This week, I got to spend lots of time with young people at Vacation Bible School. There, we were learning about how to be superheroes. We were helping out with a Hero Hotline, where superheroes would call in because they were facing big problems. Then we would spend our morning learning about different Bible stories that helped these heroes in their tough situations. And we had lots of fun making crafts, singing songs, dancing, and playing games.
This weekend, I got to spend lots of time with not-as-young people at the Annual Rocky Mountain Conference Meeting. I got to meet tons of UCC people from all over Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. There, we did lots of work talking about some problems we’re facing in the world and as a Church. And we also had lots of fun singing songs, participating in worship, and making good connections. The size of the harvest is bigger than you can imagine, but there are few workers. Therefore, plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out workers for his harvest. I saw so many of God’s workers this last week. I see so many of God’s workers right now! Throughout this morning, I will say: Where are the workers? And I want you all to say: We’re right here! Got it? Let’s practice. Where are the workers? (We’re right here!) Where are the workers? (We’re right here!) Wow, listen to that. So what could Jesus possibly mean when he says there aren’t enough workers for the harvest? I want to explore together what I think Jesus might be getting at here. Where are the workers? (We’re right here!) I want to start by pointing out that in this passage, we first see Jesus teaching and healing. By the end of this passage, we see the disciples doing the same things Jesus did. So I think maybe the “workers” are people who are committed to doing the stuff Jesus did - or the stuff Jesus wanted. Where are the workers? (We’re right here!) So why does Jesus say that the workers are few? I think it’s because there are not always enough of us who are REALLY digging into doing the work. We are tired. We are worn out. Maybe we don’t know where to start. Maybe we feel like our work isn’t actually working. Maybe we don’t know how to be helpful or how to change things for the better because it’s hard to see a world that can get better. It’s hard to see how to heal our divides. It’s hard to know the right answers. So what do we need? In order to do good work, what do we need? I think we need to know three things: REST - Jesus took naps, even and especially when everything around him was a little bonkers, PLAY - Jesus spent a lot of time enjoying food and fellowship with lots of people, including his closest friends, and LIBERATION. Okay, that one’s a big word. Can you say liberation? (liberation) Liberation theology is focused on giving freedom and power to ALL people, especially our most vulnerable people. Liberation theologians are asking this question: How do I do the work of salvation and liberation in the present, in the now? Because the kingdom of God is here & now. Rest. Play. Liberation. You’ve all been given a piece of construction paper. I want you to draw yourself engaging in this work. Draw yourself resting or playing or liberating - whatever you feel that might mean for you. Feel free to draw while you listen. You - person of God - are made to do God’s work. We - people of God - do that work all together. So I want you to draw yourself resting or playing or liberating, and we will put all these pictures together to show off what we create in our community. Where are the workers? (We’re right here!) In the book of James, it is written that pure religion cares for orphans and widows. God takes care of those with the least amount of power in society!! And the work of God - the work of Jesus - requires us to do that too. I believe that children and youth are a vulnerable population - perhaps one of the more vulnerable populations here at Plymouth. This is why I am passionate about faith formation. This is why I am passionate about worship with kids and youth. And this is why I am passionate about CROSS-GENERATIONAL worship experiences. CROSS-GENERATIONAL is a little different from our usual buzzwords like intergenerational or multi-generational. We can have different generations in the same room - and we do that every Sunday - and call ourselves “intergenerational.” But are we reaching ACROSS the generations? Friends over 60, do you have friends who are 6? Or friends who are 16? Do you know their names? Research tells us that students who grow up with ten adults in church who know their name are exponentially more likely to stay in church when they become adults themselves. Where are the workers? (We’re right here!) I also like using “cross-generational” because it throws in a cute little reminder of Jesus’ work - specifically the work of the cross. This last quarter, I read a book for school called Spirit and Capital in an Age of Inequality, and in that book, I found this gem: “Jesus’ invitation to take up the cross and follow him involves the constitution of a community where leaders are cultivated, power is distributed and new forms of kinship disrupt the dominant political economy.” Church, what if we made cross-generational friendships, distributed power across our age gaps, and cultivated leadership from our youngest friends? I think we would learn how to play. I think we would remember how important it is to take naps and get all the rest we need. I think liberating my young friends in our church community would also liberate us not-as-young friends. Where are the workers? (We’re right here!) You received without having to pay. Therefore, give without demanding payment. What God gives us - we should give just as extravagantly. So here is my next question: Where is God sending the workers? Where is God sending us? I would love for us to get really creative - to use our imaginations - and to dream about our collective vocation and our communal orientation. Where is God sending Plymouth? Where are we being invited to create spaces for rest, play, and liberation? Where are we called to work? Maybe you are feeling called to volunteer with Christian Formation - with youth group or with Godly Play. Maybe you want to sing in the choir. Maybe you would be interested in getting a fellowship group started that’s focused on community activism. Or maybe you want to help out with our booth at Fort Collins Pride. I would love to see Plymouth inviting kids and youth onto different boards or ministry teams - letting their voices and perspectives help to lead the future of our church. I would love to see cross-generational relationships and engagement that changes the way we show up for each other and that reminds us how to PLAY together. I would love to see Plymouth be a place of respite and healing for all kinds of people - and right now I think especially of black and indigenous people of color who have been harmed by white supremacy, and I think of LGBTQIA+ people who have experienced anything but love from the Church. I would love to see us, living out of wholeness and well-rested spirits, bringing healing and wholeness to the world around us. Amen.
“Not to a Congregation of the Sinless”
Matthew 9.9-13 The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado June 11, 2023 Who does Jesus eat with, and why? An observant first-century Jew should be eating only at a kosher table with people who are socially acceptable and who are not ritually impure. And yet we know who Jesus hung out with. It wasn’t the well-to-do or the religious establishment, and it certainly wasn’t the Roman imperial occupiers of the Jewish homeland. The gospel writer tells us that Jesus is under fire for sharing the table with sinners and tax collectors. It’s important to know that tax collectors were not simply IRS agents who were doing the work of the federal government in getting everyone to pay their fair share of the tax burden. Instead, tax collectors in this case were Jews who made their money by collaborating with the Roman occupiers. That isn’t a good start, but it gets better: they essentially extorted money from people on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder, handing over a portion of the money they collected and keeping some of it for themselves. They were despised by most of those under Roman occupation. The other category is “sinners.” Temple Judaism in the first century was centered around purity codes that had paths of practice to cleanse one of sin and become ritually clean, and you can read about them in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. But don’t all of us commit sin? Don’t we miss the mark as we try to live good and worthy lives? Things that push our relationship with God out of kilter? Of course we do! In our membership covenant response we say, “We warmly welcome you not to a congregation of the sinless, but to a living community of faith that seeks together to find new ways of being in relationship with God and enacting God’s intention for the wholeness of humankind.” When was the last time you sat down and really considered how you yourself and we together as a church were finding “new ways of being in relationship with God and enacting God’s intention for the wholeness of humankind?” Later in this sermon, I’m going to pose three questions about that, along with an invitation to do some wrestling. I have a hunch that many of us think that we are pretty set with the second phase of our mission statement that calls us to inviting, transforming, and sending. Do you think you are done with your own transformation as a follower of Jesus? Have any of us attained full enlightenment? We don’t talk very much about our own spiritual transformation at Plymouth, and I think perhaps we need to work a bit more on our growth and (to use a very old-fashioned word) discipleship. A disciple is nothing more than a student following a master, and we follow Jesus. If we don’t work together on our spiritual lives, where else is that going to happen? St. John Chrysostom, a bishop of the fourth century said, “The church is a hospital, not a courtroom, for souls. She does not condemn on behalf of sins, but grants remission of sins.” Think about that hospital metaphor in light of what Jesus said: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” I’m going to make a bold assumption in saying that there is no one here who is entirely well or whole. We all need healing and growth. We all need a teacher and a physician. And we need a community to help us along the way. As I was writing this week, I became curious about what other Christians might see as marks of discipleship or learning. If you want to see a diversity of opinion, try googling “key marks of discipleship” and see what it yields. It wasn’t terribly useful for our purposes, since they all came from organizations whose theology we would be unlikely to support. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t have ideas about ways that we can grow in our relationship with God. And as those who try to follow Christ, the best source seems to be Jesus himself. In the text this morning, Jesus quotes the prophet Hosea, instructing his disciples to “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire compassion, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” The great Jesus scholar Marcus Borg, Plymouth’s first Visiting Scholar, said that Jesus deliberately replaced the centrality of purity as a key aspect of religious practice with compassion, and I think this is a clear example of that. God doesn’t need burnt offerings of doves or sheep; God’s deepest desire for us is to act compassionately toward one another. Living with compassion is harder than it sounds. It implies that we need to get out of our individualistic and even familial mindset and be open to share the suffering of others. Compassion is costly…it isn’t free, and it isn’t easy. We have to be willing to sacrifice some part of our well-being in order to help others. And that is countercultural in our society. Many of Jesus’ clearest (and hardest) teachings are enumerated in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel, so isn’t that a logical place to look for clues about what we need to learn as disciples? The Beatitudes hold up as blessed those who are poor in spirit, who mourn, the meek, those who hunger for justice, who show compassion, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those persecuted for the sake of justice, and those who are rejected on account of following Jesus. As disciples, some of us here today fall into one or more of those categories. I know some of you who are mourning, others who are meek, and some who hunger for justice. So, what about the rest of us? If a particular beatitude doesn’t apply to us, perhaps we are meant to be a support and a blessing to those Jesus lists. We can support the peacemakers, lift up the poor in spirit, and show compassion. When the crowd asks Jesus how they should pray, he tells them not to wail aloud like the hypocrites who pray to be seen by others, instead he offers them the prayer we offer each Sunday, the Lord’s Prayer. Have you even noticed that in the Lord’s Prayer we pray twice for the inbreaking of the realm of God? And that it speaks about God’s abundance and debt forgiveness? Perhaps the first question we should ask ourselves as disciples, learners is Who am I in relation to God? Jesus keeps on going in his sermon, encouraging his followers (us) to be even more concerned for justice and righteousness than others, to let go of anger, to avoid retaliation by turning the other cheek, to go the second mile, and to give to anyone who begs from you. He tells us not just to love the folks who already love you, but to love even our enemies. A second question for us as learners seems to emerge: Who am I in relation to others? Think not just about your own family, but about your church, community, nation, and world. Our society is amazingly self-absorbed, which is fueled by consumer advertising. Consider the neighbors that surround you, near and far, and whether those relationships are expanding or contracting. You may not realize it, but Jesus has a lot to say to us about abundance and wealth and how we use what is entrusted to us. He encourages us to be generous in our giving, but not to be showy about it. He tells us not to worry so much about our possessions or what we will eat or drink or wear. God provides in abundance and Jesus says, “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Jesus is clear that people like us cannot serve two masters: God and wealth. And he shares some uncommon wisdom with us, telling us not to store up treasures on earth. He tells us that where our treasure is, it is there that our hearts will be. So, a third question arises for us as we move toward transforming our lives: Who am I in relation to abundance and wealth? Jesus says more about money than he does about love. Money is an important tool entrusted to us to help extend the realm or kingdom of God. How much time do you spend serving wealth? So, those three questions are: • Who am I in relation to God? • Who am I in relation to others? • Who am I in relation to abundance and wealth? I think each one of us has a lot to learn on this lifelong journey of transformation. Part of what the church offers that no other institution can is that we get to wrestle with the tough stuff together. We are on the journey together. None of us gets it all right, but I think God appreciates our wrestling. May the path of discipleship be a blessing for you! Amen. © 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses. Good morning. My name is John Karbula and my wife Julie and I have been members of Plymouth since 1996. We have both served on a variety of committees and raised both our daughters in the Plymouth community. I want to thank Hal and Marta for offering me this opportunity and say very clearly as well that I am grateful I don’t have to do this a couple times a month! Let us be in the spirit of prayer and the spirit of the moment. Reflecting upon the reading today from Genesis, I found myself thinking of seeds. I am an avid gardener, and as such also an avid composter. I have been blessed to take care of my gardens in my current home since 1992. In that time I have composted many hundreds of cubic yards of kitchen and garden material, and each and every spring I put it right back into the very earth from whence it came. I love dirt. A native Iowan, I deeply remember the fragrance of wet earth after a spring rain. It seemed to me very deep and mysterious, the smell of life itself. I still love that smell. As I work in my gardens, I often take the dirt into my hands and breathe deeply, the ancient mysteries of the earth revealing themselves. Perhaps it is the very breath of God that one smells when holding a fertile handful of soil. Mysterious indeed. And then come the seeds. After dressing the soil with aged compost, I work the earth lightly to form the furrows into which I gently scatter the small, dried remnants of last years harvest. In the old days, for most of human history, we carefully selected the best and strongest plants and stored the seeds in a cool dry place. Now of course, I buy my seeds at the local nursery – far less labor intensive! Still, what a thrill it is to open a packet of carrot or pea seeds: each a tiny universe, containing all the genetic material of its living history. Bean seeds are quite large, carrot seeds tiny. But each and every one is a whole world, a living bridge between gathering in the fall to planting in the spring. And then the miracle happens. These tiny dried shells of plant material, sown with love and care into my beautiful, living soil, covered gently, watered carefully, then transform. It is no less a transformation to me than the very creation itself, a living plant pushing up shoots to the light, sending down roots into the bacteria and mycelium swimming in the soil. The roots feed the shoots, the sun and rain form the plant. All summer long we have the joy of fresh produce on the table. It is a moment of intense gratitude when you go out on a warm July day, and gather the beans or the squash or the tomatoes, warm with the sun, gleaming and sleek, rinse them, slice them and present them for our sustenance and pleasure. I come from a long line of gardeners. Just one generation before me, my grandparents, aunts and uncles were survival gardeners: they gardened to live through the winter. Long after it was a necessity my Grandmother Josephine and her sister, my great-Aunt Katie, would put of 60 or 70 quarts of tomatoes! The family table in the summer in the house I grew up in in Iowa would groan with fresh produce on those warm summer evenings. Tomatoes, carrots, steaming bowls of green beans, summer squash, cucumbers, sleek and cool, sweet corn hot and fresh, slathered in butter and salt! Ah, such memories! Okay, enough, I’m getting hungry! All from seeds. All from a deeply mysterious process of growth and death, of light and rain, of soil and minerals, the constant interaction between the plant and its surroundings. The joy of the pollinators as they do their part. And in the fall, by the way, the miracle of honey in my beehive! Like many of us at Plymouth, I worship in many ways. I find the sacred in my long morning walks, hiking in the mountains, camping, fishing, hunting. Spending time with the friends and family I love. I find the sacred in our church community, in worship, in community activism, in working toward social justice. And, for me, in my garden. For 31 years, I have sweated and toiled and loved my little patch of God’s good earth and my goodness, does it love me back. I love it all. Mowing the lawn, the smell of fresh mown grass like a prayer. Trimming my orchard in February, fertilizing it in May, then the miracle of peaches, apples and pears on the table in late summer and early fall. Freezing applesauce, opening up a container in January, another prayer. Smelling the soil, the plants, the trees on a late summer evening. The riot of flowers from the cutting garden bringing beauty, fragrance and peace to the house. All of it from seeds. Such a humble beginning to bring such deep joy, such satisfying flavors, feeding my body and the bodies of friends and family with the fruits of my labor. I would like to close today with a Mary Oliver poem. She is a favorite of mine and captures the mysteries and the beauty of nature in much of her prolific body of work. Here she is with What I Have Learned so Far: Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I not sit, every morning of my life... [read poem here] My fellow members of Plymouth, now joined together but soon to go our separate ways, may the seeds of these humble reflections perhaps plant in your spirit a quiet moment of reflection to contemplate the many seeds in your life. May your harvest be bountiful. May your seeds fall upon fertile soil and may they serve to sustain you when you need them! Amen.
“Living, Moving, Being”
Acts of the Apostles 17.22-31 The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado 14 May 2023 I don’t know if you read the New York Times, but on Wednesday morning there was a fascinating article by Jennifer Grose called, “Christianity Has a Branding Problem.” I know what she means. When you hear “Christian” in the news, it probably isn’t in a positive context. Try to think of a positive story you’ve read or seen in the news in the past month. We have a really large part of three generations who don’t affiliate at all with any religious tradition, even though many of them claim to believe in God. We’ll come back to 21st century America in a few moments, but let’s transport ourselves back to the first century and the apostle Paul, who is a Greek-speaking Jew from Tarsus in what is now Turkey. He has experienced a radical conversion from someone who persecuted Christians to becoming the nascent movement’s most effective spokesperson. That is a lot of what the Acts of the Apostles is about: Paul as the apostle, convincing Gentiles that this new brand of Judaism is fundamentally true and that they are welcome to join, whether they are Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. Paul found something in this faith so amazing, so delightful, so deep that he changed everything about his life and work in response. And it ultimately cost him his life at the hands of Empire. So, he finds himself speaking with poets and philosophers in Athens. Just before today’s text opens, they are scoffing at Paul calling him literally a seed-picker, which the NRSV translates as “amateur.” Yet they become curious, because there are some new twists on Judaism that are intriguing to them, so they bring him up to the hill of Mars, the Areopagus, so that he can explain further. He begins by saying, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’” An altar, in this context and in that of many religions is the place where sacrifice is made…sometimes animal, sometimes grain, sometimes people. (That is why we call this object a “communion table,” and not an altar. In the Catholic mass, a priest reenacts Jesus’ death as the “once and forever sacrifice,” and that isn’t our theology in the UCC, which is a story for another day.) But even when we worship, we bring our offerings, our financial sacrifices, forward and leave them on something that functions a bit like an altar. At every service, we offer a prayer of dedication to these offerings (sometimes combined with a prayer of thanksgiving for the sacrament of communion). And at our 11:00 service, we even sing the collected offerings forward. From a religious studies point of view, it’s a central function in our worship. So, back to Paul and the altar to an unknown God. Paul infers that he knows the identity of this God, and it is the one true deity “in whom we live and move and have our being.” He has presented a case to the Greeks using philosophical terms that might have ben seen as a bit abstract to Jews in the homeland. Think of the contrast between the Yahweh of the patriarchs, the God who speaks with Moses from the burning bush, who shows the people a new land that they will inherit, who is later thought to reside in the Temple in Jerusalem. That is a visceral, active, sometimes vindictive, anthropomorphic, tribal God. True, no one has ever seen God (except when Moses catches a glimpse), but in other ways he isn’t entirely dissimilar from Zeus. In fact, a lot of European Renaissance images of Yahweh bear a startling resemblance to Zeus, an old man with a long, white beard. Is that a God you believe in? One of the issues for some people today who claim not to believe in God is that they have outdated or stereotypical attitudes about the God we worship. Do you see the parallel between Paul explaining God as the “ground of all being” to the Athenians and the branding challenge we Christians have today? We need to explain what being a Christian can mean in our lives and in the context of our society. One of the best questions to ask folks who tell you that they don’t believe in God is that ask them about the God they don’t believe in. Chances are good that YOU don’t believe in that God either. I’m going to turn the tables on you today and ask you to help me finishing this sermon. Think for a moment about the aspects and attributes of the God that some people may assume. Let’s write down some of the things about the God they don’t believe in. The God they don’t believe in is condemning, male, violent, controls everything, homophobic, racist, out of date, mythical, frightening, omnipotent, unjust, vindictive, ______ Now, I have a question for you that might be more challenging to answer: Tell me some of the qualities of the God you DO believe in: Unconditionally loving; has no gender or body; everywhere; deep inside each of us; loves queer and straight folks; loves Republicans, Democrats Socialists, and independents, invites us into deeper knowing and to have deeper spiritual lives, desires justice, encourages us to be part of the struggle for peace and justice, _____ So, let’s assume that some of these folks who have no religious background or affiliation might believe in the same kind of God we do…a positive power in the universe that undergirds everything. In other words, is the power “in whom we live and move and have our being.” We still run up against the problem of the church’s branding problem. I understand this personally. As a teen, when I saw all of the televangelist stuff on TV, I found it utterly repugnant. And the prosperity gospel being preached by some today and even Joel Osteen’s hairdo…if that is what the church is about, deal me out of this hand! So, tell me about the church you don’t want to belong to, because it’s hypocritical, homophobic, conservative, anti-woman, anti-intellectual, patriarchal, sexist, heterosexist, exclusive, filled with child-molesting clergy, only for old people, takes advantage of vulnerable people, stuck in the 19th century, anti-science, anti-Darwin, oppressive to women, queer folk, and their latest target: transgender people, pro-Trump and pro-gun, violent, tool of capitalism and imperialism. Well, I guess that the church does have a branding problem. So, now tell me about the church that you would want to belong to, that you think the God you actually believe in is calling us to create: progressive, Open and Affirming, intellectually stimulating and rigorous, intergenerational community, works in wider community, non-sexist, immigrant-welcoming, justice oriented, science-appreciating, anti-imperial, builds bridges rather than walls, non-stratified, racially diverse, welcoming and friendly, not too stuffy, not to emotional, deeply rooted in tradition but not afraid to try new things. I wonder if we have a lot of younger folks who have a yearning to find a place to explore their spiritual journeys and, perhaps, they have come across and experience that tells them that there is more to life than learning, earning, and dying. Perhaps when they look at the church in this country, all they see is televangelists, White Evangelicals, prosperity gospelers, and shut-down church buildings. Maybe some of them don’t like the God that others believe in and maybe some of them have no idea a church like this one exists, because we have a branding problem. I wonder if some of them have come across the 21st century version of an altar to an unknown god in their search for meaning. And if there isn’t someone like Paul to help them understand, they are likely to walk right on by. There are plenty of folks out there that you know at work, in hiking groups, in book groups, in school, at your senior residence, who have given up on the God we don’t believe in and the church that you and I would avoid like the plague. They don’t know we are here. They are waiting for you to invite them into a community that has gifts to offer. A sense of belonging. Meaning-making. Intergenerational community. Unity in the struggle for justice. A radical welcome for all. Grounded in God’s grace. Who do you know that might be searching? Who do you know that needs the gift of Plymouth? When you see them at the altar to an unknown god, may you have the love and the courage to invite them to share in the treasure we’ve found. May it be so. Amen. © 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.
“Open Your Eyes”
Luke 24.13–35 The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC, Fort Collins, Colorado 30 April 2023 For as long as I can remember, this has been my favorite post-resurrection story. It presents the unfolding of faith as a journey of seeing the holy in our midst. I love the way Jesus walks alongside the two people without disclosing his true identity…just biding his time, interpreting scripture, continuing along the road to the village where the two people were heading. And then Jesus keeps on walking, but the two travelers call him back and ask him to stay with them since the day was reaching its end. The road at night could be a dangerous place. This is a key moment when the story turns: a moment of profound hospitality. What if the two travelers had not insisted that Jesus join them for the night? They might never have realized who he was or that he had been raised from death. In this country, we don’t have the same depth of understanding when it comes to hospitality that other cultures do, including the middle eastern culture in which Jesus lived. It wasn’t just a matter of being friendly or kind, but rather hospitality could have been a matter of survival. We just don’t get it – that kind of hospitality. Years ago, when I was in South Korea as part of a UCC delegation, people went out of their way to ensure that we were comfortable and well-fed, offering me their beds, inviting me to a feast in a traditional home, and tuning in to where I was as a guest. For most Americans, hospitality is an afterthought, which is a shame. It strikes me as odd that Jesus, the guest at the table, takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them. Clearly, he switched roles and has become the host at the table. And his actions are recounted by Marta and me every time we celebrate communion: we take bread, bless it, break it, and give it. And it is in that moment of profound hospitality, in the breaking of the bread, that their eyes are opened and Jesus is made known to them. They have share a long, dusty journey together, and sharing the meal is the catalyst that enables them to experience the risen Christ. Besides hospitality, eating is an important social phenomenon as well. In strictly hierarchical societies, people of different social classes don’t mix. You see it on Downton Abbey when those who eat upstairs would never eat with those downstairs. But think about where Jesus had been eating: defying the norms of purity by eating with sinners and tax collectors. This table — Christ’s table — is a representation of how the kingdom of God is meant to be for us: a table where there is no distinction because of class, gender, race, orientation, wealth, education, or ethnicity. It is a representation of God’s anti-imperial realm, where all of God’s children are welcome and no one is turned away. The Emmaus story, the event at which Christ is made known to those who offer hospitality to a stranger, is a seminal event. Though we are unlikely to peer into an empty tomb or push our fingers into Christ’s wounded hands, we encounter the risen Christ in enacting profound hospitality. We encounter the risen Christ in the breaking of bread. We encounter the risen Christ in overturning the broken norms and assumptions of our consumer-driven, economics-obsessed culture. I had a real epiphany coming out of the pandemic, a period of two-plus years when we didn’t eat together as a congregation. No dinner church. No First Name Club luncheons. No Simple Soup Suppers to bookend Lent. No celebration meals, even when we worshiped in the park. No potlucks. I have always seen potlucks as a sort of Prairie Home Companion-esque artifact of a time gone by, but the pandemic gave me new insight into how important it is that we share meals together. It became clear to me last fall when Jane Anne and I were in the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome and we saw a fresco from the second century…the 100s AD…so it’s very early. Men and women are eating together at table, sharing a meal. This wasn’t a celebration of communion, but rather a sort of community potluck. But it isn’t just a meal…it’s what happens when people gather around a table to share the abundance that has been entrusted to them. It is an occasion for building koinonia or spiritual community. No one is ever turned away from a potluck. And there is always a bit of a loaves-and-fishes effect, because there always seems to be enough to feed everyone…even when everyone brings dessert. A potluck often has an element of mixing people at table who might otherwise not get to know each other. Older adults sitting with teenagers, well-to-do folks and those who may not have a cent in the bank, Gay, Straight, Bi, Trans, Lesbian folks all eating together. A meal can be a picture of what the Kingdom of God looks like in action. Many of you will remember one of our visiting scholars, John Dominic Crossan. Many years ago, I was reading his provocative book Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, and there was a wonderfully pithy sentence about this morning’s scripture in it that I have long remembered: “Emmaus never happened; Emmaus always happens.” In other words, this story may never have occurred in the way that Luke describes. And for some of us, that invalidates the larger truth of the story, which is tragic. Does there literally have to be a village called Emmaus for the story to be true? Do there need to be two disciples, one named Cleopas, for the story to be true? Does Jesus need to walk with them, explain scripture to them, and eat with them for the story to be true. No. What makes the story true is that we ourselves can experience it. We encounter the risen Christ when we act compassionately, when we extend an extravagant welcome, when we break down barriers between people, when we remember the presence of Christ living within us and among us when we come to Christ’s table for communion. How can you and I make Emmaus happen here at Plymouth in our worship, in our fellowship, and in our welcome? “Emmaus never happened; Emmaus always happens.” One of the other “Aha!” moments I had after coming back to church after the pandemic is that it is easier for us to see the face of Christ in each other when we are, in fact, face-to-face. It’s great that we have a livestream and Zoom meetings, but there is something precious about seeing each other in person. Wishing one another the peace of Christ in person. Receiving communion elements in person. Meeting new people in person. Discussing and debating in person. Hugging in person. I have seen the image of Christ in Council meetings at Plymouth. When we are doing our very best to discern together a path forward for our congregation and how we live as an outpost of the Kingdom of God in this place. It isn’t easy, and it doesn’t always happen, but there is an element of grace and real presence that can happen when we gather intentionally as Christian community. Sometimes when I’m leading a pilgrimage or a retreat, I’ll ask people at the end of the day if they had any God sightings: times when the love or presence of God became clear to them. And oftentimes when people are asked to pay attention, we notice things that otherwise might elude us. It’s important that we keep our eyes open to see when we might catch a glimpse of the Christlight in our midst. It probably won’t look like Jesus looked, and that may be why the travelers on the Emmaus Road didn’t recognize Jesus. I hope that for each of us, we have those moments when we have an encounter with the risen Christ, who continues to be with us. He is with us in the struggle for justice and peace, with us as we wrestle with scripture, with us in moments of deep hospitality, and with us in the breaking of the bread. May we open our eyes and our hearts to one another and to God so that we might see the reflection of Christ in one another. Amen. © 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint. |
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