The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph
Joshua 5: 9-12
Plymouth Congregational UCC,
Fort Collins, Colorado
 
Will you share with me a moment of prayer? May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be good and pleasing to you, O God of the refugee, the migrant, and the immigrant. Amen.
 
The members of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ, Fort Collins, Colorado hear God’s Call to care for and welcome with compassion and justice the widowed, the orphaned and the alienated who are living in our community.  We follow Jesus, the Christ, who lives among the “least of these” in our communities. We affirm that each and every person is a Child of God welcome in the Realm of God’s Love. Our refugee-immigrant ancestors fled persecution; upon arriving in Colorado they established the German Evangelical Congregational Church that laid the foundation for Plymouth Congregational UCC. Therefore, Plymouth Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Fort Collins, CO declares itself an “Immigrant Welcoming Congregation” to encourage the development of policies and activities within Plymouth UCC dedicated to facilitating respectful, compassionate welcome and inclusion of immigrants in our midst. (Enacted by Unanimous Vote of the Congregation, January 2018)
 
Since 2005, long before I was a minister here, I have been a member of Plymouth. Since that time, the telling and retelling of this congregation’s storied history is to me a Poetic Epic of heroism and hope for refugees. It is a story that has become for me a “scripture” (lower case “s”) of a sort—a sacred tale that can help us remember where our values and call to assist the migrant and refugee come from in this context.
 
If you know about the history of the City of Fort Collins and immigration to our city, you know that it is a pretty sweet story! Sweet, that is, in terms of sugar beets as the “produce of the land” in this region in the early 20th century. The sugar beet industry, a common alternative for sugar cane in the wake of the Spanish-American War, came to Fort Collins at the same time as a large wave of ethnic Germans from Russia. That wave of refugees escaping persecution were resettled in Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wyoming and Northern Colorado by the US Government and church groups like the Congregational and Lutheran Church.
 
Now, sugar beet farming and processing, which happened at the time in the Andersonville area, isn’t for the faint of heart. It is hard, unglamorous work! But the sugar beets were a source of empowerment and a status change from refugees to fabric of our community. The sugar beets were a source of hope in a new land.
 
The founders of this congregation were of a large group of poor, ethnic Germans whose ancestors had moved to the Volga River Valley region of Russia under Catherine the Great in the 18th Century. They did this with a promise that they could keep their language, culture, religion, and not be conscripted into the military. By the late 19th Century, Russia was undoing those promises and persecuting the German minority. This forced a mass refugee migration to the United States, Canada, and Argentina. Those who chose to remain behind in the Volga Region, were mostly murdered by the Russian military during World War II—accused of being German spies.
 
While this is a story that many of us know by heart, I try and repeat it in a sermon at least once a year to remind us, as a congregation, where this place, these walls, our story comes from. To me it is a great saga, a tale of courage and faith, and it bears repeating, especially today as our Scripture points us to the plight of refugees once again.
 
If you go to the website for city history at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, there is a title called, “Factory worker churches.” In this section it describes our congregation: “Earliest church services for immigrant workers were conducted in private homes in Andersonville or Buckingham. The German Evangelical Congregational Church held services in the G. A. R. hall. In 1904 there were enough German Russians to employ Montezuma Fuller in the design of the German Congregational church at the southwest corner of Whedbee and Oak. The church was designed in a Gothic style with a fifty-foot tower and pointed arch windows and was composed of a red stone foundation with Fort Collins pressed brick walls and red stone trim.” [https://history.fcgov.com/contexts/sugar] The fruit, the produce of the land was now, again, sustaining them in this new place—a third place of refuge in only a couple generations. (Trinity ELCA, Shephard of the Hills ELCA, and Immanuel Reformed are also Russian-German Congregations in Fort Collins.)
 
It wasn’t always easy here in “Fort Fun.” This church would later have to change its name to Plymouth Congregational Church during World War II. While they were Russian-Germans, the locals began attacking them again, here in their place of refuge, for being German of all things.
 
Both in our immigrant story and our adopted Pilgrim story, as a congregation and a denomination, we have a rootedness in refugee stories. By becoming members of this church—these stories of refugee past, bravery, political uncertainty, urgent changing of a name for salvation sake, and hope become our story as well. That is the magic of joining a church community—we are now part of that legacy. Likewise, the responsibility to support new refugees with the “produce of the land” and resources here in Colorado comes with assuming that membership. These walls demand justice for refugees.
 
This brings me to our Scripture today. Our reading comes to us from an early part of the Book of Joshua. Joshua is part of what many scholars call the Hebrew Bible’s Deuteronomistic History—meaning second or history or law. Moses leads the people out of Egypt, out of slavery and death, and into the desert of wandering. That is the “first history,” categorized and told through Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.
 
The “first history” ends when Moses dies without reaching the promised land. When Moses dies, a new leader is appointed named Joshua. The Book of Joshua picks-up where the Moses story ends in the desert. While Moses’ story is a tale of being refugees, we can see the Joshua story (the second history) as the story of being resettled.
 
The fact that in the Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament it takes two leaders and two whole histories to get us from the state of refugee status to a state of finding home evidences that throughout history immemorial becoming a refugee happens quickly, instantaneously based on external factors, but the process to resettle again, to claim stability is long and hard. Resettlement can take generations, it can require changes in law (as we see in the Bible with two laws), and it requires people of faith and vision like Moses and Joshua to lead.
 
We also find ancient language for a green card, for safety, resettlement, for hope, and for fulfillment of blessing in the repeated phrase, produce or crops of the land.
 
Let us hear the Scripture again:
 
10 While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal, they kept the Passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. 11 On the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. 12 The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.

Whenever something is repeated three times, it means we should pay attention. This reference to produce of the land, tevua in Hebrew, is found 40 times in the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible. Importantly, almost every place where this word for “produce of the land” is found (and I looked at them all) in the Bible signs of peace and a sense of hope and community exists as well.

Psalm 107 “They sowed fields, and planted vineyards that yielded a fruitful produce.”
Proverbs 3:9 “Honor the Lord with your wealth with the first produce.”

Our story this morning is the story of a change in resident status in the land. This is an ancient green card story in Joshua, Chapter 5. This is the moment when they no longer have to reply on the manna—the symbol of being refugees without a home. This is the moment when the people, after a generation of living in the unknown, are able to claim a sense of hope again. The ability to grow food, we forget in our modern supermarket and click-list lives, is the difference in the ancient world between having a place to call home and hope and being afraid of starvation, consumed by despair.
 
The produce of the land is a synonym for stability, for shelter, and the moment when refugees become residents. There are other ways to read the Joshua story and what the arrival of the Israelites means, but today I think we should focus on this moment. Joshua, Chapter 5, Verse 12 is perhaps the most important verse in the whole story of the Exodus when “The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land.”
 
I was able to bear witness to a produce of the land moment myself two years ago when my husband, Gerhard, was selected to be part of the once annual naturalization citizenship ceremony to take place in Rocky Mountain National Park. There, at the foot of Long’s Peak in Moraine Park Amphitheater, the Superintendent of RMNP, a jolly man dressed like Yogi Bear in a green ranger panama hat, spoke. He told the new immigrants, many refugees, that the great mountain before us, and it was a blue bird Colorado day, now belonged to them. It was theirs to take care of and a symbol of hope. This was a generous offer of the produce of the land that will always stick with us.
 
In our church story, the same moment comes when the produce of the land, in their case sugar beets, allowed our ancestors in 1904 to finally build a new place of worship in Fort Collins and to claim their place in our city. It is also notable that they didn’t just hire any architect, but they hired the best architect in our city’s history—a sign of pride! That sugar beet foundation, the cornerstone of which we brought with us to this site, is allowing refugees the opportunity to become settled, home, and connected to community roots again.
 
I received an urgent email from the UCC and the Church World Service this week. It read like this, “We have a moral responsibility to hold the administration accountable, for slashing the refugee program by 75 percent. This is the worst refugee crisis in history. With global need at its highest, the [administration] has dismantled the refugee resettlement program and reversed our nation’s history as a world leader in refugee protection… The administration set a new record-low refugee admissions goal for fiscal year 2019 at 30,000, and what’s worse, we are only on track to resettle 21,000 refugees this year -- not even meeting this abysmally low goal.” [“Where R The Refugees Worship Toolkit”]
 
God isn’t subtle. I want you all to know that. That same day, I received the email from the Church World Service, a copy of The Seventh-Day Adventist Magazine, Liberty, arrived in my mailbox with the cover article, “A Refugee Crisis.” It reads, “The world today is in the midst of mass migrations, reminiscent of the period encompassing the run-up to World War II, the war itself, and its aftermath…Today we have the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing government action in Myanmar. In Ukraine there is again flight from the Russians…In Syria there is massive dislocation of communities…And, less in the headlines, climate change and consequent loss of crops is driving desperate people north from Africa…Aside from Germany and Scandinavian countries, developed countries have not felt the weight of the crisis. Canada is doing moderately, and the United States is doing very little. The question of just how to balance security and charity remains,” and the article ends with the question, “Just how can the lamp at the golden door be relit?” [Amdur, Reuel S. “A Refugee Crisis: A Canadian Perspective,” Liberty: A Magazine of Religious Freedom. March-April 2019.]

Later, that same day, a Facebook friend from PCUSA posted this article from the Christian Century: “Over the past two years, the nation’s refugee resettlement system has been slowly dismantled. The process started after…the president temporarily suspended the entire refugee program in the United States and issued the first version of a ban on travel from predominantly Muslim countries. That dismantling has led to layoffs and office closings for resettlement groups. The nine agencies authorized by the federal government to resettle refugees in the United States—six of which are faith-based—also saw reduced funding for fiscal year 2018. Cuts to the refugee resettlement program will have lasting consequences, said Jen Smyers, director of policy and advocacy for the immigration and refugee program with Church World Service. 'You’re not just changing policy for a couple of years; you’re dismantling decades of work and relationships that will be nearly impossible to rebuild.'”

Did I mention that God hasn’t been subtle this week about what needed to be preached? “The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land.” The produce of the land is a symbol throughout the Bible of what all humans hope to have and deserve to obtain by the laws of the Bible and by principles of basic Human Rights—to live without fear of starvation, to be able to grow and put down roots of community, and to connect to earth and to Creator.
 
Our passage from Joshua reminds us of our own refugee, not just immigrant, saga as a congregation. Guided by our story and by the call of the Holy Bible, we must hear the signs of God calling us to work harder for advocacy, pay attention to funding bills in FY2020 that cut the produce of the land even greater and the possibility of safety and welcome. The moment when the refugees go from eating manna to eating from the land is the moment when they have a change in residency status and are offered new hope in a new home. It isn’t fast, it isn’t easy (as the next chapters in Joshua would reveal), and the politics aren’t always clear… but it is right.
 
Let us work harder to live into our call claimed and affirmed in 2018 to be an immigrant and refugee welcoming congregation and to help plant the seeds of the produce of the land for those most in need. Amen.

​Anne Thompson writes a weekly poem based on her hearing of the sermon. Here is her poem this week in response to Jake's "Produce of the Land" Sermon. 3/31/19

Produce of the land
can become a source of hope
to those who migrate.
 
There is a story
of immigrants in these walls -
tales of sugar beets.
 
This is our story.
We assume the legacy
of those refugees.
 
Refugee status
can happen very quickly
and can be painful –
 
leaving behind home,
family and heritage,
risking death and worse.
 
But resettlement
and status of belonging
can take a long time.
 
“Produce of the land”
is a symbol for safety
from hunger and fear.
 
Refugee crises -
our responsibility?
Where is charity?
 
How can the lamplight
be relit, and the closed door
be open again?
 
For those who made it
over seas and over walls,
the manna will cease.
 
It is up to us
to offer food and shelter
with our open hands.
 
Those of us who now
are nourished by fertile land –
how to be worthy?
 
We can help plant seeds,                      
connect Earth with Creator,
open minds and doors.
 
Plant the seeds of hope,
for the produce of the land –
our future and theirs.
 
A wilderness cry –
tired, feeble voices as one –
“Will you let me in?”

​
The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph 
Plymouth Congregational UCC,
​Fort Collins, Colorado

​A couple of days ago, a new friend told me why she loves Lent, and it was her insight which inspired the sermon I’m about to preach. “I love the Season of Lent,” she said, “because it is the time of the year when I reset, and I learn to pay attention again.” Lent is the Art of Paying Attention. Lent is reclaiming the power of the detail. Today, I would like to share a word on reclaiming Poetry in our busy modern lives as a way (one way) to, again, learn to pay attention to meaning, to detail, to ourselves, to others, and to God. It is time for us to reclaim poetry as Christians both for ourselves and for our world which is desperate for new language and new vocabularies for love. 

Let us pray together. May the words of my mouth, O God of All Creation, and the intimate thoughts of our hearts, help us to renew our ability to truly pay attention to our world. You are our reminder of the details we treasure—our rock and our redeemer. Amen. 

“O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” The Psalms have a way of speaking to us in ways that no other Scripture can. This is because, unlike the narrative or legalistic parts of the Bible, the Psalms have a way of being chameleons, changing color, metamorphosing, and somehow meeting us wherever we are in life. As we grow older, I’ve noticed now at 30, the Psalms grow with us, new details emerge, new hearing develops. 

“So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name.” Can you imagine how beautiful this poem is in the original Hebrew where it actually retains the stanzas and repetitions of the original poetry? Last week, Hal also preached on a Psalm, and he encouraged us to go deeper with them to pray the Psalms for lent. I love that! For that reason, I have chosen to also preach on a Psalm this week to help us with that going deeper together. I, like Hal, believe that the Psalms become part of us—they are able to become our own prayers in unexpected ways. When we don’t know how to pray or don’t know how to go deeper, a Psalm is usually in order. 

“My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.” 

​Two pictures of the mad-libs “Time with Children”
​and the Psalms they helped us write in worship at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM. 

Today, I want to go deeper with a focus on the poetry of the Psalms and how they can help us rediscover the need for details in our lives. The Psalms reawaken in us an attention to detail. To claim the Psalms as our own is to reclaim the power of language from the powers now choosing to wield words as weapons. We shall not accept this abuse of the power of language. By looking for poetry in the Psalms and in our world, we may reclaim poetry and the power of words for good in our lives and culture. If ever there were a time for poetry, it is now. 

Friends, a world that doesn’t appreciate poetry is a world at risk of losing its very sense of the meaning of existence. A world without the Poets and the Psalmists is a world without love, or dreams, or visions, or hope. Humans need poetry as the food for our souls. Extending this metaphor, I would say the Psalms are like a tapas bar with something for everyone and every time. 

Academics tell us that, “Psalms or The Psalter, as it is often called, is a collection of prayers and songs composed throughout Israel’s history. Its title, Psalms, is derived from a Greek term meaning ‘song.’ The Hebrew title of the book, Tehillim, means more specifically ‘hymns’ or ‘songs of praise.’ The poetic character of the Psalms is manifest in the balance or symmetry of each line.” [Patrick D. Miller, “Psalms,” The Harper Collins Study Bible (San Francisco, CA: Harper One, 1989), 732.] The Psalms are the part of the Bible where the details, and how they make us see our own existence, matters most of all. 

In Seminary, I was your classic fish out of water. I came right from an undergraduate degree in French Literature analyzing Rimbaud and Baudelaire into Divinity School where I found myself surrounded by Religious Studies majors…analyzing Paul. They knew all the facts, could recite the books of the Bible backwards and forwards without error. They enjoyed, as a leisure sport, reciting quotes from long dead theologians with funny names to one another.  

It was when I discovered the Psalms that I found my place in Seminary and subsequently in ministry. Here is a part of the Bible where literary analysis, poetry, a love for language and words matters as much or more than facts about dead theologians and historic hypothesis theories. A “Psalmist Christian,” as I identify, is a Christian who is most interested in the details of how religion makes us feel connected with God and community. It isn’t about the facts of faith, but Psalms are about the feeling and connections of faith. With the Psalms, we are free to dream, wonder, and feel—even as Mainline Protestants. The Psalms help us to pay attention to the Spirit at work and at play. 

It is time to be Psalmist Christians…poets all. 

Friends, we are drowning in facts—both accurate and deceptive. We are floundering in a sea of useless language. Wikipedia, news alerts on our smartphones, press secretary pronouncements, publicity, advertisements, from dawn to dusk drunk on factoids. The over-abundance of trivia has made finding meaningful words difficult. It has made the Lenten art of really paying attention to detail all but impossible. There are more words in our lives than ever, yet there is less and less meaning that gets in here to our hearts! 

“O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water, [meaning, purpose, substance].” Like our Psalmist today, we are all thirsty for meaning beyond what we can memorize or google search. We are thirsty for lives grounded in meaning and purpose. Our purpose as humans must be greater than that of the news we aggregate or the revenue we generate. That is what the Psalms offer us for such a time as this. The Psalms offer us poetry and a chance to reclaim purpose and to see the beauty in the small details of life. 

Rose Marie Berger is a poet, a writer and staffer for Sojourners Magazine and a Christian who writes in what she calls “holy poetry.” She was recently asked in an interview, “As a Catholic, do you see poetry as a spiritual practice?” 

She replied by saying, “Because of my Catholic-ness, I see the world liturgically and sacramentally. The world is a holy place. Time moves in liturgical seasons. Poetry is an ancient form of speech for speaking about God and beauty, for witnessing and praising, for calling to account, for reanimating mystery. So yes, while not all poets write from a spiritual lens and not all poetry, even my own, needs to reflect spirituality, I do see poetry as part of my spiritual practice… Prose writing can convey lots of things–emotions, information, historical continuity. It can prompt intellectual insights and shifts. But long before prose was invented, birds sang poetry to small human communities and those communities learned to sing it back [Palms]. Poetry is what makes us human animals in the creation. It’s the language God uses to speak worlds into existence — and out of existence. Poetry is elemental, like earth, fire, water, and air.” ["Bending the Arch"]

“I love Lent,” she said, “because it is the time every year when I learn to pay attention again.” Poetry and the Psalms, then, are essential to Lent—they help us reclaim the mystery and the detail of the basic elements of life: earth, fire, water, and air…poetry.

Which Psalms or Poetry are speaking to you this season? I would invite you to pick a favorite poem (secular or Sacred), read it daily through the rest of this season and see how it reawakens deep meaning of language beyond the artificial divide between fact or fiction. What new details emerge and make meaning every day? 

This Lent, I invite you to pay attention with me again to the words and their meaning as a method to saving our souls from the cold and unforgiving facts of life we are dying to every day. Only Poetry can save us now. We need the Psalms in Christianity in 2019 (and certainly in 2020 with the certain vitriol of an election year coming) more than we need any other part of the Bible. We need to get back to the basics of reanimating mystery and discovering purpose in the details. 

Words matter and have power to destroy or heal. Tweets are not William Carlos Williams poems any more than every speech made from a little wooden box three feet in the air is a sermon. Poetry like preaching requires sacred intention. 

Those of you who have been at Plymouth for at least four and a half years had the joy of hearing my predecessor preach. The Rev. Sharon Benton, if you ever looked at her sermons, didn’t write sermons as speeches. No, she wrote them in the form of poems. Every single one of Sharon’s sermons over her ten years at Plymouth was a poem written for you in love and care. While some of my colleagues find it odd that I am serving my home church, I find a great beauty in the fact that I too was ministered to and formed by the one who held my job before me. Many days, I too really miss Sharon, her poetry, and her poetic attention to detail. 

This Lent, the poem I am reading every day is one of Sharon’s published Psalms. I am going to close by reading that poem, and I hope that in Lent and in the seasons beyond Lent, we all may rediscover the details in our lives—especially our great meaning and purpose that comes through Poetry. 

Thanksgiving by The Rev. Sharon Benton

Some gratitude comes hard, O Spirit: 
hard as a brick thrown through a strained-glass Jesus feeding his flock;
hard as teeth grinding their own enamel night after anxious night;
hard as fighting through Black Friday shopping crowds.
Sometimes gratitude comes hard, O Spirit:
when there is loss of relationship,
loss of abilities, 
loss of life, 
loss of hope. 

But when a wet nose nuzzles us awake in the morning,
or a stranger captures our wind-stolen scarf, 
or a single star stretched out in so much space reminds us--
we are not alone in this life:
we are one with each creature,
and with each other,
and with each part of your creation.

Spirit, our individual griefs are not small, 
nor are the world’s pains.
But grant us gratitude amidst them
so we may also overcome
addiction, depression, disease, or accident;
poverty and war and all that depletes life rather than sustains it. 

Even when gratitude is hard, O Spirit, 
soften us to see your love poured out upon all the universe, 
and help us give thanks. 

Amen. 

Psalm 27
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning 
Plymouth Congregational UCC,
​Fort Collins, Colorado
The Feast of St. Patrick

My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers. I am looked down upon by many. My father was Calpurnius. He was a deacon; his father was Potitus, a priest, who lived at Bannavem Taburniae. His home was near there, and that is where I was taken prisoner. I was about sixteen at the time. At that time, I did not know the true God. I was taken into captivity in Ireland, along with thousands of others.
​
So begins The Confession of St. Patrick, which is thought to be authentic, unlike just about everything else we have been told about this fifth-century British saint. No shamrocks, no snakes, no green beer. Wait…British?! Though it comes as a grave disappointment to some, one of the three patron saints of Ireland came from Scotland or the north of England – easily accessible to Irish raiding parties. Britain had been a Roman province, and at the time of Patrick’s youth, Roman political influence had waned and their occupation of Britain had ended, so it was a time of political instability.

And we have an early manuscript of The Confession in the 8th-century Book of Armagh, which lives at Trinity College in Dublin. In this document, Patrick details how as a slave he came to embrace the faith of his father, a deacon, and his grandfather, a priest. He speaks of how after being enslaved he had a vision of how to escape, of his reuniting with his family, and his temptation by Satan. Even without shamrocks, it’s a gripping story!

Patrick writes of his difficulties and mission: “It was not by my own grace, but God who overcame [adversities] in me, and resisted them all so that I could come to the peoples of Ireland to preach the gospel. I bore insults from unbelievers, so that I would hear the hatred directed at me for traveling here. I bore many persecutions, even chains, so that I could give up my freeborn state for the sake of others.”

The Confession is one of the great spiritual testimonies of late antiquity, and we learn from it that Patrick, like so many prophets, sensed the divine call to speak on God’s behalf, and like so many apostles, was sent by God into an alien land as an exponent of the Gospel. Patrick’s mission to the Irish was not only surprisingly successful in introducing the Christian faith, but there was something distinctive from the mission to virtually every other country: it was bloodless. Patrick’s mission was nonviolent, which is especially striking given the circumstances under which he was taken to Ireland as a youth. 

But it isn’t just The Confession that I want to introduce you to, but another writing attributed to Patrick, a prayer called "The Breastplate." It takes the form of a plea for protection in troubled times. Here is an extract of the prayer…I won’t read the whole thing, because it does go on a bit:

I arise today 
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.
…
I arise today, through
The strength of heaven,
The light of the sun,
The radiance of the moon,
The splendor of fire,
The speed of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of the sea,
The stability of the earth,
The firmness of rock.
I arise today, through
God’s strength to pilot me,
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s shield to protect me.
…
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

Patrick, whether he wrote this prayer or not, certainly needed the protection of God as he re-entered the land of his captivity. He demonstrated his faith in, his deep trust in, the triune God, whom he sensed was within him, around him, and infinitely far beyond him. That sense of panentheism – God as close to us as our breathing and at the same time beyond the reaches of the universe – is central to the experience of Celtic Christianity then and now. God is not simply “in a heaven, lightyears away,” but near to us, and can be a help in times of trouble.

And that, too, is the expression of faith and trust in Psalm 27. God “is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” The confident faith of the psalmist is something that we can use today. I actually use the prayer in your bulletin every morning in my own devotional time, and it has echoes of Psalm 27: “The Lord is my light and salvation,” and “Christ as a light illumine and guide me.”

The horrific attack on the mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday was the latest chapter in the tragic history of terrorism by white men who feel threatened by the prospect of not being in control of a world of diverse peoples. And yet, as Christians, we have the example of Patrick, who not only didn’t attack those whom he could justifiably see as a threat…he loved and embraced them. That courageous ability to not be threatened, but to love one’s enemies is at the core of the real St. Patrick, and that is far more valuable to God and to us, than chasing a few snakes away.

I know that many of us are overwhelmed because we are living in fraught and dangerous times and that zero-sum politics are tearing our nation – even God’s planet – apart. I am concerned about you, the members of this congregation, because I see you working for justice and feeling a sense of oppression. I know that some of you are disheartened by the state of our republic and its politics…and with good reason. And I want you to be able to use the tools of your faith to keep on keeping on. I want you to be able to use the oaken staff of your faith to lean on as you go into the world. 

The Psalms, especially the 27th Psalm, can be a part of your toolkit for protection. The 27th Psalm can be your breastplate that you put on like armor to protect yourself from the dishonesty, avarice, and ill will that seem to dominate the news. 

Prayers for protection are an essential part of the literature of the Celtic saints, including Patrick. Here is the beginning of a prayer attributed to St. Brendan the Navigator: “Help me to journey beyond the familiar and into the unknown. Give me faith to leave old ways and break fresh ground with you.” And one of St. Columba of Iona: “Be thou a bright flame before me: be thou a guiding star above me; be though a smooth path below me; be thou a kindly shepherd behind me…today, tonight, and forever.” And a prayer from St. Columbanus, an Irish monk who founded monasteries in today’s France, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy: “Lord, kindle our lamps, Savior most dear to us, that we may always shine in your presence and always receive light from you, the Light Perpetual, so that our own personal darkness may be overcome, and the world’s darkness driven from us.”

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear. The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” The words of saints and the psalmist are the words of courage, of confidence, of reliance on the intimate presence of God. 

The psalm ends with a theological claim, which the Celtic saints would affirm, but it is more than that: it is a statement of what is in the heart of the psalmist, and I pray that it is in your heart as well: “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” As a newer paraphrase of this psalm says, “Stay with God!”

Many of you want to know more about how to pray, so here is one way to go deeper: Pray with the psalms. When you go home, pull out your Bible and find Psalm 27, make a space of five minutes, and open your heart and mind to God, and read this psalm with an attitude of prayer. Do it five times this week, and see what changes happen within you. (And you can have your pint of green beer first!)
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The saints of old have stood up against fear of the other, against oppression, against tyrants, against injustice, and against violence. You can, too, because the Lord is your light and your salvation…you have nothing to fear.

Amen.

© 2019 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

Guest preacher the Rev. Linda Privatera preaches on Luke 4:1-13 for Lent 1.

Luke 9.28–36
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
​Plymouth Cong’l UCC, Fort Collins

Sometimes something happens within us that is so significant people can tell the difference just by looking at us. Has anyone ever said to you, “You’re just beaming!” And we don’t necessarily take that in a literal way, but we know what it looks like when something wonderful has happened to someone. We even use the word, “radiant,” to describe someone’s visage.

John O’Donohue, the late Irish priest and poet, comments on the outward reflection of what is going on inside us: “The face is the icon of the body, the place where the inner world of the person becomes manifest. The human face is the subtle yet visual autobiography of each person. Regardless of how concealed or hidden the inner story of your life is, you can never successfully hide from the world while you have a face. If we knew how to read the faces of others, we would be able to decipher the mysteries of their life stories. The face always reveals the soul; it is where the divinity of the inner life finds an echo and image. When you behold someone’s face, you are gazing deeply into that person’s life.”  [1]

So, when the writer of Luke’s gospel says that “while [Jesus] was praying, the appearance of his face changed,” you can imagine the ways that reflects a monumental internal transformation. 

For me, this story of the transfiguration isn’t so much about what happened to Jesus up on that mountaintop so much as it begs the question: how does transformation happen to us – transformation so great as to change our visage…the way we project our face in the world.
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Have you ever had such a moment? A time when something really shifted inside you? An occasion that moved you so deeply that people could see it on your face? I think for some women the experience of childbirth can be such a moment. I don’t know what those moments are for you, but I’d invite you to think about it for a just a minute: what are some of the deepest transformative moments in your life?

The old-fashioned word for religious transformation is “conversion.” In many New England Congregational churches in the 18th and early 19th centuries, at the time of the First and Second Great Awakenings, a visible sign of a conversion experience was a requirement for full membership in the church. That said, the Unitarian Congregationalists and middle-of-the-road Trinitarian Congregationalists didn’t take much stock in hyper-emotional experiences of the divine. (This was a serious controversy that divided Congregational churches across New England.) Yet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was ordained as a Congregational minister and eventually became a Unitarian talked much about “first-hand religion” or a direct experience of the divine, rather than the sometimes cool, intellectual apprehension of the faith that is still a hallmark of many of us in the Congregational strand of the UCC. 

The word, “conversion,” can be alienating for some of us, just like the related term, “repentance.” Conversion, in its Latin roots, literally means to “turn with” and repentance means to “reposition” something. The Greek word, metanoia, can mean changing one’s way of thinking or conversion or repentance or transformation. Metanoia (and I’m going to translate it as “transformation”) is a wonderful and important action in our lives of faith. Metanoia keeps us from becoming stale and static and self-satisfied.

Valerie Schultz, a Roman Catholic writer had this to say: “Metanoia is a word I love. It sounds like a medical condition or a punk band. I can picture it on a prescription bottle or a T-shirt.... Metanoia is more lasting than a momentary epiphany, more active than an intellectual revelation. Metanoia is a radical change of heart, forcing one to dig deeply. It is a prayer answered, but it requires a further response.” [2] And that reflection invites us, using the words of Plymouth’s theme for this year, to Go Deeper into our faith and into our very lives.

For me, and I suspect for many of you, conversion or metanoia or transformation isn’t a one-off, lightning-bolt kind of experience. I have had times when I really felt in touch with God, moments when I felt as though God was with me and moving through me. But, if I look at my faith journey, I see many moments of transformation…like coming back to church in my 30s, becoming a parent to Cameron and Chris, going to divinity school, feeling called to be the minister of this church, when I met and married Jane Anne. And sometimes I think we see transformation better in retrospect than we do at the moment. Metanoia happens, too, in the unhappy occasions of our lives. When my parents died, when my marriage ended, when I was diagnosed with cancer: those are moments of transformation as well. For me, the big question is “Where do I find God in that experience?” What are those moments for you? And where do you find God in those moments?

In our church’s mission statement, we say: “It is our mission to worship God and help make God’s realm visible in the lives of people, individually and collectively, especially as it is set forth in the life, teachings, death and living presence of Jesus Christ.” We do this by…inviting, transforming, and sending. 

How would you react if I said that we all need to experience spiritual transformation…not just once, but again and again? I think a fair number of us at Plymouth think that we are evolved and enlightened…in short, that we have arrived. I hate to be the one to break the news…but all of us are in need of further transformation, growth, renewal, even conversion. You and I are works in progress, not fully formed, and ready for growth. 

Every day, we encounter some new situation or condition or challenge, and in the course of those new experiences, we are going to be changed. The question is not whether we will be transformed, but how. In what ways can we make the deep changes in our lives shape us in positive, faithful ways?
What are the tectonic forces in our lives and in our souls that with great heat and force shape the persons we are becoming? Are we being forced into a mold by the economic forces around us? What do the teachings of Jesus say about that? Are we succumbing to the prejudices of racism, homophobia, and sexism that underlie every aspect of our culture? What do the teaching of Jesus say about that? Are we falling prey to having enough income and leisure time so that we neglect enhancing lives of others? What do the teachings of Jesus say about that? Are we becoming complacent about caring for one another because we are “too busy?” What do the teachings of Jesus say about that?

We need to let our faith become the greatest tectonic force in our lives. If we can’t allow ourselves to be molded, shaped, and transformed by our faith, then frankly, it is meaningless. None of us wants to have a hollow faith, but rather one that is vibrant, resilient, and life-giving…and it is possible when we open ourselves to the possibility that God is at work in our lives.

I suggest that during the coming season of Lent, we look at ourselves and that we use the 40-day period to examine ourselves and in what ways we need to be transformed into the people God expects us to be. How do we do that? One way may be by adopting a small faith practice during Lent, which begins with Ash Wednesday this week. It doesn’t have to be dramatic, like fasting during each day and eating only at night. And it doesn’t have to be “giving up” something like chocolate or booze or Fritos. I knew someone once who gave up his wristwatch for Lent, because he felt that he was being ruled by the pagan god, Chronos! You might try keeping a short journal, or spending five minutes in prayer each morning, or keeping track of where you saw the movement of the Spirit each day.

Soren Kierkegaard made a distinction between Christ’s admirers and Christ’s true followers, and a lot of it has to do with Going Deeper. Kierkegaard writes, “The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. He always plays it safe. Though in word [s]he is inexhaustible about how highly [s]he prizes Christ, [s]he renounces nothing, will not reconstruct [her] life, and will not let her life express what it is [s]he supposedly admires.” [3] In short, the admirer won’t admit Christ into the process of transformation.
When we take seriously the words our membership covenant, “I give myself unreservedly to God’s service,” and try to live into that tall order, we open ourselves and our lives to Going Deeper, being changed, to being transformed, to be shaped by metanoia. As we journey together, may this band of pilgrim people walk as one, into a future that is marked by God’s promise of changed lives.
Amen.

© 2019 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint.

1. John O’Donohue, Anam Cara. (NY: Harper Perennial, 1998), p. 39.
2. Valarie Schultz, “Metanoia,” in America, December 6, 2003. 
3. Kierkegaard quoted in Bread and Wine (Farmington, NY: Plough, 2003), p. 60