19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ‘

20 So 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.

21 Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 But 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.

23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate;

24 for 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.

26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.

27 He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’

28 Then 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.

30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’

31 Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.

32 But 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

 

Sermon

 

The story of a rebellious child, and a loving parent.

The feast awaiting him, when he makes his way back home.

It’s among the most treasured stories in our culture.

Many of us have it memorized from reading it over and over again.

Prompted only by the very first line, we can repeat the tale in its entirety.

 

That first line:

“The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another…”¹

 

For those of you who have not read this story over and over again at story time to small children, I will let you in on the story of Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak.

 

The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind
and another
his mother called him “WILD THING!”
and Max said “I’LL EAT YOU UP!”
so he was sent to bed without eating anything.

 

That very night in Max’s room a forest grew and grew and grew until his ceiling hung with vines and the walls became the world all around and an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max and he sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year to where the wild things are. And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said “BE STILL!”

and tamed with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all wild things. “And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”

“Now stop!” Max said and sent the wild things off to bed without their supper.

And Max the king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.

 

Then all around from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat

so he gave up being king of where the wild things are.

But the wild things cried, “Oh please don’t go we’ll eat you up-we love you so!”

And Max said, “No!” The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye and sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room

where he found his supper waiting for him

and it was still hot.

 

 

—

 

No matter where you go.

No matter how long you’re gone.

No matter what you do.

If you turn around,

If you come back home,

the feast will be here

waiting for you

still hot

and I’ll be here, too.

 

That is Max’s mother’s message for him,
And God’s message for us.

 

I can remember hearing that story when I was a child in the 70s.

I remember thinking what fun it would be to sail in and out of weeks and to dance a Wild Rumpus.

But mostly, I remember the smell of good things to eat.

I knew exactly what Max’s supper smelled like (macaroni and cheese, with baked cinnamon apples, as I recall.)

 

 

 

But as an adult, more and more I wonder about Max’s mother.

 

Every parent has been Max’s mother. Maybe our child has not gone to bed without his supper, but we have been frustrated, we have yelled, we have said NO to our children, we have stomped down the stairs and given our own selves a time out.

 

I thought about denying it. Since Zac and John are not in the sanctuary to disagree, I thought I could claim to be an entirely unruffled parent. Able to put up with anything, a beatific smile on my face throughout.

 

On the other hand, that’s not the ideal either, to tolerate anything.

 

One of a parent’s jobs is to set limits. Food, clothing, shelter, love, and limits.

 

(A wise woman writes: parents have five jobs – beyond providing for kids’ food, clothing and shelter. The five jobs are affirmation, information, clarity of values, anticipatory guidance, and limit setting.²)

 

Limit setting is part of our job. Sometimes, the hardest part.

 

And pushing the limits, to figure out where they are, is a child’s job. It’s part of growing up.

 

Max, you see, is a beloved child, creative, playful, energetic. But on this night he has gone wild. It is time for dinner but he is running all around, knocking things over, tripping over the dog, he can’t settle down, it’s getting unsafe. And mom says, that’s it. She sets the limit. And he stomps away and slams the door and bangs around in in his room.

But mom is close by.

 

She is, perhaps, sitting on the stairs, running her hand through the dog’s fur, taking deep breaths, listening. She knows supper is almost ready and she can hear the rest of the family setting the table. She can hear the timer go off on the stove.

 

She is waiting. She listens to him, at first he is banging and harumphing around, still angry.

 

Then she can hear him climb up onto his bed, and start to bounce.

 

Then she hears the bouncing slow. And the room grows quiet.

 

She runs downstairs and ladels out a bowl of food and grabs a glass of milk and gently, gently waits.

 

Where, when Max returns he finds his supper, waiting for him. Still hot. And with it, someone who loves him best of all.

 

When Max returns, she is so glad. She is so glad. This is the moment in the story when mom knows that Max knows he is loved, no matter what. This is the moment of the mother’s great joy. There will be more joy in heaven…

 

If you come back home,

the feast will be here

waiting for you

still hot

and I’ll be here, too.

 

The metaphor will never be perfect, because no human parent is as perfectly loving as God.

 

But still, from the father, who, filled with compassion; ran and put his arms around the son and kissed him –

The father who brought the best robe, and threw a great feast when his son returned –

We learn about God’s love, and God’s joy.

 

God’s love that means the table will always have a place for us.

 

It is not that God has no expectations of us.

 

It is not that God sets no limits, teaches no lesson.

 

It is that God always expects us to come home.

 

It is that God is so joyful when we take our seat at the table.

 

There will be more joy in heaven….

 

I talked to a lot of people this week about Jesus’ parable of the squandering son, the resentful son, the compassionate father and the great feast (aka the Prodigal Son). Most folks resonate with the older brother and find it hard to forgive. A few folks have known the younger son, not yet back from the distant country. And some of us have been the grieving parent, waiting and hoping.

 

This is what is true. This is the good news:

God stands at the gate watching for all of us.

The lost sheep.

The resentful brother.

The wild child in the wolf suit.

The regretful mom.

 

 

We have only to turn, to step toward God, to step away from resentment, fear, and hunger.

And God will run to meet us,

Just as we are.

God will welcome us to the feast,

Which is incomplete until we arrive.

 

There is no more joy in in heaven than when all the guests have arrived.

 

And if we do not see God standing at the gate,

She has sent all of us an invitation to the feast,

By way of her son Jesus.

 

The best party is the one with everyone you love, at the table.

The most delicious feast, is the one held in the place where someone loves you best of all.

 

Maybe this week, we can all be a little like Max, a little like the prodigal son, and take our place at the table. Look around, see all the tax collectors, and sinners, Pharisees and scribes, folks from the other political party, the other country, the other side of the tracks, convicts and people who smell bad. Look around, see all the beautiful, beloved children of God who sit around the table with us. I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord (Psalm 122:1) because in that house, even I am welcome. And the food is delicious.

 

Maybe this week, we can all be a little like Max’s mom, a little like the father who had two sons, and prepare a feast that we know God’s beloved children will love. Set aside the rules and focus on mercy, hospitality, love, and grace. Open the door, stand at the gate, and wait with joyful expectation, ready to welcome every beloved child of God home.

 

 

If you come back home,

the feast will be here

waiting for you

still hot

and I’ll be here, too.

 

Let us pray.

 

“We give thanks, O God, that you are waiting for us in your house of love, waiting with the feast and the dance and the song and the great joy. Let us put away our shame and put aside our resentment and put on the festive garments of those who are glad when they are told, “Let us go into the house of the Lord.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.”³

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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¹  The connection between Where the Wild Things Are and the Prodigal Son was suggested in an episode of the Pulpit Fiction podcast.

²  Talk To Me First: Everything You Need to Know to Become Your Kids’ Go- To Person About Sex, by Deborah Roffman. De Capo Press, 2012.

³  Tom Long, http://day1.org/471-is_there_joy_in_gods_house