Mark 4: 25-41
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
Fort Collins, CO
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
 
35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." 36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" 39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40 He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" 41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" NRSV

35Later that day, when evening came, Jesus said to them, "Let's cross over to the other side of the lake."36They left the crowd and took him in the boat just as he was. Other boats followed along. 37Gale-force winds arose, and waves crashed against the boat so that the boat was swamped. 38But Jesus was in the rear of the boat, sleeping on a pillow. They woke him up and said, "Teacher, don't you care that we're drowning?" 39He got up and gave orders to the wind, and he said to the lake, "Silence! Be still!" The wind settled down and there was a great calm. 40Jesus asked them, "Why are you frightened? Don't you have faith yet?" 41Overcome with awe, they said to each other, "Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him!" Bible, Common English with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Locations 39334-39340). Kindle Edition.
                 
I knew when I read this story again that I had preached on it before. So I looked back at my sermons. Yep! Twice before in the six and a half years I have been at Plymouth. Most likely before that at one or two of the other churches I have served. And I distinctly remember an intergenerational Biblical storytelling event I led many years ago when a wonderfully, feisty and well-spoken, tiny and very blonde four year old – Helena – played Jesus in the storm-tossed boat. She stilled the waves with no fear and no uncertain command!

In 2015, this was my text here at Plymouth just days after the shooting at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC where nine African-American members were shot by a young white man interrupting a Bible study. In June 2018 when we read and considered this text together, there was a volcano in Hawaii erupting and destroying homes, huge floods in Vietnam killing people, a large, fatal mining accident in China, a terrorist bomb in Ethiopia that killed over 150, conflict in Syria and at the border of Gaza, the worst e coli outbreak in many years in the US and political turmoil due to our government’s administration. Now today, we hear the story of Jesus stilling the storm again as we prepare to re-open our church building for worship after a pandemic shut-down we could not have even imagined 3-6 years ago. Not to mention the political and societal events of the last 16 months.
So many “storms.”  It seems, there are always “storms” in to ride out in life.  No wonder this story shows up not only in 3 out of four canonical gospels. The older I get the more I realize that there is not as much smooth sailing in life as I imagined there would be when I was younger. It seems that more often than not, we are all just holding on for the ride! Like the disciples in that storm-tossed boat on that large, large lake called the Sea of Galilee.

Do you think they argued about waking up Jesus? “Let him sleep! He’s been teaching and preaching all day standing in this rocking boat! So many crowds. Everyone wanting healing! He is so tired. We can handle this storm!” “I don’t know, its getting really bad … we are starting to take on water – fast! I think we need help!” “Nah, we just have to steer carefully….besides what can he do? He’s not a fisherman.” “He can help bail!” The tension grows and the storm worsens until even the most seasoned of the fishermen are afraid and they all cry out, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are drowning?” And Jesus is suddenly awake.

I think we tell this story time and again because time and again we need to hear Jesus words. We need to hear him shout out to the storm, “Silence! Be still!” or more literally from the Greek, “Be Silent! Be Muzzled!” “Hush!” And the story tells us there was a great calm, a dead calm. Whew…..let’s just take a deep breath….then let it all out….Can we stay here for a moment in the calm?
Personally, I would like to stay for much more than a moment….how about staying in this calm, breathing deeply, out of danger, protected in the presence of Jesus’ powerful stilling of the storm for a really long time? I need to catch my breath big time! How about you?

That is the beauty of story and why stories like this one bear repeating time after time. We can always come back to this healing moment. We can read or tell ourselves this story every day and come back to this moment of Jesus’ stilling, calming presence in the storms of our lives and catch our breath. We live in the middle of many exterior storms in life, the storms of politics and pandemics, the storms of racism and poverty and gun violence, the storms of conflict in our families and in our workplaces, on the playground, in school. However, I will venture to say that the storms we carry around inside our minds and hearts are even more frightening and exhausting – the storms of fear and anxiety, of worry, of being overly competitive, of greed, of insecurity, of seeking to control things that we really have no control over. The inside storms interact with the exterior storms and cause us even more pain and suffering. How often do you feel that you are living in a whirlwind?

So come back to this moment when Jesus says, “Silence! Be Still! Enough already!” Breathe deep and let your hands unclench from the sides of the boat or the oar you are holding to help row the boat or the rudder to steer the direction or the rope for the sail that guides the power momentum of the wind. You don’t have to let go of those things completely, just relax the white-knuckled grip…for just a moment and catch your breath in the calm of Jesus’ powerful presence. And listen. To the quiet. To the gentle lapping of water against the boat. To the breathing of those around you, you are not alone. To your own beating heart. Just listen and breathe for a time.

We have been through such tumultuous times together in this little boat we call the church. We have weathered extreme changes, tacking right and left abruptly, to stay on course. Bailing water so as not to sink. Adapting to all the changes and confronting the conflicts of the last 16 months. We have done well…. And let’s not forget why…Jesus, God- With-Us, is in our boat. At times like these it is tempting to push ahead with the adrenaline panic of the storm we have just come through. But we do not need to do that! Because God-With-Us is present and brings us calm. We are still in the boat together out in the middle of the lake. We still have to reach the other side safely. This is true. There is so much planning to do as we re-open our building, as we learn to be church in person again, as we incorporate all we have learned by being forced to do church, to be church in new ways. So much planning as we hire and call new staff, prepare for them to come. Planning as we incorporate online worship with live worship, welcoming new friends who have joined us through the internet. Planning to do as we implement the goals and tasks of our new strategic plan that calls us to outreach and mission on unknown shores. I am tempted to be completely overwhelmed.

But Jesus is in the boat! Calming the waves and the wind. And in the quiet I hear him say to me, to us, “Why are you frightened? Don't you have faith yet? You have come through the storms and I was with you the whole time. Can you rest in, take heart in, trust in God’s presence?” This is an image I will literally take with me into my work as we move ahead as church. I need this image to calm the interior storms in my heart and mind and soul knowing I have little to no control over the exterior storms of life.

We are headed to new shores of mission as a faith community just as the disciples in the boat were headed with Jesus to the country of the Gentiles where he would proclaim God’s good news of love and forgiveness and demonstrate God’s healing power. God has work for us to do, but we cannot do it all on our own power. We need God’s powerful calming presence to help us steer the boat, to remind us to breath and not to bicker with one another, to have each other’s backs as we engage the work of God in new ways. We need to hear the message, “Do not be afraid. Have faith. Trust in my presence.”
There is a beautifully, poetic song titled, “The Wood Song” written by Emily Saliers, one of the Indie rock duo, “The Indigo Girls.” I think it is a song about faith communities and I know that Emily was steeped in such communities growing up as the daughter of two faithful people who I had the privilege to know when I lived in Atlanta, GA. One was a librarian who led wonderful reading hours for children and one a seminary professor who taught worship and liturgy. The imagery in “The Wood Song” is about being in a boat together during stormy times and the refrain goes like this:
“But the wood is tired and the wood is old
And we'll make it fine if the weather holds
But if the weather holds we'll have missed the point
That's where I need to go.”[i]
 
“That where I need to go” to that place of faith and trust where I can hear the voice of Jesus, God-With-Us, say “Silence! Peace! Be Still. Have faith.” I think you and I know that the weather will not hold – at least for long. Yet there is calm in the midst of the storm and we will make it to the other side, just holding on the ride, since we have God-With-Us in the boat. Are you with me?
Amen.

©The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, 2021 and beyond. May be reprinted with permission only.

[i] https://genius.com/Indigo-girls-the-wood-song-lyrics

“Blooming”
Mark 4. 26-34
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
13 June 2021
 
 This week when I was walking our dog, Bridey, on a dirt trail near our house, I was astounded to see how high the various grasses have grown, and not just on the sides of the path, but even sprouting up in the cracked, parched soil that benefitted from a couple of wet weeks late in May. “The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.” Our seasonal cycle is off to a roaring start with all of the moisture we’ve had, and I know that we’ll soon see our vegetables sprouting and blooming. And they all start with seed and are nourished by healthy soil, sun, and water.

You may know the lovely poem by Wendell Berry, called “Sabbaths.” Here are a few lines of this poem that describes the intersection of human work in sowing, tilling, and harvest and the work of God: “And yet no leaf or grain is filled by work of ours; the field is tilled and left to grace. That we may reap, great work is done while we’re asleep. When we work well, a Sabbath mood rests on our day, and finds it good.”

There is so much that we humans affect in plant growth…that is the nature of agriculture, going right back to the Near East millennia ago. And yet there are things that are well beyond our control, things that we should marvel at and see as everyday miracles, like the fertility of the earth, the diversity of plant and animal life, the abundance of water, air, and land. And there are enormous implications for the ways we act as stewards of creation…and that’s a sermon for another day.

There is also a miraculous sense in which you and I are the vessels into which the kingdom of God — God’s liberating reign — is sown and nourished. If you were to think of yourself as a container of potting soil and the Spirit placing one tiny seed within you, isn’t it amazing how that seed can either flourish or become dormant or even die? What happens to seeds that don’t have adequate soil drainage? or don’t get enough water? or get too much or too little sun? or get nipped by the frost? There are all kinds of ways that the seed of the Spirit within you needs tending, some that you may not even be aware of.

Like all good gardening, nurturing the seed of the Spirit within you takes some intention. Nurture is the place where transformation and spiritual growth happen. How do you weed and water the seed of the Spirit within you? We need to love and to be loved, to serve and to be served as part of our growing. We need times of quiet contemplation and times of action to stretch us spiritually. Times of prayer and spiritual practice can help us distinguish what is important in life from that which is simply urgent. And it’s not always pleasant experiences that cause us to grow…surviving and thriving in hard times can sometimes help spiritual seeds grow stronger, too. Part of our purpose as the folks who comprise the church is to keep reorienting us so that we face toward God and grow spiritually.
Have you ever thought of yourself as a vessel that contains a germinating seed of holiness and wholeness? Paul uses a related analogy in Second Corinthians: “We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”[1] Each of us is an imperfect vessel that grows and spreads God’s love for creation, including humanity.

All of this nurture wouldn’t do much of anything if there hadn’t been a seed of spirituality sown within us by God. As Wendell Berry said, “no leaf or grain is filled by work of ours; the field is tilled and left to grace.” Spiritual growth is a cooperative venture between God and us.

So, what if the seed has been planted within you is a fast-growing, take-over-the-garden kind of plant? Years ago, a neighbor gave us some mint, which we planted in a planter, and in the years since, it has jumped to a patch under some shrubs, the gaps in our patio, and turned into a minty-smelly border in our lawn. (A friend once said that it’s impossible to steal mint…you’re doing someone a favor by ripping some of theirs up and taking it home!)

That’s kind of what the mustard plant Jesus describes is like. It isn’t a nice, little domesticated plant that might be used to produce French’s, or Gulden’s, or even Grey Poupon…it’s more of a noxious weed that takes over the garden. Here is what one ancient author, Pliny the Elder, wrote in the first century: “with its pungent taste and fiery effect [it] is extremely beneficial for the health. It grows entirely wild, though it is improved by being transplanted: but on the other hand, when it has once been sown it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it, as the seed when it falls germinates at once.”[2]  (Pliny, incidentally, took the National Geographic thing too seriously, and was killed by getting too close while investigating the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D.)

So, the kingdom of God is like a noxious weed that is really potent and has a “fiery effect” and that will probably take over your garden if it gets too close. And if that is the seed God planted within us as Christians, we should be a force to be reckoned with!

Dom Crossan often talks about “the normalcy of civilization,” by which he means the things that humans have done ever since we started cultivating crops and raising livestock instead of hunting and gathering. He contends that one of the marks of the normalcy of civilization is empire: taking for your own group or nation what another has. It is survival of the fittest culture in a dog-eat-dog world. Certainly, one can see the Roman or Babylonian Empire as examples of one culture controlling the land and people of another and cashing in on it. You can see how the British did that in India or how the Japanese did it in the Pacific in the 1930s or how Europeans did it with North and South America. The Greek word used in the New Testament for empire is “basileia,” which is the same word we translate as “kingdom,” as in the kingdom of God. That is critically important: When the author of Mark writes, basileia, he is using the same word to describe the Roman Empire. It’s the way of rule or reign, not necessarily a geographic location. And the contrast is dramatic between the basileia tou theou, the reign of God, and the reign of Caesar.

The reign of Caesar was about dominating conquered peoples, resettling their land, creating a system of military control that allowed everything to work. It was a system that aimed at eventual peace, gained through violence, war, and oppression. The realm of God reverses that by first seeking love, compassion, abundance, connection, justice, and commonwealth as a pathway to peace or shalom. The two systems couldn’t be more different!

The writer of Luke’s gospel puts it succinctly: “The kingdom of God is within you all.”[3] Think about that for a moment…the seeds of God’s liberating reign are in all of us.

Sometimes I wonder whether we Christians actually have two seeds planted within us: the seed of the reign of God and the seed of the normalcy of civilization or empire. Do you ever wonder what is growing in you? Is it a sense of abundance or scarcity? Is it faith or fear? Is it compassion or apathy? Is it generosity or greed? Is it love or is it self-centeredness? Is it courage or is it anxious worry?

If we do all have the seeds of the realm of God and the normalcy of civilization planted within us, which seed are you nurturing? If the pandemic has led us to water the seed of fear, apathy, and anxiousness, that is the seed that will take hold and grow within us. If we water and tend the seed of the reign of God, we will see the fruits of faith, love, and courage in our lives and in the world.

That tiny mustard seed within each of us needs love and attention to flourish and grow. That’s why we are here together as church! And as it grows in you, it will reach out beyond you and have effects far and wide. Always remember: “The kingdom of God is within you.”
Amen.

© 2021 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.
 
[1] 2 Corinthians 4.7
[2] see John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography,(SF: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993) p. 65.
[3] Luke 17.20

Mark 1.29-39
5th Sunday of Epiphany
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
 
29 As soon as Jesus and his companions left the synagogue [in Capernaum], they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Now Simon's mother-in- law was in bed with a fever, [she was very hot and sweating a lot], and they told [Jesus, “She is very sick.”] 31 He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and [she got up from her bed] and she began to serve them. [She gave them some food to eat.]
 
32 That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons, [the people with bad spirits in them.] 33 And the whole city was gathered around the door. 34 And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
 
35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and his companions hunted for him. 37 When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." 38 He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." 39 And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
 
Looking at the first chapter in Mark, which we have heard most of in worship throughout January and now into February, you might think that the writer knew about modern movie trailers. The scenes move very quickly giving us the essence of what Jesus and his story is all about. He is committed to and blessed by God at his baptism….he gets his strength and power by  going into wilderness solitude for prayer…he proclaims a new message about God’s presence in the world saying, "Now is the time! Here comes God's kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!"[i] Then he begins healing folks who are outcast because of their illnesses, unclean by religious law, like the man with the unclean spirit in the synagogue who Carla lifted up for us in last week’s sermon. You could say that Jesus is now really on a roll!

Everyone is bringing people to Jesus for healing and he is casting out their disease and their dis-ease, their bad spirits. First Simon’s mother-in-law and then all the sick of the city of Capernaum! Just as the disciples think, “Wow! We’ve got a good thing going here in our hometown,” Jesus tells his them that his purpose, his mission, is to proclaim God’s message and take the healing throughout all of Galilee, not just in Capernaum. They are on the move! Proclaiming the message of repentance and trust in God goes hand in hand with healing, “casting out demons.”

We love Jesus, the teacher, the storytelling rabbi, the proclaimer of wisdom, the social justice prophet who speaks truth to power about change. But what do we make of Jesus, the healer? In our time of pandemic, what do we make of Jesus as one who not only prays and proclaims, but also heals? Does the talk of spontaneous healing and being possessed by demons make us squeamish? We know and trust science. We know the advances of medicine in the last 2000 years. We are particularly grateful for the advances of medical science in this time of pandemic!  More and more of us are getting the vaccine. Much to be grateful for! Medical and mental health sciences do not have all the answers. Yet the answers they do have heal so much! Unlike Simon’s mother-in-law, when we have a fever, we can take a pill.

So what do we as 21st century people, disillusioned by radio and tele-evangelists who are shysters and money grubbers, do with Jesus, the healer?

I found help from the late scholar, Marcus Borg, who is much beloved here at Plymouth as our first Visiting Scholar and as a much-read author guiding us in faith formation through so many profound books. You may know that Marcus was part of the Jesus Seminar, a think tank of scholars and lay people, who worked in the 1980’s and 90’s on the quest to discover more about the historical Jesus. Marcus, spent much of his career asking, “What can be historically verified about Jesus? In his last posthumously published book, Days of Awe and Wonder; How to be a Christian in the 21st Century. Marcus writes that historically Jesus was a traveling rabbi and mystic healer following in the tradition of other Jewish mystic wisdom teacher and healers of his time.

Revering Marcus as a scholar and knowing that he had the research to back it up, this statement about Jesus was took me by surprise! Marcus believed Jesus was a healer, who healed through the power of his relationship with God, a relationship that involved his heart as well as his head, in fact, the devotion of his entire being, body and soul, a mystical relationship, if you will. Marcus goes on to define a mystical experience as an episode that invokes “sheer wonder, radical amazement, radiant luminosity [and often] evokes the exclamation, “Oh, my God!”[ii] He claims his own conversion to mysticism even as a scholar, through these experiences that take over all your senses. Experiences of the Holy that connect one with the “more” that is God. Not with a supernatural, parentified, Santa Claus God who will give me what we want or think we want if we just pray hard enough. But with the transcendent “God who is more than the space-time universe of matter and energy” AND the immanent God who dwells within, “the presence of God everywhere.”[iii] The God in whom, as the apostle Paul said, we “live and move and have our being” (Acts17.28). 

I have had these, usually too brief, numinous moments of “knowing” God, trusting with my whole being the God who is vaster than the cosmos, yet as intimate as my breath. Have you? And they connect me to Jesus of Nazareth, the Jesus of history who made God manifest in the world. These moments are not sought. They come upon one, not frivolously, but unexpectedly. I have found that I have to place myself in way of such moments by simply opening to the opportunity of them through habits of paying attention to the whole of life as sacred and to listening for the Holy in prayer. Just as Jesus did.

Leaning on the scholarly and heart-felt testimony of Marcus Borg, I confess to you in simple confidence, not needing to know with my head all the scientific or theological facts, that I trust Jesus was a mystic healer in his day. He healed people of whatever ailed them – from fever to “bad spirits.” Bad spirits that might have been mental/physical illness, such as depression, bi-polar or epilepsy. But also, bad spirits that might have been being allowing anger, resentment and holding grudges to consume life, seeking relationship to power over relationship to people. Jesus healed not through his own power, but through the power of God. He sought perfect attunement to God in his whole being, in his prayer life and his religious study life, yes, but also in his relational life, his community life of love and fellowship and in his life of social action for justice. Through being in-sink with God, he healed with his presence, his touch, his love bringing people into wholeness and new life. How, exactly? I don’t know. But I believe, I trust in Jesus’ healing.  I know he still heals souls. And that healing goes hand in hand with proclaiming God is here Now and God is love.

We can participate in the liberating message and mission of the historical Jesus in our own time which we know needs so much healing.  I am not saying we are called to lay hands on people and spontaneously heal them of Covid! We are not Jesus. What I am saying is that we each have the opportunity to open our hearts to healing change and redemption through the wholeness of God’s love. And then to share that opportunity with others.

The healing process of God the historical Jesus participated with began with bringing folks in and meeting them right where they were. In whatever state they were in. Loving them with the fierce, unsentimental, unconditional love of God. Seeing them for who they were created in the image of God. Calling them into this image. And then casting out whatever was harmful, not needed, not useful, what was bad for the health of the body, mind and soul, whether physical, mental, emotional or spiritual.

Try something with me for just a moment. Let’s put ourselves in the way of the Spirit, open our hearts and minds to the opportunity of God’s healing through Jesus. Close your eyes, if you’d like. Take a deep breath and let it our slowly. Using your prayer heart or meditation mind or simply your imagination, bring all of your Self to stand before Jesus as if you were one of those folks brought to the door of Simon’s mother-in-law’s house in Capernaum. Bring all your longings, your frustrations, your illnesses of any kind. All your angers and resentments, your failings, your successes. Bring all your relationships. All the things you love and the things you don’t love about yourself. Your self-hatreds and lack of self-forgiveness, your pain in body, mind and soul. Bring your gifts, your joys, your thanksgivings. Present yourself before the spirit of God in Jesus for healing. God in Jesus sees you just the way you are created in God’s image. (pause) Is there anything standing in your way to wholeness that needs to be cast out by God’s powerful and loving presence? Let that thing go. Perhaps, there is there a healing word or image or idea that has come to you. Nothing is insignificant. Acknowledge what you receive and bring it more deeply into your soul. Let it anchor you in God.  Is there a surprise gift that has popped up in an image and is yearning to be used for God’s good in the world? Receive it and say, “Thank you.” Take a just a few moments to be in this place of before the power of God we know in the face of Jesus.

Now I invite you to take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Open your eyes if you closed them. Wriggle your finger and toes. Come back into the physical space of your home. Standing before Jesus’ presence for healing is a place you can go again and again. Because healing is a process. And you don’t have to do it all alone – that’s why there are ministers, friends, counselors and therapists, doctors, spiritual directors, the fellowship of a faith community. Remember the people came as a crowd.

Jesus calls us to healing so that the world may be healed. Remember the woman from Children’s Time? “But this is all I know of dancing.” I invite you to know the healing power of God through Jesus so that you may dance your life with both hands flung joyously into the air! Remember Simon’s mother-in-law? Her healing prompted her to servant leadership. She got up and fed all the disciples and Jesus, the healer. She was dancing in the Spirit with both hands up! May it be so with each of us.

Amen.

©The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, 2021 and beyond. May only be reprinted with permission.

[i] Bible, Common English. CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Locations 39204-39205). Common English Bible. Kindle Edition.

[ii] Marcus Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder; How to be a Christian in the 21st Century, (Harper One Publishers, New York, NY: 2017, 43.)

[iii] Ibid., 39.

Mark 1.14-20
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
 
Let’s talk about…Jesus.

Now, you may say to yourself, Hal you talk about Jesus almost every Sunday, and that’s true. But how often do you talk about Jesus with your family, your kids, your friends, even with your friends here at Plymouth? I’m guessing not very often.

When I was younger, it seemed that in my church we talked about “Christ” as a more refined, less emotional kind of a figure. It’s easier to make “Christ” conform to your own norms and standards than it is when you think about “Jesus,” the Galilean peasant who preached regime change to overturn the Empire and the forces of this world in favor of the kingdom of God.

It’s also because of the rise of anti-science, anti-gay, anti-woman evangelicalism in the 20th century that led to the Religious Right. It’s because we don’t want to be associated with the televangelists who talked a lot about Je-ee-sus (with three syllables). That Jesus is perceived by some as having one purpose: to get you into Heaven by being saved through a profession of a personal relationship with him as your personal Lord and savior. That theology invites radical individualism (it’s about me and Jesus) and it is centered in the mistaken perception that Jesus’ reason for being here in the first place was to die a bloody and agonizing death on the cross so that believers receive a get-out-of-jail-free card in the hereafter. If Jesus — that Jesus — doesn’t care a fig about social justice, then it’s all about reaching the pearly gates. I imagine that is the Jesus many insurrectionists in DC were praying to on January 6. Don’t you wonder what they would do with the words of  the historical Jesus: “Blessed are you who are poor.” “The kingdom of God is among you.” “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God; it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.” “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

And sometimes we in the mainline churches talk about the Christ of faith as the “post-Easter” Jesus, the one who rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of God. (That’s a metaphor, by the way.) We speak of Christ whose presence is with us today. And that’s really important…but there is more.

But I have an invitation for you. We are going to be hearing a lot from the Gospel According to Mark in the lectionary this year (with a detour into John’s Gospel during Lent), and Mark provides a punchy, no-nonsense, early account of Jesus, the historical Jesus, who lived, walked, talked, preached, healed, proclaimed, and died in the Jewish homeland. Mark gives us a sometimes raw and unvarnished vision of who the Jesus of history was.

You may ask why the historical Jesus is important. The big theological answer is the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus, but I’ll set that aside for now. Jesus set an example of what it looks like to live a life fully in congruence with what God intends for humanity. In the version of the Lord’s Prayer we often sing, John Philip Newell writes “May your longings be ours,” which is another way to say that what mattered to the historical Jesus should matter to us…because it matters to God.

The historical Jesus is not so easily bent and contorted to fit our American vision of what a messiah should be. Instead, he was a disturber of the religious and political status quo, a sage of alternative wisdom, and a healer. The Jesus of history is an antidote to Christian Nationalism that co-opts the Christ of faith by putting words in the mouth of Jesus that he never spoke. He never said a word about abortion or same-sex love. The historical Jesus is also the yardstick by which Christians can and should measure our theology, whether it is our idea that God is still speaking or whether it is someone claiming to be a prophet thinks the former president should still be in the Oval Office. If you want to measure your message from the Holy Spirit, see how it looks in comparison to the life and teachings of the historical Jesus, and if it doesn’t measure up, it’s more likely to be your superego talking than it is God.

So, here is the invitation I extend to you: I invite you — no I implore you — to start talking about Jesus. Talk about Jesus and what he said about the poor, what he did in healing people without charge, what he meant by the phrase “the kingdom of God,” what Jesus was trying to do through his ministry and his public witness. As I watched the events of inauguration day last week, it occurred that we have entered a new era for progressive Christianity with a president informed deeply by Catholic social teaching and the social gospel. And in this morning’s New York Times, there is an article, “In Biden’s Catholic Faith, an Ascendant Liberal Christianity” that quotes Dr. William Barber saying, “Birth pangs require one thing: pushing.” Are you willing to push?

Have you ever noticed that the Black church has never had a problem talking about Jesus? We have something to learn! And the Jesus they talk about is most often the Jesus who blessed the poor, healed the sick, and stood up to empire. Can you push yourself outside your comfort zone to talk about Jesus? It’s a new day, and it’s time for us to claim our faith: to show people that the stereotype of White evangelicals doesn’t describe all Christians, and it doesn’t mean our view is exclusive of other faith traditions.

At the end of last year, I received a very thoughtful email from one of our members who wrote, “’We stand on the side of love’ or ‘Come just as you are’ constitute nice sentiments, to be sure.  But how do they move us forward? Rather, perhaps we should say: ‘Come just as you are…but don’t expect to stay that way.’ Expect to be challenged and changed…and, occasionally, to be made a bit uncomfortable — that is how growth and progress occur.” YES! This is exactly the centerpiece of Plymouth’s mission statement that describes inviting, TRANSFORMING, and sending.  The word you heard in our text this morning, REPENT, in Greek is metanoia, the shift of our hearts, minds, and actions toward the things that mattered most to Jesus. And it’s hard. Transformation is hard!

You may think that it’s hard to talk about Jesus…so just try it! What have you got to lose? People probably think you’re a bit of a crackpot for belonging to this church anyway! Try it! That’s my challenge to you this week.

And if you think talking about Jesus is difficult, imagine for a moment that you met Jesus, and he said to you, “Follow me and leave your classroom or your law practice or your small business or your retirement behind. I’m going to make you do something new that involves changing peoples’ lives!” What would you be willing to leave behind? Would you abandon your career? Your assumptions? Your fear of talking about Jesus? Your wealth? Your family? Imagine him speaking one-on-one directly to you.

It takes an incredible amount of trust in Jesus to take big steps. But here is something I know about you as a congregation: you have big hearts that match your big minds. Once something grabs you, you’ll give it your all, not just for a day or a week or a month. And if we really trust Jesus, we can take big risks for the kingdom.

So, what do you think Jesus is asking you to do as a person? What do you think Jesus is asking us to do as his followers? Where do you think Jesus is calling Plymouth in this new year? As we eventually leave the pandemic behind and we can come back together, what do you think Jesus wants us to do together for God’s world?

These words of Amanda Gorman are worth repeating:
“For there is always light if we are brave enough to see it,
If only we are brave enough to be it.”

Let’s be the light.

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.

Mark 2.1-12
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado

 A few months ago, there was a writing prompt for a contest in The Christian Century, and it was to write on the topic of scars. And to be quite personal, I have a number of small scars across my abdomen from two laparoscopic surgeries related to my prostate cancer. They’re just little scars that you might not even notice…not the old type of postsurgical scar that shows a long, raised white line where a scalpel opened a patient up. 

I thought about writing about those little scars…but I didn’t, at least until now. The scars themselves are small, but the wounds left behind are fairly major, and the impacts of cancer treatment have been life-changing. 

Some wounds and ailments are quite visible to the casual observer: a missing limb or a pronounced limp or hacking cough might reveal an injury or illness. Those are tough, because they are right out in the open. People are likely to understand and be sympathetic about wounds they can see. But they also leave the onlooker wondering: What happened, or even what did they do to make that happen. One of the things I noticed when going through cancer treatment was my own awareness of the shame-and-blame game that some people do, especially around lung cancer: “Well, was he a smoker?” they ask. That is utterly beside the point, and makes it possible for the observer to feel judgment and pity, but not compassion. It also makes the observer feel safer about herself because she knows she isn’t a smoker…but it’s a false sense of security, since many lung cancers occur in people who have never smoked. 

The English word, compassion, Jane Anne said in last week’s sermon, comes from Latin roots cum and passio — to suffer with. And that’s quite right. But the New Testament was written in Greek, and the word often translated as compassion is splagknidzthomai. (Can you imagine the Scrabble score for that in Greece for that word!? It’s 38…without double or triple squares.) Splagnon means intestines or guts, and splagknidzthomai literally means compassion that is gut-wrenching.

You and I can offer pity from afar…but compassion is a different story. You have to be involved in order for it to be gut-wrenching. And if you are aware, if you are moved, and if you have a conscience, you have to get involved. Maybe you’ll be able to remedy it, and maybe you won’t, but you can’t be like the priest in the Good Samaritan parable and walk on by on the other side of the road. You and I can’t fix racism on our own, but we can use the gut-wrenching image of George Floyd under a police officer’s knee and use the compassion we feel to spur us on in working on our own racism and to help others along the way. We can use compassion to drive action for change in policy. We can use gut-wrenching compassion in the voting booth this fall. Compassion is not wimpy…it implies — and sometimes requires — tough love.

Unless he had an iron spike protruding from his spine, I imagine that the man suffering from paralysis in today’s text had a paralysis caused by something that was not visible to the naked eye, whether it was a nerve impacted by a broken bone or a disease that robbed him of his ability to walk. We aren’t told, but we do get the idea of Jesus’ tough love when he says to the man, “stand up, take your mat, and go to your home.” The invisible wound was healed.

I’m going to hazard a guess that every person hearing this sermon bears scars and has some kind of an unseen wound. Maybe it’s a physical ailment that really affects your health. Nobody sees high blood pressure, but they know when you’ve had a stroke. No one can tell is you have diabetes, but they see signs if your blood sugar drops. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

And spiritual wounds are almost never visible. I can’t tell you how many LGBTQ people have been damaged by the church’s homophobia, but they are legion. Even if churches like ours offer a warm welcome to non-straight folks, we are a tiny minority among the global whole. Women, too, have been terribly marginalized and wounded by misogyny in the church. And we self-inflict spiritual wounds as well. We sometimes create our own tethers of shame and sin that keep us from experiencing the abundant life Jesus came to offer.

Many of us are in need of healing of unseen psychological ailments, whether depression, anxiety, or another disorder. About 7% of Americans experience a major depressive episode each year. That translates to about 50 people in our congregation. 

On Friday, I got a call from one of our members whose 50-something son had taken his own life, and yesterday afternoon, I got another message about one of Jane Anne’s former parishioners in Denver, a young man in his 30s, who had died by suicide. As most of you know, Jane Anne’s son, Colin, took his own life two and a half years ago, so this hits hard and close to home for both of us. People left in the wake of a suicide often ask why they didn’t see the warning signs (especially people like me, who are trained to see warning signs). But the truth of it is that those who choose suicide often have deep unseen wounds.

We need to remove the stigma around mental illness…help is available, and keeping it in the shadows only makes it less likely that folks who suffer will get the help they need. Please reach out for help. Carla, Jane Anne, and I have a good referral list for therapists here in Fort Collins. 

So, what is the unseen wound that is affecting you right now? That’s a hard question that you probably weren’t anticipating this morning. But, I ask that you take a moment to think about the physical, psychological, or spiritual wounds — especially the unseen wounds — that are affecting you and keeping you from living life in its fullness? I’m going to pause so that we can contemplate that in a moment of silence. [pause]

I know that my first image of healing was a really creepy televangelist, who would do “faith healings” on stage on his TV show. I remember him sticking his fingers into the ears of a person with a profound hearing impairment and yell, “Deaf spirits out!” For me, that taints the idea of healing.

Healing doesn’t necessarily mean curing. It can mean helping, acceptance, openness, forgiveness, seeking transformation. We yearn for the wholeness of body, mind, and spirit, even as we understand that no one is claiming to restore lost limbs or grow new organs in the people who are afflicted.

I have a profound belief in the efficacy of prayer…not that it works like a vending machine: insert a quarter, pull the lever, and out comes whatever you wish. Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, said, “The purpose of prayer is not to change God; it changes those who pray.” So, if you want to start changing, you can start by praying.

My own belief in healing prayer is not that it will result in curing, but that it may help us toward healing through accepting a terminal diagnosis (we all have one…), learning to live with a disability, getting help with mental illness or mood disorder, learning to forgive someone who has injured you deeply, learning to let go of shame, and learning to embrace with gratitude the abundance of blessings God offers you.

So, I invite you to think back a bit to that unseen wound that is affecting you right now. And if you wish, I invite you to focus on it for just a moment, and I’ll offer a prayer of healing.

Jesus the healer, we know that you came so that all of us might have life and have it with abundance. Whether our lives are long or brief, we invite you into the midst of them. We offer to you the wounds we bear in body, mind, or spirit. We hold them out, acknowledging their presence, and we invite you to share our pain. O Christ, we ask to be made whole. We ask for healing. Help loosen that which binds us to old and unhealthy conditions. Help us walk into the verdant garden of your healing love. Give us the courage to seek the professional help we need. Make us partners in seeking and providing wholeness, and help us to spread your healing and compassion throughout your world.

Amen.

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

Mark 12.28-34
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
 
I sometimes give people books that have meant a lot to me, and the one I’ve given more than any other is To Bless the Space between Us by the late Irish priest and poet, John O’Donohue. It is a lovely volume of blessings for many occasions, and they tend to be very evocative of what the spirit is doing within and among us. O’Donohue defines a blessing as “a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal, and strengthen.”[1] I would also say that the act of blessing involves the transfer of love from one to another.

For more than a decade I have used one of his blessings when I inter the body or ashes of one of our members, called a blessing “On Passing a Graveyard.”

May perpetual light shine upon
The faces of all who rest here.
May the lives they lived
Unfold further in spirit.
May all their past travails
Find ease in the kindness of clay.
May the remembering earth
Mind every memory they brought.
May the rains from the heavens
Fall gently upon them.
May the wildflowers and grasses
Whisper their wishes into light.
May we reverence the village of presence
In the stillness of this silent field.[2]

Those words of blessing are etched on a standing stone at the entrance to our Memorial Garden, and they may cause those who visit to read them and to offer a blessing on all those who remains rest here at Plymouth.

O’Donohue writes “In the parched deserts of postmodernity, a blessing can be like the discovery of a fresh well. It would be lovely if we could rediscover our power to bless one another. I believe each of us can bless. When a blessing is invoked, it changes the atmosphere.”[3] And for me the atmospheric change is steeped in self-giving love for another, who receives the blessing.

I agree that we — each of us — do have the power to bless and empower one another. You don’t have to be an ordained minister to bless others, and yet we do so at the end of every service, offering a benediction, which is a blessing on you. In fact, benedictus is the Latin word for “blessed.”

We also ask for God’s blessing on animals, as we did a month or so ago during our annual service. And we bless things as well, when we offer a blessing over a meal or with a prayer of dedication for the offering each Sunday. In some traditions, only the minister or priest blesses the offering, but I shifted the litany so that it’s something we all do in worship at each service.
When I was doing my field work in divinity school with the Franciscan AIDS Ministry in Denver, I became acquainted with the writings of brilliant Jesuit from India, named Anthony de Mello. (He’s also the second Roman Catholic priest I’ve quoted in this Reformation Sunday sermon!) He had the amazing ability to spin quips and aphorisms –- as Jesus did –- that turn things upside down or cause you to think about things in new ways. De Mello writes, “We sanctify whatever we are grateful for.” In other words, we make holy whatever we’re thankful for.

Think about that in your own life: what are you grateful for, and how does your sense of gratitude sanctify it?

Will you spend a moment with me, close your eyes if you wish, and just think about what you are grateful for, and ask for God’s blessing upon those people, things, or aspects of your very existence. [pause]

“We sanctify whatever we are grateful for.” We might just as well say that we consecrate whatever we are grateful for. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the verb “consecrate” this way: “to set apart as sacred; to dedicate solemnly to a sacred or religious purpose; or to give sacramental character by performing the appropriate rite.”

In a few minutes, we will do that: we’ll bring our offerings and our pledge cards forward, putting them in a basket, and then together we will ask for God’s blessing on them. This is the same sort of thing I do when we celebrate communion, and I consecrate the elements by setting them apart and dedicate them to a sacred purpose. In consecrating our offerings and our pledges, we are setting aside a portion of our wealth (which is the stored energy from our labor) and we are dedicating it to the ministry and mission of this church.

I think sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the idea that money is stored energy and what we are doing as we pledge is sharing some of that stored energy to further the realm of God in our own time and place. Each of us has set aside a certain amount of our stored energy and today we gather as God’s people to bless it, to sanctify it, to consecrate it. And the act of setting it aside and asking for God’s blessing makes it materially and spiritually different from, say, what we give to our alma mater or NPR.

Turning to Jesus and his interrogative conversation with one of the scribes in today’s reading, what does it mean in tangible terms to acknowledge that God alone is God, that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength? That we are to love our neighbor as ourselves?

One of the ways that plays out for me is in the idea that we ourselves are to be a blessing. We are meant to be living, loving wells that pour out fresh, clear water for God’s world. And I see you doing that: by visiting those who are sick, standing up for immigrants and refugees, sleeping out for the homeless, listening to those who need counsel, creating a home for nonprofits like PFLAG and Laudamus and Prairie Mountain Zendo and AA.

One of our late members, Bob Calkins, a wise retired psychiatrist, would always challenge me when I got into more abstract theology by saying, “Hal, it’s all about love.” And I have a feeling that Jesus would agree. It’s about the love of God, neighbor, and self…and being a blessing.

I think offering a blessing is an expression of love of God, neighbor, and self. Interestingly, though, none of us just gives a blessing…we are also the recipients of blessing from God and from those around us. And when we focus on the blessings we’ve received, it results in gratitude. And then the process turns like a Mobius strip, such that we have been loved and blessed, and in turn we want to love and bless others, and the process continues.

I count myself as blessed to be in this community which does so much to love and bless others not just here at Plymouth, but beyond the four walls of this place. You are a blessing!
​
Thank you and bless you!
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.
 
[1] John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space between Us. (NY: Doubleday, 2008), p. 198
[2] ibid., p. 95
[3] ibid., introduction.

Mark 4:35-41
June 24, 2018
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson

35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them,
"Let us go across to the other side."
36 And leaving the crowd behind,
​they took him with them in the boat, just as he was.
Other boats were with him.
37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat,
so that the boat was already being swamped.
38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion;
and they woke him up and said to him,
"Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"
39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!"
Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.
40 He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?"
41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another,
"Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

It is the end of the work day for Jesus. He is most likely exhausted. He has been teaching all day. The crowds were so great at the seashore that he sat or stood in a boat moored just at the edge of the beach in order to teach. Imagine balancing your weight in a boat to teach. Speaking above the lapping of the waves. Telling stories to help the people understand the ways and realm of God. Watching their puzzled faces. Patiently explaining over and over what you thought you were making clear the first time.  No wonder Jesus is tired! No wonder he falls asleep on the journey across the Sea of Galilee to the country of the Gerasenes....distant Gentile neighbors of the Jews. 

             Yet tired as he may be it is Jesus’ idea to make the crossing of the sea by night. To go to a foreign country with no particular preparation, a country where they may or may not be welcomed. He is not saying....”Hey, guys! Let’s get in the boat and go home! Won’t it be great to sleep in our own beds?” No, he is saying,” Hey guys! Let’s get in the boat and set off on another journey into unknown territory after a long, exhausting day of teaching, preaching....being with the crowds.”  And they all go with him....they had to have been tired as well. They take him “just as he was” the text says. No preparation. Just as he was....remember that phrase, we’ll get back to it.

They, too, leave just as they were.  And not just one boat but an entire flotilla of boats go with Jesus. Other boats, most likely fishing boats...perhaps the livelihood of an entire village, maybe more. They all set off together. They all encounter the storm together. They are all in peril. This is bigger than the fate of one small boat with Jesus and the disciples, as momentous as that might be. If any of them go down it will impact more than one family. If more than one perishes, God forbid all of them, the livelihood of several villages is wiped out.

The very image of setting off into the dark is bit scary for you and me. Remember there are not lights on this boat....not one has a cell phone flashlight or flashlight of any kind. Perhaps some of them were skeptical about setting out at night...knowing what might be when storms come up, knowing the storms on the Sea of Galilee.

When the storm comes up the disciples are truly scared. There are no life preservers.  No rubber raft life boats. The waves are beating into the boat....the rain must be coming in sideways...so any lit lantern would be doused. Steering is getting more impossible. What if the boats are dashed against one another by the storm? This is a serious! “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” What do they hear? Snore.

No wonder they are upset! Frantic. Panicked. They are bailing water and steering and calling out locations...trying to row for shore....yet they cannot save themselves. They realize they are in the boat with this one who has shown them amazing healing miracles through the power of God, who preaches good news with stunning truth. A teacher sent from God. But he is not paying attention just when they need him most! He is asleep in the back of a boat....head even on a cushion! For God’s sake!  “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

In the dark days of WWII a sailing boat was adopted by World Council of Churches as the symbol of the church universal. Depicted on storm tossed seas it had a cross for a mast. We are in the 21st century church boat in the stormy seas of our times....sailing it seems at times with no particular preparation....no extra provisions...no life preservers....here we are just as we are .... and there are a flotilla of competing boats with us, boats of politics, culture, other faiths, other kinds of Christians. What can we do? Will we be effective in riding out the storm? Can we steer the boat? Or in the midst of all the other boats will we crash into one another causing more disaster in our efforts to save ourselves and help our neighbors?

In “The Wood Song”, Indigo Girl, Emily Saliers sings,
the thin horizon of a plan is almost clear
my friends and i have had a tough time
bruising our brains hard up against change
all the old dogs and the magician
now i see we're in the boat in two by twos
only the heart that we have for a tool we could use
and the very close quarters are hard to get used to
love weighs the hull down with its weight[1]

Her words are an apt description of our life and times. Though we might think she is a bit optimistic in thinking it is love that weighs the hull down with its weight.  Our boats seem weighted with greed and competition rather than love and compassion. Yet perhaps she see the bigger picture from our text today and is remembering Jesus in the boat. God’s love with us in human form, in the boat. 

“God, do you not care that we are perishing?”

I amazes me how Jesus wakes up and immediately he is in the moment. No grogginess. No yawning. . Jesus, so attuned to the power of God that he wakes from deep sleep into complete chaos and knows immediately what to do. Remember that phrase from the beginning of the story. They took him “just as he was.” Jesus wakes up and just as he is....he rebukes the wind and says to the sea....”Peace! Be Still!”

In the Greek, he literally says “Be Silent! Be Muzzled!” And the wind and the sea obey. There is a dead calm  And Jesus says to the disciples, to us.... “Why are you still afraid? Have you still no faith, no trust?”

Oh, that I could handle crisis in this way.....but I am not Jesus...none of us are. We are the ones in the boat with Jesus. And our job in the midst of chaos is to remember that we are not alone. To remind one another, we are not alone.

We row and steer and bail out the water AND pray! We protest and pray. We write letters and make calls and pray. We build housing and feed people in our church and pray. We volunteer and send aid, love even our unpleasant neighbors....AND WE PRAY!  And God shows up!  Just when we are think that this  old boat of a church might be so tired that its breaking apart ....God shows up! For us just as we are. And God is always enough...there is always a love that passes all our understanding watching closely over the journey.[2]

In the final verse of her song, Emily sings,
sometimes i ask to sneak a closer look
skip to the final chapter of the book
and then maybe steer us clear from some of the pain it took
to get us where we are this far yeah
but the question drowns in its futility
and even i have got to laugh at me
no one gets to miss the storm of what will be
just holding on for the ride[3]

My friends, we may feel beaten and battered, old and tired as individuals and as the church, but Jesus meets us just as we are....just where we are...with the power and authority of God. And it is enough for any stormy journey. Remember, the task ahead of us is never greater than the power behind us. We know we will make it fine if the weather holds....but the weather never holds....there is always change in the midst of life....and the point is we can always go to the place of faith. Jesus is there waiting for us. Just as we are. Waiting to still the storms and heal the brokenness. That’s where we need to go. And together with the disciples of old we can say with awe and wonder, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" Thanks be to God!

Amen.
​
©The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson ,2018 and beyond. May be reprinted for publication with permission only.

[1] http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-wood-song-lyrics-indigo-girls.html
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.