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

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

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

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

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

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

In a few weeks, you are going to hear about our new Strategic Plan, which the Leadership Council accepted at last month’s meeting. And it’s going to take courage on your part to put this aspirational document into practice: to bring the words on the page into life. This morning I will share the vision part of the plan:
“Plymouth’s purpose for the next three to five years is to embody beloved community with God, each other, and our neighbors. We will enhance our communications and deepen engagement within the church. We will be a visible force for social, racial, and environmental justice. This focus will help Plymouth’s already vibrant community look to the future and grow in numbers and in spirit.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*speech at the Sorbonne, April 23, 1910

Mark 8.31-9.1
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
 
I suspect that many of us at Plymouth don’t particularly like talking about the cross and crucifixion. It can be hard for us to make sense of it today, just as it was in the first century when Paul wrote, “Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.”[1] And yet, when you look at the predominant symbol of Christianity, when you look at the front of Plymouth’s sanctuary, you see the cross, an ignominious and horrific means of execution employed by the Roman Empire. And we know that Jesus died a tortured and shameful death upon a cross.

I need to tell you something: I do not fully understand the meaning of the cross. Yes, I’ve been to seminary. Yes, I’ve been ordained for a couple of decades. Yes, I’m a pretty bright guy. But there is an aspect of the cross that I may never understand.

I get it that Jesus was put to death by Rome because he was a threat, a political agitator who proclaimed a radical regime change that he called the kingdom of God. I see the collaboration of the religious authorities and the scribes. I understand that early Christians explained the cross in the context of Isaiah’s prophesy of the suffering servant. But I still don’t understand it on a visceral level, because I am a white man in America who lives with incredible privilege, including the privilege of not having lived the connection, the echoes, the resonance of the cross and the lynching tree.
Jane Anne tells a story that during her ordination process, she included a bit more about the theology of the cross than most candidates and it made some people uncomfortable, and that one of her defenders was a saint of the UCC, the Rev. Clyde Miller, who was our conference minister for 13 years. As a Black man raised in the South, Clyde understood the cross and its significance for the Black church in this country. He had an intimate understanding of the cross as God’s critique of the powers of this world and the way that God can turn suffering and defeat into victory.

I don’t know how aware you are of the history of lynching in our country or if you’ve ever thought of it as a system of tacitly legitimized terror perpetrated by white Americans against our Black sisters and brothers. Even into the 1920s, anti-lynching bills passed by the US House of Representatives were defeated repeatedly by a solid bloc of Southern Democrats in the Senate, and the Emmett Till Antilynching Act was finally passed by the House 366 days ago, on February 27 last year…but it was held up by the Senators Paul and McConnell from Kentucky, and it died with that session of Congress. What does that say to our African-American sisters and brothers in the wake of the killing of Ahmaud Arbery who was shot and killed while jogging by two armed white men in a suburb of Atlanta? Doesn’t it say, “We still think it’s okay if Black lives are forfeit?” Doesn’t it say, “Black lives don’t really matter?” And lynching Black Americans wasn’t just a southern phenomenon, though the vast majority of lynchings occurred there; in 1900, John Porter, a 15-year-old Black adolescent was lynched in Limon, Colorado…he was burned alive.

Theologian James Cone writes, “If white Americans could look at the terror they inflicted on their own black population — slavery, segregation, and lynching — then they might be about to understand what is coming at them from others. Black people know something about terror because we have been dealing with legal and extralegal white terror for centuries. Nothing was more terrifying than the lynching tree.”[2]

Have you ever thought about the crucifixion as a lynching? About Jesus as the “victim of mob hysteria and Roman imperial violence?” I invite you to use your imagination and try to walk for at least a few yards in the shoes of Black Americans who saw the lynching tree as the ultimate symbol of terror. You’ve seen the horrific photos of crowds of white terrorists, sometimes with their children, gathered around the mutilated body of a Black man or woman hanging from a tree or the mother of 14-year-old Emmett Till looking at her son’s disfigured body in a casket. It wasn’t simply a death, but a visible message about white supremacy. New Testament scholar Paula Fredrickson says that crucifixion in ancient Rome was analogous to lynching in the United States. “Crucifixion,” she writes, “was a form of public service announcement: Do not engage in sedition as this person has, or your fate will be similar. The point of the exercise was the death of the offender as such, but getting the attention of those watching. Crucifixion first and foremost is addressed to an audience.”[3]

James Cone continues, “Because of their experience of arbitrary violence, the cross was and is a redeeming and comforting image for many black Christians. If the God of Jesus’ cross is found among the least, the crucified people of the world, then God is also found among those lynched in American history.”[4] That understanding of Jesus’ crucifixion is difficult for white Christians to fully understand. Black liberation theology sees the experience of Black Americans as a permanent underclass resonate with the experience of Jesus, a Jew who lived under Roman occupation and suffered its institutional violence.

“If the American empire has any similarities with that of Rome,” he writes, “can one really understand the theological meaning of Jesus on a Roman cross without seeing him first through the image of a black man on the lynching tree? Can American Christians see the reality of Jesus’ cross without seeing it as the lynching tree?”[5] Can you see the cross as a reflection of the lynching tree? When you come back to Plymouth, I hope that when you see the large wooden cross in our sanctuary, you will pause and consider that.

Dr. Cone writes, “It has always been difficult for white people to empathize fully with the experience of black people. But it has never been impossible.”[6] I invite my white sisters and brothers to work at empathizing…especially when it is deeply disturbing.

As we continue our journey through Lent together, may you take time to ponder the cross…what it means for you, what it means for Black Christians, and how it informs your faith in God.

If we really stand up for God’s kingdom of justice, of the first being last and the last being first, it is likely going to cause some turbulence for you and for your church. If we are going to make “good trouble,” as the late Congressman John Lewis said, we have to be prepared for the consequences.
I invite you also to consider what it means for you to take whatever privilege you have in this life and be willing to forfeit it for the sake of the gospel. What are you willing to risk for God’s liberating reign, here and now and still unfolding? Will you take up the cross and follow Jesus?

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] 1 Corinthians 1.22-23 (NRSV)
[2] James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2000), p. 16.
[3] Paula Frederickson, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. (NY: Vintage, 200), pp. 233-34.
[4] Cone, op. cit., p. 33.
[5] Cone, op. cit., p. 64
[6] Cone, op. cit., p. 49

Hal preaches on Mark 6:30-34. ​

Hal preaches on Mark 6:1-13.

Mark 5:21-43
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
 
Healings of Jairus's daughter and the hemorrhaging woman
21 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. 22 Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23 and begged him repeatedly, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live."
24 So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 25 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. 26 She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 for she said, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well." 29 Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?" 31 And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?'" 32 He looked all around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."
35 While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader's house to say, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?" 36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, "Do not fear, only believe." 37 He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. 38 When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39 When he had entered, he said to them, "Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping." 40 And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get up!" 42 And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43 He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
 
 
Did Jesus really cure these two woman of disease? Could he do that? It seems impossible to our 21st century knowledge of modern science and medicine, doesn’t it? What do we make of this? Considering the healing stories of Jesus to be historically true in some form or fashion seems dangerous....maybe even ridiculous to some. Is it best to stick with metaphorical interpretations of the stories? Ask questions about spiritual healing? Is our life force slowly hemorrhaging away, individually or corporately? Are we sleeping, moving through life comatose, waiting for the voice of God to raise us from the dead? Good questions, but do they skirt the real power of our stories today?
 
In his book, Days of Awe and Wonder, How to be a Christian in the 21st Century, the beloved and late Marcus Borg, encourages us to understand Jesus as one in the long stream of a Biblical tradition of Spirit-filled mediators who bridged the two worlds of tangible reality (our modern scientific world, world of the our physical senses) and the world of nonmaterial reality charged with energy and power, the world of Spirit. With his scholarly expertise and deep faith Marcus stretches our theological imaginations and our spiritual muscles to accept the historical man Jesus as a Spirit person and a charismatic healer. Marcus’s writing brings me hope in understanding our texts today.
 
Both the woman with the hemorrhage and Jairus’ daughter are brought back from the brink of death by Jesus’ healing. The woman was unclean in the eyes of her community. No one could socialize with her. Perhaps she had family, but they dared not take her in because of her impurity. She obviously had no male relatives willing to intercede for her with Jesus which would have been the proper cultural tradition of introduction. And she was out of money. Spent it all on seeking a cure. With no family, no finances, no community she might as well be dead.
 
Jairus tell Jesus his daughter is near death. Then a messenger from his house tells us she is dead. Then the mourners laugh at Jesus when he suggests otherwise. They know death when they see it. The spectral image of death is repeated here times. Does the girl really die? Or is she so deeply comatose that people believed she was dead? The only clue is that Jesus speaks against what the crowd says in tangible evidence of death, saying she is only sleeping. Sleep of death or sleep of coma? Either way she is cut off from family, from community, and they from her. And dead bodies were also ritually unclean. Like the woman, the young girl is as good as dead.
 
Yet these two woman, younger and older, both considered dead to community, dead to possibility of wholeness, are cured. By God’s power through the touch of Jesus the healer. Thanks be to God! These are miracles! And haven’t we all hoped for such miracles in our lives for ourselves or our loved ones?
 
We think of cure as medical wholeness, the banishing, repairing of  disease medically. We often equate this with healing, the restoration of health. Healing is more that medical cure. It is restoration to wholeness. The stories of the woman with the flow of blood and Jairus’s daughter bring us to the intersection of curing and healing. Jesus never just cures. He also heals.
 
And yet....we all know the stories, we have all lived the stories, when curing does not accompany healing. Not everyone we pray for is cured. We have all experienced this. Where is the healing? I believe we take the example of Jairus who advocated for his daughter and the woman who advocated for herself. We begin the healing process by telling our whole truth. Both Jairus and the woman tell their stories. They tell the whole truth.
 
Jairus is a prominent man in the local village and surrounding area as one of the leaders of the synagogue. What is he doing throwing himself at the feet of Jesus, this itinerant, upstart teacher and begging, repeatedly and in front of the crowd? Telling the story, the whole truth, of his daughter’s illness? Unbecoming conduct for a man of his stature. To be so vulnerable about his personal needs. What would the other leaders of the synagogue think? Even if holy men who were charismatic healers were accepted in Jesus’ time was it appropriate for Jairus to seek out a healer so publically? Making a spectacle of himself? Surely he had the power to send a message and request privately that Jesus come to his house. Yet he falls at Jesus feet and begs....and which of us wouldn’t do that for a child on the brink of death?
 
The woman is audacious as well. She tries to remain hidden, doesn’t she? According to Jewish law the woman with the hemorrhage ritually unclean because of her unceasing flow of menstrual blood. Like a leper she could not be touched. And could not touch men in particular. Yet here she is in the crowd surreptitiously making her way through to touch just the hem of Jesus garment. To be healed and yet not contaminate him? And she is in the crowd that is moving toward the house of Jairus. She knows Jesus is on a mission. But so is she. She too, is seeking a last resort for healing. And it works! She is cured of her long, long ordeal of disease. What she didn’t know is that once you fervently seek the power of God, you can’t hide out anymore. Realizing this with Jesus’ prompting she finally comes forward and tells her whole story, the whole truth.
 
Jesus meets these two people right where they are. Jesus knew as he moved through the crowd that someone had been cured, God’s power had flowed through him. He also knew he was on a time sensitive journey to Jairus’ house. He could have rushed on knowing this miracle was accomplished. But he stops to personally interact with the woman. He is not doing this for show. Seeking her out allows her to come and tell her story....in front of the whole crowd. She becomes a witness, she testifies to the power of God she has experienced. Telling her story of faith heals and empowers her soul. Jesus affirms her with God’s love, calling her “Daughter!”  He Acknowledges that she received God’s power and also that it is her faith, her complete trust, that empowers her healing. Her body is cured and her soul is healed internally. Publically  brought back into community through her encounter with Jesus. If Jesus had not encountered her publically she might never have been believed by her community that she was cured.  The community would have missed the power of her testimony. Healing is never just for the individual. It is always brings us back into the community.
 
Jairus daughter is brought back to life and also into community. While Jesus orders those with him not to tell anyone about her healing....how could this have happened? The daughter would be living in the house with the family. She continued her normal life. So those who were mourning outside the house would see her. They would know about the miracle. They would eventually be included in those “overcome with amazement.” This story did not stay contained long. The joy and celebration of the daughter’s cure surely spilled over into healing in the family and community. They had experienced the power of God’s love! That cannot be contained!
 
Jesus always brought healing. And it always affected the community as well as the individual. And healing always begins with telling and hearing one another’s stories, listening to the whole truth. Healing comes with the vulnerability. Think of it....authentic medical treatment cannot begin unless we are vulnerable in telling the doctor all our symptoms. This is true in mental health therapy as well. And it is true when we are completely vulnerable in seeking the power of God. Telling God the whole truth, the sorrowful truth, the angry truth, the despairing truth, the doubting, questioning truth opens the door to healing. Vulnerably telling the truth in our communities, the truth of sexual harassment, the truth of suicide, the truth of  addiction, the truth of domestic violence, the truth of sexual and gender identity, the truth of oppression,.... you can add your truth to the list...leads to healing. We may not see a cure immediately. Or even in our lifetime. But I can guarantee that as we tell our whole stories to one another and to God healing will begin....healing will happen. When we are vulnerable we may not be cured, our loved ones may not be cured in the ways we envision, but we are healed into deeper community and communion with God.
 
Yesterday Hal and Christopher and I were with friends and family from my son, Colin’s, community. I had prayed for a cure for Colin’s struggles for years...and it did not come as I had envisioned. His release from disease came with death rather than with my hopes for new life in the treatment for mental illness and addiction. And while I am fully confident that he is now at peace, it hurts not to have had my prayers answered in the ways I had envisioned. And to heal I must tell that story. And as I encouraged his young adult friends yesterday....we must tell our stories of his life and love to one another and to others. We must tell the stories of his pain and struggle and of his joy in living, his joy in the creation of music and visual art. It is only in sharing our stories that we are being healed. My friends, I invite you on the journey with me. Tell your stories of struggle, of cure, of healing, to one another and to God.  Tell your whole truth for there lies your healing and the healing of community through the power of God. 
 
Amen.
 
©The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, 2018 and beyond. May be reprinted only with permission.