Perfect

A sermon for Sunday, July 26, 2020

Would you pray with me?

God who knows each of us and calls us by name, thank you for bringing us to this time and this place. By your Spirit, make your presence known among us here today. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

I have to admit, though it likely won’t surprise anyone here, that I have, throughout my life, been haunted by our last verse from the gospel of Matthew this morning. I know you know it. “Be ye perfect therefore as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” I just never seemed to be able to be perfect. Once, in fifth grade, I got 99 questions right on a multiplication test, and I cried because I didn’t get a hundred. I don’t care to count the number of paper towels I’ve cleaned up from public bathroom floors and sinks, washing my hands afterwards, but somehow, still, there are always more. And let’s not even talk about the time at the sixth grade science fair when I routinely said tongue dispensers instead of tongue depressors or in eighth grade when I said die-sentry instead of dysentery in a speech in front of the entire Soil and Water Conservation Committee. Y’all, it was rough.

But of course, we all know that nobody’s perfect. We all make mistakes. We’re not God. So what does Jesus mean by, Be ye perfect? What superhuman feat is Jesus asking from us now?

Well, as I said last week, I think that in this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is showing us how to think about the highest ideals of Christian life. Again, this is by no means the only place that Jesus teaches us about the way to live our lives, as I know y’all know, but I take this chapter of the Sermon on the Mount as a couple of examples about the way we can think about the life that Jesus of Nazareth, our Christ, is calling us to live, and the greatest example of that is his call for us to be perfect. It hinges on what the word “perfect” means. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

Let’s start by looking at the first four verses in our passage this morning, verses 38-42. The piece of context that we miss here is that “An eye for an eye” is actually a law, going back to the code of Hammurabi, an ancient set of Mesopotamian laws from nearly 2000 before Jesus’ birth, which the Jewish scriptures adapt into their laws, and then continue to adapt and interpret over the centuries. The law “an eye for an eye” is actually a de-escalation of violence, as far as ancient laws are concerned. It means that someone in power can’t overreact against a slight done by another. It’s not “a head for an eye,” it’s “an eye for an eye.” It’s a law of equal retribution. It’s actually the basis behind some of our legal thought today, but instead of an eye for an eye, we ask, “How much money should the aggressor have to pay for an eye replacement?” Actually, in Jesus’ day, in the Second Temple Period, this same type of system, money instead of physical retribution, was already taking shape.

So Jesus here is talking with the law, with justice, in mind. When someone hits you across the right cheek, offer them the other. In Jesus’ day, if you hit someone on the left cheek would mean backhanding them or hitting them with your unclean hand. Hitting someone’s left cheek would do them a great dishonor, but it would be an escalation of violence. Anyone who let their anger get the better of them in this way would bring dishonor on themselves.

It’s the same idea with the coat and the cloak. The coat mentioned here is really something more like a shirt, a lower-cost item that could be replaced or even done without, but cloaks are expensive. If you were travelling and couldn’t find a place to stay, your cloak was your shelter.

Suing for someone’s cloak was actually illegal in Jesus’ day, since it would deprive the poorest among them of their only shelter. So if, when sued for your shirt, you handed someone your cloak too, and they accepted it, they would bring dishonor on themselves.

And the same again with the “go one more mile.” Roman soldiers could, under Roman law, requisition anyone to carry a burden of up to twenty pounds for about a mile. Going the second mile would bring dishonor on the soldier who let you do it. It’s a way of protesting the law by exposing its injustice. With each of these examples, Jesus tells his followers to be exemplary in the face of violence and legal injustice, because your actions will show the injustice for what it really is.

Which is why he follows these teachings up with verse 44: “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. This is the wisdom that underlies the previous teachings. We don’t go the extra mile because we want to enrage or shame our enemies or those who hurt or oppress us. We do it because we love them.

Now, love here is that agape love we Christians hear so much about. It’s the unconditional, unending, persistent love that God has for each of us. It’s the love that we so often experience as grace. It’s the love that creates us, saves us, and sustains us. It’s the love that holds us tight, just as we are, and the love that never lets us go, never stops seeking us out, even when we ourselves have strayed. It’s the love that wakes up our conscience, the love that speaks to us in a still small voice, calling us to do better because we know better. It’s the love that stays with us all our days and the love that will bear us home when our days come to an end.

So it’s clear that agape love is not passive love. It is not love that lays down in the face of wrong. It’s love that goes the extra mile whenever there’s injustice. It doesn’t do that for its own sake. It does it for the sake of the one committing injustice.

See, if we love our enemies, we want the best for them, and that means that we can’t let them remain abusers and oppressors. When you abuse someone else, when you oppress someone else, there’s something fundamental that breaks inside you, just like something fundamental broke in Cain when he killed Abel. And healing from that break can be the work of a lifetime. But, as we all know, admitting you have a problem is the first step to healing. If you don’t know there’s a problem, you don’t know that you need to seek out help.

So Jesus tells us to go that extra mile for the Roman solider. It will, we pray, wake them up to the reality of the injustice of the law. Give away your cloak to those who sue you for your shirt. It will, we pray, wake them up to the reality of the injustice of their suit. Turn the other cheek to someone who hits you. It will, we pray, wake them up to the reality of the injustice of their violence. We pray, we pray, we pray for our enemies to wake up, so that we can both heal.

Because Jesus here understands the deep truth that the rest of us forget over and over again. We cannot be free until all of us are free. It’s all of us or none of us. Or, to use later Christian language, Christ is the head of the body, the firstborn, the first to enter into the fullness of life that is promised to all of us, but all of humanity is the body of Christ. If we leave anyone behind, we are incomplete.

This is what Jesus means when he says perfect. The Greek word is τέλειοι, meaning mature, full-grown, having reached your goal or purpose, or complete. It’s not about memorizing your multiplication tables or being tidy or knowing how to pronounce every word. We will all make mistakes like that. No, being perfect, as our Parent in heaven is perfect, means being perfect, being complete, in love. We are complete when we can love our enemies, and those we look down on, just the same as we love our siblings. We are perfect when we realize that without each other, we are incomplete.

This is hard. Believe me, I know it. It is so much easier to write off others as lost causes, to proclaim that they are beyond saving. (And sometimes it’s easier to believe that about ourselves, but that’s another sermon.) It is so much easier to let fear overpower us, the fear of what we might have to give up in order to love one another, and let that stop us from actually loving one another. It is so much easier to stay divided instead of doing the work of repenting, forgiving, restoring, and reconciling, because that work is hard.

And it’s hard because we, too, can be Christ’s enemy. I know that I have been the Roman soldier, asking for too much from someone who is struggling because it’s allowed under the law. I know that I have been the accuser, asking unjustly for an apology or a repayment that I was not due. I know that I have been the one to strike another, standing there with my hand ready for the backslap. I know that I have, even unknowingly, been on the side of the oppressor and it has only been through the deep love of my Black siblings, my Latinx siblings, my Native siblings, my LGBTQIA siblings, my siblings with a disability, my siblings in poverty, and my siblings struggling with mental health and addiction that I have in turn learned how to love them better and in so doing become more complete. The love of those who we have considered enemies heals us.

It’s so hard to do this work of love from either end, especially now, when there’s a pandemic, when everything feels so tense and uncertain, when we can’t receive the normal comfort we would from our families, whether they be the families we grew up with, the families we’ve formed, or our church family. Every day exhausts us with its challenges and real, palpable worries, especially those who are caregivers and peacemakers by nature, those who long deep in their hearts for conflict to cease and get eaten up from the inside out when it won’t. I know. I feel this way too. It is a hard thing for Jesus to ask this of us, always, but especially now.

But my friends, my friends, I promise that we can do this hard thing, and I don’t promise this under my own authority. This is a promise that comes from Jesus himself, the one who sent us the Holy Spirit, our advocate and comforter, the one who goes alongside us and strengthens us to do this hard thing. You are always, always, wrapped up in the arms of Almighty God and there is nothing that can change that. For who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. We are always surrounded and supported by the love of God that will not let us go.

So go out and love. Love those who love you, freely, as best as you can, because you are loved by God. Go out and love those who you usually ignore or disregard, freely, as best as you can, because you are loved by God. Go out and love your enemies, freely, as best as you can, because you are loved by God. Go out and let others love you, freely, as best as they can, because God can and will change our lives through the love of others, and know that in all of these attempts at love, God’s grace will come rushing in to fill the gaps that we cannot bridge. Stand surrounded and grounded in the love of Jesus our Savior, knowing that no matter how difficult the conversation, how painful the lesson, how frightening the prospect, we can love and be loved by our enemies, and that love will heal this hurting world.

In fact, in the end, love will make it perfect.

Amen.

Highest Ideals

A sermon for Sunday, July 19, 2020

Would you pray with me?

God who loves us all, body and soul, thank you for gathering us together. By your Spirit, make your presence known to us. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer.

Some of you may know this, but I imagine most of you don’t: in the United Methodist Church, part of what you have to do in order to be ordained is to submit anywhere between 40 to 60 pages of paperwork, not counting the manuscript for a 15-30 minute sermon. Don’t worry, I’m not going to keep you here for a 30-minute sermon. But I bring this up because our passage from the gospel of Matthew this morning has me thinking about one of the questions in the ordination paperwork. In the paperwork, we’re asked to reflect on how we live out our call to dedicate ourselves to the highest ideals of the Christian life. This passage makes me think of that question.

Not that I think Jesus talks about the highest ideals of Christian life only in these verses. This is early on in the Sermon on the Mount, some of the earliest teachings in his ministry in the gospel of Matthew, and Jesus doesn’t stop teaching in this gospel. But the passage today is on the way to his first full explanation of the highest ideals of Christian life and we’ll talk about that next week. This week, though, I think Jesus is giving us a glimpse into how to live into some of the highest ideals in Christian life, how to live with one another and with God, and he does it in a very Jesus-y way.

So let’s jump in with the first three verses. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.”

Oof, Jesus. At first glance, this is harsh. Where is the “they’ll know you are Christians by your love” in these verses? I mean, many of us have felt heart-palpitating attraction for another human being. Should we all be popping out our eyeballs?

Well, first, I think we need to remember that Jesus was a good teacher and a good preacher and he knew how to use something called hyperbole to get his point across. I think we can trust that the man who heals the blind is not asking his followers to blind themselves. So setting the hyperbole aside, Jesus is drawing a line here, a line that he expects his disciples, the ones he’s called close to him in order to hear this Sermon on the Mount, to pay attention to. And that line has something to do with the word “lust” in verse 28.

The Greek word here is ἐπιθυμέω (epithomeho), I desire, I lust after, I covet, which comes from the root word θυμός (thomos), meaning an outburst of passion or wrath. It means rage. So Jesus here is not talking about that little fluttering you get when someone you’re attracted to walks by. Jesus is talking about looking at someone and wanting to possess them, violently if necessary. Jesus is telling us that it is better for you to cut off your hand than to take someone else’s body without their consent. If you’re going to be my follower, Jesus tells his young disciples, you can’t let the darkness of lust, this desire-turned-into-anger, live inside you.

Okay, fair enough, Jesus. We can get behind that message. But then he moves on to a harder teaching in verses 31-32: “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

Now, what you need to know and what I’m sure you know is that the situation in Jesus’ day is different than it is today. Women were considered men’s property. And so even though women ran the household (our word economics comes from the Greek word οἰκονομία, meaning household management, rooted in women’s work), even though they managed everything in the home, they typically didn’t own anything for themselves and they certainly didn’t have a say in what happened in their marriages. A woman’s husband could divorce her for something as simple as not preparing food the way he liked, and if he divorced her, she was left bereft, essentially a widow with no hope of remarriage; or, if she did marry again, she was likely to be treated like a bargain-basement wife, easily picked up and easily disposed of.

You also need to know that the writer of the gospel of Matthew, just like the writer of the gospel of Luke, is careful in how they arrange the teachings of Jesus. Usually, teachings with a similar theme are grouped together, building on one another. If the first teaching is a warning about possessing a woman in the wrong way, this second teaching is about dismissing a woman in the wrong way. You cannot possess a woman violently and you cannot get rid of a woman just because you’re done with her. Adultery, as Jesus is teaching it, is not simply about sleeping around in your marriage or calling into question the paternity of your children, as it might have been understood in times past. Jesus here is doing something that rabbis frequently do: he’s getting at what’s behind the rule, looking for the iceberg of wisdom that lies underneath the tip sticking out, which is the text of the rule. Adultery is, as Jesus teaches us, at its heart, about how we treat one another in our relationships. That is the truth that undergirds the commandment, that holds it up.

And that’s what has me thinking about ordination paperwork and the call for pastors to dedicate ourselves to the highest ideals of the Christian life. It’s not enough to know all the rules and follow them. No, to dedicate ourselves to the highest ideals of the Christian life, we have to know the truth that holds up the rules. The highest ideal of Christian life when it comes to adultery is not, “I don’t cheat on my spouse;” instead, it’s “I treat the person I’m in a relationship with with the respect, honor, and consideration they deserve as a beloved child of God.” Jesus, with these two teachings, is calling us to a much higher standard than the plain text of the law, and not just pastors either. Jesus is beckoning all us Christians, married or not, in a relationship or not, onward and upward, to meet the plain meaning of “Thou shalt not commit adultery” and to go beyond it.

So, then, where does that leave us with our last four verses this morning? “Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.” What does Jesus mean here? How does this fit?

Well, he is harkening back to another one of the big ten: Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain. But we misunderstand that commandment all the time. We think it means that we have to substitute goshdarnit instead of that other word, otherwise we’ll be struck by lightning. But what the commandment truly means is, “Don’t do something in God’s name that God didn’t tell you to do.” Don’t say, “By God, I’m going to steal them blind,” when you know that God has nothing to do with your thievery. That’s taking the Lord’s name in vain.

And so, “in ancient times,” as Jesus says, the rule was, Hey, you can swear by God, just make sure you’re going out and doing the righteous thing and keep your vows as you do it. A fine enough law, but as we see when we read the history of the kings of Israel and the prophets, all the way up to Jesus’ time (and to ours too, if we’re honest), there were plenty of people swearing sweeping, violent vows before God and slaughtering people in order to keep them. Instead of all of that, Jesus says, don’t swear by anything at all. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Anything more than that is not of God. These vows that people swear in the name of the Lord, they’re just breaking the commandment, so let’s do away with vow-making altogether. I will not have my followers making vows of vengeance or violence, not when I’m about to preach about turning the other cheek. No more with “By God, I’m going to…” because, unless you’ve checked with God first, you can’t know whether God is going to approve of what you’re about to swear to.

God likely didn’t intend for women to be seen as property, as was common in Jesus’ day, to be taken when wanted and discarded when not. Surely, God didn’t intend that, when God made the man and the woman in the garden and gave the woman the spark of creation and the joy of curiosity. Surely God would not make a beautiful creation and intend for it to be taken advantage of. And so, just as you must respect those who you partner with on this earth, so you must respect God. Don’t swear in God’s name as if you speak for God. Let your yes be yes and your no be no and in all things, turn to God and listen for wisdom and discernment from the Spirit.

And that, my friends, is where we will have to leave the highest ideals of Christian life for this week, though if you want to read ahead to next week or ponder it on your own, as we’ve pondered this morning, we’ll be tackling Matthew 5:38-48 next week. But let me send you forth, from sitting at Jesus’ feet into the world that needs Jesus now more than ever, encouraging you to live up to the ideals we’ve uncovered today: hold each person you encounter as precious, neither using nor discarding them, but valuing them deeply, especially your romantic and life partners, and do the same for God, neither using God as a tool to support what you want to do nor discarding God when God becomes inconvenient, but in all things, turning to listen to the One who made you, saved you, and sustains you still.

Amen.

Dealing With Conflict

A sermon for Sunday, July 12, 2020

Would you pray with me?

God whose Word is with us always, thank you for gathering us together. By your Spirit, make your presence known among us. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

As I’m sure you’ve seen from the pictures of our garden out back at Whittier UMC and all the other flower beds and gardens around, it is a growing season, with some early fruits of that growth already showing. For the church, too, this is a growing season. We continue to be in what we call Ordinary Time, the long summer of the church, which lasts from Pentecost until Advent. Though the rhythms of our Christian story, starting in Advent, then Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, all the way to Pentecost, are important for us to live and relive each year, this Ordinary Time is the dedicated time for us to focus on our growth as followers of Jesus Christ. And I think the Christians who’ve gone before us show a lot of wisdom in making this growing season the longest season in our Christian calendar. We all need that time to unfold and stretch, to dig deeper roots and to blossom.

In this growing season, we’ll continue to focus on listening to Jesus’ teachings in the gospel of Matthew. My hope is that each of us will be able to find again the Jesus who first called us to follow him and allow these teachings of Jesus to work on us as we grow in discipleship. I think I speak for all of us when I say that the world we live in sorely needs disciples of Jesus right now.

Now, Jesus is a great teacher. Sometimes, he offers us words of comfort, sayings that build us up and remind us of the beloved place God has for each of us in God’s heart. Sometimes, he nudges us, giving us just a little bit of wisdom that we can chew on throughout the week and learn how to apply to our own lives. And sometimes, he gives us words that cut right into us and challenge us, teachings that aren’t comfortable but will help us grow to be more like him.

Our scripture this week is, I think, the last of those. I know that I feel convicted as I read these words from the Sermon on the Mount and from later on in Matthew. He is teaching us how we are to resolve conflict between one another and how to handle disagreements. It’s such practical teaching, yet it is rooted in the enduring word of God, and so, of course, it challenges us. And in case we’re tempted to dismiss what Jesus has to say, remember that Matthew is the only gospel to use the word “church.” These teachings, as preserved in Matthew, are meant to speak directly to those first Christian gatherings that we would recognize as churches. They’re aimed specifically at how we are to interact with one another.

And remember, too, that the words from Matthew 5 are a part of the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus drew out his disciples from the crowds that followed him from all around Galilee, Judea, and even beyond the Jordan, and offered them the more difficult teachings that the crowd wasn’t ready for yet. In these teachings we’re focused on today, Jesus is calling us to rise above the worldly way of doing things. So he begins by affirming that what he’s teaching is rooted in the word of God, and that the word of God is fulfilled in him. Just Isaiah 55 and Psalm 65 remind us that the word of God goes out into the world and does not return empty, Jesus affirms that the law and the prophets aren’t abolished, but made complete in what he’s teaching. Jesus understands the spirit behind the commandments and calls us to understand them more fully.

He comes out strong with his first teaching of the fullness of the law. You have heard it said, “You shall not murder,” but Jesus tells us that not murdering is the low bar to jump over. If you are angry with a sibling in Christ or if you insult a sibling in Christ, you’ll have to answer to judgement just the same as if you murder. Jesus takes conflict seriously. So seriously, in fact, that before you can give your offering to God, you are to resolve any dispute you have with your siblings in Christ. That has stuck with me ever since I first read it. Before I can connect fully to God, I must restore my connections with my family in Christ. How many of us would need to take a week or two off of church if we followed this teaching of Jesus? Or how quickly would we come to the table and talk to one another if we truly believed Jesus’ teaching that before we can come to God, we must make things right with one another?

Now, I don’t mean to offer this as a stumbling block to any of us. As Paul says in Romans 8, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. This doesn’t mean that we won’t ever give into the temptation unresolved anger with one another, but it means that the Spirit is constantly working in us, calling us toward repentance and reconciliation. Being angry or having a fight with a sibling in Christ doesn’t mean that we’re kicked out of the church and separated from God. It means that the Spirit will always be with us, guiding us toward what we need to do in order to restore our relationships with one another.

In our second teaching today, from Matthew 18, Jesus gives us the blueprint for how we are to handle conflict with one another. First, we are to go directly to the person who has wronged us, who has sinned against us, to use Jesus’ language, and explain to them how they have wronged us, remembering always that this person is just as beloved in the eyes of God as we ourselves are. If that person is able to hear you and begin that rhythm of repentance we talked about a few weeks ago, the matter is resolved. You’re good. If they don’t hear you, though, it’s time to bring in a few others from the church and try again. It might be that having witnesses will encourage the person who has wronged you to listen to you and take your words more seriously.

Again, the goal isn’t to gang up on someone or to bully them into doing what you want. The goal is correction, knowing the belovedness of the other, repentance, and the restoration of relationship between siblings in Christ. If they don’t hear you then, bring the matter to the whole church. If the whole church isn’t able to convince them of the harm they’ve done, you’ve done all you can. It’s up to the Holy Spirit to work on that person’s heart until they’re able to realize what they’ve done and to turn away from the harm they’ve caused.

Now, here’s the piece that we miss in this conversation. It’s something that was so clear to Jesus and his disciples at the time that it went without saying, but we’ve forgotten it over time. In Jewish practice, forgiveness is always tied to repentance and restitution. When Peter says to Jesus, “How often do I have to forgive?” and Jesus says, “Seventy times seven,” meaning, “As many times as it takes,” Peter is referring to forgiving someone who’s repented and made the right steps toward making things better. For Jesus and Peter, it goes without saying that someone asking for forgiveness would have done the work needed to make things right. It’s in that case, when someone has repented and done all they can to make up for the harm they caused, when Jesus calls us to forgive.

What difficult words Jesus has for us in these teachings! When we have wronged somebody, we are called to the hard, hard work of understanding what we’ve done wrong, truly apologizing for it, doing the best we can to make it right, and committing to not doing that again. If someone has wronged us, we are called to do hard work of seeing that person as beloved and calling them to repentance. We cannot ignore the cracks in our fellowship that come with disputes. We must resolve them.

And we are to practice this in our churches because it’s even harder to this out in the rest of the world. As Christians, we’re called to always be thoughtful about what we’re doing and what we’ve done, always ready to repent when we learn that we’ve done something harmful and always ready to learn a better way. In theory, this way of resolving conflict should come naturally to us, though in many churches, we’re out of practice. But this kind of reflection and humility isn’t taught in the rest of the world. In the rest of the world, the strongest argument or loudest voice or most powerful person wins in any conflict, without any care for who is hurt in the process.

But my friends, if we follow Jesus, we can’t be like the rest of the world.

And so, this week, I invite you to practice what Jesus teaches us, even if you’re uncomfortable doing it at first. If you come into conflict with someone, remember that they are a beloved child of God, just as you are, and try to resolve the conflict as soon as you can, one-on-one. We don’t often take that first step, but it usually does the trick. And if it doesn’t, reach out for help. We’re never alone when we’re trying to make things right. If we take this step, we can be peacemakers. And if we’re peacemakers, Jesus tells us, we’re blessed.

Go and be blessed this week, my friends. Amen.

God Has Blessed America

A sermon for Sunday, July 5, 2020

Would you pray with me?

God whose love dwells within all creation, thank you for gathering us together. Make your presence known among us. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

I will ask your forgiveness at the beginning of this sermon, because I will speak first as a citizen of the United States and not first as a Christian. I have to admit, I’ve cried more than once this week singing along with “America the Beautiful.” They have been deep, cleansing tears, tears that come from a place of love and longing. This hymn has grown dearer to me throughout each of my nearly 32 years as a citizen of these United States of America. In recent years, the choruses of each verse have become the prayer of my heart for my country. “America! America! God mend thine every flaw… May God thy gold refine… God shed His grace on thee and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!”

God, I love the land I live on. It is gorgeous here. What astounding beauty our country is built upon! My soul is stirred by our mountains and soothed by our oceans. This land is full of soaring trees and rolling plains, rushing rivers and creek beds full of life. I am astonished by our cities and I feel at home in our towns. I am amazed and grateful that this is my home.

Yesterday, we celebrated Independence Day, and I had been longing for the promise of that day, the promise of freedom, for a long time. I long for a time when we truly “hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Knowing “that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.”

And yet, these former colonies have continued to struggle, even today, to live up to the ideals presented in the Declaration of Independence, whose signing we celebrated yesterday. We have struggled to be the America that we dream of being, the America that our hymns sing about. We have struggled to form a government that secures life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all. We have the vision of liberty and justice for all, but that vision remains out of reach.

In a way, our struggle to be America is much like our individual struggle to be Christians, to be as Christ-like as we long to be. We are like Paul in our epistle reading from Romans this morning. We know what is good and yet it is not the good we want to do but the evil we do not want to do that we do.

Still, Jesus calls our struggle blessed. He says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Our hearts are in the right place. I truly believe that. I believe that each of you, listening this morning, is one of the ones that Jesus calls blessed here. I believe that there are many in the United States who are blessed in this way. We hunger, we thirst for the goodness of God to be spread all around us, throughout this land that we love and within all of the people who live here with us. I do believe our founders hear the prophetic cry of freedom and took to revolution because of it.

And I do believe that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled.

But I also know that we’re not there yet.

And that’s what makes this moment in the United States such a frustrating and frightening time. We are on the precipice of something more like the kingdom of God. We’ve gone through an apocalypse, and I don’t mean to throw that word around lightly. Apocalypse comes the Greek word meaning uncover. I think a great uncovering has happened for many of us in the United States in the past few months. We have seen how vulnerable so many in our country are in times of sickness and unemployment. We have seen how the deep hurts of our history have followed us to today, from slaughter of people who the Declaration of Independence called “merciless Indian savages” to the compromise of counting Black enslaved people as three-fifths of a human. We are seeing, maybe more clearly than we have ever have before, how deep our hunger and thirst for righteousness is, and how much work is ahead of us before we’ll be filled.

But I trust that we will be filled. I trust Jesus when he tells us that the poor in spirit, the lost and downtrodden, are blessed with the kingdom of heaven. I trust Jesus when he tells us that those who mourn will be comforted, that the meek are blessed, that the merciful are blessed, that the pure in heart will see God, that peacemakers, the ones who seek the true, full peace of God, which is not an absence of tension but the presence of justice, that peacemakers will be called children of God.

My friends, my fellow children of God, I believe that we are blessed with these blessings Jesus gives out in the Sermon on the Mount, but I think we all know that these are uncomfortable blessings. They are the uncomfortable blessings for those who know what goodness is but find themselves unable to do all that goodness asks of us. They are the blessings of those who grow through struggling toward something better, toward a world that looks more like the kingdom of heaven. May we all keep in our hearts the vision of what America can be as we go through these coming months. May we all count these uncomfortable blessings as our own, knowing that God is working good in us and through us with these blessings.

I invite you to let the words of Langston Hughes in Let America Be America Again work on you this day. He casts for us a vision of what America can be, but is not yet. So let me send you to his words with this benediction, “A non-traditional Blessing,” popularly adapted from a prayer written by Sister Anna Rose Ruhland:

My friends, may God bless each of us and all of us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts.

May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, hunger, and war, so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done, to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Repentance

A sermon for Sunday, June 28, 2020

Would you pray with me?  

God who calls us all to repentance and the wholeness found only in you, thank you for gathering us together. Make your presence known among us. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.  

Before I begin the sermon, I want to take a moment, for the people who just watch the sermon, to let everyone know that due to the governor’s extension of phase 2, we won’t be meeting for in-person indoor worship until July 19th at the earliest. With cases on the rise in our part of the state, we’re following the bishop’s recommendation on this. I know that many of us are impatient to get back together, but the unfortunate reality is that gathering for indoor worship is one of the riskiest things that we can do and I don’t want to take the chance until the risk level is much lower.  

That said, we are doing in-person midweek worship in the fellowship hall on Wednesdays at 6pm, since that’s usually a smaller gathering. If you’d like more information about that, let me know. And if you are interested in trying outdoor worship, I’m open to seeing what we can do. We’ll keep offering online worship like this regardless until there’s a vaccine and it’s safe for all to come back to worship, so no matter what, you’ll have some opportunity to gather with us.  

In the meantime, I’d love it if we could gather with others to go through the full worship services we’ve been posting and create some house churches during this time. You’ll still need to be careful and maintain physical distancing, but even gathering with a few others can help us maintain that sense of community that we’ve been missing.  

That said, we as Whittier United Methodist Church are still out here being the church. Grace House is still operating, Gloria’s got two outreach fundraisers going on at her shop. Kay and Lynn have been helping her sanitize donations as they come in and Anthony even built her a plexiglass shield for the cash register. As I’m recording this on Thursday, Tony and Chris are working in the garden and Rita’s mowing the lawn.

Photo by Chris Espelage

Tesi and Alice Ann have been taking care of our roses and helping out in the garden too. Peggy and Eilene stopped by the church to pick up their Upper Rooms and Sam and Tonia have been coming to midweek worship. Carrol’s been going to Sunday School with Bryson City UMC and came to midweek worship, and we’ve even had a visitor stop by our online midweek worship—my friend Isaac from high school. Kathy Wiggins has been popping in to midweek worship and virtual coffee hour to say hello and offer some kindness and grace. Cathy Dunlap has been keeping up with our finances and we’re truly grateful for all the work she’s been doing. Pam Cope has been making sure we have all the supplies we need for reopening. Cozette called me the other day to let me know how she’s been doing—she’s one of the ones without internet that I’ve been sending sermons to. I’ve heard from many of you, like Sarah Malpass, that you’re checking in with one another and I’m glad that you’re still building whatever community you can in this time. As much as we all miss worshipping together in our sanctuary, we’re doing a pretty good job of proving the old axiom, the church is not the building.  

And so, let’s turn our attention to someone who never went to worship in a church building: Jesus. We pick up with his story in the gospel of Matthew right where we left off. He’s just come through his time of temptation in the desert and now, he’s beginning his ministry. Now, we don’t live in first-century Judea, so all these place names mean nothing to us. It’s important to Matthew’s gospel, though, and so let’s take a minute to learn the places.  

From Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey, by Mark Allan Powell.

Galilee is up here in the north of Judea. This is where Nazareth is, about halfway between the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean Sea, and here’s where Capernaum is, up at the top of the Sea of Galilee. Galilee is surrounded by Phoenicia to the north (where we get phonics from), Syria and Decapolis on the other side of the Jordan River, and Samaria, where the Samaritans live, to the South. This is why we have so many stories about Jesus interacting with Samaritans: Anytime he goes to Jerusalem from Galilee, he’s got to cross through Samaria.  

Now, John was baptizing way down here, in the Jordan down by Jericho near Jerusalem. The wilderness that John was living in and that Jesus went up into is down here in the southern part of Judea. That’s why it says that Jesus withdrew to Galilee when John was arrested. Tensions are high down near Jerusalem, with the arrest of John the Baptist. Jesus starts his ministry away from that mess.  

See, John had been challenging the religious leaders in Jerusalem and Herod, the ruler in the land. The leaders were nervous. There could be riots or even a full-scale revolt against Rome. It had happened before. And we hear people asking John if he’s the Messiah who’s to come, if he’s the one who’s going to start a new revolt, a new war, and overthrow Rome. It is both a spiritual and political act for Jesus to get baptized by John and for John to proclaim that Jesus is the one who he’s been preparing the way for. The people are looking for someone to bring change to their lives. They thought that maybe it was John, but John says it was Jesus.  

Jesus diffuses that situation by leaving the area around Jerusalem, but he doesn’t lay down the cause. He begins preaching just what John did: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”  

I want to return to this idea of repentance in a minute, but let’s see what he does next. Since he’s in Capernaum, he’s right by the Sea of Galilee and on the lake, he sees some fishermen: Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, and James and his brother John, the sons of Zebedee. We won’t get a full list of the twelve disciples yet, but we hear the story of these four being called. They’re fishermen but Jesus wants to make them fishers of men. What I want you to hear in that is that when you decide to follow Jesus, you don’t give up everything of who you are. In your life before Jesus, you’ve built up skills and hopes and desires and in many cases, those are good and given by God. Peter, Andrew, James, and John all know how to bring in fish. Jesus wants them to use their skills to bring in people.  

And even though his home is in Capernaum, Jesus travels throughout Galilee, preaching the good news of repentance and the coming kingdom and healing people: people with all sorts of sicknesses, even demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cures them. Great crowds follow him, some from Galilee, some from the Decapolis, which is right nearby, but some all the way from Jerusalem and other places in Judea, and some from the lands across the Jordan.

From Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey, by Mark Allan Powell.

Jesus left the movement near Jerusalem, but the movement came to hear him and to be healed by him, and so, they followed him.  

I think the movement and progression that we see here is key. John is down by Jericho and Jerusalem, down by Israel’s capital, testifying to the change that needs to happen in Israel and stirring up trouble doing it. People start to get hopeful. The people in power are noticing them. Maybe things will change. 

But then John gets arrested and the best person to take over the movement doesn’t push things in Jerusalem but heads back out to the countryside. The people still want change, and the ones who believe that Jesus can bring it are willing to go away from the places of power in order to seek it.  

And Jesus chooses not to do what John did, at least not yet. Jesus chooses to leave the stirring up for later. For now, at the beginning of his ministry, he focuses on preaching and healing.  

Now, this is the Jesus that I fell in love with. This Jesus, who has heard the cry of the people around him, who went to be baptized by John because he knew that things had to change. This Jesus, who chooses not to try to take power from political authorities but instead turns to teaching and healing. This Jesus, who knows that change has to happen at every level and everywhere, otherwise change will not last. This Jesus, who has such compassion for the people he encounters and such passion for the well-being of the people he hasn’t met yet.  

And so this wonderful, compassionate Jesus, starts off by telling us to repent. Now, I know repentance is a touchy subject for many of us, because we have only ever had repentance forced on us, and the repentance forced on us was filled with shame and guilt. But repentance is a part of our lives as Christians and it’s time that we reclaim it. So much of our healing and learning and growth begins with repentance, and that’s, I think, why Jesus starts his ministry with the same message as John.  

Repentance, when it’s done right, is a healthy thing, even if it’s painful sometimes. Repentance means understanding that you have done something harmful, feeling true regret and sadness because of that harm, and deciding to turn away from that harm. Repentance is something we must do over an over again in our lives as we understand God, ourselves, and others better. It’s a key part of what we Methodists call sanctification, becoming more holy, becoming more like Christ. As we live and move and breathe in this world, we’re impacted by the harmful things in it, many times through no fault of our own. Repentance is our way of clearing away harm, so that we can grow ever more like the one who brings healing instead of harm: Jesus.  

As we become used to a rhythm of repentance, of looking at ourselves, seeing what is harmful, and choosing to no longer do harm, we become better followers of Jesus. We become more humble, quicker to listen and learn, and more willing to offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God and to others through acts of service and kindness. We will, eventually, become more willing to do everything we can, including speaking out and taking action, when harm is done to others. I truly think our growth as disciples of Jesus Christ who long to be a part of this world’s transformation into something more like the kingdom of heaven begins in a rhythm of repentance. It’s why repentance and healing are so closely tied in Jesus’ ministry here in Galilee and beyond.  

Now, there’s much within ourselves that this rhythm of repentance can heal and in particular, we see right now that our broken racial relations here in the US are in need of healing. This, of course, happens at all levels, but we know that it must happen in our hearts too. Understanding the harm that we white people do to people of color, even without knowing we do it, is our first step in repentance. If we fully understand, we will feel that regret and sadness that will drive us to turn away from the harm we do. It’s not a one-time act of repentance. It is a daily rhythm as we work to heal the harm that white supremacy has done. In order to help us with that, I’ll be starting a small group that will meet here at the church to help us understand our role in the healing that’s needed. If you’re interested in starting this rhythm of repentance with me, let me know.  

Of course, there are more than just broken racial relations to repent of and to work on healing. We all have interpersonal broken relationships that could be healed by the rhythm of repentance. We have other biases, too, that we could learn to examine and repent of. The Spirit works within us when we practice repentance. The Spirit prods us into new understandings, comforts us in our sorrow, and strengthens us as we resolve to do differently. There’s a reason that the word spirit is connected to the word breath: the Spirit is constantly working within us, just as our breath is. If we work at it, if we find ourselves caught up in the healing rhythm of repentance, we’ll find this way of healing as natural to us as breath. It’s the work of a lifetime, but I believe that we can do it.  

Friends, we have covered a lot of ground today, from Jericho to Capernaum. We’ve followed Jesus from temptation to repentance and we trust that Jesus offers us healing too in this time. Don’t be scared of what Jesus has to teach us; after all, he calls you too, because the goodness inside you, the skills you already have, are precious and wonderful and necessary for the kingdom. Hear his words and let them work in you this week: Repent, for a light has dawned on us and the kingdom of heaven and all its goodness has drawn near.  

Amen. 

In the Desert

A sermon for Sunday, June 21, 2020

Would you pray with me?

God who knows our every temptation, thank you for gathering us together in this moment. Make your presence known among us. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

On Friday, our country celebrated Juneteenth. This year marked the 115th anniversary of June 19, 1865, when the last enslaved people in the South, living in Texas, received word of the Emancipation Proclamation and the freedom it granted them. It’s a holiday that I myself didn’t learn about until a few years ago and it brought joy to my heart to see the day so widely recognized. It felt like the world is breaking open, in the best possible way.

I say “breaking open” because, for many of us, that’s what’s happening. The world is breaking open and as the cracks widen, we’re beginning to see things we haven’t seen before. Sometimes, the breaking open of things is beautiful, like when you crack a geode open to see the gems inside.

Other times, it’s like tearing open a wall in an old house to find deadly mold growing everywhere. It’s frightening. It’s worrying. And it requires action. But in the midst of this breaking open, there’s still cause to give thanks. After all, once we know about the mold, we can do something about it.

We have a similar experience when we break open scripture. Some passages are exciting, giving us something bright and new to admire and ponder and receive joy from. But some passages aren’t, like our reading from Genesis today. Abraham banishes his first son, Ishmael, and Ishmael’s mother, Hagar, into the desert. This isn’t something we want to look at. This isn’t something we want to pay attention to. We want to hear the story of Abraham looking up at the stars and receiving God’s promise. We want to hear the story of Sarah laughing at the idea of having a child in her old age. We want to think about God’s faithfulness, which overcomes all obstacles.

But scripture doesn’t let us look away from Ishmael and Hagar in the desert. We can’t look away because God doesn’t look away. God sees Hagar and Ishmael in the desert. He sees this enslaved woman and her child, the child her master put within her, and God is faithful to her too. In the psalm, we hear echoes of Hagar and we are again reminded that we can’t look away from Abraham’s sin and the consequences of his actions, because God sees those in sorrow and desperation. God hears them and answers them. If we are striving to be more like Jesus, more like the Son of God, we have to do as God does. We have to look where God looks, even if we don’t want to.

With this backdrop in mind, let’s turn our attention to someone else in the desert: Jesus. We read the story of Jesus’ temptation in the desert back on the first Sunday of March, on the first Sunday of Lent. That feels like at least three years ago, though, so here’s a quick summary, in case you skipped the scripture videos:

• Jesus gets baptized by John the Baptizer.

• He’s led up into the wilderness by the Spirit and fasts for 40 days.

• The tempter tempts him with bread, angels, and power.

• Jesus beats the tempter and angels show up to wait on him.

And we love this story, right? We love this righteous, brilliant, strong Jesus, armed with scripture and standing up to the devil. It’s clear who’s wrong and who’s right. None of that complicated stuff that we have with the Abraham-Hagar-Ishmael mess.

It might be enough to know that Jesus, at the beginning of his ministry, was tempted and beat the temptation. That’s all that the gospel of Mark says. Mark 1:12 and 13 read, “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him” and that’s it. Jesus is tempted, just like us, but Jesus can beat it, and because we are united with Jesus, as Paul reminds us in Romans, we can beat it too. Bada-bing, bada-boom, sermon done. But Matthew and Luke seem to think that what Jesus was tempted with matters, because they both tell a much fuller story, so let’s look at those temptations.

First, Matthew makes a point to say that Jesus was famished, and so that would explain why the tempter would offer up bread first. “If you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread,” the tempter says, and Jesus says, “One does not live by bread alone but by every word that come from the mouth of God.”

It’s a quippy response, but it’s also a resonant one. The tempter wants Jesus to offer some proof that he’s the son of God and offers up an easy opportunity: just turn some stones into bread. You’re hungry. You may as well. Meet your own needs and show off your power. But Jesus doesn’t need that bread to prove to anyone that he’s the son of God: he’s just heard for himself that he is God’s beloved son, from God’s mouth to his ears at his baptism. And that knowledge is enough to fill him up. He’s got God’s words. He doesn’t need anything else. The world will scream its needs at you, as I’m sure Jesus’ belly screamed at him, but the world’s needs don’t change who you are. You are a beloved child of God.

Next, it’s a trip to the temple mount in Jerusalem, the pinnacle of the temple. Again, the tempter says, “If you are the Son of God,” but this time, there’s a new way for Jesus to prove himself, not to the tempter, but to everyone. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.” Everyone will see the angels as they come down to save you. Everyone in Jerusalem will know who you are. Start your ministry off with a miracle, Jesus. Get their attention right from the beginning.

And goodness, isn’t that tempting? What would we give if we could get the attention of the world, get their ears, and let them know the transforming love of Jesus? And in this scenario, it costs nothing! God has already promised to bear us up—the tempter even points to scripture to make the point. All Jesus has to do is jump, and he’ll be given a megaphone that no one can ignore. For that kind of benefit, I have to admit, I would hesitate on that ledge.

Jesus, as always, is better than me, and he reiterates his first point and answers scripture with scripture. Again, God has already answered the question. Jesus is God’s son. Jesus doesn’t need to test it. The saying is true and worthy of all acceptance. The world’s attention doesn’t change who you are. You are a beloved child of God.

The tempter saves the best for last, and, though Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts differ on the order of temptations, I like Matthew’s better. Atop a very high mountain, the tempter shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor and promises them to Jesus. The tempter, essentially, promises to do Jesus’ job for him. Because we know that at the end of all things, at the name of Jesus every head will bow. In the end, the astounding, unfathomable love of God reigns over all the earth. In this moment, the tempter offers Jesus the easy way out. No long ministry. No suffering. You can skip over all the pain and worry and struggle and strife.

Now, notice what happened this time. No more doubting whether or not Jesus is the son of God. This time, the tempter wants Jesus to doubt God. Doesn’t matter if you’re the beloved son of God if there’s someone out there more powerful than God.

And that’s the lie. That’s the lie Jesus has been wrestling with this whole time. The lie is that there is somehow another way besides God’s way, that there is somehow an easier way than God’s way, that there is somehow a better way than God’s way.

Don’t we all want to believe that? Aren’t we all tempted by that? There has to be an easier way than this, we tell ourselves. There has to be some way where we can both follow God and rest comfortably all our days. Isn’t that what Psalm 23 tells us?

And isn’t that what we all long for right now? There must be some way to both hear the suffering of Hagar and honor the legacy of Abraham. Or, to put it in contemporary terms, there must be some way to hear and respond to the suffering of Black people in these United States without confronting and continuing to confront how white people benefited from their suffering. In these times of tumult, doesn’t God promise us comfort?

How tempting it is to bow to the comfort of white supremacy instead of following God’s way.

But, if we are following Jesus, we can’t help but love and worship God and God alone. And God, as scripture tells us over and over again, from Genesis to the psalms to the gospels to Revelation, hears the cry of the suffering and enslaved. God has always been on the side of the oppressed, even if we haven’t.

And hear me when I say this: even if you haven’t always been on the side of the oppressed, you are still a beloved child of God. Abraham still inherited the promise, even though he dismissed Hagar. No matter what the devil says, you are loved, deeply and wholly, and nothing in this world can change that. But we must learn from the example of Abraham. He and Sarah doubted that God would be able to fulfill God’s promise, and so Sarah told Abraham to impregnate Hagar, whether Hagar wanted it or not, in order to make God’s promise happen. Then, when God was faithful, as God has always promised to be, Sarah dismissed Hagar and Ishmael. She banished the reminder of her doubt and her shame. How often have we done the same.

My ancestors did not trust that God would provide enough for us all. They chose to enslave or benefit from the enslavement of people stolen from their homes in Africa, transported in horrifying conditions across the Atlantic, and made to work without pay or hope of freedom, in harsh conditions, so that white people could remain comfortable. And even when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863, it took two and a half years for the news of their freedom to reach enslaved people in Texas on June 19th, 1865. The war would have to be won before enslaved people in parts of Maryland and Virginia were completely and finally freed. And even after that, my ancestors would continue to benefit from and participate in laws and systems designed to keep freed Black people down.

Believe me, I want to bow down to the tempter. I want there to be an easy way to fix this. I don’t want pain, nor do I want to cause others pain. But my friends, there is no way but God’s way. There is no easy way. We have to look at our history, our past and our present, as God sees it, which is through the eyes of the oppressed. As tempting as it is, we white people have to go through the pain of this moment and many other moments besides. After this moment, there must still be a reckoning for our Indigenous, Latinx, migrant, and poor neighbors. This moment is not our last moment of pain.

But my friends, we must follow the example of Jesus. We must say that there is no way other than God’s way. We must trust that we are God’s beloved children, because God has already spoken it, and that God will not abandon us as we do this work, because God has spoken that too. If we reject the easy path, the tempter’s path, and if we choose to confront the pain rather than to let it pass us by, God has promised to be with us. And angels will be with us. Angels like James Weldon Johnson, Sojourner Truth, Richard Allen, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bayard Rustin, Marsha P. Johnson, Toni Morrison, Angela Davis, James Cone, Zora Neale Hurston, Katie Cannon, Jacquelyn Grant, Renita Weems, Audre Lorde, Maya Angelou, Octavia Butler, Michelle Alexander, Angie Thomas, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Ibrahim Kendi. Angels like the Charleston 9: Rev. Dr. Clem Pinckney, Cynthia Hurd, Rev. Sharonda Singleton, Tywanza Sanders, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, Myra Thompson, Depayne Middelton-Doctor, and Rev. Daniel Simmons. If we follow the way of Jesus, we will be surrounded by these saints and martyrs, these faithful beloved of God, and we will find God’s way forward, even though it may be difficult for us.

My friends, beloved children of God, we are in the desert, in the middle of temptation. Let us live the lives Christ calls us to live.

Amen.

Are You the One?

A sermon for Sunday, June 14, 2020

Would you pray with me?

God, our burden is heavy, but you have promised us a light yoke. Draw us together in this moment and draw us to you. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Church, I confess, I was not prepared for this. I was not prepared for this pandemic. I was not prepared for this moment in our nation’s history. On top of all of this, I was not prepared for preaching this summer.

This week, I erased the white board in my office, with all of the worship planning I had done for January to July. I erased the weekend off for my friend’s wedding, now postponed until the fall. I erased the next weekend, the half marathon in DC. I erased the dates for General Conference, which will now happen in 2021, and the dates for Annual Conference, which will be condensed into one day in the fall. I erased my plans for digging into Genesis texts over these next few weeks. The world is a different place than it was when I planned these months of worship, when June seemed so far away. I’m in a different place that I was in January. The slate needed to be cleaned.

But erasing that board left me with a blank slate and I’ve been thinking all week about how to fill it. I’m a lectionary preacher, as you know, which means that I tend to follow the church calendar and the schedule of texts known as the Revised Common Lectionary. I do this because the lectionary holds the wisdom of centuries and sometimes, when I don’t know what to say, the lectionary brings before me the right text for such a time as this. But as I looked over the lectionary texts for this summer and into the fall, this season we know as ordinary time, in these days that are anything but ordinary, I found myself struggling. While there were texts that appealed, they jumped between testaments and genres and timelines. I struggled to make order out of the chaos, and what little order I could make left my soul tired. I needed something else.

What I’ve figured out over this past week is that what I need is Jesus. That’s what rang through my spirit as I listened to Ahnnalise’s sermon last week. I need Jesus. I need to hear from the one who went to the cross to save me and the one who abides with us all still, the one who walked through the chaos of his day offering healing and hope, challenge and comfort. I need a good, long season sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to all he has to say.

Because I have the same question that John the Baptizer had in the passage that Ahnnalise preached from. “Are you the one? Are you the one we’ve been waiting for? Or is there another?”

Or, let’s put it another way. Over and over again, we call Jesus our savior. Is he the one who can save us again now?

It’s genuinely a question. Can Jesus save us now? Does Jesus have anything to say for the world we live in now? Is he the Messiah, the Savior, we’ve all been waiting on, to get us through these hard times?

I’ve sat with the Baptizer’s question all week. It could be that there’s someone else that we should be listening and looking to right now, someone who builds off of what Jesus says and speaks to our current moment. It could be that we should turn to the prophets or to Paul or to the psalms. There are other voices to hear in our time. I’ve searched around and listened and done my best to find some place to point us toward.

And yet, I keep coming back to Jesus. Jesus, whose every sentence in the Sermon on the Mount challenges our hearts. Jesus, who speaks in parables that return new wisdom each time we read them. Jesus, who pours healing from his lips from the instant he begins preaching. Jesus, who can’t help but bring good news to the poor. Jesus, a savior born into a world longing for a Messiah, a world full of people crying out for salvation from oppression. Yes, I think Jesus is the one we’ve been waiting on.

See, many of us today miss the point of John’s question, because we don’t live in first-century Roman-occupied Palestine. But what I think we’ve seen over the past few months is that our world has more in common with Jesus’ than we thought before. Sickness is all around us, and we fear it. Many physicians have been working as hard as they can, but it is hard to find healing in the land.

And the people are restless, just as they were in Jesus’ day. In Jesus’ day, Rome ruled, but Rome was not just. Rome enforced the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome, by killing anyone who stood up to them and taxing everyone else deeper into poverty. Weapons and wealth ran the world in Jesus’ day, and the religious authorities knew it. While the poor and the sick languished under Roman rule, they had to pay another tax at the temple, to get right with God. And God have pity on anyone who tried to disrupt Rome or the Temple.

Because less than a hundred years before Jesus, a Roman general named Pompey laid siege to Jerusalem, desecrated the Temple, and installed Roman rule over Judea. No rebellions, no war. Just taxes and poverty, sickness and violence. And so you have a people longing, crying out for freedom, crying out for a messiah, crying out for a savior, someone who stop the tyranny and the deaths of the police state they were living under.

See, that’s why John the Baptizer was arrested. Because he challenged Herod, Rome’s puppet governor, and he challenged the religious elite. He started stirring things up. He made people believe that the world didn’t have to be the way it was. He gave people hope. And now, he’s turning to Jesus, to see if Jesus can make good on his promise of hope.

And Jesus says yes. Jesus says, “Look what I’m doing! See what is happening! John, if you can’t believe that I am the one, I don’t know what to tell you!

“But… I’m not exactly the one you think I am. I am here for those who are heavy burdened. I am here for those who are weighted down. I am here for those who don’t know where else to go. I love them, with all my being. Come to me, you who are weary, and I will give you rest.”

See, John, John didn’t promise rest. John didn’t speak with peace on his mind. John and Judas and all the disciples, they wanted some who could rise up against Rome. They wanted someone who could win. They wanted someone who could stand toe to toe with the powers of this world. But Jesus… Jesus is going to be someone different. Jesus has different ideas. Jesus doesn’t just want to upend the world we live in and free us from the sin in it, Jesus wants to bring about the reign of God, a new creation. All things made new. I think that if we walk with Jesus for these next few months, if we listen to what he has to say, I think we’ll be different too. Because I think now, more than ever, we need our savior.

In the middle of the pain we’re all living through, we need Jesus.

In the middle of all of the disunity and upending this world has to offer, we need Jesus.

In the middle of the hate and anger and vitriol that we have learned to swim in each and every day, we need Jesus.

Honestly? You can have everything else.

Just give me Jesus.

Just give me my savior.

Amen.

Gifts of the Spirit

A sermon for Pentecost 2020

Today is the day of Pentecost, the day we remember the giving of the Holy Spirit to the disciples. Sometimes we call it the Church’s birthday, and I think it’s beautiful that we do that. We mark our birth not on Good Friday, when God died and the whole world changed  and not on Easter Sunday, when God showed us that even death could not keep God away from us, but from Pentecost, when the wind rushed in and tongues of fire rested on the disciples. We are Spirit-filled people. That is who we are.

And it’s amazing to me the variety of things the Spirit can do with us. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that through the Spirit, we can share wisdom and knowledge and we can discern. I know those sound like overly intellectual gifts, but I can testify that the Spirit has been present as I’ve talked to each of you and you’ve shared your wisdom about this community and about faith. The Spirit has been present as you’ve shared your knowledge with me, from what to plant in our garden and when to plant it to the best way to cook Brussel sprouts and so many other things beside. I’ve seen the Spirit work within all of us as we’ve discerned the best way to get through this pandemic as a church community. Formal education can help, but we’ve seen over and over again that the Spirit is always ready to help us know the things we need to know.

But Paul also names those other gifts of the Spirit, the ones that we’re a little less comfortable with these days: prophesy, speaking in tongues, and interpreting tongues. We hear Moses speaking about prophesy in our first reading today and we all know the story of Pentecost, how the disciples were able to speak to others in their own languages. While there are many understandings of prophecy and speaking in tongues out there, and I want to leave the door open for all the ways the Spirit can genuinely work within us Spirit-filled people, I want to offer you my thoughts about both of those gifts of the Spirit this morning.

So first, prophecy. I want to center this understanding of prophecy in the tradition of the biblical prophets, prophets like Nathan and Elijah and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Amos. For them, prophecy is not so much about predicting the exact day and time that events will happen or making general predictions about the future, as we might first think when we hear the word, “prophet” or “prophesy.” That’s the understanding that the soldiers have when they blindfolded Jesus and told him to prophesy about who hit him. That’s not the understanding I want to draw on today.

For these biblical prophets, it’s much more about seeing the world around them as it truly is, hearing from God how the world should be, and proclaiming that difference to anyone who could listen, sometimes with words and sometimes with actions. Jeremiah buys a field in the middle of a war against Babylon to put his money where his mouth is: the Lord has told him that, against all odds, the land of Israel will be restored and Jeremiah is preparing for that restoration. Isaiah prophesies that a young woman will conceive to remind the king that life will go on regardless of the king’s choice, but the king’s choice will impact the quality of life that goes on. Nathan comes to David with a story of a lamb stolen from a poor man by a rich man to convict David of his crime. Jesus overturns the money changer’s tables in the Temple, naming the corruption that made coming to God a burden for the poor.

Prophecy, then, isn’t so much about predicting what might happen in an individual life, but seeing the writing on the wall for all of our lives and witnessing to the change that needs to happen. Spirit-filled people with the gift of prophecy have a gift of seeing and saying, a gift of perceiving and proclaiming, even when that knowledge makes others uncomfortable. We have prophets today who proclaim, “Black lives matter” and “No justice, no peace” because these are Spirit-filled words. All lives matter to God, but after having seen over and over again the instances where Black lives are treated as inconsequential, the Spirit moves prophets to proclaim to us the truth God wants us to see. Prophets remind us, in the face of actions that speak to the contrary, black lives matter too. And our prophets today remind us, as prophets throughout scripture have, that peace is not simply the absence of violence, it’s the presence of justice. It is, after all, the Biblical prophet Amos who declares, “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Until that happens, any peace we have will be temporary at best.

I hope and pray each of you is able to hear me with an open heart as I say these things. I know that they might not be easy to hear. I know it sounds like coded, partisan political talk, but I don’t believe that to be true. I will never tell you that you need to register for one political party or another. I won’t tell you who to vote for. I want to leave plenty of space for healthy discussion about policies because there can be healthy disagreement about how to solve problems. You are wise, knowing, discerning people and there is always space for discussion among wise, knowing, discerning people, especially when we ask for the Spirit’s blessing in our conversations. I say these things because I believe they are rooted in the Biblical witness and because I genuinely believe the Spirit is at work in our world and has been at work in our world. I say these things because I believe that on this particular Pentecost, in the wake of the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, and I do think we have to call them murders, the Spirit is calling us to awaken to the work of the Spirit.

But, as Paul says, and no matter how much Moses might wish it, not all of us are given the gift of prophecy. The Spirit rests on us according to our ability, which is why I think the Pentecost story is so important for us this morning. When the Holy Spirit rests tongues of fire on the disciples, they’re able to talk to others in their own language, even though they’ve never studied it or learned it. Thousands of people are able to hear the gospel in their own language. With that language barrier gone, we see the truth of the gospel sticking. People are able to hear one another and be heard, to understand and be understood. It is the miraculous work of the Spirit that enables this to happen.

And if you’ve ever tried to communicate with someone across a language barrier, you know how important language is. If you’ve ever studied a foreign language, you know just how much is overcome by learning the language. As you learn the language, you learn culture and you learn mindsets, all sorts of things that are shaped by language. We see this all the time as we read the Bible. There’s a joke in the Hebrew that just doesn’t come through in translation. There’s an idiom in Greek or Aramaic that we miss when we look at the plain words. Speaking the same language as someone else lets you understand them more deeply, more fully, than you would otherwise.

I think that this Pentecost, the Spirit has gifted us all with tongues. I don’t mean literally speaking in other languages or speaking in the language of the angels, but being able to speak with one another and to speak with others and to be understood.

In the midst of this week, Black people in the United States have been sharing their stories. They’ve been sharing them online and directing people to books. The floodgates have opened and those of us who are not Black have been given the gift of beginning, in the small ways that we can, to understand what it’s like to be Black in the United States. The Spirit has opened up this metaphorical language to us. All we have to do is listen. Listen and learn and trust that we are being guided by the Spirit in this time.

And I know that this, too, is a difficult thing. I love my country. I love its natural beauty and I love so many of the ideals that we hold tight to. I believe so deeply in freedom that it’s become central to how I talk about salvation. I believe that Jesus came to set us free, to unbind us from all that holds us back from abundant life. I also believe that one of the things Jesus can set us free from is white supremacy in all its forms, because we ourselves cannot have abundant life until all have abundant life. This is the gospel message that we are convicted with when we listen to the stories of Black and brown people living in this country. The freedom those of us who are white experience is so very often not experienced by others. This is a difficult thing to hear. This is hard to grasp. This is difficult to admit. And yet, this Pentecost, in the midst of all these stories from our Black siblings, the Spirit is waiting, giving us the strength to wrestle with this difficult thing.

My friends, I invite you this week to remember that we are Spirit-filled people. God will neither forsake or abandon us, even as we confront difficult things. God will be right beside us as we weep with those who weep and as we feel our hearts dragged into despair alongside those who have endured so much loss and lived with so much trauma. God will guide us to the voices that we need to hear, the Spirit giving us the gift of tongues that we might understand. And while I’m hesitant to claim a gift of the Spirit for myself, I trust that the Spirit has made me an interpreter of tongues. If you are struggling with the events of this week, or with this sermon, or with why all of this matters, let me know. We’ll set up a time to talk. These are important things to talk about.

And we’ll start each conversation by praying for the Spirit to be among us. May the Spirit of Pentecost be with us all, now and always. Amen.

Scream

I want to open up my mouth and never stop screaming. I want my life to be turned into a never-ending wail, a siren marking and mourning all the deadly pain that this world bears. I want to screech, I want to shout, I want a sound as clear as a bell tone to come out of me, shot through with the horror of this place, this country. I want to scream.

I want to scream through every second of the video of George Floyd’s murder. I want to scream as I hold the bleeding head of a black girl injured at the protest after. I want to scream over Amy’s 911 call. I want to scream for Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. I want to scream for them all, every name that is now a hashtag, every family with an empty place, every person traumatized again and again by the news, every mother teaching her children how to behave around cops, every father praying to come home each day. I’ll scream until the atmosphere runs out of oxygen.

I want to scream for every person who is still incarcerated during this pandemic, trapped as the virus ravages those inside the prison walls. I want to scream for every person whose symptoms are ignored, have always been ignored. I want to scream for those who couldn’t get tested, those who couldn’t get a hospital bed, those who can’t trust the hospitals and died at home instead. I want to stand and scream outside nursing homes and meat processing plants and by fields and in Amazon warehouses, all the places where humans are disposable. I want to pace in overflowing morgues and around mass graves, a living banshee conjured by these days we’re living in.

I want to scream at the gravesides of every missing and murdered Indigenous woman and girl.

I want to scream through each and every one of my days. I want to scream for the chaplains on the COVID ward. I want to scream for my Asian American friends who have walked home shaking from slurs that have been hurled at them. I want to scream for my partner, harassed while wearing a face covering. I want to scream for the woman trying and failing to cover up her bruises with makeup. I want to scream for the hungry who come back, asking why there’s no meat in our food pantry boxes. I want to scream for the people who have overdosed during the pandemic. I want to scream for the desperately lonely. I want to scream for myself.

I want to scream with all that I have. I want to reach down into this soil and scream along with the blood soaked into it. I want to be dropped through the centuries, screaming for each act of violence, screaming as if, somehow, the sound would awaken humanity within the oppressors and cause them to change their ways. I want to wail in the face of every person possessed by white supremacy, because a white woman’s screams are the only screams they hear.

I want to lose myself in the screaming. My throat is already raw from holding the screaming in. So many dead, so many lives ruined, generation after generation, that the only response is an undying wail and I long to voice it, to give myself over to it. God, let me scream. Let me weep and shriek. Perform a miracle on me, on my vocal cords and my lungs so that I can keep up the deafening despair until the reasons to scream are gone.

Find me in the scream, Holy One.

Enter into this pain and make it whole.

And when I am empty again, because I know you will give me the gift of being empty again, fill my lungs once more and let me breathe. Begin to teach me again tenderness of heart, and grace, and love. Stretch out my muscles and set my bones aright. Restore my voice and my mind. Steady my feet.

Send me out, so that I may teach others how to hear the screams, that we may all one day be whole.

Amen.

Home

A sermon for Sunday, May 10, 2020

Would you pray with me?

God who is our home, thank you for gathering us together. Make your presence known among us and may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Jesus’ words this morning have me thinking about homes. See, this passage comes from what we call Jesus’ farewell discourse, after they’ve shared the Last Supper together but before they head out to the garden, where Jesus will be arrested. And Jesus kicks off his farewell discourse, his last message to the disciples, by talking about houses; specifically, he talks about his Father’s house. It hit me as I read this passage again this week that Jesus thinks of his Father’s house as his home. And where Jesus is home, everyone is home. There are many dwelling places. There’s room enough for all, a place prepared for us, a place that is ready to welcome us in.

That’s what transforms this passage from talking about houses to homes to me. We all know that a house or trailer or apartment, wherever you live, isn’t necessarily a home. A place to live can be just that: a place to live. It takes something more to make a house a home. It takes preparation. It takes attention. It takes welcome. It takes love. A home is a place where you’re wanted. Anything else is just a house.

But wherever Jesus is, we are wanted. Wherever Jesus is, we are loved.

It’s taken me all this time to hear that in the context of this passage, because the rest of it seems so transactional. You have Phillip, whose longing is in the right place, but who misses the point. Phillip longs to see who he thinks is God: he wants to see God the Father. He doesn’t realize that God is standing right in front of him.

And the way I’ve heard this passage talked about before, Jesus is almost taken out of it. You want to see the Father? Believe in Jesus. All you have to do is believe. All you have to do is say the right words and you’ll see the Father.

But calling someplace home doesn’t make it a home, just by wanting it to be, and you cannot simply say that you believe in Jesus and see God. What does Jesus himself say? “I am the way, the truth, the life.” Jesus. Jesus himself. Embodied, fully God, fully human Jesus. The way to the Father is not through saying the right words or following the right rituals, it’s through Jesus. It’s with Jesus. It’s following Jesus, doing as he does, speaking as he speaks, loving as he loves. If we’re following Jesus, the Spirit is at work in us at this very moment, making us fit for the homes that Jesus tells us are being prepared for us.

What does it take to prepare a home? I know many of us who have been at home during this time can name off plenty that they’ve done to prepare their home: finishing floors, cooking and cleaning, washing windows. On this Mother’s Day, I’m sure some of us can think of how our mothers worked to prepare our homes, as mothers are often expected to do, filling, arranging, and maintaining the inside space that makes up a home. I know others of us can think of women who filled that mothering roll in our lives, pouring in love and support and nurturing when our birth mothers couldn’t, letting us into their own homes from time to time so we would know what a home feels like. I’m sure there are others of us who have been that mothering presence to others, building a safe, loving space, helping to make a living place more homey, for people in their lives. Goodness knows some among us have mothered ourselves, using our home-building instincts to create homes within and for ourselves. All of this mothering can be honored this day, mixed in with the sadness of mothering that didn’t happen or hasn’t happened yet. As any mother, or any hopeful mother, can tell you, the work of preparing not only a house, but a space called a home, is difficult, complicated, grace-filled work.

And yet, Jesus tells us we will do greater things than he has done. Jesus has gone to prepare homes for us, to be a mother to us in a place where we are wanted and loved, and has given us the Spirit so that we might do even greater things than that. What might those great things look like?

Today, friends, I invite you to think about how you make a home. Look around the space you’re in and dream about the many mansions that God has prepared for us. What does that home look like? What does it smell like? What does it feel like? Who all is there? Imagine the perfect love in that place, the place that Jesus is bringing us to, the place that the Spirit is preparing us for. And then, imagine that home here on this Earth, a place prepared for all the people this planet holds. What might that great thing look like? How can we make that home? How can each of us be mothers for others?

Go forward into this week with these dreams in your heart. Go forward into this week and build greater dreams than these. Go forward in the love of God, the father and mother of us all. Amen.

Sheep

A sermon for May 3rd, 2020

Would you pray with me?

God our shepherd, thank you for gathering us together. Make your presence known among us. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Before I dig into the sermon, I’m happy to announce that I’ve been reappointed here at Whittier for another year. It means another year of being in community together, learning all that we can from one another, and doing all the good we can together. It also means for y’all another year of my sermons. They say that preachers only really have one, maybe two, types of sermons, and so, in that spirit, I want to offer you a standard “Historical Context Surprise” sermon. Here goes.

I had always been confused by this passage when I read it, and most of the time I wrote that confusion off as a lack of knowledge about how shepherding works. I guessed that there was a sheep pen that the sheep were herded into at night and then let out again in the morning, like a barn for cows, so it’d make sense that the shepherd would come in through the gate. But then, if the sheep are shut up all night, why wouldn’t the thieves just use the gate? They have hands. And how is the good shepherd any different from the bandits, in the end? I mean, isn’t the shepherd eventually going to kill the sheep too?

But I learned something this week that changed the whole passage for me. Sheep were primarily used for sacrifice in the Temple. Jesus is talking about the Temple sheepfold. Sheep were herded into the sheepfold through the gate and the only way out was death on an altar.

Knowing this changes the whole story for me. It reorients the metaphor. If these are sacrificial sheep, in the current Temple system, they were never going to be led out by their shepherd. They were only ever going to be taken into the Temple by the priests to be slaughtered or stolen by “bandits,” which is a code word in Jesus’ time for insurrectionists or rebels, like Jesus Barabbas, people who wanted to undermine the religious leaders because they were too close to Rome. This system doesn’t work out too well for the sheep. Their lives are either stolen by the Temple in order to maintain the status quo and keep the powerful in charge or they’re stolen by rebels who use their lives as a bargaining tool to get what they want. No one in this system cares about the sheep.

Except for the shepherd, the shepherd who comes in by the gate, like one of the sacrificial sheep. The shepherd doesn’t want to steal their lives. This shepherd, the good shepherd, wants to lead the sheep to life abundant, out to green pastures where they can have all they need. The good shepherd rejects sacrifice. The good shepherd would rather lay down his life than see one more sheep sacrificed. And it’s not only the sheep being sacrificed here. It’s sheep in other folds too.

See, most people understand Jesus’ death on the cross as the ultimate sacrifice, the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. But what we see here is that even before his death, Jesus was rejecting sacrifices altogether, as had the prophets before him. Jesus understood that God asks for mercy rather than sacrifice, to loose the chains of injustice and set the oppressed free, to seek justice and love kindness, to give ourselves as holy and living sacrifices. Jesus doesn’t make the final sacrifice on the cross—we do. We sacrifice the Lord of All Creation on Good Friday and on Easter Sunday, he rises and shows us that sacrifice was never what was needed.

And so the Good Shepherd leads the sheep out, away from the sacrifice, away from the world that asks for everything from them and gives them nothing in return and out into the pastures of abundant life. No more sacrifices. No more death.

Best of all, Jesus tells us that we know this voice. We know the voice that leads us from death to life, the voice that says that everyone matters and that no one is forgotten or left behind or left alone. The shepherd knows his sheep and his sheep know him. We always know Jesus’ voice, the voice that calls us to abundant life.

Friends, we have a long year ahead of us. I don’t say this in despair. It’s a matter of fact. It feels like we’re in the sheepfold and not in the pasture. But we know that we are being led by the Good Shepherd who is calling us to life and life abundant for all. As long as we’re listening to his voice, we can get through anything. Amen.

Let me leave you with this benediction, written by Steve Garnaas-Holmes:

“Come in and rest.
Go out and serve.
Find pasture.

Hear the voice from within.
Hear the voice from beyond.
Answer.

The voice unlike, challenging.
The voice familiar, calming.
Follow.

In green pastures,
in death-shadowed valleys,
want nothing.

Both centered
and engaged,
whole.”

Go out and be whole, friends.

Dealing With Uncertainty

A sermon for April 26th, 2020

Our two passages this morning are both passages about living in uncertain times. 1st Peter is talking to the church “in exile,” in a time of fearfulness and hiding, the early church’s time of persecution and separation from Jesus’ physical presence on Earth. The disciples walking on the Road to Emmaus are in another, shorter period of uncertainty, leaving Jerusalem on the Sunday after Jesus’ death, not sure if the resurrection is really real or not.

These scriptures fit the moment we’re living in, but they also fit liturgically; at least, they do if you’re Jewish. It’s currently Omer, the time between the Jewish festivals of Pesach (Passover) and Shavuot, the festival celebrating receiving the law on Mount Sinai. Our Christian calendar actually follows the same basic time frame between Easter and Pentecost; Pentecost is actually based on Shavuot. But while this Christian season of Easter is supposed to be a time of celebration, in Judaism, Omer is a time of wandering, uncertainty, and mourning. It’s the time of wilderness wandering between being freed from the familiar oppression of Egypt and receiving the new reality of the law on Sinai.

Our life right now feels more like Omer than Easter, and these passages fit right in.

But these passages also give us an idea of what to do in uncertain times and that’s what I want to offer you today. There are four things that stick out to me as I read through these two passages.

(1) Name what you’re feeling.

The story of the road to Emmaus describes the disciples as being sad. It seems like a simple description, something we’d use when talking to our children about their small feelings, but the Greek work actually conveys a deep sorrow of the soul. (Which, to be honest, some of our children are perfectly capable of feeling.) And when the stranger who approaches them on the road asks them what’s going on, they don’t hold back. They’re honest about their feelings and their situation. And that honesty is what opens the door for what Jesus has to tell them.

It’s important for us to be honest about what we’re feeling in this time. Life isn’t normal. We can’t just carry on as if nothing is happening. The sadness, grief, anger, and confusion that we feel, we need to be honest about all of those things. That’s the only way goodness can come in.

At the same time, we need to be aware of circles of grief. We should always be pouring comfort in and frustration out. (Click here for information about circles of comfort and grief.) It’s important to be honest about our feelings, but, at the same time, aware of what those around us are going through.

(2) Keep your eyes open to new ideas.

While the disciples are honest about their feelings, there’s something stopping them from hearing the good news of the resurrection. The women have returned from the tomb and told everyone what they saw, but these disciples didn’t believe them. Even with firsthand, eyewitness testimony, they don’t have room for hope in their hearts. They’re deep in grief. Even Jesus, opening the scriptures to them, isn’t visible to them. They can’t see the hope right in front of their faces.

Now, we live in a world where it’s difficult to trust the hope that we see. We live in a world where it’s hard to find the reliable sources among the unreliable ones. But that doesn’t mean that we need to be closed off. There is still real hope out there, and real information. It takes time to find it, but it is there.

(3) Ground yourself in normal things.

And that brings me to what is maybe the most profound part of the Emmaus passage for me. It’s not in the theological arguments or biblical interpretation that they recognize Jesus—it’s in something so normal, something they’ve probably seen him do a thousand times: the breaking of the bread. We remember it when we remember the Last Supper, of course, but Jesus was likely the one to be giving thanks, and we certainly know that he was the one sharing the food around. In this regular, everyday thing, they recognized Jesus. The normal thing is what cut through their despair and uncertainty.

Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio

Hard as it is to believe, there are still plenty of normal things happening around us. Flowers are blooming, butterflies are flying, bees are buzzing. Children are playing and laughing and fighting with one another. We eat and we drink. We clean. We exist. While much has changed, there’s much that has not. When the world around you feels uncertain and unmanageable, take a moment and look for the normal. Look for the normal, everyday things. These things can be sacred to us now. They can remind us of the hope and love and goodness that anchor us, in good times and bad.

(4) Love one another deeply from the heart.

1st Peter picks up where the Emmaus passage leaves off, I think. Once we’ve named what we’re feeling, kept ourselves open to whatever hope can come our way, and have grounded ourselves in normal things, we’re ready to do what 1st Peter calls us to do, which is to love one another deeply from the heart. Sometimes, I think, Christianity is too hard for us humans to handle, because our faith asks us to be kind in times of crisis and patient in times of panic and loving in times of despair. But if we’re learning from the Emmaus passage, if we’re grounding ourselves as we need to be grounded, God can begin to do good work in and through us, and that good work will look like love.

God will be with us and see us through this uncertain time. We’ve seen God do it over and over again in the past and God is always faithful to keep promises. And the good practices that we form now, in this time of uncertainty, we can carry with us into a time of certainty. Whether the world around us is uncertain or not, if we can name what we’re feeling, keep ourselves open to hope, ground ourselves in the sacred of the everyday, and love one another deeply from the heart, God will be able to do wonderful things in and through us.

Amen.

Buds

The day after I moved, sight unseen, into my house last July, I noticed with delight that there was a rose bush out front. The bed it was planted in was overgrown, sure, and it was choked with vines, but it was still a rose bush, like the one that grew up and around the entrance to the house I grew up in. The rose bush made me feel safe and at home and I determined then and there to do my best to tend it.

And tend it I did. I pulled the weeds from the bed, I disentangled the vine that had been choking it, and I pruned the plant. I checked it almost daily for blooms, even though it wasn’t the season for roses. It was the brightest day of my month when I saw a little red bud, reaching up to the sky from a branch pinned to the wall by the cable cords that run across the length of the house. It was life, undeterred. Life, striving to be. Life, producing beauty in the face of neglect. I felt a little flicker of hope.

Writing in parables and extended metaphors comes naturally to me. Maybe it’s the lifetime in church or maybe I’m too lazy to generate something completely novel when a perfectly good literary structure is sitting right there in front of me, but either way, I’m at home in a parable. I’m not surprised that in the midst of a particularly chaotic time in my life, full of strange newness and despair, I would gravitate toward this rose bush and hitch my star to its wagon.

Seminary was difficult for me. Not the academic content— that was easy enough. But the poking and prodding I had to do into myself, the emotional awareness I felt forced to develop, that was rough for me. I had spent my life building up ever-thicker walls around myself, as those with childhood trauma tend to do, and I didn’t really see the need to tear them down. Generations of pastors before me had had perfectly fine ministries without challenging their toxic masculinity or delving into the depths of their pain. I resented the emotional work that seminary put in front of me. Add into that mix the fallout from the 2016 election and the #MeToo movement, plus facing the bullshit the Purity Movement put me through, and it’s no great wonder that I walked out of seminary with boatloads of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation.

This, of course, is the perfect mental state to begin pastoral ministry with. Don’t @ me.

And so, in addition to finding a new therapist and going on antidepressants, I clung to the rosebush to help me make sense of my life. My brain screamed words of unworthiness at me every time I approached the pulpit and my knees buckled at least once every service, but I was still alive. I started using a sharpie to slash color onto my wrists when I really wanted to use a knife, but I was still alive. I laid up in bed on days when I said I would have office hours, hoping that, as usual, no one would stop by, but I was still alive. And somehow, ministry got done. Somehow, the job got done. And somehow, through virus and vines, this little neglected bush bloomed.

That is, of course, not the end of the metaphor. Anyone who knows plants can tell you that this bush is doomed and that I should, in all honesty, take it out and plant a new one in the same spot. I might do that. I’m not sure. I rent, so it’s not like it’s my decision alone, but I’m sure the owner wouldn’t mind it if I was paying for it. I inherited this bush and though I’ve tried to tend it, it’s the plants that I’ve put in on my own that have really flourished.

I’m trying to be healthier. I’m working on losing weight and changing my habits. I’m talking myself back from ledges and anchoring myself in the support of others. On good days, I can do something that feels like praying. On bad days, I produce plenty of sighs too deep for words for the Spirit to work with. But growth is a long and complicated process. We each require tending and we are each impacted by the weather and the soil we’re planted in. Flourishing doesn’t happen in a day.

And I know I’m not alone in this struggle. My life is unique, sure, but it shares plenty in common with others who are going through similar things: struggling with mental health, working in ministry, being a female-presenting person in this world, learning to care for my body, and things like that. I know for a fact that there are plenty of other former gifted kids out there who struggle to self-actualize without the approval of others. Hey friends. So I’ve decided to write my way through this struggle, in the hopes that, if nothing else, the solidarity will help us all through it all.

Here’s to growing.

Forgiveness and Belief

A sermon for April 19th, 2020

Would you pray with me?

God, our Holy One, as our spirits huddle together with grief and fear tangled together, let your peace be with us. Keep us from closing off our hearts to the world in pain. Wherever we encounter wounds, still tender from trauma or despair, may we be a healing presence, a community of compassion and solidarity. Amen. (adapted by Jo Schonewolf from enfleshed’s Liturgies that Matter)

On first glance, this passage is talking about belief. Thomas wasn’t able to believe until he sees Jesus’ wounds, but all of us, here today, even though we haven’t seen Jesus, we are blessed with our belief-at-a-distance. We are blessed with an imperishable inheritance because we believe the testimony of the faithful who have gone before us. It seems that belief is what’s important to the writer of the gospel of John.

And there’s a sermon in that, I suppose. Belief that God is with us, even when the world is falling apart, even when it doesn’t feel like it. Belief that in dying and being raised from the dead, Jesus ensures that we will we one day rise from the dead. Belief in the evidential proof of the miracles told in the Bible, as that last verse in John seems to suggest. But I don’t think any of those sermons are necessarily the sermons we need to hear today.

I think we need to understand why Thomas didn’t believe.

Because Thomas, of doubting fame, has not always been a doubter, as the gospel of John tells the story. Remember, years ago it seems, when Jesus was going to go wake up Lazarus, and the rest of the disciples were wary, but Thomas was ready to go? He said, “Let us also go, so that we might die with him.” That doesn’t sound like someone with a skeptical attitude to me. It sounds like someone who is very, very committed to following Jesus wherever he may go.

And yet, it wasn’t Thomas, or any of the twelve (probably) who followed Jesus to the cross and watched him die there. When the going got tough, the disciples got going. They hid for their very lives after Jesus was killed, even “Let us go die with him” Thomas. After all, Rome thought Jesus wanted to be a king. The religious authorities thought he wanted to be a Messiah. And while you might kill a movement by cutting off the head, as the authorities had thought they had, there was still a chance that Peter or one of the other disciples might try to start this rebellion up again.

This is why they hid, and I want to be very clear about this. The gospel of John is fairly antisemitic in its language, because the Church was trying to set itself apart from Judaism. When the gospel says, “They hid for fear of the Jews,” this shouldn’t lead us to think that we should blame Jewish people for Jesus’ death; we should remember how bitter and angry humans can be in a fight, even the gospel writers. In time that the Gospel of John was written, Christians and Jews were at odds. That doesn’t mean that we should accept the hate that resulted as gospel.

So the disciples were huddled in fear, as we ourselves might be on this day, though out of a different fear, on the day the Jesus arrives for the first time. Thomas has gone out into the hostile world, likely risking his life to get needed supplies for their quarantine, when Jesus comes back and says, “Peace be with you,” twice, to these men who ran away when he needed them most.

I know we’ve probably forgotten about Maundy Thursday and Good Friday during these weeks that seem like months, but remember, the disciples abandoned Jesus. They ran away to save their own skin. If I were them, the last person I would want to see, after the authorities who wanted to kill me, would be Jesus. If I were a disciple, I would not know what to say to Jesus after all of this.

And that is maybe the miracle of this moment, more than the giving of the Spirit, more than the loosing or binding of sins. In this moment, Jesus comes to those who have betrayed him, and offers them forgiveness. These men stood by and let Jesus die, and Jesus comes to them saying, “Peace.”

If Jesus had been most other gods, he would have exacted revenge, would have punished them with everlasting fire for abandoning him, after he called them by name, after they followed him for years. But Jesus is not like any other god. Jesus is God. And God, who is love, cannot do anything other offer forgiveness, even in a time like this.

So, of course, Thomas doesn’t believe them when he comes back. This is not the way the world works. The dead don’t rise, especially not the executed dead, and gods don’t offer forgiveness and kindness. The world Thomas knows is full of anger, and vengeance, and power. Comfort and acceptance don’t make sense to him. He has just seen his only hope at freedom nailed to a cross. He isn’t going to believe that freedom still lives until he feels the proof of it.

Imagine the pain Thomas is in. He had thought the world could be different, thought the world could be better, thought that the hate and fear and anger and oppression could all end with Jesus in charge, and he watched that hope die. He’s back into survival mode. No one can make him hope. No one can make him dream. It’s back to meeting basic needs, like food and water and shelter, and we’ll handle the rest later. That’s probably why he went out in the first place. Thomas, the bravest of them all, the readiest to put his life on the line, has gone out in public, meeting essential needs. He can’t believe that all the horror he’s experienced could be undone. He can’t believe that the horror he’s done can be undone. He can’t believe that Jesus could offer him forgiveness, not after all he’s done.

And yet, here is Jesus, saying, “Peace be with you.” Here is Jesus, really Jesus, Jesus in the flesh, showing Thomas his wounds. Here is Jesus, asking Thomas to be honest about his own wounds. Here is Jesus, saying, “Yes, we hurt. We all hurt. But look, I have overcome the hurt of this world. You needed to see this. I know. And because of you, generations after you will be able to overcome their hurt, to be forgiven of the hurt they caused. Your doubt, Thomas, will lead to the faith of many.”

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio

Friends, in our hurt, we doubt, just as Thomas did. It’s just what we humans do. But no matter how much we fear or doubt, Jesus is always ready to step among us and say, “Peace be with you.” Jesus is always more willing to forgive than we are to seek forgiveness. But this is the great promise of this passage, is that Jesus offer us amazing power. The sins we bind on this earth are bound, but the ones we loose are loosed. We don’t have to hold on to any of the hurt in our lives. We are free to let it go.

This time of quarantine lends itself to fear, I know, but it can also be a great time of introspection. What sin are you holding tight to, that you’re afraid to let loose? Is it one you’ve committed in the past? Is it one that has been committed against you? Is it one that you’re afraid will be committed? Friends, I invite you to spend time this week thinking about the sins that you are binding, and to work to let them go, even if that work will take longer than this week, because you, like Thomas, can be forgiven. You, like Jesus, can forgive. You have been given that strength. Be bold, and use it.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Easter, 2020

You know, there weren’t any lilies at the first Easter. There weren’t loud, joyous hymns, or big celebrations or dinners or large gatherings. There were the eleven disciples, huddled together inside, afraid of going out. All the followers of Jesus stayed in. Only the essential workers, the women, who had to go and take care of Jesus’ body, dared to go out into the world. On the first Easter, everyone was afraid. Everyone was mourning. The good world that they thought Jesus was going to bring was gone. It wasn’t a possibility anymore. And now, even their normal life had been taken from them. They were stuck, and they were frightened. They felt lost and abandoned.

I imagine many of us have felt like the disciples on that first Easter morning over the past few weeks.

But maybe they weren’t all feeling so lost and alone and frightened. Maybe they were past that. I don’t mean that they had gotten over what had happened to them. I mean, maybe they were numb. Maybe they couldn’t feel much of anything at all. That happens when you go through trauma. When events around you are too much, you just shut down. You do what you have to do. And so maybe the women, going to the tomb to do the grim task they had to do, weren’t nervous. Maybe they were just carrying on, because that was all they could do.

I imagine some of us can relate to that too.

Sometimes, when we talk about the disciples, we talk about them as those who mourn without any hope. We think that we know something they don’t know, that we have hope that they can’t have, because we know that Jesus is actually risen. But I don’t know that that’s completely true. They had promises like the one I read from Jeremiah, promises that no matter how bad things got, one day, there would be celebrating again, promises that God loves them with an everlasting love and that God would build them back up. They knew these promises. They knew that they had reason to hope that one day, things would be better. And still, they walked numb on the Jerusalem road to the tomb.

Sometimes, our circumstances eclipse our hope.

And that’s okay. That’s human. That’s normal. If hope is hard to find right now, you’re not alone. If you’re stuck on the Jerusalem Road, you’re not the only one. Many of us are here, standing six feet apart and wearing cloth masks. We’re doing what we have to do, whether or not we want to do it. And we have no idea what lies ahead.

We have no idea how long we’re going to need to stay home, how long this virus is going keep our essential workers working around the clock. We have no idea what the future looks like, which jobs will come back and which jobs are gone forever. We don’t know when our children will be able to go back to school safely. We don’t yet know how much we’re going to lose. We are headed toward the peak of this virus in a few weeks. We’re walking on the road toward the tomb.

And yet.

Even in the midst of all we don’t know, there is one thing we do know.

There will be a resurrection. There will be new life after all this is over. We know that we follow the living God, a God who is active in this world even now, strengthening those who are working to restore and rebuild this world. We follow a God who loves us with an everlasting love, who promises us that there will be celebrating again, who meets us at the tomb and says, “Do not be afraid!” Death has been defeated, if it doesn’t feel like it yet. There will be an end to pain and suffering, even if it doesn’t feel like it yet. We will, one day, be free to live life and life abundant through Jesus Christ our Lord. We will go from Jerusalem to Galilee. We will leave this place of fear and loss and hurt and mourning and return to the place where we first realized that life might be different. And best of all, Jesus meets us there. Jesus will be with us in whatever new life comes after this time.

This is not the Easter we wanted. I know that. But friends, I also know that when we are finally able to gather together again, and we will be able to gather together again, there will be rejoicing. There will be feasting and dancing. What a day that will be!

And for now, we walk the Jerusalem Road, headed toward the tomb, praying that we will find grace in the wilderness, just as Jeremiah promised. We allow ourselves to feel how we feel, whether that’s upset or afraid, angry or overwhelmed, or just sad, and we remind each other that we do have hope, whether we feel it or not. We know that we are never outside of God’s love and we know that God’s love never fails. Even though we haven’t seen the resurrection in our lives yet, we know it’s coming. We know it’s coming because Jesus is already risen. He is risen indeed!

Amen.

Who Will Roll Away the Stone?

A sermon for Easter Vigil, 2020

Would you pray with me?

God of each and every one of us, thank you for gathering us with one another. Make your presence known among us. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

As I’ve thought about what I might say in this service, what I might proclaim after all these words have been read, one question has stuck in my mind: What if it was good?

What if it was good?

What if this big story of salvation, this never-ending relationship between God and humanity, this tale of separation and return, what if it was a good story? And what if it was true?

Because I’ll be honest, it’s been a while since I really believed that the Christian story is good. It’s been a while since I could trust that it’s true. It’s so hard to believe that the Christian story is good and true because it’s been hard to see the evidence of it in the world around us. See, the Christian story, which we’ve heard so many beautiful voices read this evening, tells us that the world was made good. The Christian story tells us that our God is a saving God. The Christian story tells us that God will give us hearts of flesh instead of our hearts of stone, that God will breathe life back into that which was dead, even us. The Christian story tells us that nothing, nothing, nothing, not even death, can separate us from our God who is love.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve felt pretty separated from things lately. I’ve been separated from my family, my friends, my congregation. And if I know I can be separated from these things that I’ve seen, how can I believe that I won’t be separated from God, who I have not seen? What I’ve been faced with instead are death and hardened hearts and a creation in need of saving, a creation that couldn’t possibly be good. How can I believe that the Christian story is true when the world shows me time and again that it’s not?

And listen, we read a lot of bible tonight, but it’s not the entirety of the Bible, not by far. If the Christian story we read tonight can’t be true, because the world has shown us that it’s not true, then maybe the true Christian story isn’t good, either. Maybe God only gives love to some. Maybe we’re not good enough for God, and so God doesn’t care about us. Maybe God isn’t a saving God. Maybe God is a destroying God. Maybe God is a God of half-truths. God isn’t going to drown the world in water again, but maybe God means to drown us in sickness and despair and hopelessness, and start again after all the humans are gone.

Can’t say I blame God, either. When I listen to the news these days, I’m tempted to end us too.

Friends, it is so easy to despair in this time. It is so easy to be hopeless. It’s easy now and it was easy before COVID-19. It is hard to live in this world, where there is so much pain and death and destruction, where truth is hard to see and love is even harder to find. Everywhere you look, you find another reason to disbelieve the Christian story, another reason to doubt that things could ever be good again, if they ever were. New York City has a mass grave on Hart Island for the unclaimed dead who have died from coronavirus. It’s hard to believe the tomb is empty.

But.

But what if it was good?

What if the world was made good? What if the goodness of the earth and everything that lives on it was and is always springing up around us, never vanquished, even in the face of all the evil we’ve seen? What if it was good?

What if the story of God’s relationship with humanity was good? What if God never quit on us, was always seeking us, has always been seeking us, ever since we turned away? What if God loved us so much, God couldn’t stay away, and was born and lived and died as a human, and then rose again so that we could be reunited with God, no matter what else had happened in this world?

What if our hearts can change? What if we could be good?

What if our story, this Christian story, was good?

Well, I imagine that we might react the same way Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome did. Because goodness like that, goodness that is never-ending, never-failing, and life-changing, goodness like that is stunning. Goodness like that is terrifying. Goodness like that is too much to believe, too much to take in. Jesus, their last hope for goodness, was crucified on Friday. There was nothing left for them, nothing but disappointment and doubt. Everything they had longed for was gone. It was not in faithfulness they went to the tomb, but despair.

And now, the stone is rolled away. And now there’s someone inside, not Jesus, and he’s telling them that Jesus is risen. And now he’s telling them to go out and tell other people about this great goodness that has happened, this unbelievable goodness, this goodness that was impossible just seconds before. What responsibility. What possibility. What amazing goodness.

Mark’s gospel, in its original ending, ends with the women running away and telling no one what they had seen, unable to share what had happened, maybe because sharing it makes it real, and it’s so hard to believe that it’s real.

But they must have shared the news eventually. It must have gotten out somehow. Because here we all are. We know the story. And we have gathered together because we are working hard to believe that the story is real. The tomb is empty. Jesus is risen. And it is good.

God is good and God is love and nothing can separate us from God. Not sickness, not grief, not sadness, not despair, not joblessness, not loneliness, not fear, not doubt, not hopelessness, not worry, not panic, not uncertainty, not even death can separate us from our God who is love, our God who died and rose again. No matter what happens in this life, we are not alone. We are not abandoned. We are not lost or hated or ignored. We are loved with an everlasting love, a love that will not let us go. We are held in the arms of Jesus Christ our Savior. Praise God for this amazing goodness that has been given to us!

And this goodness, this great goodness, this is too much for us to keep to ourselves. God knows the world could use some goodness right now, and we can share it with them. We can offer hope that the world will not stay the way that it is, but will become something new. We can work so that the new creation God is bringing about will be more like promised reign of God, where we care for the hungry, the thirsty, those without protection, the stranger, those in prison, and those who are sick, where we seek out the lost and the least and call them family, where we care first for the poor and the oppressed. We can be instruments of the good God of love, who died and was raised and remains with us still.

God, may this good news of your resurrection fill us this night! Amen.

Praise and Petition

A sermon for Palm Sunday, 2020

Would you pray with me?

O Lord, save us. Amen.

What a heartbreaking day Palm Sunday is. What a deeply, deeply sad day this day marks. If Holy Week, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, is a roller coaster, Palm Sunday is the final click of the coaster on its initial climb out of the gate. The crowds in Jerusalem have no idea they’re standing at the edge of a cliff. They think they’ve made it to the top of the hill. They think they’ve come to their new home. But we all know that they are about to be thrown downward and tossed around for a week.

I just can’t get the crowd on Palm Sunday out of my mind. I’m caught up in their hope, their exuberance. Jesus is here! Jesus is here, now, right in front of us! The ancient promises have been fulfilled in our time. We are going to see a day with no more war, no more violence, no more oppression, no more needless death. No more Rome. No more back-breaking taxes that only make the rich richer. No more being excluded from the Temple if we can’t make the right sacrifices. No more begging, no more wanting, no more struggling. Jesus is here! The world is about to change!

Can you feel it?

Can you feel what that crowd was feeling?

Can you feel the hope so real and so powerful you can taste it, smell it in the air?

It smells like palm branches and sweat, like spices from a market and whiffs of air from coats, like dirt and a donkey and freedom. It sounds like a chant, maybe quiet at first, but growing and growing until it seems like it’s coming from everywhere. They’ve been shouting, praying, Hosanna for so long that it’s become just another way to say, “Hail!” when before, long ago, in different times, it used to mean, “Save us.”

This is what Palm Sunday sounds like. Praise and petition so closely woven together, you can’t even tell the difference between the two. Palm Sunday sounds like a prayer you’re sure, you’re convinced, you know has been answered.

God, they’re so sure! How could they not be? All the signs of salvation are there. Jesus, riding on a colt, fulfilling a prophecy, or so Matthew tells us. But Jesus, coming into town the same way a victorious general would, only he’s not here to shame and intimidate and frighten. He’s the prince of peace and he has come into Jerusalem triumphantly. The whole city is abuzz. Everyone knows that things are about to change. The crowd that greets him, that throws coats and branches in front of him, that chants for him, they follow him to the Temple and he kicks out the money changers and starts preaching new stories, new parables, a new way of living. This tragically hopeful crowd takes in all they can of Jesus, and they’re delighted to see that those in charge have noticed that a change is gonna come and they’re looking a little nervous.

All the signs are there.

The Messiah has arrived.

Now, it’s important to remember, as the rollercoaster of Holy Week continues, that there’s nothing in the text that suggests that it’s the same crowd who welcomes Jesus in on Sunday who will condemn him on Friday. I’ve heard it said that, in sermon after sermon, that that’s the case, that we should all have a little humility, because we’re are all, in the end, the people who love Jesus one day and hate him the next. We all, if we were there, would have condemned him too. Humans are fickle. Our minds can be changed with the slightest breeze. All it takes is someone in power to goad us and the masses will change their minds.

But I don’t think that’s so. I don’t think you can say that, not in the face of the hope-so-strong-you-can-taste-it, hope-so-strong-you-can-smell-it, hope-so-strong-you-can-feel-it, hope that could heal you if you could just reach out to the hem of its robe. The Palm Sunday crowd has been longing for salvation too long and they’ve seen and heard too much truth from Jesus, and hope and truth don’t just leave us. Hope is frail, but it’s hard to kill. Truth is hard to grasp, but these people have felt it in their bones. I say to you that the people who shouted Hosanna on Sunday were not the ones who shouted Crucify on Friday. At least, not all of them. And that’s the tragedy.

See, Jesus comes into town, bringing the hope-so-strong-you-can-smell-it, and teaches and preaches as the town prepares for Passover celebrations. The stir that started with the Palm Sunday parade spreads throughout the town, a bubbling low-boil that will be in danger of spilling over on Good Friday. But here’s the key—even though Jesus is making a stir, he’s not universally known. He’s not recognizable on sight. That’s why Judas has to betray him with a kiss: the soldiers don’t exactly know which one he is. The Hosanna Chorus set Jerusalem on edge, but all of Jerusalem wasn’t in that crowd.

It’s the people who have had their festival disturbed by these Jesus followers, the people whose lives could be overturned, and not in a hopeful way, who have gathered to try to convince Pilate to let Jesus Barabbas go and crucify Jesus the Messiah. Remember, the disciples have scattered. Anyone who could be associated with Jesus has made themselves scarce. It’s the people who have enough freedom already who are shouting crucify. It’s the people who think they’re already safe who are scared enough of the change Jesus brings to want to kill him. It’s not hope that drives them. It’s fear.

And yet, it had to be this way. There had to be a drop from the height of Palm Sunday because the prayer that was answered on Palm Sunday wasn’t big enough. It wasn’t enough that some of the people who had come to Jerusalem for the festival understood the hope that Jesus brings. Jesus doesn’t come in force. Jesus doesn’t set up free by violence. Jesus could have called down angels of vengeance, but that’s not what Love does. Love looks like, sometimes, like being willing to humble yourself in order to save others. Jesus knows the truth: Humanity will not be redeemed until all of humanity is redeemed. We can’t end on Palm Sunday. We have to make it all the way to Easter. Salvation is for those who shout Hosanna and those who shout Crucify. Salvation is for those who can truly only offer praise and those who can truly only offer petitions.

We are going to turn to the rest of Holy Week, telling the story, our story, the story of Jesus’ Passion, for the rest of this service. We’ll focus more strongly on the Last Supper on Thursday, the lament of the crucifixion on Friday, and the deep sadness and longing of the tomb on Saturday, but today, we’ll tell the story. As we tell it, as we go through it, I want you to think for yourself: which crowd are you in today? Are you hopeful, desperate for salvation, and confident that in Jesus it has arrived? Or are you scared, afraid that even the little you have will be taken from you? What is your heart shouting in this season?

Know, though, that no matter where your heart is, it can go through a painful change. Judas betrays Jesus. The Roman centurion swears that he must be the son of God. Can we cling to hope, even in these hard times? Can we find hope, even in the midst of fear? Can we trust God with the change God is working? Because if we can, if we can trust God through this painful time, then it won’t be a Palm Sunday that we wake up to, when all of this is over. It won’t be a celebration for the few who get it. It’ll be an Easter, an Easter that promises a new life for us all.

So let’s turn to one of the last gifts Jesus gives his followers before his crucifixion: the Last Supper. If you haven’t already, now is the time to do as the disciples did and prepare. Grab a grain of some kind and a drink so that we might remember the Lord’s Supper together.

Give Us This Day

A sermon for Sunday, March 29, 2020

Would you pray with me?

God our loving parent, thank you for bringing us to this time and this place. Make your presence known among us here and now, and may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Leave your eyes closed, or close them if you don’t close your eyes when you pray. No judgement if you don’t close your eyes when you pray, but close them now so that you can focus your imagination for a minute. I want you to spend 30 seconds imagining a perfect world. Imagine what it looks like, what it smells like, who all is with you, what everyone is doing, how your heart feels. Take 30 seconds to imagine a perfect world.

Okay. If you’re with somebody else, or if you can call or text someone else, talk about your perfect world with someone else for a minute. If you don’t have anyone around you, write down some notes about your perfect world.

Good. Now, here’s the trick. What would it take for your perfect world to exist? What would have to happen, what would you or others have to do, in order for your perfect world to become a reality, here in this world, right now? Talk to one another or write it out.

Anyone feel like your perfect world is actually possible? Anyone feel like your perfect world is possible now?

I’m not here to tell you that your perfect world is within your grasp if you just change your perspective. I’m not even here to tell you that God wants your perfect world to exist. Christianity isn’t a self-help book and the Lord’s Prayer a deeply Christian prayer. There’s not any space in this prayer for anything less than God’s perfect love brought into existence in this world. The Lord’s Prayer is a world-changing prayer, friends. This prayer is about God’s perfect world, and what has to be done in order for us to live in it.

And the way we know that this prayer is about God’s perfect world is that it begins and ends with God. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven mirrors For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

My partner, Ian, is down here, riding out the governor’s Stay at Home order with me, and thank God for that. When I asked him what he’d preach on if he had a Sunday to preach on the Lord’s Prayer, he said, “God’s sovereignty,” and I frowned. I so, so dislike talk about God’s sovereignty, about how everything’s a part of God’s plan, which is the usual direction that talk about God’s sovereignty goes. A virus that has killed 30,000 people around the world and is still spreading? That’s a part of God’s plan? No. I’d rather leave the pulpit and the Church forever than avow that this new coronavirus was God’s intention for us all. I don’t want to talk about God’s sovereignty. I can’t talk about that. I can’t pray for that.

But what I can talk about is the God who is love, and what I can pray for is that the reign of God’s love is as real here on earth as it is in heaven. So if we’re going to change this world-changing prayer in these times that so desperately need a change, we need to first remember who this God is that we’re praying to. We need to remember who God is in order to pray for God’s perfect world to come to this earth.

So let’s talk about it. You’ve already heard me lay my cards on the table. I believe that God is love and I believe that creation as it was meant to be, creation as it will be again one day, is a gracious outpouring of that love. I believe that we were born in love, by love, and for love, and that at the root of all the love, true love, that we will ever know in this world, is God.

Do you agree with that? Am I making sense to you? Or is your idea of God completely different? Talk it out with someone, or write it out. This is your moment to write a scathing dissent from what I’m saying, or to just puzzle over who God is to you. Take some time and sketch out a big idea of who God is to you.

Now, take another minute and think about this first part of the Lord’s Prayer. Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Does that line up with who you understand God to be? If you were to identify God, would you say, Our Father? Is God in heaven? What does it mean for God’s name to be hallowed? Talk it out or write out what you’d rather say instead.

And let’s think about where the prayer is going to land. For yours is the kingdom and the glory and the power forever. What does it mean to you for God to be glorious, to have power, forever? What kingdom is God’s? Work through those lines. Rewrite them as you need to.

To me, as I said, God is love. But I also believe that all things come from God and all things will go back to God. I like to talk about God as life-giver, as those who come on Wednesday night know already. God our life-giver, God who is higher than any other, your name is what it means to be holy, is how I’d rewrite this. It puts God on the side of life, it reminds us that God is more than we can ever imagine, and yet, we’ve all had an experience with something holy. God is both above us and directly with us. And that’s the glory of God, to me. God is as close to us as breath and yet God is beyond our mind’s comprehension. And yet, God is not just glory. God is not just something we notice. God is active.

God is active, even now. God has power, even now. God will continue to be God, to be love, and to act accordingly, forever. A virus doesn’t stop that. So God is active in our world. God is there, with those who are tirelessly caring for the sick. God is with each of us as we deal with our new reality. God is with those who need food, and shelter, and love and care and attention and unconditional positive regard during this time, and God is always drawing our attention to where those needs are, and to how we can help. God is with each of us as we mourn the loss what was normal for us. God is with all those who choose life over death, confirming them, and God is working in the hearts of those who choose differently. God is never powerless. God is never anything less than glorious. And God is always working to bring about the reign of God, God’s perfect world.

And if we follow such an active God, a God of never-ending, never-failing love, then we certainly need to be praying prayers that help make us capable of following such a God. Luckily, we have the Lord’s Prayer.

We can pray: Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.

If our God is love, then we’re not asking for the imposition of some horror, some dictator who assures us that he knows better than we do and then goes off doing things that benefit him and only him. If our God is love, then praying for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven is praying fervently that love would be in the hearts of all on the earth, praying that each family, each group, each community, each nation would be grounded in and flourishing in love. If God is the life-giver, then praying for God’s will to be done is to pray for life and health and peace for all. We can pray that our wills line up with God’s will.

We can pray: Give us this day our daily bread.

We can pray for God to give us enough. Goodness, what hard prayer that is to pray right now. God, give us what we need to get through this day. Enough masks in the hospitals, enough ventilators. Enough food in our pantries. Enough supplies to keep ourselves safe, enough supplies that everyone can keep themselves safe. Enough money to make it through this time, enough money to get us through whatever comes next. And God, enough for all. God, give all of us, all your children, enough. And God, where our over-abundance stands in the way of another having enough, teach us what it means to have our daily bread, and open up our hearts so that others may have it too.

We can pray: Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Remember that God love. Remember that this part of the prayer shouldn’t be prayed how I so often pray it: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. It’s not a begrudging acknowledgment that we should forgive others, whether we want to or not. That’s not love. That’s guilt. But what would it look like if we were able to pray for forgiveness, a restoration of our relationship with God and with us, and pray at the same time that others might receive that same kind of grace and restoration? God, forgive me for my anger. God help me forgive the one who made me angry. God, bring us all back together.

This is such a crucial part of the prayer, such a crucial part of the work of making God’s perfect world. We all know how much strife that we can create by being more willing to accept forgiveness than to grant it, to think that we haven’t done a thing that requires forgiveness while pointing out the faults and sins of others. God is love and God does not desire for us to continue to separate ourselves from one another. God, forgive us our sins. Help us to forgive.

If we have already gone on this journey so far, we can pray: lead us not into the time of trial, but deliver us from evil.

If we’ve humbled ourselves, if we’ve already acknowledged that we need God’s help to be forgiven and to forgive others, to see what is unloving in ourselves and to have grace for what is unloving in others, then we can pray that God does not put us into a time of testing.

I remember that Jesus’ disciples were teenagers, teenagers frustrated with the world around them, teenagers ready to prove themselves. Put us to the test, Lord! Let us prove ourselves! Feed us to the lions and let us show you how we will wrestle them to the ground!

But that is not what we need to be praying. We do not need to pray for a battleground. Remember, we’re praying for God’s perfect world here, and we can’t walk into it with unearned pride. Instead, Jesus teaches us to pray: God, don’t take us anywhere we’re not ready to be yet. God, save us from those things that will destroy us.

Think back to your perfect world. What isn’t in it? Because what doesn’t belong in our perfect world is something that we have decided is evil.

Take thirty seconds. Think about what evil is to you. Talk it out or write it out.

Friends, this week, I want you to gather up all the thoughts this has stirred up in you, and I want you to rewrite the Lord’s Prayer for yourself. Pray that God’s will be done and pray that God works on you so that your will lines up with God’s. Write yourself a Lord’s Prayer in the time of COVID-19. I’m sending you home with homework.

Because we all know that this world is not a perfect world, and we don’t know how to make it one. But we know the one who can, and we’ve been taught the way we should pray. Make this prayer yours, so that the God who knows how to heal can better do that healing work in this world that needs it.

Amen.

God's Instrument

A sermon for Sunday, March 22, 2020

Would you pray with me?

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

In times of stress, I do my best to be there for other people, but after all the comforting and helping, at the end of the day, I turn to horror stories to unwind. Maybe not the best coping mechanism, but it’s been working for me. And as I’ve been working through Stephen King’s catalog, I found myself thinking about The Shawshank Redemption this week, and one particular storyline in the book. Andy Dufresne, who has been convicted of the murder of two people, including his wife, after he’s found his place in the prison, turns his attention to the prison’s library. He begins writing letters to elected officials to get better funding for the library, one a day for years. After he wears down the officials and gets the first round of funding, he turns around and begins writing two a day so that he can build up the library even more.

It’s a lovely modern parable of doing the good that you can, even in a period of limitations. As we go through this time of social distancing and, in some places, lockdowns, it’s our task to figure out how to do the good we can while still maintaining the distance that we need to. I think our prayer this morning, the prayer of St. Francis, gives us some guidance on the goods that God can work in us so that we are still doing good, no matter our circumstances.

Something that stuck out to me as I was researching for this sermon, though, is that this prayer was likely not one that Francis himself prayed. That’s not really a surprise—our two other prayers that we’ve tackled so far this Lent, a Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition and the Breastplate of St. Patrick, weren’t written by John Wesley or St. Patrick, but are prayers attributed to them or the communities they led. But the reason why this prayer probably wasn’t prayed by Francis is what stuck out to me: this prayer is for an individual. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, where there is hatred, let me bring love.

See, Francis was focused on community. We as Americans are very used to focusing on the individual—we swim daily in the waters of individualism, focused on our individual hopes and dreams. Not so with Francis.

And we likely have something to learn from that stance of Francis’. The spread of COVID-19 has taught us that what individuals do impacts the community, and vice-versa. Reports out of South Korea show that one woman who did not get tested for the coronavirus and went to church spread the sickness to 37 people. What we as individuals do has an impact on our communities, and one way of doing good in this time is reorienting ourselves to be thinking of our communities all the time.

So when we turn to this prayer this morning, I want us to focus on community. If we as individuals are all shaped by this prayer into being those who bring love and hope and joy and forgiveness into the world, how will that shape our community? I believe that if we can be a community full of individuals who are shaped by this prayer, we will be able to persist in doing good in these uncertain times.

So. Let’s turn to the prayer. There are two parts to it, as I’m sure you noticed as I prayed it. There’s this first section, where we pray for God to make us instruments of God’s good works, and the second section of reversals, “It is in comforting that we are comforted,” and so on. The first section reminds me of the Covenant Prayer we focused on two weeks ago, where we prayed to be used by God as God saw fit.

There’s something powerful in asking God to work in you rather than asking God to bless your work, especially in these times where none of us know what the next right thing to do is. Instead of charging ahead and asking God to bless our decisions after the fact, this prayer asks that God be the one to do good through us. If we are grounded in being instruments of God’s peace, not potential peacemakers trying to work out things all on our own, we can trust that the guidance we get from God will produce good.

What might that look like? Turn to someone watching with you or take a moment to write down some thoughts. Have you been able to do any of the things the prayer asks this past week? Have you brought peace or love or hope into any situation? Can you do any of these things in the week ahead?

I want to speak about bringing faith where there is doubt for just a moment before we move on to the second part of the prayer. COVID-19 has us all thinking about what our faith means. I don't think we're doubting God's power by being careful and taking precautions like social distancing. I actually think we're allowing God to use our minds to do the Lord's work, not only for ourselves but for those who are most vulnerable and for healthcare workers. And yet I know, and I’m sure we all know, that there are other Christians who believe that the faithful response to a pandemic is to continue to gather, because God has not given us a spirit of fear. Sowing faith in this time of doubt is a complicated matter. I know for myself what I believe and how it has shaped my actions, but each of us has to wrestle with this question for ourselves. As you pray this prayer this week, allow yourself some time to think about how your response to this pandemic is grounded in your faith, so that God can use you as an instrument of faith during this time.

Now, what I want us to notice in the second part of the prayer is the balance that’s inherent in it. “Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand.”

When I first began praying this prayer, I thought that this meant that I should never seek to be consoled and never seek to be understood and never seek to be loved. I thought, as many of us may think, that it was my job as a faithful Christian (and to name it honestly, as a woman) to always be the one who is giving and never the one who is receiving. It created a bit of a compulsion on my part and honestly deprived me of the fullness of some friendships and relationships.

Because the prayer doesn’t assume that relationships aren’t mutual; remember, this prayer is focused in community. The prayer assumes that each person praying it does seek out love and comfort and understanding because we as humans need those things. Instead, the prayer seeks to correct the selfish impulse of always seeking more to be understood than to understand.

If we in selfishness are seeking these things, we won't find them. It's in community with people who practice this way of life that we're able to see the fulfilment of each of these goods: consolation, love, forgiveness, understanding. We all know people who'd rather be loved than to love. We all know people who pour out love with nothing in return. But it's reciprocity that enables the thing to be good. It is in the relationship between people who are able to console and love and do so freely, trusting that whatever they give will come back to them.

It is hard to be in a community like that right now, but it is exactly now that we need to be in community together. What can you commit to this week that will build a community, a community that will reach back to you when you reach out them? Can you commit to phone calls? Emails? Cards? Or will you commit to doing some soul-work so that you can be a giving and receiving part of a community? Spend a minute or two talking that out with those beside you or writing it down for yourself.

I have to admit, in uncertain times, I want to be in charge. Put me in the governor's mansion or in the White House, I don't care, just let me be in the room where decisions happen so that I know that I'm doing all I can, no holds barred. But unless you're an elected official, you're stuck in the same boat as Andy Dufresne. All you can do is be persistent in communicating your needs and what should be done.

And that doesn't seem like anything. For those of us who aren't out there on the front line, the medical care professionals, the essential employees, the cash register clerks, it seems like we're stuck doing not a thing at all. But our prayer this morning is here to remind us that everything we do, as long as we are letting God guide us in doing it, is a powerful act that can bring good into the world. In everything, we can bring peace, love, etc.

Now, I don't mean to make you think that you need to emerge from quarantine a saint. But I do think we have the chance to be, as one of my favorite Avett Brothers songs says, "At least a little better than we've been so far. It's the only way to keep that last bit of sanity."

Amen.

Christ in...

A sermon for Sunday, March 15, 2020

Would you pray with me?

I arise today through

God's strength to pilot me, God's might to uphold me,

God's wisdom to guide me, God's eye to see before me,

God's ear to hear me, God's word to speak for me,

God's hand to guard me, God's way to lie before me,

God's shield to protect me, God's host to secure me –

against snares of devils,

against temptations and vices,

against inclinations of nature,

against everyone who shall wish me

ill, afar and anear,

alone and in a crowd...

Christ be with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit,

Christ where I arise, Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.

Salvation is of the Lord.

Salvation is of the Lord.

Salvation is of the Christ.

May your salvation, O Lord, be ever with us.

Amen.

God’s host to secure me alone and in a crowd.

We can all relate to that today, can’t we. We have learned a suspicion of crowds and the blessedness of being alone as COVID-19, the sickness caused by this new coronavirus, has begun to infect us here in the United States. We’ve watched as schools, universities, the NBA, the ACC, the NCAA, and the MLB, among many others, have cancelled gatherings. God secure us alone until it’s safe to be out in crowds again.

Don’t get me wrong. I firmly believe that one of the ways that God has secured us in this world is by giving us the ability to reason and investigate things and that God has graced some people in this world with the vocation of gaining knowledge and wisdom that keeps the rest of us as healthy as possible, and I believe that there is good guidance out there for keeping ourselves and, equally importantly, those around us, healthy. For those of you on the livestream, you’re doing the right thing for yourself and for others around you, and you shouldn’t doubt that. We are all loving ourselves and our neighbors right now by limiting the chance for this virus to spread.

Still, I think we all long for God’s protection and, a couple of weeks from now, we’ll all be longing for a crowd, and the vibrancy of gathering together in community. Sometimes I think that “love your neighbor” is the most difficult thing Jesus could have asked us to do, because love looks so different in different circumstances.

And yet, as we’ve been reminded this week, we can still listen to music and read and sing and laugh and hope for better days, and those things are God-given gifts too. We can step outside, as we’re able. We can call and connect with friends and family. There is a gracious abundance of ways that we can be with one another and with the joyful beauty of creation just waking up from winter, no matter the quarantine. We might be exposing ourselves to allergies, but that’s another story. There hasn’t been a run on Mucinex yet.

I think it’s a gift of God that we’re focusing on St. Patrick’s Breastplate this morning, a few days before his feastday, even though there won’t be many parades this year. All of us, I think, could use the protection of God in the days ahead, both within us and without us.

I first really encountered this prayer when the youth choir from my home church, Crossflame, went on tour in 2018. I heard some of the teenagers who I have known since they were in elementary school sing concert after concert, declaring love to anyone who would listen and drawing the circle of care wider and wider with each song. But the heart of each concert for me was The Deer’s Cry, which is another name for this prayer. A beloved child of God who I had watched grow from an energetic but nosy fifth-grader to a beautiful but still nosy high school junior, was the soloist for this song and she would stand and sing this beautiful melody:

“I arise today, through God’s strength to pilot me, God’s eye to look before me, God’s wisdom to guide me, God’s way to lie before me, God’s shield to protect me.”

And the choir would swell around her and sing and make a joyful, glorious noise. I remember sitting in an old, old church in Massachusetts, windows wide open in June, no air conditioning, one poor teenager with her head in my lap as she drank water and recovered from the heat, sitting and listening to these teenagers filling this space with beauty. They would soar together in harmony verse after verse and then fade to the background when the soloist sang,

“Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me.

“I arise today.”

God, I wanted so badly to be the kind of person this song sang about.

I wanted so badly to be the kind of person who lived in such a way that Christ would be in the heart of everyone who thought of me, in the mouth of everyone who spoke of me. I wanted to arise daily, daily, firm in the knowledge that Christ had so fully filled my being that the world would be radiant with the love of Christ that dwelled in me. This poem, this song, this prayer named for me what the fullness of my life would be.

Christ before me.

Christ behind me.

Christ in me.

Christ beneath me.

Christ above me,

Christ on my right.

Christ on my left.

Christ where I lie.

Christ where I sit.

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me.

Christ in every eye that sees me.

Christ in every ear that hears me.

Oh God, I pray that those who encounter me would always see Christ before, behind, above, below, within, and around me.

But that prayer takes a little bit of unpacking, doesn’t it. It’s beautiful and powerful, but what does it actually mean for us to live in such a way that Christ surrounds us and is obvious in us?

Well, I would suggest that we think back to Epiphany to answer that question. For those who haven’t joined us before, we followed the lectionary passages in the gospel of John for Lent during our epiphany season. So let’s think back to Nicodemus, poor Nicodemus, the first one to hear, “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only begotten Son so that whoever believes in him may not perish but have life eternal,” Nicodemus who was fascinated by Jesus but struggled to jump in with both feet.

Let’s think back to the woman at the well, St. Photina to our Eastern Orthodox siblings, who heard Jesus and could not believe what she heard and yet ran to tell the village about this man who knew everything about her and loved her anyway. Her whole town came to Jesus through her, the first person to ever know Jesus as messiah, and Jesus stayed with that town because of her witness.

Let’s think back to the Man Born Blind, who did nothing at all to earn his illness, nor did his parents, who was cared for by Jesus even after those around him rejected him.

Let’s think back to Lazarus, and Mary, and Martha, who all had to deal with deep feelings of abandonment in the face of illness and death, and who still let Jesus do what he was always going to do, and followed his instructions when he told them to remove the graveclothes off of the one who had recently come back to life.

If others are to think of Christ when they see us, we should be the first to remove the proverbial graveclothes from others. Check in with one another and with your neighbors, especially your neighbors who are struggling during this time. (For some of us, this might mean meeting our neighbors for the first time, and that is a good and brave step in and of itself.) Drag off the graveclothes of poverty and of difficult jobs and lack of childcare or transportation as you’re able and offer words of kindness and encouragement that match your actions. Do grocery runs for those who need it. Offer to watch kids. Share your toilet paper. Do all that you can for your neighbors who are struggling. If you’re local and able, volunteer with Grace House so that we won’t have to shut down as coronavirus spreads. We can be the shield of Christ for others in this time of need.

Of course, you can only do many of those things if you are healthy, well, not at increased risk of the virus, and if you haven’t come into contact with the virus. But if that’s not the case, if any of us are not well or if we’re at risk, let’s remind ourselves of what Jesus said about the Man Born Blind. It was neither his parents nor that man who sinned that caused his illness. Remember, remember, and remind yourself that God does not desire death. From humanity’s first breath until the coming of Christ, God has never desired death.

The story of the Man Born Blind has wisdom for those who are healthy and well too. It calls us to, without discrimination or judgement, help those who are affected. It can be as small as ordering Chinese food or as big as volunteering to deliver meals or watch children, as long as we’re healthy and well. The discrimination of Jesus’s day is clear to us now but we’re a bit blind to the discrimination these days. Having Christ all around you means letting Jesus heal you from any prejudices you may have.

But regardless of your health and your ability to help at this moment, let’s remember St. Photina and St. Nicodemus. Both engaged Jesus in deep, important, theological questions, and regardless of their background, both received the truth of Christ. All are loved. All are cared for. It doesn’t matter if you have a portfolio that’s taken a hit with the whims of the stock market or if you’re struggling to keep food on the table and to get medication for your little ones. Jesus speaks the same truth. The chains of this world have been broken and we have good news to share with anyone around us:

God is love and Christ is God and Christ is with us.

Love is with us.

Love goes before us and love surrounds us.

Love protects us and names us.

Love guides us and guards us and sets a path before us.

Love shields us and protects us not from the microscopic but from the macroscopic fear and panic that the world is trying to breathe into us. Love gives us wisdom and knowledge and love will be with us no matter what happens.

Love before you.

Love behind you.

Love in you.

Love beneath you.

Love above you,

Love on your right.

Love on your left.

Love in the mouth of everyone who speaks of you.

Love in the heart of everyone who thinks of you.

Beloved of God, will you arise with me as you are able and pray the Breastplate of St. Patrick?