Mark 6.1–13
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
 
It’s been a while… It is so good to see you all here this morning! I would imagine that it’s a little bit different being back in your spiritual home this morning, even if you’ve been coming to our in-person 6:00 p.m. service over the last month. I will tell you that it is certainly different for me and my colleagues not being alone (or with two or three other people) in the sanctuary preaching or singing or speaking into a camera lens, hoping that you would see it a few days later.

Homecomings can be a warm and wonderful experience, and I hope that is true for you today. And I know we have some folks who have only ever worshiped with us online, so I hope that you will find this to be a warm homecoming to your new faith community!

But some homecomings are fraught, and that seems to have been the case for Jesus when he returns home to Nazareth. In the chapters leading into today’s episode in Mark, Jesus has offered parables, stilled a storm, purged demons, healed a woman who touched the hem of his garment, and raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead. Jesus has been busy! Mark has described him as being filled with wisdom and amazing abilities as a healer…but not everybody gets it, or wants to get it; not everyone is quite ready to agree that he’s the real deal. Can’t you just hear the naysayers scoffing and saying, “Yeah…as if! This is Mary’s son who was born before her marriage to Joseph the carpenter! Trust me, he’s nothing special.” “Yeah, you know his brother James, what a loser! And his sisters are as ugly as old hens!” “I’m just not happy that he’s back here making waves, trying to change things, and disturbing the way we’ve always done things. And why didn’t he heal this arthritic knee of mine?!”
Naysayers are always part of the picture, but what interests me is that the writer of Mark’s gospel highlights them in this episode. The reason, I suspect, is to provide the reader with a negative example not to follow.

Teddy Roosevelt delivered an address at the Sorbonne in 1910 after serving as president. (You may have heard Brené Brown quote this in her book, Daring Greatly.) Here is a snippet:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” *

If we never take risks, if we never rock the boat, if we never stand up publicly for what we believe most deeply, we run the risk of turning into the critics and naysayers that surround the man in the arena and the man of Nazareth.

Courage is one of the virtues that we don’t make enough of in 21st-century American Christianity. It doesn’t take much courage to sit back and say, “Isn’t this dude the carpenter, Mary’s kid?” It does take courage to say, “I’ll follow him and change my perspectives, my priorities, and even my life.”
It takes courage to stand up to help shift the status quo, to say that Black Lives DO matter, that we will use all varieties of our privilege in order to make things better for all of us and not just for ourselves and people who look like us, think like us, eat like us, believe like us. It takes courage to speak up when a friend or colleague makes an insensitive remark about race or gender. It takes courage to say, “I’m going to look beyond my own self-interest and act for the good of the whole.”
I know it is difficult to be in the arena, and we all have been there together during the pandemic. We’ve been trying to keep our families together, our wits together, our souls together, and our church together. It’s bigger and broader than individuals, it is systemic. You and I have just finished running a marathon, and we made it. It has been a costly race. I don’t know about you, but I am feeling exhausted and need to recuperate.  

In a few weeks, you are going to hear about our new Strategic Plan, which the Leadership Council accepted at last month’s meeting. And it’s going to take courage on your part to put this aspirational document into practice: to bring the words on the page into life. This morning I will share the vision part of the 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.”

The first thing I want to emphasize is that this is a plan for three to five years in our life together. The implications of that are that we don’t have to make this happen all at once or tomorrow or even in 2022 or 2023.

Musical tempos are marked in different ways. Allegro means play at a brisk tempo, and we sometimes do that at Plymouth…in fact, I’d say that allegro is our normal tempo. But during the pandemic, we have had to increase the tempo to presto, which is quick (as in let’s pivot again and again and again.) But if music were always to be played a presto, it would be hard to listen to and even harder to play. We need to vary our pace after running this marathon. We need to catch our breath. We need to learn to play andante, which is moderate tempo, a walking pace. Because we’ve just run the marathon, if we try to run a second one nonstop, I fear we won’t finish the race. Remember, it’s a three-to-five-year race!

Friends, it is going to take courage to bring this vision to life. It is going to take courage to realize, to accept, and to encourage that things will change. It is going to take courage for us to be the person in the arena and not the crowd of critics. It’s going to take courage to learn to play andante.

History will not remember us for maintaining the status quo, for looking only inward at what we ourselves need, for being quiescent in the face of sweeping societal and political challenges. But more important than what history will remember us for, what will God remember us for? Are we going to strive valiantly with our “faces marred by dust and sweat and blood?” Are we those who are daring greatly or are we timid souls who neither know victory or defeat? Are we going to spend ourselves on the worthy cause of our faith? Are we going to be hometown prophets who are willing to be seen as those without honor, even as we are doing the work God calls us to?

Being a Christian, especially in this century much more so than the last, takes guts and faith and love and courage. “Beloved community” is a phrase coined by the American philosopher Josiah Royce and picked up by MLK in the 1950s. More than an efficient corporate structure, more than a faceless organization, more than a cold-hearted institution, Plymouth must continue to embody beloved community that puts love for God and one another first.

But here is what I know about Plymouth: We’ve got this. Time and again, I’ve seen us prevail where others failed. I’ve seen us buck the trends and do things others thought impossible. I’ve seen us use our faith and determination to turn things upside down, because we’re willing to go the extra mile.
We — this community of faith — have what it takes. Our fellow members need us. Our children need us. The coming generations need us. Our community needs us. Our denomination needs us. God needs us.

We’ve got this. Welcome home, you hometown prophets!

Amen.
 
© 2021 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

*speech at the Sorbonne, April 23, 1910

Matthew 21.1-11
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
Palm Sunday

I don’t know if it has occurred to you yet, but for Christians, Holy Week has a different depth this year. In other years, the Palm Sunday procession that we rehearse is the beginning of a week-long story that unfolds into resurrection — we know how the story ends, even as it passes through tragedy. And that ultimate message of Easter Sunday is certainly going to come, but this year, it will come as we are walking through the valley of the shadow of death. I imagine that we will have a more visceral response to the gospel stories not just of Palm Sunday, but of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and that “in-between time” — that threshold — which lies between crucifixion and resurrection. I encourage you this week to let the stories have their way with you; let them influence your thoughts and feelings, and know that you are not alone, and neither were those earliest followers of Jesus.

It has been a difficult week in our household. In addition to the big-picture pandemic news, we learned that Chumley, our 11-year-old golden retriever had untreatable cancer, and on Friday, he was euthanized in his backyard. For me, and for some of you, our pets are not “just” animals, they are members of our families. They are soul-mates, and I’ve thought of Chumley as my spirit animal, and source of unconditional love. We who have pets need to have courage to make those tough end-of-life decisions, especially when we are not able to ask your pet’s pain level or to know if they are ready to go. It was a wrenching decision for me to make with Jane Anne. 

People, though, do have the ability to make end-of-life decisions. I cannot imagine what it would take to make such a decision for a parent or spouse who had not left any advanced directive. If you do not have a living will and a durable medical power of attorney, please call your attorney this week to have that done…it may spare your family some agony. If nothing else, go to fivewishes.org and download the Five Wishes for your end-of-life care. It takes courage to address this issue and to fill out the form, but your courage will be rewarded. We have several copies in the church office, and you can leave a message for Barb Gregory, and she will mail one to you, as long as we have copies remaining.
We live in peculiar times, and I can’t believe that I’m talking with you about courageous decision-making at the end of life on Palm Sunday. On further reflection, though, it occurs to me that this is exactly what Palm Sunday is about: Jesus making the courageous decision to come to Jerusalem during a tense holiday, when the occupying Roman troops were there in force and on high alert. I suspect that Jesus, like Gandhi and King, knew that standing up for justice just might get you killed. 

I think we can get caught up in the idea that “Well, Jesus was superhuman, which is why he had the abundance of courage to face the possibility of crucifixion.” And there is some truth in that notion, but there is also an undeniably human element in this chapter of Jesus’ life. He needed to call up incredible faith in order to face death squarely in the face. And there are incredibly human moments, too, that you will hear us read about on Maundy Thursday. It is so very human to hear Jesus say, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup [this impending death] from me. Yet, not my will, but yours, be done.” [Luke 22:42]

Holy Week calls upon us — normal, everyday Christians — to summon up the courage not just that Jesus knew, but that his women followers knew as well, because, as you know, they continue to show up. And we catch a glimpse of the male disciples’ humanity in fleeing immediately after the crucifixion, but then returning remorsefully. Courage comes sooner to some of us than it does to others. In part, courage depends on the ways we are called to live into it — the occasions in our lives that demand courage.

In the last few weeks, where have you seen people called into a place of courage? Not the easy berth, but having to risk much for the benefit of the whole? You and I are living in times when we will be called upon to act with courage, in smaller or greater ways. We are living in times when we will be called to make sacrifices, in smaller or greater ways, for the good of the whole. One of the elements in you that will enable you to act with courage and to sacrifice when called upon is the same thing that enabled Jesus to do so: your trust in God, your heart-and-soul embrace of the God who is present with us in every step we take.
Howard Thurman, the great 20th century minister and mystic, wrote some wise words that I’ll share with you:
Courage is not a blustering manifestation of strength and power. Sometimes courage is only revealed in the midst of great weakness and greater fear. It is often the ultimate rallying of all the resources of personality to face a crucial and devastating demand. And this is not all. There is a quiet courage that comes from an inward spring of confidence in the meaning and significance of life. Such courage is an underground river, flowing far beneath the shifting events of one’s experience, keeping alive a thousand little springs of action.  [Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1953 and 1981), p. 52.]

So, that “inward spring of confidence” is faith. It is the faith that Jesus calls the disciples toward…the faith that Christ calls US to engage. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem and people shouted “Hosanna, Son of David!” they weren’t simply cheering him on. Hosanna means “Save us!” That gives Palm Sunday a different spin…an emphasis not so much of triumph, but of reliance on the faith in God that will not let us down: the faith that gives us courage, even in the face of death. 

As we walk through this pandemic, our wider community needs you both now and when the virus is under control. We need to stay home and help those in high-risk groups. And once we are out of the woods, we will need to have the courage to rebuild and renew together, taking the lessons we will have learned through this global experience. We’ll need the courage it takes not simply to bear a death, but also to bear a resurrection.
It takes courage to face a diagnosis we would rather not hear, to find that you’ve been laid off, to endure the demise of a relationship. It takes courage to face a pandemic. Courage can wrest us from a sense of powerlessness to a sense of carrying on, moving forward, doing what we can do. If our lives were not fraught with fear and without adversity, we could never experience courage. Time and time again, I have seen courage in the faces of this congregation. And your courage inspires me.

Yesterday, I received a Facebook message in response to Chumley’s death, and it used the lovely Italian expression of encouragement, “Coraggio!” which not only means “courage,” but also just what Jesus was conveying to his followers: “Hang in there…keep your chin up…don’t give up…keep trying.” And it’s that everyday courage the apostles needed after the Resurrection to get the Christian movement started and to spread it beyond the Jewish homeland. And it is that everyday courage Jesus is calling us to right now.

We all have favorite hymns, and “God of Grace and God of Glory” is right near the top of my list. (And not just because it is set to the stirring Welsh hymn, Cwm Rhondda.) Listen to these words:

God of grace and God of glory, 
on your people pour your power.
Crown your ancient church’s story; 
bring its bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage 
for the facing of this hour, for the facing of this hour.

From the evils that surround us
 and assail the savior’s way, 
from the fears that long have bound us — 
free our hearts for faith and praise.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage
for the living of these days, for the living of these days.

For me, those powerful words have new meaning in light of the pandemic we are living through. Others have gone before us, showing us the way to live with faith and with courage. And I know that this congregation has the faith and courage for the living of these days.

Coraggio!
Amen.

© 2020 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

Matthew 25.14–30
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning
Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado
19 November 2017
 
A man goes on a long journey, leaving behind him a cadre of folks he hoped would invest his assets wisely. Do you know what it’s like to come home from a three-month sabbatical and find this text waiting for you?!

Actually, it’s perfect! In their wisdom, the folks who created the lectionary plop this text into the season of harvest here in the northern hemisphere, which in many congregations coincides happily with stewardship season. And so when you hear someone pick this text apart, you can usually be fairly certain that they are going to “go financial on you”… that somehow the return on investment from these silver talents will be reflected in the church budget. Well, I’m not going there today. (That said, if you pledge for 2018 isn’t in yet, I know that you can lower the blood pressure of fellow members on the Budget & Finance Committee by pledging today!)

You know, I don’t think that Jesus’ hearers would typically be the kind of folk who would be in the position of financial managers who are entrusted by a master to expand his wealth. So, if it isn’t about money and a solid return on investment, what it is about? I wonder if it is something far more valuable, far more elemental than silver. I am going to hazard a guess that this parable of Jesus is about us.

I know you’ve heard a few parables this fall, and it is important to remember the function of a parable, which is to make us stop and think differently about a situation, to puzzle with it, to wrestle with it, to go deeper.

What if the wealth that is invested with us is not our money, but ourselves…our deepest selves…the very life that has been given and entrusted to us by God? Stop for just a minute and think about that: each one of us, the old and young, the foolish and wise, the rich and poor…all of us have been given one life to live out fully. As Jesus says, “I came that you may have life, and have it in abundance.”[John 10:10] That’s the greatest gift for each of us: abundant living. Whether our lives are long or short they can be lived in abundance in each moment.

So if you use that framework, think for a moment about the master going on a long journey and entrusting you with your life. Our cultural framework is based on radical individualism and the notion that “it’s my life to live however I want.” And I might quibble with the theology behind that. What if we saw our lives as a gift from God entrusted to us, not simply for our own satisfaction and enjoyment, but also an investment in God’s kingdom? We only get one life, so we need to make it count.

Each of us has gifts within us; some of them are obvious and some of them are quite well hidden. And sometimes we aren’t even aware of them, because we have quashed our talents and not given ourselves permission to live our lives in full abundance.

I was reading a book last week by Elizabeth Gilbert, about unleashing creativity, called The Big Magic, and it had all kinds of resonances with this parable: “Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?” she asks. “Look, I don’t know what’s hidden within you. I have no way of knowing such a thing. You yourself may barely know, although I suspect you’ve caught glimpses. I don’t know your capacities, your aspirations, your longings, your secret talents. But surely something wonderful is sheltered inside you. I say this with all confidence, because I happen to believe we are all walking repositories of buried treasure. I believe this is one of the oldest and most generous tricks the universe [aka God] plays on us human beings, both for its own amusement and for ours; The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.”1

I’m going to invite you to pull out your bulletin or a piece of paper and jot down some of your own thoughts about your deepest longings and your gifts. What are some of those jewels that are still buried deep within you? What are some of the yet-unlived dreams, the yet-undeveloped talents, the yet-unwritten stories that are waiting within you to be mined? Make a note or two for yourself. Bring that into your prayers this week and see how you might go on a treasure hunt that will yield jewels not just for you, but for God and God’s realm.

Irenaeus of Lyon, a second-century bishop wrote that “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.” Have you experienced being with someone who is fully alive? Who has grasped living life with abundance? Who is uncovering and mining the jewels, the gifts, within themselves and sharing that giftedness with the world? We talk about people as being charismatic, and that literally means those who possess a gift. But it’s more than having a nice smile and an engaging personality: it’s being authentically who God created us to be and using our God-given talents.

So, if we all have gifts, why aren’t we using them? What are the obstacles that are getting in the way of us becoming “human beings fully alive?”

Let’s go back to the parable for a moment. Two of the three slaves understand that their master wanted them to unpack their gifts and increase what he had entrusted two them. They don’t spend any time making excuses…they just report how they doubled what had been entrusted to them. The third slave, who buried his treasure and kept it hidden, said, “Master, I knew you were a harsh man” as he tries to explain why he had not increased what he had been given. What kept the last slave from expanding what was entrusted to him was fear.

How many lives could be infinitely more rich if we could help one another move beyond our fear? I’m not talking about sensible fear of things like rattlesnakes and bungie jumping. I’m talking about the chorus of little negative voices within us that beat the constant refrain: “You’re not good enough.” “You’re not old enough.” “You’re not young enough.” “You’re not smart enough.” “You’re not faithful enough.” “You’re not beautiful enough.” “You don’t have time.”

All of us have at times sense those negative voices and the kind of fear that paralyzes us from becoming fully alive and uncovering the talents that lay buried deep within us. And it’s time to acknowledge that we have those fears and say “enough” and put them on the sidelines.

What we need to overcome those fear-laden voices is courage. You may never have thought about yourself as courageous or brave…because you experience fear. But without fear, there is no opportunity to live into courage. Courage is all about doing something scary, stepping out into the risk-zone.

I know that churches in general hate taking risks. But if you look at what we have done at Plymouth, you’ll see the high points of our history all involve risk-taking: starting an immigrant church, moving from Old Town to Prospect Road, calling LGBT clergy in the 1990s, voting to become Open and Affirming, expanding and improving our building, standing up for undocumented immigrants.

Courage is about acknowledging the fear and then moving forward with faith. Sometimes we forget that we are not doing this alone and that God has our back.

I also want to challenge you all to look within yourselves and see if some of your giftedness is in helping this particular outpost of the kingdom of God reach its mission by saying yes to serving as a lay leader, as a member of one of our boards or the leadership council. It takes courage to lead, and we want to help develop new leaders within this congregation, so if you have an inkling and want to talk more, I’m available!

When I was in St. Gallen, Switzerland, in September, I stayed in an AirBnb with four young guys, and they invited me to have dinner with their friends, and they asked what our congregation was like, and when I told them about being ONA, doing work around immigration reform, and homelessness prevention, they said, “Oh, our government does all that for us.” Well, our government isn’t doing that, so we need to step up with courage.

Incredibly gifted people comprise Plymouth…together, we have the capacity to expand the talents that have been entrusted to us. We need each one of our members to look within themselves prayerfully and ask what talents they have to contribute to God’s realm. We need to step up with courage, with conviction, and with faith to do become the fully-alive congregation that God intends us to be.

I close today with the words of Marianne Williamson, which you may have heard Nelson Mandela offer at his inauguration:
​
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”2

May it be so. Amen.

1 Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. (NY: Riverhead, 2016), p. 8.
2 Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love. (SF: HarperOne, 1996).
 
© 2017 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.