I don’t know what your week was like but mine was hard.
There were several mornings when I just wanted to stay in bed and pull the covers up over my head because that felt safe and comfortable. I always thought I had a pretty high tolerance for discomfort, but I met my limit this week.
On Tuesday morning, while eating breakfast, two jets flew over the house, which does happen now and then, but not often. And my mind took me back to when we lived in SC on the flight path for the Marine air base. Then, when the jets flew over, we said, “That’s the sound of freedom.” But Tuesday, I thought, “No, it’s not. Is this going to be one of those moments that I will remember for the rest of my life – like Sept 11, 2001, or the day President Ronald Reagan was shot?”
In that moment, I realized just how much fear I was carrying but not acknowledging. I say that because it helps me relate to the disciples in the locked room. What they knew was that Jesus had been killed. Mary Magdalene told them that he was alive and would meet them, but they didn’t really trust her word – I mean, she’s only a woman. I’ve met several of those guys!
So here they gather, trying to take comfort in being together, because it beats being alone, but they are scared and don’t know what to do. And when they needed it most, Jesus showed up.
Come now, Lord Jesus, come and save us again! And then again, no, please don’t – As if my opinion would change your plans. I say that only because there is a group within the Christian Nationalist movement who want just that. There is a group that believes the Book of Revelation is still to come true and thinks that the Anti-Christ will come from the Middle East and a war with them will bring about Armageddon and end the world. Please, Lord, please do not let them be right!
So Jesus showed up and gave them a few minutes of peace, a few minutes of encouragement, a few minutes of hope by reminding them that “Death has lost its sting.” And he breathed on them with the breath of life, the breath of creation’s birth, to bring them out of the darkness and into the light.
And then he said to them, “As God has sent me, so I send you.” They don’t get to stay in the locked room. I don’t get to stay in bed with the covers pulled up over my head. It’s time to move on! There’s work to be done!
And that’s where part of the rub is. We want safety and comfort, but that isn’t what Jesus did or where he went. He went to the uncomfortable places and offered healing. We are also called to the places that make us uncomfortable to offer healing and wholeness by naming those who feel left out, forgotten, or unworthy, that they are loved by God, and then show them with our words and actions. We are the hands and feet of Jesus for our time in history.
AND Jesus told them something else, “If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven.If you retain anyone’s sins, they are retained.” – John 20:23
This is a major responsibility, and I will add that if you do not forgive, you will be hurting yourself far more than them. Carrying the anger and resentment will be a disease in your body and take its toll. Because as I am learning in the class I’m taking, The body keeps the score. It knows and holds all the unresolved pain, anger and hurt and it is stored within our bodies until we work it out.
Here I think the wisdom of the great Howard Thurman is worth telling:
“The “growing edge” of a society is the place where new life is possible because people refuse to accept what diminishes human dignity. That edge is not held by those in power alone. It is held by communities, by individuals, by those who choose to remain grounded when the systems around them begin to lose their balance.” -Thurman, Howard. Jesus and the Disinherited. Boston: Beacon Press, 1949, p. 11.
And how do we care for ourselves so we can do the work Jesus calls us to do?
We come together, and we dance! Moving our bodies allows our bodies to process the emotions, the pain, anger, and hurt that we are holding. It gives us the endorphins we need to say, “Yes!” to Jesus and climb out of bed ready to work even in uncomfortable places.
Dancing together is not as easy as it sounds. It means watching each other. It is a give and take, or we will just end up “stepping on each other’s toes” and not getting where we need to be.
Our scripture for today begins with some confusion.
Unlike the other gospels, here Mary Magdalene goes to Jesus’ tomb alone, and it doesn’t tell us why. In the other gospels, the women go to place spices on his body, but according to John’s account, that was done by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea on the night he died. That detail alone is interesting as that was considered “women’s work.”
But when Mary finds the stone moved, she gets Peter and the unnamed Beloved Disciple, who also seem confused by what they saw, and go home. But Mary lingers, and because she does, she has a holy conversation with angels and then with Jesus so that she can proclaim, “I have seen the Lord.”
Her testimony and the testimony of many others who also see him alive again create the narrative that he was resurrected – Not resuscitated – nor reincarnated – not regenerated or renewed. Now, whether you believe in the resurrection or not, what I want you to notice in this story and in all of creation is that when something dies, something also comes to life. The seed falls from the plant and presumably dies, but within the ground it sprouts life anew.
In this cycle, which God created, life comes out of death and LOVE WINS!
And what did Christ Jesus do after his resurrection? He forgave and affirmed those who had denied and deserted him with no retribution – no “hell to pay.” Despite how some in our current culture depict Jesus, he was not a person who condoned violence. Even when Peter struck a guard with his sword during his arrest, Jesus told him to put away his sword and healed the man. Our God is one who promotes life with compassion.
And in the next Chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus will look at Peter and trust him again with the direction to “Feed my lambs – Tend my sheep – Feed my sheep” – John 21:15-17.
My friends, this is about love and grace! I have heard it said that Christianity is about a free pass to heaven, but I say to you, Christianity is about how we are to live here and now! It is about being loving, compassionate people who seek wholeness for those around us and ourselves.
I have also heard it said that Jesus will bless the unmerciful killing of others, but I say to you, Jesus used his life to stop anyone from feeling less than, unworthy, or unwanted. He was about building community, not dominating or destroying it!
So, I invite you to have your own Holy Conversation with Jesus. Using what is called “faith imagination,” put yourself in the garden watching Mary from a distance. See the disciples run into the tomb and leave confused. Watch the conversation between Mary and Jesus. Then just stay there. For after Mary leaves, you can call out Jesus’ name. Then listen for what Jesus says to you. So that you too can proclaim, “I have seen the Lord!”
Today’s scripture, John 9:1-34, was quite involved, and we did not read it to the end.
In the seven verses we didn’t read, Jesus seeks the blind man and asks him if he believes, and the formerly blind man worships him. Then, Jesus has another confrontation with the Pharisees in which he reminds them that because they do not “see” him for who he is, their “blindness” continues.
But I’m wondering what questions you may have after hearing this scripture?
The goal of John’s gospel is to prove the identity of Jesus as the Messiah, Son of God, Savior of the world.
To make that point, the writer employs two strategies which are evident in this scripture – a “sign” of his power and an “I am” statement. In this scripture, Jesus gives sight to a man blind from birth, a sign that Jesus is one who restores our sight and he declares, “I am the light of the world,” naming that he reveals truth.
Jo-Ann Brant, a Johannine scholar at Goshen College, theorizes that this story is a miniature version of the larger story of Jesus.
the crowd questions his identity (9:8-9),
he asserts “I am” (9:9),
he speaks frankly and logically throughout but is treated as an invalid witness (9:18),
he is accused of being a sinner,
he combats the Pharisees with sarcasm and truth (9:34),
This story ends in irony as the one who was blind “sees” who Jesus really is and those who claim to have vision are “blind” to who Jesus is. Jo-Ann A. Brant, John, Paideia Commentaries on the New Testament(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 151-52, 154-59.
As this is Women’s History Month, I want to name the connection I see with this scripture, and it is how the formerly blind men’s and women’s experiences are generally not believed.
Unfortunately, this is also true for people of color and the LGBTQIA community. As the townsfolk questioned if the formerly blind man was even the same person when he told his story, I think of women who were violated, and others failed to believe them.
The popularity of the #MeToo movement the other year was based on that fact. It was finally a way in which women could name the demeaning and violent experiences they had without getting into the details.
Our problem is now complicated by AI, where our images can be used to create stories that did not happen, and because in the 20th century, we learned to trust video and pictures, we are left struggling.
I think we have reached a time when we need to tell our stories in-person and in safe spaces – thus the need for us to provide a safe space for this to happen. AND we need to listen to another’s truth and accept it and whomever they are as true – and here’s the challenge – even when it does not fit into our understandings of the world.
We have to be open enough to accept and respect another’s experience, even if it hasn’t been ours, and it makes us rethink how we understand others.
So where does this leave us?
Well, it may not feel good to hear, but we are like the disciples and Pharisees who want to judge others and point out their failings without looking at our own. And Jesus’ words provide corrections to our thoughts and actions.
We want rewards from God, so we think there needs to be punishments too. But maybe there aren’t. No one was being punished by the man being born blind.
To the Pharisees, just because Jesus healed on the Sabbath does not mean he is not of God. We, like the disciples and Pharisees, focus on the wrong things. Instead of seeing the gift of God, we disqualify it.
This week was a hard week with several attacks within our own country and abroad. We can let our legislators know that this is not the world we want. But we also need to name what we do want. We need to name that we want each person to be valued and respected, no matter who they are. Then we need to practice that too!
We need to be the love we want to see in the world. We need to put ourselves in positions to hear the stories of others –even if it is through documentaries on TV or reading non-fiction biographies of those whose lives are different. We can maintain our hope by reading about the hope and courage of those who have lived through hard times.
This is not the first time our country has experienced hard times. Let us focus on being and building the Beloved Community of God.
This past week I read “The Golden Rule” to the preschoolers.
What I appreciate so much about the author’s take on it is that it invites our imagination to consider all the ways to apply it. It helps us define what we could do for others that would be helpful, thoughtful, and kind.
We can live asking ourselves and others, “Is this a loving response?” A loving response does not mean pacifying, because we can even say challenging things lovingly.
This is why this season, we are inviting you to “Press Pause & Listen.” There is currently an attempt to overwhelm us with chaos so that we will either opt to check out of the news completely or reduce our consumption to that with which we agree, which makes us feel safe and comfortable.
I am saying something different. I want you to look at how you are consuming news and choose a less reactive mode – a different station, listening rather than viewing, reading rather than listening or viewing – and spending less time with it. And with the time you aren’t watching news or the chaos of the moment, sit in silence – pray – talk or connect with those that matter most to you.
Practice being the love you want to see in the world!
I came across this artist’s rendering of John 4:5-30 by Henryk Siemiradzki, which surprised me, and I want to share it with you.
As you think of the conversation between Jesus & the Samaritan Woman, is there anything in the rendering that surprises you?
I also remember three years ago when Jonathan preached this passage, and he surprised me when he argued, against contemporary scholarship, that the woman was actually an influencer within the community, or the people would not have listened to her. He also argued over the interpretation that she was a prostitute because it does not say that.
What it says is that she has had 5 husbands. Whether she had been divorced a lot, which was not that common, or was a very unlucky widow, is not known. This picture would suggest a widow who has gained wealth through her marriages.
Regardless of her background, Jesus is willing to break the societal boundaries by engaging her in conversation as an unaccompanied woman, and a Samaritan who was considered an enemy of the Jews from Jerusalem. Actually, the Samaritans were also Jewish, but they were descendants of the Northern Kingdom, while Jesus and his disciples were Jewish from the Southern Kingdom. The Northern Kingdom’s perceived “sin” was associating with the Assyrians, allowing intermarriages, and their pagan gods to be worshiped alongside the true God.
Now, to add some contemporary context, the Northern Kingdom’s capital was Shechem and later called Sychar, the site of our scripture passage. Today, this is located in the Balata village, a suburb of the Palestinian city of Nablus in the West Bank. Shall we say that feelings run long and deep?
And in our scripture passage, Jesus challenged those feelings 2,000 years ago. This scripture also shows how Jesus treated women with respect and invitation.
As part of honoring Women’s History month, I want to share with you a message from the President & General Minister of our denomination – the United Church of Christ.
So where does this leave us today?
Well, I’m inviting us to consider the “valuable conversations” that we need to have with others. In the Come Sunday, I asked, “In your life, who could you approach more thoughtfully?”
But before we approach these conversations, we have to be in the best frame of mind. We need to regulate ourselves, which is to calm our fight or flight tendencies. This is also “Pressing Pause & Listening.” We can do so by:
Focused deep or square breathing
Checking in with our 5 senses
Prayer
Movement (walking, dancing, swimming)
This calms our anxiety so we can access our best thinking rather than just reacting. In recent times, there has been a lot of reacting rather than responding. Again, as before, this does not mean agreeing, but it does include being curious enough to ask questions about how another understands something and share, not as much our position, but the reasoning behind our thinking.
If we talk about the world we want to leave our children and grandchildren, it changes the conversation. When we share our values – even the Golden Rule – it can change the conversation to be respectful.
Our country is based on the ability to have creative disagreements, understanding that we are in this together, appreciating the value of “others,” holding tension in life-giving ways, and respecting each person’s voice and agency.
May we embody this as we live and build God’s Beloved Community.
For our youth and young adults, expanding your vocabulary is a lifelong skill. For those of you who think I’ve gone “batty,” This is a real word – not just one I made up because I’m from Lancaster County – and I learned it this week. Its definition is: “to be utterly overwhelmed by fatigue, exhausted, or drained of all energy”
If you are like me, this describes me more recently than in a very long time, and I’m unwilling to say it is just “age-related”. This is why this season, we are inviting you to “press pause & listen.” There is currently an attempt to overwhelm us with chaos so that we will either opt to check out of the news completely or reduce our consumption to that with which we agree, that which makes us feel safe and comfortable.
I am saying something different. I want you to look at how you are consuming news and choose a less reactive mode – a different station, listening rather than viewing, reading rather than listening or viewing, and spending less time with it. And with the time you aren’t watching news or the chaos of the moment, sit in silence – pray – talk or connect with those that matter most to you. Practice being the love you want to see in the world!
Based on today’s scripture, John 3:1-17, I’m not sure I can argue that Nicodemus is quanked.
But he’s upset enough to risk going to meet Jesus, even if it is in the dark, where he’s less apt to be seen. Nicodemus is trying to understand who Jesus is and what to believe, as he is not like any other teacher Nicodemus has ever met. The conversation with Jesus raises even more questions.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee, well-versed in the law, such that he even held a place on the Sanhedrin, which was the Jewish legislative and judicial body that ruled over the people. They will be the group later who tries Jesus before sending him to Pilate.
But for now, Nicodemus wants more information, and in this scripture, we have the very famous verse John 3:16. But with all the talk lately about the power & might of Jesus, and depictions of him coming with the “armor of God” to avenge those perceived as God’s enemies, I think we often forget verse 17
“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the worldbut in order that the world might be saved through him.”
This month is Women’s History month and we are lifting up some women and their work within our congregation.
Today, I want to lift the Rev. Jacquie Church-Young. Pastor Jacquie was the Youth & Family Ministries pastor in the early 2000’s, and based on my conversations with those who were youth at the time, she was very beloved. One of the reasons she was beloved was that she appreciated the act of questioning, understanding that it led to growth.
During Pastor Jacquie’s work with you, I was leading the youth at Salem UCC, and we both took our youth to a retreat at Hartman Center, where I observed her, and unfortunately, my first impression was not as positive. Then when I became a Member in Discernment of the Lancaster Association, they assigned Pastor Jacquie to be my mentor for the process. To be clear in our descriptions, she was just out of seminary and starting a family, and I was the mother of three teenagers. This is where I was reminded that God has a great sense of humor and works out situations for us to grow.
To start the relationship off well, Pastor Jacquie invited me to lunch, and at that lunch, I had to be honest with her. During the course of that conversation, I learned about the challenges she had been facing, of which I was unaware during our first encounter at the retreat. She talked about the internal turmoil within the church at that time and the shenanigans the youth were doing at the retreat. This is when we both learned lessons.
When I messaged her about including her in today’s sermon, I named that by her telling her story, I was able to have compassion for her. She named that I helped change her for the better, not just as a pastor, but truly – as a person.
All of that learning and growth came from an honest, heartfelt conversation. Which is what I think happened for Nicodemus in his conversation with Jesus.
So, where does all of this leave us?
I think it highlights the value of conversation and its ability to help lessen our feeling of being quanked and increases our ability to be compassionate.
Within the scripture, I have two takeaways for today: ~ God is always wrapped in mystery ~ The Divine always give second chances
Which leads us perfectly to Holy Communion. Which I think is also wrapped in mystery & about endless chances. We are not bound by past mistakes, missteps, or failures. Every time the feast is served, we are welcomed. May we come to the table seeking the mystery and find another chance to live and love better!
The last time I preached here, the topic was Jesus’ baptism. If you were here and you remember that far back, you’ll remember how I proposed that the point of this story was to show us that Jesus was more like us than perhaps we thought he was.
At Jesus’ baptism, the descending dove from heaven was there to affirm to Jesus who he was, God’s Beloved Son. In that story, we can also hear God saying those same things to us, that we are God’s beloved children and we are loved.
Today, we find ourselves back in that continued story. Right after his baptism, Jesus immediately went into the desert and spent 40 days fasting and praying. Have you ever fasted for 40 days? I tried it one time. I attended a charismatic, spirit-filled church more than 10 years ago, and they were big on fasting at least once a year. The pastor there would call the entire congregation to a fast, usually a really specific type of fast, referred to as the Daniel Fast, though it was considered to be a partial fast. Meaning that the person fasting focused on cutting certain food groups out, and they were allowed to eat others because it was called the Daniel Fast. It was considered to be the right kind of fast. It was for the super spiritual people to use this fast as more of a bragging right, or a way to make themselves look and feel more holy than others around them. They would make a big thing of preaching to others about it. They would overemphasize the stomach growls and the digestive issues that result from separating your diet into different groups.
This past week, on Ash Wednesday, we spent time in Isaiah 51, where God was angry at people who would fast for show and at the same time engage in dishonest business practices, abuse their servants, disregard the least among them, and fight with their neighbors. That was very much the culture of the church that I attended. Needless to say, fasting left a bad taste in my mouth. If only for that reason, I’m not gonna call you guys to fast, at least not in that way in our gospel reading.
In our Scripture reading today, Matthew 4:1-11, it said that Jesus fasted for 40 days, and at the end of that, the devil appeared to him, the audacity.
Can you imagine how hungry Jesus was? Remember, Jesus was fully human, so it’s not a stretch to say that he was probably hangry. I know that nobody here can relate to that, but just try to stay with me.
According to the passage, the fast was over, Jesus should have been able to leave the desert, walk into town, and grab himself a burger. But no, this guy shows up and starts his shenanigans. Hey, Jesus, are you hungry? I bet you are. Why not turn those stones into bread? But Jesus doesn’t bite. It isn’t pumpernickel that keeps me going. “Man does not live by bread alone. Rather, he lives on every word that comes from the mouth of the Eternal One” – Matthew 4:4.
Jesus isn’t saying that bread or pizza or ice cream or french fries are bad, or that we should all starve ourselves. What he is saying is that he’s not going to use his privilege as the son of God to satisfy his desire for food. He could have turned the stones into bread or anything he wanted, but why? What would that prove? Maybe the question is, what does not doing it prove?
Perhaps it proves that his relationship with God is what gives him life and the ability to keep going, even when his stomach growls louder than he can speak. The devil didn’t care that he was hungry. He wanted to make him question his identity, to doubt that God really loved him, to lean on his own abilities to satisfy himself, but Jesus didn’t take the bait. If the second and third temptations are more of the same, the devil takes him to the top of the building and tells him to jump. God will send angels to catch you. But Jesus replies by quoting Deuteronomy, don’t you dare test the Lord your God. Why would I cry wolf when there’s no wolf?
Jesus knew that God was protecting him. He didn’t need to run a full experiment to verify that promise. In a last-ditch effort to get Jesus to fold, the devil takes him to the top of a very high mountain and shows him all of the kingdoms of the world, and he says to him, “If You bow down and worship me, I will give You all these kingdoms” – Matthew 4:9. Jesus had had enough at this point. The devil had badly miscalculated, and now Jesus had beaten him. I know who my God is, and you definitely aren’t it. I will only ever worship the one true God, the devil left tail between his legs, defeated. He should have known better if Jesus didn’t fall for the first one.
When I was younger, I used to go to open mic nights and karaoke. If you hadn’t picked up on this yet. I love to sing, I love to play guitar, and I love doing those things for other people’s enjoyment.
Every time I would go out, somebody would inevitably ask me, “Why are you here? Why aren’t you on American Idol?” And I would often reply to them that I didn’t want to be famous. Fame can change people, and I didn’t want to be changed. I remember watching American Idol and noticing how, from the audition to the final performance, the contestants were completely changed. Their look, their sound, and their presence were all shaped and molded by the judges and coaches. A lot of the time, at least from my perspective, it was not for the better.
I felt that if I went on a show like that, I would be selling out. What I had not yet grasped at that point in my life was that I was actually doing that very thing every day. I was presenting to the world in a way that it had molded me and in the way that I thought was most acceptable. Meanwhile, I was hiding and denying who I really felt that I was inside. It was God’s love that broke through and changed me when I finally recognized and allowed myself to come out to myself and the world; no amount of stone sandwiches or rooftop flight experiments or crowns or kingdoms could make me give up my identity, the real me, my soul.
A few years ago, while I was at the beach with my adopted parents, I asked my dad, who is a retired United Methodist minister, if he would baptize me. I had been baptized as a teen, but I wanted to hear the name that I had chosen spoken as I was laid beneath the water. There was no dove, but I heard the same message that Jesus heard from God as I emerged from the salty Atlantic waters. Deklan J. Lewis knows that he is a beloved son of God, and he knows that the love of God is the only thing that truly sustains him.
This month is Black History Month, and we’ve been highlighting a piece of that history each week.
This week, I was looking over the notes that Pastor Kathryn had put together, and I came across this article on the White House Historical Association’s website. I was really surprised to actually find this article. It was amongst the slavery in the President’s neighborhood Initiative materials. This piece was about a woman named Ona Judge.
She was a slave owned by George Washington’s wife, Martha. The article details what is assumed about Ona’s life as Martha’s preferred lady’s maid, stating that she had some kind of status because she had nicer clothes and she got more than one pair of shoes per year. The article seems to assume that she might have been happy as Martha’s personal servant, but it also goes on to tell of Ona’s escape to freedom.
After learning that she was about to be given to another member of the family as a wedding gift, Ona ran away. Later in her life, she shared in an interview, “I was determined never to be her slave.”
I can imagine that, as an enslaved person, personal identity is a complicated struggle. In Ona’s story, we can see her declaring what her identity would not be. Ona lived the rest of her life in freedom. Married, had children, and actually shared her experience in slavery with several newspapers.
Ona could not have done what she did without a strong conviction in her heart. In the same way, Jesus could not have resisted the temptations of the devil or any of the other incredibly difficult things that he did in his life without knowing who he was and who God said he was.
So who are you? Who are you not?
What would you do for a Klondike? Would you turn an iceberg into ice cream? Seriously, what are your non-negotiables? What are the things that you’re not willing to compromise on, and how will you stand up for those things in this season?
I wanted to share a song with you guys, because that’s what I do, that speaks to this idea of knowing who you are and standing firm in your identity. It’s become somewhat of an anthem in the LGBTQ+ community, but I think it really applies to just about everybody.
I am not a stranger to the dark “Hide away, ” they say “‘Cause we don’t want your broken parts” I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars “Run away, ” they say “No one’ll love you as you are”
But I won’t let them break me down to dust I know that there’s a place for us For we are glorious
When the sharpest words wanna cut me down I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown ’em out I am brave, I am bruised I am who I’m meant to be, this is me Look out ’cause here I come And I’m marching on to the beat I drum I’m not scared to be seen I make no apologies, this is me
Another round of bullets hits my skin Well, fire away ’cause today, I won’t let the shame sink in We are bursting through the barricades and Reaching for the sun (we are warriors) Yeah, that’s what we’ve become (yeah, that’s what we’ve become)
I won’t let them break me down to dust I know that there’s a place for us For we are glorious
When the sharpest words wanna cut me down I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown ’em out I am brave, I am bruised I am who I’m meant to be, this is me Look out ’cause here I come And I’m marching on to the beat I drum I’m not scared to be seen I make no apologies; this is me
In a time where many people want to make who I am and who a lot of my friends are illegal, we have choices to make.
Do I change my name back to the name that was originally on my birth certificate? Do I change the gender marker on my ID? Do I change the way I dress? Do I grow my hair out so that I’m less of a target to gain access to safer spaces in the current climate? Or do I save my soul and stay true to who I am? Would life be easier and less scary? Probably in a lot of ways, the answer is yes.
Maybe it would be easier for you to go to a different church that doesn’t ask you to stick your neck out for the oppressed. Maybe it would be easier if you kept your thoughts and feelings about ICE raids from your neighbors, your coworkers, and your family, but what would you stand to lose? What would you gain if you didn’t compromise?
I encourage you to hold these questions and the questions that are inevitably going to be prompted by these questions in your hearts this week, meditate on them, and press in. See where you’re really standing at the moment. As we move forward, press pause, listen, and know who you are.
I think for most of my life, Lent was about giving something up.
Back in the day, the Catholic church told folks that we needed to give up meat on Fridays and eat fish, and that was great for the fishing industry. Actually, it is a healthier option, and it’s better for the planet. More recently, I hear people talk about giving up chocolate, wine, or some other special thing that they prefer. Maybe it’s desserts or something like that.
I want us to look at this a little differently this year. I am going to ask you to give up something, but I’m hoping that what you’ll choose to give up is the noise or the busyness. Maybe if you’re one of those people who are very busy and do not have a lot of downtime, choose more music than news.
Let’s tone down the rhetoric by just choosing a different option. This year, we’re asking you to slow down.
I’m calling it, “Press Pause & Listen”. Press pause on whatever noise is around you. Press pause on that. Churning chaos that seems to surround our lives right now. We all need a little bit of a break, and what I want you to think about is what are the priorities in your life? What really is most important to you? Is it family? Is it your faith? Friends, money, our neighbors?
Then, in these moments when you pause, I want you to think about how you spend your time. What do you spend the most time doing? Are you focused on the things that matter to you the most, and if not, what could you do differently? That’s something to think about this season.
In our Scripture today, Isaiah 58:1-11, God speaks through Isaiah, calling to the people.
Mainly to the people who had all the things they needed, and he says your fasts are meaningless because you’re not giving anything up. You’re still focused on yourself. You’re not looking at the needs of others.
I think that’s the other part of the listen. When you’re pausing and listening, I hope that you’ll listen for the still small voice of God within you. The voice of your better angel, and I hope you will stop and listen to those around you. That’s where conversations are gonna come in. Our scriptures for Lent have a lot of conversation, people asking questions of Jesus.
I’m gonna invite us to explore some questions, and I’m gonna invite you to sit and think about some of those questions to share with one another, because the way we build community is by knowing the people around us, and we do that by listening better. So often when we get in a conversation, we think about what we wanna say, and we’re not paying attention to what is being said, or maybe the feelings and emotions that are being shared in that moment.
But if we have to do that, we have to notice others, so that we can have compassion and we can understand others better. Right now, we need to have a better understanding. For a lot of us, it’s not easy, and it’s really hard. I’m not gonna sugarcoat this. It’s hard to hear someone say something that is enough to make your blood boil, but what does the Lord require of us?
I usually quote Micah 6:8, “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Isaiah actually has a little bit of a different answer. Actually, it’s not different as much as it defines what justice and mercy and walking humbly with God look like in this scripture from Isaiah,
“Remove the chains of injustice! Undo the ropes of the yoke! Let those who are oppressed go free, and break every yoke you encounter! your bread with those who are hungry, And shelter homeless poor people! Clothe those who are naked, and don’t hide from the needs of your own flesh and blood!“
It is about looking at the other. It’s not about saying, “What do I need?”, it’s about saying my neighbor doesn’t have food. Or I haven’t seen my neighbor come out of the house in a while. I wonder if they’re okay, and it can be as easy as picking up the phone. It can be as simple as just expressing care.
Are you all right? Is there anything I can do for you? They may say no, and that’s okay. You can ask other questions, more open questions. What’s happening in your life? What’s on your heart or your mind?
We are to love our neighbors and ourselves. That’s the command we’re gonna get again on Maundy Thursday. It’s the new command.
This week, I’m inviting you to Pause & Listen. We all have ears to hear and a voice to speak, to offer compassion. We can also listen to one another to help each other better understand.
With it being Transfiguration Sunday, I wanted to give you sort of an overview of where we are and where we’re headed.
The liturgical calendar is really a beautiful piece, and I love this graphic of it because it makes it a circle, which is what our calendar really is. Every February 14th comes around, and it’s always Valentine’s Day. Christmas comes around, and it’s always December 25th. Other holidays do move, but we don’t think of time as circular. We make a timeline. We don’t make time a circle or spiral.
Between the end of November and December, Advent begins. Starting with the first Sunday in Advent, we begin looking for the light. There’s this promise that the light is coming, that hope is coming, and so we start looking for the light.
On Christmas Eve, the light arrives and we share it. That’s why we have a candlelight service on Christmas Eve, that’s where that comes from. That beautiful ritual that we have every Christmas Eve that we love so much, it comes out of this idea of the light having now arrived in the world, and so we share it, and this light continues to grow.
At Epiphany, outsiders, the Magi, show up and attest to the light and bring gifts. In Luke’s gospel, it says the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him. Next is his baptism. Jesus hears us often, we make it out as if everybody, as if the crowds hear it, but the crowds don’t react. I just read a thing about how it really says that it spoke to him, that Jesus hears “this is my beloved, my son in whom I am well pleased“– Matthew 3:17. Jesus hears that he has his own affirmation and begins his ministry, and through it, he is inviting people to the light. Last week, Jesus said, “You are the light of the world” – Matthew 5:14.
Until this point, this is the biggest light point, and it’s not a coincidence. That the light arrives as our seasonal calendar has its darkest night. That’s not a coincidence. Now that there is more light in our season, the light begins to expose our shadows & our darkness, and this next season that we begin on Wednesday, Lent, is when we start to see the darkness in the people in scripture, but we also are invited to see the darkness and our ability for evil.
That brings us to the end of the Easter season, it’s almost June, and we’re almost going into our longest day. It’s all lined out, and today is about having a bigger vision. That’s what Jesus was giving the disciples, and I wanted you to have a bigger vision of how the liturgical calendar is lined out.
Here we are, Peter, James, and John go up to the mountain. They have this moment. They wanna build shelters.
The Festival of Sukkot is a Jewish festival where they build. Jesus says It’s not about that. That’s not what we’re doing here, but they hear this time, God speaks to them and not just Jesus, and says, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him” – Luke 9:35. That’s the piece that is specifically for us, listen to him.
If we haven’t gotten it by this time, when we see him gleaming, we have a cloud, and we have a voice and everything, if we haven’t figured out that this is somebody special, not only are we supposed to recognize that he is the son of God, but we are to listen to him, And what is Jesus’ command to the disciples? “But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid” – Matthew 17:7. That’s the commandment, to get up. Jesus says to the disciples, get up, we have work to do. We aren’t staying here on the mountain. It’s not about staying in that mountain moment, but we have to come down from the mountain because there’s work to do. Do not be afraid. It might be scary, but it’ll be okay. Do not be afraid because God’s in this. God’s got this. Do not be afraid. Trust God. Over and over again, we get reminded to trust in God.
This February, we are also looking at African American history I’m trying to pull out specific people who live out Jesus’ commandment.
I wonder if Dr. Alvin Poissant, in his work, had to remind himself many times to get up and do not be afraid. Dr. Alvin Poissant was born in East Harlem as the seventh of eight children. As a child, he had rheumatic fever that put him in the hospital for a long time. When he was in high school, his mother died of cervical cancer.
He had the advantage of going to a primarily white high school, and from there, he was able to get into Brown. He had a bachelor’s degree from Brown. He went to Cornell Medical College and got his MD in 1960, when he was the only black student in his class. Then he went to UCLA, where he did a residency in psychiatry and got a master’s degree in psychopharmacology.
Then he went to Jackson, Mississippi, and there he helped to provide medical care for civil rights workers and helped desegregate hospitals and healthcare facilities. In ’67, he moved to Boston and was directing a psychiatry program in a low-income housing development for Tufts University Medical School.
Eventually he was recruited by Harvard Medical College, and he started as an associate dean of a student affairs and he became a professor of Psych. Psych psychiatry. If I get the all the right syllables, I’ll do it right. In his time at Harvard, he sponsored, which, which was, he was a prof.
He was at Harvard Medical School for 50 years, and he was the voice of diversity. His voice and his work were about improving the public understanding of black children and families, mental health and suicide, school violence, and substance abuse. He wrote and spoke about the importance of nonviolent parenting and advocated for positive imagery of minorities in the media. He also worked to increase diversity in medicine and reduce health disparities by bringing more members of underserved populations into the medical field.
Unfortunately, Dr. Poissant died last February, but I pulled this information from the Harvard Medical School website. Has a huge write-up on his life and work. He was certainly revered and loved. I found this quote by Shirley Chisholm, and I think it fits what he did.
“You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas”
Unfortunately, we are living in a time when Dr. Poissant’s life’s work is being erased. I mean, he represented diversity, equity, and inclusion. That’s what he worked for within the medical field and specifically at Harvard. We’re living in a time where all of the ways that we understand who we are as a country are called into question, and we have to decide who we are. The future that we want to leave for the children and our grandchildren. Like Peter, James, and John, we are invited into the vision of what could be and permitted to be active in accomplishing God’s vision of justice.
Like the disciples, we are being asked to have the courage, not to be afraid in the face of intimidation, cruelty, and hatred. Like them, we are being asked to be willing to follow, get up, and not be afraid.
We are the children of light. That doesn’t mean that we’re always good. We have the same amount of potential to be good as to be evil. It is within us all. We have to be focused on being good, we have to be focused on doing the loving thing, on loving our God, loving our neighbor, whomever they may be, and loving ourselves as we are, as the people God created us to be. With all of our gifts, foibles, goodness, and weaknesses. We’ve got all those things,
We have to figure out how we can use our voices now to stand for love. What we cannot be is silent. We will not be silent because that means being complicit. If we don’t challenge voices that are hurting others, they think we agree. We can’t let them think that because they want to control us, too.
We cannot be silent when they want to send ICE agents to our voting places this November. We cannot be silent about it. That is intimidation, and it is illegal, and we need to say that loud and clear. We have to say it is not okay to disappear people. We won’t have that. That’s not the way our country operates. You don’t get grabbed off the street and sent to a camp. I heard them called concentration camps because the definition of a concentration camp is a place where there is a concentration of people being held before they’re sent somewhere else. We have them in this country. We’ve done it before. It wasn’t right before, and it’s not right now.
We cannot be silent about the need for checks and balances within our government. They don’t get to choose what’s moral. That’s our job. Jesus tells us what is right. What does the Lord require of you to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God? That is moral.
So get up and do not be afraid. Let us stand for love.
A Talk with Rev. Kuhn (Black Text) and Rev. Edward Bailey (Blue Text)
Last week, I talked about how in this season of Epiphany, the scriptures are all trying to tell us about who Jesus is.
Although obviously, Isaiah 58:8-12 is trying to tell us about God’s expectations and what God’s vision for us is, we believe that Jesus is God incarnate. Jesus’s words, although they’re very much directed to us again, still point out what is important to Jesus. They’re talking about what Jesus’s priorities are, and what I hear in both of these scriptures is the need for justice.
Isaiah, who is a major Jewish prophet whom we listen to, reminds us about feeding the hungry and caring for those who are sick. It’s all the justice pieces that we hear Jesus repeat later in the gospels. This particular piece reminded us that if we stop arguing among ourselves, we will stop the infighting and pay attention to the needs of those around us. Then we’ll see the needs. We’ll see the hungry person, and we’ll see the person who is mourning, and we’ll see the person who needs clothing or a ride or maybe just a person to listen to them. We can do that because when we do justice, God helps the light of Christ within us to shine.
I saw it written as a sacred quid pro quo. If we do justice, God will bless us. But we have to do our part first, and that means we can’t just be sitting around here thinking we’re great. That’s what the scribes and Pharisees were doing. They had the list of the law. The laws still apply, but they had the list of the law and they thought, as long as we do this, we’re good. But then they had their own ways of applying it and deciding who was in and who was out. That’s not justice.
I think even worse was that the Sadducees and the Pharisees had actually co-opted themselves. They no longer worked for the people of God.
They were working for their own position. When Jesus came on the scene, he was for the people, and I think too often people don’t realize the Jewish people, as well as the other folk in that area, were oppressed by the Romans. They didn’t have their own rights. They didn’t have their own justice system, and they actually were conquered. When Jesus was talking to the people, he was talking on behalf of an oppressed people, not on people who are well off, well-connected, who are rich and famous, but he was speaking for those who had no voice for themselves.
As a matter of fact, I said to somebody upset with me, they said, “Reverend Bailey, you always speak in politics.” I asked him the question, what happened to John the Baptist? Why was he beheaded? Because he took on a justice issue, and too often the church doesn’t take on justice issues. We talk sweetly and nicely. That’s why nobody burns our churches down. So if you really believe the world is against you, the world will be against you.
But we have been so co-opted. That they don’t have any fear of the church or the word of God, because we are just like them. We forget that Jesus started a movement, not a church, a movement. That’s why people were hanged, people were crucified, people were killed, because he had a movement. We can barely move today. That’s not because of our age. We just don’t move.
So when you read these scriptures, they’re counterculture. They’re not for what we normally think that we ought to be. But God didn’t start an organization because he needed another organization for people to sit around and feel good about themselves. He created us to be a light in this world, so we’re supposed to make a difference.
I just recognized this morning that he said that light is supposed to be in the house. “People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.” – Matthew 5:15. You know, we don’t even show the light in the house. So if you can’t show it in the church, how do you show it outside? How do people see it? The light is supposed to be in the house.
And not only have they co-opted, but the rest of the church is silent. Yes. So, uh, you know, they called a silent majority. That’s the good folk. The people who got the gospel wrong, speaking loudly, and you don’t hear the folk who actually believe that Jesus came to save sinners. Some think that the way they look makes them righteous. Even if you have been convicted of 34 felonies, it doesn’t matter, you know, it doesn’t matter. Politics is more important than morality. When people co-opt themselves and become the church of the state. You don’t teach the gospel. You teach hate, division, and those kinds of things. Jesus came to bring people together and to help us provide for this life so we can go into the next life. I don’t think most of those folk care or are concerned about the next life.
I have one judge that I have to live for. So it doesn’t matter what other people say about me; what does the Lord say? And that’s what this gospel is all about. What is he gonna say to me on that last day? I don’t know about you, but I’m 76, so I’m concerned about that. What is God going to say to me about the life that I’ve lived? Doesn’t matter what other people have done, what’s He gonna say to me? I want to know what God is going to have to say about me, and he’s not gonna ask me about you.
I hear people claiming that they know the will of God and, and that God is blessing them because they have power and influence and money.
But as you said, Rev, that’s not who Jesus came to talk to. That’s not who Jesus brought together. That’s not who Jesus was focused on. Jesus was focused on the people who didn’t have and who were being left out by their state or by the empire that ruled their lives.
So when we are in this time and see that people are being marginalized, their voices. I mean, oh my goodness, people are being kidnapped and disappearing. I just heard of a 10-year-old boy who went to school and did not come home. I can’t make sense of that. That’s not what this gospel says. That’s not what the gospel of Jesus is about.
But the sad thing is, one thing about being retired is that I have a chance to catch up on things that I just had no understanding of. Watching Fox News or MSNBC, they don’t tell everything. I got a chance to listen to some of these podcasts. There’s this thing about policemen and what they’ve been doing. This is not new, where people with a badge have been snatching folk off the street, and doing all kinds of illegal things to folk. It’s not new, and it’s been going on for a while, and you know, people don’t even talk about it. How many women have disappeared in Lancaster County that we don’t talk about? It’s not in the news. Women who are being beaten and abused at home are not in the news. Yet they want to show us some person somewhere else that we can vilify. We wanna show them, but we don’t talk about what’s happening in our own neighborhoods. You need to check the statistics and find out how many young women are being disappeared. We are seeing how the Today Show’s host, Savannah Guthrie’s mother, has been taken; it’s not new, and, amazingly, nobody has talked about it.
We think that crime only happens in certain places. But it’s right where we are. Every time I hear somebody say, “Well, that doesn’t happen here.” Well, it just happened. So it must happen here. We as a people are being stubborn by thinking there’s a difference because of where you live. There is no safe place where there are sinners. Where there are people who will hurt you. Especially us older folk, some of us raised some criminals in our own houses who did not become criminals until we got old, and they wanted what we had. Getting old is scary because you don’t have the strength you had, and now you find out there are people out there who would take what you have. How many of you get calls from people who act like they’re your family, and they’re in trouble, and they want money?
What are we gonna leave behind? That’s what I worry about for my grandchild. Is this the America that I want my grandchild to be raised in? The answer is NO!
I don’t want him to have to worry about walking down the street and being charged with a crime just because of the color of his skin or the clothes that he’s wearing or the way he’s walking. I don’t want that. I don’t want people running with masks, coming into my neighborhood, and terrorizing us.
As a black man, I had the Ku Klux Klan doing that, coming into this community with hoods on, so you couldn’t recognize them. Why? If you are a part of the government, I ought to be able to see who you are. I wanna know who you are. My taxes pay for you. Can you imagine having an employee who comes to work with a mask on? Why are we allowing that? And if we seniors don’t say something, if we are quiet, nothing’s gonna happen unless you and I say something, and that’s letting your light so shine.
We are well into the season of Epiphany, and the season of Epiphany is about revealing who Jesus is.
Since his conception, we’ve been getting signals. This is Matthew’s year, so the angel came, and we heard the story of the angel coming to Joseph and telling Joseph that this baby would be Emmanuel, God with us. Then at his birth, the angels declared, this is our savior, the Messiah, the Lord, and then the magi showed up. They came bearing gifts for this newborn king, this new ruler, this person who would become a shepherd of his people. At his baptism the Holy Spirit came down and declared, this is my beloved, my son.
Since then, we heard John declare who he was and point to him. “He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” – John 1:27. Then we saw how he chose the people to follow him. All he said was, follow me.
Now, we come to the Beatitudes, and I think that we like to approach these as what they tell us about who we are to be, because we have an insatiable desire to be self-absorbed. We love ourselves, so it has to be about us, right? But what does it tell us about who Jesus was? And this may be a different road to get to the same place. But that’s the road I wanna take you on today. Because it’s supposed to reveal something about Jesus.
So who is Jesus? What does this tell us about Jesus?
Well, if we look really carefully. I tried to do a deep dive. I’ve had five weeks to prepare this sermon, not one, five. I don’t usually have that much time, but I did, so I did a deep dive on this, and this sermon contains all of these words that do not appear anywhere else. The words that are translated meek, hungering, merciful, pure peacemakers, having been persecuted, they shall be insulted. Those words aren’t anywhere else. It’s the only time they show up. Well, a couple of them show up in Luke’s Beatitudes, too. Other than that, they’re not in the Bible. So what does that say?
What that says to me is that these words and Jesus are unique, and it means that those first people, remember I told you that you are like those first people hearing it. Those people, I can imagine, said, What did he just say? Did he say what I think he just said? Because these weren’t words that were used all the time. They would have been shocked to hear these words because other people who stood up and professed to know things wanted to talk about power and control. That’s the empire, they’re about telling you what you can do, what you can’t do, and how you’re gonna do it. But that’s not what this says.
The second thing I noticed was this offered hope, both in the short term and the long term. Our scripture says “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.“– Matthew 5:5, and they shall inherit the earth today and in the future. It’s both.
If we had read the verses right before this, they talk about how all the people were bringing their sick and infirm friends and relatives and themselves to Jesus because he was healing them. He was providing hope in the moment. Life was changing with him, and he was giving them this. Here’s your big word for the day: eschatological future hope that in the end they will be with God. They’ll be the ones in the kingdom of heaven.
The third thing it tells us is who Jesus cared about. He didn’t talk about the empire. That was the big thing about Jesus. That’s why Judas is scared. I’m frustrated with him when we get to Holy Week because he didn’t challenge Rome the way they wanted him to. Instead, he came to the people. He was there for the people who needed the help and the healing. This tells us that it wasn’t about the influencers of his time, but those who had been forgotten, ignored, and left behind. That’s who Jesus cared about. So, like I said, maybe a different road to the same destination.
That’s who we are to care about. Not necessarily who we are to be, but it’s who we are to care about. Who are the people in our community who are struggling right now, who are afraid? Terrified, even? He cared about those who wanted a different life, even if they didn’t know how to get there. There was hope in what he said, that this life that they had wasn’t the life that God had intended for them. That was good news. That is the good news, my friends, that this life that we live is not the way God intended for us to live. Even today, 2000 years later, we haven’t gotten it right yet. We still have much to learn.
This month is also the month that the inclusive church team wants us to focus on black history. So, I’m gonna try to do that.
Today, I wanna talk to you about someone who I think lived the way Jesus wants us to live, and who cared about others, who cared about her people as a black American. Who cared about the suffering of others. Fannie Lou Hamer was a sharecropper in the early sixties, and she decided that she had every right to vote as everybody else, and so she went to register. She was beaten and imprisoned in terrificly horrible ways. She paid with her body for that. She was not killed, but she paid with her body
Then she continued the struggle. She co-founded in 1964, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and she went to the Democratic National Convention in 1964. I don’t know how many of you remember that. I was too young to remember that, but I read all about it. I’m gonna read more of this because I wanna make sure I get my facts straight.
She went there demanding integrated nominating committees and delegate committees. Her plea was so compelling, and frightened President Lyndon Johnson so much that he did a press conference. So that she wasn’t on the live tv, but her speech for those who heard it could not be quenched, and it was televised later. In 1968, her vision of racial equality in the delegation became real. Took some time, but became real. She also created the Freedom Farm Cooperative that helped other black farmers have a piece of property. As part of the cooperative, they got a piece of property, and they got a place to live. They got pigs to learn how to breed, raise, butcher, and sell, and become independent.
She was a force to be reckoned with, and you know what she’s most known for? She’s most known for her quote, I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. That’s how we remember her. I’m glad to learn the rest. I’m glad I went looking for the rest of her story.
I put the picture of communion there because I knew it was communion Sunday. For me, it was the idea of the breaking of the bread, and the cup poured out for us that this is where we get to live our lives to do the hard work, because hard work is here. It’s not coming, it’s here.
We admit that we are all marred, scarred, and imperfect because we’re human. I’m sorry. I was wrong. I don’t know. I need help. Those are four statements that we need to use and own because we are living in a time when we cannot be silent, while those who are poor in spirit, mourning, and meek or those who are hungering and thirsting for justice, the merciful, the pure in heart and the peacemakers are becoming victims of hatred and violence, and we can’t just go along anymore.
So I also created cards for you that are on the high top with each of our congressmen’s names and telephone numbers. They need to hear from you. You need to tell them what you’re thinking and what you’re feeling about what you see in this country.
We need to figure out as a collective what we have to offer. One of the lessons that we got from the clergy in Minnesota was that we need to prepare before they arrive. We need to talk about what assets we have. What assets can our congregation give?
Is it that we can hold a large gathering and bring a lot of people together? We have space for a lot of people to gather. That may be our piece. There’s a prayer vigil that’s gonna start at Lancaster Friends, and maybe we wanna host one of those. Maybe we wanna send additional funds to the churches downtown. I’m thinking about St. John’s Episcopal because I know they do so much with the immigrant community in Lancaster. What is our peace to do? That’s something for us to, to really sit with and discern, but this is a time when we cannot be silent anymore. The white church cannot be silent now.
Next week I have invited Reverend Edward Bailey, who is retired, and he’s coming to have a conversation with us next week, because we’re gonna talk about. What do white people need to know about the black community in Lancaster? Because we don’t have the answers. We need to be listening, but this table makes all the difference. When we receive the bread and the cup, it gives us the strength, the comfort, the determination, the chutzpah, even to do what we didn’t think we could do.
We know that we couldn’t hang on that cross. We couldn’t pour out our blood, and we probably have a hard time or should drink the cup of forgiveness because we have not forgiven ourselves, let alone anyone else, but that is our challenge.
We come here and we gather because we need Jesus Christ. We need each other. And right now we need to be the beloved community.
