12/24/21 - Close to Home: Invited Home - Luke 2: 1-20

Close to Home:  Invited Home

Luke 2: 1-20

December 24, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Image Ordinary Glory by Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman © a sanctified art | sanctifiedart.org

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://youtu.be/0gMud0SyFTk

My cheeky brother Roger sent me a  picture of a kitchen several months ago.  He asked “What do you think about a counter like that?’

I looked at it and said, “It reminds me of our old house.”

I meant the house where we lived from the time I was in fourth grade until I left for college. The house where Roger lived from first grade until sometime in high school when my parents moved to Saudi Arabia and he went to boarding school in Greece.  It was a house where we did a lot of our growing up and the kitchen table was distinctive.  Like the one in this picture, it was attached to the wall.  Not at barstool height like many are today, but at normal kitchen table level.  This picture reminded of that house, but our kitchen had a fake brick wall and oak cabinets. 

So I asked him whose house this was and he kept sending me pictures of other rooms, until finally he sent me the front of the house, which I recognized as our old one.   It’s been a few decades since we lived there. Some remodeling has happened.  If I have a dream in which I am at home, it doesn’t matter how old I am in the dream, I am most often in this house. 

Our Advent theme was Close to Home. Over the last month, we have talked about spiritual homesickness, that enduring yearning for God.  We have talked about faith nurtured in homes and communities which creates peacemakers and justice-seekers. We have described sanctuary, the kind of welcome and belonging and safety that we hope everyone would experience in their own homes, but which some must unfortunately seek elsewhere.

All of that has led us to this night, to the center of the story.  We know the story very well, but even so, like millions of others around the world today, we are here to hear it again, to feel it in the music, to wonder at it by candlelight, to once more find ourselves in the story of God coming to be at home among us. 

Wanting to be home for Christmas or to be with people who accept and love you -- that’s a common theme in Christmas music and made-for-TV movies.  Most of us felt it especially keenly last year when the pandemic kept us confined to our homes, but not necessarily in the home where we usually spend the holidays.  And many of us are still feeling that this year. Family is still too far away. Or maybe we are at home, but home doesn’t feel like it used to. Maybe there’s an empty chair or an empty room, and a hole in your heart.

Home for the holidays is an interesting twist on the original story.  It doesn’t really seem like anyone was at home on the first Christmas. The angels were talking with some shepherds, not in heaven where they apparently live.  The shepherds are not at home – they’re in the fields with sheep.  The magi, who will arrive in a sermon in a couple of weeks, are definitely not at home.  They’re somewhere on the road from the East, probably on camelback.  And of course, Mary and Joseph are not in their hometown, not even, it seems, in a decent motel.

None of that stopped God from being present then, or now. Christmas has always happened in the hearts of many in places far from home. It is happening even tonight in prison cells and hospital rooms, on battlefields, in emergency shelters, and in refugee camps.  Maybe even at fast-food places. Here is one pastor’s description of one Christmas Eve at a McDonald’s.

 . . .A family with three toddlers, jazzy with excitement,
are traveling to Maine in the drizzle of the holy evening. the littlest boy in red and green plaid Oshkosh runs in circles, strangling French fries in his hand. Tired of the car and already eager for presents and bed, his little sneakers tramp
like angel feet.

An older couple in a corner talk quietly about their daughter who’s been dead four Christmases now. They could have gone to their son-in-law’s house. His kind new wife invited them with her family, but it didn’t seem right. And this was the very brightest place – it looked like a star when they drove down the highway, and they knew there would be children here.

A divorced Dad with Budweiser on a black T-shirt jokes with his six year old daughter over milk shakes. A clumsily wrapped present perches on the molded plastic seat. He is trying to make the very best treat he can of their Christmas hour before bringing her back to her Mom’s house. Brown eyes shine at him and he thinks she is excited for later – for Santa and all – but she’s looking at him all over memorizing the gift.

The preacher is on her way to church to remember Bethlehem out loud for the folks who come to break bread and light little candles with paper circles on them that keep the wax from dripping on their hands as they sing “silent night.” Most of them have heard the story about the child before, and so has she. She has come here first, just to sit for a while and watch the christmas eve communion.”[1]

Christmas has always happened in the hearts of many in places far from home. Bidden or unbidden, Christ is present.

We know, from generations of Christmas pageants, that there must have been an innkeeper who pointed to the no vacancy sign and sent Mary and Joseph away. We know this because of that one verse which says that Mary laid Jesus in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. 

The word that gets translated “inn” is the Greek word kataluma. At the risk of messing up all those pageants, I have to tell you that the best translation of kataluma is not “inn.” The best translation of kataluma is “guest room.”  The one other time that kataluma occurs in Luke’s gospel is when Jesus sends his disciples to find a place to celebrate the Passover.   Preparing for what we now call the Last Supper, Jesus told them to ask the homeowner for the use of the kataluma, the guest room or upper room.   The kataluma was an extra room, added to a house for the purpose of providing space for guests.  

When Luke says that there is no room in the kataluma, it means that the guest room is already full. Many people are traveling – it’s Christmas, I mean the census, after all, and providing hospitality for family members who had come home was just basic good manners in that culture.  As is happening in many places tonight, some people will be sleeping on the sofa or an air mattress or in their childhood bunkbeds. So it was with Mary and Joseph, they were bunked down in whatever space was available.

Palestinian homes usually had two main areas – one large room used for cooking, eating and sleeping, and a second area, usually down a few steps, used for everything else. Into this lower level, the family cow, donkey and a few sheep were brought each night.  In the morning, the animals were taken out into a courtyard, the area was cleaned and the house was ready for the day.  Where there are animals, there are feeding troughs.  Mary is simply being resourceful by putting Jesus in the manger, where he wouldn’t get stepped on in this very full house. 

So, Jesus was not born in the stable of some cold, impersonal one star hotel, but rather in the back room of a home where aging aunts, cousins, and other random relatives may have doted on the new baby.  God came into the world, into a family, with rituals and holiday traditions, and all of the quirks and characters that our families have. 

That is what we celebrate tonight, that God came to share our humanness, our pain, our fear, our hopes and joys, and our love.  God arrived as vulnerable and weak as any of us. He lived and dwelt among us.  Of all the characters in the first Christmas story, perhaps it was God who was homeless; The One who left the divine realm to take on human flesh, was the furthest from home. 

Let me close with The House of Christmas by G. K. Chesterton. Chesterton doesn’t seem to know about the idea of a guest room, but the poem is still true. 

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall [we]come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And [we all] are at home.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] Maren C. Tirabassi Christmas Eve at the Epsom Circle McDonald’s and Other Poems, ©2020 by Maren C. Tirabassi

12/19/21 - Close to Home: Seeking Sanctuary - Luke 1:39-55

Close to Home:  Seeking Sanctuary

Luke 1:39-55

December 19, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Photo by Jaimie Trueblood/newline.wireimage.com

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31MlM6HEcJY

What happens after the angel leaves? The Bible rarely gives the kinds of details I want. So, the angel appears out of nowhere and says “do not be afraid,” as they always do.  And then they say whatever it was they came to say. You’re terrified, but trying not to show it, because they said not to be.  Then they leave. What happens right then?  Right after they leave?  Do you have a panic attack?  Do you lean against the wall to keep from falling down or maybe go throw up?  Maybe you crawl in bed, pull the covers over your head and pretend it was a dream. 

We do not know what Mary did immediately after the angel left her, but we do know that within a very short time she made her way to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is married to a priest. Her male ancestors were priests.  Luke describes her as righteous and blameless before God.  So, maybe when you’ve been visited by an angel, one of the first things you might do is to go and see a religious person, someone who is close to God and may understand the mysteries of angels.

If we didn’t already know this story, we might expect a different reaction.  We might anticipate that the righteous religious Elizabeth would speak harshly to her young unwed relative.[1]

I wonder if Mary is afraid of that too.  She has made a journey of 80 or 90 miles, climbing the Hebron mountains perhaps while coping with morning sickness.  That might be evidence of how desperate she is to find someone who will receive her kindly.  She takes a risk and goes to Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth does not cluck her tongue about young people these days.  She does not scold Mary.  She welcomes her with open arms.  She blesses her, she recognizes the bond that they share.  They have each believed a promise delivered by an angel. How wild is that?  What an inexpressible relief that must have been for Mary, she could let down her guard.  She was safe with Elizabeth.

Perhaps you know that feeling. Perhaps at a time when you greatly needed it, someone defied expectations. They didn’t get mad.  They didn’t judge.  They just offered you space to pull yourself together. 

The afternoon was hot, and the two boys were looking for a cool place to hang out.  They jimmied the lock on the back door of the church, walked through the sanctuary and down a staircase. Once in the cool basement of the church, they began shooting pool.  They had done this several times before. But one day, something moved in the shadow of the room and then the pastor stepped forward.  The boys were caught, and they were afraid.

But then, the pastor smiled, "Of all the people in this neighborhood, you guys are trying the hardest to get into this church," he said. He reached into his pocket, then pulled out a key.  "Here," he said, "come any time you want."

That episode changed the lives of the two brothers and their parents. Their family became active in the church.  A multi-generational history of alcoholism was interrupted.   The youngest of the boys, Roger Swanson, grew up to become a pastor and denominational executive.

Sanctuary is the gift of welcome and acceptance and belonging and safety. It can be powerful, life changing. Elizabeth provides sanctuary for Mary which enables Mary to become sanctuary for God.  

Mary becomes Jesus’ safe person. She is the one who gives birth to him when she is far from home. She is the one who flees to Egypt with him and Joseph when Herod threatens his life.  She worries over her teenage son when they are separated on that trip to the Temple.  She coaxes him to save the party at Cana, and she stands by broken-hearted, angry and helpless when he dies.  Other people may be intimidated or threatened or in awe of the amazing adult Jesus, but Mary knows him to well, she is his safe person. 

Sanctuary is an expansive word. We use it to talk about this room where worship takes place.  It is also used about places that rescue hurt and endangered animals. People are finding sanctuary in motel rooms and Red Cross shelters in the aftermath of deadly tornadoes last week.  Some churches have provided sanctuary for months on end to people at risk for deportation. 

Sanctuary is the gift of welcome and acceptance and belonging and safety.  It is not just a place.  It is also the people who create safe places for others. 

Pastor Stan is one of those people.  He is a pastor who provides sanctuary for queer and trans people.  That safe space often happens in person as he travels and speaks in churches around the country.  It also happens on-line.   People who are afraid to be themselves, afraid of the reaction of their families and their churches find him.  They find him through social media, or by referral by someone else who was recently in a similar situation.  He is also often contacted by the parents of LGBTQ people, parents who want to respond with love, but who are conflicted by what they think the Bible says. 

About a year ago, Pastor Stan was contacted by one of those moms. She said that her daughter (I’ll call her Sue) had asked her parents to follow Pastor Stan on Facebook.  He often shares messages of abundant welcome, especially to LGBTQ persons.  Sue told her parents that Stan was an Evangelical pastor who had shifted his position on the issue of sexual orientation and inclusion. She wanted her parents to consider making that shift for themselves.

So, the parents did what Sue asked, and they were surprised by what they found. You see, Pastor Stan has a life beyond his ministry. He has adult children. He has parents. And when Sue’s parents started following him, his posts were about his mother and his family’s journey with her dementia. Well, at that time, Sue’s paternal grandmother had recently died of Alzheimer’s and her parents were actively caring for her maternal grandmother who also had it. Sue’s parents were incredibly touched by the connection between Pastor Stan’s experiences with his mother and their own journey. His sharing of that difficult and tender time ministered to them in a powerful way.

They felt that connection so strongly that they were hesitant to hear his position on inclusion. They didn’t want it to diminish the ministry they had already received.  But, because of that ministry, they wrote to him and said, “We have reluctantly opened our hearts and minds to consider that, just maybe, we have been wrong. We both know, if we are ever where your mom and mine are now, of our four children, our gay child will be the one to sing hymns with us and soothe us through the long and lost days and nights. We are grateful to have found you when we did. We have a sense that God is speaking to us through you in ways we could have never heard were it not for your mom. Thank you.”[2] 

Almost a year later, they wrote to Pastor Stan again saying that they had become fully affirming of their gay daughter.

I thought about Pastor Stan’s experience with that family, and I thought about Mary and Elizabeth. Sue’s parents were more ready to hear him because they made a connection over a shared vulnerability, a shared sense of gradual, impending loss.  And I realized that maybe Elizabeth is more ready to receive Mary because of her own vulnerability.  She is after all, also experiencing an unexpected pregnancy and wondering how she will be judged for it. So, I’m wondering about the connection between the ways that we extend sanctuary, the ways that we make it safe for other people, and the ways that we share our own journeys, especially the hard parts. 

I want to affirm you as a congregation. You have truly been sanctuary for many people. It has happened in people’s homes and private conversations that I’ve never heard, I’m sure.  But it has also happened on the first day that someone came to worship and then I was the one they told how grateful they were to have found this safe place.

I can identify three major groups of people who have found sanctuary here. One was people fleeing persecution and danger in another country. As they sought asylum, which is another word for sanctuary, their journey brought them to Albany and then to us. Some are part of us today, some have moved on. A second group are LGBTQ persons, whom we have officially welcomed since the 1990’s. It is unfortunate, but true, that they still seek sanctuary because many places are not safe. And the third folks I might identify, are those who lost their spiritual homes or felt unwelcome in them as their understanding of God and the Bible, and the nature of faith made a big shift. When they realized that their theology was no longer represented in the communities which had once been sanctuary to them, it was like a foundation was pulled out from under them and they were in a kind of free-fall. But, in some cases, they found a place to stand again among us. I affirm this congregation for providing sanctuary to all those folks. I trust that we will continue to do so.

Those efforts have not been without cost already, I know. But I suspect that if we are to continue reaching out with the gift of welcome and acceptance and belonging and safety, if we are to connect with those who desperately need sanctuary, it will probably require from us even more willingness to be vulnerable, to be our authentic, messy, broken and brave selves. 

Scholars sometimes see this scene between Mary and Elizabeth as the first gathering of the community of Jesus. Paul Simpson Duke says, “It invites us to recall how much we need each other, to draw fresh courage from each other and to celebrate all that we share as bearers of the promise together. If these two women are a prototype of church, they certainly embody [both] how improbable and how subversive the church can be.”[3]

So beloved ones, may we like Mary, go to each other and risk. May we like Elizabeth, receive each other and bless.

May we find welcome, belonging, complete acceptance, safety as we recognize the deep, deep love of Christ present among us. Amen.

[1] Justo Gonzalez, Luke in the Belief Commentary Series, (Louisville:  Westminster/John Knox Press, 2010), p. 22.

[2] The Rev. Stan Mitchell on his Facebook page, October 13, 2021, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=4366624183406008&set=a.117771208291348

[3] Paul Simpson in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year C, Volume 1 Joel Green, Thomas Long, Luke Powery, Cynthia Rigby, Editors, (Louisville:  Westminster/John Knox Press, 2018), p. 61.

12/12/21 - Close to Home: A Home for All - Luke 3:1-18; Zephaniah 3:14-20

Close to Home:  A Home For All     

Luke 3:1-18

Zephaniah 3: 14-20

Emmanuel Baptist Church

December 12, 2021

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

Isaiah was describing a highway in the wilderness.  He was talking about a literal road on which people would come home from exile.  This road was going to require a lot of levelling. Without dynamite, somehow hilltops were going to be flattened and valleys filled in. Without bulldozers, the path was going to be straightened and smoothed.  It was all for the cause of giving access to everyone who needed a way to get from there to here.  

Building a road today involves different technology, but it is still a huge undertaking.  There are planners and surveyors, excavators, pavers, and don’t forget the stripers.  Building a road is a multi-layered complicated process.  I don’t have to tell you this. You have traveled on highways that have been under construction for what seems like years.  You are aware.

John came along some 700 years after Isaiah.  When Luke quoted Isaiah the prophet to speak about John, he didn’t have a literal road in mind.  John was out in the wilderness, preparing the way for Jesus, but Jesus didn’t need a road made smooth and level. What John did for Jesus was to prepare hearts and minds to receive him.  That’s another kind of multi-layered process. 

John lived in a time when the religious authorities and the political authorities colluded with each other in their grasping for power, a time when the rich exploited the poor, a time when greed and corruption and violence were accepted as normal and to be expected. As far as I can tell, John lived in a time that was similar to most of the other Biblical prophets, even though he was separated from them by hundreds of years, and he lived in a time like ours. In short, John lived in a sinful time, which is the only kind of time the world has known.

John is trying to make a difference in that world. John is trying to lead a movement, a reformation. He is preaching metanoia, which is usually translated repentance.  That translation often brings to mind regret or guilt or shame. But metanoia really is about a significant turn, a change of direction and behavior. Repentance is not about feeling sorry for what went wrong in the past as much as it is making change for a different future. 

John is successful in launching this movement.  I say that because great crowds of people are leaving their homes and making their way out to the wilderness to hear him.  Yale Theologian Willie James Jennings notes that we often tend to think that those with power and wealth need to hear God’s directives most urgently.  Surely if God would speak to them, the world might change for the better. But God prefers to speak through prophets, who most often lived among the common people or at the edge of society. [1]

The emperor and other rulers whom Luke names at the beginning of this chapter represent the military, economic, social and religious powers fully intact and functioning. Jennings says “they collectively imagine that they already embody the will of God and that they have the word of God in hand. They need to hear no new word because they conceive that they are enacting such a word.” [2]

And so, John speaks to the ordinary people, to the ones who are keenly aware that things are not right, that change is urgently needed.   Large-scale reform is like building a road in the wilderness.  It is a multi-step process which can seem overwhelming.  John offers concrete and practical steps that these people can take.

The people ask “what should we do?”  John says “if you have two tunics, give one to someone who has none.  If you have food and someone else is hungry, then share.” 

The tax collectors ask “what about us? What should we do?”

John says “Don’t collect more taxes than required. Don’t be greedy.  Don’t take advantage.” 

Then the soldiers also ask “And us? What should we do?”  John tells them “Do your job without extortion or threats of violence.  Don’t use fear as a tool.” 

John offers specific things that each person can do – sharing resources, enacting fairness, making peace. Each set of actions is a layer in the process of transformation.  No one needs to be daunted by the size of the project, because acting within their own daily sphere of influence, everyone can do something.

But even if everyone does their part, it is likely to be bumpy.  Luke’s first readers would likely have been offended that tax collectors were being included.  They had a reputation for being crooked and deceitful. They were collaborators, working for enemy Rome to exploit their own people. 

Luke’s audience would have also been offended by the inclusion of the soldiers.  Roman soldiers were the literal enemy and for the first 300 years of its existence, the early church did not allow its members to serve in the military. 

Did John really think that people like tax collectors and soldiers should get to participate?  Surely they aren’t capable of metanoia, are they?

But building the highway is about providing access for everyone, it is about extending justice and mercy to all.

As Isaiah said, “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.” All means all. All flesh means regular folks and tax collectors and soldiers, all flesh means the identified bad guys, all flesh means even those the church might have been excluded before, all flesh means even those whom we don’t expect to be capable of change.

This is how John prepares the way for Jesus, by calling for change, in our daily interactions, in our political and economic systems, even our religious rituals. He calls for a focus on what gives life and restores dignity and in the words his father Zechariah said, “guides our feet in the path of peace.”  This is hard, often tedious work, like building a highway by hand.

A colleague named Nathan shared the story of a memorable Christmas Eve service.  He said that a young woman came to worship that night, someone who had a friend in the congregation. As the service went on, he noticed her and he thought that she was shrinking back from it, almost physically withdrawing into herself to avoid engaging with what was happening. 

His first thought was that the style of worship offended her, but when he spoke to her afterwards, she said she thought it was really amazing.  But she also said that she had never been in a service before where it felt like the words really mattered and that if you said them you had to be prepared to change your life and live them. And she wasn’t. She wasn’t willing to make those kind of changes, so she had to withdraw, to distance herself from the claim on her life. She got it.  Nathan thought that John the Baptizer would have been pleased.[3]

We also heard a reading from Zephaniah today. The book of Zephaniah is only 3 chapters long, but it contains 9 oracles, and 8 of the 9 are oracles of judgment.  It ends with our reading, an oracle of salvation and joy. Before we jumped in, the unrelenting word from Zephaniah was about God’s anger.  It was about the impending destruction of Judah because of violence and fraud, because of corrupt leadership and idolatry and complacency – he lived in a time like John’s and a time like ours. But suddenly, the word from God which Zephaniah brings is a word of restoration and joy. 

This oracle proclaims the end of the shame and ridicule they endured by being the pawns of other world powers. It speaks of gathering in the outcast and the lame, because God will liberate them from oppression, illness and social ostracism. 

Those who are vulnerable, those who have been shamed will be gathered back in to the community. And the joy will be enormous.

There is no evidence in the book of Zephaniah that the people changed. The warnings of judgement do not seem to have changed their behavior.  The gathering of community and the joy are possible because God forgives.

The people of Zion are encouraged to rejoice and sing, but if they do, they will be joining God who is already belting out the festival songs.  The Hebrew words used here are found elsewhere in the Bible describing great jubilation.  As David danced in front of the Ark of the Covenant, in exultation, so God rejoices over God’s people. As the morning stars sang at the creation of the world, so God sings with elation over God’s beloved.[4]

It is not just God’s people who rejoice in their forgiveness and restoration.  God sings.  God shouts with joy.  God, who is deeply invested in the life of the world, is overjoyed at the restoration of relationship.

John calls us to participate in that relationship, to make necessary changes in our lives and in our systems, to protect and empower the vulnerable, to speak truth to power, to share, to each do what we can.

But please hear the good news – it is not all on us.  We can sing Joy to the World because God is powerfully present. Present to heal and build, to care and mend, to challenge and stir. God is among us, and we who are wondrously and inexplicably God’s beloved, join in celebration. 

Joy to the world, the Lord is come . . . Beyond the pain and injustice and heartache of the world in which he lived, Zephaniah heard God singing. He saw a glimpse of God’s future, of justice and peace, a glimpse of a future in which all are well and all are gathered home. Zephaniah saw God in their midst, and God was singing.[5]

[1] Willie James Jennings in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year C, Volume 1 Joel Green, Thomas Long, Luke Powery, Cynthia Rigby, Editors, ,  (Louisville:  Westminster/John Knox Press, 2018), p. 30.

[2] Jennings, p. 30

[3] The Rev. Nathan Nettleton in his sermon Christmas Joys and Fair-Weather Supporters  http://southyarrabaptist.church/sermons/christmas-joys-and-fair-weather-supporters/

[4] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-of-advent-3/commentary-on-zephaniah-314-20-2

[5] This beautiful paragraph comes from the Rev. Patrick Johnson, in his sermon Songs for a Weary World https://patrickwtjohnson.com/2015/12/15/songs-for-a-weary-world/

12/5/21 - Close to Home: Into the Ways of Peace - Luke 1:57-80; Philippians 1:3-11

Close to Home:  Into the Ways of Peace

Luke 1:57-80, Philippians 1:3-11

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

December 5, 2021

Image:  Berakah by Hannah Garrity © a sanctified art | sanctifiedart.org

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

John the Baptist shows up every Advent. You might not know that because your current pastor doesn’t always follow the lectionary, but it’s true.  If it’s the second Sunday in Advent, John is going to be preaching in the wilderness.  In Lectionary Year C, which is this year, we get even more. This is the year of Luke’s gospel, so this year, as well as hearing about John the adult, we also hear the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah and the baby John. That’s a story only told by Luke.

We picked up the story at the point of John’s birth.  You will remember that John’s father, Zechariah, was a priest.  It was his turn in rotation to serve in the Temple about 9 months before John was born. You will remember that when he went into the Holy of Holies, he was surprised by the presence of the angel Gabriel.  By the end of their encounter, Zechariah could not speak, an apparent consequence of failing to believe what the angel said.  He was speechless for months until the day when baby John was to be named.

Zechariah often gets judged pretty hard for asking the kind of question that any of us might have.  I mean, when Gabriel went to Mary, Mary’s first response also was “How can this be?” Gabriel treated her question with respect.  But I’m jumping ahead.  Mary’s story is not the one we’re focused on today. 

Gabriel told Zechariah that he and Elizabeth were going to have a baby, and that their son would do incredible things. That was when Zechariah said, “How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man and my wife is getting in years.” 

Now, when I read this story, what I usually hear is Zechariah saying “I am too old to have a baby.”  This week a colleague helped me hear it slightly differently. 

The Rev. Joanna Harader is a pastor in Kansas.  She is Mennonite, but she comes from American Baptist stock. Joanna says “Maybe Zechariah is not asking such a stupid question. Maybe Zechariah is questioning another part of Gabriel’s proclamation. Maybe he is questioning the parts about the great works John will do. Maybe when he says, “I am an old man” it is not to say that he doubts that Elizabeth will be pregnant, but to say that he will not live to see the great deeds of his son. How will he know that his son will turn people to the Lord?  . . . It is reasonable to assume that Zechariah will be dead by the time his son reaches puberty. How will he know the great works to come?”[1]

I appreciate Joanna’s framing of the situation. It is kinder to Zechariah, for one thing.  It is also a question that resonates with me especially now.  How do we exercise trust for the future?  Where do we find hope?

By the time John is born, Zechariah has had a lot of silence in which to reflect on those questions, to dig down into his faith and reach into the stories from his ancestors.  His answer, which comes out in song, is that he trusts God for the future because he believes that God was faithful in the past. 

His song ends with this beautiful line

“By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

He has just been talking about his son John as a prophet who will go before the Lord and then he ends with the words “to guide our feet into the way of peace.”  Now, I have a lot of associations with John the Baptist, but peacemaker is not high on the list.  Agitator, disturber of the peace, someone who wears strange clothes and leads a movement – yes to all of the above, but peacemaker doesn’t readily spring to mind.

But as I think about it, that’s true for many others who were tried to change hearts and minds for the cause of peace and justice.  I think about John Lewis and his tag-line, “make good trouble.”  I think about Dorothy Day whose 124th birthday was last week. She said that she loved reading about the ways that saints in the past had cared for others through acts of mercy, but it raised a bigger question which was “where were the saints [trying to] change the social order, not just to minister to the slaves, but to do away with slavery?” [2]

People who resist the way things are, people who try to change systems of oppression are more often seen as trouble-makers than peacemakers. It is often only after their life is over that their work is truly respected.

I wonder about John the Baptist.  There is so much we’re not told.  I wonder about being born to parents who had longed for him and about the love that they surely showered on him.  I wonder about being born into a family of priests on both his mother’s and father’s sides.  He’s a pastor’s kid,  a double PK – the chances are slim to none that he’ll turn out normal.

I wonder what combination of nature and nurture produce someone like John.  We can guess that his parents died before he reached adulthood and we might wonder what effect that had on him.  He did not go into the family business and become a priest. Instead he wound up as a prophet, someone seeking to reform the religious institution of his parents, and I wonder if that’s not another side of the same coin. 

In his letter to the church at Philippi, the apostle Paul said, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.”

It is helpful to remember that Paul is speaking to a group of people.  His claim is that God will complete the work begun in that community, not necessarily that every individual will see it, but that their labors with God will bear fruit.

I go back to the questions underlying Zechariah’s response to Gabriel.  How do we exercise trust for the future?  Where do we find hope?

Bryan Stevenson is a name known to many of us.  Bryan is a lawyer and social justice activist.  Representing people on death row, he began to challenge biases against the poor and minorities in the criminal justice system.  Many of us have read his book Just Mercy or we’ve seen the movie version.  He initiated the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama which honors the names of more than 4,000 African Americans who were lynched in this country and the Legacy Museum which documents the white supremacy which undergirds the high rates of incarceration and execution of people of color. His goal is to help people recognize the injustices in our system so that there can be restoration and redemption, so that we can live in peace. He has won many awards for his work, but of course, he has also been seen as a troublemaker.

In an interview about a year ago, he talked about the arc of his life.  His great-grandfather was an enslaved person in Virginia who learned to read when that was illegal.  Bryan marveled at “the kind of hope, the kind of vision it took to believe that one day, you’re going to be free, even when nothing around you indicates that freedom is likely for enslaved people in Virginia in the 1850’s.” [3]

After Emancipation, other formerly enslaved people would come to Bryan’s great-grandfather’s house, and he would read the newspaper to them.  Bryan’s grandmother shared her memories about sitting next to her father on those occasions because she loved the power that he had to engage people, to help them feel more informed and calmer. 

Bryan started elementary school during segregation.  His first school was a colored school.  He experienced racism in all its ugliness, but he also came from a family that instilled in him love and faith.  He speaks from that foundation when he says, “I think hope is our superpower. I mean, hope is the thing that gets you to stand up when others say, Sit down. It’s the thing that gets you to speak when others say, Be quiet.”

I think about Bryan’s great-grandfather.  Like Zechariah, he would not live to see all that God did for his people.  But also like Zechariah, he remained faithful in spite of the circumstances.  That faithfulness was part of the legacy inherited by his great-grandson, part of the guiding of Bryan’s feet in the ways of peace.

Bryan talks about being nurtured by his family, but also by a community of women who had fought for justice.  One time, Rosa Parks came to town and Bryan was invited to be there.  He was invited by Ms Johnnie Carr, a child-hood friend of Rosa Parks and one of the primary organizers of the Montgomery bus boycott.  So, of course he went.  He sat on the porch with Rosa Parks and Johnnie Carr and they talked and talked.  He remembered that they weren’t talking about any of the extraordinary things they had done in the past.  They were talking about the things they still wanted to do.  He said there was a hopefulness in their conversation and he just sat there, soaking it in.

And then Rosa Parks turned and asked Bryan about his work.  Bryan gave her his pitch, “Well, we’re trying to end the death penalty. We’re trying to help people on death row. We’re trying to challenge conditions of confinement. We’re trying to help the mentally ill. We’re trying to help children. We’re trying to help the poor.”

He said that Rosa Parks leaned back smiling. 'Ooooh, honey, all that's going to make you tired, tired, tired.'  Everyone laughed.  Bryan looked down a little embarrassed and then Ms. Carr leaned forward and put her finger in his face and talked to him just like his grandmother used to.  She said, “That's why you've got to be brave, brave, brave.” [4]

Bryan said he’ll never forget that. Those women taught him about the necessity of courage in the work of justice and peace.

So beloved ones, be courageous.  Hold on to your hope, because hope just might be our superpower.  I am confident that God who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it and to guide our feet in the way of peace.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] https://spaciousfaith.com/new-testament-texts/luke-15-25/

[2] Shane Claibourne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Enumo Okoro,   Common Prayer:  A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2010).

[3] https://onbeing.org/programs/bryan-stevenson-finding-the-courage-for-whats-redemptive/

[4] https://onbeing.org/programs/bryan-stevenson-finding-the-courage-for-whats-redemptive/

11/28/21 - Close to Home: Yearning - Luke 21:25-36; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

Close to Home:  Yearning

Luke 21:25-36

I Thessalonians 3:9-13

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

November 28, 2021

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjwM40FNnA

There’s a Welsh word that does not translate well into English.  The word is hiraeth.  It means a spiritual longing for a home which maybe never was, a kind of nostalgia for ancient places to which we cannot return.  Welsh writer Val Bethell says hiraeth is “the link with the long-forgotten past, the language of the soul, the call from the inner self. . . . it speaks from the rocks, from the earth, from the trees and in the waves. It is always there.” [1]

Some consider Wales to be the first colony of Great Britain.  It became a subject state in 1282.   By the mid 1800’s, Wales had been an integral part of the empire for centuries, but poverty and unrest led to riots in Wales and fear of sedition on the part of British officials.  The result was a dismantling of Welsh identity by the British and a steady flow of emigrants out of Wales.  They went to the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, among other places. And they took their longing for home with them.  Some point to hiraeth as an explanation for the fact that 40% of the Welsh emigrants returned between 1870 and 1914.[2]

Pamela Petro, an American writer, says that hiraeth is a protest.  It is homesickness brought on because home isn’t the place it should have been. . . . To feel hiraeth is to feel a deep incompleteness and recognize it as familiar.” [3]

I suspect that even if we are not of Welsh descent, even if we never heard this word hiraeth until a few minutes ago, most of us still have a sense of this yearning.  We long for things to be other than they are, for an end to violence, for a dismantling of racism and sexism and many other ‘isms.  As our young people said, “we hope for a world where all are fed, a world with contagious laughter, a world with tall trees and clean flowing water, a world where all people feel at home.”[4]   We yearn for things to be right and just and good.  Advent begins again, which makes us think of Christmas and we long for the peace on earth proclaimed by the angels.

Perhaps hiraeth is like the God-shaped hole in every person described by Blaise Pascal.  Or the yearning that Saint Augustine summed up "You have made us for yourself O Lord & our heart is restless until it rests in you."

Advent begins, as it usually does with a scripture passage of such frightening images and impending doom that it can only be describing the end of the world as we know it.   The bad news is so horrible, in Luke 21, that it cannot be sustained.  Something must be dying or falling or ending.  In part of this chapter, Jesus describes the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple which was very much the end of life as it had been in first century Palestine. 

Baptist scholar Alan Culpepper says that Biblical forecasts of destruction, suffering, and the loss of human life have only one purpose: to call God’s people to repentance.[5]  Repentance, we remember, does not mean just feeling sorry about things we’ve done.  It means changing our behavior. 

In the midst of the cataclysm that Jesus describes, he says “when these things happen, your redemption is drawing near.”  Isn’t that a strange thing? 

Jesus tells his followers to keep their heads up in the midst of the pandemonium and upheaval which is coming, to watch for the signs that the kingdom of God is near. Many of us are just trying to survive the recent upheaval in our lives.  We may tell ourselves that we’ll figure out a better way to do life later. Once everything is stable and routine again, then we’ll take stock and make necessary changes.  But that’s probably not true.  Repentance, or change, is more likely to happen when we are in a place of less stability.   When things are unpredictable and fluid, that is probably the moment when we are most motivated to make lasting change.

Stanford historian Walter Scheidel claims that the most dramatic and violent ruptures in recorded history were also the times of great levelling of social and economic inequality.  He says that things like war and the plague undermined confidence in religious and secular authorities which encouraged common people to question existing hierarchies and explore alternatives.  It often happened that, for a while, the rich became less rich and the poor less poor.  Those changes came at great cost to be sure – one third of the people in Europe and the Middle East lost their lives to the Black Death of bubonic plague.[6]   

I want to be careful not to minimize the suffering that accompanies such change. And yet, I wonder if we can hear Jesus’ parable about the fig tree.  When it sprouts leaves, the summer is coming.  And so, we are to keep alert to what is happening, to watch for signs of hope.  I wonder if we can find it hopeful that so many people are quitting their jobs or that the world-wide supply chain has slowed down. Can we see the potential for good change there? What if we applauded people who refuse to work for not-enough pay or those who need to change to a more meaningful vocation.  What if we appreciated that a wait for material goods might reduce our need for instant gratification?  What if we saw the stresses and strains in our schools and hospitals as a sign that those systems are on the verge of real change?

Almost a quarter century ago, the Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann wrote this “Our society is marked by a deep dislocation that touches every aspect of our lives. The old certitudes seem less certain; the old privileges are under powerful challenge; the old dominations are increasingly ineffective and fragile; the established governmental, educational, judicial and medical institutions seem less and less able to deliver what we need and have come to expect; the old social fabrics are fraying under the assault of selfishness, fear, anger and greed.  There seems no going back to our former world, since the circumstances making that world sustainable have changed.  Because the church has been intimately connected with the old patterns of certitude, privilege and domination, it shares a common jeopardy with other old institutions. Church members are confused about authority, bewildered about mission, worried about finances, contentious about norms and ethics, and anxious about the church’s survival. Our numbed and bewildered society lacks ways of thinking and speaking that can help us find remedies—that can enable us to go deep into the crisis and so avoid denial, and to imagine a better future and so avoid despair.” 

Well, that seems to be even more true now as when he wrote it, but there’s a more important part.  Brueggemann goes on “when the church is faithful to its own past life with God, it has ways of speaking, knowing and imagining that can successfully address our cultural malaise. When it remembers its ancient miracles, has the courage to speak in its own cadences, and re-engages old seasons of hurt, the church possesses the rhetorical and testimonial antidotes to denial and despair.”[7]

And so, we are here, on the first Sunday of Advent, the church’s new year, invited to begin again, to light the Advent candles, to play the familiar music, to remember again our story, to know and to proclaim that God has come very near in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, to imagine that God is still speaking, still moving, still loving us. 

Kate DiCamillo writes award-winning books.  They’re sold for children, but really they speak to people of any age. Two of best-known books are Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Desperaux.  A few weeks ago she shared a memory. She said,

This morning I woke up thinking about a fifth-grade boy who came through a signing line at a bookstore in North Carolina. I signed his copy of Despereaux and he said,

“My teacher said fifth grade is the year of asking questions.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. He took out a notebook.

“Every day we’re supposed to ask someone different a good question and listen really good and then write down the answer when they’re done talking.”

“Oh,” I said, “I get it. I’m someone different. Okay, what’s your question?”

“My question is how do you get all that hope into your stories?”

“That’s not a good question,” I said. “That’s a great question. Let me think. Um. I guess that writing the story is an act of hope, and so even when I don’t feel hopeful, writing the story can lead me to hope. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” he said. He looked me in the eye. “It’s kind of a long answer. But I can write it all out. Thanks.”

He picked up his copy of Despereaux, and walked away—writing in his notebook.

“This was years ago.” Kate said.

“Why did I wake up this morning and think of this child?

Maybe because this is a time to start asking good questions, a time to write down the answers, a time to listen to each other really well.

I’m going to get myself a little spiral bound notebook.

I’m going to listen and hope.”[8]

In her answer to that fifth-grade boy, Kate DiCamillo said, “Writing the story is an act of hope.  Even when I don’t feel hopeful, writing the story can lead me to hope.” 

So beloved ones, I suggest that telling our story, the story that God is writing with us, is an act of hope.  Beginning the year again, entering into Advent with faith and courage, is an act that may lead us to hope even when we don’t feel hopeful.  Maybe this is a time to watch for the signs around us, to ask good questions, to listen to each other really well.  May we listen and hope.

[1] https://innerwoven.me/2015/06/07/hiraeth-making-peace-with-longing/

[2] https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210214-the-welsh-word-you-cant-translate

[3] https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/09/18/dreaming-in-welsh/

[4] These words are from a litany for Advent 1 by Rev. Sarah (Are) Speed | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org.”

[5] Alan Culpepper, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX, (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 1995), pp 405.

[6] https://news.stanford.edu/2020/04/30/pandemics-catalyze-social-economic-change/

[7] https://www.religion-online.org/article/conversations-among-exiles/

[8] https://www.facebook.com/139485862734035/photos/a.156440727705215/4039256512756931/

11/21/21 - Hooray for the Pumpkin Pie! - Joel 2:21-26; Matthew 6:26-33

Hooray for the Pumpkin Pie!

Joel 2:21-26 Matthew 6:26-33

November 21, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd54X87VznY

“The locust invasion started seven days ago and covered the sky. Today it took the locust clouds two hours to pass over the city. God protect us from the three plagues: war, locusts, and disease, for they are spreading through the country. Pity the poor.”[1]  That was recorded in the diary of a soldier stationed in Jerusalem in 1915. 

He was describing the worst infestation of locusts in recent history.  As the locusts approached, the sun was darkened. The locusts were so numerous that they were killed by the ton without any appreciable effect. In April of that year, the government issued a proclamation requiring every man between 15 and 60 years of age to gather 11 pounds of locust eggs every single day and deliver them to government officials for destruction. One eyewitness of this plague said “nothing we did prevented the locusts from coming down and devouring everything green, even the bark of trees, in a matter of minutes.”  That widespread devastation, with the destruction of crops and the blockades of WWI led to three years of famine and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

We might imagine that the prophet Joel is describing something similar when he alludes to the years that the locust has eaten. It is difficult to determine whether Joel is talking about a literal insect infestation or if he using locusts as a metaphor for an invading army.  Given the historical experience I just described in 1915, he could be talking about both.  In any case, the context of this passage is severe destruction and loss, something widespread, something that lasted for quite some time, because verse 21 says “years” in the plural.

“Do not fear. . . Rejoice, be glad.”  That’s the prophet’s message from God.  “The rain is coming.  The threshing-floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.”

“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten. . .”  Many years ago, there was time when my friend quoted that last verse several times a year.  When I read it in preparation for this sermon, I thought to myself, “That’s Mary’s verse.”  I called to ask her what it meant to her, why she used to quote it so much. She couldn’t tell me.  She didn’t remember.   I suspect that different passages resonate with us at different times. I wonder if at that time she was going through something difficult and she was clinging to the assurance that there would be healing, that God would restore her joy.  But now, decades later, her need for that assurance is not so urgent. 

That is just speculation on my part.  But I’m thinking about it because the prophet says “do not fear.”  That’s easier to say when the fearful thing is over, than when we’re in the midst of it. 

Jesus did a similar thing.  When he sat down and taught in Matthew 6, his audience was mostly the poor.  People who earned enough to eat today, but who might not work tomorrow and therefore, might not eat tomorrow.  And people who might not eat today.  And yet, Jesus told them not to worry about food and clothing. 

Most of us do not worry about food or clothing.  Some of us have more than others, but almost all of us get enough to eat.  If hunger is an actual concern for you, please, please be in touch with me.  That is something we can address.  Most of us do not worry about food.  But we do worry.  Most of us carry around a bundle of worry – worry about the coronavirus or cancer, about the widening gap between rich and poor in our country, about democracy, about the planet.  Some of our bundles includes concern for a struggling marriage, or a loved one with addiction or our own loneliness.  We carry this bundle of worry around all the time and it starts to feel like something we cannot escape, something we cannot put down.  It becomes chronic.

I was very fortunate that Wayne Oates was one of my teachers.  He was professor of psychiatry at the University of Louisville School of Medicine and also taught at my seminary.  His work was foundational to the field which is now known as pastoral care.  He is the person who coined the term “workaholic.” 

One particular lecture has stuck with me.  It’s one in which he talked about how to manage chronic pain.  He said that if you live with chronic pain or if you care for someone who does, you have to create coping strategies.  One strategy is distraction or interruption.  In this strategy, you take breaks, to give yourself opportunities to shift your focus from your pain and from whatever you have to do to manage your condition. In some way, you change your routine, your location or whatever is receiving your primary attention.  The second strategy I remember is sharing it.  Do not bear it alone, but tell someone about it.  Even if you are not the one in pain, but the primary caregiver for someone who is, share the load.  Just talk to someone who will listen. Ask for help as necessary.

And so, today I’m thinking about worry as a kind of chronic pain. Pain grabs our attention and holds it in a certain place. So does worry.  Chronic pain is something that does not go away, that cannot be resolved entirely, but must be managed.  So it is with the bundles of worry that we carry around.

I’m thinking that when Jesus says “do not worry”, we may want to obey him, but we don’t know how.  Some of us cannot turn off the worry response any more than we can turn off a pain response.   So, with gratitude to Dr. Oates, I think about the strategy of interruption.

Jesus says “do not worry” and I wonder if we can hear that as “give yourself an hour off”.  I know, I know, you don’t think you can quit worrying cold turkey.  But what if you just set down your worry bundle for an hour? It will still be there when you need to pick it up again.  And maybe you can practice setting it down for two hours next time and work yourself up to more hours of life spent not worrying than worrying.

But begin with interruption.  Begin by setting down your worry bundle and forcing your thoughts to focus on something else. This is where gratitude and wonder come in.  Imagine putting down your worry bundle and picking up your wonder bundle.

Like many of you, I went apple-picking this fall.  I did not grow up in this area. The abundance and beauty of the orchards is still new and astounding to me every single time. I am intrigued and delighted by the range of colors apples come in. I marvel at the load of fruit that each small tree can hold.  Every year, I have to decide where to pick and then which varieties to choose.  

The people who write the descriptions of apples must be related to those who review wine. For example, the Fortune variety is “A spritely apple with a slightly spicy flavor.”

 “Honey & pear flavors mixed with a dash of lemon, almond, and a smooth hint of fine-grained cane sugar,”  – that was Golden Russet, of course.  The experts agree that it pairs well with walnuts and cheese.

So, I went to the orchard. In the center of a row with trees picked bare on each end, I found the treasure of Ruby Frost.  This apple looks so enticing that I think it must have been the kind that the queen gave to Snow White.

Three rows over, I discovered a delicious and beautiful red, orange and yellow apple.  It is called Cordera. Looking it up, I learned that it is the Spanish word for lamb and it was named for the Lamb family.  Robert Lamb, who died in 1997, worked with apples at Cornell for 40 years. His wife Susan is an Ag professor there and their daughter Betsy works in integrated pest management.  I have never met them, but I am grateful, for the literal fruit of their labors.

And you know what? While I was wandering through the orchards and deciding which kinds of apples to pick and how many I had room to store at home, I was not worrying.  I was engaged in wonder and gratitude.  And now, every time I eat one of those apples I picked that day, I remember and am grateful.

The two scripture passages we read today, from Joel 2 and Matthew 6 are assigned to Thanksgiving, and yet, neither of them mentions gratitude.   They do say not to worry, not to be afraid, and to rejoice.  Other preachers might see other connections, but the one that I see is that gratitude is an antidote to worry and fear.  Focusing our attention on what we are grateful for is one good way to distract ourselves from an endless focus on worry.  Set down your worry bundle for a while and pick up the wonder bundle.  It’s much lighter.  The worry bundle will still be there if you need to pick it up later.

“Over the river and through the wood to Grandfather’s house we go”

You know that line.  It’s the beginning of a poem written by Lydia Maria Child in the nineteenth century.[2] She wrote it about Thanksgiving, although sometimes it gets associated with Christmas.  It is from a child’s point of view, about the fun of riding in the horse-drawn sleigh and being welcomed home by grandparents. Even in the celebration, the child recognizes that everything might not go well, that life is bumpy even on holidays.  The fifth stanza says

Over the river, and through the wood —
No matter for winds that blow;
Or if we get
The sleigh upset,
Into a bank of snow . . .

But ultimately, the poem ends this way

Hooray for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hooray for the pumpkin pie!

“O taste and see that the Lord is good,” the psalmist wrote.  “It is good to give thanks to the Lord.” 

It is good to give thanks for pumpkin pie, and any other kind of pie, and 100 varieties of apples and shady trees and starry skies and faithful friends and a good night’s sleep.

Friends, let gratitude be your spiritual practice this week.  Put down your worry bundle and pick up wonder as often as possible. If you need it, then reach for the mantra from Joel “I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten.” 

Or reach for the other one, which is also theologically sound,  “Hooray for the pumpkin pie.”

Thanks be to God. Amen.

[1] https://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/jq-articles/JQ_56-57_The_1915_Locust_0.pdf

[2] https://womenyoushouldknow.net/traveling-over-river-through-wood-thanksgiving-lydia-maria-child/

11/14/21 - Provoking Love - Hebrews 10:23-25

Provoking Love

Hebrews 10:23-25

November 14, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

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

They are a discouraged group.  They are “tired of serving the world, tired of worship, tired of Christian education, tired of the spiritual struggle, tired of trying to keep their prayer life going, tired even of Jesus… The threat to this congregation is not that they are charging off in the wrong direction; they do not have enough energy to charge off anywhere. The threat here is that worn down and worn out, they will drop their end of the rope and drift away.  Tired of walking the walk, many of them are considering taking a walk, leaving the community and falling away from the faith.” [1]

That’s how Presbyterian pastor and scholar Tom Long describes the community to whom the Letter to the Hebrews was written I don’t know how much that might describe anyone you know or any congregation you know.  If Dr. Long has accurately described your temptation – to drop your end of the rope and drift away – apparently you haven’t given in to it yet, because you are here today. Thank you for that. 

We don’t know exactly to whom this letter was written. Probably a group of second- or third-generation Christians who have been waiting for Jesus to return.  They expected their wait to be over long ago. They are tired of waiting and beginning to wonder “What is the point? What good is our faith? Do we even need to be gathering together anymore?”

The writer of this letter, whose identity is unknown, takes 13 chapters to respond, but offers one very concise answer in the verses Sam read for us, especially vs 24-25 “let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another . . .”

Today is Stewardship Sunday. Most years we call this Pledge Sunday.  It is the point in the year where we make individual pledges, pledges about the portion of our income that we intend to give to God in the coming year.  Many of us have done that already on the Emmanuel church website. If you haven’t done so yet, please consider your own spiritual journey and your commitment to this congregation and take that step.  Your pledge will be gratefully received.    But instead of focusing narrowly on pledges today, I want to think about stewardship more broadly. 

Stewardship has to do with organizing and managing.  Stewardship means taking care of something like a large household, the arrangements for a group or the resources of a community.  Financial gifts are essential to our communal life. They are one of the most tangible resources we share and they need to be cared for wisely.  That’s good stewardship. 

It is important for us to have honest conversations about money.  It is important for us to be clear with ourselves about the claim that God has on our money if we are seeking to live in right relationship with God. But sometimes we can get focused on the money that we have or that we don’t have, so caught up in how much the budget needs or why some lines were over-spent, that we start to forget what is it we are actually stewarding.  I’d like to suggest that what we are caring for, what we are managing is, in the words of this letter, “the confession of our hope” in Jesus the Christ.

Allow me to share a story about another congregation.  Fred Shaw was a young student pastor in 1969, appointed to the Mt. Olivet United Methodist Church in Tatman’s Gap, Ohio when he was just 19 years old.  He was so excited on his first Sunday.  He had gone over his sermon several times, even practiced grand sweeping gestures for the congregation to see from the back of the sanctuary. 

On that day, he walked into the whiteboard church and found three old people waiting.  They were circled around a pot-bellied stove in the middle of the room.  It was summer and the stove was lit.  (I’m guessing that is a clue that maybe he didn’t need the heat, but they did.) The three church members were siblings, close together in age with the oldest pushing 90.  He said “Did I mention that these were OLD people?  Especially to a 19-year-old.”

These folks were well acquainted with the ways of church.  The brother took up the offering from the two sisters.  Then one of the sisters counted it while the other sister dutifully witnessed it. 

Somehow the gestures he had planned for the sermon shrunk. The ringing words he had prepared came limply from his tongue. They sang a song, but the piano-playing sister had cataracts so he was never certain what notes she was hitting.

He offered a perfunctory benediction and walked across the gravel parking lot to his car.  The brother caught up with him, put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Well, son, you see what we have here.  Millie has rheumatism so bad she can’t get out much anymore.  John has a heart problem.  Wilber is just plain old.  We’re about all that’s left, and I suppose the church will die when we do.”  Fred thought the man was right and he chafed about wasting his time there.

He drove home, fuming about the stupidity of bishops who waste a person’s talents appointing them to a dying church.  By the time he got home, he needed to vent.  So, he called his grandfather, the one who had been a minister for 54 years.  He listened patiently while Fred whined about his morning. 

When Fred finally stopped for breath, Grandad said, “Fred, do you believe in the Communion of the Saints?” 

Fred promptly answered that he did. In fact, he had just written a paper about it.  Granddad said, “I didn’t ask if you knew about it.  I asked if you believed it.” 

Granddad went on, “If you believe in the communion of the saints, you didn’t have three old people in worship this morning.  You had millions!  The Communion of the Saints means that when we gather to worship, everyone who has ever worshipped God is present before the throne of grace.  The people in the congregation are the physical link between those millions and the millions who will follow in the future.  You just spoke to three of the most important people on earth.”

Well, Fred went back the next Sunday and told those three people who they were. He shared about the Communion of the Saints, and he had real, not practiced, gestures. They even sang with gusto and forgot about whether the notes matched or not.

This time when Fred walked onto the parking lot, the brother again caught up with him. He looked Fred in the eye, and said, “Pastor…, I’m darned if we’ll be the link that broke!”

Those three old people, who had been waiting to die with their church, went into the community over the next few weeks and brought 24 young people into the church.  Fred said he didn’t do anything.  Those three old people did it by knowing who they were and to Whom they always would be connected. They held fast to the confession of their hope.  

In a few years, Fred finished seminary and moved on to other churches.  Decades later, when Fred was close to retirement, he got an email from a pastor who was organizing a homecoming for the Mt. Olivet Church.  Fred wrote back saying he was sorry that he had a prior commitment and couldn’t attend.  But he had a story about when he served that church and he wanted to tell it to the pastor so that she could share it for him at the homecoming.  The pastor responded immediately.  She said, “Oh, I know that story well. I’m one of the twenty-four people they went out and got.” [2]

I share that story because it is a reminder to me of what we are stewarding, what we are managing, what we are caring for. We are stewarding an identity, a hope that threads its way from generation to generation.  We are nurturing a faith that provokes us to love and good deeds, even when, maybe especially when, we are tired of the struggle. 

Putting money in the offering plate, like we did in the old days, or sending a check in the mail or electronically on the website, like we do now, is just the surface of stewardship. That money goes to pay the electric bill so that those of in the room can be warm. It goes to pay for high-speed internet so that our signal reaches everyone on Zoom.  It pays the salaries of those who serve and lead this congregation as well as our missionaries in other places.  It buys music for the choir and sends children to camp and supports the work of FOCUS and many more things large and small.  The money we give is vital to our ministry, which is after all, God’s ministry. 

In other years, this box was where we put pledge cards. Pledge cards which had written promises with numbers and dollar signs that represented our shared ministry.  Today this box offers just a few objects, a few reminders of what we have shared together this year despite our physical separation and our discouragement.  Standing in for pledge cards, we find popcorn and sea glass, devotional journals, Christmas Eve candles, and fabric prayer strips. There are so many things that can’t be put in the box which were part of our stewardship this year – like the behind-the-scenes efforts of the choir on Soundtrap,  the creative ingenuity of our tech team, and the ways that you continued to show up for each other, offering encouragement with your presence in worship, in phone calls, in prayer, and in welcoming newcomers.

We make our pledges. We give the money and we manage the money, but most importantly, we steward our identity as Jesus-followers. We safeguard the hope that comes through provoking love.  We curate the stories of when we were provoked to forgive, provoked to endure, provoked to compassion, provoked to love and action.  This is our faithful stewardship. Thanks be to God.

[1] Thomas Long, Hebrews: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville:  Westminster/JohnKnox Press, 2011), p. 3

[2] Rev. Fred Shaw posted on November 1, 2021 - https://www.facebook.com/fred.shaw.56

11/7/21 - All Saints Communion Meditation - Psalm 24

All Saints Communion Meditation

Psalm 24

November 7, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab22oeZYNsk

“The earth is the Lord’s.”  So says the psalmist.   But not only the psalmist.  It is a consistent Biblical theme. It’s found in Exodus and Deuteronomy.  Hannah prayed it as she dedicated her son Samuel.  And in the law about property, God declares “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine;” The earth is the Lord’s. It all starts there.

God has an intimate relationship with every aspect of creation.  I hope you got a sense of that from James Weldon Johnson’s poem.  There is an energy, a force, a invisible power that holds creation together. While God is unseen, what we can see is interdependence.  What we can see are ecosystems which thrive and flourish when things are in balance, a cycle of seasons, of springtime and harvest, a water cycle in which rain falls and waters the earth, then gathers in streams and pools and then evaporates to the clouds only to return as rain or snow again.  What we can see, with a microscope, are cells which form organisms and organisms which support larger ones which support even larger ones.  The largest things we can observe – blue whales or sequoias – are sustained by things so tiny that we can barely grasp their existence.

“The earth is the Lord’s” means that God pervades every bit of creation with purpose and beauty. The order and rhythm and inter-connectedness surely tell us something about who God is and about who we are.  

I have followed some of the stories from the climate conference in Glasgow this week, as I know many of you have.  I’ve heard about droughts and floods which destroy farms, raise food prices and leave the most vulnerable even more hungry. I’ve heard about the women in  Colombia where erratic rain falls are forcing them to walk longer and longer distances in more dangerous places simply to bring water to their families; and about the ones in rural Indonesia, which has lost almost 40% of its tropical rainforest in recent decades.  Women are the strongest defenders of the forest and bear the worst impacts of deforestation, but must function within a culture that silences them in the public sphere. [1]  Environmental degradation is a major factor in civil conflict and cross-border migration, including our own borders. 

Creation’s interdependence is its strength, but also a point of vulnerability. Everything is connected to everything else and it all flourishes together or withers together. If the last 20 months have taught us anything, it is surely that we are truly all in this together.  If, as the poet John Donne said, any person’s death diminishes me, how much more are we diminished by the loss of 5 million people to Covid, by the extinction of unique species, by the death of corals in the Great Barrier Reef.

On this All Saints Sunday, we pause to remember our connections, particularly our connections to those of every time and place who understand that they belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God.  We use the word saints as it is used in the New Testament.  Not Saints with a capital S, not super-hero Christians recognized for their piety or the strength of their faith under persecution or for their martyrdom, but saints with a small S, the people who live their ordinary lives in everyday obedience to the teachings of Jesus. 

Richard Rohr is an American Franciscan priest and writer.  Many of you have shared with me your appreciation for his thoughts on spirituality.   On the subject of saints and connections, he says this, “Saints see things in their connectedness and wholeness. They don’t see things as separate. It’s all one, and yet like the Trinity, it is also different. What you do to the other, you do to yourself; how you love yourself is how you love your neighbor; how you love God is how you love yourself; how you love yourself is how you love God. How you do anything is how you do everything.”

He continues “Faith is not simply seeing things at their visible, surface level, but recognizing their deepest meaning. To be a person of faith means you see things—people, animals, plants, the earth—as inherently connected to God, connected to you, and therefore, most worthy of love and dignity.” [2]

Many of us here today may need that steadying, that reminder that we are connected and sustained by the Body of Christ.  In the words of Elizabeth Johnson, we are “one community of memory and hope, a holy people touched with the fire of the Spirit.” And we “are summoned to go forth as companions bringing the face of divine compassion into everyday life and the great struggles of history.” [3]

Beloved ones, we are not alone. We are held securely in the mystical web of the faithful.   Our lives are guided by those who came before us, just as we are shaping the lives of those who live alongside us or on the other side of the world or are coming in the future. 

We are not alone because the earth is the Lord’s. The power that sustains creation also sustains us.  

Richard Rohr concludes, “You don’t go to heaven; you learn how to live in heaven now. And no one lives in heaven alone. Either you learn how to live in communion with the human race and with all that God has created, or, quite simply, you’re not ready for heaven. If you want to live an isolated life, trying to prove that you’re better than everybody else or believing you’re worse than everybody else, you are already in hell. You have been invited—even now, even today, even this moment—to live in the Communion of Saints, in the Presence, in the Body, in the Life of the eternal and eternally Risen Christ.” [4]

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] Kathy Galloway in her blog on COP26 https://iona.org.uk/2021/11/02/from-the-dear-green-place-a-daily-blog-from-kathy-galloway-during-cop26-day-two-monday-1st-november-2021/

[2] https://cac.org/the-communion-of-saints-2016-12-14/

[3] Elizabeth A. Johnson, Friends of God and Prophets: A Feminist Theological Reading of the Communion of Saints (Continuum: 1998), p 240, 243.

[4] https://cac.org/the-communion-of-saints-2016-12-14/

10/31/21 - God's Good Earth: A Pastoral/Prophetic Reflection - various Scriptures

God’s Good Earth: A Pastoral/Prophetic Reflection

October 31, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church

Rev. Kathy Donley

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://youtu.be/qsxK5-CP4xY

Growing up in Baptist churches, I came to understand a certain narrative about what we called the Old Testament.  A quick summary of my understanding went like this:

God made a covenant with human beings, promising to bless them and sustain them as they promised to live by God’s rules which are summed up in the Ten Commandments.  But the humans didn’t keep their promise.  They broke the covenant over and over again in spite of all the leaders and prophets who God sent to guide them and warn them of the consequences of their actions. Eventually God realized that humans were never going to live up to their part of the covenant, so Jesus came to give us another way. 

So, that narrative is basically true, but it leaves out a lot of detail and nuance.  One of the effects of that narrative as it was often taught, is that it gives the impression that the humans who failed to keep covenant with God were inherently bad and that we are not.  One positive message that I internalized was that Jesus gave us another way out of brokenness, a new covenant.  Another more dangerous idea that came in at the same time,  was that we would have kept the original covenant because somehow we are better.  That idea that Christians are inherently less sinful because God’s grace was extended to us in Jesus is at the heart of anti-Semitism. The idea has caused so much suffering in the world and surely continues to break God’s own heart.  Please understand that I am absolutely not putting forth that notion as truth.  What I do want to suggest is that we modern people have fallen into a similar trap of breaking covenant.  I’m thinking about a covenant that is referenced in scripture, but has not been routinely taught, and certainly not emphasized, among many Christians.  I’m thinking of  the covenant that God has with the entire creation, with the non-human creatures and with the earth itself.  I’m thinking of the ways that human behavior interferes with and diminishes and violates that relationship. 

The covenant that comes to mind first for many of us is the covenant God made with Abraham, where God promised a childless Abraham that he would be the father of a multitude and that through him the nations of the world would be blessed.  This covenant was re-affirmed with Moses on Mt. Sinai with the giving of the Ten Commandments.   One of those commandments was to honor the Sabbath.  God’s people became peculiar because they set aside one day in seven for rest. They did so every week from one generation to the next.  

Sabbath meant regular rest for everyone.  Rich or poor, old or young, landowner or servant, even foreigners in the land got a day off.  But Sabbath did not end there.  The livestock also got the day to rest. And there’s more.  As Ruth read for us, the Sabbath principle also applied to the land.  Every seven years, the fields were to be left fallow and the vineyards untended so that they could also rest.  In those years, the people could eat whatever the land produced on its own, but they could not sow and till it.  And not only people, but also livestock were to eat whatever it produced.  And not only livestock, but also wild animals.  Israel was commanded to open their fields to creatures that threatened their very lives because God intended for all of creation to participate in covenantal peace and rest. [1] Sabbath-keeping was a tangible sign of God’s covenant with all of creation – people, domestic animals, wild animals and the land.

Another covenant we might remember is the one made with Noah.  We see God’s concern for the animals when Noah and his family are charged to keep all of the animals aboard the ark alive.  In advance, God told Noah to make sure to take food for his family and also for all the animals.  And when it was all over, in Genesis 9,  God said, “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth. . . I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” The rainbow is a sign of God’s covenant with the earth and also with humans and animals.

English theologian Robert Murray argues that, out of loving concern for humans and for non-humans, God forms partnerships with both. Murray pushes that idea further saying “if both are God’s covenant partners, how can they not be in some sense covenantally bound to each other?”[2]

If God is in partnership with both humans and non-humans, then it follows that there is a deep relationship between both, a relationship which is more than predator and prey,  something intended to be different than an exploitative, extractive interaction. We might remember that even before Eden’s garden was created in Genesis 2, God made the human being out of the ground to tend and keep it.  To tend and to keep – this  is the fundamental covenant which we humans have largely forsaken. 

The prophets are the ones who warned of covenant violations.  We tend to remember that they spoke against greed, injustice and oppression of the poor, and going after other gods. But they also preached about the effect that those behaviors had on the rest of creation.

Jeremiah 9 says  “Take up weeping and wailing for the mountains, and a lamentation for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are laid waste so that no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard; both the birds of the air and the animals  have fled and are gone.  . . .Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through? . .  Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, or walked in accordance with it, but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals . .”

Hosea, that very strange prophet, said it clearly “Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel; for the Lord has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or loyalty, and no knowledge of God in the land. Swearing, lying, and murder, and stealing and adultery break out; bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who live in it languish; together with the wild animals and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea are perishing.” Hosea 4:1-3

A proverb from eastern Africa says “When the elephants fight, the grass suffers.”  The way the people lived their lives directly affected the rest of creation.  Walter Brueggemann notes the similarities between Hosea’s time and ours.  He writes, “The drive for more money leads to displacing people. As the people are displaced, the land goes untended, unloved, un-respected. A little at a time, the land forfeits its will to produce and to multiply, the earth ceases to be fruitful and chaos comes . . .”[3]

I called this a pastoral/prophetic reflection.  It is prophetic in the sense that it reminds us of sin and its consequences.  But it is pastoral because I know that many of you are already deeply concerned the effects of climate change, the potentially irreversible ways in which humans are damaging God’s good creation. You are already keenly aware of the kinship we share with the planet, our interdependency with human and non-human creation, which some might even call a covenantal relationship.  More and more people are reclaiming the role of tending and keeping the creation.  Let us give thanks for persistent people everywhere.  May we have the courage and faith to stand strong among them. Amen.

[1] Brandon Frick in his dissertation Covenantal Ecology: The Promise of Covenant for a Christian Environmental Ethic https://baylor-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/2104/9238/FRICK-DISSERTATION-2014.pdf?sequence=1

[2] Robert Murray, The Cosmic Covenant: Biblical Themes of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation (Sweden: Tigris, 2007), p. 102.

[3] Walter Brueggemann,  “The Uninflected Therefore of Hosea 4:1-3.” In Reading from This Place, Vol. 1, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995) p. 246

10/24/21 - Unravelling Shame - John 4:1-29

Unravelling Shame

John 4:1-29

October 24, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://youtu.be/_THYpJZsfEI

Jesus and the woman at the well. Most of us have heard this story multiple times. It doesn’t make us squirm. We don’t pick up on the cues that would have raised the tension and made first century readers uncomfortable. Let’s see if we can raise the ante on that.

They meet at a well.  In fact, it is the well where Jacob met Rachel who would become his wife.  Meetings at wells led to marriages between Jacob and Rachel, between Isaac and Rebecca, between Moses and Zipporah.  The first readers of John’s gospel knew that pattern.  They would wonder if it was about to be repeated.

They are from two different races, male and female. Jews and Samaritans have a history of animosity.  Men and women who are not married are not to associate in public.  We have heard this before, but I don’t think we feel it like they would have. So, what if we imagine this scene taking place on an elevator? A white woman and a black man, alone on an elevator. Or it could be a black woman and a white man.  Neither of them might intend harm to the other, but because of the history of men and women, the history of black and white people, each of them might be suspicious. They might be afraid of each other, afraid of assault, afraid of false accusations.  They might be concerned that the other person might be afraid and uncertain how to set them at ease. 

If you are one of the people on the elevator, what do you do? Do you initiate conversation or just stand quietly in your corner?  Jesus decides to initiate conversation. He asks her for a drink.

Let me digress for just a moment.  In the other gospels, at certain points, Jesus sends the disciples out on mission without him.  When they go, he tells them not to take provisions or money, but to depend on strangers to receive them and provide for them.  In this passage, Jesus models what he taught his disciples to do. He has been walking.  It is noon.  He is hot and thirsty, but he doesn’t have a bucket to draw water.  So he asks the woman for a drink. He puts himself at the mercy of her hospitality.

She went to the well at noon, in the heat of the day.  That was not the usual time to fetch water.   Women were the primary water fetchers.  They still are in many places.  They went early, when it was cool. This was the habit of so many women that the well became the place to meet and greet, to catch up on the news and the gossip.  But this woman was there at noon, fetching water alone, when none of the others were there.  Biblical readers often take that scrap of information along with the tantalizing morsel that she has been married 5 times . . .  then we decide we know who this woman is. She is someone we can cluck our tongues and shake our heads at. Or maybe, if we are feeling kind, someone we might pity.

The text doesn’t say that she always gets water at noon. Maybe there’s a reason that she’s there at that time today. Maybe she has company coming and has already used the morning’s water for extra cleaning. Maybe her household water jar sprang a leak. Maybe the job takes less time if she comes when there’s no line. Most of us have been told that she came at noon to avoid the other women because she was an outcast, shunned by the others because of her assumed immoral lifestyle, but the Bible doesn’t say that she does this every day.  It doesn’t say that she is shunned. 

Biblical interpreters have not been kind to her.  The wonderful preacher Fred Craddock said, “Evangelists aplenty have assumed that the brighter her nails, the darker her mascara and the shorter her skirt, the greater the testimony to the power of the converting word. [And]  Moralizers . . . have painted her as dangerous: beware her seductive ways, her mincing walk, her eyes waiting in ambush.”[1]

One contemporary Baptist preacher called her “a worldly, sensually-minded, unspiritual harlot from Samaria”[2] He said that “she is spiritually dead from the effects of years of sexual and relational sin” [3] which is a big leap from the meager facts presented in John’s gospel and the way the story ends.

Believing her to be shameful, they have heaped more shame upon her, which is how shame works.  Something happens to us or we do something which seems out of boundaries of normal or good, and then those things get stuck onto us as part of our identity from that point forward.

Brene Brown is a sociologist at the University of Houston and a best-selling author.  Her work on shame and courage and vulnerability has helped many people. She makes an important distinction between shame and guilt.  Guilt, she says, can be helpful. Guilt holds up our behavior against our values and creates psychological discomfort when there’s a gap between them.  Guilt recognizes that we did something wrong.  

But shame goes deeper than that.  Shame, she says, is the intensely painful feeling of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging. 

“Shame is a focus on self; guilt is a focus on behavior.  Shame is “I am bad.”  Guilt is “I did something bad.” [4]

Guilt says I’m sorry. I made a mistake.

Shame says I’m sorry. I am a mistake.

Do you hear the difference?

Shame is the intensely painful feeling of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging. 

Traditional interpreters say that the woman at the well is ashamed, that she practices social distancing because she has been told that she is not pure enough, not whole enough, not beautiful or lovable or good enough to be worthy of participating in the community. 

Maybe that interpretation is so compelling because we all carry some shame.  We all have memories of things we did or failed to do that bring us pain, things we want to bury down deep so that no one else knows or has a chance to judge us for.

Shame is such a powerful force that it functions like a propeller for Lutheran pastor Nadia Boltz-Weber.  She says, “I think I am not alone. I mean, the wounded parts of me –whether those wounds were inflicted by the sin of others or by my own sin, are what keep me in motion – because I have to try and make up for them, or try and convince myself and everyone else that they aren’t there, or I have to try and get them healed by the love and attention of other people even though none of that ever works….. but wow, it sure does keep me in motion. I mean, I think that if shame could be bottled as an energy source it could easily replace fossil fuels.”[5]

Now, it is likely that this woman is viewed with suspicion.  We don’t know why she has had five husbands.  Has she been widowed multiple times?  Have some of her husbands divorced her?  She didn’t have the legal power to initiate divorce herself.  Whatever the details are, they must be painful.  And it is certainly possible that other people avoid her because they don’t want to suffer the same pain – as if it is contagious.  It is entirely plausible that they hold her responsible for her own misfortunes. Blaming the victim is not a new thing.  If she has been treated that way long enough by enough people, she may have internalized a sense of shame and unworthiness. Not necessarily because she is guilty of any wrong-doing, but because shame comes from messages we receive from others.

She may be ashamed, but Jesus is without shame.  He is shameless about breaking convention, about ignoring the gender and racial barriers between them.  Jesus knows that she has had five husbands, but he doesn’t seem to care why.  He makes no moral judgments about her.  He never says, “Go and sin no more.”  Instead he engages in the conversation that she wants and needs. It is Jesus’ longest-recorded conversation with anyone.  

In the blazing noon sun, out in front of everyone, the Jewish rabbi and the Samaritan woman break all the rules.  They share a drink from the same dipper and they talk personally, meaningfully about life and faith, relationships and religion.  Jesus seems to know her, to accept her without condemnation. He sees her as she really is, everything she has ever done, everything she tried to be, everything she has had to do to survive. He gives her his attention, his insight, his knowledge of himself and of God as if he has all the time in the world and she is worthy of it.  Their deep and long conversation is life-changing for her and ultimately, for her village. 

James Allison is a Catholic theologian.  He describes faith as trusting the totality of our lives to God.  When the woman says “He told me everything I’ve ever done,” I think she is conveying that kind of trust.  Jesus knows all about her and doesn’t condemn her.  James Allison describes that total trust of faith as relaxation.  Faith in God is not subscribing to a set of intellectual propositions, he says, but putting faith in God is like relaxing  in the presence of someone whom we’re confident is fond of us,[6] someone we don’t have to pretend in front of.

That sounds lovely to me, like a gift of living water.  My faith has been shaped more by a focus on the supposed shamefulness of the woman in Samaria than by Jesus’ invitation to relax and enjoy the conversation.   I share Nadia’s sense of shame as an energy source to rival fossil fuels, but I am trying to learn how to relax.

In the book The Color Purple, Celie and Shug have a long talk about God.  Celie has been abused by life.  She tried to be what she was taught was a good Christian for a long time, but now she has given up. Shug asks Celie to describe the God she doesn’t believe in.  Celie says “He big and old and tall and grey-bearded and white.” 

Shug replies “If you wait to find God in the white folks’ church, that’s the one who is bound to show up.  When I found out God was white and a man, I lost interest.”

Shug is the Samaritan woman.  She hears a new voice and learns to worship in Spirit and truth.  She says, “God love everything you love and a mess of stuff you don’t.  Praise God by liking what you like. People think pleasing God is all God care about.  But any fool living in the world can see God always trying please us back.  Once us feel loved by God, us do the best us can to please God.”[7]

Jesus comes to unravel our shame, to love us as we are without condemnation. When we feel loved by God, when we relax into total trust, we do the best we can to please God.  May it be so for you and for me.  Amen.

[1] Fred Craddock, “The Witness at the Well”, The Christian Century, March 7, 1990 https://www.religion-online.org/article/the-witness-at-the-well-jn-45-42/

[2] https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/god-seeks-people-to-worship-him-in-spirit-and-truth

[3] https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-tragic-cost-of-her-cavernous-thirst

[4] Brene Brown, TED Talk:  Listening to Shame March 16, 2012,   https://youtu.be/psN1DORYYV0

[5] https://thecorners.substack.com/p/if-shame-could-be-bottled-as-an-energy

[6] https://www.christiancentury.org/article/editorpublisher/faith-gift-relax

[7] Alice Walker, The Color Purple, (New York: Pocket, 1982), pp 199-204

10/17/21 - When Dreams Unravel - Jeremiah 29:1-7

When Dreams Unravel

Jeremiah 29:1-7

October 17, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Image: New Roots

by Lauren Wright Pittman

© a sanctified art | sanctifiedart.org

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://youtu.be/gj8UkEXR1p4

I’m going to describe a scenario.  See if it sounds at all familiar.   

Something very bad happens.   The event is widespread. It effects people of all ages and stages of life.  It effects the entire country.  In fact, it is an international event.  As it is happening, people try to make sense of it  The historians speak.  The politicians pontificate. The preachers and prophets weigh in.  But of course, they don’t all say the same thing.  They each speak from their own point of view, about the outcome they desire or to shift the narrative in such a way that they preserve the most power.  And some just tell the truth as clearly as they understand it.

In the country where this devastating event happened, the people listen. Some listen to those who promise the outcome they desire.  Some listen to those whom they admired before the devastating event.  Most listen to those they believe are telling the clearest truth.  After all that listening, the citizens are aligned with the historians or the politicians or the preachers and the country continues to suffer.  It suffers because of the event itself and because the people are not united in their response to it.     

Does that sound familiar?  If it sounds like something you might have experienced, would you please raise your hand?

Thank you.

That scenario was, of course, a description of the capture of Judah by Babylon in the sixth century BCE.  If you thought  I was talking about something else, maybe that’s just a reminder that human beings may not have changed all that much.

The event was the capture of Judah.  The armies of Babylon had ransacked the capital and destroyed the temple.  They had hauled off to Babylon the king and his mother, all the officials and warriors and skilled craftspeople along with the best treasurers from the palace and the temple.  Most of Judah’s wealth and leadership was in Exile.  It was a devastating event.  It was felt at every level.  Jeremiah 7 mentions that weddings are not happening any more.  No one can summon the feeling of celebration necessary for such an occasion. Chapter 16 says that the old and young are dying and no one laments them – there are no more funerals.     

People are stunned.  They are traumatized. They never thought this could happen to them, even though some of the prophets had been warning that something just like this was probably going to happen if they didn’t change their ways. 

And even now that it has happened, even now that the king is in exile and the temple is in ruins, some people don’t want to believe it.  Faced with the reality that it did really happen, they want it to be over, to be resolved as soon as possible, so that life can get back to normal.

The prophet Jeremiah stayed in Judah where he had been ministering for 45 years.  The same people who didn’t listen to him when he warned them about Babylon don’t want to listen now, even though his prophecies have come true.  They prefer to listen to a guy named Hananiah.  Hananiah says that the Temple treasures are going to be returned and all those in Exile are coming home soon.  His definition of “soon” is within two years.  He claims that this is a word from the Lord.

But Jeremiah has a different word from the Lord.  He says that things are going to get worse before they get better.  The temple treasures are not coming back within two years. In fact, whatever is left there will also be taken away.  According to Jeremiah, the Exile will not end for another 70 years.

Jeremiah and Hananiah are both in Judah.  Hundreds of miles away, in Babylon, the people are divided along the same lines.  Using the social media of the day, Jeremiah and his opponents write public letters back and forth.  Our reading from chapter 29 is one of Jeremiah’s letters. 

God’s message to the people has two parts.  The first part is “live fully now.”  The second part is “keep hope alive for a new and different future.” 

“Live fully now,” says Jeremiah.  Build houses and live in them; plant gardens.  Buy washing machines and other major appliances.  Embrace the life that is yours in exile.  Stop expecting things to be like they used to be.  Live the life that is yours now, not the life that was.  Suck it up and deal.

If that’s Jeremiah’s best pastoral care, that might explain why he was called a prophet and not a priest.  These are the people who wrote Psalm 137 about weeping by the river because they were so homesick.  These are the ones who said “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”  “How can we worship God when we cannot even gather together in our holy place?”

But Jeremiah’s word from God is to settle down, to make the best of the situation, to live fully now.  Embrace the life that is yours in exile. 

We have been trying to do that, haven’t we?  We have adapted to the life that is ours now.  Going to work and school, finding ways to worship together.  We’ve even figured out how to do graduations and weddings and funerals again.  We are making the best of it, but most of us are not exactly embracing this life. 

I am hearing from several of you and also from friends beyond Emmanuel that you feel like you’re in exile. Actually you don’t say that.  What you say is that you aren’t enjoying life as much as you used to.  You’re grateful for your health and family and all those good things, but there’s a kind of heaviness that wasn’t there before.  What you say is that you keep messing up little things like forgetting to sign a check before you put it in the mail or screwing up the time and days of appointments.  People are quitting their jobs in record numbers – 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs in August and that was the sixth month in a row with sky-high quitting rates.[1]  People are burned out and fed up and not willing to work in conditions that they used to.  Big things feel overwhelming and even the small things of every day life seem to take a lot more effort.  We are not exactly embracing this life.   

I have been describing some parallels between the Biblical exile and our current situation. It is always dangerous to put ourselves into any Biblical story and assume that the word of God understood in that time and place applies directly to us.  So, I am doing this cautiously.  And I’m doing so, trusting that you will also examine it carefully to find the truth for our own time.

I do think that this letter from Jeremiah might be good counsel for us.  Embrace life as it is, because it is the only life we now have. 

As they settle in, Jeremiah says, that they are to seek the shalom of the city.  Work for the well-being of all.  They cannot withdraw into a separate existence, because even in exile, they have a missional responsibility.[2] 

They are to care for their own needs – planting gardens, raising children, adapting worship without the temple.  Those are good and faithful tasks.  And also, this small, vulnerable minority is to understand that their well-being is bound up with the well-being of those around them. Seek the shalom of the city where you now live, Jeremiah says. 

The first part of Jeremiah’s letter tells them to embrace the life they have, to adapt as necessary and seek the common good now.  The second part is there is hope for a different future in the long-run. 

It is the people who are in Babylon, not the ones at home in Judah, who offer the best hope for the future, as Jeremiah sees it.  A future generation will arise, a generation shaped by those living through exile right now – that generation will sustain God’s dream for the people of Judah. In spite of this serious upheaval to their way of life, in spite of the wrecking ball that is tearing down their understanding of God, the good news here is that God’s dream goes on.  Future generations will have faith; they will continue to participate the abundance of life God offers.

But the message is also that there are long-term consequences to what they (and we) do now.   We no longer have the life we once did.  Some used to say that the golden age of the American church was in 1950’s.  Now, we look back on 2019 with nostalgia.

The exiles in Babylon learned many things – how to relate to their enemies, how to speak another language, to function in another culture, how to sustain faith beyond the walls of their holy building. They adapted, and because of that, the next generation was more resilient.

Legend has it that the reformer Martin Luther, said  “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”

I think this is where we are right now.   The world might go to pieces tomorrow, or maybe it already did yesterday, but we still plant apple trees.  We are adapting, not just to the pandemic, but to a seismic shift that has come with it.  A shift in our thinking about what really matters, about what work is for,  about where God is, about how to sustain a faith community,  a shift in our awareness about our inter-connectedness with our friends and our enemies and the planet.  We will be adapting to this shift for at least the next 70 years, I expect.  There will be long-term consequences for the actions we take now.  

Which is why I believe that Jeremiah’s counsel to those in exile in the 6th century BCE is still relevant:  Embrace the life we have now. Adapt with wisdom and courage. Hope relentlessly for a different future. 

Yes, this is a difficult word.  As hard for me as for you.  As the apostle Paul said to the church in Rome, “suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts.”

Suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts.  Thanks be to God.

[1] https://time.com/6106322/the-great-resignation-jobs/

[2] Walter Brueggemann, A Commentary on Jeremiah:  Exile and Homecoming, (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmanns, 1998), p 257-258

10/10/21 - When Good Things Happen to Bad People - Luke 19:1-10; Acts 9:1-20

When Good Things Happen to Bad People

Luke 19:1-10; Acts 9:1-20

October 10, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Guest Preacher Rev. Peter Carman

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKTq7KVvN5s

10/3/21 - Unraveled: Pharaoh had a Plan - Exodus 5:1-2; 7:8-23

Unraveled: 

Pharaoh Had a Plan

Exodus 5:1-2, 7:8-23

October 3, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Graphic image by Lauren Wright Pittman; Anti-Creation Narrative

(Pharaoh hardens his heart to Moses’ requests);  © a sanctified art | sanctifiedart.org |

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT3fiP8hxvM

It was 1989.  The anti-apartheid movement was gaining momentum in South Africa.  It was a time of high anxiety and repeated violence.  Black activists often died in custody or at the hands of police. Bombs exploded in shopping centers.  Bishop Desmond Tutu had received the Nobel Peace Prize for his peacemaking efforts. He had also been arrested and had his passport confiscated more than once.

When the government cancelled a political rally, Bishop Tutu organized a “Ecumenical Defiance Service” at St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town.  Riot police and armed soldiers swarmed the streets outside.   Inside Tutu confidently proclaimed that the evil and oppression of the system of apartheid would not prevail.  The South African Security Police marched in and lined the walls of the cathedral.  They were a special unit of law enforcement linked to torture, forced disappearances and assassination.  They were openly recording his words on the tape recorders they held, threatening him with consequences for any bold prophetic utterances. They had already arrested Tutu and other church leaders just a few weeks before and kept them in jail for several days.

Meeting their eyes, Tutu pointed his finger right at the heavily armed police “You are powerful, indeed very powerful, but you are not God!”  he said  “And the God whom we serve, cannot be mocked.  You have already lost!” 

Desmond Tutu is 5’ 5”, just an inch taller than me.  On that day, in that moment, he came out from behind the pulpit and flashed his fabulous smile.  Still speaking to the Security Force, he said “Since you have already lost, I invite you today to come and join the winning side.” He said with warmth and friendliness, but also with a clarity and boldness that took everyone’s breath away. Jim Wallis, who was there, called it the most extraordinary challenge to political tyranny he had ever witnessed.[1]

Years before apartheid ended, when its menacing henchmen were still obviously in control, Desmond Tutu claimed to be on God’s side, the winning side.  Here on this World Communion Sunday, we can look in any almost any direction and see the threat of evil, the powers of death and destruction, division and hatred, seemingly firmly in control.  It might seem ridiculous, laughable, to assert that God will prevail and even more foolish to trust that somehow we will endure on God’s side.

Such was the bold faith of Desmond Tutu and millions of other black South Africans. Such was the bold faith of Moses and Aaron as they went to Pharaoh to demand release.  The first time they went, Pharaoh said, “I don’t know this Lord.  I will not comply.”  Before they went, Moses had asked God for God’s name “who shall I send is sending me?”  God had said “I AM. I AM who I AM.  I will be who I will be. Say that I AM has sent you.”

God’s name and God’s actions convey a fundamental understanding of God’s nature which is freedom. God will be who God chooses to be.  God will act as God chooses to act.  No one controls God. I AM is free. I AM is sovereign.

Human beings, every human being is created in the image of God.  “To be created in the image of a God who is free means that the human person is meant to be free.”[2] 

Kelly Brown Douglas, writing about the faith of black people not in South Africa, but in America, says this: “The exodus story points to the fact that God chose to free a people from circumstances that were contrary to whom God created them to be. God’s choice was motivated by the very freedom that is God.  [The exodus story in black faith] confirms that God’s intention is for all people, including black people, to be free to live into the goodness of their very creation. It is only in freedom that people are able to reflect the very image of a God who is free from all human forms of bondage.”[3]

God is free.  The will of God for shalom, for deep abiding peace for the whole creation, begins with freedom.  This is deeply understood by oppressed people of faith and probably not as deeply grasped by those like me, who are not oppressed, but stand in solidarity. 

Pharaoh did not know this God.  Pharaoh, for all his power, was not free.  He was under the control of fear.  What would happen if he released the enslaved Hebrews? Would he be seen as weak? Would his country falter?  Without their labor, would production keep up with demand?  Would there be enough? In bondage to his fear, Pharaoh hardened his heart.

When Biblical people talked about the emotional center of a person, they usually located it in the bowels or the gut.  They did not locate it in the heart.  They considered the heart to be the controlling center of human actions. Thoughts, intellectual activity, personality all come from the heart. The state of one’s heart reflects one’s essential character.   One scholar says that hardening of the heart means “the willful suppression of the capacity for reflection, for self-examination, for unbiased judgments about good and evil.”[4]

Have you read any comments on social media lately?  Have you heard public conversations amongst pundits and policy wonks?  “The willful suppression of the capacity for reflection, for self-examination, for unbiased judgments about good and evil.”  It turns out that hardening of the heart is still a great way to describe the moral atrophy of those who fail to lead for the common good.

Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.  He did not know the God of freedom and he would not let God’s people go.  There are Pharaoh’s all around us.  Those who occupy seats of great power, those who have limited authority over others, but exercise it as bullies.  Some are actively harmful. Others are callously indifferent to the suffering they cause.

And here we are, on another World Communion Sunday, bearing witness, claiming solidarity, raising our voices, and quite possibly, feeling overwhelmed by the hardened hearts of those in power.  It is sometimes hard to see what God is doing in the world, difficult to trust even that God is at work at all.

But I think about Moses and Aaron before the Pharaoh of their time. I think about Desmond Tutu speaking to the front lines of apartheid evil – “You have already lost!”  And I gain a bit of courage.

One more Desmond Tutu story . . Someone once called him an optimist and he said, “I’m not optimistic, no.  I’m quite different.  I’m hopeful.  I am a prisoner of hope.” 

Prisoners of hope is God’s term used by the prophet Zechariah for the people in Exile whom God promises to restore.  

So beloved ones, we are created in the image of God who is free. Humans are meant to be free.  Working for our freedom and the freedom of others is one way to join God’s work in the world.  On our best days, we will boldly exercise and celebrate that freedom.  But on the other days, when freedom seems diminished, when peace does not prevail, then may we be prisoners of hope, trusting that we will endure on God’s winning side. . .  Amen.

[1] Jim Wallis in God’s Politics excerpted here https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7220860-the-former-south-african-archbishop-desmond-tutu-used-to-famously

[2] Kelly Brown Douglas, Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God. ( Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2015), p. 151

[3] Kelly Brown Douglas, p 158-9. 

[4]Nahum M. Sarna, Exploring Exodus: The Origins of Biblical Israel (New York:  Schocken Books, 1986)  p. 64

9/26/21 - Unraveled by Suffering: Transforming Trauma - 2 Samuel 21:1-14

Unraveled by Suffering:  Transforming Trauma

2 Samuel 21:1-14

September 26, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Image: Rizpah Keeps Watch; R Dunkarton, 1812 after J. M. W. Turner

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

George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis by officer Derek Chauvin who knelt on his neck for over 9 minutes.  We now know it was over 9 minutes, but originally it was reported as 8 minutes, 46 seconds. That was in May of 2020.  For every night of the next month, some friends of mine turned on their porch light at 8:46 p.m. and stood there, keeping vigil for 8 minutes, 46 seconds.  They sent out cards to every house and business in the area inviting them to stand in front of their homes with their porch lights on, as a way of illuminating a stance against racial justice.  They began by standing, but as the month went one, sometimes they chose to kneel instead. Some of you know the people I’m talking about –Dan and Sharon Buttry, recently retired global servants for peace and justice.  Dan said, “Holding vigil for 8 minutes and 46 seconds each night makes evident the crime rather than the accident in this killing of George Floyd.  Try it.  You will feel the very cells of your body crying out against the injustice.”

I remembered that this week as I read the story of Rizpah.  I wondered about the intensity of the trauma and loss that she experienced.  I thought about the intensity of her suffering, the degree to which she felt the very cells of her body crying out against the injustice.

Full disclosure – I also spent a lot of time with Dan and Sharon this week, reading their book Daughters of Rizpah. It is a great exploration of today’s story, one which they have used over the last 45 years in their trainings on conflict resolution and trauma transformation.  I learned a lot from this book and I won’t begin to address all of it today.  If you would like to read it, I’ll be happy to lend out my copy. I can also give you an order form and you may order your own signed copy directly from the Buttry’s.

This is not a familiar story for most of us.  Let’s take some time to unpack it.  It takes place when David is king, probably early in his reign.  David is the second king of Israel.  Saul reigned before him. Saul grew up in the area of the Gibeonites which was also the area assigned to the tribe of Benjamin, Saul’s tribe.  Today, we might consider the Gibeonites as indigenous people, those who were living in the land at the time that the Hebrew people were liberated from Egypt and entered Canaan. 

There was an ancient treaty with the Gibeonites which King Saul broke.  Saul massacred the Gibeonites. That ethnic cleansing or attempted genocide happened some time before the events of our story.  But now there is a famine.  And King David has to do something.  So he asks God about it. 

God identifies the problem, the injustice suffered by the Gibeonites.  David does not seem to ask God what to do about it, but instead he goes to the Gibeonites and asks what they want.  They want vengeance. Saul is already dead, so they seek vengeance on his living descendants.  David agrees. 

Now, some might say that within his own time and place, David is trying to do the right thing, to establish a limited justice for the Gibeonites.  And, yes, he probably is.

But it also seems politically expedient. You see, after King Saul died, there was a civil war in which David was only one of several contenders for the throne. It happens that in doing what the Gibeonites want, David will also eliminate others who might claim a right to the throne because they are also descendants of Saul.  So, that adds another layer to the story.

David condemns seven of Saul’s male descendants to death..  He hands over the two of Saul’s sons and five of his grandsons. Merab is the mother of the five grandsons. She is silent in this story.  We should not take that silence to mean that she doesn’t care or is unaffected.

Rizpah is the mother of Saul’s two sons.  Rizpah is Saul’s concubine. A concubine is a slave treated like a wife, but without any of the privileges accorded to wives.  Rizpah was Saul’s concubine, a marginalized person. Her only status might have been as the mother of royal sons.  But now Saul is dead and the civil war has been won by David.  “With the execution of her sons, Rizpah is pushed even further to the margins with all her future security and livelihood lost with her children.  Rizpah is an ultimate marginalized person with no power by any of the measurements of society.” [1] And yet. . .

Rizpah goes to the site of the execution and keeps vigil over the bodies.  She stays there, publicly grieving, proclaiming this trauma and injustice in her actions. What she is does is more than grief.  It is also a form of civil disobedience.  Part of the humiliation of this death was the desecration of the bodies.  She keeps the birds and animals away, so her protection stands between the king and the full execution of his sentence.

She stays there from the spring harvest until the fall rains, probably five or six months.  She stays, even though she is exhausted and the stench is awful, and she knows that people passing by are talking about her, her problems, her need for help, her need to move on already.

Rizpah stays there long enough that David hears about it.  The king doesn’t respond as one whose orders have been obstructed.  He doesn’t send soldiers to drag her away.  But interestingly, he doesn’t go to her himself.  Not at first.  First he goes to the village of Jabesh-gilead.  Some years earlier, Saul and Jonathan and his other warrior sons had been killed in battle and their bodies had been left exposed by their enemies. Their bones had been kept at Jabesh-Gilead and never properly buried.  David goes there to gather those bones and then comes to Rizpah.  He comes as the one who killed her sons.  He also comes bringing the bones of the rest of the family who had died violently and been denied the honor of a proper burial. And then together, David and Rizpah bury all of the bones in the family tomb at home in Benjamin.

Rizpah might have been completely unraveled by her trauma.  She might have been consumed with her grief and anger.  But her courage, her persistence, her refusal to be just a victim, -- all help to shape a new story.  It is not a story where everything is made right, but that rarely happens in real life, does it?  It is a story where the cycle of violence comes to an end, where healing occurs, not just for her, but for many others and for the land. She is unraveled by her suffering, but she transforms her trauma into hope and action.

The story is multi-layered and complex.  I have left out much more that could be said, but I want to turn now to two questions. The questions are where do we find ourselves in this story?  And where is God in it?  Where do we find ourselves? And God?

I said that this story is not familiar to most of us.  It is not in the lectionary. A lot of white folks don’t even know that it is in the Bible.  But this week, I became aware, again, of differences between the Bible stories that have historically resonated with white folks and with people of color.  This one hinges on our experiences and also on translation.  There is a verb that describes the execution of Saul’s descendants.  The verb can be translated to fall, to hang, to impale, to dislocate. The exact means of this execution is not clear.  But the verb can mean “to hang” and apparently, many black American Christians know this story.  They understand that Rizpah’s boys were lynched. 

You undoubtedly know the name of Emmett Till.  I will spare us the recital of the torture that 14-year-old boy suffered at the hands of two white men before they killed him for the alleged crime of whistling at a white woman in Mississippi in 1955.  His mother demanded that his body be returned to her in Chicago.  It was barely recognizable because of the violence inflicted on him. His mother’s name was Mamie Till Mobley.  Everyone told her that she should have a closed casket funeral, but she refused.  She said “I want the world to see what they did to my baby.”

And the world did.  Thousands of people attended his funeral and viewed his body.  Photos of it circulated, adding to the national and international outrage.  Mamie Till Mobley’s insistence that the world should bear witness to the violence done to her child may have been the single-largest event that sparked the Civil Rights Movement. Mamie’s other name is Rizpah. 

Austin Channing Brown is an author and speaker, a powerful leader in the move for racial justice.  She says, “I cannot get the image of Rizpah out of my head. Rizpah lost a son to state sanctioned violence. She wouldn’t let the violence be forgotten. She wouldn’t let it be swept under the rug. She led a protest of one, fighting off beasts to bring what measure of dignity for the bodies and indictment for the rules that was in her power to do.[2]

Mamie Till Mobley’s other name is Rizpah.  We know about so many other Rizpah’s – Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, Judy Shephard, mother of Matthew Shephard, mothers, fathers, friends and lovers in Newtown, Orlando, El Paso and Charleston, Haitian people under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas.

Where do we find ourselves in this story? If we know trauma close up, we may find ourselves offering public grief and lament, crying out for justice, refusing to be silenced until the truth is recognized.  Or, if we bear witness to another person who is unraveling with grief and anger and pain, we may find ways to hear the truth, to understand the injury, to share in the suffering until our cells cry out against the injustice.  We may find ourselves not in Rizpah, but alongside David.

Where is God in this story?  God is overwhelmingly with those who suffer.  God is the advocate for the Gibeonites, those whose treaty was broken, those who were massacred.  God speaks for the Gibeonites even against God’s own covenant people. 

And God is with Rizpah.  Here’s how we know that.  At the beginning of the story, God identifies the problem, the context which is creating the famine.  The problem is the injustice suffered by the Gibeonites.  And David tries to make that right.  He has Saul’s descendants executed “before the Lord.” But God doesn’t accept the human sacrifice.   God is silent.  The famine goes on.  The land is still defiled, even more so. [3]

The rains come, the famine breaks, only after David and Rizpah together bury Saul and his sons with dignity and honor.  It was not after the lynching, not after the Gibeonites had their vengeance, but after attention was given to Rizpah. Then and only then God answers the prayer to bless the land.   God responds to changed hearts resulting in changed behavior.

 The Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman offers these words

“I pray that we learn from Rizpah. When we see injustice may we, like Rizpah, climb the mountain of God and defend those who cannot defend themselves. When we see someone unraveling in inexplicable grief, may this sight unravel us from the ways we are entangled with injustice.[4]

Beloved ones, let us pray that we can be unraveled for the good. Let us tell the truth.   Let us confront the beasts.  Let us put the powers to shame. With Rizpah,  let us stand vigil and not go home until justice is done.[5]  Amen.

[1] Sharon A. Buttry and Daniel L. Buttry, Daughters of Rizpah, (Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2020),  p. 27

[2] http://austinchanning.com/blog/untitled

[3] Buttrys,  p. 49

[4] Lauren Wright Pittman, Unraveled sermon planning guide, http://sanctifiedart.org

[5] The ending is adapted from language in a sermon by the Rev. Cindy Weber “A Fierce Vigil: Keeping the Beasts at Bay” excerpted in Travelers on the Journey: Pastors Talk About Their Lives and Commitments (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 2005) p. 103

9/19/21 - Unraveled by Uncertainty - Matthew 14:22-33

Unraveled by Uncertainty

Matthew 14:22-33

September 19, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLPtmCBVa08

It had been an exhausting day for the disciples.  They learned that John the Baptist had been executed by Herod Antipas.  That was an emotional shock. They had tried to go off with Jesus to grieve and talk and process, but the crowds had followed as usual.  So, they had spent most of the day listening to Jesus with the crowd, but then, he had told them to feed everyone.  That was a different kind of shock, finding out that he expected them to be able to do that.  As we know, Jesus did the hard part of getting the food together, but still, they had to do set-up and clean-up involved in serving a few thousand people. So they were already tired when Jesus made them go away.  He made them get in the boat and leave him alone to pray. 

They were weary.  They just wanted the day to be over so they could go rest. But first, they had to get home and apparently, on this day, their way home was across the water.  Having to fight with the rough seas and the wind in their face only added to their fatigue. 

In Biblical stories like this one, the water functions almost like one of the characters with its own tension and plot development. One scholar says  “Water is the necessity that humans must have for life and we must drink it, even though it can swallow us and all that we have built, in an instant. . . .Water was pushed up and back when God made a safe place for human life in Genesis 1, but water waits, just on the other side of the sky, waits to gush out and wash everything away.  Water waits . . . to return God’s creation to the formless void, the dangerous watery chaos that existed before God began to create.” [1]

A friend is traveling the coast of Ireland right now.  From several different locations, he has shared pictures of sculptures and memorials remembering those who went to sea and never returned. Many of them were fisherman.  The people know the danger.  Every town has its own memories of those lost, but they still go out on the water because they must.

Several of the disciples are fishermen.  They are familiar with sudden storms like this one. The Sea of Galilee is really a lake.  It covers about 64 square miles.  For reference, Lake George covers about 45 square miles. The disciples are never very far from land, but the storm has them in a holding pattern. For hours, they have been straining at the oars and rowing against the wind. They are drenched by the waves, miserable and tired. 

They respect the power of the storm, but they are not afraid of it. Not this time.  They only become frightened when Jesus shows up.  He is difficult to recognize.  His presence is not comforting  They think he is one of the demons who live on the sea or a ghost.  Jesus calls out “Get a hold of yourselves. It’s me.” 

Peter answers. Of course, it’s Peter. I am so grateful for all the stories we have about Peter. Peter says, “If it really is you, Jesus, then command me to walk on the water.”   As a way for Jesus to verify his identity, this doesn’t make a lot of sense.  He could have said, “If it’s you, Jesus, what’s my mother-in-law’s name?”  Or “If it’s really you, tell me what we had for lunch today.”

But Peter says, “If it’s really you, Jesus, then empower me to do something spectacular.”  This sounds something like what Satan at that beginning of Jesus’ ministry “If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread.”  Peter wants Jesus to make him impervious to the storm. He doesn’t want to have to use the oars and row against the wind any more, but to rise above it all.

I can relate to that, can’t you?  It feels like we’ve been in this storm forever.  I keep thinking that the shore is in sight. If we would just all row together, we would land and then we could get off the boat and rest.  But some people are tired of trying so they quit. And others aren’t taking the storm seriously, they’re content to ride it out while others do the hard work.  Some feel like God put them in the boat and then abandoned them in the storm. They are frightened or sad or angry.  A few people think that they’re exceptional. They don’t need to stay in the boat, they don’t need to keep rowing, because they are not subject to the same rules of physics and biology that the rest of us mere mortals are.

I am grateful for Peter.  I am grateful that we know so much of the range of his experience with Jesus – the time he dropped his nets without notice to follow, the time he declared “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”  The time he jumped in to answer Jesus’ question and put his foot in his mouth.  Not that time, the other one.  The time Jesus asked him to pray with him in the Garden of Gethsemane and Peter fell asleep.  The time he went running to the empty tomb to check out the women’s story.  The time he baptized Cornelius. The time Jesus called him a rock.

Jesus says, “OK then. Come out and walk on the water with me.”  And Peter does.  For a minute. Until he loses his focus and feels the wind on his face and the waves splashing over him. Until he remembers that people can’t do this.  And then he starts to sink.  Peter is “not a skeptic who habitually doubts but a faithful follower who becomes overwhelmed by the circumstances surrounding him and begins to lose his nerve.”[2]

Peter did not learn to walk on water on this occasion. He did learn, again, to trust the presence of Jesus that came to him in the boat. Even when he didn’t recognize it at first,  even when it wasn’t initially comforting.

Most of us are a lot of like Peter. One minute, we feel like we can walk on water.  The next, the wind and waves are too much. As Barbara Brown Taylor says, “The truth about us is that we obey and fear, we walk and sink, we believe and doubt. But it is not like we do only one or the other. We do both. Our faith and our doubts are not mutually exclusive; they both exist in us at the same time, buoying us up and bearing us down, giving us courage and feeding our fears, supporting our weight on the wild seas of our lives and sinking us like stones.”[3]

There is no point in beating ourselves up about this. No point in dwelling on our feelings of inadequacy and failure. Our doubts are part of our humanity, a reminder that our strength comes from God. But even a little bit of faith, Jesus said, is enough to move a mountain.

“Take courage,” Jesus says to Peter and to us. Live with heart. We got in this boat with all our doubts, because we believe and we want to follow.   Live with heart. Let yourself trust, even just a little bit, that God is in the boat, in the storm with us.  Take courage. It will be enough. Amen.

[1] Richard Swanson, Provoking the Gospel of Matthew:  A Storytellers’ Commentary, Year A  (Cleveland:  The Pilgrim Press, 2007) p. 194

[2] Walter Brueggemann, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa, James D. Newsome. Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year A.  (Louisville:  John Knox Press, 1995), p 441-2.

[3] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Saved by Doubt” in The Seeds of Heaven:  Sermons o the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville:  Westminster/John Knox Press, 2004), p. 60

9/12/21 - Unraveled by Surprise - Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7

Unraveled by Surprise

Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7

September 12, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HQFlDhoge8

Sarah is beautiful.  Drop-dead gorgeous.  I never really considered that before.  When she was 65, the Pharaoh of Egypt saw her and wanted her.  I guess my ageism is showing.  Sarah’s part in the Biblical narrative begins when she is advanced in years and somehow I never stopped to think about what she might have looked like. 

This week, I came across this photo of  Stasia Foley.  She is 102 here.  I know that Stasia is a white American and Sarah was a Middle Easterner, but this is now my mental image of the Biblical Sarah. 

This picture of Mrs. Foley was taken on the occasion of a good surprise. She was in hospice care.  Her granddaughter, Tara, was engaged to be married. Mrs. Foley  was not well enough to travel and would not live to the date of the wedding.  So her granddaughter traveled from Texas to Florida. She brought along her wedding dress to surprise her grandmother with one last visit. Tara didn’t tell anyone what she had done.  On her wedding day, several months later, she surprised her family with pictures of herself with her grandmother in her wedding dress.  It was a very good surprise.[1]

I think about Stasia Foley, radiant at 102, and about all that her life had held.  And I think about Sarah and all that her life had held. 

Sarah never had children.  Infertility, the absence of children to parents who want them, is such a painful thing, even today.  In Sarah’s time, it was additionally complicated because a woman’s worth was intricately connected to her ability to produce heirs.  The years kept passing without the appearance of a child, lowering Sarah’s self-esteem and status further and further.   It was a grief and a burden that she carried always, everywhere they went.

When they went to Egypt, her beauty became a liability.  And Abraham failed to protect her.  He anticipated that powerful men would want her.  He anticipated that they might kill him to get her, so he told her to say that she was his sister. He allowed the Pharaoh to take her like a wife.  He even profited from it, accepting the gifts of sheep and oxen and donkeys and servants in exchange.  He not only got to stay alive, he got rich while Sarah had no say about it.  Sarah is a survivor of sexual violence and of abandonment by her partner.  She carried that trauma on top  of everything else.

When more than a decade passed without a baby, Sarah  convinced Abraham to take Hagar as his second wife.  Hagar bore him a son.  But Sarah’s plan backfired. Hagar become contemptuous of Sarah. Sarah became jealous of Hagar and abusive to her.

Sarah is beautiful.  She has the rank of first wife.  But her beauty and status have not led to an easy life.  In some ways, the opposite has been true. Like all human beings, Sarah is a complex character with a range of life experiences. She has painful memories and undoubtedly behaviors of which she is not proud.

Maybe she appears tough, even cynical, on the outside. Maybe cynicism is the armor she has learned to wear in a world where she failed at the one thing expected of her, the one thing that would have made her “normal” which is to be a mother and grandmother.    

And then there comes the day when the strangers arrive at the oaks of Mamre.  Sarah is in the tent, listening to the conversation. She hears them talking about her, saying that she will have a son, now, when she is 90 years old.  And she laughs.  Of course she laughs.  Wouldn’t you? 

She laughs because the idea is so ridiculous.  A few decades earlier, this would have been the best possible news, but now, it is painful.  She laughs because she knows her own body very well, much better that those strange men out there who are making pronouncements about it. She laughs, because she has seen the hard side of life and nothing much surprises her anymore, but this does. 

There is a mystery around these strangers. Sometimes it seems that there are three of them, clearly messengers from God.  And sometimes, it is just the Lord who speaks. After Sarah laughs, God asks Abraham why she laughed and she denies having done it. God insists that she really did laugh. 

In the previous chapter, God had announced Sarah’s impending pregnancy just to Abraham, and Abraham had fallen on his face laughing. God did not chastise Abraham for laughing, but it is common to read this chapter as if God is angry with Sarah for it. One scholar says the fact that God would descend to a “no, I did not”/ “yes, you did” squabble with Sarah tells us that this narrative is supposed to be funny.[2]   Sarah does not need to be afraid, for as she proclaims in chapter 21, God has brought laughter for her; everyone who hears will laugh with her.

It would be easy right now to sink into doubt, to wrap ourselves in cynicism because everything is hard.  Pain and suffering is deep and real everywhere, all across the globe.  But there are also genuine surprises, moments of delight and joy. 

Maybe you heard about the Afghan woman who went into labor with complications on an evacuation flight. The other women on the plane stood around her holding up shawls to give her a modicum of privacy. The pilot descended to an altitude which increased air pressure, stabilizing her and probably saving her life. Upon landing in Germany, still inside the plane, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. The baby is named Reach, after the airplane’s call sign.[3]  After all that the woman must have endured, I can imagine her laughing with relief and joy.

Another image you may have seen was the Afghan girl skipping on the tarmac in Belgium.  I don’t know whether she is old enough to understand what she escaped, but the millions of people who have seen the viral photo have some sense of it.  “God has brought laughter for me,” Sarah said.

The message of this story is not that God will deliver faithful people from infertility if they wait long enough and pray hard enough.  The message is not that having faith eliminates suffering.  Those are cruel interpretations which ignore the messiness of the circumstances in which real people live.  They ignore the complexity of human beings who are simultaneously faithful and flawed.

I submit that the message of this story is that God is a God of surprise.  Good surprise.  Yes, the catastrophe in Afghanistan is real. We lament and mourn for it, while still rejoicing with the girl skipping in Belgium.

I love good surprises.  I had one last week. You might remember that over Labor Day weekend, Jim and I went to the Wild Goose Festival.  We’ve gone before.  I go to this mostly for what I learn. I go to learn about the activism of progressive Christians.  I go to absorb what people are doing around issues like immigration or creation justice or mass incarceration.  I also go for conversations with people who have been wounded, those who have left the institutional church, but haven’t entirely given up on Jesus yet. They have important things to say.  There’s not a lot of preaching or worship at this event, which is fine with me. It’s not why I’m there.

Even so, I was a little irked when we arrived on the last morning for what should have been a key note presentation followed by closing worship.  A change of plans was announced.  The expected preacher had not made it to the festival, so the keynote presenter was going to preach. And a team of three people were now going share the keynote presentation slot.  Well, hmm.  I wasn’t very pleased.  I had already heard the presentation by one of the three people and I really didn’t want to hear it again.  Plus I had wanted the original keynoter to have an entire hour instead of the 20 minutes she might get for a sermon.  I was cynical.  This was not a good way to end.  What were the festival organizers thinking?

Of course, as you are anticipating.  I was wrong.  About many things.  But in a very big way about the sermon.  The preacher started off by making us laugh.  She was witty.  I was admiring her craft, trying to take notes so I could repeat it for you sometime.  But she went too fast and I gave up. Which was good because it enabled me to be fully present in the moment.  One minute, we were laughing at Jesus’ disciples, I mean really laughing out loud because she was funny. Then she took a quick turn and all of sudden, we realized that we were guilty of the same behaviors that we were laughing at.  So then we were laughing at ourselves, but it wasn’t so funny. 

A couple of times she said that she didn’t know why she was there, why she had even been invited to speak, but from the attention of the crowd, it was obvious that the Spirit of God was moving.

She drew me in deeper and deeper. I became aware that I was hearing strong truth proclaimed boldly and vulnerably.  More than once, I had to wipe my face – I didn’t even realize I was crying.  Friends, this was the most powerful worship experience I have had in a long time.  Such a good surprise. 

And not just for me, not just for the crowd. During the music which followed the sermon, I saw the preacher wiping her own face.  The next day, she tweeted, “Yesterday, I cried in front of a large group of people, and then I cried on a plane a little more (ok a lot more, I was that lady weeping on the plane). . .”

Laughter . . . tears. . . truth. . . unexpected grace . . .delivered by a preacher who didn’t even know why she was there.  The God of surprise showed up despite my cynicism, despite my desire to keep to the schedule.

Then there was communion.  The station nearest us had a long line, so I stayed seated.  After a bit, I noticed another station with a short line, so I got up and went there.  Because of the crowd, I couldn’t see who was serving until the moment when it was my turn to receive.  And then I realized that standing in front of me was a trans woman and she was offering me the bread.  I immediately remembered the story of Wild Goose communion that I shared with you a few weeks ago, and chuckled to myself about God’s sense of humor.  Just a little extra surprise.

So friends, here is the part where I might say – go and have a good surprise this week.  But, of course, you can’t manufacture surprise.  It just doesn’t work like that. 

What we can do is to allow ourselves to be open to it, to relax the cynicism or world-weariness or despair or doubt that we wear like armor.  What we might attempt every day, is to embrace the question “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?’

What we might do is allow ourselves to hope, to wonder, to delight, to accept goodness in the midst of pain. And perhaps, in God’s own time, we may be graced with laughter.  Thanks be to God.

[1] https://abcnews.go.com/US/bride-brings-wedding-photo-shoot-ill-grandmother-make/story?id=65249688

[2] Song-Mi Suzie Park, in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year A, Volume 3 Joel Green, Thomas Long, Luke Powery, Cynthia Rigby, Editors, ,  (Louisville:  Westminster/John Knox Press, 2020), p. 70

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/25/politics/evacuation-baby-named-reach/index.html

8/29/21 - In Every Age - Acts 15:1-6, 12-20

In Every Age

Acts 15:1-6, 12-20

August 29, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0s2Ob2mL5U (Recording includes the testimony of member Curtis Klope.)

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus’ final instructions were “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them . . . and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Luke says it this way “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The instructions are specific in some ways – as you go, make disciples, teach, and baptize. Begin in Judea, go on to Samaria and then to all nations, to the ends of the earth.  There are important specifics, but not a lot of logistical details.  Jesus told them what to do, but they had to figure out how.

And they did.  They received the power of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem and immediately began telling the story of Jesus there.  A community formed with a connection to the Temple, a community that grew exponentially. The community faced the same kind of resistance that Jesus had, so there was persecution which scattered some of those believers.  Last Sunday, we saw that they moved from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and even farther, pushing out into the known world. They were doing what Jesus told them to do.

That bothered some people. It often happens like that – when one group of people does what Jesus says, another group gets mad.  Jesus said “make disciples of all nations”.  Two unnamed disciples did that – by preaching in Antioch to Gentiles.  And then Paul and Barnabas joined their effort. That was last Sunday’s text.  But here in chapter 15, some people have come to Antioch to set them straight.

You see, word has reached Jerusalem that some Gentiles are choosing to follow Jesus. That’s the good news. The bad news it that they are not quite doing it right. They have been baptized, but not circumcised.  They keep the Lord’s Day at the beginning of the week, but perhaps not the Sabbath at its end. Of course, all of that is required if they are to be truly faithful.  At least that’s what these messengers have come to say.

From our place in history, we have to make an effort to enter into this story.  We know that in a short time, Judaism and Christianity will become two separate religions, but at this point, they are very much intertwined.  From our Christian vantage point, we might think of these as people as former Pharisees who have not left go of previous beliefs after having become Christian.  It is probably more helpful to recognize them as sincere and faithful observers of Torah who also happen to be Christian.[1]  They are followers of Jesus who find meaning and joy in certain spiritual practices.  They want to insure that the next generations of Jesus-followers find that same joy and purpose. The best way they know to do that is to require the newcomers to do what they did.

This is not limited to Antioch.  This controversy pops up in various places all through this section of Acts. But here, in chapter 15, we get an official church response.  There’s a meeting in Jerusalem.  The church in Antioch sends delegates.  And there is considerable debate.  That might sound familiar to you.  You might know this meeting by its other name – a denominational convention or a Biennial.  If you have been to one of those, you know that things can get intense.  I’m pretty sure they got intense in Jerusalem. But then, they reached a decision. 

The decision was that Gentiles did not have to become Jewish in order to become Christian.  They did not have to adopt a different worldview or culture in order to put on Christ.  Now, the final agreement did list four things that were expected of Gentiles.  Three of them were actually related to Jewish practices, and as the two religions moved further apart, those things lost importance.   The point here is the church leaders realized that, within a few decades of the church’s existence, there were already human-made barriers to the gospel.  And, equally importantly, they decided to take down those barriers.  The report that was sent to Antioch said, “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials.” (Acts 15:28)

It has become popular to say that every 500 years the church holds a rummage sale where we get rid of what we don’t need any more and rediscover forgotten treasures.[2]  This story suggests that process probably needs to happen more often than that.

This was an internal process, a conversation and ultimately a decision, that shaped the direction of the church.  There were also external forces at work. We’ve mentioned the persecution that resulted in the disciples moving outward, taking the gospel with them towards the ends of the earth.  There was also a war which resulted in the destruction of the Temple. It was a devastating loss to both Christians and Jews, a loss around which they had to shape a new identity. 

Contrary to what we’ve generally come to believe, Christians did not stop offering sacrifices because  Jesus was a once-for-all-sacrifice.  The sacrificial system ended when the Romans destroyed the Temple, which was when Christianity and Judaism were still intertwined.  So that sacrificial system ceased within Judaism before Christianity became a separate thing.[3]  The loss of the Temple, an external event, profoundly shaped both Christian and Jewish theology from that time forward.

At Emmanuel, we work hard at being an inclusive church, a space where everyone is truly welcome.  We do that well, but sometimes our efforts are not enough because we no longer see the barriers between us and those who remain outside.  We may have good intentions – to help others find the joy and purposes that we know by requiring them to engage in the same spiritual and communal practices as we do.  We may not recognize that those practices which are life-giving to us are burdensome to others.

Sometimes our efforts are not enough because there are external shifts beyond our control.  A world-wide pandemic has certainly made that clear. We can think of others. A couple of generations of people with no first-hand experience of church, or a wide-spread suspicion of religious leaders because of decades of abuse and deceit and a grasping of political power, or a culture that sometimes prizes individual rights over the common good and but also sometimes seeks wisdom from crowd-sourcing rather than so-called experts – these are just some of the forces which shape our identity, some of the realities which make us pause and wonder about how to apply the teachings of Jesus now.

As our first hymn says, the church of Christ in every age must keep on rising from the dead.[4] We find ourselves in one of those moments, a time when we have to recognize the particular challenges of our age, and then to rise, responding boldly as the Spirit leads.  

The Jerusalem Council arrived at their decision after listening to people who shared the same faith in Jesus, but who came from a different place with a different perspective.  Curtis is a Jesus-follower.  He is an Emmanuel insider, but he also comes from a different place and offers a different take.  So I’ve asked him to share some of that now. 

[1] Justo L. Gonazalez, Acts: The Gospel of the Spirit (Maryknoll, NY:  Orbis Books, 2001) p. 172

[2] Phyllis Tickle, quoting Anglican bishop Mark Dyer,  in The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why, (Grand Rapids:  Baker Books, 2008).

[3] Mark McEntire, Belmont University, College of Theology and Christian Ministry Faculty Member, in a Facebook post on July 24, 2021 https://www.facebook.com/mark.mcentire.319

[4] The Church of Christ in Every Age, text by Fred Pratt Green, 1969, music by William Knapp, 1738, Text© 1971 Hope Publishing Company

8/22/21 - Responding to the Challenge: The Periphery Becomes the Center - Acts 11:19-30

Responding to the Challenge:

The Periphery Becomes the Center

Acts 11:19-30

August 22, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://youtu.be/oRGhyGHKq88

The church which was born on Pentecost in Jerusalem grows by leaps and bounds. It becomes large enough to be a threat and to suffer persecution.  In response, many of the new Jewish-Christians scatter in various directions across the empire, taking the gospel with them. One of the messages of Acts is that the Jesus movement spreads because of difficulty and resistance, not in spite of it.  The apostles and others remain in the church in Jerusalem.  At this point, Jerusalem is the mother church, the headquarters of Christian faith, which is still very much within the Jewish tradition.

The people who leave Jerusalem likely go to particular places for particular reasons. Like many migrants today, they go to where they have family or friends. They go to big cities where they are likely to find work or to find people who speak their language. 

So, they scatter.  And then word comes back to Jerusalem about what is happening in Antioch.

Antioch is probably the third largest city in the Roman world, with Rome and Alexandria being first and second. The population of Antioch in the first century is estimated at between 500-800,000 compared to a population of 25-50,000 in Jerusalem.[1]  Antioch has a large Jewish community and a synagogue which has attracted many Gentiles.[2]  It is not surprising that some of those who fled Jerusalem find their way to the Jewish community in Antioch. They share their faith in the synagogue, but within the synagogue, there are already non-Jews who also hear the word. And Antioch is a urban center where ideas and cultures and religions are routinely exchanged. So the church grows in Antioch, just like it had in Jerusalem, with one difference – in Antioch, Gentiles are also joining.

Luke has to tell the story in an orderly way.  So in chapter 8, we learn that the persecution begins and the disciples scatter. Then Luke indicates some of the places they go. *Philip is sent on the road to Gaza, where he encounters an Ethiopian eunuch.  Peter ends up in Joppa where he has a vision about God’s inclusion. After that he baptizes Cornelius, an Italian centurion. And two unnamed disciples make their way from Cyrene and Cyprus to Antioch where they preach to Jews and Greeks, and those who follow Jesus there are called Christians for the first time.   Each of these encounters with Gentiles happens as the people scatter from Jerusalem. They weren’t texting each other along the way, so we don’t know which encounter happened first. Luke tells it in a certain order, but it is more like everything is happening at once. 

As the reports filter back, the church at Jerusalem will make an official response to the possible inclusion of Gentiles.  We will talk more about that next week.   But what is exciting here is that, more or less simultaneously, there is a Spirit-driven mission.  God is at work in one-on-one encounters and in far-flung places well beyond the official leadership.

So, the leaders in Jerusalem get the word about Antioch and want to know more.  They’ve been told that those who originally shared the gospel with non-Jews in Antioch were from Cyprus and Cyrene.  Barnabas also happens to be from Cyprus. Maybe that’s why he is the one who gets sent from Jerusalem.   We aren’t told whether his assignment is to investigate or to support the ministry. 

But when he arrives, it says, “he saw the grace of God and rejoiced.”  He saw something unexpected maybe, something different from the way things were done in Jerusalem, maybe something theologically suspect or uncertain even, but instead of considering it a problem, he recognized it as the grace of God.  Isn’t that lovely?

Barnabas recognized God at work in Antioch, so he joined in. And then, he went to Tarsus, found Paul and brought him back to Antioch, where they spent the next year investing themselves, teaching many people there. 

Thinking about our own efforts at evangelism, I note three things. First, Barnabas doesn’t do it alone. He goes to get Paul to share the work with him. Second, they settle in for the long term.  They cultivate relationships, learn the gifts and needs of the people, and tell the story of Jesus over and over again, for a year. (I wonder how long Jerusalem kept waiting for a report?) And third, the community matures to the point where it looks beyond its own needs.  We know that because when they hear that people in Jerusalem are suffering because of a famine, the church in Antioch takes up an offering and sends it to them.  Later, the church in Antioch will commission Paul and Barnabas and send them on to minister to others.

The model offered here is this --  more than one evangelist, investing in relationships over a long period of time, and the expectation that those who receive the gospel will grow to a place of independence from those who brought it to them. These are things I want to keep in mind.

Last week, I mentioned Justo Gonzalez.  I’m reading his commentary on Acts, but Dr. Gonzalez’s primary scholarship is in the area of church history. That adds even more weight to what he says about a shift from the old center of action in Jerusalem to a new center in Antioch.

He says, “Beginning with chapter 13, Luke will deal almost exclusively with the church in Antioch and its missionary work, not because it was the most ancient, the richest or the most powerful, but because it was the one that responded to the new challenges of the time.  The same has been true through the history of the Church.  Those who until a certain moment have been at the periphery, . . . are those who most often prove to be ready to respond to the challenges of a new age.”[3]

Mainline Protestant churches were at the center for a long time.  But we are not any more.  Neither are the evangelical churches. While American churches are wringing our hands over our decline, churches in the Global South are growing exponentially. If you are a Christian today, you are more likely to be poor and African than rich and Western.[4]  Churches in the Global South are more conservative and more Pentecostal than we are used to.  Instead of considering that a problem, can we see the grace of God at work and rejoice?

If Gonzalez is correct, if this move from the center to the periphery is a pattern, then we would do well to attend to the edges, to see where the Spirit is already working, perhaps even outside the categories we understand as officially sanctioned church. I believe that, just like in the book of Acts, this is happening simultaneously in a lot of different places. Let me offer just one example.

This story is told by Pastor Stan.  It happened at the Wild Goose Festival in 2018.  Jim and I happened to be there that year.  This is an outdoor festival with music, art, story-telling and worship. Someone has described it as Burning Man meets the  Chautauqua Institute.  There are a few thousand people present, so a lot of stuff happens in small pockets and we had no idea about what I’m about to tell you.

Stan was in line to receive communion at the close of the festival.  He noticed a woman just in front of him quietly dabbing away tears.  She did this for all of the ten minutes it took the two of them to make their way to the front. He wanted to check in with her to ask if she was OK, but he thought better of it and just prayed for her. Her hand shook as she received communion and afterwards she stood there for a while seemingly lost in thought.

She stumbled over to the front of the main stage, leaning against it to steady herself, with her eyes closed.  In a few minutes, he walked over and slipped a tissue into her hand. Stan told her he felt drawn to check on her.  They made a connection and she told him that she had not been to a church service or received Communion in over fifty years. Fifty years.

She went on to explain she was a cradle Catholic who had grown up in a small New England village. In her early twenties she had gone to her beloved parish priest to confide in him that she was going to begin the process of gender confirmation treatment when she could afford the costs. At their meeting, he mostly listened, offered no advice, and prayed with her before she left. A few days later, though, the priest quietly refused her the elements of the Eucharist at Mass. The Church failed her and she never returned.

For the next fifty years, she went on to live a full and successful life.  And then just a few months before the festival, she had been diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s.  In the face of that cruel diagnosis, she had created a bucket list.  Near the top of that list, she said, was her desire “to make peace with the church.” Somehow she had made her way to this most unorthodox church setting to do it.

And Stan was there to listen to her story about the decades of estrangement.  He was the church’s representative, repenting and asking for her forgiveness. 

Before they went their separate ways, Stan asked if she was aware that the person who had served her the elements that day was also a trans woman.  Stunned, she whispered no.  Then she closed her eyes and smiled and shook her head in lovely disbelief.

Stan told her that only hours earlier, the woman who had offered the elements had also confided in him.  She used to be a leader in her church.  Her greatest joy had been serving the Lord’s Supper. But since her transition, she had not enjoyed that privilege even once. It had been 10 years, but that morning, she had been invited to offer the gifts of God to the people of God.  Stan says as he shared that, he knew that he was standing on the holiest of ground. [5]

We see the grace of God at work and rejoice.

Gonzalez says that those at the periphery will be used by God as the center shifts. Bec Cranford says it slightly differently: “God will call the very ones the church spit out to lead the next move of the Spirit.” [6]

Friends, I want to be there for that, don’t you? May we find that holy ground again and again.  Amen and amen.

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

[2] Josephus, War. 7.3.3.

[3] Justo L. Gonazalez, Acts: The Gospel of the Spirit (Maryknoll, NY:  Orbis Books, 2001).p. 141

[4] https://www.globalconnections.org.uk/sites/newgc.localhost/files/papers/2020_vision_-_the_church_across_the_world.pdf

[5] https://www.facebook.com/stan.mitchell.58  entry for July 27, 2021

[6] https://beccranford.com/

8/15/21 - Life Together - Acts 2:42-47

Life Together

Acts 2: 42-47

August 15, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://youtu.be/oRGhyGHKq88

Let’s do some word association for just a minute.  I’m going to say a word and ask you to notice what comes into your mind.  Maybe it will be more than one thing.  Whatever it is, just notice it for yourself.  People on Zoom, feel free to drop a note in the chat with the word or words that come to mind.  OK, ready.  Here’s the word:  church.

There are a lot of associations we might have made.  When I did this at home, I first thought of that hand rhyme – “here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the door and see all the people.”  Then I thought of so many pastors who have emphasized to me that the church is the people not the building.  The word church also brought to mind the people I know who have very negative associations with the word – because they have been hurt by churches or because they associate church people with judgment and narrow-mindedness even if they don’t personally know any.

If we pooled all of our word associations, the resulting list would likely be long and diverse, but we would probably also have several answers in common.  After 2000 years of existence, the idea of church is complicated.  It is layered with good and bad connections.

The church of the twenty-first century is necessarily going to be different from the church of the first century, but every once in a while, its good to consider our origins, to remember where we came from, and to consider the ways in which we may be re-formed. 

In Acts 2, we find a summary of the daily life of the early Christians in Jerusalem. It says that they are devoted to four things.  Another translation is that they persevere, they keep on doing these four things.

The four things are:

The apostle’s teaching

Fellowship

Breaking of bread

Prayer

I wonder how each of these showed up in our word association.  We may have called them by other names, but I expect they were probably there.

The first practice is the apostles’ teaching.  They persevered, they kept on learning from the apostles.  As they heard about Jesus, about his life and his teachings from those who had known him, their faith and understanding grew deeper.

Justo Gonzalez is a Cuban-American Methodist theologian and church historian.  His commentary on the book of Acts was originally published in Spanish for Christian communities in Latin America and the USA in the 1990’s.  It was intended to highlight the relevance of the book of Acts for the struggles of Christians in those contexts.  I find it helpful to read over their shoulders (in an English translation) because it helps bring my own context into view.

Gonzalez writes, “The ‘teaching of the apostles’ is not the mere repetition of what the apostles taught.  It is above all the teaching and the studying that allow us to carry forth our own apostolate, our mission today. The Church lives in an ever-changing world. Because the mission is a bridge between the message of what has taken place in Jesus and the reality in which the addressees live, missionary or apostolic study must always take into account the world in which the Church lives. That is why it is not enough to repeat what has always been said, in the same way in which it has been said before. It is necessary to study both the Word and the world to which it is to be communicated.”[1] 

The second practice is fellowship.  The Greek word is koinonia which can mean sharing or solidarity.  There is an intensity to this word.  It didn’t just mean good feelings among friends.  It meant common enterprise. In Luke 5:10, we’re told that Peter, James and John were joint owners of a fishing boat.  The word for that ownership, that partnership, is koinonia.[2]

The Christians in Jerusalem counted on each other for encouragement and friendship, but also to meet physical and financial needs.  They were in each other’s lives on a daily basis. They were as closely connected as business partners are.

The third practice is the breaking of bread. This refers in part to the Lord’s supper, but we remember that Jesus broke bread in all kinds of meals with all kinds of people. So sharing communion and eating ordinary meals together are spiritual practices in the early church.   

And contrary to popular opinion, this is Biblical evidence that Baptists did not invent the potluck. Christians were eating meals together long before Baptists were a thing.

Barbara Brown Taylor notes that Jesus spent his last night on earth teaching his disciples to wash feet and share supper.  She says, “he gave them concrete things to do, specific ways of being in their bodies together, that would go on teaching them what they needed to know. . . So Jesus gave them things they could get their hands on, that would require them to get close enough to touch one another. In the case of the meal, he gave them fragrant things to sip and chew that they could pass to each other around the table. In the case of the feet, he gave them real dirt and calluses that they could use to enter one another’s lives.”[3]

We have recognized again the vitality of those concrete, incarnational practices, as we have been deprived of most of them over the last 18 months of the pandemic.

The fourth practice is prayer.  Luke doesn’t describe this much here, except to say that they praised God with glad and generous hearts.

Four practices – teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, prayers.  They seem simple, but they’re messy enough to keep us busy, and with the presence of the Holy Spirit, to stay just beyond our control.

Here’s a sidebar I find interesting.  The early Christians met primarily in homes.  That was where they shared meals and prayers.  That was how they were in each other’s daily lives. In the gender roles of the time, households were the sphere of women.  Public places were the male domain. But women could be and often were the managers of households, with administrative, financial and disciplinary responsibilities.  They had authority to direct men and women within it.  And so, when church activities took place within households, the role of women in leadership was not questioned.

In her book, When Women were Priests, Karen Jo Torjesen writes, “For more than 200 years, Christianity was essentially a religion . . .  practiced in the private space of the household.  It’s concerns were the domestic life of its community rather than the political life of the city.”  At the beginning of the third century, there was shift from ministry to governance. “As Christianity entered the public sphere, male leaders began to demand the same subjugation of women in the churches as prevailed in society at large.”[4]

Of course, I believe that shift was harmful to women, to the church and contrary to Jesus’ good news.  Recognizing that one change which took place as the church became more institutionalized, I have to wonder what else was shifted in not so good ways.  I have to wonder what else we might need to reclaim from within those practices of the first 200 years.

Church was not easy then.  It is not easy now. We should not expect it ever to be so.  It is counter-cultural. It is messy. It requires us to work with each other, including working with people who make mistakes and need to be forgiven. It means that we will make mistakes and will need to seek forgiveness. It demands sharing and sacrifice.  No, it will never be easy. But sometimes, I wonder if we have made it harder than it needs to be. Or if the things that are hard are not the most important things we should be doing.

I am struck by the intense togetherness described in Acts 2, by the solidarity and sharing.  The Gallup Well-Being Index is an on-going study of happiness in the world. It looks at many different factors about health and well-being.  One of its findings about religious belonging is relevant here.  They group people into three categories -- highly religious, moderately religious and not at all religious – by their own self descriptions.  Moderately religious, are those who have a belief in God, but are not engaged with a faith community. Gallup found these people are less happy and less fulfilled than those who profess no religious belief at all.  It seems that the key is not just believing, but believing and belonging.  To believe and not to belong is a sign that something is wrong.[5]

That suggests to me that our efforts to share the love of Jesus with others might begin with efforts to help others belong.   

Micah J. Murray is a writer and speaker trying to make sense of faith.  He has been described as your typical somewhat disillusioned-but-tenaciously-hopeful post-evangelical millennial.  I have shared this meme with you before, but I share it again because I think it sums up so much of the longing of many in his generation.

“I want a community where we can sit on a couch together and swear about how badly we want to be loved by a god we’re not even sure we believe in anymore.”[6]

What if one of the greatest gifts the we could offer our broken and alienated society was a vision of intense social belonging such as we hear described in Acts today? What if our best testimony to the life of Jesus was our life together? 

Several times in the book of Acts, Luke offers these short summaries of the early church.  Some people think they’re idealized.  Others want more details.  The Rev Janelle Holmes pastors a church in Atlanta that is about 5 years old. She rewrote our text passage to try to make it more realistic and specific.  Here is what she said,

“They learned together, new things, hard things, liberating things. They hung out with the leaders and learned from them things they didn’t know and taught the leaders a few things as well. Some of the leaders were a little over-rated.

They ate together, sometimes with china and sometimes with paper plates. Some were better at cooking than others, and sometimes the kids refused peoples food and it was embarrassing. But they prayed together and that helped calm their nerves and connect them with God’s grace.

Cool things happened in their relationships and in their communities and they were amazed. They spent time together with like-minded individuals because they felt cared for by them and needed to know they weren’t crazy.

They shared the things of their life--food, money, childcare, shelter--to anyone who needed it and it was exhausting sometimes and they had to take breaks, especially the introverts. They did it daily and the extroverts over-functioned. They sacrificed time from other things, which was hard, in order to dedicate a lot of time together in holy places, showing up for God and for each other and for themselves.

They spent a lot of time together in their homes, clean homes and messy homes, eating and being happy and crying and being generous with each other because that is how God wanted their relationships to be. They were so grateful to God for all of this, although resentfulness occasionally sneaked in. Yet in all of this, God gave them more and more friends.” [7]

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. 52

[2] Gonazalez, p. 51

[3] https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2005-04/practicing-incarnation

[4] Karen Jo Torjesen, When Women Were Priests, (San Fransisco:  HarperCollins, 1993), pp.37-38.

[5]Timothy Carney, Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse, (New York: HarperCollins, 2019)  p. 133

[6] https://www.facebook.com/micahjmurray/photos/10153648604412820

[7] https://www.ormewoodchurch.org/single-post/2020/07/06/relationships-and-community

8/8/21 - Changing Plans - Luke 10:1-9

Changing Plans

Luke 10:1-9

August 8, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Image: He Sent them out Two by Two (Il les envoya deux à deux) - James Tissot between 1886 and 1894

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://youtu.be/oBsFQVNDqXY

Imagine with me.  After a worship service on a high attendance Sunday, we’re all enjoying coffee hour in the fellowship hall.  People are talking with each other and milling around and the energy is high.  And then, Jesus appears, with a clipboard.  He’s looking for volunteers to sign up for something, some project that he’s going to do that week. Except that he isn’t really waiting for people to volunteer. It’s more like he is pointing at people and making assignments – “You two, you’re going to Schenectady.  And you two, to Cohoes. You to Green Island, you to Schodack, you two all the way to Hudson” . . . and then, when all 70 of us have our assignments, he says “OK, that’s it.  Go now.”[1]

Imagine with me.   What would you say?  I mean really.  It’s Jesus.  How are you going to respond? 

My answer would not be eloquent.  It probably would come out something like “I’m not ready. I had other plans.  This was not what I was expecting.  I am not prepared.”

I’m pretty sure that would be my response in that hypothetical situation because it was my response earlier this week as the new reality of the Delta variant began to sink in.  I do like to plan ahead.  I like to be prepared.   I had a plan for this summer.  The plan was to go on vacation in July, to take a break, and then come back for the FOCUS service and Bill’s baptism last week.  The plan was that the country would get vaccinated and we would be able to socialize freely again by this fall.  And my plan was that, at Emmanuel, after a year of hibernation, we could do outreach in some new ways and engage people we haven’t even met yet.  My plan for worship this month was that we would look again at passages like this one, where people went out on missions of peace as a way of getting ourselves ready to do that. That was my plan. 

Then I realized that the pandemic is not close to over.  I realized that we are not going to be completely free to socialize freely and form relationships with people we don’t yet know.  To anyone who would listen this week, I said “I am not ready for this.  I had other plans.  This is not what I was expecting.  I had other plans.”

You probably also had other plans.  You are probably as frustrated or disappointed or angry or deflated as I am. For me, the pandemic has been one long reminder that we do not control as much as we think we do. 

. . .

So, Jesus sends out the 70.  Seventy is a Biblical number that represents all the nations of the world.  The message is to go everywhere.  The number 70 is also an indication that ministry is not limited to the 12 apostles.  Sharing the good news is not task to be done just by the identified leaders, it is for all of Jesus’ followers. 

This section has been called the missionary instruction manual, but there’s not much to it.  It doesn’t provide a sense of orientation or preparedness as much as vulnerability. 

I have a colleague in the church of England named Anne LeBas.  About this text, Anne says, “Jesus starts by very deliberately stripping away from them the props they might be tempted to take with them on their journey. They aren’t to take any money – they will have to rely on the hospitality of those they meet. They aren’t to take a bag, so they can’t accumulate anything along the way that they think might come in useful in their encounters with others. They aren’t even to wear sandals to protect them from the ground on which they tread. It’s a very exposed and vulnerable mission.”[2]

I imagine if Jesus were to repeat this exercise on earth today, he would tell us to leave behind our credit cards, our GPS devices and our cell phones. 

The pandemic has taken many of our church props – our sanctuary, our fellowship hall, our ability to see and touch each other on a weekly basis. It has knocked down my plans. I have railed against this.  But I am trying, again, to understand the power of vulnerability. 

It is the power that Jesus demonstrated – God choosing to be born as a baby, helpless, completely dependent on earthly parents for nurture and protection, even protection from King Herod’s army.  It is the power of Jesus the adult, who entrusted himself to those who followed him, even to those who betrayed and crucified him. In some paradoxical way, we understand that power is the power at the center of everything.

We understand this best at Christmas and Easter.  We understand it, but many of us live a great deal of our lives the rest of the year on another level. On this other level, we believe that we are self-sufficient.  We act as though we are in control, of our calendars, our health, our families, our lives.  We make plans. 

Jesus sends out the 70 with a heightened sense of risk.  They are to travel vulnerably, barefoot, without money or motel reservations.  The biggest take-away from this passage is that they have to rely others. Their message will be welcomed by some and rejected by others, but their safety and well-being entirely depend on those who receive it. 

That’s not how we think about evangelism today.  We think of it as if we have something to give, something to share, not as if we need to receive from others.  But then, we tend to think of evangelism as a dirty word and mostly avoid it.  So, I wonder if we need to spend more time imagining what form that kind of vulnerable evangelism might take today.

Another thing to note – we tend to think of the church as a gathering, but here and elsewhere, Jesus speaks of it more like a scattering. The 70 have been gathered around Jesus, but Jesus scatters them, sending them out in pairs.

My friend Anne LeBas says, “The harvest Jesus talks about is not a harvest of souls to be gathered into the protective bubble of a congregation where they will be safe from the world. Quite the reverse. It is about learning to spot God and work with God wherever we happen to be, whatever we happen to be doing, and to spot God in others and work with God there as well.”[3]

Changing plans happens on an individual level.  The pandemic is revealing how many of our communal and systemic plans also need to change.  For generations, Protestant churches in America have been welcoming people into our protective bubbles.  Our plan for ministry is to gather people under our roof.  That plan worked well for a long time.  But for decades now, it has not been working.  Fewer and fewer people come in on their own.  It seems that a change of plans is in order. Perhaps what we need is to recover this model that Jesus gave us – to put ourselves out there, where we are not in control, to share a message of peace, to form relationships with strangers, to discover those places where God is already at work.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few,” Jesus said.  Many of us hear that, and because we’re not farmers, we do not understand the sense of urgency Jesus intended.  Harvest time is intense.  The farmer has tended the crop and waited for it to ripen all season.  How well the farmer’s family will live for the next year will be determined by what happens during the harvest.  There is a narrow window when the crop is ripe enough for harvest, but not ripe enough to spoil. In many places, the weather is changing.  Crops must be gathered quickly before the rains or snows come. I have seen Midwestern farmers in the fields long past dark with lights on their combines and tractors, urgently gathering in grain or beans before the crop is lost. 

Barbara Brown Taylor, the gifted Episcopal preacher, tells a story about a visit she made several years ago to southern Turkey. She shares it in her book, The Preaching Life, a book that was published 28 years ago.  She writes that while hiking with some friends and a Turkish guide, “We turned a bend and the outline of a ruined (Christian) cathedral appeared ~ a huge gray stone church with a central dome that dominated the countryside. Grass grew between what was left of the roof tiles and the facade was crumbling.”

Taylor goes on to describe the shell of a once magnificent church, which now was filled with trash and indications that it was a play place for children. On the massive walls were still visible the fading frescoes … lambs of God and angels and medieval saints. In the dome you could see one outstretched arm of the victorious Christ who had dominated the building ten centuries earlier.

She observes: “It is one thing to talk about the post-Christian era and quite another to walk around inside it. Christianity died in Turkey – the land that gave birth to Paul – the land of Galatia, Ephesus, Colossae, Nicaea. Today the Christian population of Turkey is less than one percent.”

In place of the cathedral in Turkey, she imagines her own church, collapsed and ruined because no one practices the faith any more.  She concludes, “such a thing is not impossible; that is what I learned in that ruin on the hillside … that knowledge keeps me from taking both my ministry and the ministry of the whole church for granted. If we do not attend to God’s presence in our midst and bring all our best gifts to serving that presence in the world, we may find ourselves selling tickets to a museum.”[4]

Her story speaks to same kind of urgency that Jesus was describing.  There is a window of opportunity, a generational shift in faith that is happening all around us.

Friends, this is where I am today.  I feel an urgent sense to be on mission, to bring all of our best gifts to serving God out in our community.   I feel less in control that I ever have been and I’m trying to trust that is a good thing.  At the same time, I am aware of the reality of the coronavirus and the need to protect ourselves and our community. I was not ready for that.  I had other plans.

I find hope in two things.  The first is in trusting that the pandemic will not last forever.  There will be a time when we scatter and move out on mission again.  The temporary restrictions may simply give us more preparation time than Jesus original disciples got.  And secondly, we have come through more than a year of pandemic. In that year, we have adapted.  We have changed plans more than once.  We have been faithful. That gives me hope and confidence that we will follow Jesus’ directions into a new future together.  May it be so for you and for me.

[1] I am indebted to the Rev. J.C.Austin for the sermon title and the opening scene which I adapted from his good work, https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/5d9b820ef71918cdf2003568/changing_plans

[2] https://sealpeterandpaulsermons.blogspot.com/2013/07/trinity-6-eat-what-is-set-before-you.html

[3] https://sealpeterandpaulsermons.blogspot.com/2013/07/trinity-6-eat-what-is-set-before-you.html

[4] Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life, (Cambridge:  Cowley Publications, 1993), p 3-5