Psalm 24
7th Sunday in Pentecost
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
 
If you noticed that the hymn we just sang is one we sing in Advent you are very perceptive! And have a great memory! It is also an adaptation of our scripture for today, Psalm 24. Listen now to the psalm from the Common English translation of the Bible. I have made a few tweaks for inclusive language.
 
Psalm 24
The earth is the LORD's and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants too.
2 Because God is the one who established it on the seas; God set it firmly on the waters.
3 Who can ascend the [Holy One's] mountain? Who can stand in [God’s] holy sanctuary?
4 Only the one with clean hands and a pure heart;
the one who hasn't made false promises, the one who hasn't sworn dishonestly.
5 That kind of person receives blessings from the [Holy One] and righteousness from the God who saves.
6 And that's how things are with the generation that seeks the [Holy One] --
that seeks the face of Jacob's God.
7 Mighty gates: lift up your heads! Ancient doors: rise up high!
So the glorious [ruler] can enter!
8 Who is this glorious [ruler]? The LORD--strong and powerful!
The LORD--powerful in battle!
9 Mighty gates: lift up your heads! Ancient doors: rise up high!
So the glorious [ruler] can enter!
10 Who is this glorious [ruler]?
The [Holy One] of heavenly forces—this One is the glorious ruler! [Forever!] (Selah)
- Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Locations 20131-20139).
 
The earth belongs to the God the Creator! The triumphant beginning of this ancient song was most likely sung antiphonally in festival worship. You can hear all the call and response lines…..Who can ascend the Holy One’s sacred mountain?....The one with clean hands and a pure heart….Lift up your heads, mighty gates! ….Ancient doors, rise up! Who is the king/ruler of glory? …. It is God, strong and mighty! This was – is ­– a majestic hymn parts of which were handed down from pre-exilic days in Israel when there was a temple with mighty gates to approach. And parts of which came from post-exilic days when the people had heard so much from the prophets about how clean and humble hearts, integrity in action following God’s ways of justice, were much more important than burnt offerings in a temple that has been destroyed by conquerors.

The psalm also reminds me of the story in 2 Samuel of King David bringing the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem from Judah after he and the forces of Israel soundly defeated the Philistines through the power and instruction of God. If you remember the Ark was the portable residence of God which also held the Torah given to Moses. It traveled with the people of Israel wherever they went. The story goes that the Ark was put with great ceremony and care in an ox cart and taken from town to town before it was given permanent residence in Jerusalem, the City of David the King.  Along the way, David led the procession, literally dancing in great abandon, before the Ark of the Covenant, accompanied by a great crowd of musicians on zithers and harps and tambourines and cymbals. Not a stately, kingly thing to do, perhaps. But a joyous, devoted, “wear your heart on your sleeve” celebration of your faith kind of thing to do. A celebration of the God who has appointed you the ruler and brought you victoriously through great battles kind of thing. When the procession reaches Jerusalem, it seems that David’s wife, Saul’s daughter, Michal, looks out the palace window and sees her husband dancing with abandon before the ark and she is scandalized! Not the way a king should behave! One translation says, “she lost all respect for him.” Another say, “she despised him in her heart.” Too much, too showy! Too religious?

Have you ever felt like Michal? Something was too showy or too “religious” for you? Kind of embarrassing? Or perhaps, you find yourself not quite owning up to being a Christian as the source of your social justice passion when you are with other progressives because Christianity has such a bad reputation from extreme far right Christians. Perhaps you are afraid someone will say, “You’re not a Christian, are you?” Or perhaps you confess, “yes, I am, but not THAT kind of Christian.” “Well, what kind? And why?” Then you feel tongue-tied. You are not alone….Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, Connie Schultz, who writes for USA TODAY, is married to Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, and is part of our UCC family, wrote in a recent column, “My faith continues to be a source of challenge and comfort, but I find myself defending it more these days when in the company of fellow progressives. This is an understandable development in our country, perhaps, but sometimes it puts me in a mood.”[i]

I have experienced this mood. Have you? Part anger, part embarrassment, frustration! My faith is a comfort and a challenge. I want to wear it on my sleeve and experience its deepest mysteries, its high and lows, and be ready to speak about it in any situation, to even express my joy and relief in its comfort to the point of dancing if the situation calls for it. Bodily expression of faith such as King David expressed was never really part of the faith tradition I was grew up in, though we were constantly challenged to verbally share our faith, “to witness.” This always felt a bit awkward because I thought it was about sharing something intellectually doctrinal that I didn’t think I could articulate. I usually just chose to be nice to my friends and invite them to church if it seemed right. But inviting someone to church in the 60’s and early 70’s in the Bible belt was not particularly scandalous. Now we are being called, as Schultz comments, to speak our faith in interfaith settings, in our families that hold views of Christianity across the spectrum from left to right and to use our bodies and our words to demonstrate for justice. If you are ever uncomfortable, you are in good company.

When I read Psalm 24 over and over again this week, I was struck by the psalmist’s pure bodily joy in the goodness of God and creation, by the deep bodily longing to get right with God in heart and action in order to stand in ultimate trust before the Divine, by the giant, humongous amount of joy in welcoming God, the glorious ruler and maker of all the earth and the cosmos into the presence of the people in worship. And I longed to have my faith renewed to experience these things. It is easy to be beaten down by life to the point that worship is lackluster and just kind of washes over us as we go through the motions. Or to feel constrained in sharing our faith because of the ways Christianity has been falsely used to oppress others. Thank goodness that in times like these, when we do not have the energy to muster up a dance, even in our hearts, when we feel our silenced by our fears of being misunderstood, God receives us with open arms, anyway! Thank goodness…because it is only though continuing to intentionally show up time and again in God’s presence in good seasons and tough seasons, that we have the opportunity to be surprised once again by faith that encompasses our whole beings, body, mind, heart and soul.

This is the invitation of Psalm 24. To show up with our whole being, not just our heads, but our hearts, our arms, our legs, our voices, our eyes and ears, our gut instincts in the presence of the Holy. We show up for the sheer joy of being alive, of just being. Of “oneing” with God as the 13th century mystic, Julian of Norwich wrote. Julian was a prophet before her time testifying to “a true oneing between the divine and the human. She writes that when human nature was created, it was “rightfully one-ed with the creator, who is Essential Nature …that is, God. This is why there is absolutely nothing separating the Divine soul from the Human soul…in endless love we are held and made whole. In endless love we are led and protected and will never be lost.”[ii]

Julian’s entire life from childhood until her death was encompassed by the Black Death pandemic of the Middle Ages. She lost her family to the plague. She knew suffering and “saw a great oneing between Christ and us” because of he knew pain as we do.[iii] We are one-ed with God in joy and in suffering, held in love. I agree with her. And her insights illuminate the invitation of Psalm 24 to invite God so deeply into our beings that we are transformed, made clean, forgiven and can dance -  in body or soul or both – for joy. Psalm 24 invites us to show up again and again to wear our faith scandalously on our sleeves for the world to see just as King David before us, just as our contemporary UCC sister, Connie Schultz.

I want to end with another hearing the psalm again from the book, Psalms for Praying, by Nan Merrill, whose interpretation of the psalms helps us to hear beyond the ancient language of kings and winning battles to how the Spirit works in our interior lives.

Psalm 24
The earth is yours, O Giver of Life,
            in all its fulness and glory,
            the world and all those who
                        dwell therein;
For You have founded it upon
                        the seas,
            and established it upon the rivers.
 
Who shall ascend your hill,
                        O Gracious One?
            and who shall stand in your
                        holy place?
All who have clean hands and
                        pure hearts,
            who do not lift up their souls
                        to what is false,
            nor make vows deceitfully.
All those will be blessed by the
                        Heart of Love,
            and renewed through forgiveness.
Such is the promise to those
            who seek Love’s face.
 
Lift up your heads, O gates!
            and be lifted up,
                        O ancient doors!
that the Compassionate One
                        may come in.
Who is the Compassionate One?
            The Beloved, strong and steadfast,
            the Beloved, firm and sure!
Lift up your heads, O gates!
            and be lifted up,
                        O ancient doors!
            that the Compassionate One
                        may come in!
Who is this compassionate One?
            The Beloved Heart of your heart,
                        Life of your life,
            this is the Compassionate One.[iv]

Truly, it is God’s intention that we are “one-ed” in Love. That we share the joy and justice of this “one-ing” with all whom we encounter, from those most intimate with us to those we may only brush by in acquaintance.  Are you ready to share your faith, even in the tough situations? Are you ready to sing it? Are you ready to dance for joy? Amen.

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

[i] Tweet from @Connie Schultz; her full article can be found at usatoday.com.
[ii] Julian of Norwich, Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic and Beyond, Matthew Fox, (iUniverse:  Bloomington, IN, 2020, 62).
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] “Psalm 24,” Psalms for Praying; An Invitation to Wholeness, Nan Merrill, (Continuum:  NY, NY, 1998, 41-42).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Psalm 138
2nd Sunday of Pentecost
Outdoor Worship in the Park
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
 
Psalm 138
I give thanks to you with all my heart, [Holy One].
I sing your praise before all other gods.
I bow toward your holy temple and thank your name
for your loyal love and faithfulness
because you have made your name and word greater than everything else.
On the day I cried out, you answered me. You encouraged me with inner strength.
Let all the earth's rulers give thanks to you, [O God,] when they hear what you say.
Let them sing about [Your] ways because the [Your] glory and [goodness] is so great!
Even though the [Holy One] is high, she can still see the lowly,
but God keeps his distance from the arrogant.
Whenever I am in deep trouble, you make me live again;
you send your power against my enemies' wrath;
you save me with your strong hand. [God] will do all this for my sake.
Your faithful love lasts forever, [Holy One]!
Don't let go of what your hands have made.
 
Bible, Common English. CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Locations 23853-23867). C

---------------------------
 
Look around you! Take a good, long look! Look at all your friends and Plymouth family. Here we are together again – finally!  Thanks be to God!

The ancient Israelite poet who wrote Psalm 138 in thanksgiving for the Israelites being delivered from exile and their return home to Jerusalem and their beloved temple. We, too, have been a people in exile and isolation from our beloved community. Jerusalem did not look the same. It had to be rebuilt, literally. And community had to be rebuilt with those who had been left in the ruins of Jerusalem to survive and those taken away to Babylon into exile.

Like the ancients we, too, stand on the brink of rebuilding. We come back together after living through so much unexpected trauma and grief. Some of us have been touched personally by Covid 19. Some of us have not. Yet we all hold the collective sadness and fear from this frightening time. Some of us experienced job insecurity, perhaps a lay-off or loss of a job. We have just experienced the fear in the pit of our stomachs of “what if” that were me and the sorrow for those who have been out of work. We all lived through the polarity and division of the election season. We all lived through the gut-punch of seeing George Floyd’s death and the ensuing reality of the devastation brought on by ignoring white privilege, white body supremacy and what it has done and continues to do to the soul of our nation. We all lived through season of the ash falling on our heads from the largest wildfire in Colorado history that was just over those hills. It has been a hot mess, people!!

As joyous as our reunion is today, these months of exiles have taken their toll on us as individuals and as community. We may be tempted to rush back to what we thought was normal as a way of dealing with our grief and anxiety. And then be disappointed that it is not the same and can’t ever be just like before the pandemic. We may be feeling exhausted and anxious, unwilling to jump back into what we think used to be normal. The time of isolation and slower activity has taught us that we may not want to be as crazily over-committed as perhaps we once were. I have heard friends and family members say that they are wandering who their community is after the isolation. Is it the same as it was before? Will they take up all the same friendships as before? What are the thoughts or feelings wondering around in your minds and hearts this morning along with the joy and gratitude of being back together?

Though our psalm is written in first person “I” statements, the poet is speaking for the community. I think the psalmist’s words hold so much wisdom for us right now as we begin gathering after these long 15 months of exile from being in person. Instead of just telling you what they mean to me I am going to invite us all the spend some time with the psalmist’s words individually as we sit here together in community. I will read the psalm three times and invite us to sit in moments of silence after each time to let the words and images work on our souls. This is an ancient spiritual practice called Lectio Divina or contemplative reading. We will sit for just one minute of silence after each reading – for some that will be enough, for those used to this practice it will seem short. In the silence, let the outside sounds flow over you like the breeze…let your distracting thoughts flow up into the sky and your breath return you to the psalm.
 
I give thanks to you with all my heart, [Holy One].
I sing your praise before all other gods, [things that distract me from following you.]
I bow toward you, [here in the holy temple of your creation] and thank your name
for your loyal love and faithfulness
because you have made your name and word greater than everything else.
On the day I cried out, you answered me. You encouraged me with inner strength.
Let all the earth's rulers give thanks to you, [O God,] when they hear what you say.
Let them sing about [Your] ways because the [Your] glory and [goodness] is so great!
Even though the [Holy One] is high, she can still see the lowly,
but the arrogant distance themselves from God’s presence.
Whenever I am in deep trouble, you make me live again;
you send your power against my enemies' wrath; [against the fears that assail me;]
you save me with your strong hand. [God]will do all this for my sake.
Your faithful love lasts forever, [Holy One]!
Don't let go of what your hands have made.
 
Questions for contemplation in silence after each reading.

• 1st reading - What word or phrase is shimmering in your mind, jumping out at you after hearing the psalm?
• 2nd reading – What question arises from the shimmering word or phrase? Lift it up to God.
• 3rd reading – Rest in this reading and in the silence…be aware that in your rest an  “answer” to your question might arise.

 
“Don’t let go, Holy One, of what your hands have made.” This was the phrase that jumped out at me the first time I read the psalm. In a different translation it reads, “Finish in us the good work that you started.” My friends, as we face the dangers of history – and we have faced them this year and they will continue to confront us – may we hold fast to all the good works that God has started and will start in us. We are what God’s hands have made. We are all made in God’s image…the whole of creation is made by God and holds God’s divine image in every blade of grass, every leaf, every bird, squirrel, bug, and garter snake. God will not let go of us. Let us not let go of God and of one another as we rebuild our community in these new times.

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

John 15:9-17
Plymouth Congregational, UCC
Fort Collins
Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
 
Our scripture today comes from the Gospel of John…it is part of Jesus’ long conversation and prayer with his disciples at the Last Supper. words of instruction and love which foreshadow his death. We hear the historical Jesus speaking to his disciples amid the impending crisis of his arrest. We hear Jesus speaking through the gospel writer of John to a late first century Jewish Christian community that was besieged with persecution from other Jews as well as the Roman empire.  And we hear the Spirit of God speaking through Jesus, through the gospel writer, to us on this May morning, to our 21st century Body of Christ, Plymouth UCC. Let us listen through the filter of our strengths and struggles, our gifts and challenges, our fears, our hopes and dreams for the opportunities of God’s work through us.

As God, our loving Father and Mother, has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept God’s commandments and abide in God’s love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from God. You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that God will give you whatever you ask in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
 
For the Word of God in scripture; for the Word of God among us, for the Word of God within us …. Thanks be to God.
 
 ----------

Do you feel chosen by Jesus to be God’s friend? To abide in God’s love and joy in such complete fullness that it bears the fruit of transformation in your life and in the lives of those around you? This is not a life just for saints and holy hermits. This is the life that God has for all of us to if we keep commandments of Jesus to love one another. Jesus tells us in our scripture, when we love one another, heeding all Jesus taught us about love, we are his friends and thus, friends of God. This love is reflexive, reciprocal, regenerative. As friends of the loving God, we are empowered to follow Jesus’ commands to choose love.

After the death of my mom in 2014, I was visiting my dad and had time to talk with him about death and life after death and heaven. Many of you know he was an ordained pastor and preacher, a theology professor. As we sat in the local coffee shop in his little town in Missouri, he confessed to me, “I do not know about heaven. But what I hope is that after death I will learn to love as God loves.” Perhaps this is the aspiration that Jesus has for us, as he did for his first century disciples and friends. To love as God loves. What might that look like? I think that is the invitation here.

It begins with knowing we are “chosen.” I struggle with that. I’m just an ordinary person, one among SO many, why would God notice me? Yet Jesus tells us we are each chosen to be friends. The idea is bigger than my brain can conceive. I can only tell you that I had an experience this week taught me about “being chosen.” I sat down to practice, emphasis on that word for I am a true beginner, to practice centering prayer. I got settled and centered. Then our dog, Bridey, stuck her nose in my lap, right in my open hands. I tried to gently push her away and stay centered. She did it again with her big purple toy bone. Again I tried to disengage… she persisted and finally draped herself across my lap putting her face in mine with “kisses.” I think God is like this… choosing us time and again… in our face at unexpected times with love…that we might first see as distraction. It might even be in the middle of some spiritual practice that you think you should “do” to get close to God. God is always with us, sometimes distracting and disrupting like a loving, playful dog – or cat ­­­– calling you to love.
Jesus says that we become friends by keeping the commands to love. In the midst of this we know we are chosen. It’s a bit circuitous. Looking concretely to examples of friendship in my life…the most life-giving friends, those relatively few people that are my closest, most tried and true friends, the one who have been with me through the nitty gritty of life and have loved me through it all … I have found in true friendship I seek to take on the best characteristics of my friends. If we take on the best characteristics of our true friends in this life, then as friends of God through Jesus, might we take on the characteristics of the loving God who has chosen us? My dad longed to love as God loves, which is a huge mystery that we will never finish exploring in this life or the next. I wonder if after 80+ years of practicing friendship with God through following Jesus he was closer than he thought.
I am reminded of another surprising experience of being chosen to love as God loves. In the spring of 2009 I was chosen by the pastor emeritus of the church I served in Denver to be part of the Rocky Mountain Conference Global Missions Team mission trip to Venezuela.  Very early on a frosty Sunday morning in April, I met the other nine members mission trip team at DIA to set off for Miracaibo, VZ to partner in mission with our Venezuelan denominational partners, the United Evangelical Pentecostal Church of Venezeula or in the Spanish acronym, the UEPV. After being prayed over and anointed with oil by this same elder stateman pastor right at the United ticket counter, we took off. During our layover in Miami we walked from our gate to the International Concourse through a large airport art display. In huge glass cases there were six-to-seven-foot-high letters made of brilliantly colored flowers, like something off a New Year’s Day Rose Bowl parade float. They spelled out, “All You Need is Love”… Prophetic words.

Late that night we were met at the Maracaibo airport by our Venezuelan partners, included their bishop Gamaliel Lugos. It was a swarm of joy as people rushed to carry our bags and help us into cars. Over the course of the next ten days people of the UEPV, never failed to amaze me with their deep and enthusiastic engagement with life lived in and through the love of God. They lived large in a country riddled with poverty and injustice. Their love of Christ was inseparable from their political commitment to building a new world of justice in their country. They lived out Jesus’ preferential option for the poor and they were raising up women as leaders, working for women’s rights. They seemed to abide in God’s love to such an extent that joy was their MO, their modus operandi, each moment of their lives. As friends of God, they literally lived by the motto, “we will struggle, but we will not die.”

The bulk of our time was spent in the small town of Ospino in the foothills of the Andes. We stayed in a guest house, but our real home was a few blocks away in the small house of Gladys and Omar Gonzales, who hosted each of our meals. They gathered teams of people to prepare meals for our group of 10 or so as well as 6-8 Venezuelans who came from several areas in VZ to help with the week’s designated work project and to worship with us in the evening. They fed us using fresh fruit and vegetables from the Gonzales’ open air market next door, grilling arrepahas on their George Foreman grill, roasting meat in their backyard. Omar and Gladys became for us un familia, family. They laid down their lives for us. You do not have to die for to lay down your life for a friend. You do have to open your heart so wide that life might not always be convenient for you as you offer hospitality and love to others, but it will be joyful!

Two things I experienced in VZ through the ministry of the UEPV opened my eyes and heart to an expanded vision of being chosen as a friend by God’s love. The first was the circumstances of our work project on the finca, the farm owned by the denomination in Ospina. It was not a working farm but more of a community center for ministry. It had two or three buildings surrounded by a large amount of land…that was growing increasingly smaller because of squatters, people so poor that they grabbed any small piece of land they could to build shacks and grow a few vegetables. The shacks would literally spring up overnight. The UEPV could have legally prosecuted these people who stole the land from the finca. But they decided it was part of their ministry of Christ’s love to let the squatters have the land, to engage them as neighbors and invite them into their God’s community. A sacrificial decision, laying down their lives for friends. Ironically, our work project was to help build a wall around the remaining land so that the UEPV could continue their work of community ministry. That was the stated project and progress was made, however, the real work was made manifest in the smiles, laughter, …the halting sentences of banter and praise for a new post hole just dug made across the language barriers. Often there were songs echoing across the field strewn with mangoes falling off the trees and the sound children playing an impromptu baseball game with the mangoes too green to eat.

The second experience was the nightly worship at Iglesia Pentecostal de Los Olivos, the local UEPV church. This church had been taken out of the denomination by a fundamentalist pastor. He was now gone and the church, much to the relief of most of its members, was returning to the denomination. Our presence was the catalyst to invite UEPV folks from around VZ to join in the celebration of reunion and to commission new pastors for the church. Pastors brought their people from little churches in surrounding towns to welcome Los Olivos back to the UEPV vision of working for the poor and women’s rights, for working ecumenically with other denominations, and for creating indigenous Venezuelan worship using their songs and liturgies. The love in the very lively worship was palpable and we were embraced by it. On the last night they actually commissioned our beloved hosts, Gladys and Omar as the new lay pastors.

Each night Bishop Lugos spoke, reminding us that God is not only with us, God is in us, abiding in us, just as we abide in God. At the end of the service he would ask us to pass the peace, saying, ”I Love YOU.” It was intimidating at first. I didn’t really know these people or even know all the people on the mission team well. I didn’t speak Spanish. Yet I had to plunge in saying in English, I love you, I love you, … in Spanish, te quiero, te quiero. And it wasn’t fake or mushy or overly sentimental or even awkward. I had for a brief time been in the nitty gritty of life, with these folks, meals shared, walls built, prayers prayed, abiding in love across the barriers of language and culture in God’s love. It was true and real. If we were all together in our Plymouth sanctuary I would invite us break out of our white, Protestant, intellectual selves and try this practice. I think you would find God’s love in your face as viscerally as the dog kisses that interrupted my prayer time.

My friends, I tell you this longish story today to invite you to take the risk of knowing you, too, are chosen by God. Reach out. Accept the invitation. It will take you to some strange and wonderful and hard places. And it will be worth it. What is calling to you through the ministries of Plymouth that will empower and nurture your friendship with God? Jesus says to us, “I have chosen you in God’s love to be friends of God. Keep my commands to love and you will discover, even in this life, in your heart of hearts what it can means to love as God loves.” Amen.

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

4th Sunday of Easter; John 10.11-15
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
Fort Collins
The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson

 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. -NRSV
 
The Good Shepherd is a familiar and comforting image for God and for Jesus. Oddly so, because how many of us have contact with sheep and shepherds on a regular basis? When I looked up sheep farming in America, I found a website, sheep101.info, with this information:
 
According to the 2017 Census of Agriculture, there are 101,387 sheep farms in the United States. Large sheep operations, which own 80 percent of the sheep, are located primarily in the Western United States. Texas, California, and Colorado have the most sheep.[i]
 
Little did I know…I am too much of a city dweller. Perhaps, some of you come from sheep farming families here in this state and you are more familiar with real sheep and real shepherds. I had never been up close and personal with them until I traveled to Ireland and Scotland in 2009. I found sheep everywhere as I traveled the country roads or hiked the moors and hills.
           
The image of God as shepherd is ancient in our Judeo-Christian religious tradition. Psalm 23, possibly composed around 1000 BCE, is so familiar with that many of us can recite it from memory. The prophet, Ezekiel, was prophesying in the late 6th century BCE. In Ezekiel, chapter 34, the prophet speaks for God, shaming and condemning the false/bad shepherds who have led the people astray. Then God says:

As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. … I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, …[ii]
 
You can hear the echoes with the psalm and with John’s passage. (Back to Me)The Hebrew patriarchs, Abraham, Moses and David, the young king, were all shepherds. It is in this tradition that Jesus says in the gospel of John, “I am the good shepherd.” New Testament scholars tell us that the Greek word “good,” kalos, actually has a larger connotation that just “good” as in “does a good job.” It means “model.” “I am the “model shepherd.”

As God is shepherd, so is Jesus who models the very essence of being caretaker of the people. As caretaker, as shepherd, Jesus is gathering God’s people together under the overflowing love and protection of God. Jesus, as shepherd, is willing to lay down his life for God’s people. Since our text is from chapter 10 of the gospel, you can hear the writer’s foreshadowing of Jesus death which comes in chapter 19.

The literary and theological metaphor of God and Jesus in God’s image as shepherd, of God’s people as sheep, of the threats and dangers to God’s people, can be spun out in many ways. A pastor could preach a series of sermons on this metaphor. The very word, “pastor,” comes from a 14th century French word meaning shepherd and is related to the word pasture, where the sheep are fed. So what do we make of God as the heavenly shepherd and Jesus, God’s word made flesh, the shepherd who laid down his life for the God’s people?  Who are the flock, the sheep? All people? The church? If a pastor is the shepherd, are the parishioners the sheep?  

Some folks would object to being called sheep because sheep have a reputation for being not so smart! I read in one commentary that this reputation comes from cattle ranchers. Cattle are herded by being prodded literally and vocally from behind. If you stand behind a sheep and yell, it will simply go around and get behind you. Sheep want to be led from in front. They want to follow the voice of the shepherd they know and trust or the shepherd’s whistle to the sheep dogs. It is only when they are ill that they follow a stranger’s voice. Or refuse to follow and wander off into ravines or fall from a height. I happen to know as a pastor that some people like to be led with encouragement from in front, and some people from encouragement behind, and some from alongside. So, the sheep metaphor is definitely not literal when it comes to people!

Here is what I’d like us to consider today …. if the Lord is our shepherd…if as Jesus says in John, he is the model shepherd who will willingly and with no coercion lay down his life for the flock…if we as the church are God’s flock – and I mean “we”, pastors included and not set aside in an elevated position – then, are we listening to the shepherd’s call? And if so, how? Because the shepherd’s call leads us home, even thru dark valleys to a place of care and rest, flowing streams of love and green pastures of food for our souls. It leads us away from dangerous pitfalls and into the safety of transparent and loving community. In these tense and fractious times, we need to listen carefully to God’ call to community as we worship, as we meet on Zoom, as we pray for one another, as we listen to the guidance of our strategic planning team. We need to do our individual work of listening so that God can be gathering and leading us all in community. We need to be assuming the best of one another in this exhausting time of pandemic when we all have frayed nerves and are glimpsing the light at the end of the tunnel but can’t quite reach it yet. Otherwise, we will be like scattered sheep, wandering off on our own. God, the protector and gatherer of God’s people is calling us together through the voice of Jesus and through God’s Holy Spirit to new and renewed community as we begin to come out of isolation into safe gatherings and as we continue to grow our work together building God’s realm here and now in northern Colorado.

When I was in Scotland in 2009, I stayed for almost three weeks on a tidal island, the Isle of Erraid, in the Inner Hebrides with a spiritual community connected to the Findhorn community of northern Scotland. This community lived in stone lighthouse keeper houses, working and praying together and offering hospitality to people coming from the mainland for retreat. It was early October. And while I was there the time came for the annual sheep round up. As I hiked the island, I had seen many, many sheep. In my inexperience, I didn’t realize or take note that they were all part of the same flock. They belonged to a shepherd named John who lived nearby on the Isle of Mull. It was time to gather the sheep for yearly inoculations and for the lambs to be sold at market. The people of the Erraid community gathered one morning to help the shepherd round up the sheep by walking the 462 acres of the island, hills and bog land and beaches, in groups that herded any stray sheep to the center valley where the sheep dogs and the shepherd could gather them safely into the flock.

Before we left, we held what they called an “attunement.” For me, it was prayer. We stood in silence in the lovely chill of the morning air with the sun just beginning to warm things a bit. Gradually people began to offer up affirmations, “prayers”. “May we all go in safety. May the sheep be safely gathered in. May the mothers be comforted as they are separated from their lambs for the first time.” I was in awe…a little stunned that we were praying for sheep and then ashamed that I was stunned. Why wouldn’t we pray for sheep as creatures of God and the source of the shepherd’s livelihood?
Then off we went. I ended up with a group on a high bluff where I could see and hear the shepherd signaling the sheep dogs. It was amazing the way the dogs worked at his whistling commands, amazing how hard they worked to gather the sheep into a safe group. Suddenly all the biblical shepherd imagery I had ever heard became clear. At that moment I saw the shepherd as the Lord of Psalm 23… I first thought of the sheep dogs as the pastors trying to gather the flocks. On further reflection, I think the sheep dogs are more likely the Holy Spirit trying to gather us all into God’s fold.
Suddenly there was a huge gasp from the group I was with. An older ram, had gotten itself out on the ledge of a bluff across the way from us. The dogs were working frantically to help the sheep turn around and go back the safety. A couple of people were on the ground below waving their arms at the sheep to get its attention. One was trying to find a way to safely climb down to the ram. But even with all this effort of care, the ram backed itself into a corner and then fell to its death. And there was an even bigger gasp as we watched it fall. And tears in the eyes of the community.

Eventually we gathered in all the sheep and walked them home by a path to the barns where the inoculations began and the sorting of the lambs from the mothers. The mood was joyous that the sheep were all home. And it was tinged with sorrow for the old ram that was lost despite all the care and the work of the shepherd and his dogs and the people of the community. It was a living metaphor for me of the real-life workings of God and God’s people in community.

My friends, I challenge you today:  take another look at the Lord as our shepherd, at Jesus as the model shepherd giving all he has to gather the flock, at the Holy Spirit eager to round us all up. Our nerves are frayed from a year of pandemic and the turmoil of politics and racism. We are feeling our frustrations keenly. Yet we are being called home to our souls, called to rest in prayer after a long time of struggle and loss, called by God’s love to gather in love with one another. I invite you this week to re-read Psalm 23, perhaps daily. Read it slowly, resting in each image. Read John 10.11-15 slowly, prayerfully, letting the image of the Jesus, the model shepherd, willing to call you back home by laying down his life for you in the dark valleys, sink deep within your heart. Remember that the Holy Spirit is animatedly gathering us together as God’s people even as we are still socially distanced. (Back to Me) Remember, pray, allow yourselves to be led home in peace! Amen.

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

[i] http://sheep101.info/farm.html
[ii] Ezekiel 34. 12,15-16a

Luke 24.36–49
2nd Sunday of Easter
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
Fort Collins
 
While they were saying these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" They were terrified and afraid. They thought they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you [surprised and frightened]? Why are doubts arising in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet. It's really me! Touch me and see, for a ghost doesn't have flesh and bones like you see I have." As he said this, he showed them his hands and feet. [While in their joy, they were still wondering and disbelieving,] he said to them, "Do you have anything to eat?" They gave him a piece of baked fish. Taking it, he ate it in front of them.

Jesus said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you--that everything written about me in the Law from Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. He said to them, "This is what is written: the Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, [and that repentance,] a change of heart and life for the forgiveness of sins must be preached, [be proclaimed,] in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. Look, I'm sending to you what my Father promised, but you are to stay in the city until you have been furnished with heavenly power, [power from on high.]" (A compilation of the text from the New Revised Standard Version and the Common English Version.)
 
Several years ago, a friend loaned me a short novel titled, Dinner With a Perfect Stranger; An Invitation Worth Considering by David Gregory. I don’t remember if I agreed with it all theologically, but the concept intrigued me! You can see where this is going, can’t you?

The book is about a businessman in his late thirties named Nick Cominsky. Nick, an overworked strategic planner for an environmental testing firm, receives a mysterious invitation among the rest of his business mail. “You are invited to a dinner with Jesus of Nazareth. Milano’s Restaurant. Tuesday, March 24. Eight o’clock.” The opening paragraph of the book reads: “I should have known better than to respond. My personal planner was full enough without accepting anonymous invitations to dine with religious leaders. Especially dead ones.”[i]

After determining, the invitation is not another outreach effort by the church down the street and still wondering if it is a prank by two of his work colleagues, Nick’s curiosity takes over. Against his better judgment, he takes another precious evening away from his wife and new baby girl and goes to dinner. At the restaurant he meets a nice-looking, dark-haired man with unusually piercing eyes, dressed in a sharp suit, a man who looks like he just got off work at Merrill Lynch, a man who seems to know all the wait staff at the restaurant intimately. A man who comfortably discusses everything from world religions to the existence of heaven and hell and who seems to know a disturbing amount about Nick’s personal life, including the scandal that is brewing in his company. A man who introduces himself as Jesus. The evening progresses through drinks to appetizers to salad and main course to dessert and coffee to paying the bill. Jesus picks up the check. Their conversation touches on the meaning of life, God, pain, faith, doubt. By the end of the evening, Nick, like the disciples surprised in that upper room, feels a deep joy he can’t understand, can’t quite believe or trust yet. He has spent the whole dinner skeptical, cynical, wondering, angry, captivated, confused. And now this odd joy. As he says goodbye to Jesus at his car, Jesus gives him a personal message and another invitation for continued conversation. The question hanging in the air for Nick is, will this dinner change his life? And how?

Imagine, being surprised with a personal dinner invitation from Jesus…would you go?  What would you want to talk about? In the gospel story from Luke, the disciples gathered on that late Easter evening receive just such an impromptu surprise without the printed invitation. Suddenly Jesus is just in their midst! The very person they had come to grieve. They have gathered for a wake and the deceased walks in the door! They are surprised in their grief by joy – which is deeper and more mysterious than passing happiness. Isn’t it remarkable that when we are surprised by the mystery of joy, we can hardly trust it? We trust sadness, anger, frustration and doubt a whole lot more, than joy.

The gospel writer takes pains to let us know that this is not just a warm fuzzy moment in which they feel the presence of their old buddy, Jesus, as they toast his memory.  Jesus shows up saying, “See my hands!  See my feet! Still aren’t sure? Then let’s eat!” And after dinner, Jesus gives the disciples an invitation. Jesus says, “Everything I spoke to you has come to pass for the Messiah has to fulfill all that has been spoken about him in the scriptures.” Now remember what the test of truth is in the first century. Does the new truth reconcile with the old truths? Does it further reveal the old truths? Jesus’ message to the disciples is that all that has happened is consistent with God’s faithfulness throughout the scriptures and in history. Then he opens their minds to understand all that was written about him so they can trust in the faithfulness of God.

Here in the resurrected Jesus, the reality of Good Friday is joined to the reality of Easter. And not in a shallow, pie in the sky sort of way. This is not about correct doctrine or beyond a doubt, scientific, historical fact. It is deeper than that. This is about living into the redeeming and reconciling story of the everlasting God, made known in Jesus, a story that challenges the stories of the finite world. Scholar and minister, Barbara Essex writing in the Feasting on the Word commentary says: “In his book, Search for Common Ground, Howard Thurman reminds us that ‘the contradictions of life are not final or ultimate’ and that God is the giver of forgiveness and mercy, ever ready to offer shalom: peace, the possibility and promise that order, well-being, hope, compassion, and love might yet prevail.”[ii]

The Resurrected Christ joins Good Friday to Easter Sunday, pain and suffering, all the “no’s” of this life, stand in that upper room with the joy, the ultimate “yes” and shalom, of God. There in recognizable, yet unbelievable, human form, Jesus the Christ says “Peace be with you. All that has happened is consistent with God’s faithfulness.  Now go and proclaim these things to the world, starting right where you are…”

Do you get a little squeamish with this proclaiming, witnessing thing? I can hear you protesting in your minds. “But isn’t proclaiming just for you preacher types? I mean, really.  I don’t have any words for that sort of thing.” Do you associate witnessing and proclaiming with accosting people on street corners, handing out tracts with the four spiritual laws? Surprise! As followers of Jesus, we are all witnesses!

Traditionally it is more comfortable in the UCC to put our witnessing into actions for social justice, but not have to talk about our faith, what we trust. Listen carefully. Actions for social justice are most definitely the fruit of our experience with the Risen Christ. But Jesus doesn’t say to the disciples, “Go and proclaim social action!”  Jesus says, “Because the anointed One has suffered and died and risen from the dead, go and proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins.” Because of the unbelievable joy and peace you have experienced, go and proclaim repentance, metanoia, turning back to God because the ancient scriptures tell us that God longs for us even more than we long for God! As joyfully unbelievable as that may seem! Listen to and live into God’s story, not the world’s story of dog-eat-dog competition, greed and revenge, because God is about mercy and forgiveness.

My friends, I believe we are made in God’s image and born into original blessing rather than into original sin. However, this human journey distracts us. We get fearful, blinded, and we turn away from God. Sin, hamartia, simply means turning away from God, turning away from living into God’s story. We do this is so many ways every day, knowingly and unknowingly. Often the church has encouraged us to make a long list of sins, the ways we turn away. But that leads to judging one another by our own personal lists rather than paying attention to turning back to God! Here is the joyful news! Our lists are unimportant. What is important is that God wants us, longs for us to turn back time and again to live in God’s story as it is fulfilled in Jesus, the Christ. And this is what we can proclaim!

Like those disciples in the upper room, we have witnessed God’s mercy and forgiveness and shalom through the scriptures and through community, the church of the Risen Christ. We can claim Jesus’ promise that we will be given the “power from on high” to proclaim the joy of turning back to the God of love and forgiveness. How? Through the Holy Spirit. A little biblical shorthand: Holy Spirit = Power. Empowering power, not controlling power, power that is life-giving not life-taking, power that disturbs the corrupt systems of this world, the systems we humans put in place we when are not living into God’s story. This is the power from on high that moves the church to social actions and proclamations in risky places that are in need of God’s love and justice.  If we want the power to act, we must accept the power to proclaim. They are one and the same. Act for God’s love and justice and proclaim God’s forgiveness and mercy, compassion and shalom.

Living into God’s story brings the power of the Holy Spirit and brings shalom, the peace that Jesus proclaimed as he greeted the disciples in the upper room. Perhaps, God’s peace and God’s power are two sides of the same coin. Perhaps, one always comes with the other. I can trust that, disbelieving and wondering, in great joy. How about you? May the peace and joy and power of God known to us in Risen Christ be with you all. Amen.

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

[i] David Gregory, Dinner with a Perfect Stranger; An Invitation Worth Considering, (Waterbrook Press, Colorado Spring, CO, 2005, 1).
[ii] Barbara J. Essex, “Homiletical Perspective, Luke 24.36b-48, Third Sunday in Easter”, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2, Lent Through Eastertide, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 2008, 429).

Mark 11.1-11; Matthew 21.1-11
Palm Sunday
Plymouth Congregational, United Church of Christ
The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson
 
Mark 11.1-11
When Jesus and his followers approached Jerusalem, they came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives. Jesus gave two disciples a task, 2saying to them, "Go into the village over there. As soon as you enter it, you will find tied up there a colt that no one has ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3 If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' say, 'Its master needs it, and he will send it back right away.'" 4They went and found a colt tied to a gate outside on the street, and they untied it. 5Some people standing around said to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?"6They told them just what Jesus said, and they left them alone. 7They brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes upon it, and he sat on it. 8Many people spread out their clothes on the road while others spread branches cut from the fields. 9Those in front of him and those following were shouting, "Hosanna! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! 10Blessings on the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest!"11Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.  After he looked around at everything, because it was already late in the evening, he returned to Bethany with the Twelve.
 
Bible, Common English. CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Locations 39636-39644). Common English Bible. Kindle Edition.
 
I begin today with a story about standing in line at the grocery store, a mundane, routine, probably recent, event for all of us. But no matter how routine grocery shopping may be, it has taken on palpable and deeply poignant resonances for us in the aftermath of the King Sooper shooting in Boulder this week. When I was the interim pastor at Community UCC in Boulder in 2013-2014, I lived part of the week at a parishioner’s house nearby that King Soopers and shopped at that store. Community UCC is just up Table Mesa Road from the King Sooper’s shopping center. As I share my brief grocery store story with you today, I am sensitive to where our minds may go with just the mention of grocery stores. And as I begin this sermon, my heart is breaking and praying for the people of Boulder, particularly those in the Table Mesa and Broadway neighborhood, for Community UCC, as well as for our country which urgently needs to change the use and role of guns in social structure.

Some of you may remember, as I do, the spring of 1999…all the dire predictions beginning to be made about the Millennium, what would happen on December 31 as we turned the time corner into a new century. I was still living in Connecticut that spring, anticipating the move to Colorado in July. I was a full-time Divinity school student and full-time mom. As I stood in line at the grocery store one day with a cart full of supplies for the week, a tabloid headline caught my eye. I make it a practice to avoid the tabloids, hoping in a ridiculously self-righteous way that if I don’t even acknowledge them in the grocery store line, I am contributing to the downfall and bankruptcy of the tabloid industry. You can see how well that has worked! But this one jumped out at me – “Millennium Predictions! - Jesus May Have Already Returned!”

“Yeah, right,” I thought, “I wonder who he is this time? How will we recognize him? Why has he come now?”  Just then it was my turn to dump my groceries on the conveyer belt and I forgot my theological musings, paid for the groceries and headed off into my day. But I think of that “prediction” each year at Palm Sunday – “Jesus May Have Already Returned!” If he has, where is he present? How will we know him? What is he up to?

The Palm Sunday story tells us each year in the story of Jesus’ unusual entry into Jerusalem that he is coming! His reputation as teacher, healer, prophetic activist precedes him and as he enters the city gate riding on the colt or donkey, depending on which gospel account you are reading, he is proclaimed by his followers as prophet and king. Or perhaps, by some in the crowd, he is seen as a radical and dangerous fool.

Let’s picture the scene…The city of Jerusalem is swelling with tourists and visitors coming the Passover Festival. (Remember the crush of crowds before social distancing?) They are filling the market at the gate where the road from Bethany and the Mount of Olives comes into the city. Passover begins in three days…people are shopping and preparing…picture the grocery store on the day before Thanksgiving – or just before our recent snowstorm.

Suddenly down the road from Bethany marches this rag tag army of joy, a procession of people singing and shouting at the top of their lungs. It’s a joyful, non-violent protest scene! People are strewing palm branches and cloaks across the road in front of a guy riding on a colt, or a small horse, or maybe it’s a donkey – who can tell from this distance?  They are shouting and singing…. “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! Blessings on the coming of the kingdom of our ancestor, King David! Blessings on the Son of David! Hosanna, Hosanna!” What is this all about?

In Jesus’ day it was traditional for pilgrims coming to the Passover Festival in Jerusalem to greet one another with words from Psalm 118, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” But what is all the Hosanna about? And hailing this one as coming in the name of King David? That is dangerous talk…could be seen by the Romans, who are the conquering rulers of Israel and Judea, as seditious talk! Can you imagine the crowds’ whispers? “What are they saying? The coming kingdom of our ancestor David? This scruffy guy on the donkey? A Son of David? Yeah, right….” Some think he is the anointed One come to lead our people…” “Don’t let the Romans hear you say that! Who is this guy anyway?” “It’s the prophet, Jesus of Nazareth.” “Who?” “You know the prophet, the teacher, the healer, Jesus of Nazareth.” “Oh, Nazareth, right….nothing good ever came out of  Nazareth!’ “But didn’t you hear? Last week in Jericho, he healed a blind man! I’ve heard he’s healed lepers and raised a man from the dead. And the stories he tells….well, you double over in laughter and then he hits you with the real punchline….about God’s love and forgiveness and inclusion of all people…women and children and blind men and cripples….I’m telling you, I think he could be the real deal!” “Oh, go on! He’s just another itinerant, radical rabbi…playing on the hopes of poor and ignorant people. You don’t really think he amounts to much do you?” “I don’t know….maybe…”

That’s the scene at the city gate, in the marketplace and the streets as Jesus returns to Jerusalem for Passover. Some are hailing him as the anointed one, a king in the line of David, sent to save the people. Some as a prophet, healer, teacher, man of God. Some as fool.

We don’t trust king figures hear in America. Kings are figureheads with no real power. Hopefully we have learned not to trust political figures that want to act like kings, obscuring justice in the process. And prophets? They are a bit sketchy as well, if we see them merely as fortune tellers predicting futures that are either too dire or too rosy. We have a bad habit of assassinating social justice prophets like Abe Lincoln, MLK, Jr., Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy. We may see them as wise in their moral vision, but are they foolish in their radical, risk-taking methods of proclamation? Wise fools? We won’t follow kings, we are iffy about prophets turning the tables on the status quo. We certainly don’t want to follow fools!

Starting with the earliest gospel writer, Mark, Jesus is seen as prophet and king and this is at the heart of the matter in the gospels for God’s good news of liberating love. To understand Jesus as king and prophet, is to understand how him as Anointed One, the Christ. In the 21st century, we like our leaders, our saviors, new and improved with ideas and solutions never heard before. The people of the first century who first heard the stories of Jesus liked their saviors old and unchanging because that is how you could tell a true savior from a false one. A true savior fulfilled the prophecies of old.
Jesus comes riding into Jerusalem on a donkey because that is how the ancient kings, the ones anointed by God, like David, always rode into the Jerusalem. They came to bring God’s peace, not to bring the oppression of control and domination like the Romans who came riding on warhorses. And the crowds spread branches and cloaks because that is what you do for kings in the line of David, a king who was not raised in a palace and educated by the state…but raised instead with the poor, the regular people. Those who claim Jesus as king are tax collectors and blind beggars, lame men and cast-off women and children, lepers. He is a king and a prophet who tells stories about God’s realm being like mustard seeds and yeast. He hangs out with fishermen as some of his closest friends. When asked about his “state policy”, he say, “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant…Let the children come to me, for you must become like a child to truly enter the kingdom of God…Love God with all your heart and soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.” This is how Jesus has earned his acclamations as a king and social justice prophet.

Is Jesus a fool, as well? If so, he was a fool for love who told stories and turned tables that upended the status quo so that all would receive the love and justice of God. In the events of his last week, we see him open himself so fully to the power of God’s love that he walks straight into the face of pain, humiliation and death in order that the world, that we, might know that God is with those who suffer, who are oppressed and those who are dying. In speaking of Jesus, the apostle Paul reminds us that “God’s foolishness is wiser than our wisdom and God’s weakness more powerful than our power.”
So, here we stand at the beginning of a fateful week. The tumult at the city gate is growing louder and stronger, spreading through the marketplace, public places of influence and power, to the temple itself. People in high positions are asking questions. “Who is this man?” Others are shouting praise. By the end of the week the voices will swell to a conflicting crescendo. Shouts of anger will triumph over shouts of joy. Prophets are rarely welcomed in the own neighborhoods. Many will decide this is not the savior king or prophet they thought they wanted and stand staring skeptically at a mocking headline on a cross that says, “The King of the Jews.” “Some king! He’s a fool! Can’t even save himself!” “Can’t or won’t,” we might ask ourselves.

Jesus returns again and again, each year in the stories Holy Week. His presence is palpable. And it is palpable in the world around us. In Asian Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter protests and vigils. At the southern border of our country where unaccompanied immigrant minors searching for new life are held in detention. In hospital rooms where people struggle to breathe, to live, and others struggle to care for them. And yes, in grocery stores and schools and movie theaters and places of everyday business where gun violence erupts and interrupts peaceful life. Wherever there is pain, suffering, oppression, death, Jesus returns to us again and again. Another question for us, “How will we receive him?”

Hosanna. Blessed is the One who comes in the name of God!

Amen.

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

Genesis 9.8-17
First Sunday in Lent
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
 
Intro to Scripture:
The story of Noah and the ark is, perhaps, one of the best-known stories in Hebrew scripture. Adopted by widely in popular culture because of the beauty of rainbows and little animals prancing two by two out of the ark into a new world. And echoed in many creation stories from ancient and indigenous people around the world. But it is also a harrowing story of loss and destruction brought on in the version in Genesis by God’s grief and anger at the rebellious ways of humanity. God sets out to wipe the slate of creation clean with a flood covering all the earth. Plunging creation back into the primordial chaos from which it came. Saving only a remnant. Much to God’s surprise, retributive justice does not work well. The remnant of humanity saved has not been greatly changed by 40 days and nights at sea in a boat with several hundred squawking animal friends needing to be fed. Humanity is still contentious and prone to sin. God changes God’s mind about how to deal with human being. And that is where our text for today beings.
 
Genesis 9:8-17
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." 12 God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth." 17 God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."

Sermon
Grace and peace to you as we stand together at the beginning edge of our 2021 Lenten journey. As one often does at the beginning of a journey, we stand looking at where we have come from and towards where we are going. Today we can look behind us at a year that was like a plunge into the primordial destructive flood waters of our scripture story. We are attempting to look forward surveying, like Noah and his family from deck of the ark, a wilderness land still devastatingly deconstructed by the chaos that we hope is now subsiding. Over this threshold moment we see a bow in the clouds, a rainbow.

And we hear God’s ancient covenant with Noah. “Never again will I plunge the world into the chaotic waters of destruction. My bow in the clouds will be a sign that I will always remember my love for humanity and all creation. I will remember, even when I am grieved, that retribution will not resolve the issue of humanity’s hard-heartedness. Punishment will not coerce humankind into changing its rebellious ways. I make a covenant to always be present with my beloved creation, with humankind made in my image, to protect, not destroy.”

As God says, the sign of this extraordinary covenant is the unstrung warrior’s bow in the clouds. The bow was the war weapon of choice at the time that this story was written down in post-exilic Israel, a time when the people were coming out of the extreme chaos and confusion of exile. A bow strung and ready for war is a different shape. It is longer, thinner, taut. But this bow in the clouds is unstrung and its warrior edge from where the arrows are launched is pointed away from the earth. The disarmed bow, the rainbow, may be beautiful and inspiring to us, but it is a personal reminder to God. In its multi-colored light God is reminded to be “One Who Remembers,” even in the midst of chaos and rebellion of creation, “One Who Repents.”

God repents. Isn’t that a stunning statement? God makes a covenant to repent, to turn from vindication to forgiveness, patience, and steadfast love despite knowing that the human heart may never completely change. The creatures made in God’s image may always resist God. Yet God lays down God’s weapons and makes a covenant that is unilateral…it limits God’s power while setting no conditions on humankind.  God does not demand that we change. God changes because God remembers to be lover, as well as judge, to be protector, as well as creator. God repents, turns from the path of destruction and anger, to the path of compassion and peace.

So, it seems to me that our story today implicitly asks us, what is our response to God’s repentance? Since God repents, can we? Can we repent? Can we unstring the bow of falsehoods that we cling to making us feel important? Can we unstring the bow of grudges that we hold, of anger that makes us feel entitled? Can those us born with the privilege of being white in this nation, unstring the, often unconscious, bow of prejudice? Can we unstring the bow of needing to “be right,” so we can see new ways to peace? Unstringing the bows of self-righteous defensiveness, laying down the weapons that defend our hearts, is the way of repentance.

From the time it was conceived as a season of the liturgical year preparing Christians for Holy Week, the Lenten journey has been about repentance. Repentance is not a very popular word in progressive Christianity. Forgetting that the prophets first cry is “Repent,” we like the revolutionary cry of the prophets., Justice!” Perhaps the word, repentance, speaks to you of over-emotional wallowing in unproductive guilt. But the repentance that Jesus spoke of meant literally “to turn around.” One must have keen sight to make a proper turn. I imagine repentance as standing at a threshold and taking a good hard, unsentimental look at where I am going. Do I want to stay on the same path I am going down on this journey in life? Or risk a new path?

Humanity is wont to continually choose the path to division and destruction. I believe it is time to risk a new path, as God did in the covenant with Noah, a path that leads to understanding and reconstruction. I believe that we can best cry “Justice!” speaking truth to the powers of the world, when we have the courage to first say honestly to our own hearts, “Repent.” Rainbows are reminders of God’s holy repentance and our invitation to turn toward God to participate in holy repentance.
Let me share a story with you – a true story and a story that actually happened to a friend of mine. One day a young mother was taking a walk with her small son and they saw a rainbow. The four-year-old boy looked up in wonder and said, “Mommy, can we take that home and put it in our house?” His awestruck question prompted the mother to write a poem she titled “A Rainbow in My House.”  She took her son’s question literally, imagining what it would be like to have a rainbow in their house, on their walls, emanating from the windows and doors, coming out the chimney. The house was transformed, and it could not contain the glory of the rainbow and its colors.

“….When the door opens
Bursts of blues, greens and yellows
Pour out and float up towards heaven.
 
Inside I breathe in warm reds
And sleep on soft pinks….
 
Sometimes I pull back my curtain
To let the passersby
Take a peak.
 
They stare amazed…at the rainbow in my house.”[i]
 
I heard my friend tell this story and share her poem at a justice event for homelessness prevention many years ago. Our sons who are about the same age are now both grown men. In revisiting her beautiful imagery, I am prompted to imagine what my “house,” my inner soul/heart house, might look like with God’s rainbow covenant of repentance inside? What about yours?

And what about other houses we inhabit? God’s rainbow bending over Noah’s ark with its doors wide open and spilling out pairs of animals into a new world is an image painted or hung on the walls of many a church nursery. We love to tell this story of God’s love and hope to our children, starting at the earliest ages. We want them to know that, even in the midst of the worst times, God is with them and never forgets them. But why relegate this message to the church nursery? Why not let the rainbow colors emanate down the hall from the nursery into worship and committee meetings, into youth group, adult education and mission projects, into choir rehearsal and church potlucks? What might the entire body of Christ look like in the light of God’s rainbow? What might our world look like?
God’s rainbow covenant of repentance does not guarantee a utopia. Instead, it invites communities of all shapes and sizes to be places where people are willing to let their hearts be remade in the image of God’s repentant heart. Led by humanity’s siblings of color and our LGBTQ+ siblings, our communities can stand under rainbow flags of justice and inclusion where literally “all the colors of the rainbow” are welcome and equal in God’s sight. We can be communities asking the question, with the wonder of the child, “Can we take that rainbow home and put it in our house?”

My friends, today we stand together, in God’s grace, at the beginning edge of Lent, looking back and looking forward. How will we journey with Jesus this Lenten season in the light of God’s rainbow? May we allow it healing colors of repentance  to penetrate our hearts, our homes, our life together in this community and beyond. May it be so. Amen.

©The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, 2021 and beyond. Reprint with permission only.


[i] Personal story and excerpt from unpublished poem by Michelle Sisk, 2008.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

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

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

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

[iii] Ibid., 39.

1 Samuel 3.1-20
2nd Sunday in Epiphany
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
 
1 Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli. The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.
2 At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; 3 the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was. 4 Then the LORD called, "Samuel! Samuel!" and he said, "Here I am!" 5 and ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call; lie down again." So he went and lay down. 6 The LORD called again, "Samuel!" Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call, my son; lie down again." 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. 8 The LORD called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy. 9 Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
10 Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening." 11 Then the LORD said to Samuel, "See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. 12 On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. 13 For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. 14 Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever." 15 Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the LORD. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. 16 But Eli called Samuel and said, "Samuel, my son." He said, "Here I am." 17 Eli said, "What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you." 18 So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, "It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him."
19 As Samuel grew up, the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. 20 And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the LORD.
 
Traditionally, we speak of the Holy Spirit as the Comforter…. but I often find the Spirit as more of a Challenger. And Spirit comforts and challenges through the most mundane ways. This past Thursday morning as I sat drinking my coffee, waking up, checking the news and preparing to write my sermon, two news articles challenged me as I was thinking about our connection to the story of the boy, Samuel, called to be a prophet in ancient Israel. All week I had been considering the call of God to be a prophet as I chose hymns and wrote our meditative call to worship to evoke the theme of prophetic living.

The article that first gave me pause was from the Washington Post. It was titled  “For some Christians the Capital riot doesn’t change the prophecies: Trump will be president.”[i]  I knew we were deeply divided in Christianity, but I had not fully realized that there are Christians prophesying Donald Trump’s presidency, a presidency I have experienced as diametrically opposed to everything I hold dear as a Christian and an American. Religious scholar sources for this article say the people interviewed are practicing a neo-charismatic version of Christian faith that is even farther right in thinking and practice than the evangelical right wing. A Christian nationalism is conflating Christianity with patriotism. And their numbers are growing. The people interviewed were part of the crowd at the Capital on January 6th and their expressed intention in coming to the Capital was to pray that Donald Trump remain president, to show up for the prophecy they had received. Their prophets tell them that Trump is the Chosen One who will shut down an American elite class that is persecuting Christians and crushing what they believe to be Christian values. They are as passionate for their vision of justice as we are for our vision of justice. We have competing prophetic paths. It definitely feels as if the “true” word of the Lord is rare in our land, doesn’t it?

I wanted to write off these people as “kooks!” I wanted to say to myself, “They are delusional and uneducated. They have been duped by conspiracy theories. I know better, don’t I? I have a degree from Yale Divinity School. I can do proper exegesis of the scripture. I understand the ins and outs of biblical prophecy and it does not lead us to support someone proclaiming lies and misuse of power. I am ordained in the UCC! I know about true justice!” However, the Spirit challenged me with humility.  I was challenged to try and see these Christians as people, not as evil others, even as I abhorred the violent actions of the crowd these folks were with.  I was challenged to reach beneath their words to seek understanding of the true concerns of their hearts, to understand how they are my brothers and sisters in Christ, as foreign as they seem to me.

I pondered this moment, wondering, Have I just heard a word from the Lord? And I will tell you why: the word was humbling and challenging, ear-tingling if you will, and revealed to me something new and much needed that God was doing, at least within my heart. I also knew I could only participate in this change with God’s help, not on my power alone. I did not feel comfortable or triumphant. I felt fearful and confused in this revelation of my own prejudice and pride. Spirit challenged me: how would I take humble, peace-making action on this realization? My first action is to share the experience with you.

I find echoes of my experience in the story we heard just minutes ago about the boy Samuel and his first experience with hearing the word of the God. It seems the call to prophetic living is humbling and challenging and it cannot be silenced. It must be shared with others. Remember how the narrator begins our story saying that as Samuel was growing up, “The word of the Lord was rare.” “Vision was not widespread.” At this time there was no king or president in Israel. The priest, as prophetic presence, helped govern and lead the people because professionally, and one would hope personally, he was a channel between the human world and the Holy One. However, in the time of Samuel, Israel was being divided by greedy and power-mongering leadership. Sound familiar?

So, when Samuel humbly accepts the call to hear God’s word, he gets an ear-tingling, earful! The Lord gives him a prophecy condemning Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas, younger priests who have been abusing their priestly power. These two are exploiting and seducing women who come to the temple to pray. They are confiscating the best cuts of sacrificial meat before the sacrifices are complete, thus, robbing the people of the expensive cuts of meat they have purchased to complete obligatory religious rituals. They are ignoring the warnings of their old father, Eli, who is trying to correct their immoral behavior.  Thus, Samuel is given his first prophetic word from God, both painful and important. He knows it could get him into trouble. He only fearfully delivers it to his mentor and teacher, Eli, after much cajoling. “Your priestly house is ending,” says Samuel, “God is doing a new thing!”

What are new, ear-tingling thing is God doing that we are we called to hear as this committed community of faith? God is calling! And like Samuel discovered, the call will not necessarily be comfortable. It will be humbling. It will be a bit scary, maybe more than a bit, and outside our comfort zone. It may get us into trouble, good trouble in the words of the late senator from Georgia, John Lewis. UCC pastor, Donna Schaper, comments in an exegetical essay, on the story’s revelation that what God is going to do will make “both ears tingle.” She writes, “Since I hate sermons that make us have to be more heroic than we really are, I say…. Let one ear tingle with fear…Fear is spiritually legitimate….But listen now with the other ear…. Let it tingle too.”[ii]

Spirit’s ear-tingling challenge to me asked me to admit that it is harder for me to love these white Christians who are so very different from me than it is to love people of other faiths. There is my prophetic living challenge…how far can I live into God’s love….not condoning acts of injustice or violence…but extending my compassion, opening my heart to what I preach….that God’s love extends over all of us. And what actions will I take to extend God’s love to those so very different from me? I am asking for the courage to live into those answers as they come.

Now you may be saying to yourself…that is all very well for Samuel he was after all serving in the temple. Like you ministerial types, didn’t he sign up to hear God’s word and act on it? I’m just a regular person, not a prophet in training. And I say back to you…are you committed to the love and justice that was modeled by Jesus in his life, death and resurrection? Are you committed to – or at least concerned about - feeding the hungry, helping the homeless find a home, welcoming the immigrant, praying for peace, caring for the sick in body, mind or soul, nurturing the children and youth, being a voice for the voiceless, loving those cast out and cast down by our culture, saving our world from environmental disaster and global warming? Any of the above? If so, then I believe you are called to be a prophetic presence for God’s justice and love in our times. And I believe you are called to listen as attentively, as carefully as you can! What is making at least one ear tingle with fear? And the other with a new possibility?

The call comes at mundane moments. When we are just lying in our bed before sleep, musing over the day. Or drinking our first cup of morning coffee. We have an unexpected thought. A preposterous idea. Are you listening?

The second news article that challenged me on Thursday morning came from NPR. It seems that there is a restaurant in California run by an award-winning chef,[iii] of Top Chef TV fame. Though it is well-known, it is still struggling in the midst of pandemic as they downsize their business into predominantly take-out orders. One day not long ago they received an online breakfast order, paid for, with a message saying, “This order will not be picked up by the person ordering it. Please make sure that it goes to someone who needs a meal.” The chef who owns the restaurant was so moved that she posted the order message on Facebook. Within a few minutes, another order came into the restaurant, paid for, and with the same message. And another. And another. By now the restaurant has received almost 250 orders for food that is paid for by someone who will not pick it up and who wants the meal given to someone in need. This influx of orders is helping the chef pay her employees and helping others in her community not even connected to her business. Who started this? A teacher in Texas. Not a hugely rich, powerful person, but an “ordinary” teacher. And the love has come back around because someone, after discovering this teacher’s gift to the restaurant, went onto Amazon and saw her wish list of supplies for her classroom. That someone paid for all those supplies helping children they had never met.

A word from the Lord! A delightful new way of working together for the good of people! What if we as a country took this system of paying it forward and helping others as our primary way of working instead of being crippled by greed, selfishness and the lust for power over other people? Would we be as divided as we are now? Would we be better able to see and love and relate to those who now seem “other” as brothers and sisters?

Listen! The word of the Lord is always present! Our ears can always be tingling with the God’s word of justice and love! Listen! Follow. Act in Love. Amen


[i] https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/01/14/prophets-apostles-christian-prophesy-trump-won-biden-capitol/
[ii] Donna Schaper, “Pastoral Essay”, 1 Samuel 3.1-20, Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Feasting on the Word” Year B, Volume 1, edited by David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, KY, 2008, 246
[iii] https://www.npr.org/2021/01/14/956705067/texas-customers-call-in-order-helps-la-restaurant-pay-it-forward

Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
 
Here at Plymouth our Christmas Eve service is always such a beautiful, mystical collage of carols, candle-light and communion swirling around the miraculous story of the birth of Jesus – Yeshua in the Hebrew, meaning “deliverer.” What it mean this Christmas after this horrendously unique year to hear the story and receive the gift of Jesus, Deliverer?

As in years past, we heard the call of the prophet …”the people who walk in darkness have seen a great light!” We heard the story of the miraculous birth …”she brought forth her firstborn child and laid him in a manger”… and at this point I always think to myself … really, isn’t every birth miraculous because every birth is a risk!

We sang joyfully together with the angels and the shepherds the good news of God’s presence among us in the tiny child. Soon we will marvel once at the gifts brought by exotic strangers who followed a star of hope to find this particular babe. Then the gospel writer John will proclaim, ”In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” – HE – not a concept or a philosophical idea this revelation, the Word of God, but a person. A human person of flesh and blood who is God’s light and life and love, the Holy Incarnate, God-with-us, for all people. And this revealing Word in human flesh is light shining in the darkness “and the darkness cannot overcome it.”

What does the promise of this delivering light of God-with-us mean in the midst of this horrendously unique year?

In December of 1973, the late novelist, spiritual writer and poet, Madeleine L’Engle wrote a Christmas poem reflecting on the past year and the story of the Incarnation. Some of you may remember the news of that year. For others its part of the history book narrations of the Vietnam war, the Cold War, the Space Race, the Watergate scandal and a national energy crisis. Listen with me to L’Engle’s reflections in her poem, “The Risk of Birth, Christmas, 1973.”

This is no time for a child to be born,
With earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late
 
That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn–
Yet here did the Saviour [the Deliverer] make his home.
 
When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn–
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth. [i]

Here in December 2020, we might say with L’Engle, This is no time for a child to be born! And I don’t need to enumerate why…we have all lived through this horrendously, uniquely hard year. We each hold our private and collective fears and griefs and heartaches.

Yet my friends, I say to you this night….it is always time for The Child to be born…the child sung to by angels and shepherds, the child who was blessed and hailed as born for greatness by elders in the temple; the child who grew to be the boy of twelve astonishing rabbis with his wisdom; the child who grew into the young man who was called away from an obscure peasant life into a path of mystical, revolutionary and revelatory ministry with the Living God that changed his times and has changed the world. The child who became the innocent man beaten and unjustly condemned by the powers of oppressive empire to carry his own execution cross, the dying man praying for the world and the dead man laid secretly in a tomb by his loved ones. The Child who as God-with-us is the Risen One, the Deliverer, proclaiming and embodying Love that conquers Death.

It is always a good time….the best of times….for Love to risk birth in the story of the Child, God-with-us! Every time we dare to tell his stories, to live into the ways of the realm of God that Jesus taught, to follow in hope the star of God’s dream for a peaceful, just, and compassionate world, to act on that dream, we are participating in the Incarnation, the Word made flesh among us.

A friend of mine and a friend of Plymouth’s, the Rev. Dr. Linda Privitera, who led our Lenten art retreat two years ago, recently sent me a wonderful prose poem she wrote this Advent in the voice of the angel, Gabriel. It seems that Gabriel is complaining to God, saying….
 
“I have tried – really, I have - to deliver Your message.
If I may say so I am wondering why once wasn’t enough –
You know we had such an excellent response to your invitation to bear the Holy One,
Blessed be he, into an unlikely geography where holiness is not always a given.
But…this repeating of your desire for incarnation in every generation has resulted, lately,
In some disappointment on my part.”[ii]
 
Gabriel goes on to wonder if he needs an updated wardrobe to get people’s attention, confessing that he has worn those special shoes with the swhoosh on the side to see if that works. Still, he says, it seems that most of the folks God has sent him ask to be God-bearers, are too distracted by their phones and Zoom meetings and Gabriel is mightily confused about what digital platform to use to get their attention. He can’t keep all the passwords straight in his brain. Then, he up and questions this new list of God-bearers that God has given him. He says to the Holy One….
 
“And I am wondering too about your newest lists. They are a little long and are now peopled with women of a certain age – not young – and there are men here too. That’s new … I am [still] looking for Woke. …. I see where you are coming from; does the shape for the home for the holy really have to be as it was in the past? Haven’t we seen an impressive bunch of folks who were amazing shelters for the Holy, bearing it into the world in diverse ways?”[iii]
 
Finally, Gabriel realizes all this God work takes more patience and he cheerfully agrees to try again and again. He ends his complaint saying, “Thanks for hearing me out. I love you, Gabe.”[iv]

My friends, we are the diverse and impressive, amazing shelters for the Holy Gabriel is being sent to find. We are the ones invited to risk birthing Love in the world. This is my image of hope on this Christmas Eve in 2020 when the earth is still betrayed by war & hate & pandemic. I leave it with you…Be delivered this year by the story of Jesus, the Deliverer, God-with-us…so that you may risk birthing, delivering, life-changing Love to the world.

Merry Christmas and Amen.

©The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, 2020 and beyond. May be reprinted with permission only.

[i] Madeleine L’Engle, “The Risk of Birth, Christmas, 1973”, The Weather of the Heart, (Harold Shaw Publishers, Wheaton, IL: 1978, 47.)
[ii] The Rev. Dr. Linda Privitera, ”Gabriel’s Complaints”, unpublished poem, all rights reserved.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid.

Isaiah 64.1-9(10-12) * [text at bottom of post]
First Sunday in Advent
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson

Twentieth century poet, Langston Hughes, wrote his poem, "Dreams" [1], in 1922. It was one of his earliest works and one of his best remembered.

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Hughes’ images are incredibly poignant for us as we enter Advent in this pandemic ridden, politically and racially divisive year. How do we hold on to our national dreams of health and peace and cooperation and justice and abundance and equality for all this Advent? Our faith dreams of building God’s realm here and now on earth? How do we dream Hope?

The ancient people of God, the Israelites of the 6th century B.C.E., were wondering the same thing when they heard the prophet cry out to God in lament, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence…” They, too, were wondering if they could dream hope and they were trying hard to hold on the “awesome deeds” of God they had experienced with surprise and joy in the past. Why was God not acting like God way back in the day when they were delivered from slavery in Egypt? Or even not so far back in the day when they were led out of exile in Babylon and back to Jerusalem to rebuild their lives in the promised land and to rebuild the temple of the Most High? Instead of flowing springs in the desert and straight highways of policy following God’s law, instead of an oasis of plenty, they had returned from exile ready to rebuild only to find strife and hardship. There were polemical factions among the differing tribes; they were short on cooperation. Physically rebuilding the temple along with new infrastructures for simply living together was much more difficult than they had ever imagined. They felt abandoned by the God whom the prophet had promised would restore their fortunes and renew their abundance. Perhaps, they didn’t have a pandemic, but they knew well the unrest of extreme civil discord at a time they needed to work together to survive.

The book of Isaiah spans three centuries of the Israelites’ relationship with God. The original 8th century prophet, Isaiah, prophesied to the rulers and people of Judah when the Babylonian empire was encroaching upon them, eventually conquering Jerusalem. Much of the population was captured and taken into exile in Babylon where they learned to make their lives and honor their God in a foreign land. In the late 7th and into the 6th century B.C.E., a new prophet arose in the midst of exile writing in the name and fashion of Isaiah. These first two prophets gave the people the wondrous and inspiring poetry and prose of hope that we often hear this time of year: “the people who walk in darkness have seen a great light,” “you shall go out with joy and be led forth in peace, the trees shall clap their hands,” “the lion shall lie down with the lamb…and a little child shall lead them.” Now we hear from the prophet who is with the people after the return from exile…. things are looking very bleak….and the prophet speaking in the tradition of Isaiah loudly laments…”Where are you, God? Come down to us! You forgot us and so now we have sinned…. we are fractured as a people, hanging on by a thread… you have hidden from us and so even our best efforts are like filthy rags…we are undone!” 

How many times in this past year could any of us, each of us, have lifted up the sentiments of this lament to God? For goodness sake – literally ¬– Where are you, God?!? For God’s sake – literally – show yourself! Fix us, deliver us, restore us to your presence. As the poet warned us early in this sermon, without our dreams, without hope, life is like a broken-winged bird, crippled and dying. Life is barren, about to be snuffed out in the frozen depths of our deep disconnection with you, Holy One. The ancient prophet’s cry in this 64th chapter of Isaiah moves us from anger and despair, which we know all too well in our times, to broken-hearted sobbing sorrow and lament which we also know in these times of pandemic and racial violence.  

If it feels excruciating and you are wondering what kind of introduction to Advent is this? – you are getting it. You see, it turns out that authentic lament with all its anger and confession and sorrow is psychologically good for us and good for our souls. Bottling up all our feelings in stoic silence does not solve any issue. It alienates us from others and its bad for our blood pressure. The structure of lament is an appropriate practice for expression. Spiritually, lament breaks open our hearts before God. And when our hearts are broken as they have been in this year, broken open, our eyes and our ears can open as well. It turns out that the prophet does not leave us despairing in the dirt, fading away like dead leaves, but in acknowledging our brokenness before God, the prophet points us paradoxically to God who is with us in our vulnerability and pain. 

“8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father [our Maker]; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.”

The ancient stories of God’s past deliverance of God’s people proclaimed by prophets are not sentimental, smothering nostalgia nor are they a delusional panacea denying the pain of the present. They are beacons of light drawn from the collective memories of God’s people as a source of hope. God’s prophets are not fortune-telling predictors of the future events. They are witnesses to God’s presence in the world and in our lives, God, who is vulnerable and nurturing and suffering with us. God who tends and shapes God’s people – ALL of God’s people, not just a special set of followers of particular religious tenants – all of the people, all of humanity, all of creation, intimately shaped in love by God’s creating Spirit, as a potter shapes clay to make useful vessels. 

The prophet knew that when God seems hidden, people are lonely and hurting. And this is when we act out in fear, sinning against one another. The prophet also knew that God is always hiding in plain sight in the pain of our very lives and situations. God is not a coy, disguised superhero… Clark Kent, the humble bumbling reporter, one minute and Superman saving the world the next minute. The character of God is “divine determination relating to the world “through the vulnerable path of noncoercive love and suffering service rather than domination and force.” [2]

This determined loving, suffering character of God is why we can dream hope even in the worst of times. We have Love Divine with us, within us, among us, binding us together even in conflict and seeming de-construction of all that we hold dear. This is the God of the Advent call, “O come, O come, Emmanuel – God with us!”

Perhaps you saw the artwork for this week from our Advent devotional booklet in the Plymouth Thursday Overview and Saturday Evening emails. Its titled, “Tear Open the Heavens” and painted by Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman, a founding partner of Sanctified Art, the group who wrote our devotional. Look at it with me for just a moment…. What do you see? I see weeping….spilling over love, an overflowing pottery pitcher, mountains, trees, wise eyes, divine presence, the colors of love, the actions of love.

We can dream hope because God is dreaming with us as we weep and laugh and work together with God. As we sometimes rage against the pain and darkness – with God. As we sometimes hide from one another and from God. Yet God, Divine Love, is always dreaming hope and dreaming love through us, through our lives. Therefore, we can hold fast to our dreams because God is holding fast to us even when we are not watching. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,” we say. And God says, “I have. I am with you. I never left.” Amen.

Pastoral Prayer
Holy One, we come before you this morning with hopes for dreaming hope, for building hope, for being hope in our corners of your world. We long to get our hands dirty with the work of hope as we raise money for homelessness prevention, as we support the immigrants in our community, as we learn together with our children and youth about the active hope of Advent, as we support one another in these difficult times – even if distanced. As our thoughts and preparations turn toward the Christmas season, keep us ever-mindful of gratitude for our blessings, ever-giving from those same gifts for you have given them to us for sharing. Bless all those who struggle with illness of any kind, those who wait for much needed surgery or procedures because the hospitals are full of Covid 19 patients who need the frontline care. Bless the caregivers of all kinds, whether in a facility or at home. Bless the children and youth and young adults as they go back to remote school. Bless those who mourn the loss of a loved one. Bless our country in this time of transition. May we all turn toward much needed healing of racial and political divides. Bless us all as we seek to participate in your hope for your creation. Hear us now as we say the prayer Jesus taught us to say, “Our Father, who art….

[1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/150995/dreams-5d767850da976

[2] Scott Bader-Saye, “Theological Perspective”, Isaiah 64.1-9, First Sunday in Advent, Year B, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 1, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, KY, 2008, 6.)

©The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, 2020 and beyond. May only be reprinted with permission.

* Isaiah 64.1-9[10-12]

1 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence — 
2 as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil — 
to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!
3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. 4From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. 
5You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. 

But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself, we transgressed. 
6We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 7 There is no one who calls on your name or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. 

8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people. 

(10 Your holy cities have become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. 11 Our holy and beautiful house, where our ancestors praised you, 
has been burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have become ruins. 12 After all this, will you restrain yourself, O LORD? Will you keep silent, and punish us so severely?)

Rev. Jane Anne preaches on Psalm 149 for Hymn Sing Sunday.

“Singing for Dear Life”
Psalm 149
November 15, 2020
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson

Psalm 149
Praise the LORD! Sing to the LORD a new song;
sing God's praise in the assembly of the faithful!
2Let Israel celebrate its maker; l
et Zion's children rejoice in their the [Holy ONE, their ruler]!
3Let them praise God's name with dance;
let them sing [the Holy One's] praise with the drum and lyre!
4Because the Holy One is pleased with people of God,
God will beautify the poor with saving help.
5Let the faithful celebrate with glory; let them shout for joy on their beds.
6Let the high praises of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands,
7t[for]revenge against the nations and punishment on the peoples,
8binding their rulers in chains and their officials in iron shackles,
9achieving the justice written against them.
That will be an honor for all God’s faithful people Praise the LORD!  [1]

For the Word of God in scripture, for the Word of God among us, for the Word of God with us, Thanks be to God!

It seems that many, many years ago, during the time of the great Rabbi Shneyer Zalmon, that there was an old man who longed to study Torah. He had been orphaned as a child and was not able to complete his Hebrew school. As a young man he married and had a family, so all his time was taken with working to provide for his loved ones. Now his children were grown and had families of their own. It was just him and his wife and there was time….time to study. So, after searching for just the right teacher, listening to many scholars, he began to attend Sabbath school with Reb Zalmon.
 
On his first day he was so excited. He listened so intently, but as the lessons went on he grew more and more frustrated. His brows knit together. Big tears came to his eyes and even began to drip down his furrowed cheeks. As the lesson came to a close, he hung his head, shaking it sadly. The Rebbe had noticed this new one, this stranger, among the other students. He noticed his frustration and sadness. So Reb Zalmon called the man into his study after the lesson was over. 

“Tell me your story,” said the Rebbe, kindly. And the old man poured out his longing to study the Torah, the obstacles he had encountered all his life, and his search for the right teacher to help him. “Many scholars have laughed at me for my inability to understand…but I heard that you befriend all men…so I chose you to be my teacher. I listened with joy today as you explained the Torah, yet I found that I still could not understand what you were saying. And my heart is broken. All my life I have been sustained by reciting the Psalms…but I long to understand the Torah. Tell me, what must I do to understand, Rebbe!” Tears were now streaming down the man’s face. Reb Zalmon put his hand on the man’s shoulder and said, “No more tears, my friend. It is the Sabbath and on the Sabbath we rejoice.” 

The Rebbe continued, “What you heard today were the teachings on the Torah from the great Rabbi, may his name be preserved forever, the Baal Shem Tov. Since the words have not hit home for you, I will sing you a song that contains Baal Shem Tov’s thoughts.” And Reb Zalmon sang a sweet melody with beautiful lyrics and the man listened like a pillar of attention. He didn’t move an eyebrow. When the song was complete, his face was glowing with joy. “My soul has been transported. I understand, Rebbe! And now I feel worthy to be your student.” 

And from then on Reb Zalmon always sang that melody at the end of his teachings as a way of clarifying the thoughts he had just shared on the Torah. And that’s the story of “The Rebbe’s Melody.” 

As a preacher and one of your pastors, I wish I had a special song to sing at the end of each sermon to clarify all I have just said. But really isn’t that what hymn singing in our services can do if we listen carefully…. to the melodies as well as the words. Some of us don’t think of ourselves as singers…yet we can all be listeners and ponderers of lyrics. I venture to say that of some form or fashion music moves us all. Music teaches us in ways that mere words cannot…because it engages our bodies with movement and engages our emotions. It moves us from our heads to our hearts. Each week we, as a worship team, carefully choose the music to illumine the scriptures that we hear and the teachings in sermons. And I believe the hymns and songs and all the worship music stand along as mini-sermons/meditations on the word from scripture.

This week we heard Psalm 149, a psalm of praise to God, the Creator, the ultimate leader of all God’s people in the faithful assembly. In my progressive Christian theology that means to me ALL the people of the world, no matter their religious practice or lack thereof. And in this psalm we are reminded that because of all the faithful and beloved people of God, the poor and oppressed are “beautified”….therefore the faithful are given a “double-edged sword” to vindicate God’s ways of justice and peace and abundance, to defeat the nations and rulers whose ways are oppression and injustice. The war language is startling to us and is unusual for a psalm of praise. But I dare to read it this morning – even as I acknowledge the devastation of too many human holy wars down through the century – to remind us of the serious connection of singing and working for God’s realm of justice on this earth revealed to us in the Hebrew scriptures and in Jesus the Christ. We do not take literal weapons to work for God, instead we are called to acts of justice and non-violent resistance, kindness and sharing that are counter-cultural, counter-intuitive to the warring ways of humanity. And we are called to this understanding of our calling as people in the faithful assembly of the Holy One by a psalm, a song, a hymn! 

What might the hymns we love, the hymns we sing – those familiar to us and those unfamiliar to us – be calling us to each week? How is God speaking to us, what is God speaking to us in our hymns? Comfort, yes….and also challenge! When we sing in worship we are singing for dear life! The dear life of God’s realm here and now among us and coming into being. I invite you as a preacher…if the scripture and the sermon do not make sense to you….look to the hymns! 

Reb Zalmon knew about the mystery of God in scripture and the call of justice for all people when he sang to the old man. He knew it was an act of justice to illuminate God’ word for every person, so all may understand the love of God, when he sang:

All the angels, all the seraphim
Ask who God, [the Holy One], may be.
Ah woe, what can we reply?
“No thought can be attached to [God]

All the people ––– every nation –––
Ask where God, [the Holy One] may be.
Ah woe, what can we reply?
“No place is without God.” [2]

May it be so. Amen. 

[1] Bible, Common English. CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Locations 24148-24157). Common English Bible. Kindle Edition.

[2] Yiddish Folktales, Beatrice Silverman Weinreich, ed., Leonard Wolf, trans.(New York, NY; Schocken Books, Inc., YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 1988, 272.) 

Pastoral Prayer
Holy One, sing to us like a mother lullabies of peace and comfort in our troubled times of pandemic, conflict and division. Sing to us your song of challenge and courage that we may stand against injustice and hatred with your fierce love. As we pray this morning with the words of our mouth, with the longings of our hearts and the music of our souls, we join you in lament for lives of loved ones lost, for the millions of beloved lives lost to the Covid 19 virus. We lift prayers imploring you to stand with us as seek to keep all safe from this illness, to heal all who are struggling with it, to protect those on the frontlines of essential workers who risk their own health and safety to serve other. We lift our prayers of lament for lives lost to the violence of racial injustice. Turn our hearts, Holy One, toward your realm of courageous love that is already here with us on earth. Open our eyes to see the joy of your love in Christ Jesus that is always present in beloved community, in the beauty of creation, in the eyes of your people. 

All this we pray with the word of love Jesus taught us to use…
Our Father (and Mother) who art in heaven….

©The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, 2020 and beyond. May be reprinted with permission only. 

2 Corinthians 9.6-15
Stewardship Consecration Sunday
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson

6What I mean is this: the one who sows a small number of seeds will also reap a small crop, and the one who sows a generous amount of seeds will also reap a generous crop. 7Everyone should give whatever they have decided in their heart. They shouldn't give with hesitation or because of pressure. God loves a cheerful giver. 8God has the power to provide you with more than enough of every kind of grace. That way, you will have everything you need always and in everything to provide more than enough for every kind of good work. 9As it is written,

“[They] scattered everywhere; [they] gave to the needy; [their] righteousness remains forever.” 10The one who supplies seed for planting and bread for eating will supply and multiply your seed and will increase your crop, which is righteousness. 11You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous in every way. Such generosity produces thanksgiving to God through us. 12Your ministry of this service to God's people isn’t only fully meeting their needs but it is also multiplying in many expressions of thanksgiving to God. 13They will give honor to God for your obedience to your confession of Christ's gospel. They will do this because this service provides evidence of your obedience, and because of your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone. 14They will also pray for you, and they will care deeply for you because of the outstanding grace that God has given to you. 15Thank God for the gifts of God that words cannot describe! [1]

For the Word of God through scripture, for the Word of God among us, for the Word of God within us….thanks be to God! 

And echoing the words of Paul again, Thank God for the gifts of God that words cannot describe! What are the gifts of God in your life that words cannot describe? Think about it. I invite you to pause this video and take the time you need to really think about and/or discuss this question. Take a moment to name a few these gifts with those who are with you or to jot them down.

What did you discover? As I did this exercise alone in my study, I found I first went to the “macro” of family and soul friends and loving community and having an abundance financial resources to generously share with those who have less. Then I went to the “micro” of a warm, comfy, safe bed and blue skies over a sunny, warm beach with gentle ocean waves and tomatoes just off the vine and coffee in the morning. Somewhere in between “macro” and “micro” I found the gift of story with its imagery, metaphor and wisdom, the gift of poetry, of alone time with God, of the sound of laughter with good friends around a dinner table. 

I could go on and so could you….the point is to celebrate God’s gifts and receive them whole-heartedly so that we are really nurtured and blessed by them so that we can share God’s gifts with others in need with open hearts and hands. And thus share God’s love revealed in Jesus! Remember, friends, we cannot give away what we do not have. If we do not take time to let God’s gifts and God’s love sink deep into our souls, how can we share them? We can do a lot of good works, but are we sharing from open and abundant hearts and from the abundant heart of God? Just doing good works can lead to soul burn out and scarcity feelings.

The abundant soul place of open-hearted generosity is where Paul is leading the church folks in Corinth as he encourages them to give to the offering being collected for the poor in the Christian community in Jerusalem. Paul knows that there is great financial need in that community, and he is compelled by the love of God he has experienced in Jesus Christ to help. He also knows that the mutuality of giving and receiving will unite the Christian community which is expanding from its Jewish roots in Jerusalem across the empire to include Gentiles in God’s love in Christ. He knows that many – not all, some are poor or are slaves – yet many in the Gentile Christian communities have more to give, they are wealthier. They have not been oppressed and persecuted by the empire as are the Jewish communities. This offering collection is a brilliant opportunity in practical sharing to meet needs and in building bridges across class, ethnic and religious interpretation divides. 

So Paul exhorts the church at Corinth, and exhorts us as 21st century church, to greater generosity! He uses with harvest imagery which is familiar to Americans at this time of year… those who sow a small crop reap a small harvest and those who sow a big crop reap a big harvest. Hmm…there is an underlying question: do we want a small or a big harvest? He alludes to and quotes Psalm 112, saying, the faithful followers of God are those who “scattered/shared their resources everywhere; [they] gave to the needy; [their] righteousness or goodness remains forever.” Hmm…. there is an underlying question: do we want to be God’s faithful followers like our ancestors in faith? Paul continues the exhortation by saying in essence, “And don’t worry because the one – and yes, he is referencing God, the Holy One here…the one who supplies the seed for sowing and then the bread for eating will supply you. You will be rich in blessings as are the righteous, the trustworthy followers of God and this will produce in you great thankfulness and generosity. Blessings will overflow! 

All this makes for feeling good about harvest and abundance and a donation to the Food Bank, doesn’t it! But hmmm….as I reread the text, I find another underlying question: How much? How much do we give to get this overflowing feeling good of being blessed and being a blessing? Paul writes at the beginning of his exhortation, “Everyone should give whatever they have decided in their heart. They shouldn't give with hesitation or because of pressure. God loves a cheerful giver.” There’s an over-used stewardship quote for you. “God loves a cheerful giver.” Maybe you have seen it embroidered on a pillow or cross-stitched on linen and hanging framed on a wall. 

After pondering the Greek word for “cheerful,” hilaros, which also means “joyous” and “prompt to do anything,” … and yes, is the root of “hilarious,” I asked myself what are the implications of being a “cheerful” giver? A giver who is joyous and prompt to do anything needed? Do I, personally, give with any hesitation or because of pressure? Or do I give readily and without guilt or fear? Do I give out of an attitude of abundance or from an outlook of scarcity? Think about that for a few moments. [On screen: 15 seconds of shots of trees/beauty.]

I know I have experienced giving from a scarcity attitude, an attitude of reluctance or hesitation. Have you? In scarcity giving we might say to ourselves, “I have enough in the bank; I have more than enough for my own needs, but I can’t let go of the “what ifs”, the fears of not having enough sometime in the future to give as generously as I really deep down might want to give.” OR we might say to ourselves, “I don’t have a lot to spare and I want to give more. I should give more. I will say I will give more just so I don’t feel guilty and feel like God won’t like me if I give less. I wonder if I can pay the utility bills if I give that much, but I don’t want God to be mad at me.”  OR we might say to ourselves, “If I give this much, perhaps I will receive a some external reward or get noticed in the community or get a bigger place in heaven.”

New Testament scholar Ernest Best writes about this passage saying, “Those who give out of self-interest to receive a reward here or hereafter are reluctant givers, for they act under an inner compulsion to seek their own good. There is no genuine joy, only a cool and calculating self-concern.  If we give or withhold giving out of fear, if we give because we feel guilty and want to get right with God, if we give out of needing reward we are hesitant givers giving out of pressure and fear, self-concern and scarcity rather than out of  joy and abundance. 

Now I tell you these things on peril that I will persuade some of you not to give! If you are thinking “Yikes…I don’t know why I give so maybe I just shouldn’t give or pledge at all….” DON’T GO THERE! Take a deep breath!! There is an alternative!

Give from joy… Joy, along with love, casts out fear and guilt and the need to look good in others’ eyes. Give from joy that you have found this church community to be with even in the midst of the social distancing we have at the moment. Give from the joy of watching your children grow up in this community and experience God here in learning and playing and service. Give from the joy of knowing how connected we are to ministries and agencies in northern Colorado that help prevent homelessness or care for the homeless or welcome the immigrant with shelter and clothing or feed the children who could go hungry without the Food Bank of Larimer County. Give from the joy of learning together and praying together in small groups, of knitting prayer shawls together, of singing together even if with the weird parameters we have around singing right now. Give from the joy of all those gifts from God that you thought of that cannot be described with words! Give from the joy of being in the midst of our trying times surrounded by God’s people as we lift one another up with the love that Jesus made manifest in our world! Give from joy even if it is very hard to “feel” joyful emotionally right now. Giving is a way of connecting and I find connecting with others brings me out of my pandemic, election, fire danger, and racism examination anxiety and dismay! 

Be a joyful, cheerful giver…and whatever amount you challenge yourself to give, don’t look back! Just give from your open heart. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous in every way. Such generosity produces thanksgiving to God through us. Your ministry of this service to God's people isn’t only fully meeting their needs but it is also multiplying in many expressions of thanksgiving to God. In other words, says Paul, your joyful, thankful giving will produce thanksgiving in those who receive from your gifts. They will give thanks to God for you even as you give thanks that you can give to help them. It’s a win-win situation. The more abundance flows the more there will be to do the joyful work of God in this world. 

In a moment you will have a chance to say a prayer of consecration over your pledge card or a symbol of your pledge card, if you have already sent it in or pledged online. We joyfully pray over our pledges to recognize and honor that giving is sacred. Giving brings us closer in beloved community and closer to the Holy One. God does have work for us to do, to continue doing, in our tired and troubled world, my friends. We are a community of faithful and hardworking pilgrims on this sacred journey. Let us be joyful, cheerful givers as we walk the road together. Amen. 

©The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, 2020 and beyond. May be reprinted with permission only.  

[1] Bible, Common English. CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Locations 44634-44637). Common English Bible. Kindle Edition.
[2]  Best, Ernest. Second Corinthians: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (p. 86). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.

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Exodus 3.1-15
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson

Friends, this week we decided as a worship team to see if we could do something a little different this Jubilee Sunday. Thus, our intergenerational sermon. Back in March, when we had to close the building due to the pandemic, I don’t think any of us ever expected to be where we are this Sunday…still worshiping together by livestream. Yet here we are. Some of us grownups have been able to go back to work in sort of normal ways. Others not. My Plymouth children and youth friends, it makes me so sad that you are still not able to go back to regular school to see your friends and teachers. Or to come here to Plymouth and see one another and see us. We really miss ALL of you and it is tough to know that we are in this pandemic thing for a much longer haul than we ever expected. 

It makes for a weird Jubilee Sunday, doesn’t it? Jubilee Sunday is usually a time for us to greet one another after being gone on vacations and trips during summer. It is a Sunday we come back to get ready for the programs of the year, the classes, the service, the worship. The Jubilee year in the Bible way back in the times after Moses led the people out of Egypt and back to their homeland promised to them by God was a year in which the land was not planted with crops. I imagine people had stored enough food to get them through the year. So the land was given a rest because it had been working so hard for the people for 49 years. On the 50th year it rested. And any land that had been taken from people because of a loan or debt payment was returned to the original owners. It was a do-over year. It was a time-out kind of year. Not for punishment, but for a time to calm down and maybe think about what was really important in the community.

 2020 and into 2021 is an unexpected Jubilee year for us to rest, to reconsider and think about what’s important, even if we didn’t think we needed that or wanted it. It a time to reflect on how we can start again in new ways when we are able to be back together in person again here at church and at school. 

I think during this kind of year stories are really important. Maybe we have more time to hear and deeply listen to them. Hopefully, during a Jubilee year the ancient people of God told one another stories about their lives with God, remembered their history. Our story today is about Moses, the Hebrew people’s first prophet. I think it’s one of the stories they might have told and remembered. I invite you to listen to it together. It has something for all ages. 

Exodus 3. 1-15
Moses was a Hebrew boy who was adopted by the daughter of Egypt’s Pharaoh, king, and was raised as a prince in the palace. It’s a great story about how he hidden as a baby in a basket in the river by his sister to save his life; how the princess found him and then hired his real mother to take care of him till he was old enough to live in the palace and be adopted by the princess. When Moses grew up he saw how his Hebrew people were mistreated as slaves by the Egyptians and he was very troubled. He tried to help, but his anger at the mean treatment of his people caused a situation in which he accidently killed an Egyptian boss who was mistreating Hebrew slave. So he had to leave Egypt in a hurry or face arrest. This is why, in our story,  he is living out in the wilderness away from Egypt. There he found a new tribe and family, married, had children. And went to work for his father-in-law as a shepherd. That’s where our story for today begins.  

Moses was taking care of the flock for his father-in-law Jethro, Midian's priest. He led his flock out to the edge of the desert, beyond the known wilderness, and he came to God's mountain called Horeb. 2There the Holy One’s messenger appeared to him in a flame of fire in the middle of a bush. Moses saw that the bush was in flames, but it didn't burn up. 3Then Moses said to himself, Let me check out this amazing sight and find out why the bush isn't burning up.

4When the Holy One saw that Moses was turning back to look, the Holy One called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" Moses said, "I'm here." 5Then the Holy One said, "Don't come any closer! Take off your sandals, because you are standing on holy ground."6He continued, "Moses, I am the God of your father Abraham [and your mother Sarah], your father Isaac [and your mother Rebecca], and your father, Jacob [and your mother Rachel]." Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. 

7Then the Holy One said, "Moses, I've clearly seen my people oppressed in Egypt. I've heard their cry of injustice because of their slave masters. I know about their pain. 8I've come down to rescue them from the Egyptians in order to take them out of that land and bring them to a good and broad land, a land that's full of milk and honey, a place where the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites all live. 9Now the Israelites' cries of injustice have reached me. I've seen just how much the Egyptians have oppressed them. 10So, Moses, get going! I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." 

11But Moses said to God, "Who am I to go to Pharaoh and to bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" 12God said, "I'll be with you. And this will show you that I'm the one who sent you. After you bring the people out of Egypt, you will come back here and worship God on this mountain." 

13But Moses said to God, "If I now come to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' they are going to ask me, 'What's this God's name?' What am I supposed to say to them?"

14God said to Moses, "I Am Who I Am. So say to the Israelites, 'I Am has sent me to you.'"15God continued, "Say to the Israelites, 'The Holy One, the God of your ancestors, Abraham's [and Sarah’s] God, Isaac's [and Rebecca’s] God, and Jacob's [and Rachel’s] God, has sent me to you.' This is my name forever; this is how all generations will remember me.

After we hear a story it is good to think about it for a few moments. What are the pictures in your imagination that you saw as you listened to the story? Desert much like the high plains desert where we live…the grasses, the low trees, the taller ones by streams of water, the sand and rocks. Did you smell sage brush like we have in our wilderness? Were you daydreaming with Moses as he led the flock, your mind wandering as your feet wondered? I have had hikes like that. 

What a surprise to see this strange bush! What did the bush that was burning but not burning up, look like? Are there green leaves in the fire? Crackling sounds? What did it smell like? Is it hot or not hot?

How does the ground feel on bare feet when you take off your sandals? Does holy ground feel different than other ground? What makes the ground ‘Holy”? If its God’s presence, doesn’t that mean that all ground is holy? If I asked my young friends where God is in the world….I think they would answer, “Everywhere!” Even in you!

What does the voice of God’s messenger coming from the burning, but not burning up, bush sound like? When you found out Moses was talking to God were you surprised again like Moses? Nervous? Scared a bit like Moses? Excited? 

I invite any of my young friends to take their paper and crayons or colored pencils and draw what you experienced in this part of the story. At lunch you can talk more about it with your family. Maybe your parents want to draw to! You can draw and continue listening. 

    When God can tell Moses is really listening in spite of being nervous and scared, God asks Moses something very startling and important. God asks – well, tells - Moses to stop hiding in the wilderness and go back to Egypt to confront Pharaoh. About how the Hebrew people are treated so badly, how they are suffering and even dying. God says…I see and I hear the suffering of my people. I suffer with them. :Go, Moses and free them from Pharaoh’s bullying, his keeping them for slaves. Lead them out of Egypt to live in a land I will show them.” 

Now Moses knows if he goes back to Egypt he could be arrested for killing the Egyptian boss who was hurting the Hebrew workers. How do you think Moses feels when God tells him to go back to Egypt and confront Pharaoh? (pause) Yeah, that doesn’t sound good. Moses would have to be really brave to do this. I don’t know that I could be that brave. What about you? What if you were asked to do this? To stand up  to the President about the mistreatment of people in our country? Would you be scared? About being arrested? 

I think I would ask like Moses…Who am I to do this? How can I do this? I might feel all alone…and very small and very powerless. 

Did you hear what God said to Moses? “ Don’t worry! I Will Be With You. How will you know? When you return to this very place with all the Hebrew people!”  You’ll know once you have done what I am sending you to do. Hmmm….I might want a better sign than that….Has anyone ever said to you, “Act like you are brave even if you are afraid. That is what courage is. 

But, God, says Moses, how will the people even know to follow me? They don’t know me. Who will I tell them has sent me? 

And God does something very important…God tells Moses God’s name. When we really want to be friends with someone, when we want them to trust us, we tell them our name, don’t we? Maybe, if we want to be really good friends we tell them our special name, “I’m Harry, but you can call me Hal. I’m Jane Anne, but you can call me Jane or Janie. I’m Carla and you can call me….well, Carla!” God says, “Moses, the people will know me by this name, “I Am Who I Will Be/I Will Be Who I Am.” And my Being is with you and the people. This God’s name is “I Am And I Am with You.” I have seen and heard you and suffered with you. I Am With You is my name. So get going, Moses! Tell the people and the Pharaoh my name and I will be with you and you will bring my people into freedom.”

So this is how God called Moses to be the first prophet for God. Inviting him to stand on holy ground….which could be anywhere and everywhere. Telling him God’s special name and saying I hear and see and suffer when my people suffer. And I will be with you always.

The first big job of prophets is telling the truth. We want to tell the truth, don’t we? Prophets tell the truth about injustice…which is a big word for being mean, selfish and not treating people as you would want to be treated with fairness and with kindness. Like the Golden Rule, “Do to others as you want others to do to you.” None of us want to be treated with meanness and unfairness. And all of you from preschoolers to grown-ups know how it feels to be treated meanly. And all of us know what it’s like to be bullied, to be called names, to be treated unkindly. Yes? At school, in the neighborhood, at work. Children and even grown-ups in grown-up jobs are bullied sometimes and treated meanly. The boss or a friend might not really see them, then say or do something that hurts so bad. And that makes us mad! Kids, I will tell you a secret, sometimes we are All – even grown-ups - tempted to do the same thing to others because we have been hurt so bad. Even when we know this is not the way the God wants us to act. 

God called Moses to go to Pharaoh and say, “Stop bullying my people! Stop being so mean to them that sometimes they don’t have enough food. Or they have to work so hard or you punish them so hard that they get sick and die. Stop it, Pharaoh! Let them go free!

If you have ever stood up to a bully at school or in your neighborhood so that a friend of yours can stop being mistreated or even imagined doing this, you know it is a  very hard thing! Scary thing. It’s also a God thing and God is with us when we do this really hard, scary and good God things. You are not in school right now, it’s a Jubilee time, so now is the time to think about Moses and his story while you are at home. It prepares you for when you might need to stand up and tell the truth to a bully and about bullying.

Grown-ups, the Black theologian, James Cone tells us,  “… it is impossible to do Christian theology with integrity in America without asking the question, “What has the gospel to do with the black struggle for liberation?” That is a grown-sized question to wrestle with during this time of Jubilee. It a big God question and its in our faces and we can’t ignore it even if we can’t protest in crowds. 

We all stand on the holy ground of our lives because God is with us and wherever God is…there is holy – wholeness and love. As you go into this week….this strange Jubilee fall…remember you are whole and holy is God’s sight, so God will ask Big things of you, just like God asked of Moses. May it be so. Amen. 

©The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, 2020 and beyond. May not be reprinted without permission. 

The tradition continued with the 2020 Instant Sermon... but with questions that were submitted online instead of on index cards.

Luke 15.1-2, 11-32 (Proper 11)*
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson

I would guess that most, if not all, of us have had the experience of receiving a genuine and effusive compliment only to turn it aside, deflect it. This is a learned skill that adults have and goes something like this:  “Oh, this dress, this shirt…“It’s a hand-me-down” or “It’s so old.” Or “You liked the meal? Sorry, I burnt the edges of the roast.” Or “The vegetables were a little soggy.” Or when we have done something helpful action. (shrug) “It was really nothing…not that hard.” Or when someone really appreciates your musical performance or your good work on a project, or the completions of a housekeeping task at home…..etc, etc, etc. you say, “It was really nothing.” 

What’s up with this? Our propensity for deflecting compliments? Have you ever practiced looking the person complimenting you in the eye and really letting it soak into your soul and nurture you by simply saying, “Thank You.” If we can’t receive something as hopefully daily and routine as a compliment, can we receive the grace and compassion of God? 

It’s a peculiar thing about humans. We would rather dwell on the have nots of life, out of fear and an attitude of scarcity, than on the gifts and abundance of life. We are often afraid to trust compassion and grace. We are often afraid to trust. 

The late Dr. Fred Craddock, New Testament scholar and preacher extraordinaire, wrote: “Easily the most familiar of all Jesus’ parables, this story [our scripture today, the one we just heard] has been embraced by many persons who have not felt the full impact of the offence of grace that it dramatically conveys. The focus of the parable is the father: ‘There was a man who had two sons,” but it is most often called the parable of the prodigal son.” [Craddock, Fred B., Luke, Interpretation Series, (John Knox Press:  Louisville, KY, 186).]

Craddock goes on to point out that historically much of the preaching of the church on the three parables in the 15th chapter of Luke’s gospel focuses on the negative….the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son. Yet each of the parables ends with rejoicing and celebration and forgiveness. Why do we as human beings overlook the extravagant gift of grace in these stories? Why is this grace so offensive, perhaps, embarrassing, to us that we focus on the conditions the gospel describes of being fallen, out of sync, lost, rather than on the gospel’s message itself – God’s good news of grace, compassion and forgiveness delivered through Jesus? Have we so little compassion for ourselves and others? So little trust in the Holy Compassionate One in whom we live and breathe and have our being? 

This week at Plymouth we started Compassion Camp, an intergenerational, online and in-home exploration of compassion. Compassion means “to suffer with, to feel with.” Not to feel sorry for in patronizing pity. But to feel along with another person, usually in a time of pain and sorrow, rather than try and fix the situation or the person in order to avoid the pain. To simply feel with, suffer with…and perhaps, also to be in joy with for joy and sorrow can be two sides of an experience. Each week of Compassion Camp there is a theme exploring how we experience compassion, with our neighbors, with our selves, with our world. I hope you will participate with as many of the online offerings and in-home crafts, prayers, and ponderings as you can. 

Since Monday during this first week of Compassion Camp we have been pondering the extravagant welcome of God, the Compassionate One that is always extended to us, always inviting us to gather at the table God’s abundance no matter what life is throwing at us. This is the compassion and welcome extended by the father in our story to both of his sons – to the one son who can only learn by experiencing and making every mistake in the book, even to the point of starving to death and to the other son who thinks he can learn it all by following every rule and getting a pin for perfect attendance. Which sibling do you tend to be? I have been them both at different times in my life. 
Jesus shares with us in metaphor in the abundantly loving father figure we experience in his story. This character tells us something about the Divine Father or Mother, the loving Parent/Creator/Friend and Guide, who is ALWAYS welcoming us home. As well as, ALWAYS giving us the freedom to experience life as we choose. We can choose to be prodigal, wasteful and extravagant in our consumption and acquisition of what we think will make us successful, will make us feel good. Prodigal in these ways to the point of self-loathing and self-destruction. We can choose to be prodigal, extravagantly wasteful of love and relationships through rigid rule-following, holding our cards too close to our chests so to speak and refusing intimacy in relationships, by holding attitudes of judgment that cut us off from compassion for ourselves and others, even as it looks as if we are successful and right-living. 

Most of us find ourselves somewhere in between these two extremes. Wherever we are on the spectrum the Compassionate One is patiently waiting for us to come home, to welcome us around the table of abundance and celebration and joy, no matter what wounds we may bring with us. This is the third choice. We can choose to live the experiences, the mistakes and successes, of our lives in relationship around God’s table of community. There our wounds are not instantly healed in a pie-in-the-sky instant fix. What we do find is the gift of this “offensive” extravagance of grace, as Dr. Craddock put it so shockingly. The prodigality, if you will, of God’s grace and compassion. The cups of grace at God’s table are running over. Grace is spilling over “wastefully” in joy and celebration, in forgiveness and love that nurtures all who willing to sit at God’s table of compassion. You see, my friends, the God revealed in Jesus the Christ is the ultimate manifestation of compassion. God feels with our suffering, sits in midst of our suffering with us, walks with us in relationship toward healing as we gather around Love’s beloved community table.

So who in Jesus’ story, do you think, is really the prodigal, the extravagantly wasteful one? Is this story about the mistakes of sons or the overly abundant generosity and compassion of a father? 

As we ponder our responses, the situations of our lives, our family relationships, friend relationships, no doubt come to mind. Our relationships with our own selves, our own souls. The communal situation of our country comes to mind. Our continual confrontation with this virus, Covid-19. The terror of its virulence and tenacity, the conflicts over how to handle it. The economic travesties in its wake. The virulently renewed and in-our-face confrontation with racism and its centuries old devastation of God’s ultimate vision of the wholeness of human beings and their communities comes to mind. How do we walk in compassion, with true compassion, discovering God’s welcome in all the situations of our lives? How does Jesus’ story and its profoundly moving metaphors translate to boots-on-the-ground living in 21st century America here in our communities, our families, our schools and workplaces in Northern Colorado? 

I wish I knew all the answers to my own questions. All these “hows.” But then I would be sitting at that welcome table all by myself, pretending I was God. And I’d be pretty lonely because I wouldn’t even be letting God in and it’s Her table to begin with. I’d need to hear Jesus’ story again! 

The answers, the “hows” to compassionate living in this world are in the community around the table. In the community where all people are invited to share in the spilling over grace of God. Where all voices must be heard so wounds can be healed. Where all fears must be laid on the table, all angers, all hates that mask the fears. It is a safe table for vulnerability and confession. It’s a table where compassion is the power behind the listening. It’s a table where listening is the compassionate catalyst to change and transformation. 

Beloved Community of Plymouth, we are the compassionate welcome table of God’s grace. That’s a great definition for church, don’t you think? We could change our name to Plymouth Welcome Table. We are being called, even in this physically distant state of things that we are in, to be connected through listening to the patient, grace-filled invitation of God to learn compassion for ourselves, for one another and for God’s beautiful and hurting creation, God’s beautiful and hurting family of human beings. How will you listen for the compassion of God as part of the Plymouth Welcome Table? 
Your first opportunity is to join in the activities of Compassion Camp! We have four more weeks dedicated to exploring compassion. What a gift! 

The Compassionate One is calling us home to sit at the table together. Coming to this table of compassion and grace may be a huge relief, it may feel at first like the hardest thing you have ever wanted to do. It will be the most healing. At God’s table you will hear, “Welcome home! I love you. All I have is yours! You are worthy of the grace flowing from your cup of blessing. There is enough for everyone! Tell your story. I will tell your mine. Receive, receive, receive. Invite, invite, invite. Listen, listen, listen! Let us heal the world together.” Will you look this compliment in the eye and receive it?

May it be so. Amen.

©The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, 2020 and beyond. May only be reprinted with permission. 

All the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Jesus to listen to him. 2The Pharisees and legal experts were grumbling, saying, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." Overhearing this, Jesus began to tell stories. He told them how a shepherd risked his life to find the one sheep missing from the flock and how a woman threw a party because she had found a valuable lost coin. Then…..

11Jesus said, "A certain man had two sons. 12The younger son said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the inheritance.' Then the father divided his estate between them. 13Soon afterward, the younger son gathered everything together and took a trip to a land far away. There, he wasted his wealth through extravagant living”. 

14When the younger son had used up his resources, a severe food shortage arose in that country and he began to be in need. 15He hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16He longed to eat his fill from what the pigs ate, but no one gave him anything. 17When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have more than enough food, but I'm starving to death! 18I will get up and go to my father, and say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I no longer deserve to be called your son. Take me on as one of your hired hands." ' 20So he got up and went to his father.” 

"While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with compassion. His father ran to him, hugged him, and kissed him. 21Then his son said, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.' 22But the father said to his servants, 'Quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him! Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet! 23Fetch the fattened calf and slaughter it. We must celebrate with feasting 24because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life! He was lost and is found!'

25"Now his older son was in the field. Coming in from the field, he approached the house and heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the servants and asked what was going on. 27 The servant replied, 'Your brother has arrived, and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he received his son back safe and sound.' 28 Then the older son was furious and didn't want to enter in, but his father came out and begged him. 29 He answered his father, 'Look, I've served you all these years, and I never disobeyed your instruction. Yet you've never given me as much as a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours returned, after gobbling up your estate on prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.' 31 Then his father said, 'Son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found.'"

Genesis 18.1-15 & 21.1-7
Pentecost Season, Proper 6
Plymouth UCC, Fort Collins
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson

The stories of Genesis are rich and mythic. Ancient when they were first committed to writing around the 6th century BCE during the crisis of the Hebrew people’s exile to Babylon. How do you keep your sacred traditions when you are separated from your homeland? You begin to write them down. Your three pastors are embarking on a preaching series of the stories of Genesis for the next three to 4 weeks. Today we jump right into the midst of the oldest patriarch and matriarch stories, those of Abraham and Sarah. Years before our story, in chapter 12 of Genesis, Abram is called by the One God “to go to a land that I will show you. And there I will bless you and make of your descendants a great nation. We will be in covenant.” The couple has been journeying with this God leading them for many years with this promise of abundant fertility hanging over their heads. Yet the first thing we learn about Sarah in this long story is that she is barren. Just before our story, in chapter 17 of Genesis, God has given the promise again along with new names, Abraham and Sarah. They are really old now and when God reiterates that Sarah will have a son, and soon, Abraham literally falls on his face laughing. He has a son by a second wife, Hagar. Why, asks Abraham, won’t God consider this son, Ishmael? God says that son will be blessed, but the divine covenant will be with the son of Sarah. And with that final word from God, Abraham goes to complete his part of the covenant that God is requiring, the ritual of circumcising all the men and boys of his household. Then our story begins.

Genesis 18.1-15 1
The Holy ONE appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. 3 He said, "My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. 4 Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. 5 Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on — since you have come to your servant." So they said, "Do as you have said." 6 And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, "Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes." 7 Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. 8 Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

9 They said to him, "Where is your wife Sarah?" And he said, "There, in the tent." 10 Then one said, "I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son." And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?" 13 The Holy ONE said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, and say, 'Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?' 14 Is anything too wonderful for the GOD? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son." 15 But Sarah denied, saying, "I did not laugh"; for she was afraid. God said, "Oh yes, you did laugh."

Genesis 21.1-7 1
The Holy ONE dealt with Sarah as was said, and the Holy ONE did for Sarah as was promised. 2 Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. 3 Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him. 4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6 Now Sarah said, "God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me." 7 And she said, "Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age."

Years ago I gave a friend a card to cheer him up; if truth be told, to give him a bit of a kick in the pants. He was one of those folks who approach life with a furrowed brow and a bit of melancholy. Intense, deep feeling. The card said, “Life’s too mysterious. Don’t take it serious!” I don’t remember the picture on the card but with it I gave him one of those toys that is a figure put together on a string with moving limbs. You hold the string coming out of the top of the head and pull the string that is comes down between the legs and then the figure’s arms and legs move up and down as if its dancing. This figure was a vegetable man….he was completely clothed in all kinds of vegetables. Not a serious figure! A laughing one! I wanted my friend to laugh…to know that the deep seriousness of the world was such a deep mystery that in always pondering it with the deep intention of figuring it all out, we sometimes missed the deep joy that was also present in the mystery.

Life’s too mysterious! Don’t take it serious! Can we take this advice in considering the mysterious story we just heard from the book of Genesis, the Book of Beginnings? The mysteries of our own lives, of the world we live in now?

The three visitors in our story are, at first, a mystery. Appearing out of the shimmering desert heat to bring a mysterious message. They remind us of the invocation of the author of the book of Hebrews in the New Testament. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Was the writer of Hebrews invoking this story from Genesis? Perhaps. The ancient tradition of Middle Eastern culture is to always show extravagant hospitality in the desert. There it can be a matter of life and death. Does Abraham know upon first glance that these visitors are messengers from the Almighty? That they are actually the Almighty?

We soon learn that their visit is really for the woman behind the tent flap, the wife, Sarah. Whom we never see. We only hear her laugh and her voice. This is Sarah’s first personal encounter with the God her husband has been following all these years. Sarah has been the wife along for the ride. In earlier stories, she is portrayed not only as barren, but also as beautiful. We discover she is very canny. More than once she gets her husband out of a jam, including the times she is willing to be a sexual pawn with a more powerful tribal leader to protect her husband and her family.

The beautiful, but barren, Sarah also takes action after years of God’s promise to make of Abraham’s heirs a great nation. She gives Abraham her maid, Hagar, as a second-tier wife, in keeping with the cultural custom of the time. Hagar gives him a son and heir. Ishmael is born. But you heard how God dealt with that. Ishmael is not the son of promise.

Now God is dealing directly with Sarah. After all these many, many years of infertility she laughs in the face of seemingly miraculous news! If she has always lived under the stigma of being barren, why isn’t she laughing for Joy! Miraculous news! But is it wanted news? I don’t hear joy – yet – in Sarah’s laughter. I hear scoffing – “ A son? Yeah right!” I hear an incredulous laugh – “Oh, now you’re coming through with the promised son after I have suffered all these years!” I hear a laugh that hides rage and tears – “I have come to terms with my barren state! I put that grief behind me. I provided Abraham a son with the Hagar. Do I get any respect here? I should risk having a child in my advanced years….I should risk my life and the child’s? I should risk disappointment again if the pregnancy fails? Do I have a say in anything? Am I just a pawn in this relationship of my husband to his god? A tool used when convenient?” “This really is preposterous!” Sarah laughs and I imagine tears of anger and frustration and grief come down her face.

Laughing into the seriousness of mystery, into the face of God, is not a lark. It is a way to deal when life deals us unexpected hands in its game. Currently the mystery of two pandemics are staring us in the face – Covid-19 and Covid 1619 as one of our African-American UCC clergy colleagues named the long pandemic of racism in America. 1619 being the year that African slaves were first brought to the Jamestown colony in what is now Virginia. We are scrambling to face the mystery of both these pandemics. Mysteries that overwhelm our hearts, our minds and our ability to know what right actions to take. And laughter is probably not the first thing that may come to us as we look their crises simultaneously in the face – unless we laugh with Sarah, in incredulous, scoffing grief and angry frustration. Like Sarah we cannot change what is happening. It feels so tragically surreal.

We do not know, understand, why we are suddenly and mysteriously facing these two crises in our world. Both are born of deep pain and the loss of sacred lives. They are serious. With a pregnancy in old age foretold by a personal announcement from this mysterious God, Sarah had much to think about. It seems she chose to listen to herself, to this God, as the new life stirred within her amidst all the fears and physical discomfort of pregnancy. Would the baby really be born alive and well? It takes faith to be pregnant.

Like Sarah we are invited to “listen” through the pregnant pain of these two pandemics: to the hurt of those who are still dying from Covid-19, the hurt of their families, for those out of work, for businesses closing. We listen to the hurt caused by the disproportionate number of our brothers and sisters of color who have died in this pandemic. We listen to the ache in our bones for the pandemic of deaths caused by racial violence also staring us in the face. This has been a much longer season of pandemic that we have tried to ignore, or smooth over, without going to the root causes of greed and abuse of power. It’s time to defeat this racial pandemic, to heal its deep wounds. And there are actions to take.

But first we listen. To the history of centuries of our brothers’ and sisters’ pain. We listen to follow their lead in the birth of a new life of racial equality and economic balance that will bring justice for all. Just as a woman listens to her pregnant body’s promptings in labor and delivery, to the promptings of the new life within her. We listen and we pray without ceasing as we listen. Every pregnant woman knows the depth of deeply longing prayer for the new life within. And we trust in faith the Holy One’s words…”Is anything too wonderful for God?” Is anything too wonderful for God?

This is the serious mystery we are invited to co-create with, to laugh into, to wrestle and rejoice with…Life is too mysterious not to take serious in its pain and its joy. Too mysterious not to listen to before we jump to fix its pain. Sarah did not laugh with great joy till she held the newborn Yitsak, Isaac, in her arms. His name means “he who laughs.” She gave thanks and rejoiced, “Who knew I would nurse a child in my old age?” Is anything too wonderful for God? May we listen in the struggle of this mysterious pandemic time, may we find the moments of joy in the pain, may we take God’s promise seriously in the mystery of faith. Amen.

©The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, 2020 and beyond. Please do not reprint with out permission.