“Breakfast with Jesus”
Luke 24.36-48
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
14 April 2024
 
Eastertide keeps on rolling with this story about the disciples’ encounter with the Risen One. Just so you know the time frame for today’s text, it happens on Easter Monday. Previously, Luke’s gospel offered us the wonderful story of Jesus meeting a couple on the road to Emmaus on the previous evening, a Sunday, and how they didn’t initially recognize Jesus, but “he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” And just as rapidly as the couple recognized Jesus, he vanished. That couple hurries back to Jerusalem, they find the disciples and fill them in on what had happened and shares the news that Jesus was alive.

So, the disciples receive the news, and then Jesus appears before them. Now, imagine if Jesus were to appear to you. In Luke’s gospel, he tends to show up around mealtimes. So, imagine him appearing while you’re preparing lunch. Wouldn’t you think that he was a ghost or a spirit, even if he asked for a BLT? (Okay, maybe not a BLT since bacon isn’t kosher.) I would certainly assume it was a spiritual presence. What Luke describes is a mystical encounter with the risen Christ. Most of us protestants don’t like dealing with mystery because it’s difficult to quantify, observe, or measure. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t real.

I don’t know how many of us have sensed the presence of Christ in our midst, but I am aware that some of us have. For me, the most significant encounter I had involved my call to ordained ministry 30-some years ago. I was sitting at our dining room table in Boulder reading a book that was recommended to me by my mentor, Bruce MacKenzie, who was senior minister at First Congregational UCC in Boulder. The book was a key work by John Dominic Crossan called, Jesus a Revolutionary Biography, a book that stirred up a lot of public controversy because it described the historical Jesus in ways that many Christians never imagined him. At the time, I still had my own communications business, but I could sense that change was on the horizon. So, as I read, I had the distinct sense that there was a hand on my shoulder, and I heard the words, “You can do this.” I had the distinct sense that it was Jesus speaking to me. The experience was life-changing, which is why I am where I am this morning.

For me, there was no visual encounter…just a touch and a voice. I had no sense that Jesus was PHYSICALLY present. He certainly didn’t sit down and have a meal with me, and I was not in the company of others who could have vouched for the experience I had.

I am certain that there were a lot of post-resurrection experiences the disciples had individually of the risen Christ. But is it any wonder that Luke chose to describe two scenes — at Emmaus and with the disciples in Jerusalem — that involved Jesus appearing to multiple witnesses and that both involved a meal, thereby proving that they were not experiencing a ghost, but rather one who has a body, even eating with them?

Among Jews in the first century, there were different ways of interpreting resurrection, but for the Pharisees, it clearly involved resurrection of the body. Classical Judaism understood resurrection of the dead as God’s ultimate vindication of the righteous.

Interestingly, Paul of Tarsus was a self-described Pharisee, presumably one who believed in the resurrection of the body. Yet, Paul’s flash-of-light experience on the road to Damascus was a forceful, spiritual experience of Jesus that involved a voice but no body. The plot thickens further in Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth: “So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. … It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.”

Wait a minute…Paul the Pharisee is saying that we are born into a physical body, but that we also will have a spiritual body? This sounds like a divergence from the tenet of Pharisaic Judaism that it is our physical bodies that are to be raised.

Paul was born and raised in Tarsus in today’s Turkey, speaking Greek rather than Aramaic like Jesus. The culture that surrounded him meant that he was immersed in Greek philosophical assumptions, including the dualism of Plato, meaning that one’s physical body and soul are separate entities, and that the soul lives on after the death of the body. This is an idea that is common even today in the west. (How many of us think that we are both body and soul?) But, it was utterly foreign to the Judaism of Paul’s day, which saw no division between body and soul. “In classical Judaism, resurrection of the dead was a central belief, essential to defining oneself as a Jew. ‘Today,’ writes Jon D. Levenson, professor of Jewish studies at Harvard, ‘that fact comes as a shock to most Jews and Christians alike.’”[1]

I appreciate what the great preacher, Fred Craddock, has to say about the biblical record on resurrection: “The resurrection was not an unambiguous event that could have been captured with a video camera, but was a mysterious phenomenon that could have been interpreted more than one way and could evoke doubt and fear as well as faith and joy…. The New Testament pictures the reality of the resurrection in different ways that are not to be harmonized [or blended]. Each image brings out some theological meaning of resurrection…a divine mystery that cannot be captured in one representation.” That allows us plenty of latitude for interpretation.

Yet the question arises with Easter, what will happen to US?

I grew up in a family that was quite antiseptic about death: no visitation or viewing or open caskets. No funerals…always a memorial service. (I don’t recommend this!) So, the first time I saw a dead body outside of a college anatomy lab was when I was a Stephen Minister in Boulder. I had been paired with Roy Bramell, a lovely 95-year-old man who had been the founding dean of the School of Education at UConn (which has more than just great basketball). After Roy’s death, I went to the visitation with his family, and as I looked at his lifeless body, it was obvious to me that it was an empty shell. Yet at his memorial service, his adult children read selections from his voluminous writing about topics ranging from family to education to faith to patriotism, and as they read, tears began streaming down my cheeks. For me those tears flowed because the ideas and emotions Roy’s words expressed revivified him. His spirit was no longer attached to a body, but the essence of who he was continued on without interruption. I sense that this is true for all of us: that we continue to exist in a different plane or realm.

I don’t know whether we will experience an embodied resurrection or a spiritual resurrection or something entirely different. I’m not interested in ruling anything out in this great mystery. I take this seriously: “With God, all things ARE possible.”

I know what happens to our bodies when life ends: they degrade or are cremated. And I know that we are not alone but still are within God’s love. I don’t know what happens to the life force, the spirit, the soul, the divine spark when life ends, but I know we are not alone. God is with us each step of the way, within us, among us, and infinitely far beyond us. God has brought us this far on our journey, so why would we imagine that God will not be with us beyond death?

Why should we be surprised by anything that happens after death when every one of us is a first-hand witness to the miracle of life? Think about it: we are self-aware, sentient beings, and we are sitting here on a Sunday morning because we know that there is something greater than we are, that there is more to life than can ever meet the eye. That’s miraculous! And miracles are everywhere if we take the time to listen and look and feel with our hearts as well as our eyes and ears.

Resurrection is a powerful metaphor for us as we continue to live this life. It is a metaphor for new beginnings, for ultimate liberation, for ongoing presence of those we love, and the continuing presence of Jesus in the world. May we live fully as people whose lives are empowered and made beautiful by the presence of God. And may we be always on the lookout for mystery and everyday miracles. Even at the breakfast table.

Amen.
 
© 2024 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] Peter Steinfels, “What comes as a shock…” in NY Times, September 30, 2006.

“Ultimate Liberation”
Mark 16.1–8
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
Easter 2024
 
The Bible has macro-stories, broad brush strokes, that tie its core messages together. (Understanding of course that the Bible is essentially a library of the ways our ancient Jewish and early Christian forebears experienced the holy.)

The Creation stories in Genesis shouldn’t be read as a geology or cosmology textbook to have meaning. Instead, we understand Genesis as speaking some essential truths that are more-than literal. While some civilizations in the ancient Near East had creation stories that placed humans in the role of being fodder for their deity, and while Greeks and Romans suffered at the whim and caprice of their gods, YHWH creates everything and declares that it is very good, providing all that the humans in the garden will need. Why would God provide for humanity, rather than reversing the roles and having humans exist in eternal servitude to God?

Paul, a Pharisee and follower of Jesus, answered this way: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

God creates life in love, for love. That is one of the great macro stories of scripture.

The God of Exodus is faithful to Moses and the people who are in captivity in Egypt, who suffer in bondage under the boot of Pharaoh, and God shows up as one who delivers people from grave injustice and oppression. That is one of the reasons that the narratives of Exodus are so critically important to the Black church in this country: our national history is replete with captivity, enslavement, injustice, and oppression.

YHWH is no Egyptian god of the underworld! No! Our God is a force for freedom and deliverance. Liberation is another of the great macro stories that has a broad sweep across our sacred texts. Liberation says something essential about the character of God and humanity.

And so, we find ourselves at the conclusion of Holy Week. We have waved palm fronds as Jesus enters Jerusalem. We have lived through to poignant Last Supper with Jesus, witnessed his arrest and torture, and ultimately his ignominious death on a cross. It is difficult for any of us to imagine the shame, the pain, the utter devastation of death on the cross. Where are the macro themes of love and liberation? Most of us would prefer to jump from the triumphal parade on Palm Sunday to the glory of Easter Sunday without having to reckon with the intervening tragedy.

We probably don’t think too much about what happened on Saturday, between Friday’s crucifixion and Sunday’s resurrection. But that is not universally true. Martin Luther wrote a hymn to reflect that in-between time, “Christ lag in Todesbanden,” “Christ lay in the bonds of death.” Luther talks about a personification of the power of death, which attempts to keep us all imprisoned. Then he claims that Jesus breaks the bonds of death and that nothing remains but the faint outline of death, which has lost its sting.

This may not be the Easter story you had in mind, and part of the reason for that is that most of us have been shaped by the western understanding of resurrection as Jesus being raised and leaving an empty tomb on Sunday morning. Yet that is not the way Eastern Christians have primarily understood the story. For them, the narrative is not just about an empty tomb, but rather breaking down the gates of the underworld and removing the power of death that keeps humanity fearful and unable to reach fullness of life as those who love like God loves.

I included an image on the cover of your bulletin where you will see the eastern vision of Jesus overcoming the forces of death, which in Greek is called anástasis, the Greek word for resurrection. Jesus has one hand on Adam and one hand on Eve, pulling them up from the underworld through the broken gates of Hades. And they aren’t simply the first two humans, but rather they represent all of humanity. If you look below the broken gates, you’ll see fragmented locks and keys. And while you are studying the icon, hear how Luther’s hymn continues: “How fierce and dreadful was the strife when life and death contended; for death was swallowed up by life and all its power was ended.”

It isn’t that Jesus put an end to our physical dying as human beings. We know that each of us will eventually succumb. While composing this sermon I visited one of our beloved members, who was actively dying as I wrote. And that experience drove home for me that our physical dying is real, but it isn’t the last word.

So many Christians fixate on eternal life as being delivered safely to heaven after we die, and perhaps that’s the way it will be. I’m more or less agnostic about whether there is a place we go if we have lived virtuously and another place we go if we’ve been bound up in self-interest and self-deception. I am okay leaving what will be up to God. But, what if eternal life has already commenced for us? What if it’s up to us to live into our most profound and eternal selves that somehow continue even through the broken-open portal of death? We are given a choice in this life about where we will devote our effort, either supporting the forces of love and life or giving our energy to the forces of hate and death. None of us does it perfectly, but each of us can approach eternity with loving intention that echoes the way Jesus lived his life.

What do you say about someone who dearly loves life and doesn’t want to die? What do you say about someone who is willing to face and endure a painful death in spite of loving life? What do you say about someone who is willing to lay down his life for his friends? It sounds to me like someone who says yes to life and love, but who is willing to confront death for the right reasons. Anyone who can do that has disempowered death. It’s not that physical death won’t happen, but perhaps as we say in the UCC, “Never put a period where God has placed a comma.” Maybe death is a comma and not a full-stop. Death won’t get the last word in the conversation of life and love.

If you had to sum it up in one word what Jesus is doing in that anástasis image, what would it be? For me it is liberation! Liberation is breaking the bonds that hold us back from living and loving. Liberation is saying NO to the forces of death and YES to the divine power of life and love.

Is it liberating for you to know that Jesus went through about the worst death before us and continues to be present within us and among us? Is it liberating for you to know that we are empowered to work for love and life and to know that God is with us? Is it liberating for you to know that there is nothing in this world or the next that can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus? You can shake off the shackles that have been holding you back from living life to its fullest. They have been unlocked! You can remove those handcuffs of fear that have chafed at your wrists every time you are ready to reach out and take a risk on being more loving. You are unbound!

The most profound words I have ever heard about resurrection were spoken from this pulpit, not by me but by my mentor and friend Marcus Borg 12 years ago. “Jesus is loose in the world!” What does that say about the power of death? If Jesus can’t be held back even by death, what does it say about God’s great stories of liberation, love, and life? Jesus is loose in the world, and so are we!
This is the good news! Thanks be to God! Christ is risen! Alleluia!

Amen.

© 2024 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact [email protected] for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

“Love & Suffering”
I Corinthians 1.18-25
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
10 March 2024
 
Buddhism holds four Noble Truths: the first is the inevitability of human suffering; the next three involve the cause of suffering, its end, and the true path to end it.

Unlike our Buddhist sisters and brothers, suffering is something that many Protestants don’t talk about too often, perhaps because it is difficult. Our Catholic siblings are far more conversant with the topic, and some see suffering in itself as redemptive. Most Catholic churches feature a lot of images that illustrate the suffering of Jesus, including the crucifix: the cross with the corpus attached. Crucifixion is a horrific form of torture and execution that involves a painful and ignominious death and can be seen as human suffering at its worst.

Imagine yourself as one of Jesus’ followers in the days, the years, the centuries after the crucifixion. How do you explain the suffering of Jesus on the cross? How do you make sense of what happened? Paul writes extensively about it, saying that in our baptism we die and rise with Christ, and he acknowledges that the cross is “scandalous to the Judeans and foolishness to the Gentiles.” There is something powerful there that Paul is trying to convey by reappropriating the cross, pairing it always with resurrection.

Early Christian theologians continued to try to work out the “why” of Jesus’ death. Being a threat to the rule of empire and to Roman collaborators in Judea apparently was not reason enough for some. Tertullian, writing in the 3rd century espoused an idea that Jesus’ death happened in order for humanity to receive salvation by satisfying God’s need for an atoning sacrifice. (Dom Crossan once quipped that this is not the kind of god he’d like to meet in a dark alley.) And St. Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th century more clearly espoused the idea that “Christ’s death on the cross functioned as a gift to God on behalf of humanity to restore the order of justice subverted by sin.”[1] Where is the evidence that God would demand a sacrifice of his own son in order to restore relationship with humanity? What does this explanation do to describe a God who is merciful and loving?

All of these theories are trying to work out a reason for suffering, in this case the suffering of Jesus on the cross. Perhaps the “why” is that the Empire was morally bankrupt and thrived by military domination and extracting wealth from those who could least afford it.

But lots of revolutionaries have given their lives for a cause. Jesus was a different kind of radical, who in John’s gospel says, “No one has greater love than this than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”[2] The way of love can lead to suffering.
Why all of the theological muddle over the millennia to try and explain that Jesus loved his friends and followers so much that he was willing to give his own life for them?

His suffering is rooted in his willingness to engage in self-sacrifice, which itself is grounded in love.

----------

The truth is that all of us suffer. And we suffer in different ways at multiple points on our journey through life.

In 1960, Dr. King wrote, “My personal trials have also taught me the value of unmerited suffering. As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways that I could respond to my situation: either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course. Recognizing the necessity for suffering I have tried to make of it a virtue. If only to save myself from bitterness, I have attempted to see my personal ordeals as an opportunity to transform myself and heal the people involved in the tragic situation which now obtains. I have lived these last few years with the conviction that unearned suffering is redemptive.

“There are some who still find the cross a stumbling block, and others consider it foolishness, but I am more convinced than ever before that it is the power of God unto social and individual salvation.”[3]

While Dr. King’s self-sacrifice and his suffering were grounded in love and justice (and Cornel West reminds us that justice is what love looks like in public), I don’t think that all suffering is redemptive.

Physical suffering due to disease is not, in my view, redemptive. It is something that we can and should ameliorate. Karen Lebacqz, an ethicist and UCC minister writes, “The only redemptive suffering is that voluntarily undertaken in the cause of justice and the effort to combat disease. While the moral obligation to relieve suffering is not distinctively Christian, it is certainly central to Christian belief. Christians who, out of compassion, risk their lives by exposing themselves to contagion in an effort to heal others can be said to be modeling Christ’s compassion.”[4]

But what are we to say about everyday suffering that comes with simply living? I invite you to think of an occasion when you yourself have suffered. (As long as it is not so acute or recent that it is retraumatizing.) It might be grieving the loss of a spouse, a child, a parent. It might be rejection by a loved one. Perhaps a professional setback. Or when the physician delivers an unwelcome diagnosis. Maybe when someone has betrayed you. It might be an unrealized dream that haunts you. The ghost of loss can get into us and cause suffering. What is that time or occasion for you?

Many times when we suffer we feel alone in that anguish. Sometimes no one knows that you are suffering because you keep a stiff upper lip and keep on going. But inside, a piece of you feels as if you are dying. Each of us suffers in this way. Even when we feel alone, we are not. God is with us, we are not alone. Jesus tells us at such times to come with your heavy burdens and he will give you rest. Jesus himself underwent one of the worst forms of suffering imaginable, and in doing so, he had the full human experience of agony.

“Come bring your burdens to God, Come bring your burdens to God, Come bring your burdens to God, for Jesus will never say no.”

Not only is God there when you are suffering, so are your fellow Plymouth members. We form a family that supports one another, lifting up one another’s suffering and joy in prayer and in action. Paul writes in Galatians that we are to “bear one another’s burdens, and in this way, we will fulfill the law of Christ.”[5] What is the law of Christ? It’s love.

We can’t get around suffering, because it is a part of life. But we can show up for one another with love, and that helps our kindred to get through the suffering. Sometimes that means a warm embrace or a comforting pot of soup or listening compassionately or a note of encouragement. Just showing up is something any one of us can do for another. Even if we don’t think we have the right words, simply showing up can provide the solidarity and love that helps alleviate a bit of someone’s suffering.

I see people at Plymouth do this all the time! Our Congregational visitors drop in on some of our elders to say hello. Our Stephen Ministers have ongoing caring relationships with others in our congregation. And our Faith Community Nurses provide amazing, compassionate visits to those experiencing medical crises. I was with a family recently who have been going through a sequence of major medical issues — suffering — and they told me how helpful it was to have a faith community nurse guide them through the process and offer a prayer.

The English word compassion has two Latin roots: cum + passio, which means to suffer with. When we share someone’s burden, we do share a bit of their suffering with love and empathy. That isn’t to say we should be doormats or lose our footing by overidentifying with another’s suffering.

We may not be called to lay down our lives for those we love, but being present for another, acknowledging their anguish, letting them know they are loved and cared about can be a great help. Suffering is a real part of life. So is God’s presence. So is the love we share.

May it be so. Amen.
 
© 2024 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact [email protected] for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.
 
[1] Brandon R. Peterson in Angelicum, Vol. 93, No. 4 (2016), pp. 875-894.
[2] John 15.13
[3] Martin Luther King, Jr., in Christian Century 77 (27 April 1960): 510.
[4] Karen Lebacqz in Suffering and Bioethics, ed. by Ronald Green and Nathan Palpant (New York: Oxford, 2014).
[5] Galatians 6.2

“Now Is the Time!”
Mark 1.9-15
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
18 February 2024
 
You’ve probably noticed that we have made a shift in worship, having Brooklyn introduce and read the scripture so that it is a bit more accessible to our younger worshipers… and some of our older worshipers as well! I really appreciate how she does this and how engaging she is. More often than not we have used the New Revised Standard Version for scripture readings, but Brooklyn has been using a newer translation, The Common English Bible, which is a bit more understandable for all ages, and was edited by our own David Petersen, a renowned Old Testament scholar.

I really appreciate some of the ways the Common English Bible translates the New Testament Greek, and in today’s reading, “metanoeo” is translated not as “repent,” but “change your hearts and lives.” That’s exactly what I was getting at in last Sunday’s sermon on transformation. It also translates the verb “pisteuo” not as believe, but as “trust in.” Here is what it sounds like in the NRSV: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” You hear two loaded words: repent and believe. And here is the CEB translation of the same verse: “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” Do you hear the difference?

So often clergy have asked us to believe – to give intellectual assent – to “six impossible things before breakfast” just like the Queen of Hearts speaking to Alice in Wonderland. But “pisteuo” in Greek has a stronger sense of “putting one’s trust in” rather than simply believing.

I think anything that can crack open scripture and help us internalize – like a new translation – is wonderful. Are you willing to open your heart and mind and put your trust in the good news of God’s realm? Please remember that question in the context of your Lenten journey.

If you’re reading Mark’s gospel along with us during Lent, one of the things you’ve probably noticed is that the author is succinct, VERY succinct. The way Mark describes Jesus’ 40-day trek in the wilderness takes exactly two sentences: “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” Short and to the point. No extraneous details.

Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts are more extensive and include the dialogue with the tempter, Satan, who offers Jesus bodily sustenance, all the kingdoms of this world, and putting God to the test as part of the 40-day quest that is preparing Jesus for something. Mark doesn’t even allow Jesus to say, “One does not live by bread alone!”

Lent is a contemporary reflection of that story of Jesus undergoing a time of preparation. His time in the wilderness was an example of the mythic hero’s journey that Joseph Campbell described: departure, encounter and testing, and return. I wonder if it was something akin to an initiation ritual or vision quest for Jesus, because immediately thereafter he begins his public ministry.

What is Lent really about for us? Is it a time of fasting and penitence in the forty days that precede Easter? Or is it more of a re-enactment of the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness? The answer will depend upon the person responding. There is no evidence that the apostles observed Lent, and the church didn’t do so for at least its first four centuries. The origins of Lent are sketchy at best. It certainly was not something Jesus or the disciples observed, unless you go for the “vision quest” explanation.

My own tendency is to see the story of Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness as the paradigm for our Lenten journey. For Jesus, this was a time of spiritual awakening. And for us, it can be a time of blossoming spiritual awareness.

We don’t get a very clear picture of Jesus’ forty days from the gospels. It isn’t as though we have six weeks of closed-circuit video to go through, examining his every movement and thought.

But imagine yourself for a moment on a vision quest. The Spirit leads you out into the wilderness: a place where there are no distractions: no internet, no email, no cell phone reception, no streaming, and no social media. Just you and the Holy Spirit…and temptation.

I wonder if we encounter a lot more temptation than most of us are willing to admit. (I’m not talking about chocolate or sex.) More often than not, our temptations involve making something that isn’t God the object of our worship, whether that is economic security or power and influence.

It may not be that we set up an altar to economic security, and it may not be that we build a golden calf to serve as an emblem of power and influence. We are not quite that obvious, and temptation is more subtle than that. One way to think about it is what you over-give influence and attention to. Do you allow fear to predominate your thinking? There is plenty of news to draw your attention in and cause you to be upset; does that dominate your thinking? I can tell you that it sometimes consumes more of my attention and emotional bandwidth than I’d like.

If we allow God to lead us, and if we put our trust in God, then the other stuff can take a back seat. Sounds simple enough. But, if it took Jesus forty days of internal struggle to work through the temptations of having bread (what we might call fear about our economic security) and authority (the things we refer to as power and influence, often in our careers), how long will it take you and me to work through these issues? A lifetime? Fortunately, God has given us more than forty days. But these forty days can be a good place to start.

Even though few of us are preparing ourselves for a ministry like Jesus’, Lent affords us the occasion and opportunity to do some spiritual deepening. Our Plymouth Reads Bible study and our Matisse-based devotional and Christian formation classes are mean to provide an opening for you to take a step further on your journey, to see what else might open up for you spiritually.

I grew up primarily in a Congregational church that didn’t observe Lent or Ash Wednesday…I think they considered it “too Catholic,” which meant that some of the baby got thrown out with the bathwater. For me, Lent is a season of invitation to explore “changing my heart and my life” and putting more trust in the good news of God’s realm, here and now and still unfolding. It’s a time when we all are invited to go a bit deeper through a spiritual exercise here at Plymouth. Part of the idea for me is doing something that helps us feel more connected to the Spirit. There are no guarantees that any of it will work, but we’re purposefully aligning ourselves more deeply with God., and that’s enough! Other people like to give something up for Lent, seeing what it’s like to strip away some of the baggage. I applaud that, too, if it enhances your awareness of the holy.

The other phrase that struck me in the Common English Bible translation is rather than Jesus saying, “The time is fulfilled,” he says, “NOW IS THE TIME!” If you have been waiting for an invitation to go deeper in your spiritual quest, consider it done! Pick up a copy of the Lenten devotional booklet or a Plymouth Reads bookmark at the back of the sanctuary and dig in. You are invited on our Lenten journey, and now is the time!

 May it be so. Amen.
 
© 2024 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal at plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

“Inviting, TRANSFORMING, Sending”
Mark 9.2-9
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
February 11, 2024
 
When was the last time you saw someone’s appearance change radically? It seems to me that something phenomenal — or at least peculiar — happened on the mountaintop, either to Jesus or to the disciples who were with him. Did Jesus undergo some sort of metamorphosis that caused him to be radiant? to shine like the sun? to have an aura? to beam? Or do you think that he was always radiant, but people didn’t notice until his followers — Peter, James, and John — go up to the mountain and literally see Jesus in a new light. I suspect that all of us have at times observed the change visage of a friend or loved one after they have had a life-changing experience. There are outward manifestations of inner changes in us that our friends and families notice.

Assuming for the moment that Jesus did change, why is that important? Does it mean that he was surrounded by the divine light? Did something in his life shift at the moment he began to glow? Does it mean that this was a moment of transformation for him, as was his baptism by John? God speaks at the moment of transfiguration, just ask God speaks at Jesus’ baptism, saying, “This is my son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased,” using exactly the same phrase.

Christians are asked to be baptized as Jesus was, but has anyone asked to go through some sort of metamorphosis or transformation? Maybe? When we join Plymouth, we commit to give ourselves unreservedly to God’s service, which is a big deal, but it isn’t quite asking us to be transformed. In many Congregational churches in New England in the 18th c., prospective members needed to have a “visible sign of conversion” in order to be admitted to membership. (Of course, you could attend worship, but being a member was [and is] a big deal.) So, if you were the town ne’er-do-well, a shift in your attitude and habits might be taken as a sign of conversion.

In a few weeks, you will hear that thorny line in John’s gospel, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above,”[1] or in the language of the King James Version, “born again.” No, I’m not about invite you to come forward for an altar call, and I’m also not going to dismiss the idea of you having a spiritual transformation or many spiritual transformations. I’m not going to try and tame the idea of your having a metamorphosis.

Marcus Borg writes, “The metaphor of rebirth, being born of the Spirit, is an image of radical transformation. An old life has been left behind and a new life has begun…Being born again is utterly central to Christianity, one of the main images for the goal and promise of the Christian life. It describes our transformation and, ultimately, the transformation of the world, for those who are born of the Spirit of God as known in Jesus share God’s passion for a more just and peaceful world.”[2]

By a show of hands, how many of us really want to be changed, transformed, pushed out of our comfort zone by the spirit of transformation? It’s not easy, and it’s not without consequences. Transformation means changed hearts and changed lives. What would you expect if you, yourself, saw Jesus in the flesh? Would you expect it to be a transformative experience?

Many years ago, I was in a therapy group for Adult Children of Alcoholics in California, and for me it was a transformative experience, and helped me to get a fresh start on my journey, and it marked a new beginning. I know others of you who have gone through the process of recovery, and it can be an incredible transformation. What are the moments of transformation in your life that have turned you in new directions or offered you a fresh start? It doesn’t have to be recovery, it could be the birth of a child, starting a new career, finding a hidden talent or a new avocation.

But having a fresh start on life because of a new relationship with God is something incredibly powerful and different.

Most of you know Plymouth’s mission statement that says “It is our mission to worship God and help make God’s realm visible in the lives of people, individually and collectively, especially as it is set forth in the life, teachings, death and living presence of Jesus Christ. We do this by inviting, TRANSFORMING, and sending.”

That middle element, transformation, can be difficult, don’t you think? …especially if we think that we’re already done transforming into new persons or that we simply have no need to change. The Kingdom or realm of God is about transformation of THIS world into the world as it would be if God were immediately in charge, instead of the forces of Empire. Doing the work of justice is about transformation. Loving the unlovable is about transformation. Moving away from self-interest and radical individualism is about transformation. Giving yourself to something bigger than consumerism and acquisition is about transformation.

We cannot try and tame transformation without taming the Kingdom of God. And we won’t be part of the Realm of God unless we are transformed and born of the Spirit. And that requires openness to new beginnings, to change, to transformation of our lives, to letting go of some old burdens, to adopting some fresh practices and ways of being Christian.

We are about to enter the 40-day season of Lent, which mirrors Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness; it was a period that was anything but tame: a period of radical transformation for Jesus, even without the radiance he experienced later. Wilderness can be a place for transformation, where we come face-to-face with our truest selves. Perhaps rather than being seen as a period of penitence, we can see Lent as a transformative journey into the wilderness, a time of gestation, of metamorphosis, of new beginnings, of being within the chrysalis — ready to emerge reborn. And it isn’t something we have to do alone…we have companions on our pilgrimage of transformation.

I invite you to open yourself as we finish this season of Epiphany and walk together into the season of Lent next Wednesday evening. I invite you to join all of your sisters and brothers at Plymouth on a pilgrimage of transformation as we walk through the wilderness for these 40 days.
May you be transformed in the midst of your life, knowing that new beginnings are possible.

May you see change as an opportunity instead of a threat.
May you be blessed as you uncover new truths about yourself.
May you know that you are journeying with kindred spirits through the wilderness.

Amen.
 
© 2024 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 3.7 (NRSV)
[2] Marcus Borg, Speaking Christian. (SF: HarperSanFrancisco, 2011), p. 169.

“What Kind of Authority?”
Mark 1.21–28
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning
Plymouth Cong’l UCC, Fort Collins
28 January 2024
 
People my age and younger – and some of you older Baby Boomers, too – have a knee-jerk reaction to the word “authority” …and with good reason. Part of that is a result of the liberation movements of the 1960s and 70s: women’s liberation, gay liberation, black power, and the anti-war movement. It was the era of flower children and the counter-culture. And though there are certainly enduring legacies of that era, the people who populated those movements tended to become yuppies who cared more for their brokerage accounts than for free love, preserving the planet, and working for peace. (And please remember that there is still a lot of work to do in a nation where women still earn 82 cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts in the same jobs.) Some things have changed, to be sure, but we are being forced by the political realities in which we live, to look at what ultimately matters most.

Having been sexually harassed by a female superior – in a position of authority – when I worked at Stanford University in my 20s, I can in some ways – though not all – understand what abuse of power and authority looks like. But what about legitimate authority used responsibly? Jesus didn’t have huge rabbinic authority when he went into the synagogue to preach and heal. His sense of authority was not “power to enforce obedience or compliance,” but rather power to influence the beliefs, actions, and lives of people. His hearers afforded him authority because of his abilities, healing, and wisdom.

Even though you may think that one of the hallmarks of the Feminist movement is opposing authority in all its forms, some feminist philosophers are beginning to shift that idea. Rebecca Hanrahan and Louise Antony write, “Feminism is an antiauthoritarian movement that has sought to unmask many traditional ‘authorities’ as ungrounded. Given this, it might seem as if feminists are required to abandon the concept of authority altogether. But…the exercise of authority enables us to coordinate our efforts to achieve larger social goods and, hence, should be preserved. Instead, what is needed and what we provide for here is a way to distinguish legitimate authority from objectionable authoritarianism.”[1] And God knows we are hearing a lot of objectionable authoritarianism — if not downright fascism — from certain corners of the American political arena, fueled in part by Christian Nationalism.

And still, there needs to be a dialogue between freedom and authority. We need to examine to whom or to what in our own lives we give authority to, what we pledge our allegiance to, and whether that is legitimate or not. And if we find that our prior assumptions about the sources of authority miss the mark, we need to make adjustments. We all afford or give over some of our authority to people or forces in this world, and it is time for some deep re-appraisal.

***

Let me pose an ethical question for you to consider: What is the dominant influence in your decision-making? Is it your political persuasion? Your socio-economic class? Your race? Your gender? Your nationality? Your relative affluence? Your sexual orientation? Your economic self-interest? Your role as a parent or child? Your sense of pleasure? … Or is it your faith?

Let me come at this from a slightly different angle: In whom do you put your ultimate trust? When push comes to shove, where do you assign your trust…if you can trust anyone? Is it to your doctor? Your stockbroker? Your therapist? Your personal trainer? Your spouse or partner? Your employer? Your president? Your minister? When you are on your deathbed, who do you want to be there with you…God or Jerome Powell?

Let me ask the question yet a third way: Whom do you serve? Is it your CitiCard balance? Your kids’ activities and chauffeuring them around town? Your student loan debt? Your employer? Your spouse or partner? Your family? Yourself? Your God?

All of these questions point toward the A-word…authority. Who or what is authoritative in your life? And I know a lot of us could quip, “It’s the economy, stupid.” But there is nothing in this or any economy that is going to help you lead a truly good life and keep you from death and lead you into life beyond death.
If we don’t give authority to God, then we give it to the range of petty deities of our culture. The anti-institutional thrust of the 1960s and 70s taught us to trust no one, especially if they were “over 30” or in a position of authority, and so we find our nation in a state of radical individualism, caring little for the common good or the larger consequences, but I think that’s beginning to change. The pendulum, at least for some of us, has begun to swing in the direction of collective responsibility.

 “What is this? A new teaching – with authority!”
You and I have a lot of advantages in considering the questions I’ve posed. We are part of a 400-year-old religious tradition that has diminished the human authority of bishops and popes and kings and put the authority back where it belongs: with God. It isn’t that Marta and I don’t have pastoral authority, we do, and you’ve entrusted that authority to us, never to be abused. But we firmly believe that we are not gatekeepers that come between you and God. (We can, however, coach you from the sidelines.) You have direct access to the source of ultimate authority.

One of the great Christian ethicists of the 20th century, H. Richard Niebuhr, who wrote, “To make our decisions in faith … is to make them in view of the fact that the world of culture – human achievement – exists within the world of grace – God’s kingdom.”[2] That bears repeating: “To make our decisions in faith … is to make them in view of the fact that the world of culture – human achievement – exists within the world of grace – God’s kingdom.”

So, if Niebuhr is correct, everything we do, think, say, act, feel, own, profess, is done within the context of God’s reign. And God’s kingdom is an anti-imperial reign in which the first shall be last and the last shall be first, where faith the size of a mustard seed will grow to an enormous size, where the rich “shall be sent empty away” because they have had their consolation.

***

Now, this may scare a few people away from a new members class, but our membership covenant contains these words: “I give myself unreservedly to God’s service.” How many of you have entered that covenant as members? So, when each of us who are members of this particular congregation entered the covenant, we made a solemn vow to place ourselves under the authority of God – with nothing held back. So, how are you doing with that commitment? None of us does it perfectly!

God is ultimately in charge, whether we acknowledge it or not. And when we covenant to give ourselves unreserved to God’s service, we are saying explicitly whose authority we are under.

We find ourselves at the beginning of an election year, as well as in a time of national political crisis, exacerbated by the “gift” of social media and the 24-hour news cycle. And it is precisely at such a time as this, that it is good to have a sense of clarity that we are God’s people, and nothing can separate us from the love of God.

So, here is where the profound dialogue between authority and liberation meet: When we give ourselves fully to God (and only a small handful of human beings I know of have ever done that completely) we free ourselves from every other master: powers and princes and presidents, success, wealth, fame, longevity…and even student loan debt. Aren’t you ready for that kind of liberation?

When we share in Holy Communion, we feast at God’s table. And in a very tangible way, we acknowledge that we are utterly dependent upon God for everything that keeps us alive – body and soul. So, every time we celebrate communion…every time you come forward and receive the elements of bread and wine, I invite you to think carefully about whom you serve, and what ultimate authority you recognize in your life.

May we be grounded in grace and in God’s service.
Amen.
 
© 2024 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact [email protected] for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

[1] Rebecca Hanrahan, Louise Antony, “Because I Said So: Toward a Feminist Theory of Authority” in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 2005 20:4, 59-79
[2] H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, p. 256.

“Midwinter Metanoia”
Mark 1.1-8
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
10 December 2023
 
 Every year on the second Sunday of Advent, we get a special guest appearance in the Lectionary from John the Baptizer, he who survived by eating locusts and wild honey and wore rough clothing made of camel hair. We tend to think of John as an offbeat character, and that’s probably about right. One of the things I noticed in studying images of John is that he seems so much more human than most of the other subjects. He has the look of world-weariness about him. Perhaps that happens when you find yourself in the wilderness shouting, “Repent! For the Kingdom of God has come near.” In the Gospel According to Matthew, and he adds insult to injury, calling the Sadducees and Pharisees a “brood of vipers,” a nest of poisonous reptilian offspring. Not generally a good way to win friends and influence people.

Most of us probably don’t think of Advent as a penitential season, when we stop and enumerate our sins and make a plan to change course. But on this second Sunday of Advent, that is what John the Baptizer calls us to do. However, that language takes some serious unpacking, because for many of us the language of sin and repentance sounds more televangelist than we’re used to. And what’s more, it has caused injury to people who are not able to believe that God’s goodness lies within them.

Still, it is important for 21st century liberal Christians not to dismiss traditional language out of hand; if we do that, we lose some of the richness and depth of our faith tradition and the wisdom it holds. Instead, we need to re-examine and redefine some of the language.

Let’s start with sin. You may think of sin as wrongdoing, and sometimes it is. For the great 20th century theologian, Paul Tillich, sin is more about estrangement and separation. Adam and Eve become estranged from God, living east of Eden. We are living as exiles, cut off from our true home. And our true home is God.
Marcus Borg writes, “Our estrangement can become hardened by how we live; we indulge our self-centeredness…. Estrangement, the birth of the separated self, is the natural result of growing up; it cannot be avoided. For the same reason, we develop closed hearts, a shell around the self. There is a sense in which we are blinded by the imprinting of culture on our psyches and perception.”[1] It happens to all of us.

Let’s look at an Advent example of someone who has been “hardened by how he lives” and who “indulges in self-centeredness,” but who has a profound change of heart.

[“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” clip.]

Maybe you never thought about John the Baptizer when you watched “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” but it is as if there, on the crest of Mount Crumpet, the Grinch sees his estrangement from the Whos down in Whoville, and his hardened heart breaks open and grow three times its size.

You never heard the word “repent” in the clip, but what you saw was a beautiful example of what repentance really means. “The biblical meaning of ‘repent’ is not primarily contrition, but resolve. In the Hebrew Bible, to repent means primarily to return to God. Its metaphorical home is the exile. To repent means to return from exile, to reconnect with God, to walk the way in the wilderness that leads from Babylon to God.”[2] As the Grinch returns to find community and love and meaning with the Whos down in Whoville, it is a homecoming that I’d imagine makes God smile.

Repent is a scary word, especially because we usually think of it coming from the mouth of a fiery evangelist like Elmer Gantry, and it sure seems holier-than-thou in our context. But in biblical Greek, it’s actually a lovely, beautiful word that has a surplus of meaning. The word metanoia has two roots that connote going beyond the mind you currently have. And I would add that for me it means going beyond the mind and the HEART you currently have. Go beyond the mind and heart that have been shaped by self-interest. Go beyond the mind and heart that have been molded by American consumerism and greed. Go beyond and embrace the heart and mind of Jesus’ compassion and subversive wisdom.
When John the Baptizer offers a “baptism of metanoia,” he is inviting people into the embodied process of transformed lives, going beyond the things that keep them in exile or in bondage. You know what that looks like…it isn’t easy. It certainly wasn’t for Ebenezer Scrooge!

[Clip from “A Christmas Carol.”]

I didn’t show you the visitations of the three spirits, because metanoia can be scary if you really embrace it. But you can use your memory to imagine the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and yet to come. What would those spirits show you from your past, present, and future? Charles Dickens described Scrooge as a “miserable old sinner,” and that isn’t what you saw in Patrick Stewart’s portrayal of the miser after his moment of metanoia.

Scrooge has been separated not just from his family and the Cratchits, he has cut himself off from the whole human family and from God. But it isn’t too late for him, is it? Metanoia is a real possibility for each of us in our alienation and exile.
Perhaps Advent is more preparing the way and tending to the rebirth of the spirit of Christ within each of us and in our church, rather than waiting for the birth of Jesus 2,000 years ago, or for the second coming. Who knows what new life may spring up afresh within any of us? And maybe the people sitting around you will be the midwives who encourage and help you in that rebirth.
Where in your life are you feeling perhaps a bit estranged, cut off, or bound up? Simply acknowledging those pieces of your current mindset is the first step in rebirth or finding your way back home from exile. God is waiting for each of us to accept the invitation to renewal, rebirth, transformation, and wholeness. In our full humanity and our imperfection, God bids us come toward the light of the world and to midwinter metanoia.

May it be so. Amen.
 
© 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact [email protected] for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.
 
[1] Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity. (SF: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), p. 168.
[2] Ibid., p. 180.

“The Roots of Righteousness”
Matthew 25.31-46
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
26 November 2023
 
This section of scripture is a favorite among us UCC types and for other mainline Protestants who practice an engaged form of spirituality. And even among UCC congregations, I think that this congregation has a unique charism or gift in putting our faith into action.

I could list any number of ways we together have gone about the business of feeding, clothing, sheltering people. The Homelessness Prevention Initiative, now part of Neighbor-to-Neighbor, had its beginnings at Plymouth when Sister Mary Alice Murphy approached us 20 years ago with the idea. We’ve built interfaith bridges and publicly advocated for those Jesus called “the least of these, who are members of my family.” What is even more important in the long run is the ways we are trying to affect social change so that charity isn’t needed.

And there is a long, long way to go. In the meantime, we wind up doing both things: providing a hand up and also trying to change systems of oppression and injustice. Someone asked recently why we are sending money to the Our Church’s Wider Mission, which is the way we fund not only the conference and national setting of the United Church of Christ, but also where we fund international outreach and mission. From what I understood, the person asking the question suggested that we should be taking care of our own local community, rather than people whom we will never see, let alone meet.

As a people who worship an invisible God, I think we should understand that seeing with our eyes isn’t everything. Just because you don’t SEE it happening doesn’t mean that it ISN’T happening. Globalization and technology move us beyond borders and boundaries. If you don’t have kids and you earn $60,000 a year, your income is in the top one percent globally. So, even if you don’t see kids at a preschool in Ethiopia or a girls’ school in Angola or a primary school in East Jerusalem, they are there and being supported by this congregation. Access to education changes lives and it changes systems. “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Part of what I want to say this morning is “thank you.” The people who comprise this congregation have big hearts for mission and outreach. And much of what we do as a congregation doesn’t show up the ledger sheet of our budget, whether it is in the form of Share the Plate, the Mission Marketplace, preventing homelessness, or giving to a Special Offering of the UCC.

The reading from Matthew’s gospel has an eschatological tone, which is a highfalutin theological term that relates to final things at the end of the age. Whenever you hear Matthew talk about “the Son of Man,” it denotes a piece of Jesus’ character related to the final chapter of human existence, the end of the age.

If you believe in the Last Judgment or Hell, this passage might be motivating for you to act in a moral way in this life so that you will be rewarded in the next. Yet, I don’t see God or Jesus as a divine accountant, putting our deeds on one side of some “Eternal Ledger” or another, and allowing those who end life in the black to enter eternal life (they would be the sheep) and those in the red to be consigned to eternal torment (they would be the goats). If you interpret this piece of scripture more literally, that’s fine. As a pastor, I prefer not to use fear as a motivator to encourage leading a moral life.

Orthopraxis is the twin sister of orthodoxy. You know that orthodoxy means holding the right opinion. And we don’t insist on uniformity of belief as a test of faithfulness in this congregation. Orthopraxis means right practice, especially in terms of religious faith. Depending on your religious tradition, orthopraxis might mean lighting candles at dinner on Friday evening and observing the sabbath on Saturday. Or it might mean making a pilgrimage to Mecca and abstaining from pork and alcohol. Or it might mean giving the hungry something to eat or the thirsty something to drink or the naked something to wear or visiting the sick or imprisoned or welcoming the stranger. I think we do have a fairly high bar of orthopraxis in our congregation around social justice issues. My only concern with that is that we don’t fall into the trap of thinking that our good works are all there is to leading a faithful life. We can get rather proud of taking action, and we sometimes set up an impossible standard of trying to save everyone everywhere.

So, for the sake of argument, let’s say that you AREN’T going to be sent to hell in a handbasket because you have not been charitable in your actions. WHY are you engaging in those behaviors? If you don’t fear eternal punishment, why bother to meet the needs of your neighbor around the world or on your doorstep? Stop for a minute. Ask yourself WHY you are doing things like feeding, welcoming, visiting? Is it just because we are “good people” and that’s how “good people” behave? Is it because our politics drive us in the direction of ensuring the needs of the “least of these?”

WHY are you doing something that is costly to you personally?

Part of the reason I’m posing this question is because I have learned so much from people in this congregation about what it means to live a faithful life. This is a really small example, but a long time ago, maybe 18 years ago, I heard one of our members say that they parked further away from the door of the supermarket not so they would get in a few more steps to reach their 10,000-step goal, but because someone else might need a space closer to the door. WHY do people do such things that are inherently at odds with their self-interest? That’s countercultural.

Here’s another example. A couple in our congregation retired and joined the Peace Corps, which is a cool thing in and of itself, and I was surprised that every year they were abroad, they still pledged their financial support of this congregation, even though they weren’t physical present to benefit from their membership. WHY did they do that? WHY were they acting in such a way that it diminished their financial self-interest? That’s countercultural.

Here’s a third example. Last year, a young Palestinian man turned up on our doorstep needing help…with finding a home, with graduate enrollment at CSU, with his visa status, and more. The very first thing that happened when he walked into our doors on a Sunday morning is that Brooklyn and Mike McBride made him a nice, hot caffe latte, sat him down, and sought out Jane Anne to help. He had already been to the Islamic Center and four other Christian churches seeking help but was turned away. This being Plymouth, we found someone who has worked with international students at CSU, another who knew the social services offered in our community, and later a physician who provided immediate care and helped him navigate the US healthcare system. And they built bonds of friendship and relationship that are still intact. Later his wife and son joined him from Jordan, and as you heard last Sunday, they have a new daughter.

WHY are these Plymouth people doing these things? I also want to ask you to pose this question for yourself. I can’t answer that for you…that’s your job, and I hope you will grapple with it!

I can answer it for myself. Part of my sense of faith and my orthopraxis is to try and follow the way of Jesus as best I can, even when I fail at it. To try and let the Holy Spirit guide me and have her way with me. To trust in the guidance of Jesus and to know that on a deeply physical and spiritual level that his way is the path toward fullness of life not just for me, but for others, too.

I try not to do this – to engage orthopraxis – in a legalistic way. And I try not to judge others who may have a different way of expressing their faith than I do. My best guess in life is that if I know what was motivating Jesus – his WHY – I can use that to help motivate me, too.

Marcus Borg claimed that Jesus overturned the systematized and ritualized purity practice of ancient Israel (which was a form of orthopraxis) and replaced it with a new value: compassion. Compassion is a form of deeply shared feeling and sympathy. It can be self-sacrificial. Compassion sometimes comes at the expense of our own narrow visions of purity, orthodoxy, and orthopraxis.

Following Jesus is not always easy or comfortable, but it is the thing that continues to give my life meaning and purpose. I sense that the God that lures us toward wholeness and compassion also draws us toward unity and lovingkindness. WHY follow that path? Because the other trails don’t seem to lead toward God’s realm.

What is your WHY? I see so many things you do; why are you compelled to act with compassion? WHY might it have been important to your parents or someone you admired as a young person? In considering why you act the way you do, may you be drawn even closer to the living God whom we worship, and in whose realm we live and work.

Amen.

“Blessed”
Matthew 5.1-13
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
19 November 2023
 
There is a particular small book that I have bought and given to more people than any other. And it seems to catch the soul of some people. It’s a book called To Bless the Space between Us, and it’s a book of blessings by the late Irish priest and philosopher, John O’Donohue. One person heard me use one of the blessings contained in this book at a graveside service and was so touched by it that he had it engraved on the stone at the entrance to our memorial garden.

Here is what O’Donohue writes about blessing as an act: “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 in invoked, it changes the atmosphere. Some of the plenitude flows into our hearts from the invisible neighborhood of loving kindness. In the light and reverence of a blessing, a person or situation becomes illuminated in a completely new way.”

And so today, you have heard Jesus open the Sermon on the Mount with a cycle of blessings! Jesus “changes the atmosphere,” allows “light and reverence” to stream into the souls of his hearers, resulting in  spiritual illumination. And this passage has continued to illuminate the followers of Jesus for the ensuing 2,000 years. In fact, many Christians consider the Beatitudes (or Blessings) as the very heart of the gospel, rendering what living life as a Christian entails.

I read a funny-tragic blurb from NPR a few days back. Russell Moore, and Evangelical leader, reports that “Multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount – having someone come up after to say, ‘Where did you get those liberal talking points?’ … And what is alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,’ the response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.’”

Sometimes (perhaps even often) Jesus’ message tends to clash with some of what Americans have come to believe as “gospel truth.” And it isn’t just Christian Nationalists, it’s us, too. The Beatitudes are blessing the weaklings, the underdogs, the losers. That is who Jesus blesses! And it is probably who we should include as we bless others. And it is reassuring to know that when we find ourselves depressed, anxious, running on empty, that Jesus blesses us, too.

It is hard in our day just to be. Just to exist. Just to find moments of inner peace. Mass shootings and violent responses to anyone who looks like the “other” are becoming de rigueur in the media. There is so much noise from the 24-hour news cycle, social media, the conflict-inducing voices on Fox News and MSNBC. American political discourse today is characterized by conflict that generates copious amounts of heat and almost no light.
 I was meeting with my therapist a few weeks ago, and she commented that “Anger is the new American drug of choice.” Think about that for a moment. Think how our culture has changed since before the pandemic. Think how you yourself have changed since before the pandemic. “Anger is the new American drug of choice.”

Of course, anger doesn’t stop at our borders. The rise of neo-fascism at home and abroad has been clear for the last five years. And the explosive violence in Israel and Gaza is polarizing and hate-inducing far beyond the Middle East.

Maybe the whole world needs a time out. But since that would be difficult to accomplish, I’m going to invite you into a brief moment of respite. I’ll read you my favorite blessing from John O’Donohue, and it contains an unfamiliar Irish word, currach, which is a small skin and wood-frame boat. I invite your close your eyes, relax you shoulder and neck muscles, feel the weight of your body in your seat and just breathe.

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you....
Read poem here. [1]

Blessing can be soul-restoring. I hope that you have a sense of that right now. And know that you can come back to that place of quietness and contemplation whenever you need to.

As I was thinking about this sermon, I was rolling around the idea that we need a few new Beatitudes for the times we live in and the challenges we face today. I came up with a long list, but here are three blessings for our day.

1) Blessed are you when you refuse to use violence as a means of addressing another’s violence.
Gandhi said that “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” And we can see where the Israeli-Gaza war is leading. Last week New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote about the myths that fuel the war: “The first myth is that in the conflict in the Middle East there is right on one side and wrong on the other (even if people disagree about which is which).

“Life isn’t that neat. The tragedy of the Middle East is that this is a clash of right versus right. That does not excuse Hamas’s massacre and savagery or Israel’s leveling of entire neighborhoods in Gaza, but underlying the conflict are certain legitimate aspirations that deserve to be fulfilled.”[2]

Nonviolence on the macro scale can also be used on a personal level. When we disagree with someone, we can discuss things in a calm, adult manner that doesn’t demonize anyone. We don’t have to be oppositional, passive-aggressive, or engage in name-calling. We can speak the truth in love.

A second beatitude: Blessed are you when leave self-interest behind in order to serve others and build community.
We don’t live in a vacuum; we live in a society. This comes as news to many Americans because we are raised to be self-reliant, self-assured, and self-centered. Our culture is diminished by lack of civic engagement and participation, by our unwillingness to look at the good of the whole, rather than our narrow self-interest. “No man is an island, Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” John Donne wrote that in 1624, and we visualized it anew when astronauts took a photo of earth from space, and we saw the reality that we all share this small, blue marble.

We are all in this together. Thinking more of “we” and less of “me” is a blessing we each can live by.

A third beatitude: Blessed are you when you build bridges instead of erecting walls.
This metaphor has become too close to literal truth on the southern border of the United States. If we say “build a wall” it may be on the border or it may be in a gated community or it may be a way of excluding those who are somehow different than you are. Interpersonally, stonewalling is a way of keeping progress from happening by cutting off improvement and communication.

People who are more interested in finding solutions than harboring resentments build bridges, not walls. They engage with others in order to advance a solution, rather than simply withholding forward movement. Maybe you’ve seen that happen in a personal or a working relationship. It is poisonous to a culture and to the people who form it.
Those are my three Beatitudes, and I offer them to you as a blessing. As you receive communion [share the offering] I invite you to think about what Beatitudes you might offer. What blessing do you have to offer the world?
Amen.

[1] “Beannacht” in To Bless the Space between Us, (NY: Convergent, 2008) p. 10
[2] Nicholas Kristof, “What We Get Wrong about Israel and Gaza,” NY Times, Nov. 25, 2023.

“Semper Reformanda”
Psalm 46
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC, Fort Collins, Colorado
 29 October 2023
 
A story in today’s Washington Post caught my eye on this Reformation Sunday. It details the recent Synod of the Roman Catholic Church, which for the first time included women and lay delegates as voting members. Issues like the possibility of blessing unions (not marriage) of same-sex Catholic couples and possibly having women serve as deacons were at least talked about. In criticizing more progressive German clergy who are already blessing same-sex unions, one Polish archbishop said that they were advocating reforms that “draw profusely from Protestant theology and the language of modern politics.” As we weigh what our sisters and brothers struggled with during this Synod, it’s a good time for us, too, to be considering what it means to be church. It is important for us as a congregation to be aware of what sort of new reformation may be upon us, even today.

When most of us think of the Reformation, we think of the Augustinian priest Martin Luther in 1517 nailing his 95 theses on the door of the church in Wittenburg, stating his objections to abuses of power by the church in Rome. And it was a momentous step.

Do you think Luther knew what he was doing? Do you think he thought it would cause a schism in the western church? Did he know that it would spark a Counter-reformation in the Roman Catholic Church? Do you think he knew that it would result in the many wars of religion in Europe that would claim millions of lives and extend for nearly 200 years? I suspect that he did not. He certainly didn’t anticipate that the 1517 Reformation would spawn further reformations across Europe, with Calvinists, Anabaptists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Unitarians, and others.

The Reformation was not – is not – monolithic. It happened in different ways in different places and in different times. And it is difficult to overemphasize the critical importance of it as a hinge in European history. It essentially put the final nail in the coffin of the Late Middle Ages and ushered in the Early Modern period.

Nothing in the church would ever be the same…except the things that are. You probably know some shifts in Protestant faith that come straight from Luther: two sacraments (baptism and communion) instead of seven. A different way of looking at communion: Transubstantiation (meaning that the communion elements literally became the body and blood of Christ) was disavowed. The reliance on scripture as wholly adequate source of authority, rather than papal pronouncement. Married clergy. Direct access to God, rather than needing the intermediary of a priest. And salvation that is a gift of grace based on faith alone, rather than relying on good works as a means of trying to earn merit.

Luther paraphrased the psalm we heard this morning, such that “God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in times of trouble” became “a might fortress is our God.”

This psalm was important to the Reformers, as it became more obvious that their heterodox views meant not just risking their own lives but that they could be used to incite violence and civil war.

Hear these words of the psalmist as you think of the war in Israel and Gaza:
“He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
‘Be still, and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth.’
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.” 

It is not the intention of our God or Jesus to use violence, but to secure peace, to break weapons, to call us to be still.

One of the questions that someone in the congregation asked during the Instant Sermon over the summer concerned what the church of the future would look like. And since none of us received that crystal ball we were hoping for, the best we can do is rely of God’s grace and guidance going forward.

Some things that we Protestants do go right back past 1517. Worship is still the central mission of every church, though of course it has morphed over time. We still baptize infants (though other Protestants don’t) and we celebrate communion. I suspect that the church of the future will continue to do those things, as well as to have potluck suppers.

One of the great ideas from our tradition is that we are not only Reformed, but reforming. It rests on a Latin phrase, Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda est. The church is reformed and is always reforming.

Reformed and reforming. You do know what that implies, don’t you? It’s the C-word…change! Most of us think that change is fine and necessary, but when asked if WE want to change, it’s a different story.

I want to acknowledge that change is incredibly difficult, especially when everything in your life seems to be changing and it can be embittering when the one thing you think is really stable – your church – starts to change.

One of the things you may not be fully aware of is how dramatically the pandemic accelerated change in American Christianity. Because we invested in great livestreaming capability, a sizable portion of our congregation is worshiping from home. Last Sunday, more that 70 screens were viewed during our two services, so it’s likely that we had about 95 worshipers who aren’t physically in the sanctuary. (We’re glad you’re in the virtual balcony, but we are still adjusting to so many of our folks being online and not in the pews.) We’ve seen the closure of the American Baptist Church and Abyssinian Christian Church in Fort Collins. Our own denomination has seen a 50% membership decline since the 1980s. Fewer people are entering seminary to prepare for parish ministry, because there are fewer congregations who can afford even one full-time clergyperson. This year, 12 people comprised the incoming Master of Divinity class at Iliff. When I started at Iliff in 1996, the incoming class was 60: five times as large.

One of my favorite Roman Catholic writers, Fr. Richard Rohr, reflects, “In North America and much of Europe, we are witnessing a dramatic increase in ‘nones,’ people who don’t identify with a particular faith tradition. While I ache for those who have been wounded by religion and no longer feel at home in church, the dissatisfaction within Christianity has sparked some necessary and healthy changes. Episcopal Bishop Mark Dyer…aptly called these recurring periods of upheaval giant ‘rummage sales’ in which the church rids itself of what is no longer needed and rediscovers treasures it had forgotten…. This is a difficult and frightening task, which is why we only seem to do it every 500 years or so! If we look at church history, we can see the pattern.”

What Rohr is referring to is the great rummage sale of the Reformation in 1517, the great schism between the eastern and western branches of Christianity in 1054, and the rise of monasticism in the sixth century. And we’re in the midst of another 500-year rummage sale.

So, today we find the church in Europe and North America in a stage of decline, ready for reformation. The funny thing about reformations is that nobody knows exactly where they will lead.

Sometimes in the UCC, we seem to think that if we just work harder, if we just do one more social justice project, if we just expand our program offerings, it will turn things around. And to be honest, we’ve been pretty good at holding back the flood here at Plymouth. But even if, like Hans Brinker, we keep our finger in the dyke to hold back the torrent, the dam isn’t going to hold forever. American Christianity, mainline Protestantism, the UCC, and even Plymouth will look very different in 20 years, even if none of us knows quite how.

The key to successful reformation is to get rid of the bathwater and have the wisdom to hold fast to the baby and not throw her out, too. The 1517 Reformation threw out plenty of bathwater, and there was some baby that got tossed out as well, and we’ve re-adopted some of those things. For instance, when I was growing up in a New England Congregational church, the only vestments clergy wore were academic robes, never a stole around their shoulders and certainly not a cassock alb, like I’m wearing right now. We adopted those gradually as an acknowledgement of our ecumenism. I never saw liturgical colors growing up. Today, I see gifts in monasticism. And I am deeply informed by mysticism and contemplative Christian spirituality, which also went by the wayside. Thankfully, we’ve retrieved some of that tradition.

I’m not aware of anyone who can tell just what the future of Christianity is going to look like. That can be scary, because we know it will be different, yet we’re not quite sure how. Part of our task in the coming years is to identify the baby and preserve it carefully, even as we drain the bathwater and let it go. It’s a matter both of embracing change while also conserving the best pieces of our tradition that are central to who we are as Christians.

Always reforming means that we have to embrace change and ride the wave. It also means that we need to spend time doing deep, thoughtful discernment with God about where we are being led to change and why. I pray that we have the grace to listen to the God who is still speaking and calling us to be the church.

May it be so. Amen.

“Generosity Is Serious Business”
2 Corinthians 9.6-8
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
15 October 2023
 
Most of you are probably unaware that your senior minister is a closet Parrothead, who mourned the death of Jimmy Buffett early last month. Now, you may ask yourself why I’m opening a hard-hitting, serious stewardship sermon talking about the singer best known for “Margaritaville.” (I do like a good margarita, but that isn’t the reason I’m talking about Jimmy Buffett this morning.) Buffett was an amazing storyteller, and his songs were laced with wisdom and humor that sometimes go deeper than you might assume. One of his songs, “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,” is among my favorites, and it contains this line that I think we should adopt as the church in the 21st century: “Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes, nothing remains quite the same. With all of our running and all of our cunning, if we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.”

Even when things seem deadly serious, if we couldn’t laugh we WOULD all go insane. Think about it…every church in this nation has gone through a rapid free-fall during the pandemic and its aftermath. Those were very difficult years at Plymouth for a variety of reasons, and we’re starting to pull out of it into a new normal. It’s easy to sit there and wring our hands, but that would surely drive us toward insanity, so you have to laugh! That’s a lesson I learned going through cancer treatment…if you can’t laugh about it, your outlook will eat you up.
Something else you may not know about me is that I have a shadowy past in university development, which is a euphemism for fundraising. In my 20s, I worked on building Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford and before that I was director of development communications at UC Santa Barbara. In fact, that is something I share with one of our members, Julie Karbula, who finished her career in development at UCSB. And she and I can tell you, generosity is serious business. Deadly serious business. But if you can’t laugh about it, you’ll be on your way toward insanity.

What’s so funny about stewardship? Isn’t it kind of a crazy concept that a bunch of people get together to worship an invisible deity and support one another and try to make a difference in the world…and that we try to fund it based on the faith of our members? Imagine what would happen if we had a high-profile consultant from Bain or McKinsey do a feasibility study on the church. (“No, I’m sorry, Paul, our study shows clearly that this idea of a church is economically untenable. The return on investment is just not predictable enough to warrant deep investment. You should probably stick with your tent-making business.”)
The apostle Paul didn’t have a lot of business sense, did he? Here he is working with a bunch of Greek-speaking folks trying to raise money for Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. That’s not an easy sell. Can you imagine the side conversations among those early Greek-speaking Christians? (“Why are we giving our hard-earned money for a bunch of people in Jerusalem we don’t even know?” “Are you sure that Paul is going to do what he says with our money? I’m not sure we can trust him.” “We didn’t get to vote about where the money is going!” “That Paul…all he ever talks about is money!”) The joke is on us because that squirrely business plan worked…with a little help from the Holy Spirit. The church is 2,000 years old, and I can’t think of any corporation or dynasty or empire that has persisted so long.

And what about this notion that “God loves a cheerful giver?” That is serious business! Does that mean that God doesn’t love a grumpy giver? Of course not! God loves all of us without exception and without condition. But it’s a heck of a lot more rewarding to give cheerfully than dolefully. It is far more meaningful to derive a sense of joy in your giving rather than to give grudgingly or resentfully. (But if you REALLY want to pledge grudgingly or resentfully, we’ll still accept your pledge card next Sunday.)

Mother Theresa said that we should give until it hurts. I like to think she meant that it hurts in a good way, like when your physical terrorist, I mean physical therapist, is grinding away on your inflamed muscles and tendons. Oh, it hurts so good!

But seriously, folks, I prefer to give until it feels good. I literally do this, and I encourage you to do the same if you are confused about how much to pledge for 2024. Look at yourself in the mirror and say out loud what you are planning to pledge. If you say $4,000 and no smile comes to your face, try saying $5,000 and keep on going until you see your dour New England Congregationalist scowl turn into a smile. And not just a humorous smile, but one that reflects a deeper sense of joy…one that evokes a grateful breath, a big smile, and the word, “Yes!”

Our Stewardship Board this year made a specific request in their letter to you this year, and it is because we need a little more help from everyone in order to keep our congregation vital and sustainable. And last Sunday, we had a bulletin insert with a little frog on it asking you to consider striving toward pledging five percent of your income. Those are suggestions, not demands or rigid rules.
I have a hunch that for many of us, giving does feel good. It feels rewarding, knowing that you are able to put your money where your faith is, and that it makes a difference not just to those who benefit from our mission and ministry, but to you, the giver. That’s another laughable idea: that giving away your hard-earned cash makes you feel good. In fact, giving a profound spiritual discipline that releases a sense of joy in you, the giver.

Generosity is a key Christian value, because it means sharing the experience of supporting God’s mission and ministry on earth. It feels good to emulate the role of God the giver of every good gift. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of feeling your heart swell as you gave just the right gift to a child or you mom or dad or a grandchild or spouse. (Can you create an image of giving such a gift in your mind’s eye right now?)

A study by psychologists at Northwestern and the University of Chicago (more serious business!) found that, “If you want to sustain happiness over time, past research tells us that we need to take a break from what we’re currently consuming and experience something new. Our research reveals that …[giving] may matter more than assumed: Repeated giving, even in identical ways to identical others, may continue to feel relatively fresh and relatively pleasurable the more that we do it.”[1] My assessment of their conclusion can be summed up in one word: DUH! Of course giving results in joy! But now we have evidence-based studies to confirm common sense.

Has it ever occurred to you that the reason God loves a cheerful giver is that She wants YOU to experience the joy of giving? Jesus says in John’s Gospel, “I came so that you might have life and have it in abundance.”

As Ebenezer Scrooge learned, the only way we turn abundance into JOY is by sharing it.

Paul offers more common sense: “The one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” I have seen this happen at Plymouth and in my own life. It may feel scary to go out on a limb and sow bountifully. It was really scary to switch careers when I was in my 30s…but it resulted in a bounty of joy. I see the most generous of people here at Plymouth, and I don’t see their faces pinched in worry. I see them offering more of themselves in all kinds of ways, and I see joy written on their faces.

May you be joyful knowing that you are graced by God’s abundance. May you find the ability to laugh at circumstances, at deep generosity, and even at yourself. May you be one of those who has the joy of giving written on your heart…and across your face, even if you aren’t wearing a red nose.
Amen.

© 2023 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] https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/the-joy-of-giving.html

“The Joy of Serving”
Philippians 2.1-11
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning
Plymouth Congregational UCC, Fort Collins, Colorado
October 8, 2023
 
Have you ever wanted to have a time machine that would let you travel across the millennia? I’m intrigued by this passage for a number of reasons, the first of which is that it comes from very early in the Christian era. The Letter to the Church in Philippi is earlier than any of the canonical gospels, having been written about 20 years after Jesus’ death. Even without a time machine, this text allows us to glimpse into what was happening in the early church before it was burdened by the powerful hand of those who insisted upon uniformity and what they considered orthodox.

It’s also interesting because this piece of text is actually the earliest known hymn in the Christian tradition, and it contains pieces of the early wisdom tradition of Jesus that seemed as countercultural then as they do now. Paul writes of joy not in the things in the ancient world that one would hope for: honor, status, wealth. In the Roman world it was better to be an influential patron that anyone who had to rely on patronage for survival, whether you were a client trying to do business, a landless peasant, or an enslaved part of the household. This hymn rejects that status idea entirely.

Rather, Paul speaks of complete joy consisting in self-giving love, compassion, empathy, lacking selfish ambition, seeing ourselves in humility, looking after the common good instead of self-interest.

What Paul asks of the church in Philippi is what he invites us into today, namely getting a brain transplant. Now, before you start thinking of Dr. Frankenstein (or Boris Karloff or Mel Brooks) placing the brain of a criminal inside the monster, let me rephrase that. Paul is inviting us to have a MIND transplant, letting go of the old, socially normative way of thinking and instead embracing a new way of encountering the world. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus Christ,” he writes.

This is the type of transformation that we refer to in the middle of our mission statement’s actions of inviting, transforming, and sending. It’s a big shift in our attitude about what is important in life. It’s about letting go of what our society (and Roman society) values most: status, wealth, worldly power, ego. There are plenty of examples of that in our culture; you don’t have to be Elon Musk to buy into it, because on some level it affects us all.

It isn’t a very easy sell to ask people to make that attitudinal shift. One of the great hymns of the Reformation asks us to “let goods and kindred go…this mortal life also.” I wonder if that is where many of us have attachments that keep us from letting go. It isn’t that goods and kindred and life are bad — not at all — but rather the sense of physical security they offer is actually pretty tenuous. Physical possessions and wealth may give us comfort, but they can disappear overnight in a fire or an economic downturn. Many of us have experienced the loss of our kindred through death or the rupture of a relationship. And while many of us cling to this life and aim to be healthy, none of us makes it out alive.

Sometimes, we need to let some attachments go in order to make space for something else to move in. Here is some trivia for you to share with a friend: when lobsters grow, they molt or shed their shell when their bodies need space. Here’s the weird part: in their first five to seven years of life, they do this process about 25 times. Imagine that: a juvenile lobster is feeling a bit crowded in its shell, so it sloughs it off, giving it room to grow inside a new shell that it generates. Do distractions or attachments ever make your shell feel too tight?

We all have attachments that we need to release, attitudes that may have served us well in the past, but perhaps have been outgrown. Or even cultural assumptions that we buy into without considering them in light of our faith. Think for a minute: what are some of the assumptions or attitudes that you cling to and need to let go of?

Our culture tells us that you have to be young, intelligent, ambitious, “successful.” What does your faith say to that?

Our culture prefers that you are straight, cisgender, white, and male. What does your faith say about that?

Our culture values those who are wealthy, powerful, influential. What does your faith value?

Paul writes that Jesus “emptied himself,” releasing all attachments. The act of self-emptying is called kenosis in Greek, and it is the opposite of clinging to our attachments. Richard Rohr calls this the touchstone of all Jesus’ teaching: “Let go! Don’t cling! Don’t hoard! Don’t assert your importance! Don’t fret.”[1]

Does that sound appealing to you? To me, releasing those things sounds like being unencumbered, climbing out of a too-tight shell, and in a real sense freed from the cultural expectations that keep so many of us bound. In order to be free, we also need to let go of some of the distractions that fill in our empty spaces: worry, TV, and social media.
Once we have made some space in our minds, hearts, and attitudes, it allows the movement of the Spirit to flow through us, among us, without so many blockages. It isn’t that we’re ever totally successful in the letting go, but even releasing some of those attachments gives us room to breathe.

Kenosis, letting go, allows us to see things differently. It prepares us to hear the gospel message with new ears. It makes room in our hearts to experience joy in a new way, having put on the mind of Christ. Then we can “look not to our own interests, but to the interest of others.”

A couple of things that I love about the image and theme for our pledge campaign are the idea of JOY in giving, not obligatory giving. If we’ve released some attachments, it frees us up for joy. The other piece I love is the heart image. We can experience happiness in our minds, but joy is an emotion we experience with the heart, body, and soul as well. So, even if we’ve had a successful brain transplant, release brings joy to the other parts of our being as individuals and as a congregation.

I had planned to speak today more about servant leadership, modeling our lives after Jesus. And we have room on our boards for servant leaders. I know how many of us feel the pinch of time, of work, of family, of obligation. And part of letting go is entering the freedom of release from distraction, so that we have space to consider important ministry (which comes from the Latin word for servant).

May we see ourselves with the same perspective that God sees us. May we have spaciousness within our souls to make room for following Jesus. May we have freedom to do the work of the Holy Spirit. And in all of it, may we find true joy.

Amen.

© 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact [email protected] for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.
 
[1] Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation for December 18, 2018.

“Embracing Abundance”
Matthew 20.1-16
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
24 September 2023
 
 Did you hear that? The day-laborers who were standing around looking at the tops of their feet all day were paid the same wage as the workers who had been slogging away all day in the vineyard! I ask you: is that fair?

But this isn’t the first time you’ve heard about something so unfair, is it?

Remember the one about the father who welcomed his spendthrift son – the one who had been living among swine, the one who spent all of his inheritance? And what does the father do for the responsible, hard-working son? Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Parables are a distinctive form of story intended to grab you, the hearer, and pull you in and make you wonder, ask yourself what is going on, and what “other thing” is that we’re meant to grapple with. Parables contain the aspect of riddles in the same sense that a Zen koan is meant to provoke deeper contemplation in order to help the hearer derive alternative wisdom that goes beyond a purely logical way of thinking.

The Greeks roots of the word parable are “para” and “ballein” — to throw alongside. So, there is one story being presented, but there is something thrown alongside the main narrative: a provocation to consider our assumptions differently. Dom Crossan claims that parables like this one are “challenges [that] attempt to raise the consciousness of listeners by luring and leading them into thinking for themselves.”

So, what do YOU think is going on here? What is Jesus provoking YOU to consider?

Perhaps those first listeners were in the same landless peasant class as the parable’s day laborers, and they focused on what happened at the end of the day: the landowner give a small coin to each person who ultimately worked in the vineyard, whether they worked for ten hours or only one hour. To that audience, perhaps, it seemed unfair or maybe envious of those who worked a short day.
But this is a parable of the kingdom, the reign of God that we pray for each Sunday! Does that mean that the realm of God is inherently unfair? (Maybe in our eyes.) Here are two important hints in interpreting this parable: it opens with “The kingdom of heaven is like…” (Matthew’s way of saying “the kingdom of God is like”), so right away we see Jesus saying that this is an alternative ethos creating an unconventional vision that stands in opposition to Rome’s imperial vision, and a subversive twist on the rabbinic tradition of his day. And he brackets the end of the parable by saying, “the last will be first and the first will be last,” which implies radical reversal. Who is the first in this parable? Who is the last?

That’s important for us to consider as well, because most of us come to this reading with deep American cultural expectations and assumptions from English Common Law around the rights of property and compensation. Using that lens, of course this parable seems unfair. But it’s a parable that begins with “the kingdom is like…” and ends with the last being first and vice versa. It sets OUR assumptions on their head.

Historically, this parable has been explained in different ways. Luther and Calvin saw this as a way of proclaiming that God’s grace (extended to the late-in-the-day laborers) is far more important than the good works of the early morning workers. “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?” asks the landowner/God, “Or are you envious because I am generous?” So, do YOU think this parable is about salvation?

Another way to look at the parable is through the lens of Matthew’s audience, which was both Jewish and gentile. Perhaps the laborers who arrived in the vineyard to work all day represented observant Jews, who had achieved salvation through centuries of following the Torah. And the latecomers to the party are the gentile followers of Jesus, who are admitted even though they show up late. In this interpretation, we are still seeing the landowner as God, spreading grace (unearned gifts) to anyone she wishes.

I was talking about this parable last week with Diana Butler Bass, who will be in the pulpit next Sunday, and her take was that it calls forth a new socioeconomic norm. What Diana said is similar to Dorothy Day (co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement), who wrote that Jesus “spoke of a living wage, not equal pay for equal work, in the parable of those who came at the first and the eleventh hour.” So, perhaps the parable envisions an alternative socioeconomic order.
I wonder if we all have an assumption that there isn’t really enough to go around and so the landowner’s actions are unfair. But what if there is actually plenty instead of scarcity? What if there IS enough?

Many years ago, I was in Senegal on a pilgrimage to explore the roots of Americans whose ancestors had been stolen from that land. It was eye-opening for me is myriad ways, but one of the lessons that struck me most was seeing what little kids did with some candy bars that I gave them. We’re talking about a few fun-size snickers bars. If we were in a group of American kids, I imagine that the children who got the candy bar would eat it themselves or squirrel it away to eat later. But that isn’t what happened in this Senegalese village. No, what I saw amazed me. The kids who received the candy bars carefully divided them so that each person would get some. There was no consideration that there was not enough to go around, rather these young Africans taught me a profound lesson that there is always enough…so long as we are willing to share. Even though they had little, they knew how to take what they had and instead of seeing it from the perspective of scarcity, they saw abundance.

Do you ever have a sense of scarcity — like there isn’t quite enough? Enough money, enough security, enough time, enough health, enough love? Sometimes I do, and I have to catch myself and try to steer a different course.

I think our culture breeds that fear-filled scarcity mindset, and advertising doesn’t help at all. We Americans are driven to earn more, spend more, consume more, want more. And I think the root of that is the fear that there isn’t enough for us. If you look back at our Unison Prayer and Sung Response, that’s why I had us sing, “Dayenu!” God has provided enough, but we have to be spiritually mature enough to recognize that there is enough and to share it.

As a congregation, we have plenty to go around. I say that not just because we have people among us who have considerable professional accomplishments or because the average household income in Fort Collins is $96,300. We may not have extravagant excess, but as a congregation we have enough.

A pastor at another church said of his parishioners, “As they earned more, there seemed to be more scarcity in their life. There was never enough time or money.” And as he began to talk about re-examining the way they perceived scarcity and abundance, and the purpose behind giving, the church had a real turnaround. They began to think about what they COULD do and what tools they needed to make that happen. They began to think in terms of abundance and what God had made available to the members of the congregation.

Still, I sometimes hear a lot more in our church about scarcity than I do about abundance. I’m not talking about extravagance, but rather simple things in our mission and ministry that are reasonable to do. What I sometimes experience is an attitude of “We can’t do that because it would cost too much” or “We can’t waste money on THAT” (even though THAT might be just the thing gives other members of the community a sense of life and spiritual connection). Having an overdeveloped sense of scarcity is hamstringing this congregation in achieving all we are called to be. It isn’t faithful, and we need some course correction.
What do you think of our Share the Plate program that gives half of what we receive as undesignated offering to a community partner? Do you think that is foolishly extravagant or do you think that is our congregation expressing our faith in God’s abundance?

How do scarcity and abundance play out in your own life, whether you are a teenager with an allowance, a young adult working for minimum wage, a retiree living on a small, fixed income, or a physician, a lawyer, an engineer, a professor, or a clergy person? Do you fundamentally think you have access to “enough” and give thanks to God for that, or do you think more in terms of not having enough? Where do those attitudes come from?

When I speak of abundance, I’m not talking about the New Age idea of “manifesting” wealth because you have dreamt that into being. I’m talking about seeing our lives in global perspective… that we have been given plenty.

God has provided for the world abundantly. God has provided for US abundantly. It’s a matter of those who have more being willing to see what they have abundance to share. Not just as what they “deserved” or “earned,” like a daylong laborer. And once we have a mindset of abundance and possibility rather than scarcity and fear, we need to act in a way that reflects God’s attitude of grace and abundance.

The wonder of parables is that there are many ways to interpret them. I hope that you have been provoked to wonder, to think, and to dream by Jesus through this parable. The kingdom of heaven on earth is like a group of people, young, old, and in-between; queer, straight, trans or cisgender, Black, Asian-American, Latina, white; rich, poor, and everywhere in between. It is seeing them following Jesus, employing what has been entrusted to them, working for justice, welcoming the stranger and the outcast, enjoying the fruits of their labor, finding meaning in the Spirit, and working to ensure that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

May it be so. Amen.
 
© 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact [email protected] for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.
 

“Genuine Love”
Romans 9.12-21
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
10 September 2023
 
A few weeks ago, I had the wonderful opportunity to spend a week at Ring Lake Ranch, an amazing ecumenical study center in Dubois, Wyoming. In a casual discussion with a Presbyterian colleague, she expressed her dismay with David Brooks, who writes for the New York Times and The Atlantic and does commentary on PBS Newshour. Brooks is the nominally conservative voice in those typically liberal settings. I always try to read commentary by David Brooks, because even when I don’t agree with him, he often has something important to say. The article that upset my friend was in this month’s Atlantic, called “How America Got Mean,” and the subtitle is “In a culture devoid of moral education, generations are growing up in a morally inarticulate, self-referential world.”

Part of my friend’s objection was that the church has often played the finger-wagging role of the “moralizer” in American society, and we have seen that play out in ways that you and I probably find repugnant, especially around issues of sexual orientation, social justice, and women’s rights. Brooks writes, “we would never want to go back to the training methods that prevailed for so long, rooted in so many thou shall nots and so much shaming, and riddled with so much racism and sexism. Yet a wise accounting should acknowledge that emphasizing moral formation meant focusing on an important question — WHAT IS LIFE FOR? — and teaching people how to bear up under inevitable difficulties. A culture invested in shaping character helped make people resilient by giving them ideals to cling to when times got hard.”[1] And don’t we all need resilience?

Brooks’ article made me wonder how we in the United Church of Christ and particularly here at Plymouth have done in terms of moral formation not just of our young people, but of us grown-ups as well. The second step in our mission statement’s threefold challenge is where moral formation lives: inviting, transforming, and sending. Every one of us is ripe for spiritual and moral growth, whether we’re six or ninety-six.

I think that we in the progressive church DO have something important to say about moral life, and we are at a critical moment in our nation’s history, as meanness, isolation, self-centeredness, unfettered dog-eat-dog capitalism, and a patent disregard for our fellow humans and the precious planet God has entrusted to us have become culturally normative. What WE have to say might sound vastly different than other Christians.

The church as a whole and Plymouth in particular are in a unique position to help engage a journey of countercultural transformation that moves in the opposite direction of those unwelcome cultural norms. Our mission includes a strong commitment to social justice, but it’s more than that. Our mission includes spiritual connection to God, but it’s more than that. Our faith has a lot to say about the biggest questions we ask about what gives life meaning, how to find joy rather than simple self-satisfied happiness, how we are meant to relate with one another and be responsible stewards of God’s world and the wealth God has entrusted to us.

If the voices of progressive churches like ours don’t fill the vacuum in moral formation, it will be filled by other voices: the siren song of advertising lures us toward the rocks of capitalistic ruin; the cry of “I, me, mine” will drown out “we, us, ours”; the out-of-balance individualism that takes no account of the other will win out over the value of real community.

Here is what is filling the vacuum. David Brooks points out that “74 million people saw [the former president’s] morality and saw presidential timber.” That is a strong barometric reading of the moral outlook of a lot of Americans, and I find that even more telling than the individual character of the former president.

So, my friends, as progressive Christians, where do we turn for a moral compass? What are the values you hope to inculcate in our youth and in the overall culture of our congregation? For me, the words of Jesus in the Beatitudes in the sixth chapter of Luke and the fifth chapter of Matthew are absolutely central. And I think the apostle Paul has some wisdom for us in this morning’s reading.

Hear what he has to say: “Let love be genuine,” or as another translation puts it, “Love should be shown without pretending.” This is self-giving love (agape), not sentimental or romantic love. Genuine love is costly love; that means sometimes you put another person’s needs ahead of your own. Genuine love means being willing to sacrifice something for the good of the other.

“Hate what is evil and hold fast to what is good.” I think we can get caught up in trying to define and identify evil, so you might want to focus on giving energy to what is good and encourage growth in people, communities, and creation.
“Love each other with mutual affection,” is one translation, and Paul uses the Greek word philadelphia, fraternal love, so I think a good English parallel would be loving one another like family. I see that happening at Plymouth all the time, and not just for members of this congregation, but for those experiencing homelessness, refugees and immigrants, and CSU students.

“Do not lag is zeal, be ardent in spirit, and serve the Lord.” In other words put your faith into practice…don’t just say one thing and do something else. We have an involvement fair today that invites you to become active in something that moves your faith forward.

Paul knows that part of the human condition is suffering, but he isn’t satisfied to leave it at that. Rather, he encourages us to have hope, to be patient, and to keep on praying. He doesn’t say whether prayer changes God or changes us…but my experience is that it helps in either case.

Extending hospitality to strangers is a foreign concept for many Americans, but it was a key value for life in the ancient Near East. When someone shows up at your door, you welcome them, feed them, and offer a place to rest. Part of what we strive to do at Plymouth is to offer an extravagant welcome to our guests on Sundays and also to provide a warm, homelike welcome to our Faith Family Hospitality guests experiencing homelessness.

Paul encourages us to support one another financially. Generosity is a critically important value that doesn’t get much play in today’s American culture where we tend to focus not so much on what we can give as what we can get. And I see something deeply countercultural happening in this congregation as we are exceptionally generous in supporting Plymouth’s ministry and mission and even through our Share the Plate offering.

Let’s boil all of that down. Paul is talking about loving one another. It’s about love…costly love. We all say that we want community, but it doesn’t form without genuine, costly love. Here is an important caveat, whether you are looking at Paul’s list or Jesus’ Beatitudes: Nobody does any of this stuff perfectly. Each one of us is a work in progress, so maybe we should focus on practice, not perfection.

Yesterday, I saw something I’d never seen in person: along with forty-some pistols and rifles, two assault weapons came into our gun buy-back. I looked at them after they had been sawed into pieces and disassembled. I thought about Columbine and the theater in Aurora and the King Soopers in Boulder. It heart-rending to see these weapons and to think that they were designed for one purpose: killing human beings created in the image of God…in the image of love.
The work RawTools does is a shining example of the kind of moral education and engagement that Brooks is talking about.

It actually does take a village to raise a child. It takes a village to stand up and try to end gun violence. It takes a village to create systemic change. It takes a village to embody a community whose hallmarks are faith, love, justice, peace, generosity, and welcome.

David Brooks concludes, “healthy moral ecologies don’t just happen. They have to be seeded and tended by people who think and talk in moral terms, who try to model and inculcate moral behavior, who understand that we have to build moral communities because on our own, we are all selfish and flawed. Moral formation is best when it’s humble. It means giving people the skills and habits that will help them be considerate to others in the complex situations of life. It means helping people behave in ways that make other people feel included, seen, and respected.”

Welcome to our village!

Amen.

© 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact [email protected] for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

“Cause for Courage”
Matthew 14.22-34
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
August 13, 2023
 
Part of being human is encountering things that frighten us or keep us awake at night or make us worry about survival. It’s the stuff of the amygdala, the “reptilian brain” that instructs our hearts to beat and our lungs to breathe, and it also is where we get the fight, flight, or freeze response. Has there been a time for you when you’ve had that deer-in-the-headlights reaction where you feel as though you can’t think straight as a rush of adrenaline courses through your body? Most of us have had that sensation, even if we were not out on stormy seas in an open boat as the disciples were.

One of those times for me was when my stepson, Jane Anne’s son Colin, took his own life five years ago. I was out having a beer with one of our members, Mike Byrne, and I got the call. Jane Anne was so shaken she couldn’t speak, so my son, Chris, had to tell me that tragic news. I remember freezing and then telling Mike, “I have to go home. Now.” I drove home through the February snow, and I have no memory of the rest of the evening. At about 2:00 a.m., our doorbell rang, and there was a policeman at the door. I invited him in, and he said that he needed to inform us of some bad news, and I called to Jane Anne to come downstairs. It’s weird and a bit traumatizing to have the police knock on your door in the middle of the night and to hear them make an official notification that Colin had died. We were in shock, and we thanked the officer for coming by. (I’m sure it was very difficult for him to inform us as next-of-kin.)

Last week, I read this quote from James Finley in Richard Rohr’s daily email: “God is the presence that spares us from nothing, even as God unexplainably sustains us in all things.” God didn’t spare the disciples in the storm, but Jesus sustained them.

Viktor Frankl, a brilliant psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz, identified three discreet phases in such circumstances: stimulus, time, and response. Our reptilian brain leaps in after a triggering event (the stimulus) and rushes us to a response. This is great if you are about to walk into the road, see an oncoming vehicle at the last second, and leap back out of the way. In such circumstances, the amygdala keeps us alive. But what makes us human is the ability to expand the time between stimulus and response, so that can use our prefrontal cortex to allow a more considered response. That very brief span of time between stimulus and response is where we can find a sense of liberty in how we respond, using our prefrontal cortex.

What Frankl encourages us to do is practice being conscious of and lengthening the pause between stimulus and response. The disciples were so terrified of the storm and seeing a figure walking toward them across the water (that’s the stimulus) they panicked and thought Jesus was a “ghost.” (To be fair, that is a pretty frightening situation.) And when Jesus reassures them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid,” it allows them to pause, and Peter responds by asking Jesus to summon him out to walk on the water. Peter is now using his prefrontal cortex! Yay!

When Peter steps out onto the water, the wind comes up and he becomes frightened. His amygdala kicks in, and in immediate response, Peter begins to get very wet ankles and knees. As he is sinking, Jesus grabs his hand and hoists him to the surface of the water, saying “You of little faith (trust), why did you doubt?”

All of this makes me wonder if part of living into a life of faith involves disrupting that stimulus and response pattern slightly and inviting time in between to allow not just our logic but our faith to create a more considered response. I’ve never thought this before, but I wonder if faith (trust) resides in our prefrontal cortex, as well as metaphorically in our hearts. Trust isn’t something that just happens; we have to learn it. We develop trust in God through our own devotional lives and spiritual practice, whether that’s praying or meditating or journaling or reading scripture. It takes time to build faith that will last a lifetime.

Fear may be the opposite of faith. And when you think of what fear creates in our world — hatred, greed, racism, self-centeredness, sexism, Christian nationalism, and war — it is antithetical to faith, which I think of as developing a relationship of deep trust with God.

Part of what helped Jane Anne and me to regain our equilibrium after Colin’s death was to trust that we were being held…held by God and held by this community of faith. All we had to do is look in our backyard, where the prayer flags you all made for us were flying near our back fence, and we knew you were there with us. I am grateful. Thank you for surrounding us with God’s love and yours. James Finley writes, “God depends on us to protect ourselves and each other, to be nurturing, loving, protective people. When suffering is there, God depends on us to reach out and touch the suffering with love, that it might dissolve in love.”

We don’t have to go it alone. There is a force infinitely more loving and powerful that anything we can imagine. And relationship helps tether us to that force and become part of that force.

In those moments of life’s greatest intensity, we can invite our faith to come to the fore. Jan Richardson, a wonderful artist and minister, who suddenly and unexpectedly lost her husband Gary several years ago writes this, using images from Matthew’s story of Jesus on the waves:
“Eight months have passed since Gary’s death: a moment, an aching eternity. I can tell you that I know what it means to be borne up when the waters overwhelm. I know the grace of hands that reach out to carry and console and give courage. I am learning—again, anew—what faith is, how this word that we sometimes toss around so casually holds depths within depths that will draw us beyond nearly everything we once believed.

This is some of what I know right now about faith:

That faith is not something I can summon by a sheer act of will.

That it lives and breathes in the community that encompasses us.

That I cannot force faith but can ask for it, can pray that it will make its way to me and bear me up over the next wave, and the next. That it comes. That I can lean into it.

That it will propel me not only toward the Christ who calls me, but also back toward the boat that holds my life, incomprehensible in both its pain and its grace.

What are you knowing about faith right now? Where is it bearing you?”
And Jan Richardson offers this “Blessing that Bears the Wind, the Wave”

That we will risk
the drenching
by which we
are drawn
toward the voice
that calls us,
the love
that catches us,
the faith
that carries us
beyond the wind,
the wave.[1]
 
Dear friends, we are here to be the hands of Jesus to one another, to support and uplift one another. “Don’t be afraid; my love is stronger. My love is stronger than your fear. Don’t be afraid my love is stronger, and I have promised, promised to be always near.”
Amen.

© 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact [email protected] for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

[1] Jan Richardson, at janrichardson.com, used by permission.

“Abundance Enough”
Matthew 14.13-21
by Hal Chorpenning
Plymouth Congregational UCC, 6 August 2023
 
The miraculous story from Matthew’s gospel is one of the best-known in the New Testament, in fact Mark, Luke, and John repeat their own versions of the story. Fishes and loaves. What an image: being able to take a small quantity of very simple food and to nourish 10,000 people. (This story is usually called “Feeding the 5,000,” but they forget to count the women and children, so I’m rounding up.)

Over the years, this story has yielded many different interpretations. One way to look at it is that it happened exactly the way the gospel writer recorded it: that Jesus took two fish and five loaves and magically multiplied them sufficiently so that every one of the people present had enough to eat their fill.

Another way to interpret it is less physical and more spiritual: that what nourished the 10,000 was not having a full belly, but rather having a spirit that was topped off by a meal with Jesus. It wasn’t so much that Jesus increased the volume of food there. Rather, he qualitatively increased the food, enabling it to meet the spiritual needs of the people.

A third interpretation has to do with the sacramental value of the meal. You probably know that in the Protestant tradition, we celebrate two sacraments: communion and baptism. But I would argue that this story of fishes and loaves provides scriptural rationale for opening the door for the third Protestant sacrament: the potluck supper. (I’m only half kidding; I really think that we can come to know each other and God through a common meal shared with those we journey with.) Do you remember what it was like to eat together at church after Covid began to decline? It was joyous! And we’ll do that next Sunday following our outdoor worship.

The fourth way of interpreting this wonderful story is that it shows that God is active here on earth sharing abundance. Just as God provided manna to the Hebrew people wandering in the desert, God also provides sustenance through the ministry of Jesus. Unlike the second interpretation – the spiritual nurture – this fourth way of looking at the miracle is about God helping to meet our most basic needs as animals: we have got to eat. It’s no accident that the two recognized sacraments both involve basic hygiene and nutrition functions: bathing and eating. It’s just a part of who we are as embodied beings. And it can be a wonderful part of who we are and who God created us to be.

The Psalmist writes, that “the Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.”[1] And an integral part of God’s compassion is providing enough food to go around. It is we who are responsible for distribution of what God has entrusted to us.

It’s interesting to try and imagine Jesus’ thinking in this story. What is it that is driving Jesus? Is it pity? hospitality? simple generosity? The dominant motive of Jesus is a force that emanates deep in the gut: compassion. The Latin roots of the word mean “to suffer with:” cum + patior. But the Greek word is splagchnizomai (splag-knidz-o-my) which is a feeling so deep it grows out of your belly. It’s the same compassion that God shows to all people.

God – and Jesus – didn’t just provide enough: they provided abundantly. That is the reason there 12 baskets of leftovers after feeding all those hungry people. And God continues to provide for humanity abundantly.

What kind of miracle would it be if we could use God’s abundant gifts to eradicate world hunger? That might sound even more miraculous than feeding the 10,000 with two fish and five loaves.

• One billion people exists on less than one dollar a day. 2
• In developing countries, 6 million children die each year, mostly from hunger-related causes.
• More than 800 million people in the world are malnourished – 777 million of them are from the developing world.
• 10.2 percent of households in this country are food insecure.
• 38 million people in our nation live in poverty.
• Child poverty rates tell an interesting story: in 2020, the child poverty rate was 9.7 percent. But by 2021, it had declined to 5.2 percent, a 46 percent improvement. What worked? Child tax credits, expanded Medicaid, and other programs related to Covid-19 antipoverty measures.
• What kind of miracle would it be if we could use God’s abundant gifts to eradicate hunger not just in our nation but around the world?
• According to Oxfam, it would take $37 billion each year through 2030 to end hunger on our planet. Just to put it in perspective, that’s less than we Americans spend on pet food each year.

Peter Singer is a highly controversial ethicist, originally from Australia, who now teaches at Princeton. He really takes our government to task for its low percentage of overseas aid. The U.S. gives just 0.18 percent of our GDP for international relief – we would have to increase our national giving by 5.4 times to reach the target set by the U.N. It isn’t that we Americans are not generous folk – we are! It is that we are unwilling to look all the rest of our sisters and brother with whom we are sharing God’s world.

As Christians, in a very tangible sense, we acknowledge that whatever we have is not even ours to begin with: it’s God’s. All we have is given to us as a gift, entrusted to us as stewards. Whatever wealth we have on hand now is only ours in the short term. Do you remember that old song, “We give you but your own, whate’r the gift may be, all that we have is yours alone, we give it gratefully?” That’s not idle chatter; it’s real. What kind of miracle would it be if we could use God’s abundant gifts to eradicate world hunger?

Peter Singer writes, “In the world as it is now, I can see no escape from the conclusion that each one of us with wealth surplus to his or her essential needs should be giving most of it to help people suffering from poverty so dire as to be life-threatening. That’s right: I’m saying that you shouldn’t buy that new car, take that cruise, redecorate the house or get that pricey new suit. After all, a $1,000 suit could save five children’s lives. ... Again, the formula is simple: whatever money you’re spending on luxuries, not necessities, should be given away.”[2]

Okay, that’s a pretty radical suggestion. But I have a concern with this, and it’s a problem of enormous proportion in every church I know: we want to do charity, not justice.

Charity is giving something you have to someone who needs it. Charity makes me feel good, and it might meet the other’s need in the short term. But, ultimately, the answer is not about me and my feelings. It’s about God’s world and God’s children.

What happens when compassion – not pity – comes into the equation? When that gut-wrenching, suffering-with, feeling grows inside us? When we respond not as somebody who is one step above another, but shoulder to shoulder with those who are suffering? We’re more apt to respond with justice, rather than with charity.

We’ve moved beyond the need for band-aids: we need major surgery: systemic solutions to answer world hunger. And we have the ability and the resources to do it.

I would like every person here to write down this web address: bread.org That’s the website for Bread for the World, which is a Christian-based citizen’s group lobbying Congress to help make systemic changes to end world hunger. It’s also a great resource for information on hunger here in the U.S. and around the world.

So, what can we do? How can we be good stewards of all we’ve been given?

We can start with prayer. Not just prayer for more food for those who need it, but by confessing our own overconsumption. We can pray to help discern our true needs from our wants. The next time you say the Lord’s Prayer, take the “give us this day our daily bread” part seriously.

We can share what we have through the UCC’s One Great Hour of Sharing offering, which comes around every spring.

We can put pressure on our elected representatives not only to do our fair share, but to help put into place sustainable structures and systems that provide food for all.

As we come to the communion table together, let each of us, as we taste the bread, think of those who don’t have that privilege today. And let us rededicate ourselves, as stewards of God’s world, to help create a miracle in our midst.
What kind of miracle would it be if we could use God’s abundant gifts to eradicate world hunger?

Amen.
 
[1] Psalm 145.9
[2] NYT, 5 September 1999.

“Overwhelming Abundance”
Psalm 23
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
9 July 2023
 
How many of you learned this psalm by heart when you were in Sunday school? It’s probably the best-known psalm and by many the most beloved. One of my favorite sung versions is by Bobby McFerrin, and we used part of his paraphrase as our Call to Worship. It is one that we sometimes hear during a memorial service as a comfort, knowing that the Lord is our shepherd, our guide, our protector. In fact, on those occasions, I will sometimes use the King James or Revised Standard Version, since it is what many folks grew up hearing and that familiarity can bring comfort.
 
The opening verse talks about having everything we need. Hear these different translations: “I shall not want,” “I have all I need,” “I lack nothing.” How does that sit with you? Does it ring true? Do you have everything you need? Maybe if you are just starting out or things are really tight financially, it could be that you don’t have all you need…or at least all the things you want.
 
As the prophet Mick Jagger once sang, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.” The rub is distinguishing the one from the other.
 
So, what do we really need? Food, shelter, medical care, education, spiritual connection. We also have a whole host of wants. If we didn’t, it would decimate the advertising industry, which wants us the leap into Prime Days on Amazon, buy a new car with have a four-figure monthly auto loan payment, and to ask our doctor if Lunextra[1] is right for you.
 
Nothing keeps the wheels of advertising spinning like fear of inadequacy. “Never let them see you sweat.” “Be all that you can be.” “The best a man can get.” “Maybe she’s born with it…maybe it’s Maybelline.”  And the other thing advertisers like to do is to weave a web of scarcity that ensnares unsuspecting viewers. I literally read this on a blog this week: “Scarcity isn’t just another marketing hack—it’s a psychological phenomenon you can use to make more revenue.”
 
Americans are bombarded by advertising, and much of it is designed to make us want things we don’t really need or didn’t even know we wanted. Imagine the climate impact of doing away with all the things we buy as a result of advertising and how much simpler we could live. Most of us would agree that the best things in life…aren’t things.
In The Covenanted Self, biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann writes, “The reality of drought or low production or famine…produces a sense of scarcity, a deep, fearful, anxious conviction that there is not enough to go around, and that no more will be given. The proper response, given that anxiety, is to keep everything you have…. The myth of scarcity that can drive the economy is not based on economic analysis, but on anxiety.”

Anxiety is rooted in fear, and yet at our core, we know that “even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we fear no danger because you are with us.” How many times in the biblical narratives do we hear the command, “Fear not!”? And yet, too often we do give into fear and allow it to drive our decision-making. It doesn’t have to be that way, but it requires intention and attention to see the world differently: as a world provided with plenty rather than scarcity.
 
God has provided abundantly, but it is how we respond and share God’s abundance that makes the difference in peoples’ lives. Brueggeman writes, “I propose that the lyric of abundance that is evoked by the generosity of the Creator, sits deeply against the myth of scarcity. The lyric of abundance asserts that because the world is held in the hand of the generative, generous God, scarcity is not true. I mean this not as a pious, religious sentiment, but as a claim about the economy.”
 
How do you sense that in your own life? Is your cup overflowing with God’s abundance? I have a hunch that many of us don’t slow down enough to consider that question deeply. Where is your cup so full that it spills over?
 
When we were visiting my son, Cameron, in Japan before the pandemic, I was surprised at the method of pouring sake for a guest. As a deep gesture of hospitality, someone else always pours the sake into your glass for you. And while there are all kinds of sake cups, the one I saw most frequently in Japan was a set that contained a glass and a small wooden box, called a masu.
 
Now, you may wonder what this has to do with the 23rd Psalm and abundance. When a host is pouring sake into your glass, she or he pours it to overflowing, so that it exceeds the capacity of the glass and spills into the masu. This is a gesture of abundance, and the first time I saw it, I couldn’t help but say, “My cup overflows!” Literally!
 
Abundance in God’s world is never a question of there being enough, but rather a question of distribution, so that all have the basic needs met. Some of us have too much and others have too little. How we balance that out is a question of good stewardship: how we live with and share God’s abundance.
 
Even within the life of our congregation, we work this way. Rather than charging a membership fee or dues, we ask one another to do our best to live and give faithfully in response to God’s gift of abundance. If we did have dues at Plymouth, they would be about $4,100 a year per family. That may surprise you, but it takes a lot to do mission, keep the lights and air conditioning on, plan and gather for worship, provide pastoral care, build community, be a voice in public square, and educate our children and teens and adults. Because not all of us can afford that amount, those among us who can give more must do so to support the community.
 
How has God filled your cup to overflowing? Stop for a moment and think about how God has shown up abundantly in your life and in the life of our congregation. Most of us have enough to eat, a place to sleep, available healthcare, a career or retirement. Most of us have enough and then some. [pause] And now I invite you to silently offer thanks to God for whatever abundance has been made available to you.

And in the spirit of continuing your meditation, I’d like to share a short film with you from Brother David Steindl-Rast, an elderly Austrian Trappist monk who has a profound relationship with gratitude. https://vimeo.com/223300973
 
May you continue to see your cup neither as half-full or half-empty, but as overflowing with God’s abundance. And as Brother David says, “May your gratefulness overflow into blessing all around you.” Amen.
 
© 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact [email protected] for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.
 
[1] Not a real drug name

“Not to a Congregation of the Sinless”
Matthew 9.9-13
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
June 11, 2023
 
 Who does Jesus eat with, and why? An observant first-century Jew should be eating only at a kosher table with people who are socially acceptable and who are not ritually impure. And yet we know who Jesus hung out with. It wasn’t the well-to-do or the religious establishment, and it certainly wasn’t the Roman imperial occupiers of the Jewish homeland.

The gospel writer tells us that Jesus is under fire for sharing the table with sinners and tax collectors. It’s important to know that tax collectors were not simply IRS agents who were doing the work of the federal government in getting everyone to pay their fair share of the tax burden. Instead, tax collectors in this case were Jews who made their money by collaborating with the Roman occupiers. That isn’t a good start, but it gets better: they essentially extorted money from people on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder, handing over a portion of the money they collected and keeping some of it for themselves. They were despised by most of those under Roman occupation.

The other category is “sinners.” Temple Judaism in the first century was centered around purity codes that had paths of practice to cleanse one of sin and become ritually clean, and you can read about them in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.

But don’t all of us commit sin? Don’t we miss the mark as we try to live good and worthy lives? Things that push our relationship with God out of kilter? Of course we do! In our membership covenant response we say, “We warmly welcome you not to a congregation of the sinless, but to a living community of faith that seeks together to find new ways of being in relationship with God and enacting God’s intention for the wholeness of humankind.”

When was the last time you sat down and really considered how you yourself and we together as a church were finding “new ways of being in relationship with God and enacting God’s intention for the wholeness of humankind?” Later in this sermon, I’m going to pose three questions about that, along with an invitation to do some wrestling.

I have a hunch that many of us think that we are pretty set with the second phase of our mission statement that calls us to inviting, transforming, and sending. Do you think you are done with your own transformation as a follower of Jesus? Have any of us attained full enlightenment?

We don’t talk very much about our own spiritual transformation at Plymouth, and I think perhaps we need to work a bit more on our growth and (to use a very old-fashioned word) discipleship. A disciple is nothing more than a student following a master, and we follow Jesus. If we don’t work together on our spiritual lives, where else is that going to happen?

St. John Chrysostom, a bishop of the fourth century said, “The church is a hospital, not a courtroom, for souls. She does not condemn on behalf of sins, but grants remission of sins.” Think about that hospital metaphor in light of what Jesus said: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” I’m going to make a bold assumption in saying that there is no one here who is entirely well or whole. We all need healing and growth. We all need a teacher and a physician. And we need a community to help us along the way.

As I was writing this week, I became curious about what other Christians might see as marks of discipleship or learning. If you want to see a diversity of opinion, try googling “key marks of discipleship” and see what it yields. It wasn’t terribly useful for our purposes, since they all came from organizations whose theology we would be unlikely to support.

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t have ideas about ways that we can grow in our relationship with God. And as those who try to follow Christ, the best source seems to be Jesus himself. In the text this morning, Jesus quotes the prophet Hosea, instructing his disciples to “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire compassion, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” The great Jesus scholar Marcus Borg, Plymouth’s first Visiting Scholar, said that Jesus deliberately replaced the centrality of purity as a key aspect of religious practice with compassion, and I think this is a clear example of that. God doesn’t need burnt offerings of doves or sheep; God’s deepest desire for us is to act compassionately toward one another.

Living with compassion is harder than it sounds. It implies that we need to get out of our individualistic and even familial mindset and be open to share the suffering of others. Compassion is costly…it isn’t free, and it isn’t easy. We have to be willing to sacrifice some part of our well-being in order to help others. And that is countercultural in our society.

Many of Jesus’ clearest (and hardest) teachings are enumerated in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel, so isn’t that a logical place to look for clues about what we need to learn as disciples?

The Beatitudes hold up as blessed those who are poor in spirit, who mourn, the meek, those who hunger for justice, who show compassion, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those persecuted for the sake of justice, and those who are rejected on account of following Jesus.

As disciples, some of us here today fall into one or more of those categories. I know some of you who are mourning, others who are meek, and some who hunger for justice. So, what about the rest of us? If a particular beatitude doesn’t apply to us, perhaps we are meant to be a support and a blessing to those Jesus lists. We can support the peacemakers, lift up the poor in spirit, and show compassion.

When the crowd asks Jesus how they should pray, he tells them not to wail aloud like the hypocrites who pray to be seen by others, instead he offers them the prayer we offer each Sunday, the Lord’s Prayer. Have you even noticed that in the Lord’s Prayer we pray twice for the inbreaking of the realm of God? And that it speaks about God’s abundance and debt forgiveness?

Perhaps the first question we should ask ourselves as disciples, learners is Who am I in relation to God?

Jesus keeps on going in his sermon, encouraging his followers (us) to be even more concerned for justice and righteousness than others, to let go of anger, to avoid retaliation by turning the other cheek, to go the second mile, and to give to anyone who begs from you. He tells us not just to love the folks who already love you, but to love even our enemies.

A second question for us as learners seems to emerge: Who am I in relation to others? Think not just about your own family, but about your church, community, nation, and world. Our society is amazingly self-absorbed, which is fueled by consumer advertising. Consider the neighbors that surround you, near and far, and whether those relationships are expanding or contracting.

You may not realize it, but Jesus has a lot to say to us about abundance and wealth and how we use what is entrusted to us. He encourages us to be generous in our giving, but not to be showy about it. He tells us not to worry so much about our possessions or what we will eat or drink or wear. God provides in abundance and Jesus says, “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Jesus is clear that people like us cannot serve two masters: God and wealth. And he shares some uncommon wisdom with us, telling us not to store up treasures on earth. He tells us that where our treasure is, it is there that our hearts will be.

So, a third question arises for us as we move toward transforming our lives: Who am I in relation to abundance and wealth? Jesus says more about money than he does about love. Money is an important tool entrusted to us to help extend the realm or kingdom of God. How much time do you spend serving wealth?

So, those three questions are:
• Who am I in relation to God?
• Who am I in relation to others?
• Who am I in relation to abundance and wealth?

I think each one of us has a lot to learn on this lifelong journey of transformation. Part of what the church offers that no other institution can is that we get to wrestle with the tough stuff together. We are on the journey together. None of us gets it all right, but I think God appreciates our wrestling. May the path of discipleship be a blessing for you!

Amen.
 
© 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact [email protected] for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.