Acts of the Apostles 8.26-40
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado April 29, 2018 Sometimes I wonder how certain stories made it into the Bible. This particular episode in the Acts of the Apostles, for instance, involves including someone who to the religious authorities of the day would have been an outsider and an outcast, not so much because of his African heritage, but because he was a eunuch, and therefore would be exempted from the Temple and from making sacrificial offerings. It was not simply his inability to reproduce or that he was androgen-deprived…he was considered to be ritually unclean. Why would the author of Luke’s gospel and its companion volume, the Acts of the Apostles, have chosen to include this story? The function it serves is to show that people who previously had been excluded from the circle of those whom God favored are now included…the circle has expanded beyond just the people of Israel to include gentiles and not just some of them, but all of them...no one gets left out. No one is outcast. No one is less-than. No one is second-rate. No one is exempt from God’s love…not even you. I’d like you to turn to a neighbor and tell them something. I know this will make a few of you uncomfortable…but give it a try anyway. Look them in the eye and say, “God loves you, and there is nothing you can do about it.” That isn’t original…it’s something Jane Anne’s dad used to do in congregations he served. And it is true. The function of this sermon in our time, especially among progressive Christians, is to illustrate that no one has the prerogative to exclude people from full life in the church because of their sexual orientation or their gender or gender identity. We in the UCC have been on the vanguard of the movement to extend a welcome to LGBT people for many years…from the ordination of Bill Johnson in 1972 to our national Open and Affirming declaration in 1985 to Plymouth’s adoption of its own Open and Affirming resolution in 2001. One of the most memorable moments for me as a young adult (having been away from the UCC for a dozen years) was walking into the narthex of First Congregational UCC in Boulder and seeing their Open and Affirming Declaration and thinking “Everyone is welcome here…I am welcome here.” In the fullness of who I am, they accept me, and God accepts me. Being Open and Affirming was new for the UCC back then. Think for a moment: is there a part of who you are that you think God finds unacceptable? Wrong? Not quite worthy? It doesn’t have to relate to your sexuality or your gender. God loves you, and there is nothing you can do about it. Another memorable moment for me was speaking in favor of a same-sex marriage resolution on the floor of the UCC General Synod on July 4th, 2005. To stand up for all of my sisters and brothers who wanted to enjoy the blessing of marriage, regardless of the gender of their beloved, was profoundly meaningful. And it was costly. The Puerto Rico Conference of the UCC voted themselves out of the denomination in response. (I’ll post that online with this sermon if you’d like to see it.) I want to take a moment to say thank you to the people who were here in 2001, who helped Plymouth to walk through the yearlong process of discernment and to those of you who may have helped another congregation to realize its mission of becoming Open and Affirming. And to those of you who wrote letters to the editor and to representative in the legislature and Congress asking our government to affirm marriage equality for all couples…thank you. You were the people like Philip who saw that God’s love and blessing extends to all people, not to a select few, and you used your prayers, your political influence to make sure that happened. Thank you! And the work is not done. The United Methodist Book of Discipline reads: “The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church.” and “Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.” I have a feeling that our Methodist sisters and brothers will get there…they just have more folks who need to hear about the Ethiopian eunuch and the gospel of inclusion! What you may not realize is that our leadership in the UCC has helped to influence others and to heal the spiritual lives of LGBT Christians not just in our denomination but in others as well. Back in 1985 when the UCC General Synod passed our Open and Affirming resolution, we were alone among mainline denominations. Thirty-four years later, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church USA resolved in 2009 that ordination to the priesthood should be open to all. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has been open to ordaining LGBT folks since 2010. The Presbyterian Church USA only in 2011 allowed its presbyteries to decide whether or not to ordain openly LGBT clergy. We still have work to do…becoming truly Open and Affirming is more than a vote in 2001 and a moniker that we claim…it is something we need to live into every day. There may be some of us who don’t fully understand what it means to be transgender or gender-fluid. I remember a year ago when a CSU student introduced herself to me on a Sunday morning and told me that her pronouns are “they, them, and theirs.” And being the grammar nerd I am, I thought to myself “Well, plural pronouns simply don’t reflect singular individuals. How will that ever work?” The pronouns aren’t the issue, it’s how one understands oneself…as female, male, some of each, or neither. And at Plymouth we affirm that is totally okay! We have trans folks who have grown up at Plymouth as boys who now live as women. We have folks who embrace neither binary male-female gender, and we affirm that. God’s love doesn’t draw circles to delineate the loved from the unlovable…only we humans do that, and we do so to our own detriment. The story of the Ethiopian eunuch is probably closer to including people of various gender identities than any other group. A eunuch may have appeared outwardly male but may not have considered himself as such. We do know that he and others considered him different, worthy of being categorized by his otherness. In a child’s game, the children link arms tightly and as they move around together in a circle, they chant to the one child who is outside their group: “You’re out! You’re out! You can’t come in!” And they try not to let the one person break into the circle. That is not how the kingdom of God works. We draw the circle ever-larger, acknowledging that each of us bears the imprint of God on our souls. And if we have a chant, perhaps it should reflect God’s love: “You’re in! You’re in! God won’t let you out.” I’m going to guess that there are days when you have trouble finding hope that things are getting better…that God’s realm is breaking in…that we can make a difference. And I’m here this morning to say thank you, because you are making a difference. You are changing lives. You are providing hope. You are bringing in a piece of the kingdom of God! Amen. © 2018 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses. AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal.
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Luke 24.13–35
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC, Fort Collins, Colorado 22 April 2018 For as long as I can remember, this has been my favorite post-resurrection story. It presents the unfolding of faith as a journey of seeing the holy in our midst, which is the way it happens for most of us. I love the way Jesus walks alongside the two people without disclosing his true identity…just biding his time, interpreting scripture, continuing along the road to the village where the two people were heading. And then Jesus keeps on walking, but the two travelers call him back and ask him to stay with them since the day was reaching its end. This is a key moment when the story turns: a moment of profound hospitality. What if the two travelers had not insisted that Jesus join them for the night? They might never have realized who he was or that he had been raised from death. In this country, we don’t have the same depth of understanding when it comes to hospitality that other cultures do, including the middle eastern culture in which Jesus lived. It wasn’t just a matter of being friendly or kind, but rather hospitality could have been a matter of survival. We just don’t get it – that kind of hospitality. Years ago when I was in South Korea as part of a UCC delegation, people went out of their way to ensure that we were comfortable and well-fed, offering me their beds, inviting me to a literal feast in a traditional home, and tuning in to where I was as a guest. For most Americans, hospitality is an afterthought. Imagine yourself as a guest coming to Plymouth during our evening service. The sky is darkening, you pull into the parking lot and see lights on in the building…you go in and no one is there to greet you at the door, so you find your way inside and scope out the sanctuary. How could we do a better job as hosts? One way would be to have people greeting at the doors as we do each Sunday morning. Now imagine yourself as a first-time visitor at Plymouth at one of our two morning services. Someone greeted you on the way in, and you enjoyed worship, but navigating the coffee hour can be intimidating, so you head over to the desk that says, “Welcome and Information,” but there isn’t anyone there. And you hope someone has noticed your blue coffee mug, but folks seem too busy talking with people they already know. My friends, I know we mean to offer better hospitality, and we can. I would be grateful if one of you would step up and do these fairly simple ministries, and if you are interested, please be in touch with Jake and the Congregational Life Board. I believe that we genuinely mean to offer an extravagant welcome to people when they visit at Plymouth, and even though we will deliver a nice loaf of Great Harvest bread to your home if you visit and leave your address in the red friendship pad, we still have a lot to learn about how to make our guests feel truly welcome. Our welcome, no matter how we warm we intend it to be, seems less than extravagant, especially when compared to the hospitality Cleopas and his fellow traveller show Jesus. “They urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is nearly over.’” How can we emulate that kind of open welcome as Christ’s family? It strikes me as odd that Jesus, the guest at the table, takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them. Clearly, he switched roles and has become the host at the table. And his actions are recounted by Jake, Jane Anne, and me every time we celebrate communion: we take bread, bless it, break it, and give it. And it is in that moment of profound hospitality, in the breaking of the bread, that their eyes are opened and Jesus is made known to them. They have share a long, dusty journey together, and sharing the meal is the catalyst that enables them to experience the risen Christ. Besides hospitality, eating is an important social phenomenon as well. In strictly hierarchical societies, people of different social classes don’t mix. You see it on Downton Abbey when those who eat upstairs would never eat with those downstairs. But think about where Jesus would be eating: Jesus, who defied the norms of purity by eating with sinners and tax collectors. This table — Christ’s table — is a representation of how the kingdom of God is meant to be for us: a table where there is no distinction because of class, gender, race, orientation, wealth, education, or ethnicity. It is a representation of God’s anti-imperial realm, where all of God’s children are welcome and no one is turned away. The Emmaus story, the event at which Christ is made known to those who offer hospitality to a stranger, is a seminal event. We encounter the risen Christ in enacting profound hospitality. We encounter the risen Christ in the breaking of bread. We encounter the risen Christ in overturning the broken norms and assumptions of our consumer-driven, economics-obsessed culture. Many of you will remember one of our visiting scholars, John Dominic Crossan, and many of you have read his work, including his latest called Resurrecting Easter, which Mark Lee is leading as one of our current adult ed. offerings. Many years ago, I was reading his provocative book Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, and there was a wonderfully pithy sentence about this morning’s scripture in it that I have long remembered: “Emmaus never happened; Emmaus always happens.” In other words, this story may never have occurred in the way that Luke describes. And for some of us, that invalidates the larger truth of the story, which is tragic. Does there have to be a village called Emmaus for the story to be true? Do there need to be two disciples, one named Cleopas, for the story to be true? Does Jesus need to walk with them, explain scripture to them, and eat with them for the story to be true. No. What makes the story true is that we ourselves can experience it. We encounter the risen Christ when we act compassionately, when we extend an extravagant welcome, when we break down barriers between people, when we remember the presence of Christ living within us and among us when we come to Christ’s table for communion. How can you and I make Emmaus happen here at Plymouth in our worship, in our fellowship, and in our welcome? “Emmaus never happened; Emmaus always happens.” I hope that for each of us, we have those moments when we have an encounter with the risen Christ, who continues to be with us. He is with us in the struggle for justice and peace, with us as we wrestle with scripture, with us in moments of deep hospitality, with us in the breaking of the bread. “Emmaus never happened; Emmaus always happens.” Amen. © 2018 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint. AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal. April 15, 2018 Psalm 24: 1-7 and Job 12:7-10 The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson Psalm 24 1 The earth is the LORD's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; 2 for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers. 3 Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? 4 Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully. 5 They will receive blessing from the LORD, and vindication from the God of their salvation. 6 Such is the company of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. 7 Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in. ... 10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Job 12 7 "But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; 8 ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. 9 Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? 10 In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being. Let’s begin today with a reminder of the place we live in. Will you pray with me? Holy and Creating God, we are grateful to be gathered here in the Big Thompson/Cache le Poudre watershed, which we share with a diversity of plants and creatures. We celebrate our neighbors here on the foothills and the prairies – Barn Owls and Northern Pygmy Owls, Prairie Falcons and Red-tailed Hawks, Red-winged Blackbirds, American Goldfinches, Great Blue Herons and Canada Geese, Single leaf Ash, Western Catalpa and CO Blue Spruce trees, butterflies to numerous to name, crickets, praying mantis, bees, black-footed ferrets, coyotes, fox, prairie dogs, greenback cutthroat trout, bears, soapwort, bittersweet, Indian Rice grass, _______ (name a few species). We acknowledge that this land is the traditional territory of the Ute, Arapahoe and Cheyenne peoples with visitations from the Comanche and Apache. We celebrate our Plymouth ancestors in this valley, the industrious Russian German immigrants. May we nurture our relationship with all our ancestors, all our neighbors, and our shared responsibilities to this watershed where we gather today." Amen. I want to acknowledge that I am well aware on this Environmental Sabbath day that here at Plymouth I am preaching to the environmental choir. Our congregation is chock-full of environmental scientists and activists. I do not have to convince the majority – maybe any – of you that climate change is real, that we are one with our environment, part of a great web of life, that we have major, perhaps dire, environmental challenges facing us. So this is not a sermon about convincing or consciousness raising. I hope this will be a sermon of inspiration and support for the journey of activism and healing of creation that we are all on together. “The earth is the LORD's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it,” sings the psalmist. “In God’s hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being,” Job explains to his doubting friends. The question before us today is how will we live taking these faith affirmations of the psalmist and of Job to heart? Yes, we will recycle, reduce, reuse, etc....but how will we live in the deepest places of our hearts and souls? How can our faith sustain us in the struggle? The faith confession and affirmation of our scriptures is that everything belongs to God, was created by God, is animated and sustained by the Holy Spirit of God. Perhaps, as people of faith and science, you get stymied by the image of an anthropomorphic Creator God, an image that can be easily reduced to a puppet master of the world. This is not the image of God I claim. Acknowledging the amazing laws of physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, and geology, etc., that keep the universe in motion my image is that God is the Mystery behind all the laws, rather than an old white guy with a beard in the sky orchestrating everything. Yet this Mystery is not aloof from creation. Mystery does not stand back and merely observe. It is intimately in relationship with the workings of the universe, infusing atoms and neutrons, cells and mitochondria. It is in dark matter, as well as stars, in hurricanes as well as life-giving showers. In the tiniest insects and the largest mammals and all shapes, sizes and species in between. In the smallest of newly planted seeds and the oldest of trees. The Mystery of God is in every human being. The created universe and all its beings are not God...but all are infused with God. John of Damascus , a 7th and 8th century Eastern Christian theologian and patron saint of icons, wrote, “The whole earth is a living icon of the face of God." Now a religious icon from the Eastern Orthodox tradition is not a painting, it is a prayer writing. Its intent is to be an meditative opening, a window, onto the face of God through the face of a beloved saint, the Virgin Mary and Holy Child, or Jesus the Christ. Think of this for a moment. Because creation is infused with God’s Spirit .....“The whole earth is a living icon of, [a window onto,] the face of God.” “The earth is the LORD's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.” “In God’s hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.” The confessions of faith made by Job and the psalmist in our texts today can guide and inspire us spiritually as well as in our religious, environmental, and political practices. Confessing that all belongs to God leads us into God’s righteousness, God’s ways of living, and into blessings for all creation, including ourselves. Trusting that all of the universe is animated and infused with the Mystery of God we can affirm that we are One in creation with God. Being one with God we come into God’s presence as the psalmists invites with the blessings of clean hands, hearts and souls, living in the ways of truth. I believe this includes coming into God’s forgiveness as well. Forgiveness for ways we have to lived in that are not accordance with God’s love and justice. Blessed by God as clean, pure and forgiven we work for the goodness, the purity of God’s creation. It is a circle of oneness...as we seek God and God’s ways we are empowered by the same energy of the animating Mystery that empowers the laws of the universe to find God and to work for God’s creation. We cannot do it all on our own, We can only work for God’s creation in co-creation with the power of God. This is righteousness and blessing. This is living in faith in its largest context. These are affirmations of spirituality and guiding practical principles. Confessing our faith with the psalmist and Job informs how we live in the Body Politic, within our cities, counties, states, nations. It challenges how we live operationally in the world. Revered Hebrew scripture scholar, James May, wrote, “To whom do we think practically and operationally the world belongs? To a roster of nations? To the state? To corporations? To whoever has money to get title to pieces of it?”[1] No! Ultimately and existentially it does not belong to corporations, to individual nations, to individuals. It is not for the exclusive use of whichever generation of human beings happens to be in power. The world and all that is in it belongs to God, the Creator and the Mystery, behind and within everything. This is the affirmation of faith that sustains our stewardship of creation and activism for environmental justice. Ask the animals of the earth, the birds of the air, the growing plants of the fields, the fish in the lakes and streams ,rivers and oceans – they will tell you. Ask the red-tailed hawks and great blue heron, the cutthroat trout, the sage brush, the blue spruce, the white-tailed deer and raccoons and coyotes that share even our urban areas with us. “In God’s hand is the life of every living thing!” And is not everything living in some manner of speaking as it is infused with the Mystery – even Horsetooth, its reservoir and its rock formations in our foothills, even the prairie soil where we grow food, even infinitesimal quarks that energize all matter and the deep energy of black holes. “In God’s hand is ... the breath of every human being.” How will we live? In fear of all that is happening around us? Or in faith that the empowering Mystery of God behind and within creation will lead us to healing action for the world and all that is within it? Lift up your heads, O gates Lift up your doors, O ancient Ones That the Compassionate One may come in! Who is this Compassionate One? The Beloved, Heart of your heart, Life of your life, This is the Compassionate One.[2] Amen. [1] Mays, James L., Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching Psalms, (John Knox Press, Lousiville, KY, 1994, 120.) [2] Merrill, Nan, Psalms for Praying, (Continuum Publishing, New York, NY, 1996, 41). AuthorThe Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, Associate, Minister, is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. She is also the writer of sermon-stories.com, a lectionary-based story-commentary series. Learn more about Jane Ann here. The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph April 8, 2018 (Lectionary) Will you pray with me? May our meditation on the idea of sacred community together, the words of my mouth, the silences we share, the music we sing, and our time together today help us all to live in unity and compassion with all your people. Amen. How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore. -Psalm 133 A meditation is different from a sermon in much the same way that today’s Psalm is different from other lectionary readings of Scripture: it is shorter and more focused...purposeful. Rather than being a long, showy narrative, a meditation has the simple goal of helping us unfold a specific image, word, or idea for our spiritual wellbeing and nourishment. Today, I want us to meditate on this one sentence and to allow it to empower our living: “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!” I want to tell you the story of one place on earth that has striven to turn Psalm 133 from a poem into reality: a place of living Biblical poetry. In the wake of one of the darkest periods of human history, The Second World War, a monk named Brother Rodger returned to a small village in France to begin a grand experiment in grace. It was the same village where he had with his sister, during the war itself, helped rescue refugee Jews and others from the grips of the Nazis and the Vichy Regime. After being found out to be part of the resistance, he was forced to flee, but after the war he was called back to that small hilltop rural setting to start something new: The Taizé Community. It is a place that I call a grand experiment in living grace. Brother Roger was raised in the Protestant tradition in Switzerland, but he had discovered his true faith in ecumenism—a word that is the living out of the idea that it is good and pleasant when kindred live together in unity. He is reported to have said when visiting with the pope that, “I have found my own identity as a Christian by reconciling within myself the faith of my origins with the mystery of the Catholic faith, without breaking fellowship with anyone.” Brother Rogers’s vision started small in nothing more than a rural French farmhouse in an extremely isolated corner of the country. Believe me, the only thing within an easy distance is a small farm that sells cheese and bread to pilgrims. This small vision for a place of meditation, of welcome, of poverty, hard work, and radical grace started on the smallest of scales, but then it grew into something that has changed the face and sound of Christianity the world over. On Easter Sunday of 1949, Rodger and 9 others committed themselves to lives of mercy, hard work, and simplicity. Now over 100,000 pilgrims (mostly young adults under the age of 30) make their way to this small village in Southern France every single year. They sing simple, joyful, corporate, deep, amazing a cappella songs, work hard, and engage in meaningful Bible study and conversation with each other and the monks in what seems like 100’s of languages and traditions. I was one of those pilgrims once. I took my spring break from university on the other side of France to journey on an all-day train and bus ride from Nantes through Paris and down… way down to Macon-Village and Taizé. I arrived in the middle of a March rainstorm during evening prayers. I remember standing outside the giant pilgrimage-church and hearing the chants flow through the open doorway… the flickering of candles lighting the way inside. Once inside, I was immediately surrounded by a sense of peace and welcome. “This place is your place. This is a place where all kindred live together (eve if only a week at a time) in unity!” Oh, friends, how good and pleasant it is! It is like God, through the tradition of the lectionary, knew exactly what we needed on this Second Sunday in Easter in the year 2018. Even as it is now Easter, I have to admit with the news around the world and in our own community (on campus); it still feels very much like Lent—a time in need of prayer and reflection. We need this reminder both in scripture and in collective song that a better world where people live in harmony is in fact possible and promised. We too are called to begin small experiments of radical grace and mercy in our own time that sometimes looks very dark and cruel indeed. This vision of a world where all live together in unity should inspire us, yet our pessimism has gone from being occasional and short lived to chronic and epidemic. Today, as we continue on our Eastertide Journey of hope and resurrection with Christ, let the story of Taizé, its music, and its legacy give you hope. May the vision of a place where all God’s people gather in peace give us pause to look at how we are seeking to create those spaces in our lives and in this congregation. We need this reminder both in scripture and in collective songs together that a better world where people live in harmony is in fact possible. That is if we believe in the promises of God. I know it because I have seen it, and I don’t mean in a dream or as a metaphor but in a real place. I have seen this vision enacted on a hilltop surrounded by cows… and this time I am not (for once) talking about Iowa. Picture yourself deep in the countryside in the smallest of all imaginable towns perched on small hill: farms, barns, cows, lots of cows, sheep, goats, and all of the smells associated with them. Picture yourself on a hill in the French countryside. Picture an old church. Picture now a tall gate with a bell tower perched at its peak. This is where God’s dream is possible. Now picture yourself in your own home, how can you start small to create your own communities of peace and hope? What are you doing at Plymouth or in your own life that welcomes diverse people into your space? You don’t have to be a French monk to live a life of Taizé. You simply have to be ready to experiment with mercy and take risks with grace. This is also where God’s dream is possible. How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! Amen. AuthorThe Rev. Jake Miles Joseph ("just Jake"), Associate Minister, came to Plymouth in 2014 having served in the national setting of the UCC on the board of Justice & Witness Ministries, the Coalition for LGBT Concerns, and the Chairperson of the Council for Youth and Young Adult Ministries (CYYAM). Jake has a passion for ecumenical work and has worked in a wide variety of churches and traditions. Read more about him on our staff page. Luke 24: 44-53 May 28, 2017 The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph Plymouth Cong. UCC of Fort Collins, CO Will you pray with me? God as we, your people and your witnesses, struggle in these days and these VERY scary times to remember with joy and to look forward with hope, I pray that my sermon today will be good and pleasing to you, O God, our Rock and our redeemer. Saints and how we remember them in our UCC tradition are not as formalized as in some other Christian traditions, but there are some who have left a lasting imprint on our lives whom we might describe as saints of the progressive church. On this Eve of Memorial Day, I would like to begin this morning by memorializing someone you might not of heard of before—at least not by name. Let me tell the story, oft forgotten from the pages of history books, about one very brave woman. Born to a family of austere Calvinists, converted to our cousins in the Unitarian Church, she lived her 19th Century life in New England surrounded by the most progressive, creative, and foreword thinking people (Congregationalists and Unitarians) of the 19th Century. The person I would like to memorialize today was a prolific Unitarian preacher, a champion of social justice and civil rights, the leader of the first convention of Unitarian Clergywomen in history starting in 1875, the president, and one of the founders of the Massachusetts Women’s Suffrage Organization. She was the first woman to become a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, one of the founds of Mothers’ Day as an anti-war struggle1, the longtime editor of the national Women’s Journal, a devout abolitionist who saw slavery as a corporate national sin, believer in the potential of humanity to do better, a hero of the suffrage movement for women, an anti-war champion, and a global pacifist who defined (in all ways) being progressive for her time. She sounds like someone we would all want to know and emulate at Plymouth doesn’t she? Her name was Julia Ward Howe2, and today we know her mostly for a modest poem she wrote by candlelight in the middle of a dreary night during the saddest time in our national memory. You see…Julia had spent a day walking through the mud of the camps of Union Soldiers on the banks of the Potomac River. She was witnessing the wretched conditions, witnessing, bearing witness to the stories and the conversations of hope for a freer more ethical country. She saw the countless fires burning at twilight, and she heard a song about John Brown the Union soldiers sang to keep their hopes up and to remember the cause of freedom and union for which they risked it all. From her pen that night, after her tour, she took the tune the soldiers has created as a marching anthem and put new words to it… “My eyes have seen the Glory of the coming of the Lord…who is tramping out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored, and has loosed the fateful lighting of a terrible swift sword, God’s truth is marching on…. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, with a glory in whose bosom that transfigures you and me; as Christ died to make us holy, let us die to make all free… while God is marching on…Glory Glory Hallelujah. Glory Glory Hallelujah. Glory Glory Hallelujah. God’s Truth is marching on.”3 And we thought all this time that the Battle Hymn of the Republic was a hymn written for and by conservatives meant to convey some dreaded manifest destiny or sense of domineering military might! This is the meaning that we have been told to take from this hymn. When I told my friend and colleague, The Rev. Dr. Mark Lee that I would be preaching a Memorial Day sermon using this hymn, he said, “Yeah, I always remember this hymn as sung by Anita Bryant [at anti-LGBT rallies in Florida] and at Republican National Conventions. It always makes me uncomfortable…” While this is how we feel about this hymn today, in fact, it was written by a radical abolitionist, suffragette, the pacifist founder of Mother’s Day as a song of hope for what she believed the cause and point of our national identity could be: freedom, liberation, equality, and progress for all people. She bore witness to that vision with her own life story. That is why Julia cries out with the voice of the soldiers, and the suffragettes, and the abolitionists, and the witnesses for a better tomorrow where all are free: Glory, Glory Hallelujah! Amen! Hymns often have a life of their own, like any text in a religious context, but the historians are united in their view that this hymn is an anthem of liberation that claims God’s realm and purpose is for justice and freedom. The funny thing is that while, the religious left (us) misunderstand this anthem because we associate it with the military or with oppression, the religious right has started to uncover its true meaning and Unitarian/ Progressive New England origin! Oh my! One particularly ambitious Evangelical blogger has made it his mission to rid every “true Bible Believing” household and church of this supposedly “godless” hymn. He writes in his blog, “The Truth About the Battle Hymn of the Republic,” that, “The hundred circling camps were the Union Army camps that Mrs. Howe toured at President Lincoln's invitation. She actually imagined the watch-fires of the camps to be altars built to God! ‘By the dim and flaring lamps’ in the camps, she was able to read God's ‘righteous sentence’ on the South…. What a travesty that the words of this woman have found such loving acceptance in Bible-believing churches! What a travesty that they stir emotions of patriotic fervor to unparalleled heights of ecstasy in the congregations that sing this ‘hymn’! It should never be sung by any Christian in any church anywhere, North or South.”4 Oh, the irony! So, UCC friends, if the religious right has decided they are done with this hymn, and it SURE sounds like they are, maybe it is time for us to reclaim it again as the anthem for social justice and freedom it was intended to be. In a time when vision is lost and we seem to have lost a sense of what it means to be Progressively Patriotic rather than just pessimistically progressive (complaining and talking about how much better everything was in 1968), maybe the idea of hope and vision for liberation that Ward Howe expresses can inspire something in us again? I guess this I am asking: “What do we see of Christ working in and through our world that makes us want to…no… need to shout GLORY, GLORY, HALLELUJAH!? If Julia could find the words to proclaim that hope in the middle of the carnage of the civil war, a far darker and scarier time than today, then certainly we can find a way to proclaim hope in 2017? Progressives are supposed to be the ones with a vision and a hope a PURPOSE for now so that a future can be imagined—one in which God’s truth of freedom and peace is marching onward. That is our role. Where did those cool progressive people go? Have you seen them? We need to find them. Julia Ward Howe was a prophetic witness for her time seeing the truth underling the rhetoric and confusion of war. She cries out to us through the years…. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the realm of God! It isn’t about country—it is about greater meaning and purpose. Glory Glory Hallelujah! In today’s scripture lesson, The Ascension According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus’ last words to his disciples aren’t “The Great Commission” as in Matthew or the Disciples running away in fear as in Mark (multiple endings), but Luke has a much simpler and more joyful departure for Jesus. As he leaves earth, according to the story, Luke doesn’t have Jesus give a long speech, offer profound instructions or another parable, no. Jesus simply says, “You are my witnesses…And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” You are my witnesses. He doesn’t say, “You are my Christians,” or, “You are my namesake.” We are witnesses to grace and Gospel. We are the witnesses to suburb, obstinate, determined hope that the arc of the universe bends towards justice and freedom. The eyes of our hearts have seen this Glory! We are called to be the visionaries for Christ. That is the title Jesus gives us: The United Church of Witness. It is our eyes that HAVE already seen the glory of the coming of the Lord! Our eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord when on July 4, 1776 a group of eclectic delegates signed a simple document of independence with the idea that all people should be free to self-government, human rights, and democracy. Glory, Glory, Halleluiah! [Congregation prompted by preacher to reply with Glory, Glory, Halleluiah!] Our eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord when on January 1, 1863 Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery and setting us on a long road towards justice and freedom that we are still traveling today. Glory, Glory, Halleluiah! Our eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord when on August 18, 1920, fewer than 100 years ago, the 19th Amendment was ratified and women gained universal suffrage and the right to vote! Glory, Glory, Halleluiah! Our eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord when on October 24, 1945 when the United Nations was founded under Eleanor Roosevelt’s leadership and the world began to nobly attempt resolving conflicts and humanitarian issues without constant wars. Glory, Glory, Halleluiah! Our eyes have seen the glory with the 1954 Brown Vs. Board of Education decision that ended school segregation. Glory, Glory Halleluiah! Our eyes have seen the glory with the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Voting Rights Act of 1965! Glory, Glory, Halleluiah! Our eyes have seen the glory with the fall of the Berlin wall. Glory, Glory, Halleluiah! Our eyes have seen the glory with the 1996 Good Friday Peace Accords in Northern Ireland; ending generations of conflict on the streets on Belfast. Glory, Glory, Halleluiah! Our eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord when in January of 2017 the Women’s March took place (the largest civil rights march in history to date). Glory, Glory, Halleluiah! Our eyes saw the glory of the coming of the Lord with the outcome of the court’s decision in 2013 with United States vs. Windsor when marriage was expanded to allow people like me to be married with recognition and respect so people like ME could get married. Glory, Glory, Halleluiah! With all of the above mentioned movements for freedom and equality and justice, guess which denomination and tradition was integrally connected and witness and present and progressive and there? Guess who was there for all of these? The United Church of Witness. We remained optimistic, through the many setbacks equal or more in number than the progress weighed heavily on our faith and our strength, Christians who remained progressively patriotic and progressively witnesses for the hope they knew was there, and they endured. Today, we reclaim the progressive meaning and legacy of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” for we too have a vision for “glory, glory, and halleluiah” in our time: Hope… growth… justice… and equality that our land, our home, our country as American Christians is yet capable of achieving. This is the best way to honor our ancestors we remember tomorrow who sacrificed in wars with a sense of purpose. We will not give-up our legacy to the pessimistic progressivism that pervades and temps us away from that hope. We cannot allow one person, one corrupt Cesar, to change our mission of hope and to take away our national pride or identity. May we find a way to reclaim not only this song, for it is simply an example (a trope or totem) of the many ways we have lost hope or had something potentially strengthening taken away, but also a sense of progressive patriotism rather than surrendering our national identity to those who would carry us away from God’s Realm of justice and inclusion. May we indeed live-up to our pledge and truly learn to be a place with liberty and justice for all—and that, my friends, takes witnesses like you, like us, and like those we will form to take our place in this great caravan of history. Glory, Glory, Halleluijah! Years later, at Julia Ward Howe’s funeral in Cambridge, Massachusetts, over 4,000 of the country’s most progressive, visionary, and hopeful people gathered together—and with determination and trembling voices, tears running down their stern New England faces, they sang in unison the words they knew so well—Glory, Glory, Halleluiah, Glory, Glory, Halleluiah… Glory, Glory, Halleluiah… God’s Truth is marching on. Amen. 1 http://www.uuworld.org/articles/mothers-day-peace-as-julia-ward-howe-intended 2 http://uudb.org/articles/juliawardhowe.html 3 This version comes from the UCC’s New Century Hymnal, which has made some inclusive adjustments. 4 http://rediscoveringthebible.com/BattleHymn.html AuthorThe Rev. Jake Miles Joseph ("just Jake"), Associate Minister, came to Plymouth in 2014 having served in the national setting of the UCC on the board of Justice & Witness Ministries, the Coalition for LGBT Concerns, and the Chairperson of the Council for Youth and Young Adult Ministries (CYYAM). Jake has a passion for ecumenical work and has worked in a wide variety of churches and traditions. Read more about him on our staff page.
Rev. Dr. Mark Lee
Easter 6A Acts 17:22-34 May 21, 2017 Plymouth UCC, Fort Collins CO One of the biggest challenges of being a progressive Christian is figuring out how to talk about God. We are keenly aware of the shortcomings of traditional dogmas -– dogmas that often make God into little more than a cosmic policeman, an angry parent, Santa Claus, or an abstract force. We are rightly atheistic about those ideas of God, for they are unworthy of devotion. We know that human language falls short when talking about the Ultimate, God who is beyond being boxed in by words. We resonate with the idea that God cannot be known, but can only be loved. So often our theology becomes “To Whom It May Concern,” hoping that making the “sign of the question mark” <sign> is sufficient piety. But one of the ongoing themes of scripture is that God takes initiative in revealing Godself to humanity. Moving through the Bible, you see a variety of understandings of God, some clear and some fuzzy, some that are discarded and some that endure. But as you move along, you see a distinct progression of understanding from the wild God of Abraham through the Lawgiver at Sinai and the Justice-seeker of the prophets, to the Christ revealed in Jesus and the Spirit who animates the church. God works to fill in the blanks. And it is against that background we come to this story of the apostle Paul speaking in the center of Greek philosophy, the Areopagus in Athens. Paul had been preaching and arguing in the marketplace and had piqued the interest of some of the intellectuals in the city. “What is this babbler talking about?” they said (obviously not terribly impressed). “He seems to be proclaiming foreign deities.” The way they said this, it appears that they thought Paul was preaching about two gods: Jesus and Anastasia, a god Jesus and a god Resurrection. They were a bit confused. So Paul ends up standing in the center of the council –- imagine our city council chambers –- to explain his teaching. He starts by finding common ground with his audience. “I see that you are very religious. In fact, I see that you even have an altar to An Unknown God, so let me tell you about this unknown God you already are worshiping.” No such altar has been found, but it does seem consistent with Athenian religion. Maybe the idea was “The God Above all Gods,” or maybe insurance, “Just in case we missed one.” Perhaps it was even “E, None of the Above.” Paul treats it as “The presence of the absence of God,” which we well know is a spiritual hunger that provides an opening for the gospel. When we feel like God is unknown, it helps to start at basic things we can know. So Paul lays out several key points: God is the creator of the universe. (He doesn’t get into how God did it, just that God did.) In the book of Romans, he suggests that this fact alone ought to inspire humans to worship God. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” So obviously, he goes on, God cannot be confined to a human shrine or temple, and as Creator who is and has all, God doesn’t need anything from people -– such as sacrifices. Paul then turns from considering the wide world around us to human societies and personhood. He points out that all of humanity is related, despite having different countries and cultures. He appeals to secular knowledge, citing Greek philosophers, that “In God we live and move and have our being,” and that “We are his offspring.” The point being that God is not so far off in the heavens as to be unattainable, but as close as our own breath. The theological grounding of this is that since we are created in God’s image, there is a continuity between us and God, a basis for relationship. All of this, Paul’s audience would likely have been right with him. Most educated pagans did not believe that the gods actually lived in the temples, or were identical with the statues and shrines. They could agree that you start with creation to learn about God. But the trick—for them and for modern people -- is not to get stuck just with nature. UCC pastor and author Lillian Daniel wrote a famous essay a few years ago. Entitled, “Spiritual But Not Religious? Please Stop Boring Me,” she talked about her fear of conversations with seat mates on an airplane. You’ve all been there: you introduce yourself to your fellow travelers, see if you have common ground for a conversation, or whether you should retreat into your book and headphones for the duration. She writes I dread the conversation with the person who finds out I am a minister and wants to use the flight time to explain to me that he is “spiritual but not religious.” Such a person will always share this as if it is some kind of daring insight, unique to him, bold in its rebellion against the religious status quo. Next thing you know, he’s telling me that he finds God in the sunsets. These people always find God in the sunsets. And in walks on the beach. Sometimes I think these people never leave the beach or the mountains, what with all the communing with God they do on hilltops, hiking trails and ... did I mention the beach at sunset yet? Like people who go to church don’t see God in the sunset! Like we are these monastic little hermits who never leave the church building. How lucky we are to have these geniuses inform us that God is in nature. As if we don’t hear that in the psalms, the creation stories and throughout our deep tradition. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lillian-daniel/spiritual-but-not-religio_b_959216.html) Now, I love seeing God in sunsets. I hike in the mountains, and look up at the crags soaring over my head and have a thrill at the majesty that created them. Or I lie down in a meadow, and try to count all the flowers within a few feet of my nose -– 12, 15, 20 varieties, each delicate and unique, witnesses to God’s amazing creativity. I might not know much about that God, but I know that God is pretty amazing. But I also know that is but a starting point if that God is going to have any impact on my life, and here is where both Paul’s audience and Lillian Daniels’ seat mate wants to get off the plane. Paul moves from the general revelation of God in creation to the particular revelation of God in Christ. Back to Paul’s speech: But having overlooked past ignorance, now God says that everyone everywhere must change their ways. God has set a day when he will judge the world’s people with fairness. And God has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death. Paul manages to pack almost everything challenging about Christian faith into four sentences! First, our connection with God has a definite ethical component, it shapes how we live. Even the general knowledge of God we get from creation puts some imperatives upon us: If I am hiking a mountain meadow, honoring the beauty of the place prevents me tossing my garbage around. If I believe that other people are the children of God as am I, then loving them as myself ought be a given. But following Jesus brings other values to the fore, things that can’t be deduced from the world around me. “Blessed are the poor.” “The meek will inherit the earth,” “The greatest among you must be the servant of all.” “Love your enemies.” These bid us cross the bridge from being nice people to being disciples of Jesus. Second, Paul lays out the prospect of a final judgement. (Mark, are you sure you want to go THERE? OK, no I don’t really, and if it weren’t integral to Paul’s argument here I’d slide past it!) Of all the doctrines liable to turn off modern people, judgment is probably about the top of the list! We’re leery of it because we know how often judgement is actually unjust: that the golden rule means that the ones with the gold make the rules, that the powerful use the legal system to oppress the already powerless. We have felt the sting of being judged unfairly, for how we dress or who our family is or where we work or who we love or what we believe or anything and everything else. We also know how easily we form unfair judgments of others, and then how tenaciously we hold them even when further facts prove us wrong. OTOH, we do believe in judgment. Our very discomfort with unfair judgment signals that we believe in right judgement. We have a keen sense that the universe ought to be administered by a moral code, that evildoers should receive their just desserts and the good should be blessed. We are outraged when it appears that people in high places -– hello Washington? –- are acting unjustly, hurting people without consequences. We expect our officials to treat people fairly, to administer the law without partiality to race or riches. Our consciences have been formed by the Hebrew Prophets, who prophesied destruction to those who cheated the poor, dispossessed widows from their lands, who bent the law to favor the powerful over the people. So if our problem isn’t with judgment per se, but with who is doing the judging -– Paul has an answer, he says it is Jesus who is the judge. The one who took children into his lap, forgave Peter for denying him, and condemned the Temple establishment who “devoured widows’ houses.” The one who gave his life to save the world. Paul’s audience is probably mostly still with him, most of them believed in an afterlife judgment, where the good were rewarded and the evil punished. But then there was the capstone of Paul’s argument, and where he lost most of his audience. When he started talking about Jesus’ resurrection, they were done. Greek philosophy posited a complete disjunction between spirit and matter, with spirit as good and bodies as evil. So the idea of resurrection -– that the divine Christ would be resurrected in his human body –- was just plain nuts to them. Why would a good spiritual god want an evil material human body? For them, it was like a circular square, hot ice, or jumbo shrimp. Nonsense! The story says that when they heard him talk about the resurrection, some scoffed. Some said politely, “We’ll talk about this more later.” But a couple of people did believe -– not much of a haul compared to some other places Paul ministered, or the 3000 baptized after Peter’s Pentecost sermon. Sometimes evangelism is just hard. That’s probably one reason we have this story! But resurrection, stumbling block to hyper-spiritual thinking, is where Christian piety becomes worldly, embodied, practical. Resurrection is the antidote to being too heavenly minded to be any earthly good. Following the Hebrew conception that God created matter, the universe, and human bodies, and called them Good, the resurrection is God’s ultimate blessing on real life. Bodies and how we treat them -- our children’s bodies, our parent’s bodies, poor bodies, black bodies, sick bodies, vulnerable bodies, our own bodies, even dead bodies – are central to God’s concern. Resurrection seals God’s blessing on our commitments to health, to environmental sustainability, to just economic systems that take good care of everyone’s body. It sees everyone as good creations of the God who is in, through, and beyond it all material creation. Resurrection means that there is continuity between this word and whatever comes after death. It’s at the edge of what human language can tackle, but it ensures a full orbed, sensual, individual destiny as part of a redeemed, not destroyed, creation. Whatever heaven might be, it is no thin intellectual spirit existence, but as fully embodied as your best sweaty hike, the experience of childbirth (without the pain), front row center at the symphony or the most connected lovemaking. In the resurrection, we are able to plumb ever deeper into the being of the Creator, learning and feeling and experiencing ever more of God and God’s universe, plunging ever towards that infinity. God will no longer be distant, God will no longer be “the Unknown God.” No more, “To Whom it may concern,” we worship the God the risen Jesus shows us. Amen. Call to worship (from Psalm 19, 2 Tim. 3:16, John 1:14, Acts 17:28) (One): “The heavens declare God’s glory, the sky proclaims God’s handwork!” (Many): We sing God’s praise! “All scripture is breathed by God, useful for teaching and training in righteousness.” We learn God’s ways so we may be equipped to serve! “The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory.” We follow as Jesus’ disciples, for he shows us God. “In God we live and move and have our being.” We dance in step with the living Spirit of God! Opening prayer Self-revealing God, we look in awe at galaxies spinning above us, peaks in the distance, and flowers beneath our feet, and we feel your creative power. We open the pages of scripture, and see you leading our ancestors in faith through wilderness to promised land. We grieve over their unfaithfulness and thrill when you bring them home from exile, knowing that our own story with you is but little different. Often you seem so distant, but now you reveal yourself in Jesus, one of us, showing us what a life filled with your love can accomplish: the redemption of the world. So we dedicate this time to worship you: to praise you, to lift our prayers, to hear your Word, to share our gifts, to feel your presence, to know you better. Show yourself afresh to us now, that we can live lives fired by love. Amen. Prayer of dedication Risen Christ, you have showered us with blessings both spiritual and material. We are refreshed with your presence in prayer and song, comforted and challenged by your Word, strengthened and touched by our fellow worshipers. Out of gratefulness, we open our hearts, minds, cupboards and pockets to give ourselves to you and our neighbors. Thank you for the opportunity to share your blessings. Amen. Pastoral prayer Most gracious and loving God: You are to be praised for the beauty and wonder of all your works. The world around us testifies to your creativity and your glory, and our hearts are filled with awe. You have created us as your children in your own image, gifted with curiosity, intellect and the capacity to love and be loved. You have set us into relationship with one another, and working together we have created societies that, at their best, maximize the human capacity you have made us for. We also know that at times we abuse these gifts, hurting and hunting and hating our sisters and brothers, and that we sometimes wreck unspeakable harm on every aspect of your world. Yet you are a God whose capacity for forgiveness and new beginnings, so we rejoice to repent and start afresh on the path you lead us upon. While you are a God who has made yourself known in dreams to Abraham, thunder on Mt. Sinai, sheer silence to Elijah, and ultimately in the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Christ, it is most often through relationship with other people that you reveal yourself to us. So today, we want to thank you for certain people in particular. All through our lives, you have taught us by way of women and men, elders and peers, people who dedicate their time and thought and energy to not only knowing you, but to sharing you with us. Some of them serve in our congregation, teaching children, youth and adults in our Formation programs. Some we have met other places. Each of us can name before you a teacher, a coach, a scoutmaster, a parent, a pastor, a guide, an advisor, a friend, a counselor or even a bartender who was instrumental in showing us how to live in you and without whom we would not be who we are. (pause) Thank you for them. Bless them. Let them know that their efforts make a difference. Continue to lead them into greater knowledge and wisdom. Give them joy in their work, sustain them through challenges, and may they know how deeply we appreciate them. Hear, O God, our prayers: All we speak aloud and all that we nurture in the depths of our spirit. Grant us patience through affliction, reconciliation from estrangement, and courage against injustice. We pray all these things through our Savior Jesus Christ: Amen. 9 am & 6 pm communion prayer Epiclesis (based on BCP Rite 2, prayer C) God of all power, Ruler of the Universe, you are worthy of glory and praise. At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home. From the primal elements you brought forth the human race, and blessed us with memory, reason, and skill. You made us the rulers of creation. But we turned against you, and betrayed your trust; and we turned against one another. Again and again, you called us to return. Through prophets and sages you revealed your righteous Law. And in the fullness of time you sent your only Son, born of a woman, to fulfill your Law, to open for us the way of freedom and peace. So remembering him today, We ask you to send your Holy Spirit upon these gifts from vineyard and field And upon us That as we share this sacred memorial We may be strengthened at heart By Christ’s resurrection life. Amen. Benediction Go forth today: Thanking God for all who have taught you and shown you the way In the name of God who created you in God’s own image, Christ who redeemed you to make the whole world God’s realm, And the Spirit who sustains you though anything AuthorMark brings a passion for Christian education that bears fruit in social justice. He has had a lifelong fascination with theology, with a particular emphasis on how Biblical hermeneutics shape personal and political action. Prior to coming to Plymouth, Mark served as pastor for Metropolitan Community Churches in Fort Collins, Cheyenne, and Rapid City. Read more.
Hal preaches on Psalm 31.
AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal.
Jane Anne preaches on Acts 2:42-47.
AuthorThe Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, Associate, Minister, is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. She is also the writer of sermon-stories.com, a lectionary-based story-commentary series. Learn more about Jane Ann here.
The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph
April 30, 2017 Plymouth Congregational UCC of Fort Collins, CO Psalm 116: 1-4 and 12-19 Won’t you join with me in prayer? God of all of the movement in our lives, I pray that the words I speak and the meditations we share will all be good in your sight, O God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. Many scholars identify Psalm 116 as something they call a “Psalm of Reversal.” One such scholar writes in the Women’s Bible Commentary, “The mood of the book of Psalms moves back and forth from assurance to doubt, from contentment to pain, from joy to despair and back again. But those who speak from peaceful secure, and prosperous settings in life often have different things to say to God and different ways to say them than do those who are in the midst of crisis, trouble, pain, or struggle. A significant portion of the book of Psalms consists of songs of reversal…sung by survivors who attribute their present wellbeing to God’s intervention in their lives…acknowledging that their survival is a gift of Grace from the hand of God.”1 In my preparation for this sermon these past weeks, what stuck with me from my research is this idea that many of the Psalms, like#116, are Psalms of Reversal sung by survivors. The grain of blessing in this is the idea that God’s blessings are not linear or unidirectional. Rather, like life itself, God moves with us both when we feel like we are going forward and when we are stuck in reverse. Have you ever taught someone how to parallel park? On one of my first dates with my now husband, I taught Gerhard how to parallel park back in Georgia. I knew that we were on the right track after even that task went well! In parallel parking, we are only successful when we are as grateful for the reversals as we are for the forward movements. We cannot only go in one successful direction without also accepting that reversals and changes of direction are also forms of success and surviving. Only when we learn to go in reverse with determination, with precision, and with God’s help can we find our comfortable and well-spaced parking space in life. Today’s Psalm is a Psalm of celebration for God’s help in that successful parallel parking exercise of life. Today’s Psalm is a Psalm of a reversal -- a situation turned around in healing and hope. Psalms are by definition communal, liturgical, ritual, songs and poems that came from worship settings used by the ancients of our faith and their ancestors to say to us: “No matter who you are or where you are in life’s journey of GREAT Reversals, there is a Psalm/ a Song and a way to speak to God for you. REMEMBER, “…those who speak from peaceful secure, and prosperous settings in life often have different things to say to God and different ways to say them than do those who are in the midst of crisis, trouble, pain, or struggle.” Unlike Parallel Parking, there is no wrong way—the Psalms are our assurance of this. The Psalms and their diversity of moods and tones remind us: You are a survivor; I am a survivor, we are survivors by the grace of God. If the world “Psalms” were a verb (to Psalm), it would mean, “to express oneself in fullness and authenticity before God and with the support of your community.” Our goal then as church is to Psalm effectively and regularly. How are you Psalming today? The core message of our Psalm 116 is one of survival and reversal. “You have loosened my bonds. I will offer to you a thanksgiving sacrifice and call on the name of the Lord.” These words have the same fundamental feeling and purpose as the famous anthem and declaration by Dianna Ross and others who popularly sing, “I will survive… as long as I know how to love… I know I’ll stay alive…I’ve got all my life to live and I’ve got all my love to give. I’ll survive. I will survive.” As long as I live by God’s grace, I will be a survivor in all things. Is this your Psalm today? How are you surviving by love in this life of reversals? Anxiety and hate don’t work for successful survival—regardless of how we are tempted by culture and our friends to rely on them. Only love and grace can bring true survival. “Those who speak to God from a place of assurance and hope have different things to say and a different structural way to say them than those who are in pain, crisis, loss, tragedy, confusion, denial, or graduation and retirement.” We are entering tomorrow, May Day, into the great month of reversals and changes. The month of May is the month when the world and community turn upside down in Fort Collins and towns like it every year. [Remember the feeling of being a student and what May meant.] The assurance that comes to us first is that while we may have different Psalms to sing and different ways to say a prayer to God at different points in our lives of reversals and changing directions, whether in crisis, love, pain, or pleasure… there is no wrong or inferior Psalm. All Psalms like all prayers and different needs for God at different times of life are created equal. Our Psalm today is a Psalm of a survivor. “What shall I return to God for all of his bounty to me?” It is a song of gratitude and grace and hope to God from someone who made it, someone who lives, someone who is a survivor. Think of this as the Biblical version of Destiny Child and Beyoncé’s “I’m a survivor. I’m not going to give-up! I’m gunna make it. I will survive. I won’t give up.” Psalm 116 is Beyoncé’s Psalm—as a survivor who has embraced God’s great reversal in her life. Psalm 116 is the Psalm of the Survivor. I love this part of the Bible for exactly this reason: There is a Psalm for every season. God is a non-linear God who is with us in the times when we cannot even seem to find God in our lives, when we are celebrating, when we are surviving, and when we have survived—survived an unfulfilling or political job, survived a divorce, survived an illness, survived the death of a child, survived depression, survived whatever it is we are faced with by God’s presence and grace. God is a God of Great Reversals—life is not linear leading to Stepford Perfection! The same scholar I quoted earlier also writes in the Women’s Bible Commentary, “[The Psalms] represent the full range of human emotions in conversations with God. In all but a few cases, these deeply human (DEEPLY HUMAN) utterances are addressed directly to God.”2 Many of us who grew-up in the church were led to believe that the Bible was monochromatic. We have all seen or heard of churches and times in history where and when, in the name of Christ, the Sacred texts were complicit with the ways and methods of the political Church, the Bible stories became silent bystanders to abuse, and Scripture became a bland affirmation of what we already new and experience as life without responding for our need for God’s assurance of survival. Today, we reclaim the text as our survival guide. In fact, the Bible screams out with you in pain, jumps with you in joy, questions with you in times of discernment, asks the universe for salvation with you when you feel like all is lost, and lifts up to God Psalms of Reversal and gratitude when the world turns and God shifts in new and totally radically wildly unexpected ways! Expect the unexpected, Christians. God is a non-linear God of Easter. What sort of great reversals are happening in your life right now? Moreover, how have you prayed, sung, or otherwise engaged God in those reversals. By reversals, again, I mean those big shifts both good and bad in life—or sometimes both—the full range of human emotions. Retirement, graduation, promotions are all reversals (shifts) that require prayerful joy and careful discernment. I would offer that the Psalms might act as a resource and a guide in all of that. I would even say that it is the reason for religion, for church—to be together in vulnerability, authenticity and to reclaim the stories of survivors of the past for our needs here and now. In this Eastertide, this season after the story of the resurrection and before the ascension, we celebrate, in many ways what I think of as the Season of Survival—survival even past the point of death and at the doorstep of the unknown sky of possibility. That is why the creators of the lectionary have given us this particular Psalm for today. One of my greatest mentors, teachers, and my and your last associate minister, The wonderful and compassionate Rev. Sharon Benton, was published in 2013 in a book of liturgy called, From the Psalms to the Clouds: Connecting to the Digital Age. This was a publication of the Pilgrim Press of the UCC of some of the best and most creative liturgy writers from across our denomination. The book is billed as a retelling of the Psalms and worship resources for our time. Sharon is one of the major contributors to that book like how was a major contributor to many of our lives, and it was this book that she chose to leave on her desk when she left her office for me to move into as her mentee and successor. In that book, she wrote a Psalm of her own for Eastertide that I believe responds to Psalm 116 with words of our time and meaning for today as we all discern, celebrate, and wonder how to be survivors in God’s world of reversals and all forms of human emotion. From Rev. Benton: From deep within our tombs we hear you call, O God: Rise up! Rise up from death into new life. We have found new life in this spring season, In children joyfully squirming among us, In each deep breath we breathe. We have found new life in people’s struggle for Just government throughout the world, And in nations’ continued support Following natural disasters. From deep within our tombs we hear you call, O God: Rise up! Rise up from death into new life. We follow your voice in our hope to overcome Illness, grief, addiction, fear. We follow your voice in our hope to heal your creation, Make whole our connection to all that is. From deep within our tombs we hear you call, O God: Rise up! Rise up from death into new life. Resurrecting God, you call us to follow Christ, To rise up from our tombs that hold us in death— But you do not expect us to do so alone. It is you who fills us with life beyond all our daily deaths. It is you who strengthens us to bring life to others. It is you, Holy One, who we hear call within our tombs: rise up! And so we do. We have. We are here. Amen. -The Rev. Sharon Benton Pastoral Prayer: God of Great Changes, Reversals, and Survival, Like our Psalmist says this morning, we will praise you before your people this day for all of the ways that you are with us in our lives of survival. Help us today to bring you gratitude for grace, thanksgiving for healing, and hope for surviving even the most dire and scary times of life. Bless, O God, today the hearts and souls of those for whom we pray with the same rooted hope, the same determined and ageless sense of your workings in and through our lives… bring them courage, give us strength, we pray God. Non-linear God of Reversals bring your strength to…these your beloved who are looking for survival of different circumstances: [Names of those for whom we pray] Non-Linear God of Peace… we offer likewise gratitude for the survival shown by saying the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray: Lord’s Prayer 1 Kathleen A. Farmer, “Psalms,” Women’s Bible Commentary, Carol Newsom and Sharon H. Ringle, edit. (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 147. 2 Ibid, 145. AuthorThe Rev. Jake Miles Joseph ("just Jake"), Associate Minister, came to Plymouth in 2014 having served in the national setting of the UCC on the board of Justice & Witness Ministries, the Coalition for LGBT Concerns, and the Chairperson of the Council for Youth and Young Adult Ministries (CYYAM). Jake has a passion for ecumenical work and has worked in a wide variety of churches and traditions. Read more about him on our staff page.
Hal preaches on Psalm 24:1-6 for Environmental Sunday.
AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal. |
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