|
“Becoming Beloved Community”
Isaiah 9.1-4 and 1 Corinthians 1.10-18 The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado January 22, 2023 What brings you here today? What brings you to worship this morning in our pews or in our virtual balcony? Take a moment to see how you might answer that question. There isn’t a right or wrong answer. Perhaps you are here because it’s a habit (a good one, I might add). It’s something you’ve always done and will continue to do. Maybe you are hoping for some insight that will help you through the coming week. It could be that you are here because you are in need of prayer and healing and wholeness. I would imagine that some of us are here to help, whether you are a deacon or you want to pray for others or want to provide a warm welcome for our visitors and members. Maybe some of you are here today because you want to be part of an intergenerational community. Others might be here because they are committed to following Jesus and bringing about God’s realm here and now and still unfolding. In 2020 and 2021, our Strategic Planning Team came up with this purpose for our plan: Plymouth’s purpose for the next three to five years is to embody beloved community with God, each other, and our neighbors. We will enhance our communications and deepen engagement within the church. We will be a visible force for social, racial, and environmental justice. This focus will help Plymouth’s already vibrant community look to the future and grow in numbers and in spirit. “Embody Beloved Community.” Those are words that are rich with meaning. We embody it, not just with our minds or prayers or ideas. We enflesh the concept with our bodies and our selves. So, what does Beloved Community mean? The term was coined about 125 years ago by Josiah Royce, an American philosopher who wrote, “My life means nothing, either theoretically or practically, unless I am a member of a community.” Royce observed that, besides the actual communities we experience on a daily basis, there was also an ideal “beloved community” made up of all those who would be dedicated fully to the cause of loyalty, truth, and reality itself. Royce founded the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a movement that was later joined by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [from rejoicingspirits.org] The kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed — where the first shall be last and the last shall be first, where we create new community based on following God and not Caesar or family or tribe or clan, where the poor are blessed and those who mourn are comforted — that is at the heart of Beloved Community. We should never forget that Dr. King was a theologian and a preacher as well as the leader of the Civil Rights struggle. Part of his prophetic word involves creating Beloved Community that is grounded in the idea of reconciliation. I love big ideas like Beloved Community. But they need to be brought down to earth to be useful. Where does the rubber meet the road? Where do lofty concepts get put into the practice of everyday life? That is where things get interesting, because the interaction of human beings in community, especially when we attempt to form Beloved Community, encounter stress, difference of opinion, self-interest, tribalism (which may take the form of a generation or a particular perspective). We can tell from Paul’s writing that the church in Corinth was struggling to keep Beloved Community cohesive. We hear from Chloe’s people that the unity of the Christian community was at risk. Some who were baptized were devoted to the person who baptized them (Cephas/Peter or Apollos or Paul himself), rather than to Christ. Even in the earliest generations as the church emerged from Judaism, there was dissention and disagreement, and Paul says they must be drawn back to the same mind and purpose. That is a tall order for any church, because we human beings comprise the church, not saints who have reached the pinnacle of human perfection. Scripture says we’re a little lower than angels, but it fails define how much lower. It’s more like a group of people who start out with fine intentions who get a little squirrely along the way, just like Peter and Paul and Apollos. None of us is a Christ figure, but we are trying in the company of one another to live in the most Christlike ways we can. Does that mean we get it right? Sometimes. Often not. Do we put our personal comfort before our faith? I suspect we do. Do we let our egos get in the way of community? Yep. Do we consider our own self-interest before the interest of our sister and brother members? I think so. Do we let our fear of offending or hurting some keep us from speaking the truth in love? Yes, we do. I know that in every instance, I fall short, and I’m imagining that if you look honestly at your interactions with the humans who comprise this congregation, you might, too. Here is some good news: None of us is called to be perfect. There is no perfect Beloved Community, rather a collection of people doing their best, challenging themselves to live differently, helping others in ways the culture at large won’t, caring for the people who form this community and for God’s world as a whole. I see so many of you providing concrete acts of caring, working for justice, doing behind-the-scenes work that make Beloved Community a possibility that we strive for. Well done. God bless you. - - - - - - Together, we have come through a horrific experience of pandemic and dramatic isolation. It has hurt us as individuals who grieve a world that is lost, and as we evolve as a community that has and will continue to be forced into living together differently. I could never really relate to the Babylonian captivity of Judeans in the sixth century BC until living through the exile of the Covid pandemic. We couldn’t see each other in person, we couldn’t hug, we couldn’t eat together, we couldn’t sing together, we couldn’t work together. We had effectively been exiled from one another. And like the destruction of the Temple, we were deprived of worship in this place, our spiritual home. It is hard to come out of the fear, the exhaustion, the grief, and the trauma of the pandemic. Together, we have been through a lot. Hear what Isaiah had to say to the exiles, long before their release: “There will be no gloom for those who were in anguish….The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light and on those who lived in a land of deep darkness, upon them the light has shined.” That is a beautiful vision of the future, but it doesn’t take into account that the exiles had to go through a liminal space, a threshold between what was and what is yet to become. And like a rough landing at DIA, there is always some turbulence in the threshold space between where we are and where we will land. We are in such a threshold time, my beloved friends. We see glimmers of what is up ahead, but we still feel the weight of what we have come through. Let’s take a moment to acknowledge what we have come through together, and let us ask God to be our seatbelt in times of turbulence. <pause> How have you been able to connect with your Beloved Community at Plymouth over the past three years? I know that some of our folks are dedicated worshippers in our virtual balcony! Others have opted out of worship, and some have found other communities in which to practice their faith. And we have had some dear ones who have died or moved away. At the same time, a lot of new folks are finding a spiritual home at Plymouth. We are embodying church in very different ways that we did only a few years ago. And there are more changes on the way in our congregation. In the coming months we are going to have a big shift in our pastoral staff. JT will be finishing up his interim work on February 28 after serving with us for 16 months. I hear appreciation from you about JT’s preaching and his way of being with you, for his work on helping to get our Ministry Match program set up. And I can tell you that his ministry here has meant a lot to me and to members of the staff who have come to love him as a colleague and a friend. Also on February 28, we will be saying farewell and happy retirement to Jane Anne Ferguson who has been our associate minister for the past seven years (and several months as sabbatical interim before that). Jane Anne’s wonderful voice in the pulpit and in Christian Formation will be dearly missed. It is really important for the congregation to celebrate the ministry of these two servants of God who have worked in our midst so effectively, and that will happen in February, so stay tuned. An important part of threshold time is saying goodbye well. And next Sunday you will hear a new voice from the pulpit! Marta Fioriti is the candidate our Search Committee is putting forward to become our settled associate minister. I’m excited to have you meet her next weekend! I invite you to keep Marta in prayers for this coming weekend. And important part of threshold time is saying hello well. This big, simultaneous pastoral transition is going to be difficult for many of us. It’s going to be a challenging time for our staff and for me, too. We’re likely to hold the grief of saying goodbye to JT and Jane Anne simultaneously with the excitement of welcoming Marta. It is perfectly okay to feel a mix of emotions. That’s also in the nature of threshold times. And it’s really important that we remember the message of Chloe’s community: this isn’t JT’s church or Jane Anne’s church or Hal’s church or Marta’s church. It has always been and will continue to be the church of Jesus Christ. This threshold also presents all of us with the opportunity to hone our Beloved Community skills, sharing with one another in all the ways we can, being open, available, and vulnerable to all those we can, to practice self-giving love with one another, to be generous in spirit both with ourselves and with one another. Beloved Community isn’t easy. It isn’t automatic. It has very little in common with consumer culture fixed on “me” and “mine.” It takes practice. I’m going to leave you this morning with a quote from Rumi, the Sufi mystic of the 13th century. I think it relates well to the ways we work together to embody Beloved Community. He said, “To find the Beloved, you must become the Beloved.” May it be so. Amen. © 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.
Moving Toward Life
Joel 2.28-29; Acts 2.14-18 Second Sunday in Epiphany Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson Our scriptures texts today come from two vastly different books separated chronologically by at least three centuries, the Hebrew scriptures book, Joel and the New Testament book, the Acts of the Apostles. However, the prophetic writer of Joel in around 250 BCE and the gospel writer, Luke, who also wrote the book of Acts, most likely between 70 and 90 CE, were both addressing communities in profound change. The small agrarian community of Joel had just experienced an extensive locust plague interpreted in those times as harbinger of the last days before the cataclysmic coming of the Lord. They were most likely enduring food shortages, attacks by Phoenician and Greek slave traders, and a great deal of fear for their survival. Joel’s prophetic poetry speaks to them of a past time of separation from God and then the coming of the time when God would bring abundance and would pour out God’s Spirit upon them. Joel 2.28-29 After [those catastrophic times] I, [the Holy One,] will pour out my spirit upon everyone; your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. In those days, I will also pour out my spirit on the male and female slaves. Bible, Common English. CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Locations 35739-35740). The second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles is more familiar to us. It is the story we read each year on Pentecost Sunday fifty days after Easter, the story God’s gift of the Holy Spirit upon his followers, a gift promised by Jesus. The power of God’s Spirit descends on the disciples and friends of Jesus who have been waiting fearfully together in Jerusalem for what was next after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. Spiritual chaos wonderfully breaks loose as these faithful ones begin to speak the good news of Jesus to all the Jews from around the known world gathered in Jerusalem for the harvest festival of Pentecost. They are speaking in all the different languages of the visitors! How can this be? These people must be drunk! Yet Peter begins to preach reassuring the people of God’s presence and of the saving grace of Jesus. Acts 2.14-18 Peter stood with the other eleven apostles. He raised his voice and declared, "Judeans and everyone living in Jerusalem! Know this! Listen carefully to my words! These people aren't drunk, as you suspect; after all, it's only nine o'clock in the morning! Rather, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young will see visions. Your elders will dream dreams. [And I would add to Peter’s list, our non-binary, gender fluid siblings will imagine the most amazing possibilities for new life.] [Upon all my people,] I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. Bible, Common English. CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Locations 42293-42302). This weekend we celebrate the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, the civil rights leader who galvanized the hearts, minds and actions of all those working particularly for the rights of our Black sisters and brothers from 1955 to his death by assassination in April 4,1968. Standing on the steps of Lincoln Memorial in DC on a hot August day in 1963 – yes, 60 years ago this summer – Dr. King called us to dream big with the Spirit for justice, love and the end of racism. We still work to answer that Spirit call. In 1968 he was about to launch the Poor People’s Campaign, radically acting and hoping to end poverty in our nation. But before he could launch this movement he was assassinated. Now just shy of 60 years later Rev. Dr. William Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis have answered the Spirit’s call to end poverty in our nation by launching and co-chairing the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Inspired by these spiritual leaders and change agents, how will we dream big, bigger than we have before here at Plymouth for God’s realm of justice and love in the world? The people of Joel’s time were called to God’s dreams and visions in a time of extreme change. Peter and the other disciples and friends of Jesus were called to God’s dreams and visions in a time of extreme change at Pentecost. So was Dr. King. Dr. Barber and Dr. Theoharis have been called in our times of extreme change. How will we here at Plymouth answer Spirit’s timeless call to dream God’s dreams and share God’s new visions, to prophecy for justice and love? The pastors got an email from one of our members this weekend sharing that the reputation Plymouth has in the Interfaith Council community of Fort Council is one of action and involvement in social justice. Thanks be to God! I am so grateful for this and for all of you on the frontlines, as well as those on the frontlines of caring for our community internally through Stephen Ministry, Congregation Visitors, leading in our Christian formation programs, caring for our building and numerous other gifts of volunteer time. We do well in frontline work. What about our soul work? I believe, it is also time to up our soul work game in growth to keep pace with Spirit. This work does not focus on numbers of people or money, though eventually that can be part of the growth. I am talking growth and transformation within where we can encounter God’s visions and dreams that deepen our worship of God and makes God’s realm visible in the lives of people individually and collectively…..by Inviting, Transforming and Sending. (To quote our mission statement!) I believe it’s time to pay more attention to Transforming, to the transformation of our hearts and souls as people of God. Not so we can navel gaze, but so that we can up our dreaming game in Inviting and Sending. In her book, Emergent Strategy, Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, adrienne maree brown, challenges those of us who aspire to be change agents in our world to move toward life by creating more possibilities. She writes "What we are all really asking…is how do we, who know the world needs to change, begin to practice being different?” [i] We know the world needs to change. We know as followers of Jesus, as seekers of truth and justice, that all creation is in a world of pain, to use an urban dictionary idiom. How do we practice being different in this world that needs healing change? We listen. We each learn to listen to Spirit within. We learn to listen to Spirit together in community as She works in subtle ways through our frontline work inside and outside the church. Listening to God’s Holy Spirit may sound daunting to some, but I can assure you it is something we all can learn. And that each of us is consciously and unconsciously already listening. The fourth century desert father, Evagrius Ponticus, “wisely said, “If you want to know God, learn to know yourself first.”[ii] Twenty-first century author and spiritual director, Nancy L. Bieber writes, “When we avoid places in ourselves where fear dwells, we limit our knowing of ourselves and our freedom to become who we can be.”[iii] So first we listen to ourselves, our fears as well as our dreams. This is holy listening and God is with us here. This is not a mysterious, woo-woo process, it is a process of slowing down to be with our selves. To reflect, even daydream, as well as to meditate and pray. If individual fears grow overwhelming, there are many people to accompany us professionally, therapists, pastors, spiritual directors. And we accompany one another in lay pastoral care, in prayer and study groups, in coffee hour conversation. Spirit is always present guiding us. Listening to Spirit will lead us to our practices of being different so that we can BE God’s change in the world, live God’s dreams and visions. Perhaps you are wondering about tangible ways a faith community can work to be different in our world. Let’s start with communication. We are church together in a contentious and duplicitous world. A world full of rumor, half-truths, triangulating gossip. How can we practice being different for change in this world? How do we practice more direct and transparent communication with one another when conflicts arise as a way of being different in our world? We are church together in a world where it has become okay to be harsh, even mean to one another in a disguised effort to be direct. This comes out particularly in written communication because we do not have to be face to face. How will we invite just and kind communication when times are tough in our community? Practicing different communication in our faith community would empower us to advance peace-filled communication as a difference in our world. We live in a changing time of involvement as we have come out of the isolation of pandemic times. We are all re-evaluating how we want to spend our time and where. I recently spoke with a member of our church who worked for Volunteers of America. She told me how volunteer patterns are changing in every non-profit agency. People want to be involved in something vital and hands-on and often commit to one event at a time, rather than a series of board or committee meetings. How do we practice transforming our ways of inviting volunteers into meaningful, community building projects that will be life-giving? The days of filling boards and committees with warm bodies are gone. We have made a step in this direction through our Ministry Match online survey. It has been enormously helpful in starting the conversations to get people involved with their gifts in Plymouth’s programs and outreach. If you haven’t taken Ministry Match, go to plymouthucc.org/ministrymatch. It will only takes 3-5 minutes of your time and you will learn where you can best get engaged at Plymouth and how to get more information on those places of connection. Getting in engaged is also a way to do deeper into connecting within and listening to Spirit. These are two ways to jump start deeper transformation in our community as we listen deeply to Spirit, in the quietness of our hearts, in the dialogue of study groups, here in worship, as we care for one another and fellowship together, as we serve one another and serve our neighbors in the world. Spirit is already revealing in our minds, in our imaginations and hearts, new dreams and visions for making the realm of God that Jesus preached and lived visible and viable here and now. If we listen, we will be led! Even – especially - when we think we do not have enough people, money, resources, blah, blah, blah, I could go on and on. When we think there is not enough, our ears can be blocked to Spirit’s call and abundance. But we must keep listening! We may not see a way forward immediately, but I can assure you that listening together to God, a way will be made. Let us stop reacting against this painful, recent past that we have just all been through together in our pandemic, divisive times and be present to the fertility and fecundity of God’s emerging future for our beloved community. Listening to the Spirit’s call we will focus on what is possible, not what is wrong. Listening we will focus on forgiveness and grace with one another. Listening we will dream holy dreams and see visions of God’s new life like Drs. King, Barber and Theoharis. We will all be prophets of holy change in a world that so needs the justice and love of God. My dear friends of God, the Holy Spirit is being poured out upon us all, now, always and forever! May we listen, pay attention, and receive Spirit’s abundance and blessings. Amen and Amen. ©The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, 2023 and beyond. May only be reprinted with permission. [i] adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy, Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, (AK Press, Chico, CA: 2017, 164). [ii] Nancy L. Bieber, Decision Making and Spiritual Discernment, The Sacred Art of Finding Your Way, (Skylight Paths Publishing, Nashville, TN: 2016, 32.) [iii] Ibid.
Remember Your Baptism
A sermon related to Matt 3:13-17 Rev. J.T. Smiedendorf CENTRAL FOCUS: That baptism represents an immersion, a rebirth, into the living, loving Way of Jesus. Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” For the Word of God in Scripture For the Word of God among us For the Word of God within us Thanks be to God Inspired by the presence of water in this morning's scripture story, I'd like to share with you one of my favorite stories of water. In southwestern South Dakota there is a First Nation reservation called Pine Ridge, the home of the Oglala band of the Lakota Nation. On my first visit there a number of years ago, I was privileged to meet Duane, a middle-aged Lakota man. As a part of our day’s work with Re-Member, a nonprofit group on the reservation started by some UCC people in Michigan, we were sent to help Duane garden. But Duane was no ordinary gardener. He had three large gardens that covered more than an acre. And the garden’s produce of beans, squash, corn, and melons was meant for the elders in the nearby village of Porcupine. Knowing the scarcity and the preciousness of water on the reservation, Duane had written a successful grant proposal to purchase drip irrigation equipment. We were there to help lay it out and to plant. Duane showed me how it worked and how to repair it. I even planted corn for the first time, a novelty for a city kid like me. Duane was utilizing the gift of water, wisely, for the greater good and life of the Lakota people. Our sacred story of water this morning comes from Matthew’s early Christian community. For Matthew, the story of Jesus’ baptism certainly helps accomplish his purpose of showing Jesus as a true Jewish messianic leader. Jesus, like so many Jewish leaders and the Jewish people before, entered the waters of the Jordan River and was deeply affirmed by God’s Presence there in an experience of the Holy Spirit. The esteemed Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann noted that this scene is a kind of endorsement reminiscent of those of the Davidic kings and that the Matthew story affirms God's blessing for the coming rule of Jesus. It is that coming rule of Jesus or the Realm of God that Jesus proclaimed that is the deeper purpose of baptism. Baptism is a kind of initiation and immersion into that Divine Realm, a transformation into a new way of life where one experiences one’s true Divine affirmation and blessing and, like Jesus, leads a life guided and sustained by Spirit that serves Life, a life of love and integrity and service and generosity and community. Indeed, in Luke’s version of this story, John the Baptist’s call was to prepare for a new age, to become part of a movement to prepare the way for it, and when people asked, ‘What then should we do?’ John said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’ he told tax collectors to collect no more than was proper and soldiers to give up their racket of extortion and simply do their jobs. Baptism in the water of the Jordan certainly celebrated and sealed this new way of living for the individual, but it clearly had a goal of changing society, redeeming it from its ills of selfishness, poverty, violence, and corruption. John’s invitation called people to prepare the way of God by changing one’s life, preparing the way within, seeing and acting differently, living in the world and with others differently. Baptism meant there would be relational and social change leading toward the fullness of God’s Realm and that we each would need to choose, to act to immerse ourselves in this new reality. Do you remember your baptism? I don't remember my baptism in late 1963 because I grew up in a family in the Methodist Church and Methodists do infant baptism. While I do appreciate and truly love the welcome and the blessing that comes with celebrating a new life in our community through infant baptism, baptizing babies does miss a profound adult experience of consciously choosing faith not just in Jesus and in the God of Jesus, but in living into the Way of Jesus and toward the vision of the Beloved Community. Baptism is meant not only to be a profound reorientation of the inner world, but to be a profoundly countercultural choice. Baptism is a big deal, change of direction moment for youth and adults. In fact, for the apostle Paul the ritual of baptism was such a big deal that it was imaged as a form of death, death of the old and rebirth into a new life in Christ. Indeed, there could be no better symbol than that of water for baptism, the waters of birth. And, despite the common church practice of sprinkling water on babies and sometimes adults, there could be no better symbolic act than full immersion into the water to re-emerge anew. It was not uncommon in the early church for those wishing to follow Jesus to study for months and then to be stripped of their clothing before experiencing a full immersion baptism, often on Easter, to initiate their new and full life in Christ, rising from the water to clothed anew in all white. This morning I'm not here to propose a change in our practices of baptism, but I am here to call us again to immersing ourselves in the Way of Jesus, to be in the practice of becoming beloved community. I am calling us to remember our baptism, to remember that life we are initiated into and who goes with us on that journey and how important it is. If you have not been baptized, I invite you to consider a conscious choice to follow the way of Jesus and to consecrate that choice in the ritual of baptism. Remember your baptism. The Way of Jesus is a profound way of love where there is a deep intention, a free will choice to love in a way that brings healing and justice that moves us beyond cycles of despair and bitterness, of violence and revenge. Baptism is acknowledging the choice to love in a way that goes beyond a judgment as to whether others deserve love, goes beyond simple tit for tat and eye for an eye, goes beyond the focus on what the other did or did not do. It goes beyond a reactive reality about the Other to a creative reality of the Self that simply asks, “How can I manifest love here and now? Love for myself and other, love for community and the whole earth? What form of love would serve the life in me AND the other now and moving forward?” Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount summarizes the vision of what baptism initiates us into, the Realm of God, life in the Beloved Community where cycles that drain life are replaced by intentions and actions that give life. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you Turn the other cheek Blessed are the merciful Blessed are the peacemakers Blessed are the humble Store up treasures of the Spirit Seek first the Realm of God and do not worry Treat others as you would like to be treated Remembering our baptism is remembering that we are called to choose this kind of love. The fact the you and I often fall short is not as important as remembering our baptism and choosing again the Way of Jesus. Remember your baptism. And remember you are not alone on that imperfect journey after baptism to live into this kind of love and service of Life. I think of Duane still as someone who inspires me on that journey after baptism. Some years later, I asked about Duane, and found out that he had died. It was a sad reminder that like many on the Pine Ridge reservation, living to your late fifties is actually better than average. Measured by certain statistics, Pine Ridge is the second poorest place in the Western Hemisphere (after Haiti). In a land area the size of Connecticut, there is one grocery store and one hospital. Alcoholism and diabetes are rampant. Duane knew that most of the food that Lakota people can get is of poor nutritional value so he tried to do something about it. So when I remember my baptism, and what I am to live for, Duane is one of those in the communion of saints who goes with me. Duane goes with me and helps me remember my baptism not simply because he was a kind and delightful man, but because even amidst the wilderness of poverty and discrimination, amidst a system of injustice and oppression that creates conditions for despair and death, Duane chose to love, to embrace a vision of life, to have a faith in action, to commit to the life of the people. He chose care for the elders and the children. Maybe he found his transforming sacred waters in the sweat of the prayer lodge, but I believe Duane was a baptized human, whether he ever did a Christian ritual of baptism or not, because he immersed himself in a higher sacred purpose beyond himself, a purpose to serve compassion and justice, a lifegiving purpose in the Realm of the Great Spirit. Who can help you remember your baptism and what baptism is for? Who in your communion of saints can whisper in your ear, when life for you or your family or this church is difficult, “Remember your baptism.” Later in worship, during the passing of the peace and the last hymn or even after worship is ended, you are welcome to come forward to the bowl to dip your fingers into the waters and touch your forehead or back of your hand to remember your baptism. Whether we are at life’s end or closer to its beginning or in the middle, it is wise to pray to God, “May we know Your Presence, May your longings be ours.” This is what Jesus sought and experienced in baptism and this is what we seek when we Remember our Baptism.
Christmas Eve Homily
December 24, 2022 Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson Angels singing, stars shining, awe and wonder all around! Christmas magic! I confess I am a sucker for magical stories, particularly at Christmas. I’m a sucker for Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings and more recent fantasy magic series such as Wheel of Time and the rise in popularity of magical realism in literature. I love wizards and supernatural creatures and movies like the one we watched the other night, “The Boy Called Christmas,” about the magical Nordic origins of jolly, old, St. Nick. I love all these things. But that’s not what I am thinking of when I say Christmas magic. I am also a sucker for the magical ordinary thing like the warm, fuzzy, magic feeling we get when we see the twinkling Christmas lights in Old Town Fort Collins or on our own tree, when we smell Christmas breads and cookies baking, when our family is gathered around the table and behaving well, when we light the candles and sing “Silent Night” as we will do in just a moment, when beloved memories of Christmases past come flooding into our minds and hearts. I love all those magical, wondrous things as well. But still, that’s not what I am thinking of when I say Christmas magic. What do I mean by magic? I definitely don’t mean trickery or chicanery. And I don’t just mean fantasy stories or warm, fuzzy feelings. When I speak of Christmas magic, I am seeking something deeper. Trying to put my finger on it, grasping to articulate what I something I feel deep within, a connection with the Holy. There is a 14th century definition that tells us that magic is the “art of …. producing marvels using hidden natural forces.”[i] Hidden natural forces …. I think of the hidden natural ways of the world such as the magic of human birth – the births of all earth’s creatures – the magic of seeds sprouting in the dark, rich, even cold, soil, the magic of photosynthesis, the magic of birds flocking in a murmuration, the magic of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly in a chrysalis. Yes, we know these marvels through science that explains the wondrous mechanics of the world. Scientists can tell us about the origin and movement of stars. We have phenomenal photos of stars from the Hubble and Webb telescopes. And it is scientifically true that there are elements in the cells of the human body are the elements of stardust, most likely made in the supernovas of stars. I love all these things and they are marvels of hidden natural forces…magic! However, Spirit draws me deeper still in my quest for Christmas magic. As I ponder these things, I realize with the help of theologians and mystics that, perhaps, Christmas magic is grace. Grace: unmerited favor, love, and help, particularly coming from God. Grace: to give thanks, to praise.[ii] Grace, not something physically tangible, until we experience it in action. In Luke’s story of all the events leading up Jesus’s birth and its joyous proclamation there are marvels of grace, hidden natural forces of God. Consider how Divine Love’s unmerited favor came upon an unwed mother and brought forth the gift of the Child Emmanuel, God-With-Us. How exactly? Pregnant by the Holy Spirit literally? Or blessed by God’s love in a state many a young woman has found herself in not necessarily through her own fault, pregnant and unwed? Does it matter how it happened? Every child is a gift of the Holy and holds the divine spark of God’s love. And think of the grace of Joseph as he takes Mary as his wife and raises the child, Jesus, as his own. Is this not a marvel and have we not seen this extension of grace in relationships in our own community? Its divine love! It’s a hidden natural force that can be found within the heart of all human beings if we each pay attention. It’s grace! It’s magic! It’s present and possible in each of us right now! And on the larger level of the story, did you hear the opening of Luke 2? “A decree went out from the emperor Augustus, that all the world should be registered.” All shall be registered so that all can be taxed so that the empire can grow in the power and might that oppresses the poor and lifts up the rich. All must go to their hometowns…. all, the sick, the lame, the pregnant woman on the verge of giving birth…to be registered. It’s a forced march in a dystopian world of those who have conquered, those who must obey or else. There is no grace here. This is not quite the romantic story we are expecting. The story of Jesus’ birth begins with great hardship under a brutal regime. And yet, God’s child slips in at an unknown address, “no room in the inn,” off the grid, an unregistered place and is born in stable, cradled in a manger, among the animals of God’s creation.[iii] God’s grace slips right through that net of the emperor’s control. A marvel from hidden natural forces made manifest in the kindness of God’s people and the nurture of God’s creation. Then there are the shepherds – more unregistered folks who have no address, who live in the hills caring for animals that produce wool and meat for the care of God’s people, not for the forces of empire – the shepherds are the ones who receive the divine good news which shall be to ALL people![iv] Grace for ALL people, not for control and subjugation of the world. God’s love and grace are active and present in the world the shepherds proclaim. And we shall know this grace and love in the face of a vulnerable, newborn baby in an obscure stable, off the grid of public recognition, surrounded by humble human and creatures. The shepherds hear and believe. They go and see. They trust what they see and they proclaim God’s good news. The lowliest on the empire scale of worth are the worthiest to bring the world the greatest news – God is with us – ever and always. Thus, down through the ages we will know God in the marvels of hidden natural forces, the birth of a baby; the baby who grows into a twelve-year-old boy with tenacious and precocious questions in the Temple learning from and with the rabbis; the baby who grows into the young man teaching, healing, telling stories, over-turning tables of greed, in the name of God’s unmerited grace and love for ALL people! This is the Christmas magic I have been searching for. How about you? God’s grace come in human form to bring good news to the poor and healing for the sick, liberation for the captive. This is the good news that God sets us free from the greed of the world, the power grabs of tyrants, the smallness of our own fearful hearts. As we embrace the magic of God’s grace, marvels of justice and love made manifest in hidden natural forces, we are empowered to BE, to embody, God’s grace in our hurting world. We are set on a magical quest to bring the realm of God into being here and now. It is Christmas Eve, my friends! Tonight, may we glimpse God’s transforming Christmas magic through sparkling tree lights, gingerbread smells, family and presents, and singing Silent Night lit only by candles. May we know that it is a deeper magic which carries us though every day of the year as we follow the ways of God made known in the Christ Child come to be with us in heart and mind, soul and heart. May we Be the magic of Christmas in the world all year long! Angels are singing, stars are shining, awe and wonder are all around! Merry Christmas! Amen. ©The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, 2022 and beyond. May be reprinted only with permission. [i] https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=Magic [ii] https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=grace [iii] https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2019/12/23/rethinking-christmas-eve [iv] https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2019/12/23/rethinking-christmas-eve
Imagining the Words of Joseph
Matthew 1.18-25 The Rev. Hal Chorpenning Plymouth Congregational UCC, Fort Collins, Colorado 18 December 2022 That was one of the strangest nights of my life. And it was such a difficult situation. (You think the holidays are stressful for you? Try being engaged to a wonderful, kind young woman who manages to become pregnant without the benefit of a husband…or even a human!) Try explaining that to the neighbors. You know there have been times when I have seen an unmarried woman stoned to death for becoming pregnant. It is not tolerated in our culture. I was absolutely shocked when I found out that Mary was with child, since she and I had never had sexual relations and I had been sure — well, almost entirely sure — that she had not been with another man. My plan was to send her away to relatives during her pregnancy and to quietly end our engagement. She was the love of my life…what else could I do? I’m not usually one to remember my dreams, but I do remember this one. The messenger of God appears to me (nothing like this had ever happened before) and he was radiant and spoke with the voice of authority, and said, “Don’t worry what everyone will say. Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife. The child she carries was conceived by the ruach ha-kodesh, the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you will name him Jesus.” I kept thinking to myself: why Mary? And why me? You wouldn’t believe what both Mary and I endured during the pregnancy…the whispers, the gossip, the righteous people who gave us the cold shoulder, many family members turned their backs on us. Two things kept us going: our deep love for one another and our faith in the Lord and the messages he sent to us through the angels. It wasn’t just Mary who was chosen to bear a son; God knew it would take a compassionate father to love and raise Jesus, and I hope that I’ve done that well. They had to find someone whose lineage could be traced right back to King David. In my family, we can trace our ancestors not just to David, but all the way back to Abraham. My father was called Jacob and his father was called Matthan, and his father was called Eleazar… back beyond the time of Exile. There are 14 generations from our ancestor Abraham to King David and then another 14 generations from the time of David to the Exile and then another 14 generations from the Exile in Babylon until my son Jesus was born. Now that years have gone by, one thing puzzles me: I’ve heard that in all of the accounts being written about Jesus, they seldom about me, and while they recount the song that Mary sang about her soul magnifying the Lord and the poor receiving good things, there is not one word from me. I know, I shouldn’t be bothered about it. But, I have to correct a few things about Jesus. Don’t get me wrong, he is a great son. But when they sing, “the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes”… that is just plain wrong. The lungs on that child…ear-piercing shrieks when he needed to be changed. And that other song they sing, “All throughout his wondrous childhood, Jesus honored and obeyed.” Sometimes he honored and obeyed, but not all the time. You know about the time when he was a smart-Alec adolescent and he just disappeared. He scared the dickens out of Mary and me. We were up in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, and we thought he was right there with us and our other children when we were headed home with all the others. One minute he’s with us and the next, he had vanished into the crowd. “Honored and obeyed,” as if! We were terrified, and then when we searched the crowd and didn’t find him, we headed back to Jerusalem, and there he was in the Temple Courts with the elders, asking questions and acting as if he knew it all. I’ll tell you, we were not only angry with him, but also astonished. He was holding his own. Not bad for someone who worked with his father as a carpenter. He wasn’t a big kid, and sometimes he needed a little help hefting the larger logs that we sawed into boards, but he was great with his hands. Nothing rough-hewn about his woodworking…it was all well designed and put together. He had a real knack for carpentry. In some ways I wish he had stuck with it. His life would have been so much simpler. He always admired his cousin, John, who frankly was a little “off-beat.” John had visions of being a spiritual teacher, which is fine. But instead of staying at home and becoming a rabbi, he set off into the wilderness, out toward the Jordan. It isn’t the most hospitable territory, and I heard that he subsisted on anything he could find out in the desert. Of course, there was no manna out there…just insects like grasshoppers and locusts and some wild honey, if you are lucky enough to find a bee’s nest. And John didn’t care what he looked like. He dressed in a rough cloak of camel hair that he had woven himself on a little hand loom. It still smelled of camel. Out there he was proclaiming that by being immersed in the River Jordan, people who truly changed their ways would be forgiven by the Holy One. And he had a following, to be sure. So many people trekked out to the Jordan to hear him and to be washed in the Jordan. Jesus went out there also, and I told him to be cautious about his cousin, who… I didn’t want to say it, but … who is a little crazy. John baptized Jesus and then he said that John himself was not the one sent by the Lord, but that he was not worthy to tie the leather thong of the sandal on the one whom God had sent: his cousin, Jesus. Jesus himself went into the desert wilderness for a full 30 days as if to test himself, to be sure that he was worthy of preaching about the realm of God, a world just as the Lord himself had intended us to live. No poverty. No hunger or thirst. No injustice or oppression. No empires to steal land and lives from those they invade. Instead, a world of healing the ill, restoring sight to the blind and hearing to those who were deaf. A world where peace and compassion and wholeness were the order of the day, instead of selfishness, greed, oppression, and ignorance. I taught Jesus a lot about how to use a plane, a saw, and a hammer, but I couldn’t have taught him about God’s kingdom. That came from a different parent. So, that is where he is today, walking from place to place around the Galilee, proclaiming a new way of living in closer relationship to the Holy One. I know that he has made some of the religious authorities angry, because he sometimes says things that upset the Romans and even challenges some of the ritual observances that are central to our faith. One thing that his mother and I did instill in him from the day of his birth right through to today: it’s all about love. We look around and we see the love of God everywhere: in the beautiful array of stars in the night sky, in the kindness of a parent, in the hospitality of an innkeeper, in simple bread and wine, in the births of children. And Jesus pushes the love of God even further. In fact, once I heard him say, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” An amazing boy. How about you? What do you think life is all about? What is most important to you? What brings light into the world? What brings hope and peace and joy? If you listen to my boy, I know you will think that it it’s all about love. I’ve thought a lot about its amazing power. That love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not arrogant or boastful or rude. It isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy in the truth. Love trusts all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never ends. Maybe somebody should write that down and quote me for a change. I bid you shalom!
Organizing Around Joy
Isaiah 35.1,3-10 and Matthew 11.1-6 December 11, 2022; Third Sunday in Advent Plymouth Congregational, UCC The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson Isaiah 35 1The desert and the dry land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom like the crocus. … 3Strengthen the weak hands, and support the unsteady knees. 4Say to those who are panicking: "Be strong! Don't fear! Here's your God, coming with [requital, recompence, redemption]; with divine [justice and restoration] God will come to save you." 5Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be cleared. 6Then the lame will leap like the deer, and the tongue of the speechless will sing. Waters will spring up in the desert, and streams in the wilderness. 7The burning sand will become a pool, and the thirsty ground, fountains of water. … 8A highway will be there. It will be called The Holy Way. The unclean won't travel on it, but it will be for those walking on that way. Even fools won't get lost on it; 9no lion will be there, and no predator will go up on it. None of these will be there; only the redeemed will walk on it. 10The LORD's ransomed ones will return and enter Zion with singing, with everlasting joy upon their heads. Happiness and joy will overwhelm them; grief and groaning will flee away. - Bible, Common English. CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Locations 27681-27706). Matthew 11 1When Jesus finished teaching his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities. 2Now when John heard in prison about the things the Christ, [the Messiah, the Human One] was doing, he sent word by his disciples to Jesus, asking, 3"Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?" 4Jesus responded, "Go, report to John what you hear and see. 5Those who were blind are able to see. Those who were crippled are walking. People with skin diseases are cleansed. Those who were deaf now hear. Those who were dead are raised up. The poor have good news proclaimed to them. 6 Happy are those who don't stumble and fall because of me." - Bible, Common English. CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Locations 38242-38249). In the ancient traditions of Advent today is “Gaudete Sunday.” Gaudete, the Latin word meaning “Rejoice!” This is the Sunday of rejoicing! Rejoicing even when we see so many shadows of sadness and grief in our world. We light the candle of Joy in the face of sadness and grief. Not because we are denying the sadness and grief, but because we know a bigger story. We know this story because of the testimonies of our ancestors in faith, like the prophet, Isaiah, because of the life and love of our pioneer and perfecter of faith, Jesus of Nazareth. Isaiah and Jesus knew the bigger, resilient story of the Holy ONE’s presence and work in the world. With his people Isaiah was facing a world going up in flames as the Babylonians attacked and conquered neighboring countries, threatened Israel, eventually conquering it as well. The chapter preceding the joyful one we just heard together is dire, full of doom. It reminds me what we hear from climate change activists. Dire and immediate warnings…. and necessarily so! May we listen and act accordingly! It reminds me of what we hear and see from Ukraine and other war-ravaged nations in our world community. The devastations that we human beings wreak upon one another. May we listen and respond compassion! I am also reminded of the first stanza of the poem that is the centerpiece of our Advent devotional for this third week. It is Maya Angelou’s poem, “Just Like Job.” My Lord, my Lord, Long have I cried out to Thee In the heat of the sun, The cool of the moon, My screams searched the heavens for Thee. My God, When my blanket was nothing but dew, Rags and bones Were all I owned, I chanted Your name Just like Job.[i] In the face of all this grief and sadness and destruction, hearing and living the promises of God from the prophet in Isaiah is a stronghold and refuge. “Be strong! Don't fear! Here's your God, coming with [requital, recompense, and redemption]…” Healing will happen, the blind will see, the lame walk, the earth will be healed with streams of living water and the desert will bloom! There is a highway called the Holy Way to walk towards healing, a way to walk in healing. Even fools will see the way! Happiness and joy will overwhelm; grief and groaning will flee away.” We also take heart from Jesus’ words in Matthew chapter 11, echoing the ancient prophets, Isaiah and Malachi. John the Baptizer sends him a probing question from the depths for a prison cell. “Are you really the One sent from God? “Jesus says to John’s disciples who are the messengers of the question, “Go, report to John what you hear and see.” (Notice, not who you think I am or might be, but what do you see happening in the world!) “Those who were blind are able to see. Those who were crippled are walking. People with skin diseases are cleansed. Those who were deaf now hear. Those who were dead are raised up. The poor have good news proclaimed to them.” Trust what you see and hear. Happy are those, says Jesus, who do not stumble because they second guess what they are seeing and hearing. They trust. Jesus reminds John that dire times have been upon God’s people before, yet God brings a resilient cycle of redemption and renewal. God’s kin-dom is now and in coming and will continue to come! There is joy even in the midst of dire times. Look for it! Recognize it! Rejoice! God’s work in the world is full of joy and it is resilient. The Merriam Webster dictionary tells us that resilience is: “The ability to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens. The ability of something to return to its original shape after it has been pulled, stretched, bent, etc. An ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” Justice activist, Corina Fadel speaks about resilience like this: “The way water knows just how to flow, not force itself around a river rock; then surely I can stretch myself in the shape my own path is asking of me.”[ii] These reflections on resilience spark in me in a quiet, confident joy as I consider them with the words of Isaiah and Jesus. When bad things happen, when life goes awry, when we are faced with sadness and grief, we push back and say, “No!” “No, life! You are not doing this to me! How can I escape? How can I make this go away? I must resist!” We hurt. We are angry! Normal reactions to abnormal situations. We can, we must, acknowledge the sadness and grief before we can move further. And in the pain, the Holy invites us to sit listening for God. Waiting is not easy. But neither is resisting and refusing to listen. We wait for God, as we are waiting in this dark time of year for longer days to return. I have found that in the waiting and listening something new begins to happen, something news comes slowly, but surely. Living water bubbles up from the dry places of my soul. I learn to see again, to walk again in confidence with God. To find that highway in the desert that even fools cannot miss. And my heart can begin again to organize itself around joy. The pain might still be there…. but it is now living alongside new life, new growth. When we stay in resistance to the pain, I am stuck in a soul-sucking quagmire. When we stop struggling against it, feel it, acknowledge it, listen quietly to it and to Spirit, then we can see and hear that the desert blooms again, there is new life even in the face of death and joy comes in the morning. Our soul can flow in and around the pain like water over river rocks. We can stretch ourselves with God’s love and compassion into the shape that our paths are asking us to take. Joy comes. Not an easy happiness that depends on circumstances, but joy that runs deep at a soul level. Maya Angelou knows this cycle of resilience. Quoting her poem again, “Just Like Job,” she sings with the psalmists of old, O Lord, come to Your child. O Lord, forget me not. You said to lean on Your arm... Joy, joy The wonderful word of the Son of God. [iii] Joy co-exists with sorrow, writes the late priest, teacher and soul-work author, Henri Nouwen, “because it is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing - sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death — can take that love away.” [iv] That can be a tough to trust, can’t it? The world does not often run on unconditional anything, much less love. Everything has a price, doesn’t it? Yet this is the miracle love of Christmas. God’s unconditional love comes in the baby, the Christ Child, God-with-us in the flesh in the world. God’s love is vulnerable. It invites our love. It grows into the powerful message and model of Jesus who lived God’s love even unto death and beyond. On the path of Advent, we wait and listen in these darkened times. We wait for the time when we celebrate once again the resilience of God’s love made human. We wait for the light to break through in Hope, Peace and now, today, in joy. Joy, that deep well-spring of Love that fuels the realm of God on earth. Joy that comes in the face of, co-exists with, sadness, pain, and grief. Joy is what we can organize our hearts and minds and lives around as we make our way in the world walking Holy highways of justice-seeking, of kindness, of compassion to make God’s realm visible wherever we might be. With Maya Angelou, let us cry out to the Holy One, saying, ….I’m stepping out on Your word. Joy, Joy I’m stepping out on Your word. Into the alleys Into the byways Into the streets [poem here] Friends of God gathered here this morning … let us step out on God’s word this day, Joy! Amen. ©The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, 2022 and beyond. May be reprinted only with permission. [i] Maya Angelou, The Complete Poetry, (Random House, New York NY: 2015, 168.) Read poem here. [ii] adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy, Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, (AK Press: Chico, CA, 2017, 123.) [iii] Angelou, 168-169. [iv] https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2019/12/10/visible-joy-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-advent-week-three [v] Angelou, 169.
Unexpected Peace
An Advent sermon related to Isaiah 11:1-9 and Dalai Lama quote on peace CENTRAL FOCUS: To uplift the unexpected possibility/emergence of peace and to connect it with the realization of justice. Isaiah 11:1-9 (The Inclusive Bible) Then a shoot will sprout from the stump of Jesse; From Jesse’s roots, a branch will blossom. 2 The spirit of YHWH will rest on you, a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of knowledge and reverence for YHWH. 3 You will delight in obeying YHWH, And you won’t judge by appearances, or make decisions by hearsay. 4 You will treat poor people with fairness and will uphold the rights of the land’s downtrodden; With a single word you will strike down tyrants, With your decrees you will execute evil people. 5 Justice will be the belt around this your waist faithfulness will gird you up. 6 Then the wolf will dwell with the lamb; And the leopard will lie down with the young goat; the calf and the lion cub will graze together, and a little child will lead them. 7 The cow will feed with the bear; their young will lie down together; The lion will eat hay like the ox. 8 The baby will play next to the den of the cobra, and the toddler will dance over the viper’s nest. 9 There will be no harm, no destruction anywhere in my holy mountain, for as the water fills the sea, so the land will be filled with the knowledge of YHWH. For the Word of God in Scripture, For the Word of God among us, For the Word of God within us, Thanks be to God. In January of 1915, in Great Britain, the Wellington Journal & Shrewsbury News published a letter of a British military officer. Captain Robert Patrick Miles wrote home on Christmas Day from the Great War’s trenches, the front lines of World War I. He wrote: We are having the most extraordinary Christmas Day imaginable. A sort of unarranged and quite unauthorized but perfectly understood and scrupulously observed truce exists between us and our friends in front. … The thing started last night – a bitter cold night, with white frost – soon after dusk when the Germans started shouting 'Merry Christmas, Englishmen' to us. Of course, our fellows shouted back and presently large numbers of both sides had left their trenches, unarmed, and met in the debatable, shot-riddled, no man's land between the lines. Here the agreement – all on their own – came to be made that we should not fire at each other until after midnight tonight. The men were all fraternizing in the middle … and swapped cigarettes and lies in the utmost good fellowship. Not a shot was fired all night. The letter was published posthumously. Captain Miles was killed 5 days after he wrote this letter on December 30, 2014. Unexpected peace broke out that Christmas during the First World War. The tragic fact that it did not last is, of course, reason for deep disappointment, sadness, and grief. Yet, the fact that this unexpected peace occurred is soul food for our imaginations. It is manna in the wilderness of violence and violent expectations. The story’s unexpectedness, the fact that we call it that, unexpected, points to the expectation of a lack of peace in our collective imaginations and even the cynicism that can make a home in our hearts, especially in the light of mass shootings like Club Q in Colorado Springs, King Soopers in Boulder, others around the country, and in light of the Jan. 6th insurrection at the Capitol building. Yet, the prophetic voice we hear in the passage from Isaiah this morning has no such limitation of imagination and expectation. Isaiah’s prophetic poetic imagination offers a vision, a hope, even an expectation for his people who stand in their time also amidst the darkness of deportations and war. Even in such a time, the prophet Isaiah offers a vision of peace that comes about by justice. In this case, justice brought by an ideal sovereign whose connection to God imbues humility, wisdom, compassion, and a sense of equity. Amidst these qualities, there is a reconciliation in the land so profound that even the lion shall lay down with the lamb. In the story I shared, the War to End All Wars resumed and Captain Miles was killed because, of course, nothing changed in the systems in which these humans lived. No policies or orders were changed, no heartfelt connection and conversation was had by the warring nations’ leaders. They would not make room in their imaginations for another vision. These leaders, and many of their citizens, were prisoners of their limited sense of self and of the other, captives of their nationalistic, competitive worldview and its expectations. As a Peace with Justice church nationally and here locally at Plymouth United Church of Christ, we uplift an understanding that what makes for peace are conditions of justice. The Dalai Lama said it this way: Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free. Indeed, what makes for justice are peaceful actions of justice-making by peace-filled nonviolent people like Rosa Parks, Dolores Huerta, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, and like First Nation youth and elders at the Standing Rock Reservation a few years ago. And many unnamed others. All of these people made room for a dream of peace based in justice, made room in their imaginations in such a way as it led them into actions for that vision of Just Peace. This also can be the case in our personal lives where our conscious imaginations fail us and we set expectations, often unconscious, based on our internalized family systems that demean or inflate ourselves and/or the other, that make no room for a new vision of what might be possible, of making a way to inner peace and healing, unexpected though it might be. In that world of habitual confinement and conflict, there is no room for imagining reconciliation of lion and lamb, no room for the advent of a light of peace amidst that darkness. The status quo expectations of our internalized family system and the status quo expectations of culture and history can and often do keep us captive. Is it too much for us to make room for a story like the Christmas truce of 1914, to make room for something unexpected, something beyond our usual expectations of age or situation or personal or historical habit? Is Isaiah an unrealistic dreamer with all his lion and lamb talk? Are such stories and visions all just wishy-washy, touchy feely, cotton candy Christmas talk? Dr. King and others didn’t think so. Their communities of faith trusted Isaiah’s prophetic vision of an unexpected peace, let it embolden their prophetic imagination. Then they directed their hopes and charted their actions toward that unexpected vision of a just peace, even as they waited for it amidst the darkness of injustice. “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” When John Lennon penned his lyric for Imagine and said he imagined no religion, no possessions, no heaven and hell, he was naming the toxic forms of religion and possession that limit us, divide us, and lead us to injustice and violence. Indeed, we are better off without them. He was encouraging us, from the darkness of our limited cultural expectations, to imagine differently, to make room for an unexpected vision of how there could be peace. As we now come together at the Banquet table of God, let us faithfully imagine differently, like Isaiah, and make room for an unexpected coming of peace. AMEN.
“What Are You Waiting for?”
Jeremiah 33.14-16 & Luke 21.25-36 The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado 27 November 2022 (Advent I) You have not heard me preach a lot about the Second Coming or the end times, because neither is a particularly large part of our theology. But that was not true for many of our earliest forebears in the faith, who thought it was coming right around the corner. The earliest followers of the Way of Jesus, most of whom worshiped with Jewish communities, had some sense of apocalyptic literature from The Book of Daniel (where we hear that mysterious moniker, “The Son of Man”) and from sections of the major prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah. And the words from Luke’s Gospel, likely written at the end of the first century, 50 or 60 years after Jesus’ crucifixion, point toward the Second Coming. Jesus’ followers soon realized that his execution was not God’s final word, that there had to be a next chapter unfolding with the empty tomb and post-resurrection experiences. Jesus had come proclaiming the kingdom of God: a new world in which life would be organized the way God intended, rather than the way normal path of civilization and the resulting Empire ruled things. Many Jews in the first century anticipated the coming of the Messiah as a military leader who would restore Jewish home rule in the homeland and eject the occupying Romans. They didn’t get the Messiah they were expecting, instead they got a subversive sage who proclaimed an alternative to the violence, greed, and injustice that were normal in that civilization. I wish I could go back and sing a few lines of the Stones’ song to them: “You can’t always get what you want…You can’t always get what you want…But if you try sometimes, you just might find…You get what you need.” They wanted a generalissimo and instead they got nonviolent Jesus, which is actually what the world needed. Luke quotes Jesus as saying, “There will be great earthquakes and wide-scale food shortages and epidemics. There will also be terrifying sights and great signs in the sky.” Doesn’t that sound a bit like what is happening today? We know all about epidemics! And climate change is upon us. We have distressed the earth and it is resulting in rising sea levels and all kinds of chaos that it is difficult to foresee. Wouldn’t it be great if God would just do a big clean-up and let us start over in a world where we cared for Creation and for each other? That’s the underlying message of the tale of Noah and the great flood, and I’m not so sure how great that would be for us. Or God could send Jesus back for “The Kingdom of God, Part Two” (for those who didn’t get it the first time). That is what Luke describes when he writes, “When you see these things taking place, you know the Kingdom of God is near.” For first-century Jews, religious and national crisis was writ large by the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD by the army of Rome. There was expectation among Jesus’ earliest followers that something radical was going to happen to clean up the injustice of Empire. Christians have waited for more than 2,000 years for the Second Coming. Was it just that the timing was off when Luke writes, “this generation won’t pass away until everything has happened?” Maybe. Advent is all about waiting, but, my friends, 2,000 is a very long wait. I don’t think their timing was off. But I think they missed something that Jesus said while he was still teaching and preaching in the Galilee. It’s a radical little nugget of truth that is so volatile (kind of like, say, a mustard seed) that it isn’t even included in the Revised Common Lectionary. I don’t think the early Christians’ timing was poor. I think that some of their eyes were closed, and their ears stopped up. They missed it! The Kingdom was right there in front of them all along. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, they could have gone home to the Kingdom of God anytime they wished, and they didn’t even have to click the heels of their ruby slippers. They just had to live into it, even under the boot of Roman oppression. Here is what they missed, which we find earlier in Luke’s gospel. “Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed [like earthquakes, epidemics, or changes in the sky]; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”[1] The Kingdom of God is among you. Have Christians been waiting for something that has been available to them for 2,000 years? We have been shown the wisdom and the way to live out the kingdom or kin-dom or realm of God. We’ve had this knowledge for two millennia, so why are we not willing to live into it? What do you think: why haven’t Christians, why haven’t WE, lived into the Kingdom of God and created the Beloved Community? I think I know at least one answer. Being a part of God’s Kingdom is costly. It requires self-giving love. It requires putting the needs of the community above the needs of the self. And as Jesus shows time and again, it can even mean putting the needs of the new family in Christ ahead of the needs of one’s biological family. Advent is a season of waiting, of longing for a world that is closer to what the God of justice and peace intends for us and for all of creation. The earliest Christians were waiting the Second Coming, yet that may not be a big part of your faith journey. Isn’t it time we paid more attention to the “First Coming,” rather than waiting around for the Second? For a few thousand years, emperors and bishops, priests, and pastors have often considered the message of Jesus too hot to handle. If Jesus is Lord, doesn’t that imply that Caesar is not? If we pledge allegiance to the Kingdom of God, where does that leave our patriotism? If we live out self-giving love, where does that leave the market economy on Black Friday and Cyber Monday? In 313, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, legalizing Christianity. A short 12 years later, in 325, he called the Council of Nicaea to institutionalize and unify the doctrine of the church, and the creed that emerged from that council says only this about the life and teachings of Jesus: He “became incarnate and became man, and suffered, and rose again on the third day.” There is no mention of the kingdom of God. No reference to the Beatitudes or to what Jesus did. Nothing about the message of parables. Nothing about love. The church, which had been counter-cultural, became the establishment instead of becoming a movement. That is what happens when Empire melds with and supersedes religion. And it fuels Christian Nationalism in our country today. So, what are we waiting for? The Second Coming? The Rapture? I suspect that none of you are waiting for those things to happen. Are we waiting for somebody else to “do” faith for us? Do we wait for “somebody else” to step up and step in when we share ministry and mission in this place? We are the movement! The Kingdom of is among us, here and now and still unfolding! Even though we may never see the reign of God in its fullness, I deeply appreciate the way our congregation acts for justice, peace, and inclusion and engages in acts of compassion with one another. That gives me tremendous hope. At Plymouth, we do our best (however imperfectly) to keep Jesus at the forefront, rather than Caesar or doctrine, dogma, or ancient creed. In the final analysis, love wins. During this Advent season, may each of us deepen our journey as followers of Jesus. And may every heart prepare him room. Amen. © 2022 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses. [1] Luke 17.20 |
Details
|