10/6/24 - Conflict and Resolution - Acts 6:1-7

Conflict and Resolution

Acts 6:1-7

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

October 6, 2024 

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBtuTxIe_p8

I was at physical therapy this week when I became aware of a therapist who was speaking quite loudly.  I had never noticed this therapist before.   I just continued doing my exercises, counting more deliberately in my head because he was also counting sometimes.  I noticed that his patient was having a hard time following his directions.  When he told her to lie on her side, she went on her back first. When he said to bend her knee, she held it straight.   Pretty quickly, I realized that English was not her first language.  And I wondered if he was repeating his directions loudly in the hope of overcoming a language barrier.  Because that’s a thing we do, isn’t it?  A few minutes later, I noticed that he had a second patient.  The second patient seemed to be very comfortable with English, but the therapist spoke just as loudly.  I concluded that the volume on his inside voice was just turned up high.

One of the first recorded church conflicts seems to have involved a language barrier.  On one side were the Hebrews.  These are folks who spoke a Semitic language, most likely Aramaic.  On the other side were the Hellenists.  They spoke Greek.  The Hebrews were from Israel, possibly from Jerusalem itself, but also from Galilee and other parts of the country.  The Hellenists might have been from anywhere in the Roman empire – from Syria, Cappadocia, Rome or Egypt, just to name a few examples.  They are people whose families had had to migrate and live outside their homeland for the same reasons that people migrate today – economics, natural disaster, war. But these particular folks have returned to their ancestral home, to Jerusalem.  So the Hellenists are not necessarily a unified group.  They all speak Greek, but they may represent different ethnic or racial heritages.  Latino is a contemporary broad term. It refers to a person with ancestry in any one of 21 Latin American countries.  Hellenist is a similarly broad term. 

One important point – the people in conflict in Acts 6 are all Jewish people who have come to believe Jesus is the Messiah.  They are not divided on religious lines, but ethnic and cultural ones.

A complaint arises. The Hellenist widows are being neglected.  This is serious.  From the time of Deuteronomy at least, widows have been seen as one of the categories of marginalized people for whom God’s people are to take special care.   The Jesus-followers in Jerusalem are organized enough by this time that Acts 4 says they share all their possessions and there is not a needy person among them.  But now, the Hellenist widows are being neglected, in the daily distribution of food.

What does this mean?  It might simply mean that the Hellenist widows, the foreign widows, are not getting the food they need. That would be a problem. But the word that is translated as daily distribution could also mean “everyday ministry”.  It could also refer to financial administration. So the problem may be that the Hellenist widows are being denied the opportunity to serve in the distribution of food themselves. They may not be recognized as leaders in the same ways that Hebrew widows are.  They may not be  trusted with the community cash.  

Something has been lost in translation.  It is not clear to us, as twenty-first century readers what the actual problem is. And that makes me wonder how clear it was at the time. There was a language barrier. Is it possible that the Hebrews, who were in charge, didn’t even completely understand the Hellenists’ complain?  Confusion about the real problem is often part of conflict, isn’t it?  A whole lot of times, we rush in to fix it, and our fixing does no good because we didn’t address the real issue.  Then when the complaint arises again, we say “What more do they want?  You just can’t please those people.”

In some way, the foreign widows are being neglected. The word translated neglected means to overlook or disregard. It is not a deliberate, malicious action.  It is unintentional.  The Hebrews are probably not even aware that they’re doing it. 

The Hebrews have the home field advantage. They represent the dominant culture. They are the citizens; the Hellenists are outsiders. They are the true Israelites; the Hellenists carry with them foreign ideas and habits.  In today’s terms, we might say that, in comparison, the Hebrews have privilege.  It is all relative, isn’t it? Because all of them live under Roman occupation.  To say that the Hebrews have privilege is not to say that they don’t struggle.  It is to say that their viewpoint, their way of life, is considered normal, while the Hellenists deviate from the norm.

To their credit, the Jerusalem community takes the Hellenists’ concern seriously.  They decide to appoint a task-force to resolve this.  The community deliberates and names seven respected, wise men to do this work. If we read carefully, we notice that the men all have Greek names.  The implication is that the power to resolve the problem is being handed over to those who best understand it.  This is a countercultural solution in its own time and I would say, even in our time. The Seven are not being put in charge of distribution just to the Hellenists, but to everyone.  The foreigners are being entrusted to use the community resources for the good of all.  That’s a pretty big step. 

Kudos to those first-century folks for figuring that out.  Well-done.  I mean that sincerely, and yet . . .

They still are a bit clueless, aren’t they?  I mean the original complaint is about Hellenist widows. Their solution is elegant in addressing the Hellenist part, but it disregards, it overlooks the fact that the widows are women.   The church’s solution is to appoint seven men and zero women to address what is first and foremost a woman’s concern.  (Gee, I’m so glad that two centuries later we don’t do that any more.) 

Women are recognized with leadership authority equal to and even surpassing men in other parts of Acts, so we can’t blame it entirely on first century culture.  As radically inclusive, as boundary-breaking as this new faith community is, sometimes, they just don’t get it.  They just lapse into well ingrained patterns.  Luke reports this conflict and resolution with no hint of awareness that in a story about women, he only reports the names of seven prominent men.

What does this story have to do with us?  Or maybe, what can we do with this story? 

First, we might understand it as a call to listen with humility.  Especially to listen to the voices of those in the minority, those whose life experience is not well represented by the dominant culture.  If you are a person with privilege, listen extremely carefully.  Deliberately open yourself to understanding a viewpoint that is not yours.  Some of us don’t recognize our privilege.  If the shampoo and soap you use is in the health and beauty aisle and not in the section labelled “ethnic”, you enjoy dominant culture privilege.  If you can move through life without being racially profiled or stereotyped, you enjoy dominant culture privilege.  Those of us with that privilege can easily overlook or disregard the needs of those in the minority.  If we sincerely want to follow the God of radical inclusion, we have to be more intentional about listening without getting defensive, listening without leaning into our own viewpoint, but listening with openness to someone who tells us the real problem. 

Second, this story is about shared power and shared resources.  Working together, trusting each other, for the good of all.

Lastly, for today at least, this story underscores the fact that racial diversity does not equal racial reconciliation.  Just because a community might contain people from multiple ethnic backgrounds with varying skin colors does not mean that community is anti-racist.  It can easily be a community that claims to be color-blind instead of recognizing and celebrating color-diversity.  Or it may celebrate diversity in its speech while subtly continuing to exercise white dominance with every fiber of its structural being. 

Diversity by itself is not enough.  Deliberate, full inclusion and empowerment is the work and purpose of God.

The church in Jerusalem hears the concern and responds.  The story ends by saying that the word of God continued to spread.  We might notice that Luke’s accent is not on the growth of the church, but the word.  “The word of God is not something the church hears or announces, the word of God is what the church lives or manifests. . . . the church’s vitality is the vitality of God’s word.  . . .If the conflict between the Hellenists and the Hebrews is not resolved, it will hamper the church’s ability to live authentically according to its identity.” [1]

If we do not confront and combat racism or ethnocentrism or religious nationalism within our own community, it will hamper our ability to live out our calling and identity.  That is just as urgently true now as in the first century. 

What is also true is that we will never get it all right at the same time.  And so we continue to celebrate, to struggle and to serve in the ever widening circle of God’s grace.  Amen.

 

 

[1] Matthew L. Skinner, Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel:  Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts, (Grand Rapids, Brazos Press, 2015), pp. 41-42

9/29/24 - Blessing of the Animals Reflection - Psalm 104:10-15,27-30

Blessing of the Animals Reflection 

Psalm 104:10-15,27-30

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

September 29, 2024 

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3xFiZLdbYE

I’ll start with a few stories.  They might seem random. Bear with me.

One day last week, when I had been sitting with my laptop for too long, I took a break to go out and play fetch with my dog Memphis.  I threw the ball for him and then I remembered that about 30 minutes earlier, I had heard the awful thunk of a bird flying into a window. Going to investigate, I found a bird sitting quite still in a puddle of water.  She looked at me and blinked her eyes, but didn’t attempt to move away.  She wasn’t bleeding that I could see. I took a stick and offered it to her as a perch.  She wrapped both claws around it and seemed steady, so I gently lifted the stick. She was fine, but made no attempt to fly. I moved her out of the water and to a place under a shrub with a bit more protection from any predators.  I don’t know who her predators might be in my backyard. Memphis wasn’t interested in her.

I’m not very good at bird identification, but looking at my backyard bird guide, I think she was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.  She’s the kind of bird I often see foraging in my holly bush.  She was still under the shrub 15 minutes later, but an hour later she had disappeared.  I choose to believe that she recovered and flew away. 

Sometime in the 1800’s, a woman named Mary MacDonald wrote a Christmas carol in the only language she knew, which was Scots Gaelic. She set it to a traditional Scottish folk tune.  After her death, the carol was translated into English and the tune was named after a village near where she lived.  The village is called Bun-es-san, so that is the tune name.  The Christmas carol associated with that tune is Child in a Manger. Another, more well known song which was later set to that same tune is Morning Has Broken. 

Bunessan is a small fishing village on the isle of Mull. Bunessan means bottom of the waterfall.   We rode through it on a tour bus this summer.  Our real destination was somewhere else, but our tour guide was smart enough to give us fun facts every where he could.  So, before we got to the village, he told us about Mary MacDonald and her Christmas carol and then we rode through this village of about 100 people, listening to Morning Has Broken over the bus speakers.  It is going to be a long time before I will hear that song without picturing the stone sea wall, the white croft houses,  the boats bobbing at anchor, the blue sky that I saw there. 

You all know that Jim and I have attended the Wild Goose Festival several times.  For almost two decades, the festival was held in a campground in Hot Springs North Carolina, always in July or August.  The campground is on the French Broad River which is wide and deep. Many times, I would slip down to the river between sessions and take off my shoes and wade in, unbelievably grateful for the refreshment of the cold, flowing water on an oppressively hot and humid day. In the last few days, my Facebook feed has been full of images of the French Broad River well past its banks, flooding the campground and the town, the streets and the restaurants.  You have undoubtedly seen similar videos of homes and businesses, roads and bridges completely washed away in North and South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.  The devastation is incomprehensible.   Power is out.   The only road off of a farm or into a town may not exist anymore. Clean drinking water is in short supply.  Communication with family and loved ones including students at college is cut off.  Anyone with any connection to these places is keenly feeling the urgency and the loss.

Baba Dioum is a forestry engineer from Senegal.  He famously said something like this:

“You can’t save a place that you don’t love,

You can’t love a place that you don’t know

And you can’t know a place that you haven’t learned.”

Some of us call that Watershed Discipleship –knowing and loving the place where everyone and everything drinks the same water. 

The Oxford Junior Dictionary is a children’s dictionary, aimed at 7-year-olds. Every so often, the publishers update it.[1] They remove some lesser used words in order to add new ones which are more relevant to current living.  You can imagine new words related to technology being adding, words like cut and paste, broadband and analogue. Fifty nature words were removed in 2007 and another 20 in 2012.  Words like acorn, dandelion, hamster and otter. 

In their defense, Oxford University Press said that the Junior Dictionary is a very slim children’s dictionary containing less than 5,000 words in total. 400 of those words are about natural world. I am not blaming Oxford.  I’m not blaming the rise of new technology which we all need words to describe. 

Older versions of the dictionary had more nature words, more examples of flowers for example. That was because more children lived in semi-rural environments and saw more plants across the changing seasons.  In a way, the dictionary is simply responding to the lives we are living. So again, we can recall

You can’t save a place that you don’t love,

You can’t love a place that you don’t know

And you can’t know a place that you haven’t learned

For many of us, our pets are our closest expression of relationship to the rest of creation. Our animals experience the places we live differently than we do. They can teach us about the created world that exists beyond human comprehension and how to love it better. Attending to animals for an entire Sunday worship service might seem frivolous to some, but we can understand it as one piece of watershed discipleship. 

One of the Biblical accounts of creation says that God the task of naming all the animals to the first human, Adam.  Naming is a way of remembering, of paying attention, of determining what has value in our lives. We can keep on naming acorns, dandelions, otters and Ruby-Crowned Kinglets even if the dictionary doesn’t. We can remember places like Bunessan and Hot Springs.

Carrie Newcomer has a fun song called A Crash of Rhinoceros. It is her playful take on the story about naming the animals in Genesis.  I’m not going to sing it; but I invite you to listen to the lyrics.

When Adam when out to name the animals

He sat on a rock and he figured

A horse and a cow and a goat and a sheep

Were the best names that he could deliver

 

But Eve looked around at all of that glory

Said, "Hon, I think we should consider

Something a bit more unique and refined

For each and every critter"

 

It's a crash of rhinoceros, a pomp of pekinese

It's a gaggle of geese and a swarm of bees

A parliament of owl and gam of whale

A pandemonium of parrot and a watch of nightingale

A huddle of walrus, company of moles

Exultation of lark and a murder of crow

A simple flock of sheep and a herd of deer

It's a bask of crocodiles, sleuth of bear

 

Adam looked shocked and he scratched his head;  

Eve stood there, happy and beaming

The animals gathered in close to their feet

With roars of delight, barks and singing

She's on a roll and just getting started

The birds and the beasts held their breath

What fine appellation would they receive

And which one of them would be the next?   

 

It's a team of oxen and a mob of kangaroo

It's a charm of finch if there are more than two

A troubling of goldfish, cluster of cats

A bloat of hippopotami, a cloud of bats

Ostentation of peacock, a barren of mules

An army of ant, nursery of raccoon

A parcel of penguin and a dray of squirrels

A bed of oysters with or without the pearls

 

All of that naming lasted into the night

Until even the insects had groupings

Eve was still bright eyed and willing to finish

Though her shoulders and fig leaves were drooping

Adam said, "Darling, I'm proud and amazed

You're really one heck of a woman

So let's go to sleep and tomorrow we'll rise

And start naming rocks, plants and woodlands"

 

It's a tittering of magpie, company of mole

It's a pride of lions and a tribe of goats

A plague of locust and a pack of dogs

A leap of leopard, an array of hedgehog

It's a caravan of camels, a drift of swan

A sulk of foxes and the list goes on

It's a prickle of porcupine, a battery of hen

A cohort of zebra, now once again

It's a colony of rabbit and a sounder of boar

An ambush of tiger, now just a little more

 

It's a business of ferret, a swarm of eels

A covey of quail and a pod of seals

It's a parade of elephant, a dole of dove

A bale of turtles and all of them I love

And she kissed the horde of hamsters

On their furry little heads

Sighed with satisfaction and she went to bed.[2]

 

Amen.

 

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/13/oxford-junior-dictionary-replacement-natural-words

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7Vq9iWOUfI

9/22/24 - Three Ways to Hear the Spirit - Acts 11:19-26, 13:1-4

Three Ways to Hear the Spirit

Acts 11:19-26, 13:1-4

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

September 22, 2024 

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B62X2EWqmBc

During sabbatical, I went to Iona. This island off the coast of Scotland was the site of a monastery from about 563 AD.  It was raided by Danish Vikings, seized by the King of Norway and then reclaimed by the Irish monks, but a monastery of one kind or another survived there until the Protestant Reformation reached Scotland in the 16th century.  Then it was dismantled and abandoned, along with many other formerly Catholic abbeys in Britain.  The building stood open to the elements for hundreds of years until it was rebuilt and restored in the 19th century. 

At some point, the Abbey walls became home to some rare sea-loving ferns.  They live on the light that filters in through the windows and on moisture absorbed through the mortar between the stones.  Their presence is taken as evidence that the building, now enclosed, is still breathing.

I love this image of life that has endured and continues to thrive in an ancient place. It is a great image to hold in mind as we read the book of Acts.  In our time, historical forces are once again dismantling religious institutions. Churches are being abandoned, with some church buildings literally left standing open to the elements. Great sweeping changes like this have happened before.  In those times, the most resilient, most adaptive Christian disciples have returned to our origins, to our formation story, to find the life that still breathes there.   

The earliest Christian communities did not have a lot of traditions or policies to uphold. They did not know about stained glass windows or online giving or lilies at Easter or New York Religious Corporation Law.  They did not even have our Bible.  The gospels were not written down until decades after Jesus.  At first, they looked to the apostles, those few remaining followers who had known Jesus first-hand, for their knowledge of Jesus’ teachings. Over time, other teachers and leaders arose who had received the teachings from the apostles.  But truthfully, sometimes it seems they’re figuring out the what and how of church as they go along.

The main character in the book of Acts is the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes, we see the Spirit blessing the decisions of the leaders and at others, the Spirit has to raise the same issue again and again, as if to say “get it right this time.”  Latino scholar, Justo Gonzalez writes, “the book of Acts becomes a call to Christians to be open to the action of the Spirit, not only in leading them to confront values and practices in society that may need to be subverted, but perhaps even leading them to subvert or question practices and values within the Church itself.”[1]

If we return to our beginnings, we find groups of people engaged by the teachings of Jesus who want to live out those teachings in a daily way across their life span.  And they do that together under the direction of the Spirit.  Today I want to lift up three ways that they tried to hear God’s voice because I think that we can also listen in these same ways.

One way that God speaks is through outward events. One of those events in Acts is conflict and persecution against the disciples in Jerusalem.  After Stephen is stoned by an angry mob, other believers flee up the coast to places like Phoenicia and Cyprus, Antioch, and Samaria. Wherever they go, they fulfill their mission to bear witness to Jesus.

Some end up in Antioch, a cosmopolitan city very important to the Roman Empire. Antioch’s population is estimated between 500,000-800,000 while Jerusalem’s population ranges from 25,000-50,000 in the same time period.[2]   Jewish people have been part of Antioch’s history for a long time. There is a well-established, beautiful synagogue that has already engaged a number of Gentile seekers as converts to Judaism.  Some un-named disciples from Cyprus make connections with Gentiles, likely through this synagogue. Remember that Jesus had told them “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  That is no longer theoretical, but reality. 

There is an intersection between the words of Jesus (witnessing all over the world) and the migration they undertake to avoid persecution and the people they relate to as they migrate.  Within that intersection, we may perceive the working of the Holy Spirit.

Looking back at Albany’s history, we don’t know exactly when Chinese people began to settle in Albany, but by 1886, the city directory listed nine laundries with Chinese surnames. In 1920, there were 24 laundries and 3 Chinese restaurants[3]. Starting in 1887 and continuing for decades, Emmanuel Baptist church offered space for a Chinese congregation and a Chinese language Sunday School.

A global food crisis happened in the early 1970s.  The FOCUS Food pantry opened in 1976. A decade or more later, many Emmanuelites participated in an AIDS Buddy Ministry in response to the spread of HIV/AIDS and the suffering it inflicted. The list of examples is long.  Most of you know it better than I do. 

Willie James Jennings is a Baptist who teaches at Yale Divinity School. His commentary on Acts is one of my very favorites. You’re going to hear his name often in the next few weeks. About this text he writes, “The Spirit speaks to us of what afflicts the world.  This too is our birthmark.  This too is our inheritance.  We are those who from the very beginning are always caught up in what destroys life and threatens the world.  . . . The Spirit always bring to the church specific knowledge of the world and the specific sites of divine concerns.  A church that knows not the particular needs of its time and place is a church that has not heard the Spirit speaking.” [4]

One important way that we hear the Spirit is by attending to the events happening in our time and place. Another way is within our own relationship with God.

Eventually the folks in Jerusalem learn about the mission in Antioch.  At that time, we might say that Jerusalem functioned like headquarters.  So, they send one of their own to check things out.  They send Barnabas.  Barnabas is originally from Cyprus.  He will likely relate to the men from Cyprus who were involved in the start of this mission.  He is also a Levite, which is the Jewish priestly tribe.

One of the questions that we will see repeated in Acts is about just what it means to take the good news to the whole world.  Just how welcome are the Gentiles – those who have historically been outside God’s chosen people?  How much of their identity will they be allowed to keep if they join this Jesus movement?  Barnabas is thoroughly Jewish.  He comes from the Jerusalem church, which at this time, is conservative, in the sense that they want to maintain all the traditions around spiritual practices and identity in the midst of receiving new folks.  This is the ongoing tension which we’ll discuss in a later sermon. 

That tension is not present in Antioch.  They are already welcoming and affirming towards Gentiles.  When Barnabas arrives in Antioch,  he sees what is happening and his immediate response is joy.  Remember, he is a Levite.  His tribe is responsible for providing all the priests and worship leaders for Israel.  He knows all the traditions, all the liturgical rules.  He likely has memorized huge passages of Scripture, including the passages that could be used to exclude Gentiles or include them only under special conditions, but he does not lean into that.  Instead he recognizes the work of the Spirit within the people in Antioch and he yields to it with joy. 

Barnabas’s birth name was Joseph, but the apostles gave him the nick-name Barnabas which means “son of encouragement.”  He is an encourager, a bridge-builder.  And he can handle newness.   He puts those personality traits, those gifts, to work as he bears witness to Jesus.   In that on-going relationship with God, he hears and responds to the Spirit.

 

Three ways to hear the Spirit

1)    Outward events – the trends, shifts, events happening in our time and place;

2)    Attending to our own relationship with God – including our own gifts and desire to join where God is at work; And, the last one for today is

3)     the discernment of the faith community.

In chapter 13, there is a short list of the leaders of the Antioch community.  The list begins with Barnabas.  It ends with Saul, known later as Paul.  After Barnabas understood the scope of the work, he went to get Saul and brought him back to Antioch to help . For a year, they have been teaching the people what they probably don’t fully understand themselves – how to unite a faith community which is so different from the one in Jerusalem but also follows the same Lord. 

There are 3 names between those of Barnabas and Saul

Simeon, probably from northern Africa,

Lucius of Cyrene, perhaps one of the original church planters?

Manaen – who was a childhood friend of Herod Antipas and served on his court either previously or currently on his court. This tells us that there is at least one person in this community of high social standing and political connection.  Herod Antipas is the one who beheaded John the Baptist.  Luke doesn’t tell us how Manaen can be a friend of Herod and a leader in the Jesus movement. 

The short list of names does convey a lot of diversity within this church.  There are differences of culture and language, of faith background, of social status.  We can extrapolate that this is a community where real differences endure.   “[Here] the Spirit speaks, or is heard, in a diverse collection of human beings.”[5]

Together, the Antioch church discerns that God is calling Saul and Barnabas to work somewhere else. Remember that this is a young church, still writing its by-laws.  Saul and Barnabas have been their guides for an intense year.  Sending them away might have been seen as voting against their own interests.  Somehow they manage to hear the idea as a real possibility and to stay open long enough to see it as the Spirit-led option.  They relinquish Saul and Barnabas to the wider mission.  No faith community exists only for its own sake.   We participate in the unfolding of God’s work for God’s purposes.

The church relinquishes their claims on two key leaders at the urging of the Spirit. It reminds me that when our Emmanuel church began, another church, First Baptist, relinquished their dynamic and visionary pastor and about one-third of its members to move to a different neighborhood and plant a church. It reminds me of what I’ve been told about Ralph Elliot when he was Emmanuel’s pastor in the 1960’s.  When someone visited from another part of the city, he would follow up with them after church.  He would welcome them to Emmanuel, but also he would say, “Would you like to hear about the Baptist church in your neighborhood?  I can help you connect there if that is a better fit for you.” 

A faith community does not exist for its own sake. Emmanuel does not exist for its own sake. There is a bigger mission to be part of, and we labor together to follow the Spirit’s call. Communities of faith can often see gifts or deficiencies within individuals that the individuals don’t recognize within themselves. Minority voices within the group may call attention to needs or possibilities that the group has not perceived.  Sometimes a new idea might come from the pastor – I believe that it was pastoral leadership which led to the formation of FOCUS churches.  But just as often, it is the voice of a lay person, as when Larry van Heusen courageously identified himself as a gay man, a gay Christian in 1975 and Emmanuel heard the call of the Spirit in his voice which spoke the truth even as it probably shook. That was the beginning of our calling to receive our LBGTQ siblings with joy.

 

From chapter 13 on, the center of the action in the book of Acts moves from Jerusalem to Antioch.  One scholar says that this happens, “not because the church at Antioch was the most ancient, or the richest or the most powerful, but because it was the one that heard the Spirit’s whisper and responded to the new challenge of the time.”[6]  And so, I repeat what I have said before, may it be so for you and for me.  Amen.  

 

[1] Justo L. Gonazalez, Acts: The Gospel of the Spirit (Maryknoll, NY:  Orbis Books, 2001) p. 8

[2] J. Bradley Chance, Acts: Smyth and Helwys Bible Commentary, (Macon:  Smyth and Helwys, 2007), p. 185

[3] https://considerthesourceny.org/using-primary-sources/legacies/chinese-legacies/capital-district/capital-district-chinese-history

[4] Willie James Jennings, Acts: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville:  Westminster/John Knox Press, 2017), pp.122-23

[5]Matthew L. Skinner, Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel:  Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts, (Grand Rapids, Brazos Press, 2015), p 99.

[6] Justo Gonzalez, p.141

9/15/24 - Waiting for Power - Acts 1:1-11

Waiting for Power

Acts 1:1-11

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

September 15, 2024 

 Note: A recording of this worship service may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqBaRIJPx04

The book of Acts begins with a recap.  Luke, the author, reminds Theophilus, who might be his benefactor, that there is a prequel to this book which contains a lot more details about what Jesus did and taught.  The prequel is the Gospel of Luke. He wraps it up his summary by saying that Jesus spent about 40 days showing that he was alive, demonstrating the truth of the resurrection and talking about the reign of God.  This book is about a time of huge disruption and transitions.  Transitions so momentous that much of the world now orders our calendars around the before and after of these changes. 

 

As Jesus is preparing to depart, he spends his time talking about the reign of God which is what he talked about at the beginning of his ministry.  He is transferring leadership, putting his life’s mission into the hands of his disciples.  His mission will become their mission.  Their mission will be passed to the next generation and the next and the next until it reaches us and becomes our mission.

Jesus reminds them about the big picture, about God’s intention for deep peace and well-being for all of creation.  He shows them the scars of his suffering, which signify both the terrible cost of this mission and the victory of resurrection.  Maybe he repeats some favorite parables, answers a few more questions,  but eventually he says “I’ve got to go. And you have to be my witnesses, here, there, and ultimately everywhere. It’s in your hands.”

I was reading Acts a few weeks ago, at the time of the Olympics.  And I thought about the pressure on Olympic athletes . . .  the fear, the excitement, the unbelievably high expectations.  Maybe it was something like that for the disciples.  This was what they trained for for so long.  This is what was set in motion when those fisherfolk dropped their nets and followed Jesus years ago.  Just like for first-time Olympians, it is familiar and also brand new.  They’ve never been here before.  What if they fail?  What if they succeed?

There’s a viral Tik-Tok video which shows a young girl being picked up by her Mom after school.  She opens the back door and immediately buries her face in the seat of her carseat.  She says, “I done so much at school, I just need to take a second.” 

Her Mom says, “Are you tired?”

Yeah.

What did you do at school?

The girl says “I just do too much at school.”

The Mom asks again, “What do you do?”

The girl takes her head out of the car seat and looks at her Mom.  She says, “Like I go to lunch. . . and I. . . It’s a lot for me.”[1]

I imagine the disciples and all that they’ve been through, especially most recently.  The abject terror surrounding the crucifixion and then the unreality of resurrection, Judas’ betrayal of Jesus and of all of them and then his death by suicide.  And now, Jesus wants them to fill his shoes, to keep telling his story, to do all the teaching and healing and loving enemies without him.  I could understand if they were overwhelmed and said “That’s a lot for me.” 

But maybe something else happened.  Maybe in the 40 days they shared after resurrection, they had time to process and come to terms with the incredible experience of knowing Jesus.  Maybe in touching his scars, they recognized the One who had defeated death.  Maybe they had time to say I’m sorry and be forgiven, time to hang out and laugh, to hug and share some memories.  And maybe in that time, they accepted and embraced their mission.

Jesus announced their mission – Be my witnesses.  It’s a fairly open-ended job description.  And then he said, “But first . . .wait.  Before you do anything wait for power.” 

Tony Robinson is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.  He does a lot of writing and lecturing.  One time he was teaching a class on leading change to about 40 mainline pastors. In one exercise,  each student had to choose from three possible answers what motivated them most, what got them into ministry and keep them going. The most popular answer was affiliation.  These pastors, 26 of the 40, were motivated by forming and attending to relationships.  A second group of about 12 identified as achievers.  These were people who wanted to produce visible results with projects or programs.  The third group was the smallest, only two or three pastors, who said that their major motivation was power and influence.  They wanted to change hearts and minds.  So, the motivations were 1) relationships, 

2) achievements

and then, in last place,  3) power and influence. 

Tony invited the class to reflect on those results.  The first responses were self-congratulatory.  Several said, “It’s good. We care about people, not power.”  The comments went like that for a bit, but then one student said, “I’m not surprised that so few indicated an interest in power and influence.  After all, our denomination has been telling us for years, in all sorts of ways, that power is bad.”  Someone else agreed, pointing out that when power is unacknowledged or suppressed usually goes underground and pops up in unhealthy ways. Finally, Tony concluded the discussion by saying that he would be concerned for a church organization where only 5 percent of the leaders wanted to change hearts and minds, wanted to influence people and communities to be more healthy and Christlike and functional by exercising their power.[2]

I wonder if we can put ourselves into the place of those first Christians.  Can we imagine Jesus telling us to wait for power?  Can we imagine receiving power from the very same source as Jesus – the Spirit of God?  Can we?  I don’t think we claim our power or even the promise of power very often. 

Maybe it is because we have seen too much publicity around churches or church leaders that abused their power.  Some of us have been harmed by those churches.  We don’t want to be lumped in with those power-mongers and we definitely want to avoid inflicting that harm.  Rather than harness power for good, we prefer to see ourselves as powerless.

Jesus said that we are to be his witnesses.  Witnesses are those who tell the truth. Someone has said “you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”  Maybe we do not claim the power of the Holy Spirit because we are afraid of being odd, afraid of paying too high a cost for speaking controversial or inconvenient truths. 

Maybe it is low self-esteem. We do not recognize the power that we have or the difference we are already making.  Not long ago, I heard from a friend in her 80’s.  She had just received some bad news.  A friend of hers, a young person in his twenties, had been diagnosed with cancer.  He was fine one day and seriously ill the next.  The news was a gut punch. She said, “There’s nothing I can do about this.”  Before the conversation was over, I realized that she was helping him with his medical bills, which, as you might expect, is no small thing.  The next time I talked with her, his treatment had started and she was feeling a bit of hope– I think in part because she recognized that she was doing more than she had given herself credit for. 

Or maybe we don’t think in terms of power, as a church, because we believe our best days are behind us. We know that thousands of churches close every year. Denominational resources have shrunk and keep shrinking. Clergy are not seen as public moral leaders as they once were.  A 2023 Gallup poll found only 32% of Americans described pastors as having high honesty and ethical standards.  Clergy did rank higher than members of Congress though. A mere 6% thought they were honest and ethical. [3]  We are caught up in a narrative and a reality that doesn’t lead us to feel powerful at all.    

But consider the religious scene in Jerusalem in the first century.  The civil religion, the Roman pantheon of gods, seems robust. It is enforced by local custom and by the sword of empire.   Judaism was already divided by the theology and practices of groups like the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Essenes, but now there is growing conflict between Jewish people who believe Jesus is the Messiah and those who don’t.  By the time the book of Acts is written down, the magnificent building that was the Temple will have been torn down to the ground and the worship and pilgrimages that it supported will have been destroyed. 

So, if we are hesitant to accept the notion that we might have access to the Power of the Spirit of God, the power of life and death, the power to change the world, we might stop to recognize that it would have been hard for those folks waiting in Jerusalem to think of themselves that way too. They were a decided minority, marginalized in so many ways, small and weak in the eyes of Rome, in the eyes of Israel’s religious authorities and perhaps in their own estimation. But to them, Jesus promised power. 

He told them to stay in Jerusalem and wait.  I never like to be told to wait.  And in our case, at Emmanuel right now, there is an urgency, a sense that the window in which we can meaningfully take action is closing.  That urgency is creating momentum.  Surely the time for waiting is past. The book we’re studying is called Acts, not Waits.  It is full of action.  Our take-away today cannot possibly be that we are to just wait for God to do something.

There’s a whole genre of short videos circulating on social media.  They all begin with a voice or words on the screen that say “wait for it.”  It’s a cue to the viewer to pay attention, be ready because something is going to happen that you might not otherwise expect. Someone is going to have a funny accident or a wonderful surprise.  A child is going to utter one line of wisdom beyond their years. A bear will suddenly appear next to the person in the middle of the screen. A parachute will open just in time.  “Wait for it” means “Watch carefully or you’ll miss it.”  “Wait for it” means “Don’t look away, don’t shut off the video, because it’s not a long wait and it will be worth it.”

That’s how I hear Jesus speaking to us.  “Wait for power” means “anticipate it”.  It means “it is really close and it will be so worth it.”   

Having those instructions from Jesus, they did what he said. They stayed together. They prayed.  They talked and listened to each other.  And when the power fell, there was no mistaking it.  With the arrival of the Holy Spirit, the disciples had the power and the courage to take on the specifics of the mission which became clear.

This is my take-away from today’s reading. We have access to the same gift of power, the same Divine Spirit that empowered Jesus.  Can we claim that, lean into it, act like we believe it, until we really do?  We are waiting for specific guidance. We  are really close.  Wait for it. . .

We are waiting together.  We are praying together and individually.  If you aren’t already doing that, then please start. We are talking and listening to each other.  Next Sunday evening, we have set aside time with a skilled facilitator to be together, to talk and listen carefully, to discern our Emmanuel’s specific mission. Anticipate that the Spirit will be present with us too. Please do everything you can to be there. If you need transportation, if you need child-care, please share those needs with me today.

I love the way that Barbara Brown Taylor describes this scene in Acts 1  She says, “No one standing around watching them that day could have guessed what an astounding thing happened when they all stopped looking into the sky and looked at each other instead. On the surface, it was not a great moment: eleven abandoned disciples with nothing to show for all their following. But in the days and years to come it would become very apparent what had happened to them. With nothing but a promise and a prayer, those eleven people consented to become the church, and nothing was ever the same again, beginning with them.

The followers became leaders,

the listeners became preachers,

the converts became missionaries,

the healed became healers. The disciples became apostles, witnesses of the risen Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit, and nothing was ever the same again.” [4]

 

Oh friends, may it be so for you and for me. Wait for it . . .

 


[1] https://www.tiktok.com/@ehuber_192/video/7209300272957623598?lang=en

[2] Anthony B. Robinson and Robert W. Wall, Called to Be Church: The Book of Acts for a New Day, (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 2006), p. 123

[3] https://news.gallup.com/poll/608903/ethics-ratings-nearly-professions-down.aspx

[4] https://www.christianitytoday.com/1998/05/day-we-were-left-behind/

 

5/12/24 - So That We May Know the Hope - Ephesians 1:15-23

Note: A recording of this worship service may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WJCfwDhPqk

Cover Image:  The Church of the Holy Sepulcher's long history underscores the importance of the physical place, Golgotha, of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The church (a primarily 19th century structure today) began as a pagan Roman temple site. The historian Eusebius confirmed the site as the place of Christ's resurrection, albeit with thin historical evidence. Constantine began the rehabilitation of the site and directed his mother, Helena, to construct a new church on the site, protecting and honoring the tomb of Jesus as the site of his resurrection. During the construction, Helena was said to have found the cross of Jesus' crucifixion, or the "true cross." Over the centuries the church building burned, was rebuilt and then destroyed, left in ruins, and rebuilt again in the modern period. The destruction of the church in 1009 by the Fatamid ruler over Jerusalem was eventually part of the justification for the first Crusade. Today several denominations/faiths jointly manage the site, very popular with Christian pilgrims.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dgjones/5797176382/

5/5/24 - Worthy - John 18:33-37; Revelation 5:6-14

Worthy

John 18:33-37

Revelation 5:6-14

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

May 5, 2024

 

Image:  Crozier Head with Lamb of God, 13th century Italian or Sicilian, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Medieval Collection

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TORxSrtTwmY

 

Those of us who participated in the Civil Rights Pilgrimage in February read and heard important words at every stop.  One of the sentences that stuck with several of us came from Joanne Bland.  As she talked about people who died during the Civil Rights Movement, she said, “You will hear it said that they gave their lives for this cause, but that is wrong.”  She said, “They did not give their lives.  Their lives were taken from them.”

Similarly, you might have noticed a difference when some people described George Floyd as having been killed and others said that he was murdered. 

There is a way of telling the story that accents the injustice connected with certain deaths.  The gospels are emphatic that Jesus’ death is an injustice that never should have happened.  “Jesus is innocent, falsely accused.  . . . Those who execute him are indifferent to truth, captive to evil, and motivated by expediency and power.  It is wrong for him to die.” [1]

The book of Revelation is a letter to 7 churches made up of poor and marginalized folks trying to survive, resist and refuse assimilation into the Roman empire.[2]  The intent is to help these early Christians hold on to their faith, to recognize and anticipate the exploitation and oppression of empire.

John, the writer of Revelation, John uses the word slaughter to describe the violence of Rome.  There is the violence of military conquests, the violence of economic injustice which leads to death from food shortages and famines that accompany war.  John repeats the words slaughter and blood to emphasize Rome’s M.O.  Rome slaughters.[3] 

John makes it clear.  Jesus did not just die.  Jesus was not simply killed.  Jesus was slaughtered.  He was murdered.  He died a violent, unjust death at the hands of empire.

In today’s reading, John has a vision of heaven.  He sees a scroll which is completely sealed.  Seven is a Biblical number of perfection.  The scroll is perfectly sealed.   The scroll represents the future. It contains answers to all the questions.  But it is sealed and there is no one qualified to open it.

So John weeps.  If no one can open the scroll, then it seems there will be no end to the suffering of his people, no answers to all their why questions, no coming of God’s reign on earth as it is in heaven.  John weeps.  But then someone says, “There is one who is worthy.”  It is the Lion of Judah. 

John turns to see the entrance of the powerful Lion, the great warrior that has conquered, the only one who can break the seals to open the scroll. John looks toward the throne, ready to bow before the fierce Lion, the one who will bring God’s terrible truth and justice, but there on the throne is not a Lion, but a Lamb.

The slaughtered Lamb, is the one, the only one, worthy to open the scroll.  We were expecting a Lion, but we see a Lamb. The Lamb is worthy to open the seals, unlocking the meaning of the mysteries of the universe, because the Lamb was murdered.  “The Lamb worthy to reveal God’s future for the world is himself a victim of violence.”[4]

The Lamb is worthy.

When the President makes an entrance today, the band plays “Hail to the Chief!” and the crowd stands. When the Roman emperor appeared in public, the crowds were trained to shout “Worthy! Worthy! Worthy is the emperor.” [5]

The truth is that the murdered Lamb, Jesus,  is worthy, not the emperor.  The courageous Lamb overcomes evil by refusing to adopt its methods.  Remember what Jesus said to Pilate “My kingdom is not of this world.  “If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over”. In other words, Jesus was saying “I don’t play by your rules.  I don’t return violence for violence, evil for evil.”

The slaughtered Lamb has the power, no matter what the emperor claims.  Empire killed the Lamb and the Lamb came back.  Jesus creates a new political order by breaking the stranglehold of sin and death.  That empowers a new community to live courageously, trusting that God’s reign of nonviolence and peace through justice will ultimately prevail.  The Lamb is worthy.

Wes Howard-Brock is a writer and peacemaker and educator. In one of his books, he describes two religions present within the Bible, a religion of empire and a religion of creation. Each religion has its own theology, practice and liturgy.

The religion of empire is concerned with protecting its power by casting suspicion on the other, destroying enemies and stockpiling resources for the few, even it if means the rest go hungry. The second religion, the religion of creation is grounded in an economy of gift, set on making strangers into neighbors, and laying the ground work for love of all:  enemies, strangers, neighbors and even the non-human world. [6]

The religion of empire and the religion of creation are both attested in the Bible. God, repeatedly and relentlessly confronts the unjust, violent religion of empire with non-violence and justice.  We humans, especially when we are hurt or threatened, tend to slip into the ways of empire.  We forsake the power of the Lamb.

There are so many examples of Christians embracing empire, the very danger that Revelation warns against. One story comes from Argentina during the years when a military junta ruled by abducting, torturing and killing thousands. One woman was arrested and interrogated for two nights under humiliating conditions. She was blindfolded and questioned by a group of men unknown to her.  At one point, she said, “I am a Christian”  One of the men laughed at her and said, “Why are you telling us that? I am too.”  He took her hand and put it on his chest where a cross was hanging; then he gave her the cross to hold and mocked her for her belief a commitment to the poor was part of her identity as a Christian.  She was deeply shocked that he could claim the cross for himself in service of “national security.”   This is the way of empire – to turn the symbol of suffering love and solidarity into an instrument of domination. [7]  Before you dismiss that story as irrelevant to us in our time and place, consider the use of burning crosses as threat and intimidation.  Consider the rise of Christian nationalism and the support that Christian Zionism gives to genocide in the Middle East.

This week the United Methodist Church changed their minds.  They voted overwhelmingly to delete the language that claims that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.  They affirmed marriage as a sacred covenant between two people of consenting age. They struck down a ban on queer clergy.  Great was the rejoicing! 

Even as my Facebook was flooded with United Methodist rainbows and the faces of people who have been advocating for this justice for over 40 years, I thought about those not present, those whose lives and personhood had been diminished and crushed by this exclusion.

I thought of my friend Cindy who was a United Methodist pastor, until she took the courageous step of telling the truth about herself to her congregation. She did so intentionally, knowing that it would lead to church discipline, knowing that she would face a church trial and likely be forced to leave.  She was.  She now serves as pastor in another denomination.

On the day in 2016, she said,  “I have been an ordained UMC pastor for 25 years. At last, I am choosing to serve in that role with full authenticity, as my genuine self, a woman who loves and shares my life with another woman.”

It is ironic that the faith she learned in that denomination is what empowered her to speak this truth.  She said, “It’s soul-crushing to speak to my congregation each week about God’s love for them as they are, while being unable to speak of my own God-given identity, my loving relationship, and much of my day-to-day life. I do this not only for myself, but for my partner, for my daughter, for all those who are excluded, and for the good of the church.”[8] 

Another colleague, a rabbi,  also remembered Cindy this week. In a Facebook post, he said that “she went through hell for what is right and ended up on her feet and dragging a Church she doesn’t even belong to anymore behind her. History will probably not remember her role in all this, but it was not insignificant.”  Cindy understands the power of the Lamb. I lift her up today as an example of the ways that we who follow Jesus have to identify with the victims of violence and testify to the systems of oppression in our own imperial context, even when that context is the church.

The Rev. Peter Storey is a Methodist Pastor from South Africa who was deeply involved in dismantling apartheid and rebuilding the country afterward.  He served as chaplain to Nelson Mandela and others on Robben Island and spent decades working against racism with Desmond Tutu.  After he retired as a bishop in South Africa, he taught at Duke Divinity School.  He has made about 50 trips to the United States since the 1960’s and preached in over 100 cities.  On a visit about a year ago, he offered a warning to American churches about Christian Nationalism.  He urged us to re-examine what it means to be the Body of Christ. He said to remember that we know the end of the story.  Even though evil and corruption and violence feels overwhelming and insurmountable, we know the power of the murdered and resurrected Lamb.   Decades ago, he had to ask himself what it meant to follow Jesus in apartheid South Africa.  He said he developed 4 principles for himself which he offered to us now. 

 

1)    Tell the truth without fear.  He said you have to be a truth teller.  You have to be willing to suffer the anger of the system, retaliation from the authorities, and the loss of church members. 

2)    Bind up the broken.  Make every effort to enter into the lives of those around you who are suffering most. Imitate Jesus who journeyed with the pain of others.

3)    Live the alternative to empire.  Build a community that reflects God’s dream of inclusion and radical welcome.

4)    Join Jesus in the energy for change in your country.  The church must get rid of its triumphalism and its arrogance. The suggestion that we are the only people that God is using to change the world is nonsense. In fact, half the time God has to abandon us because we are so useless and use other methods. We should very humbly seek a place among other people of faith, of other faiths, of no faith, of different approaches, who seek justice.[9]

 

Beloved ones, this is my prayer for us, that we may know the ferocious gentle power of the Lamb and that we may endure with faithfulness.  Amen.

 

 


[1] S. Mark Heim, Saved from Sacrifice:  A Theology of the Cross, (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 2006),  p 107

[2] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-of-easter-3/commentary-on-revelation-79-17-9 

[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/all-saints-sunday/commentary-on-revelation-79-17-10  Anna Bowden

[4] J. Nelson Kraybill, Apocalypse and Allegiance:  Worship, Politics and Devotion in the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2010), p. 98

[5] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-of-easter-3/commentary-on-revelation-511-14-2

[6] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-of-easter-3/commentary-on-revelation-511-14-5

[7] Dorothee Soelle, Theology for Skeptics: Thinking about God, ( Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 1995),  pp 124-125

[8] http://www.kansascity.com/living/religion/article53739145.html#storylink=cpy

[9] https://faithandleadership.com/peter-storey-the-church-here-the-world-or-itself

4/28/24 - God in Pain - Isaiah 53:7-9; Hebrews 4:14-16

God in Pain

Isaiah 53:7-9; Hebrews 4:14-16

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

April 28, 2024

 

Image: Image  Fear Not: I Got You by Margo Humphrey, 2013

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4aZdiQNIrg

Two weeks ago, Jim and I had the great privilege of hearing the Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb speak at the Alliance of Baptists gathering.  Dr. Raheb is a Palestinian theologian.  He served as pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem for 30 years.  He is the founder and president of Dar al-Kalima University which is the first and only university in Palestine focused on the arts and cultural heritage.  

Dr. Raheb describes his homeland this way  “The people of Palestine have been occupied, crushed, and oppressed by one empire the other.  It is a distinct and unique challenge to be placed in a buffer zone that’s often a war zone.  It is tough to see one’s country as a perpetual battlefield, to see it divided and torn apart. . .  It is not easy to live in Palestine and survive physically and, even more, psychologically and emotionally.  But this is the context in which the people of Palestine have repeatedly found themselves.  This is the context in which the Bible was written.  And it is the context Palestinians face today.”[1]  

In 2003, the Church of Sweden held an international art exhibition called The Christ of the World.  As a demonstration that the gospel crosses borders and ethnicities, they intended to display art from all over the world, and they wanted to include paintings from Palestine.  At the time that submissions were to be made, Israel had imposed a 24-hour lockdown on Bethlehem, so it was challenging, but they persevered.  In his book, The Cross in Contexts, Dr. Raheb reports that 60% of the artists who participated were Muslim.  That did not surprise him, because over half of the student body is Muslim. 

What did surprise him was that all but one of the Muslim students had submitted a picture of the crucified Christ, while only one Christian had chosen that theme. Islam understands Jesus as a prophet, but teaches that he was not crucified. The cross in any form is usually deliberately avoided by Muslim people.  These artists might have safely chosen to paint the nativity or any other event from Jesus life.  Dr. Raheb concluded that Christ on the cross best represented the context in which they were living.  He writes “In a God sharing their bitter destiny, they find strength, comfort and power.  . . It is the suffering and crucified Christ that can best speak to us, an occupied nation, in our suffering.  It is he who can best tell our story to the world.  Palestinian identity is best described by the cross.” [2]

I am continuing on a theme that I started at the beginning of this month, exploring the meaning of the cross two thousand years after Resurrection. Today, I am focused on the cross as the ultimate expression of God’s solidarity with humanity.  I am interested in the power of Jesus becoming like we are, as Hebrews says, “in every respect.” 

There’s a well-known incident related by the professor and activist and Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel.  In his book, Night, he writes, “ The SS hanged two Jewish men and a youth in front of the whole camp. The men died quickly, but the death throes of the youth lasted for half an hour. ‘Where is God? Where is he?’ someone asked behind me. As the youth still hung in torment for a long time, I heard the man call again, ‘Where is God now?’ And I heard a voice in myself answer: ‘Where is he? He is here. He is hanging here on this gallows…’”

That may sound to us like a distinctly Christian interpretation, but it is also consistent with long-time rabbinic teachings that God suffers on behalf of humans.

One of the primary ways that I understand the cross is from the work of German theologian, Jurgen Moltmann.  As he dies, Jesus cries out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  Moltmann says that Jesus, the son, suffers being abandoned by God and dying.  And simultaneously, God the parent, suffers the death of a child.  Jesus enters so completely into human experience that something new happens in the life of God.  A new kind of suffering and grief is born out of love for human beings.

Moltmann and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, both German citizens, were profoundly shaped by World War II.  Moltmann survived. Bonhoeffer did not.  Writing from prison, Bonhoeffer said, “The same God who is with us is the God who forsakes us.  The same God who makes us to live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before who we stand continually.  Before God, and with God, we live without God.  God consents to be pushed out in the world and onto the cross; God is weak and powerless in the world and in precisely this way, and only so, is at our side and helps us.” [3]

On the cross, Jesus is God-forsaken.  God enters into the very depths of our pain, even into solidarity with us when we feel that God has abandoned us. This Trinitarian lens offers us a different understanding of the cross, one that is not transactional or substitutionary.  It is not Jesus enduring a punishment that we deserve, but Jesus taking on human suffering in the most profound outpouring of love.  

It is important to note that Jesus does not die of natural causes, at a ripe old age, but the violent death of the criminal on the cross.  Moltmann says, “Jesus takes upon himself the eternal death of the godless and the godforsaken, so that all the godless and the godforsaken can experience communion with him.”[4]

Suffering is part of human existence. Everyone endures it, and, in putting on human flesh, Jesus chose to enter fully into it. 

German theologian Dorothee Soelle reminds us that “the cross is not something religious – it is a terrible, bloody reality.”  She writes, “[the cross] stands for the small girl who was sexually abused by her father and lives many years in the silence of denial. The cross means the merciless violence which people carry out on people, the strong on the weak, rich on the poor...men on women...caretakers on the sick, the powerful on the powerless.... It surrounds us, penetrates our lives. And if we deny it, then we begin not really to see ourselves correctly.”[5]

This solidarity is understood particularly well by those within oppressed groups, those who routinely suffer the kind of unjust and violent death suffered by Jesus.  Those of us who enjoy the privilege of systems that work mostly in our favor may learn much from them.

Enslaved people in this country seized on this power of the cross.  Eminent black theologian James Cone said that “Christ crucified empowered them to believe that they would not be defeated by the troubles of this world, no matter how great and painful their suffering. . . Black ministers preached about Jesus’ death more than any other theme because they saw in Jesus’ suffering and persecution a parallel to their own encounter with slavery, segregation, and the lynching tree.”[6]

Mitri Raheb says that “the climax of the New Testament could not have been anything else but God on the cross.  Palestine was the unexpected place for God’s self-revelation.  And that meant that defeat in the face of empire, was not an ultimate defeat. For it enabled the people of Palestine to survive all defeats. It made the defeat lose its teeth, death lose its sting, and empire lose its victory. It ensured that empires were incapable of celebrating their victories, because while they crushed the people they occupied, they weren't able to crush their spirit. It helped them not surrender after each defeat, but to pick themselves up and start over again.” [7]

Contemporary black theologian Kelly Brown Douglas echoes this.  She writes, “Maintaining the connection between the cross and the empty tomb is essential to the meaning of the resurrection itself.  It grounds the resurrection in history.  It makes clear that the evil that God overcomes is historical, that is, that God really defeats that power of this world.   . . . It is the connection between the cross and resurrection that has enabled black people to know that God, as revealed in Jesus, intimately understands their suffering and pain.  It also lets them know that God can and will overcome it.”[8] 

Somehow, paradoxically, the God who suffers, the one who is god-forsaken and powerless, brings a powerful hope.

Friends, this sermon has been theologically dense, more like a seminary lecture than a sermon, rightfully speaking.  These are ideas which I find profound and hopeful, and truly life-giving, but I have not done justice to them.  I hope that I have perhaps enlivened our imaginations. 

I believe that one of our tasks in understanding the cross is to recognize when and where crucifixion is happening in our time.  If we perceive the similarities between the cross and the lynching tree, then perhaps we can also see that black and brown bodies suffering the repeated violence within our criminal legal system are also being crucified.  Perhaps we can see the migrants and refugees who are dying because of systematic denials of safety and shelter and recognize them as crucified people.  Or when we consider Gaza and the continued oppression of the Palestinian people, may we recognize the cross once again.  Wherever we recognize it, may we follow Christ in embracing the path of solidarity. And thanks be to God who understands and has overcome the power of this world.  Amen.

 

 


[1] Mitri Raheb and Suzanne Watts Henderson, The Cross in Contexts:  Suffering and Redemption in Palestine, (Maryknoll, NY:  Orbis Books, 1995), p. 16

[2] Mitri Raheb and Suzanne Watts Henderson, The Cross in Contexts, p. 20

[3] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, trans. Isabel Best, Lisa E. Dahill, Reinhard Krauss, and Nancy Lukens.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol I, ed  Christian Gremmels, Eberhard Bethge, and Renate Bethge, with Ilse Todt (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2010) p. 478-479.

[4] Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God (San Francisco:  HarperCollins, 1991), p. 276

[5] Dorothee Soelle, Theology for Skeptics: Thinking about God, ( Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 1995), p 101

[6] James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree (Maryknoll, New York:  Orbis Books, 2013),  p 2, 75

[7] https://www.mitriraheb.org/en/article/1487339798

[8] Kelly Brown Douglas, Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God.

( Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2015),  p. 187