“Born Again?”
John 3.1-11
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
5 March 2023
 
By a show of hands, how many of us are fully comfortable with the term, “Born again?” Some of us have come from evangelical traditions in which being born again is normative. Second question: How many of you have ever been accosted by someone who has asked if you have been “born again?” Final question: How many of you have somewhat negative feelings about the term, “born again?”

The New Revised Standard Version translates this phrase from the Greek as “born from above,” which may sound different to our ears because lacks the familiar ring of “born again.” The NRSV also offers a second translation: “born anew,” but both of these translations would cause Nicodemus to ask how one could be born after growing older or by entering a mother’s womb a second time.

Do you ever wonder about that: why the term makes you feel uncomfortable or leaves you scratching your head? Maybe you think you aren’t “that kind of Christian” or maybe you felt judged or maybe you just find it to be a mysterious term.

When I was a freshman at UC Santa Barbara, I had a roommate named Conal. He was a nice enough guy who had grown up in an Episcopal church in the Central Valley of California but had found a home in a Pentecostal church in Santa Barbara. At that time in my life, I was struggling with the church of my youth, as many young adults do. Conal asked me if I had been born again (I answered “no”) and if I would like to join him at his church on a Sunday morning (I answered “no thank you”). Conal asked again… and again… and again, and I finally relented. This was an entirely different church experience for me, a nice New England Congregational boy. It was as if going into the worship space, these folks started acting in a very peculiar way, almost as if they had taken some kind of drug that kicked in at the beginning of the service and ended when they left the building. And I had never before felt so uncomfortable and out of place. I kept wanting to run screaming from the building, but I was too polite and stuck it out until the end of the service. That was the last time I darkened the doorstep of any church for years.

In those days it almost felt as if being “born again” was a litmus test for being a “real” Christian. It is almost as if being born again was a wall between Christians who considered it central and those who thought it didn’t apply to them. Many of us, then and now, don’t want to be cast in the same light as Jim and Tammy Faye or Jimmy Swaggart or Benny Hinn, all of whom emphasized the importance of being born again. Joel Osteen’s website says, “Pray this aloud: ‘Lord Jesus, I repent of my sins. Come into my heart. Wash me clean. I make you my Lord and Savior, Amen.’ We believe that if you prayed that simple prayer, you have been born again.”[1]

Maybe that is why many progressive Christians feel the need to distance themselves from the concept of being born again. It has a lot of baggage in our culture, which is tragic, because it is such a beautiful way of approaching transformation in our lives. And I’d like to suggest that deep, internal transformation is far more nuanced and that it requires more than repeating a forumulaic prayer.

What if we imagined being born again not as a wall to divide the saved from the damned, but rather as a bridge between old, non-life-giving ways of thinking and new possibilities of reorienting our priorities and our lives? It may be helpful to speak about being “born anew” and if that is still too close, think about it as being “born from above.” And it’s not a one-off: We can be born from above again and again and again.

It’s important to remember the source of this passage. It is from John’s Gospel, which unlike the first three in our Bible, is a mystical text, rather than a document that attempts to convey “an orderly account.” The writer of this gospel wants you to see beyond what is in front of you and use your imagination to envision the realm of the possible. It’s very right-brain and uses heaps of metaphor. In today’s brief scripture, Nicodemus takes a literal approach when Jesus mentions being born anew…how can one re-enter a mother’s womb? Duh…it’s a metaphor for deep transformation! It represents a life-changing process that broadens one’s view and makes new things possible.

When he was here as our Visiting Scholar, John Dominic Crossan used another metaphor to describe this deep transformation. (And if Dom is willing to offer a metaphor, let all those with ears listen!) He said that being born anew is like receiving a heart transplant. You’ve probably seen images of a cardiothoracic surgeon removing the old, diseased heart from a patient and implanting a new, healthy heart, shocking it, and essentially bringing the patient back to life. Dom is not referring to transplanting the beating, pumping muscle in your chest, but rather the sense of deep knowing, feeling, emotion, perception, and motivation that are embodied in the metaphorical heart. What would it look like for us to have a heart transplant in that way? What newness of outlook and life might we expect?

In some 18th century Congregational churches in New England a criterion for membership was a “visible sign” of conversion, evidence that one had been born from above. (That is a bit more nuanced than Joel Osteen’s formula.)

Let me approach it a somewhat different way. What are some of the ways you see folks here at Plymouth or elsewhere showing evidence of transformation or newness of life? What acts of compassion do you see them committing that might convince you that they have reordered the priorities in their lives to put the way of Jesus first? I can share a few. When I see the folks who stay overnight in our church to accompany families experiencing homelessness, I see it as a mark of a transformed life. When I hear of someone commit to teaching Sunday school for an entire year, it shows a transformed soul. When I see people show up for a refugee family or for a Palestinian student and his family, I see people whose lives have been transformed. When I witness extraordinary acts of generosity in our congregation, I see it as less about someone’s ability to give and more about their inclination, regardless of the size of the gift. I see those not as a cause, but as an effect of having had a heart transplant.

I don’t think we can force being born anew. I think we need to be open to the possibility of that transformation and then welcome it when it comes. Some of that involves allowing old certainties and old fears to melt away. And it involves seeking and openness to fresh ways of being in the world. Maybe some of the things we have grasped need to be released. Some of the ways of living or measures of success that we once thought were important can be let go of. And I also think it is something we can ask for in our prayer lives. All our lives have room for transformation.

Here is what one born again Christian, Jimmy Carter, said about his faith: “I have one life and one chance to make it count for something….My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try and make a difference.” What I’m driving at is that you can be born from above and still be committed to the progressive spirit.

Christians do not have a corner on the market of spiritual transformation, and certainly this transformation of our priorities, our perspectives, and the way we live our lives have precious little to do with saying a formulaic prayer.

Marcus Borg writes, “But rightly understood, being born again is a very rich and comprehensive notion. It is at the very center of the New Testament and the Christian life. We need to reclaim it.”[2]

May we at Plymouth in this season of seeking, open ourselves to the journey of transformation and invite it in.
Amen.
 
© 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

[1] https://www.joelosteen.com/contact-us/frequently-asked-questions
[2] Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith, (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), p. 105.

Active Hope
A summer sermon related to John 1:1-12
 
Central Point: To introduce Active Hope as an expression of a faithful inspiration and integrity-based form of hope and action, especially necessary in difficult times of anxiety
 
John 1:1-12
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God…
For the Word in Scripture,
For the Word among us,
For the Word within us
Thanks Be to God
 
When I was young, I kept hoping that the Chicago Cubs would win; they would win that day and that they would win the World Series. But that hope was difficult to maintain, particularly in the 1970s and even in the 1980s when they would win more, but still break the hearts of Cub fans like me in stunning fashion during the season or in the playoffs. But now that I've lived a lot of years and given the Cubs plenty more seasons to try, I lived to see my hope realized in 2016. (It only took 108 years between championships.)
 
This is hope that is based on outcomes. It is based on the prediction of a favorable outcome. Now this year with the Cubs, I have no hope for that kind of favorable outcome. They will not win the World Series nor even make the playoffs. I can always hope for another year in the future for a more likely favorable outcome.
 
But mostly these days I'm not thinking of such things very much, such objects of hope or even this form of hope. Although it was nice to finally have the hope of a Cubs World Series win realized in 2016, it happened while I was at the Standing Rock Lakota Reservation with my wife, Allison. We were with the Lakota people protesting the Keystone XL pipeline which was unjustly routed through their reservation and near their water supply. Getting the news of the Cubs winning the World Series while I was at standing rock was such an instant teaching of perspective. That win just didn’t matter that much in the scheme of life. Though I had hoped for this event in my life for many, many years (involving baseball which I love), receiving it while at Standing Rock was a profound teaching that not only was hope was better focused on other matters, it would also need to be formed in a different way.
 
At the camp in Standing Rock, entertainment like baseball was, of course, not our focus.  Our mantra was “water is life,” mni wiconi. That gathering was a prayer meeting where the prayer fire never went out and the hope was always to protect the water and therefore to protect life.  The likelihood of success was low. The legal system had conspired against the Lakota and the law enforcement was well funded and equipped with vehicles, personnel, and arms.
 
Yet, that gathering at Standing Rock was a living example of active hope. And that’s what I want to lift up today: active hope.
 
I'm taking this term active hope from a book by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone titled, Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in Without Going Crazy.
 
And, if you haven't noticed, we are in a mess aren't we?

Business as usual has been and is leading us into what's been called a great unraveling of environmental systems not to mention income inequality and the rise of authoritarian movements in the world. Macy and Johnstone get us right to the point of their book with the subtitle “how to face the mess we are in without going crazy.” For if we really face the truth of it, it could drive us to madness, certainly heartbreak. Our collective behavior seems crazy.
 
If you don’t know her, Joanna Macy is an elder (93 years old now) and a Buddhist teacher. I find her trustworthy for that reason and also for the reason that this teaching about active hope resonates with the stories of faith in our Scriptures and in the lives of so many of our Saints. It is in these Scripture stories and the stories of the Saints that I see a kind of active hope that Macy talks about.
 
What is active hope?
Well, it's not hoping that the Cubs will win.
In fact, active hope is not based on the likelihood of an outcome, rather it is hope rooted in a vision of what we long for, or in the case of the people of faith, what God longs for. You could call it the Realm of God or the kin-dom of God or the Beloved Community (as Dr. King was fond of calling it), but it is that vision of blessing and fullness and wholeness, that vision of justice and peace and the integrity of creation of which God dreams and to which God calls us.
 
And while one side of active hope is rooted in this vision, the other side of active hope is rooted in our action, action that is in integrity with that vision. Not unlike the way that Jesus so often taught that the Realm of God is already here, practicing active hope means that we are living out the values or participating in the energies of that Realm here and now. Through our presence, our choices, and our actions, we can live in that Realm already. Active hope then is a practice, something we do with our imagination and actions. It is not passive and it is not based on the likelihood of external outcome (like hoping that the Cubs win or that it's going to be pleasant weather).
 
Active hope means we connect with the vision of the Realm of God, the beauty and value of it, of life and community in its blessing, and act from it and for it. We act to bring it further into being, not calculating the likelihood of a short term or even an ‘in our lifetime’ outcome.
 
It is not about how we feel things are going or might likely turn out. It is about what we do.  Active hope is about vision, the vision of what we long for to become manifest in the world and how that draws us into life and action. It is that connection to the vision and values and staying true to it, no matter the situation, that keeps us from becoming hopeless or even lifeless in the face of this mess.
 
Says Macy, “Of all the dangers we face, from climate chaos to nuclear war, none is so great as the deadening of our response.”
 
A few moments ago, I read the first 12 verses of the gospel of John. What might that have to do with active hope?
 
This poetic prologue from John’s community is a wondrous, mystical presentation of the coming of the intangible divine into the tangible Incarnate world. In this case, through the person of Jesus. This miracle of incarnation may be the greatest genius of Christianity, having the Word, the Living Wisdom, the deep invisible life-giving wisdom of all things somehow become flesh, become Incarnate, become real in human life and the life of the creation.
 
We can talk about high theory and mighty ideals and about grand design and expansive patterns, but that does not matter much to the life of Creation unless it is embodied and expressed and lived out in this complex messy world. It is one thing to talk about love and another to live it out, to incarnate it. In John's prologue we have this amazing poetic summation that the Word became flesh and lived with the people. “And the darkness could not overcome it,” says John.
 
Active hope is like that. Incarnate. Fleshy. Earthy.
It's like bringing these great aspirations right down into the messiness and even the darkness of the world in our lives. It is about choosing faith, choosing a trust in the way of Jesus and the good news of God even though the outcome is uncertain at best and doubtful at worst. Our tradition is full of situations where it seems there is no way, but somehow God makes a way when the people act. There were the Hebrew people chased by pharaoh's army and pinned up against a great body of water with nowhere to go, but, as the Jewish interpretive story says God made a way after someone went into the water up to their neck. There was the story of Jesus surrounded by an angry mob in his hometown intent on throwing him off a cliff, but somehow Jesus moved and passed through them. There was a woman named Rosa who sat down on a bus where she was not supposed to sit, where they said she would never be allowed to sit, yet somehow she sat, Spirit moved, and the people of color found a way to act into their hopes and, indeed, did sit in the front of the bus, and then vote, and go to any school.
 
Learning and practicing active hope is timely for there are many reasons to not hope if one is basing hope on the likelihood of a good outcome. Yet, our faith tradition doesn’t say that life is easy or that life unfolds with simple, predictable steps of linear progress toward goodness and liberation, especially in times like these.
 
The irony here is that finding Active Hope, facing problems, those seemingly intractable difficulties, asks us not to focus first on the problems, on what is wrong, but on what is right, what is worthy, what is beautiful, what is of value that is already present. 
 
Active Hope invites us to build the base of our reality with gratitude.  And like Active Hope itself, gratitude is a practice, a learnable way of seeing and living.  Gratitude is a basic spiritual practice across traditions.  It is the valuing of what is already present that inspires us to protect it, to act for it, to make the changes necessary to nurture it and preserve it. 
 
How important is acting for that vision now? How urgent?
The environmental activist Bill McKibben had a cover story on Rolling Stone magazine a few years ago and then went on what he called a Do the Math tour around the nation.  He proclaimed the simple math: according to climate researchers at that time, we could burn 565 more gigatons of carbon and stay below 2°C of warming — anything more than that risks catastrophe for life on earth. Fossil fuel corporations then had 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, five times the safe amount. At the known rates of consumption, McKibben and others, calculated the years we had left to act decisively. Now it would be only about 8 years or so in which to make significant change.
 
We need hope, my friends, to respond faithfully to our situation and we need it to be active hope.
 
Oh, and in case you might have forgotten, in July of 2021 the company sponsoring the Keystone XL pipeline declared the project dead.
 
So remember, our stories of faith are full of people wondering how they would continue, how they would find a way where there was no way, how they would get through a tight spot.  Our stories of faith are full of ordinary people just like us, doubting and limited, but who found a way through by sharing God’s hopes and then acting them into being such that the darkness could not overcome their active hope.  

AMEN.

John 3.1-17
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
 
Have you had the experience of being a college freshman and being paired with a roommate with whom you had nothing in common? That was my reality at UC Santa Barbara. Conal was a tall, wiry guy from the Central Valley, studying math, and who was a committed Evangelical, who was convinced that my soul needed saving. He offered me many invitations to join him at his church, and I eventually accepted. As a teenager who had been raised in a nice New England Congregational church, I wasn’t fully aware of what a charismatic Christian service would be like, and as the service progressed, I felt increasingly out of place and totally uncomfortable. I remember them stressing the importance of being born again, as if it was a one-time gateway to salvation after death.

That phrase — this whole text — has been coopted by white Evangelicals and assigned a certain meaning to “born again,” indicating the separation of the saved from the damned. That is a shame, because it is a truly meaningful and important text. Perhaps because we have had experiences like I did in Conal’s church or because we were raised in such churches or because we’ve seen the fruits of conservative White evangelicalism, we’ve been too quick to dismiss this passage from John’s gospel. But we should be careful not to throw away our inheritance as if it was dirty bathwater. Too often, we in the mainline church dispense with the notion that we’ve missed the mark and that we need to change and experience a rebirth. The late Irish poet, priest, and philosopher, John O’Donohue, writes, “Change is so difficult for us. So often we opt to continue the old patterns rather than risking the danger of difference.”[1]

Often, we associate change with loss, which, especially if you’re over 50 or have a degenerative disease, is natural, because as our bodies “mature,” there is a loss of function, facility, and flexibility. But other changes — spiritual, psychological, wisdom — can represent gains, rather than losses.
In terms of spiritual growth, who wouldn’t want to sense rebirth and renewal? It’s actually a wonderful opportunity if we try to see the world with new eyes or to see the world through the lens of Christ…through the lens of hope. That would be a rebirth for some of us!

Last week, I got a fund-raising letter, and most of them find their way right into the recycling bin. But not this one; it was from the Center for Action and Contemplation, Richard Rohr’s organization in Albuquerque. Here is what stuck with me:

“The Gospel message is one of hope — not because it changes what we see, but because it changes how we see….The gift of hope during such a traumatic year is the gift of a new way of seeing in difficult times….The commitment to see the world through a different set of eyes and show up as a hopeful presence is a huge act of participation in transforming oneself and the world. Fr. Richard speaks to the power of this…: ‘I think we’ve been led into a period of exile again, both as a culture and as a church. In the periods of shadow, we feel a lot of hostility. We take it out on other people by blaming them. Often, all it takes to stem this process is for one person to take a hopeful stance.’”[2]

Here are some visions of hope that I’ve heard from our congregation in your response to our pandemic worship, meeting, and communication survey, about what you have learned these past 15 months:

• “Being more reflective about each moment.”
  
• “I have a greater appreciation for the significance of my faith and church affiliation.”
• “That there are many ways to worship and connect with others.”
• “I knew our church was very important to us. But during the pandemic we realized it’s one of that only things that kept us going and kept a positive light in our life.”

What lenses have you been wearing? Has your prescription changed during the months of our separation? I had an eye exam last week and my astigmatism has worsened and distorted my vision a bit. Perhaps what we all need is a slight change in our individual spiritual lens prescription. And perhaps that’s what we need in our congregational prescription lenses, too: a tweak that will help us see things more clearly, through the lens of hope, not just for ourselves, but for every life we touch.

So often, we American Protestants have thought about God’s salvation only on an individual basis and not as collective salvation of all God’s people and creation. So, what would it look like if our church was to be born again or born anew? What if we, as a congregation, could be reborn in an evolutionary or even a revolutionary way as we step over the threshold of post-pandemic life? How might we, as a congregation, deepen our pilgrimage?

John O’Donohue writes, “When the grip of some long-enduring winter mentality begins to loosen, we find ourselves vulnerable to a flourish of possibility and we are suddenly negotiating the challenge of a threshold.”[3]

Thresholds are times of new beginnings…of begin born again or born anew. Just as the buds on the trees have burst open with the spring, our congregation, too, can be born anew, as we emerge from the long winter of pandemic.

O’Donohue continues: “A threshold is not simply a boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged or woken up. [Dare we say born anew?] At this threshold a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings are always clothed in ritual. It is wise in our own lives to be able to recognize and acknowledge key threshold: to take time; the feel the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.”

What emotions are coming alive for you at this point in our collective journey? Are you excited to be back in our sanctuary? Confused about whether it’s safe to be out and about? Afraid that it won’t be the same? Excited for the new directions our Strategic Plan will lead? Anxious about how it’s all going to shake out? Hopeful that new beginnings will bring new possibilities and new people into our midst? Personally, I’ve had all of those feelings, and I suppose most of us have. But if we keep our hope-filled lenses at the ready, we’ll be prepared to take that step forward across the threshold.
We’ve been in a liminal space — a long threshold — since March 2020, and we’re finally nearing the point where we actually step across it. As a congregation we can lean on God and one another to be courageous and emotionally vulnerable as we prepare to be born anew as people of the Spirit.
May we open our hearts, our minds, our hands, and our doors as together we are born again.

Amen.
 
© 2021 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal at plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.
 
[1] John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space between Us. (NY: Doubleday, 2008), loc. 752.
[2] CAC Spring 2021 appeal letter.
[3] ibid.

John 4.5-15
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado

One of the best cartoons I saw online this week was a picture of Jesus and the Samaritan woman standing at the well…but the pump bottle on the edge of the well was a dead giveaway, and the sign above the well indicated that this wasn’t just the story you heard from John’s gospel this morning, it said “Jesus and the woman at the Purell well.” 

I know that a lot of us are really feeling a sense of anxiety about the spread of the coronavirus. Many of us are nervous because it seems so ominous – and like flu viruses, it’s invisible, transmissible, and potentially fatal. 

We have something in common with the woman at the well. We are seeking the healing waters that will enable us never to experience spiritual thirst. And we need to have some kind of assurance that it’s going to be okay, whether we get the coronavirus or not. 

William Sloane Coffin, the late senior minister of the Riverside Church in New York, offered some profound words in a sermon ten days after his 24-year-old son died in a car crash: This is “what God gives all of us — minimum protection, maximum support.”

What does that mean? I take it to indicate that God does not keep bad things from happening to anyone. But if we have a relationship with God, we are held up by a companion who walks with us through the wilderness. 

“Minimum protection, maximum support.” Perhaps that is a way that we can approach what God’s world is experiencing right now: as a time to broaden our perspectives and become stronger. 

Our faith is like muscle that needs to be stretched and tested in order for it to grow, and Lent can be a time for a good spiritual workout, not that anyone EVER asked for the coronavirus to help us. Ernest Hemingway wrote this in A Farewell to Arms: “The world breaks everyone, then some become strong at the broken places.” The experience of living in these days will break some of us, and within that group there will be those who are made stronger. Some of us will learn to rely more fully on God’s presence within us and among us. Some will finally see that God’s abundance means that there is enough for all of us if we share. Some will take away the idea that radical individualism is morally bankrupt. Others will learn the lesson that it is a beautiful thing to rely on one another….that working together, we can make it over this hurdle.

And there will be those among us who aren’t able to open their eyes to learn those things: Some people will hoard toilet paper (for unknown reasons!), others will make certain that THEIR family has the supplies they need without caring for anyone else, and others will not take precautions because THEY are not worried about getting ill, even though people around them may be at greater risk than they are.

Whether we like it or not, the whole world is in this together. And nothing like a virus can show us that we are truly interconnected as the human family. The God who walks with us through the wilderness isn’t going to magically keep you from getting sick, but that same God is going to stay by your side no matter what. That’s what “minimum protection, maximum support” means. Not only is that what God offers US, it is what WE can offer to one another: supporting each other, perhaps from a distance, but supporting one another nonetheless. 

Last week, Carla got an email from a Plymouth couple in their 30s saying that since they were not in a high-risk group, that if there was something that elder members of our congregation needed, they could help out. That’s maximum support.

Mandy Hall sent me an email concerned about the plight of our childcare staff, who are paid hourly, if there wasn’t going to be a need for their work if we don’t have in-person worship, and we’ve come up with a plan to continue to pay them, which we are doing. That’s maximum support.

In the midst of this pandemic, we all are finding ourselves in unknown territory, in a wilderness. We can see this wilderness as a parched and barren land that is filled with threats, fears, and real danger. But that isn’t the only way to look at it. We can hold fast and see the landscape as one that is saturated with living water: with the love and the radical generosity and abundance of God. We can see the abundance of scientists, physicians, nurses, and other caregivers in the midst of a crisis and say, “Thanks be to God. This is living water.” We can see the indomitable spirit and the cooperation of people working together and say, “Thanks be to God. This is living water.” We can hear online the people of Italy applauding for medical workers and singing from their balconies and say, “Thanks be to God. This is living water.” We can feel the sense the compassion of people caring deeply for those most in need and say, “Thanks be to God. This is living water.”

There are desert wilderness times for us all – moments or seasons in our lives when things seem to have dried up and blown away. And that is part of the reminder of Lent: that Jesus had those moments of walking through a parched landscape. Jesus confronted his demons and walked past them. It was a time that stretched him to the limits of physical, mental, and spiritual exertion…and he made it beyond that breaking point and lived into his ministry. Jesus opted to live a life that was saturated, not parched: a life of extravagant welcome, risk-taking, and active engagement, of envisioning and proclaiming a new way of being in the world. And that is the spirit-saturated life that we are being invited into. 

Jesus says to the Samaritan woman, “If you know the generosity [the gifts] of God and who it is asking you to give him a drink of water, you’d be the one asking me for a drink, and I would have given you living water.” In Hebrew and Aramaic this is a play on words, “living water” means water that is upwelling from a spring, like an artesian well. And it also has the significance of something more than just H20. “Everyone who drinks of this water will never be thirsty again,” Jesus says.

Do you want to live a parched life or a saturated life?

I had planned to talk more extensively today about the Celtic tradition, since St. Patrick’s Day is only two days away, but just to give you a snippet: In the pre-Christian Celtic tradition, wells (what you and I think of as springs and the ancient Jews thought of as “living water”) were considered sacred, not only because they sprung up pure from the earth, which was the source of their divinity, but because of all the metaphorical meaning that water has as being essential to sustenance, to growth, to the greening of life itself. 

As Christianity moved into Celtic Britain, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, the druidic wells were “rebaptized” in the name of Christian saints. So, in London you find a section called Bridewell (the well of St. Bride or St. Brigid), and all over Ireland there are wells dedicated to Brigid and Mary. The Gaelic word for well is “tober,” and on the Isle of Mull in Scotland, the largest town in called Tobermory, the Well of Mary. Throughout the middle ages and even today, people come to these sacred springs, many seeking healing and others on pilgrimage seeking living water. At St. Winifred’s Well in Wales, etched into the gothic stone walls surrounding the spring, you will see etched graffiti with the names and dates of physical healings accomplished there going back centuries, and people still come to the well seeking physical healing and spiritual wholeness.

As we walk together through Lent and as we walk together through this pandemic, may we remember that God’s presence is with us, strengthens us, upholds us and offer us the living water we need.

Amen.

(If you’d like to see a three-minute video meditation on Holy Wells and this story from John’s Gospel, you can go to tinyurl.com/Celticwell)

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

John 2.1-11
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado

I spent much of the day on Thursday reading a volume of sermons by an eminent mid-century theologian. And though these sermons were written 50 or 60 years in the past, there is still a freshness and relevance to them. And that is unfortunate in some ways, because the moral and religious failings these sermons address are still with us.
​
When we celebrate Martin Luther King Day tomorrow, most of us in America will think of Dr. King as a great civil rights leader, which to be sure, he was. But that is not all he was.

Clayborne Carson, a professor of history at Stanford, writes, “The world saw him as a marching protest leader, but Martin Luther King, Jr., was first and foremost a preacher. ‘In the quiet recesses of my heart,’ he once remarked, ‘I am fundamentally a clergyman, a Baptist preacher.’” [1] And we know that Dr. King was a great preacher, but when you begin to read his sermons, you come to an understanding of the theology and the faith that informed who he was as a leader. 

“As a young man with most of my life ahead of me,” King proclaimed, “I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow…. I’m not going to put my ultimate faith in the little gods that can be destroyed in an atomic age, but the God who has been our help in ages past, and our hope for years to come, and our shelter in the time of storm, and our eternal home.” [2] No one knew that King would not grow past middle age before being killed by an assassin’s bullet.

The other thing that was new for me was to understand his theological progressivism. I knew, of course, that he was steeped in the experience of the African-American church and its commitment to social and economic justice, but when you read Dr. King’s sermons, you learn that it really was about justice…not “just us.” His concern was not only for African-Americans, but for all people. Dr. King was also shaped by Colgate Rochester Divinity School, where a half century earlier the theology of the Social Gospel was enunciated most clearly by Walter Rauschenbusch, standing as a counterpoise to fundamentalism, and in many ways, King was the transmitter of the Social Gospel in the mid 20th century.

Like progressive Christians now, King identified a “widespread belief in the minds of many that there is a conflict between science and religion. But,” King writes, “there is no fundamental issue between the two.” [3] He was in no way a biblical literalist; in fact, many white Evangelical preachers in the South who stood against the civil rights struggle were literalists who used the Bible as a bludgeon, rather than as a source of grace and light. 

King speaks in his sermons against materialism and in favor of a lived faith. “It’s possible to affirm the existence of God with your lips and deny his existence with your life,” King claimed. “We say with our mouths that we believe in him, but we live our lives like he never existed.” [4] You probably aren’t going to hear that quote on the news tomorrow, because it’s “too religious” for our secular society. But if you don’t understand Dr. King’s faith, you cannot understand Dr. King in any deep and meaningful way.

“We just became so involved in getting our big bank accounts,” King preached, “that we unconsciously forgot about God – we didn’t mean to do it. We became so involved in getting our nice, luxurious cars, and they’re very nice, but we became so involved in it that it became much more convenient to ride out to the beach on a Sunday afternoon than to come to church that morning. It was an unconscious thing – we didn’t mean to do it. We became so involved and fascinated by the intricacies of television that we found it a little more convenient to stay at home than to come to church. It was an unconscious thing – we didn’t mean to do it.” [5] Thank God his parishioners didn’t have the temptations of the internet, Netflix, and skiing! Seriously, he was calling his congregation out to remind them of what it means to be faithful. In another sermon he claimed, “You are more concerned about making a living than making a life.” [6] Think of the contrast between Dr. King’s theology and today’s “prosperity gospel.”

I also discovered a short sentence that hit me like a rock. I want you to listen to this sentence and don’t think about the situation in the late 1950s…I want you to think about what it means today. “Social problems and racism in particular are moral and spiritual problems that create political and economic consequences.” Listen to that again: “Social problems and racism in particular are moral and spiritual problems that create political and economic consequences.” [7]

That we have a president whose administration imprisons children on our border…that is a moral and a spiritual problem: his and ours. That we have a shut-down government denying work to federal employees and contractors…that is a moral and a spiritual problem: his and ours. That we are witnessing a rise in hate crimes…that is a moral and a spiritual problem: his and ours. Do we have a moral and spiritual problem to address in this country? 

Dr. King said, “One cannot worship the false god of nationalism and the God of Christianity at the same time. The two are incompatible.” We call the worship of false gods idolatry, and it is a violation of the first commandment. Can you say “America First” and call yourself a Christian? 

The economic and political consequences that we live with today are the manifestation, the consequence, the result of the undealt-with moral and spiritual problems that haunt this nation. We need to deal with our national obsession with material things, with the avarice that drives our economy, with ongoing racism that eats away at our nation. These are moral and spiritual problems.
And one of the consequences that Dr. King didn’t live to see is that we are killing God’s planet as well as God’s people. We need a church that is willing to speak out as the conscience of our society, and we need a government willing to get tough, work across the aisle, and make hard choices that address the moral and spiritual problems that cause such suffering. “The church must be reminded,” King preached, “that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.” [8] Congregations like ours must claim that mantle, but it means we need to focus not just on charity, but on the work of systemic justice, as we are doing on the border, with our police, with affordable housing. 

One of the things that Dr. King knew and experienced is that doing the work of social justice requires risks and is incredibly taxing. It exhausts those who stand up for the oppressed. And he knew in the depths of his soul that his faith in God was what gave him and the movement the kind of spiritual resiliency that made change in the long term possible. Without roots extending deep into the soil of faith, the tree of social justice will wither and blow over in a strong wind.
 
When Mary tells her son that the wine has run out, Jesus says to his mother, “My time has not yet come.” In other words, his time to die is not yet arrived. But then he asks the steward to bring the jars and fill them with water. And he changes them into wine.

Jesus shows up at just the right moment, and even though time seems out of joint to him, he proceeds because he sees what is needed: the people need to taste and see that God is good. Sometimes situations call forth leaders who are needed in the moment, and I sense that God called Martin Luther King, Jr., into the moment when America needed him most. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a mystic, scholar, and activist said, “The whole future of America will depend on the impact and influence of Dr. King.” The man had incredible gifts, talents and abilities that were ripe for that Kairos moment of American in the 1950s and 60s. He was not Jesus turning water into wine, but he was a prophet, showing this nation and the world a third way, a nonviolent path toward spiritual, moral, and social transformation.

Who will turn water into wine for our nation today? 

There is much we can do today as the heirs of Dr. King’s spiritual legacy. We can use our faith as our bedrock as we lift our voices to speak out against racism, police violence, white nationalism, jingoism, economic injustice, and unjust immigration policy. But we need to lift every voice and sing…we need to stand up and let our voices be heard, in the halls of Congress, in the voting booth, in the public square.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him. O fear the Lord, you, his holy ones, for those who fear him have no want.” [9]

Amen.

Notes:

1.  Clayborne Carson, and Peter Holloran ed., A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons on Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (NY: Warner, 1998) from the introduction.
2.   MLK, “Recovering Lost Values,” in Carson and Holloran, op. cit., p. 17
3.   Martin Luther King, Jr., “Three Essays on Religion,” held in Chester, PA.
4.   MLK, “Recovering Lost Values,” in Carson and Holloran, op. cit., p. 15
5.   Ibid.
6.   MLK, “Paul’s Letter to American Christians,” Carson and Holloran, op. cit. p. 28
7.   Ibid., p 22.
8.   MLK: “A Knock at Midnight,” in Carson and Holloran, op. cit., p.72.
9.   Ps. 34.8-9

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

The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph
Thorny Theology Themes Series
Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ,
​Fort Collins, Colorado

*Preceding the sermon, the Time with Children was a telling of the Disney story of Frozen and singing of Let it Go. Our hymns in the service are referenced in the sermon: There is a Balm in Gilead and Nearer My God to Thee.
 
From the earliest advent of storytelling, the question of salvation, deliverance, renewal, and liberty have all been at the root of our storytelling: from the Vedas of Hinduism, Sacred stories in the Bible, to those of The Iliad, folktales around the world, and even Disney movies, the question of salvation is at the root of our spiritual/ethical discourse as humans. Our Scripture today comes from the Gospel of John which was written by people [The Johannine Community] who didn’t actual know Jesus as human but were many years later, like us, trying to make sense out of this religion without the founder present in person. They were a persecuted people, threatened daily with total destruction by the empire. Nicodemus comes to Jesus under the cover of night in fear (a story only mentioned in John). Nicodemus is understood by scholars to represent a group of people rather than an individual. He gets at the root of salvation: it is something deeply personal, a coming-out process from the night, wholeness, and also the idea of rebirth for all. This story of salvation Jesus tells Nicodemus is both deeply personal and also completely communal.
 
Since I am about to preach on one of the most controversial and sensitive topics in all of religion and humanity, I really need your prayers. Will you pray with me? God, I ask for your blessing and assurance before preaching knowing that all of my words are inadequate to describe your love, completely insufficient to explain your grace, and unable to fully announce your salvation. Therefore, O God, in urgency I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts may be good and pleasing to you, our Rock and our Salvation. Amen.
 
In 2013, I was in the middle of my Systematic Theology coursework in seminary. When we got to the section about Soteriology (The Study of The Doctrine of Salvation) it was time for spring break. I left on my annual pilgrimage to Boston to visit my half-brother and my two wonderful nieces still thinking about salvation and its meaning. No sooner had I arrived in their home and sat down than my nieces both, simultaneously, started singing loudly at me! Let it Go… Let it Go…! They were extolling, laughing, and preaching a new “gospel” of their new favorite thing in the whole world: Disney’s Frozen. A story that on the surface was filled with all of the usual Disney tropes of princesses, talking snowmen, assorted villains, and a happily ever after.
 
As I listened closer, I realized that this was no normal children’s movie. In fact, I am convinced that it is Disney’s MEA CULPA to the universe for all of their previous work. In Frozen, Disney subverts almost all of its traditional characters, values, genders, and norms in one film. **SOILER ALERT** First, the price “charming” is the villain with political motivation for his courtship and declarations of love. The closest thing to a “Wiseman” is a talking snowman named Olaf with a penchant for warm hugs and melting, and the “witch” who causes winter to overcome her realm, who lives in the ominous North Mountain [The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe], and who conjures monsters… is actually the one being oppressed, isolated, and denied her true self. It is the winter witch character who needs saving. It is a story of salvation, of coming out of the closet about one’s true self, about finding true authenticity, and about the empowerment and power of sisterhood—without help from men. The men are mostly either villains or in the way. It is about the complexity of the categories of good and evil.
 
As I listened and learned the “Gospel of Frozen” from my 8- and 10-year-old Jewish nieces—the most important part was that salvation, rebirth is something that comes from finding truth and acceptance from both inside and outside of self. It is something that starts within, but it requires family and friends to affirm and make whole. Salvation in Frozen is both personal affirmations, but it also takes others allowing us to live publicly in affirmed spaces. When she sings the song, Let it Go, Elsa comes-out to herself and finds empowerment… but that self-affirmation is only the start of her isolation and an outward winter. Salvation is both personal and social. Salvation needs community social justice, but it also requires true inside work, affirmation, rebirth with God. 
 
This is a little different from the salvation narratives many of us grew-up with:
 
Have you been or are you saved? Have you asked Jesus Christ into your heart to be your personal Lord and Savior? [Evangelicals are good at consistency and regularity of elevator speeches.] Are you born again? For many of us Progressive Christians, either born into churches like Plymouth and/or especially those of us converted to the mainline from more evangelical or fundamentalist backgrounds like mine in the Assemblies of God “The A.O.G.,” these phrases are more than thorny theological themes. They are theological-PTSD trigger words. Amen? The wounds of picking the thorns of those theologies out of our hands [gesture and gaze down to look like picking thorns out of hands and chest.], feet, ears, eyes, and especially our hearts [Pause and look around] … remain forever.
 
What those of you who grew-up in progressive theologies like ours at Plymouth might not really understand is how long, decades even lifetimes, it takes for the anxiety and fear associated with questions about personal salvation to dissipate. What if they were right? What if when I said my salvation prayer, I didn’t do it right? What is what they said was true? To convert from a Christianity focused on personal salvation and that worldview (salvation vs. damnation) to Plymouth and the UCC’s communal or societal “social justice” or “Social Gospel” understanding of salvation is a challenge. It is a true change of religion…a rebirth.
 
This is because we have been offered, consciously and subconsciously, a dichotomy and dual worldview. Either you are in the Christian Camp of Personal Salvation and Personal Faith through Jesus Christ as a way to avoid damnation… OR a Christianity based in Social Justice, Communal Culpability, Social Sin, Social Gospel, and the example of Jesus as a road map for living in communities where we seek heaven while living. In the former, Jesus Christ is the vehicle of salvation to carry us through life and death; while in the latter, his life and example are simply a divine roadmap for us to attempt to follow for salvation in this life. Biblically, we find evidence for both interpretations.
 
May I suggest, my dearly beloved, that one may be fundamentalist on either side of this divide? Are we fundamentalist social gospel Christians? Perhaps, the best understanding of salvation falls somewhere in the middle.
 
“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”[b] 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, [I like it better in the KJV… VERILY…] I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.[c] 11 “[Verily], I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you[g] do not receive our testimony. 
 
This passage from the Gospel of John is used by Evangelicals as the proof text for a born-again theology. There is a sense of being born in a new way through Spirit when we come into a place of faith. There is also in it a deep sense of community: “We speak… (not I speak) of what we know and testify to what we have seen.” This text is both personal and communal.
 
I bought a house and inherited a pet that bites: a rose garden with red English roses, yellow, and pink roses. On the first day tending my roses, for the first time in my life, a plant bit me. Still, after a lot of practice, I regularly get bitten by these thorny, beautiful, symbolic flowers. We may not have the roses, the flowers without the thorns. While our Social Justice/Social Gospel salvation is mostly roses, it too has thorns. While a personal salvation understanding has its many thorns (which many of us know all too well), I have learned to also embrace the roses of the theology I grew-up with. So, briefly, let’s compare and contrast the roses and thorns of both ways of seeing salvation: Progressive/UCC Salvation Theology and Evangelical Salvation Theology:
 
Roses of the UCC: Starting with the UCC: When we say social justice or social gospel in the United Church of Christ, we are talking about our soteriology—our theology of salvation. Systematically, we progressive, Mainline Christians interpret the Bible as an arc of narrative and human experience in community working itself out in the here and now (this lifetime). We look for heaven in this life and salvation in how to treat people and the planet. It is expressed in freedom, and liberation from systems of oppression. We do this through our participation in God’s arc of justice, equality, and improving living conditions for all people. What are the roses of our theology? The rose of this theology is that we live this life fully, Amen!? For us, the word salvation is a synonym of wholeness, of liberation, or authentic life on a communal or corporate level. We do tend to be corporate.
 
At best, we do not, as a matter of theology, focus on individual behavior or values as problematic or sinful. The roses are beautiful in the UCC! We really believe that we can make this planet into God’s Realm here and now. Wow! That is truly beautiful and remarkable—something to own and recognize. We can save people through living authenticity. We can make salvation come through reconciling communities and learning our history and claiming it and trying to make it better. We find roses of the Salvation of Jesus Christ in the UCC as a salvation from meaninglessness. God gives us purpose and judgement. Jesus is our salvation from a lack of purpose. If you don’t believe me or think you need more saving, ask the Nominating Committee. We can find more purpose for you. This is a communal view of salvation. Salvation is worked out through how we act as communities over time. Deliverance is a gift from God, but we are called to be Christ in the world building God’s realm here and now: feet, hands, and presence. A rose for us is that we are empowered by our theology to seek a better world, make change, be educated, and to never stop trying for better society.
 
UCC Thorns: But we too have thorns, friends! Our thorns are that we can focus so much on the communal, the reconciliation of communities, and societal sins and ills in Washington DC and Denver (We enjoy finger pointing at the lies and societal sins of others in capitols without remembering our own internal untruths and lies.) that we forget about the ministry of people with their real lives and real need for personal healing and hope.
 
Likewise, our sense of God and God’s salvation power gets tangled up and confused with our own works and actions to save the world. I call this one “The Tillichian Thorn” after Paul Tillich[1]. This thorn is that we forget that we and our denominations are not God. As your pastoral care minister, I know that people are miserable, alone, wrestling with life. Our message of “work harder” and to give more to change the world only works to a degree before it too can destroy lives from a sense of powerlessness or failure. What is wrong with me? Why isn’t our work changing the systems? Does this mean God isn’t real?
 
In our theology it is also much harder to start over. There are really no fresh starts, no new beginnings in the UCC. Everything is too communally, historically, and politically situated for that. We all own the burdens and sins of the past of our communities without hope of redemption in our lives—because salvation isn’t up to one person to solve. Salvation is generational work for us. Our thorn is that we are all bearers of the sins of our communities over the eons.
 
Finally, the saddest part, the thorn that hurts me as a former Evangelical and former hospice and hospital chaplain is that for many within our UCC theology of salvation—we don’t dream of, imagine, and hope for true tangible reunions with our beloved and with God and Jesus after death. If you grew up in the UCC, a vague sense of afterlife is commonplace, but it is hard for converts. While we might hint at it as possible…perhaps…maybe, we don’t claim that hope in the same way—and that is our loss. Mostly we picture floating energy masses. We don’t imagine a hug and a recognizable embrace from an embodied loved one, a son, a mother, a mentor. We are so embodied in life as progressives, yet we don’t allow ourselves to imagine God’s incarnate power after death. Our post-mortem imaginations are super boring in the UCC and our after-death expectations usually revolve around hoping that its peaceful! We set the bar low for God’s possibilities. That is perhaps the biggest thorn. Salvation is not part of our thinking about death. We speak more in terms of transitions than salvations.
 
Okay, now for the Evangelical reading of salvation thorns and roses.
 
Evangelical Thorns: Many of us, including myself, are here today because of the all too deadly and painful thorns of evangelical salvation theology. Because these theologies focus on the individual person, it has developed a set of “good and bad” behaviors conveniently supportive of institutions and The Patriarchy. These rules define the need for this salvation. Yes, I said it—many of the traditional “sins” can be traced to political power, especially Victorian norms, and its maintenance by certain social groups over history: white, male, straight, able-bodied, and married. For some of us, that means Bible as weapon used to abuse and destroy lives and to keep others in line. Love the sinner, hate the sin. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard that. As a result, two more thorns exist for this understanding of salvation. One is a resistance to modern, good, intellectual Biblical interpretation that casts doubt on their ancient list of sins. That list is too precious to their power to question even if it has little to do with their core faith. We know from text study and history that many of the things called “sins” by Evangelicals are modern superimpositions on an ancient text. Recognizing intellectuals challenges their entire system of power. Lastly, Evangelical salvation is so focused fundamentally on the individual that they become blind to the great social sins, political expediency, and they ignore whole parts of the Bible that are crystal clear on social orders for equity, care of widow, refugee, orphan, and communal response.
 
The Evangelical Roses: The evangelicals have a rose, however, something sacred and wonderful. They carry a beautiful rose of a deep sense of God’s presence, comfort, and work in their lives. They live with their ears close to their hearts and observe life with keen interest looking for communication from God. For this reason, while sins are easy, mistakes are almost impossible for Evangelicals. Conversely… for the Mainline Progressives mistakes are easy and ridiculed (whispered about as “poor strategic planning…”) while sins are hard or impossible. This shows where we locate power. For an Evangelical, there are no mistakes. This makes them much better and more faithful risk takers. Try, try and try again with God and there is no wrong. Even a sin can be used by God for learning and good. While us liberals use the word “intentionality” and “intentional living” like it’s going out of style, the Evangelicals actually do it. God is active, and they are attentive to details like Sherlock Holmes detectives. While many cradle Mainliners like to ride this off as “fake” or “pretense,” I can tell you that the Evangelicals I know live that reality in authenticity and conviction. Let’s see what God will do? God is Good… God is great! Those are some upbeat and honest phrases Evangelicals utter when they are at their theological best. They are very good at intentional living.
 
Finally, the biggest and best rose is a rose that triggers many of us progressives to tune out and run away right when we should be leaning in. They have is this “born-again” language about Salvation that comes from our passage today in John 3. It is the language of rebirth. What the Evangelicals mean when they say “born again” is a fresh start in faith and in life. They mean a new life in Christ. They have an expansive understanding of what is possible in restarting life in faith that we rarely have. When someone tries to tell you their born-again story, listen, because they are trying to share something intimate… akin to a coming-out story.
 
This is why they are so much more effective at running 10-step programs, at running prison ministries, running rehab programs, and ministering to those with economic diversity and hardship. They meet people when they actually wish that they could be reborn. Statistically, as privileged upper middle-class churches, the progressive church can rarely imagine wanting a rebirth—because life is good. We don’t minister to people at the bottom of their lives because our theology doesn’t offer as much. Because in the Mainline, we focus on big systems and social sins (big solutions and movements) …we are good at giving money, starting programs, etc. We write letters or are in DC lobbying from the top to create better policy and improve the prison systems from the top, while the Evangelicals are in the cells changing lives from the bottom. Can’t we say that both theologies are necessary and maybe part of God’s work? While the Mainline has roses in systems, the Evangelicals are really good at and have roses of giving people at the lowest, hardest points in their personal lives hope at starting over from the point of birth. It is never too late for God. It is never too late—no matter what systems of oppression you were born into. Never too late.
 
Friends, in seminary in Georgia and as a geriatric hospital chaplain (CPE), I had to find a way to speak to the born-again Christians around me. I found that in silently naming my coming out experience of personal liberation as a moment when I was born again… saved. It was my Elsa moment of admitting that I had a gift, a blessing, a skill in this life to celebrate rather than hide. Hiding it was only causing winter for myself and others. Yes, I have been born again many times—once in first grade at Heritage Christian School down at Prospect and Ellis (and, yes, it was a powerful moment of love and grace), and again in high school in my family’s living room saying, “I’m gay and God loves me!” I was born again when you ordained me and renamed me “Reverend” with a laying on of hands. Rebirths through God’s power for wholeness are endless. How many born-again moments have you had in your life when God offered you a fresh life? Do you need one?
 
I want to tell you of what I know… and testify to what I have seen. We are shown a way for us to hold our progressive theology, our social Gospel, but to also honor the good that a more personal understanding of salvation holds. Our language of coming out and authenticity is compatible with the theology of being born again. The Evangelicals won’t make that translation, nor do we need to aggregate them by telling them we are translating into our language—but it is a way to reinterpret what they intend by that salvation language. We can have conversations about salvation theology with Evangelicals—if we translate their language into ours. The only difference is for us, we believe that sin means falsehood both in society and in our personal reality, and we also believe that we can be born again (start over) many times in our lives rather than just once.
 
Coming Out as gay and being reborn in Christ are similar experiencing of claiming wholeness and promising to move forward in love with God and Christ. If we can be the church to name the common human experience of both of these, we will have a rose garden for all people. Forcing the Gospel and Scripture 100% into either communal social justice or 100% personal salvation will cause a winter for us either inside or outside. This is Elsa’s lesson in Frozen. Why can’t we believe in social and personal deliverance and community possibility?

When they translated the title song from Frozen called "Let it Go" from English into French, they had a problem. “Let it go” is too long in French for the tune. So, instead they translated it into: "Liberated, Delivered/Saved… I won’t lie anymore. Liberated, Delivered/Saved… it is decided that I am leaving!” [More information on translating this song.]

Libérée, délivrée (Liberated, Delivered/Saved)
Je ne mentirai plus jamais (I will never lie again!)
Libérée, délivrée (Liberated, Delivered/Saved)
C'est décidé, je m'en vais (It is decied… I’m leaving)
Et me voilà ! (And here I am!)
Oui, je suis là ! (Yes, I am there!)
Libérée, délivrée (Liberated, Delivered/ Saved)
Le froid est pour moi, le prix de la liberté (The cold is for me the price of freedom.)[2][3]
 
Frozen is about what happens when we find acceptance of self but don’t follow that up with claiming the gifts of community and family. We might know who we are, but the process of salvation for Elsa is frozen until her sister Anna comes to let her know that she is loved in her new identity and power. Salvation, friends, is both personal relationship with God and self, but as today’s Scripture shows us, it also requires the “we.” May we always be un-fundamentalists from every perspective. Amen.

[1] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-Tillich
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQP9XZc2Y_c
[3] Translate by Jake Miles Joseph

The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph
Text: John 3: 14-17
March 11, 2018
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC of Fort Collins, Colorado

Note: This Sunday, for the first time in decades at Plymouth, we sang Old Rugged Cross and In the Garden as our focus hymns.

Thank you to our liturgists this morning for leading worship and reading the Scripture. Will you be in prayer with me? May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts, be good and pleasing to you, O God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Have any of you heard or sibling rivalry? How many of you have experienced it? [Ask for a show of hands for both.] Well, today we are going to talk about why talking to other Christians, siblings in Christ, is often so much harder than interfaith work—basically sibling rivalry. Today, I am preaching a different kind of sermon. I want us to think about how we can stay in conversation, in dialogue, or maybe even in community with those who believe very differently than we do. It isn’t easy work, but it is the test of progressive Christianity for our time. I am going to do this by a little bit of honest testimony about my own experience and then conclude with a concrete practice that is sort of a take-home exercise. How does that sound?

I remember the rooms—a yellowing hand-embroidered pillow with the words from the King James Version neatly, yet obvious hand-stitched: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” It was on the chair I was offered. The chaplain was always offered the chair with the John 3:16 or other verses embroidered pillow on it, of course, as a sign of respect. The patients almost always cried. So many elderly patients get far too few visitors—getting old can be lonely. I remember one patient. She buckled over on herself in the wheelchair every time I would visit, tears flowing, and was overcome with tears and I just kept singing and singing. It was all I could do, for I was without words for the first time in a year. I had discovered a secret language of communication, however, that could overcome dementia, Alzheimer’s, differences of theology, and age—a couple of singable, simple hymns that always said what I could or would not.

I had, up until that point, been a smart-ass seminarian, a self-described and self-righteous social justice warrior, a progressive firebrand who believed that he was somehow sent or cursed by God him or herself to be one of the only out gay liberal voices at a Southern, United Methodist Seminary. I was, needless to say, a miserable seminarian for three years completely out of my element in a world of bowties, suits (seersucker), big hats, and conservative/politely closeted formalities of Emory University. Don’t let me even get into what I thought of the subtle racism,
Coca-Cola idol Worship, and the coffee hours at local churches (I kid you not) complete with chocolate fountains and tiers and tiers of cucumber or pimento cheese finger sandwiches every single Sunday.

After my first full year of seminary, I had a transformative experience that reshaped how I now hear and see “traditional” or conservative Christianity not as a sworn enemy but a potential partner for if nothing else healthy conversation. That is when things took a turn for the better. I entered a full time three-month summer program called CPE with Emory University Healthcare and Emory University Hospital as a chaplaincy full time intern for the summer. 

This is where I found or reclaimed my calling after having lost it somewhere in Atlanta during that turbulent first year of seminary. My call to ministry wasn’t primarily social justice advocacy (even if I am good at it) as I had expected, but geriatric and elder care, nostalgia nurturing, and old time religion translation and meaning making for the progressive church. In addition to being assigned to overnight on call shifts at the main hospital and weekly shifts as the chaplain for Emory’s shocking Electroshock Therapy program (ECT), I spent most of my time at Wesley Woods—Emory’s geriatric hospital and nursing care campus. 

It was there that I discovered the power of these hymns, “Old Rugged Cross” and “In the Garden” among others to literally create common ground, common language where it wasn’t before. Even as some of the theology in them made and still makes me cringe, I was able to see the meaning they have for others. It isn’t all about my liberal theology and me. This is also the case for our passage today: John 3:16. As I was willing to let go of just a little of my pride and perfect progressive pedigree, learn to sing these simple, personal, nostalgic rural hymns…. I was able to reclaim a call to ministry after that first year of seminary. It is with this same gratitude and attitude of openness that I learned singing hymns with the elderly in Atlanta that have been able to survive Christian ministry as an out gay minister in my 20’s. The humility to know that people may dislike what I stand for, but I can still work to find ways to relate is powerful. These hymns remind me what is a stake: a sense of the humanity of the other and a willingness as a progressive to laugh at myself. This is not something we remember how to do often on the progressive side in these times—and it matters more than ever.

I learned that these old folksy hymns, Scripture like John 3:16 from the KJV, and other signs of traditional faith were tools for pastoral care, conversation, and being with people in the hardest times of their lives and deaths when words and lectures and difference no longer matter. If someone is dying alone and you are his or her only companion as chaplain or you as friends or family, what do you say? I know some of you have experienced this. What did you say? Do you lecture them about not being liberal enough even then? No, you sing. No, you find common ground in this one life to live. We have been rejectionists of tradition for a longtime, and that is good. A lot of it needed to be rejected. We have learned, through trouble and toil, a new way to be Christian and progressive (Amen!)… but now comes the hard part for the UCC (the next step)… still remaining in community with those who are different without being condescending.

Often when we talk about our sister and brothers in other Christian traditions, we do it with the condescending tone of the older brother. We love our sisters and brothers, but they are just so misguided… wait till they grow-up like us.

My patients, like the one with the John 3:16 pillow, probably didn’t vote the way I did. They probably would not have been kind to my husband, and me but they were vulnerable humans for whom their faith had kept them all the day and nightlong. Their faith could have kept them, helped them survive and endure situations in life beyond my understanding and often beyond words. Who am I to take that from them?

Let me use a recent example of where the UCC missed the point entirely! When Billy Graham died last week, there was an outpouring of emotions on social media and Facebook in particular.

​Mostly the attitude I saw was extremely negative. Most of my clergy friends took time away from sermons, budgets, and whatever the heaven clergy are supposed to do to write long diatribes and Facebook post polemics claiming that Billy Graham ruined American Christianity and pointing out homophobic statements he made in the 1980’s as a reason to discredit his entire ministry. It made me wonder how many of the people I love now and who love me now [silently look out at our mostly older congregation] said or thought something homophobic in the 1980’s. Have we developed such a litmus test for “good progressive Christian” that we have forgotten about grace, about falling short, about forgiveness, or even process? Where did this litmus test for perfection come from in our circles? Are we any better or more holy than any other Christian because we have declared ourselves enlightened? Have we forgotten about grace and redemption? This is a question I would like to ask our denominational leaders in Cleveland. I sure hope that I am not judged, my life is not summarized, and my entire ministry isn’t evaluated based on my worst moments. Don’t we all hope our lives aren’t summarized by our falling and tripping?

As Progressive Christians, unlike other Christians, listening, inclusion, unity, and trying to build bridges is central to how we understand Jesus—so being the ones who are willing to stay in conversations, even the hardest conversations, fall on us (the Otis) as progressive Christians to find ways to be in relationship rather than cut off. For us, it is fundamental to our belief, so it is our job to stick with it. See it is our faith to be bridge builders even if it if harder on us than the others. Verses like John 3:16 and hymns like those we are singing today are hard for us, but it is our job to stay present and find the good even if hard at times.

I want to leave you today with a simple tool I call “The Great And” as a method of learning to speak with those with whom you disagree. “The Great And” is something I learned at a workshop called “Identity Bowling” this past summer at General Synod’s National LGBTQ Coalition pre-conference. Here is how it works: Whenever you want to say “but” in a sentence… instead say “and” –then see how the sentence comes together differently.

How many of you have ever caught yourselves saying, “I love you, but you drive me crazy” or “He is a good minister, but he is so young?” Anytime you end a sentence or start it with “but” you are negating whatever came before it. If you hear something you disagree with, if you respond with “and” you are not negating what they just said… rather you are adding your own thought on top of it. This is a radically different way of dealing with disagreement. The need to say but is the need to define yourself in your sentence rather than the need to communicate and
community. If you are confident in whom you are in the discussion, then you don’t need “but” anymore.

Examples:

Billy Graham was a conservative, evangelical minister who said some terrible things about LGBTQ people in the 1980’s and he transformed many lives and brought American Christianity new vitality. We can even say that the Mainline progressive congregations wouldn’t be what they are today without him.

The Old Rugged Cross is a song about personal salvation, blood, gore, and the word rugged can mean something durable, changeable, natural, organic, enduring and that helps me sing that hymn in my own progressive way. Rugged is a word I relate to as a Coloradan.

In the Garden is an outdated, bad theology, terrible hymn we should never sing, and for many it is a powerful hymn that reminds people of their grandmother’s love of nature or finding God in nature.

Beards are itchy and some people like wearing them.

Or here are some harder examples formulated as what someone might says to us, and then I provide an optional response. Note that humor, irony, and play is helpful in disarming tension and keeping relationship intact.

Gay people should never be ministers… and it’s a little late for that.

The UCC is just Unitarians Considering Christ… and boy do we spend a lot of time considering him. You would almost think we were Christian ourselves!

Deportations are part of a fair legal system… and so should being allowed to take care of your neighbor, bring water to the refugee, and exercising our Christian values of love for the stranger.

Guns are part of the American dream, and for some of us that is feeling more like a nightmare.

The CSU stadium has ruined Fort Collins, and it has provided a space for the community to gather for music, marathons, and other events.

Being Christian, even a progressive Christian is a waste of time… if God existed there wouldn’t be such mess in the world… and some of us still find comfort in religion, in church community, and believing in a higher purpose.

These are hard conversation, but the simple word “and” can allow engagement without agreement. “The Great And” does three things—it leaves what the other person said intact (you aren’t going to change their mind with a but and a negation), it keeps the conversation going, and it allows you room to have a sense of humor. It does not mean that you agree with what they said, but it allows for relationship even in the hardest time.

Of everyone at Plymouth, I am probably the most hated and vilified member of our community by those on the outside as your proud and out gay liberal minister. If I can engage these conversations, humorously deal with the barbs, show up at events with people who really think I somehow symbolize the end of the religion as we know it, and attempt to stick with the “great and” responses rather than “but” retorts, then I promise you can do it too! It just takes some time and self-assurance, and it is worthwhile.

May we never give up the effort of building relationships, especially with others in our faith, even if it is hard and painful. After all, we are all in the same garden. Amen.

John 4.2–15
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning
Plymouth Congregational UCC, Fort Collins, Colorado
March 19, 2017
 
Have you ever thought how fortunate we are to have great drinking water in Fort Collins? It’s no accident that we are the home of two dozen breweries ranging from Black Bottle Brewery, which is about a half mile east of us on Prospect Road, and the behemoth Anheuser-Busch Brewery on I-25. Seriously, our water tastes great straight from the tap. Imagine what would happen to the brewing industry if we had the water problems faced by the residents of Flint, Michigan.

Water is one of those basic elements of survival that we actually think about in the western half of the United States. We understand how precious – and how divisive – water rights can be.
I am always intrigued by the approach in Colorado newspapers when reporting good news about snowpack – which is never straight-out good news: “The South Platte River Basin is at 138 percent of normal…but it may not last if spring rains don’t arrive.” You know the good news – bad news drill, which is better than all bad news.

The desert setting for today’s gospel story is even more dire. In a parched landscape without reservoirs, purification, and plumbing, water is even more dear. Wells in that setting were essential to life. And as Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well, we are all thirsting for water that will slake our parched souls…the living water that Jesus offers.

For many of us, and I include myself, we sometimes don’t know exactly how to satisfy the inner thirst we experience. You know what I’m talking about: when we know in the depths of our being that something is wrong: when we’re anxious or stressed out or depressed or lonely or fearful. We try to alleviate the discomfort we feel by grabbing a bag of potato chips or a bottle of scotch or a valium or we have an extramarital affair or smoke a joint or we take it out on our kids or our spouses or we go shopping. We are thirsty, but clearly we don’t know which well to drink from.

And now we as a nation are being reminded of an age-old thirst for justice, especially for the people Jesus called “the least of these, who are members of my family.” And this week’s budget announcement is just the tip of the iceberg. Those of us who have influence (even the influence of sending a postcard to a member of Congress) are being called upon to lift our voices for justice.

Whether the issue is increased defense spending or slashing Health and Human Services, the EPA, Agriculture, WIC, climate-change prevention programs, UN peacekeeping, and the complete defunding of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting…this is going to be thirsty work. Jesus said that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied, But it’s going to take our involvement and labor, so get ready.

One way to prepare ourselves is to be sure that we are drawing from very deep spiritual wells. We all have a need for connection with something greater than we are…something transcendent and holy and numinous. But to acknowledge that God calls on us to work for justice and to try to tap into the wellspring of the holy has become fairly countercultural, especially in our current political climate.

Sometimes we each experience our own well running dry. We hit bottom or go broke or we have a personal crisis. The popular psychologist Brené Brown (whose work on perfectionism is currently being studied by a group here at Plymouth) initially called what she experienced a “breakdown.” She recounts how in her own life, she licked alcoholism and was so obsessive about her diet that she knew the glycemic load of every food item on the shelves of her local grocery store, but then the well ran dry. A progressive Episcopalian who loves Marcus Borg, Brown tried to explain it to her therapist as a crisis, and her wise therapist reframed it for her as a spiritual awakening, which is why she refers now refers to it as a “breakdown spiritual awakening.”

When was the last time your well ran dry? When was the last time it really hit the fan? Have you ever thought of it as an opportunity for spiritual awakening? And how did you cope in the midst of that crisis? There are life-giving wells and poisoned wells from which we can drink. There are productive and destructive waters we can consume in trying to satisfy our thirst.

Physical fitness and psychological health are two life-giving wells from which you can drink. The third well is spiritual health. Carl Jung, the great Swiss psychoanalyst, stressed the importance of spirituality in the mix. Writing in 1965, Jung expressed it this way:

"The decisive question for humanity is this: Are we related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of life. Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interest upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance… [and I would say, drinking from the wrong wells]. The more a person lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity they have for what is essential, and the less satisfying they find life. … If we understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change."
 
Most of you know this already…it isn’t news, but perhaps it serves as a reminder.

Returning to the water metaphor, there is a necessity for reservoirs, purification, and plumbing in our spiritual lives as well as for our physical sustenance. That threefold water supply is part of the purpose of this and every church or synagogue or mosque or sangha or temple…because every individual runs dry on occasion. It is part of the human condition.

We each will experience a spiritual drought, and most of us don’t have the reservoir necessary to see ourselves individually through moments of crisis or drifting apart from God. I hope that for you, Plymouth is like a reservoir fed by deep springs: providing an ample supply of living water.
​
Our lives can become sullied by our own pollutants and we need rituals of cleansing. We sometimes lose perspective on what clean water really should taste like and my prayer for you is that you get a good mouthful of clean, living water in this church.

And the plumbing system for living water is all around you: it isn’t just Jake and Jane Anne and me who are conduits of God’s grace, but the people you see next to you in the pews. All of us help to supply living water to one another and to people far beyond this congregation. Together, we refill the reservoir.

If you ever wonder why church is important, just remember: it’s about the deep well, reservoir, purification, and plumbing.

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I would like to invite you to join me in a brief guided meditation if that is something you wish to do…and if not, that is fine also. I invite you to close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Allow your body to relax and your mind to come to a still point. Allow your self to open to the presence of God in this place.
And imagine that you are in a dry and arid land. It is hot and dusty. You hear a dry wind blowing the sand around your feet. You walk along through this desert wilderness seeing only the occasional cactus and you begin to sense your thirst.
Ahead of you, you see a man standing by a well. As you draw nearer he invites you to come and have a drink. He is a familiar figure to you, and you recognize him as Jesus. He draws water up and offers it to you in a cup. As you taste the water it is cool and sweet. You sense that your deepest thirst falling away. You feel refreshed and cooled by the water he has offered you. And you sense an inner calm washing over you. [pause]

You realize that any time you thirst for living water, it is available to you…that you can come to the well and that Jesus will draw up that clear, cool water and hold it out for you.
As you prepare to walk forward through the wilderness, you offer thanks for that living water. And as you continue your journey, Jesus offers you his blessing and his promise that he will supply living water whenever you need it.

So, as you are ready, allow yourself to come back into this time and place. Take a deep breath, open your eyes. And know that the presence of Christ is in this and every place with you.
 
May the water God provides bless you.
May God’s gift of water be available to all people.
May it slake our thirst, wash our wounds, refresh our tired bodies. May its sound calm our anxiety and stress.
May the holiness of water, which comprises much of our bodies and God’s earth, remind you of your own baptism into our faith.
Amen.
 
© 2017 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint.