Fifth - Reservoir Church

A Theology of Creation – Ours and God’s

The sanctuary that we’re in right now – or that we’re watching online – was built nearly 125 years ago by the French Canadian immigrants who established their own Catholic parish here. And a lot of those founders who built this church worked in the area’s brick-making industry. I wonder if they built this church with the very bricks they made with their own hands. We are so grateful for what they built. Thank God for the work of those who came before us.

Now a lot of that brick-making industry centered around a big clay pit down the street, right next to the New England Brick Company factory that operated in some form for about a 100 years.

That clay pit must have been a really loud and dirty and messy place. I bet that generations of workers came home with the stains and the smell of that place on their clothes, like I used to come home from my shifts as a waiter at Denny’s when I was 17, stained with catsup and reeking of cigarette smoke.

After the brick company closed in 1952, the city used the cite as a dump.

People in cities make a lot of trash, and American people in American cities make an especially large amount of trash, and it all needs to go somewhere to get compacted and piled up or buried or burned. And for a couple decades, until the early 70’s, a lot of Cambridge’s trash went to the old clay pit – now the city dump – just down the street from here.

It must have been about as loud and dirty as it ever was as a clay pit. And I can imagine how the smell would have carried around the neighborhood on a hot, humid, windy day. Our spiritual ancestors in this room might have prayed their prayers sometimes with the reek of garbage floating through the windows just a little bit. Thank God for incense.

Around the time I was born, the MBTA was starting to expand the Red Line south to Quincy and north up here to Davis and Alewife, and they needed a construction staging area, and a cite to dump their dirt and debris. And so the city moved their dump elsewhere, probably trucking waste outside of town, and let the MBTA use the old clay pit and city dump for construction waste until they were done by the mid-80’s.

And then Cambridge had this huge chunk of land with mounds of old clay, mining debris, trash, dirt, and junk and had to decide what to do with this messy, dirty pile of land.

And what they did is this:

They built the biggest city park in Cambridge, full of walking paths and athletic fields, and grass, and wetlands, and playgrounds, and public art, and a dense forest of native shrubs and trees. It is really so beautiful.

I hope you’ve been there before. It’s called Danehy Park, just across the train tracks from our sanctuary. I’ve walked and talked there with many of you, because it’s a beautiful place for that. It’s a green treasure, really, for play and rest and memory making and oxygen making.

And given all the other things this land was before it was transformed into a park, it’s an incredible story of redemption and of new creation. All that is possible when together we say yes to God’s calls to ever-increasing creativity, novelty, and beauty. All that is possible when we partner together in new creation.

This Mother’s Day, during our spring series Something New on co-creating with God, I want to thank God for everyone and everything that has co-created life for us, and I want to encourage us all to look for and step into our many opportunities to be co-creators and re-recreators as well.

We know something about this. Because ever creating and recreating is what our moms did for us, to the best of their ability. To be a mother is to co-create life with God, after all. And even when it wasn’t our moms who did this, it was other nurturers in our lives. No matter how blessed or bleak your childhood and young adult years, I am sure that at least sometimes, someone was noticing you as you were and looking to encourage and nurture the best that was possible there.

Someone’s done this for you, and most likely, if you’ve learned to be a nurturer at all – whether you’re a mom or a dad or a teacher or a friend, or a partner or mentor to someone else at all, you’ve tried to do this as well. To notice the way things are in someone or something, and be a part of nurturing and recreating something more.

A great example for us is the most famous mother in our faith tradition, Mother Mary. I want to notice Mother Mary as an example of partnering with God in recreation, ever creation, creation out of the depths, as a model for our personal lives.

And then I want to end with a call and a prayer for recreation in our public lives – in the great cultures and systems that are decreating our societies and our earth as we speak.

Mother Mary is the 5th most named person in the Bible’s biographies of the life of Jesus, and her story begins with some very strange circumstances her life offers her.

Luke 1:38 (Common English Bible)

38 Then Mary said, “I am the Lord’s servant. Let it be with me just as you have said.” Then the angel left her.

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.

God invited Mary into a life she hadn’t been looking for – an untimely pregnancy, too soon, too young, too much responsibility. The beginnings of her family life on very different terms than she would have wanted, a lifetime of rumors and scandal. Impossibly beautiful and holy upside, to bear and birth and nurture a child of God with a powerful call upon his life. But no doubt impossibly heart-wrenching challenges and loss as well.

Mary’s call was utterly unique in one sense, but also a kind of magnified version of every parent’s call.

This will be inconvenient and it will cost your body and your heart and your resources more than you might imagine. You aren’t good enough. You will fail. But it can also be glorious and good beyond words. Will you say yes?

And Mary says:

Yes, let it be.

She gives consent to the possibility of co-creation with God.

To re-create takes our consent to what is now today – however hard, however de-created, as well as to what is possible tomorrow – however unlikely.

To be part of recreation takes realism and hope. It takes acceptance and dreams, and the will to be part of making them so.

Luke 2:21-22 (Common English Bible)

21 When eight days had passed, Jesus’ parents circumcised him and gave him the name Jesus. This was the name given to him by the angel before he was conceived.

22 When the time came for their ritual cleansing, in accordance with the Law from Moses, they brought Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.

Mary prays for Jesus, and along with her husband Joseph, she dedicates/baptizes him in the temple, her version of our child dedication or baptism in the church.

She’s nurturing the small seeds of what is possible. Asking for God’s help and support, and the help and support of her community.

There’s no recreative power without faithfulness in small beginnings.

If your mamma prayed for you, or sang to you, or read to you, then someone was faithful to the creative possibilities of your life. Somebody fed you, or you wouldn’t have made it to where you are today. And somebody has loved you – however imperfectly – or you wouldn’t be in this room today either. Thank God to everyone who has been faithful in our small beginnings.

And friends, when we are faithful in small beginnings, we stay open to playing a part in God’s great creative possibilities. No dream, no change, no great deed or love story ever happens without showing up the first and second time, writing down the first and second word, trying again after we’ve failed, praying for help when we don’t have enough.

John 2:1-5 (Common English Bible)

1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and

2 Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration.

3 When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They don’t have any wine.”

4 Jesus replied, “Woman, what does that have to do with me? My time hasn’t come yet.”

5 His mother told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Jesus grows up, but he’s living a quiet life, a private life, until this. Mary encourages something more beautiful. She’s a holy nudge in her son’s life. She gives that little push out of the nest.

Do what he tells you. My son’s got a light that’s got to shine.

I want to know what neighbors around here smelled that trash heap and thought, you know what would be great on this site – a green, garden paradise. Or what Cambridge bureaucrat looked at that dump of an MBTA storage mound and thought: I see soccer fields. We can do it.

We don’t create out of nothing. Ever. We re-create out of something that came before. Which is mostly how God creates and re-creates as well.

If we’ve got a century’s worth of trash and toxins on a 50 acre spot of urban land, we don’t pray – God, make it go away. Make it clean. Make it beautiful.

That would be asking for God to create something out of nothing. And we don’t think God or us works that way. So instead, we might pray – God, can you inspire us for what’s possible here, and give us the resources and creativity and strength to make it so.

And together, we recreate those 50 acres into Danehy Park. That’s creation out of the depths. That is ever creation. Transforming what is fallow, or even what has been torn apart through decreation, through beautiful acts of recreation.

This is what our Ever Creator God does. And it is one of the highest calls for humanity as well – to join God in ever-creation. To look at the stuff in our land and our lives and our cultures that has lain fallow or has been torn about through decreation, and with the help of God and friends, to recreate it into something new and beautiful.

Friends, so much in our lives looks plain and ordinary or maybe worse. Used up, wasted, unremarkable. And so much in our world looks the same – kind of unremarkable nothing, or maybe used and torn down – decreated. Re-creation sees differently. Re-creation sees holy possibilities in everyone, and everywhere, and everything.

And since it’s hard to do this for ourselves – see the holy possibilities in our own tired lives, I suggest we try to be like Mother Mary – and see it in someone else every day. Be the holy nudge that encourages someone else’s good work and small beginnings and holy possibilities.

We need a lot more of us saying:

I see you, I believe in you, you’ve got this, I’m proud of you.

Because without faith in God and faith in ourselves and faith in one another, we don’t get much re-creation. Thank God for whoever has mothered and encouraged our possibilities – we can do it for someone else too.

Mark 3:20-21, 31-32 (Common English Bible)

20 Jesus entered a house. A crowd gathered again so that it was impossible for him and his followers even to eat.

21 When his family heard what was happening, they came to take control of him. They were saying, “He’s out of his mind!”

31 His mother and brothers arrived. They stood outside and sent word to him, calling for him.

32 A crowd was seated around him, and those sent to him said, “Look, your mother, brothers, and sisters are outside looking for you.”

Sometimes we can exert too much voice, too much control, and faith means stepping back and trusting people to themselves and trusting them to God.

Here Mary and the rest of Jesus’ family learns a hard lesson, that they don’t understand the path that Jesus is on and how he’s walking it. Here Mother Mary learns she has to adapt to young adult Jesus. She has to direct less. And she has to listen and accompany more.

That’s a hard lesson for every parent as our kids go through the teen and young adult years. To keep showing up, to keep accompanying, but to talk less and listen more, to trust people to themselves and to God, whether or not it looks like it’s going well.

To say:

I’m here for you, but to be OK when your help doesn’t seem wanted.

Mary gets it, though. Like a good parent, like a good leader or boss or coach too, she’s able to lean in but also to lean back, which is why she’s still welcome, still there at the end of things, or at least what seemed like it was the end of things, as her son was crucified.

John 19:25 (Common English Bible)

25 Jesus’ mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene stood near the cross.

A stranger in the temple once told Mary that because of this special son of hers, a sword will pierce her heart. And here it does, as a sword pierces the heart of her son. Every child’s wound is a parent’s wound too. Because when we’re parents, a piece of our hearts stay with our kids forever.

And so being a co-creator means suffering. There’s no other way. And sometimes suffering isn’t redemptive at all. It’s just pain.

But sometimes suffering and death are the compost of new life, and so it is here. Since Jesus’ death on the cross had power for reversal and new life almost no one saw coming.

An image of love, a human and divine act of solidarity, a Roman attempt to shame a victim which ends up so shaming the empire that this crucifixion becomes the seed of which this very practice is banned and eliminated. Jesus is writing a story with God that will teach forgiveness and redemption and God’s recreative power even over death.

And again, for Mary and Jesus, this is very much a unique story, but it’s not the only version of this story.

In smaller ways, when we walk with people and suffer with them and stay with them when things are heard, we never know what might be true on the other side of the trouble. And that’s true when we let people suffer with us and walk with us as well.

Friends, I share and celebrate Mother Mary’s beautiful story of co-creating with God today because I want us to celebrate the life in our bones and the possibilities in our tomorrows and to give thanks to every mother and every co-creative force who has been part of our stories in the past.

Thank you God for everyone who has believed in us, who has walked with us, who has suffered with us, who has taught us and trusted us and encouraged us.

And I share and celebrate Mother Mary’s beautiful story of co-creating with God because I want us to believe that we are called to this kind of nurturing love as well, and whether we are young or old, or have children or not, or whether we are anyone’s mentor or boss or friend or not, it is meant to be part of our story.

It is part of our birthright and call as human beings to co-create and re-create with God, our Ever Creator, who creates out of the depths, and who nurtures holy possibilities out of ever fallow field and every torn down dump of a clay pit, and every life on earth – however shiny and hopeful it looks or not.

You, my friends, are God’s co-creative partners in all this.

Someone and somethings, no doubt a few someones and somethings, need your part in their story to encourage them, to pray for them, to build them up too.

And friends, our country needs this too. Badly.

250th Anniversary of the United States

In less than two months, this country is going to celebrate its 250th anniversary.

And friends, one thing that almost all of us agree on these days is that we are not in great shape.

I think of the era of my birth, just before this country’s 200th birthday, and there was plenty that was bad in this country then. The early 70’s were not a time of big national hope and optimism. They were tumultuous and violent times.

And yet, I look back and see all this re-creation that was going on in that era.

The Clean Air and Clean Water acts had just been passed.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was passed.
The Equal Rights Amendment passed in both houses of Congress, even if all the states didn’t ratify it in the end.
And in 1965, one of the crowning achievements of the Black Freedom Movement in America that we call the Civil Rights struggle was passed – the voting rights act, which guaranteed equal access to voting and equal access to federal representation for all American citizens, regardless of race.

There was a sense that we were taking our nation’s founding promises seriously – of flourishing and justice for all the people, all the people.

And yet here we are, on the verge of this country’s 250th anniversary, and every one of the things I just mentioned is being put at risk, blocked and undone by federal reductions, modifications, lack of oversight, and active sabotage. Sometimes it feels like we’re living in this great age of civic decreation, where apathy and racism and fear and resentment and mean-spirited, cruel attacks are undoing so much hardfought promise and possibility in this country, still struggling after 250 years to fulfill its promises to itself and all of us.

And friends, moments of attack and de-creation like this look like someone heaping big dumptruck loads of trash on the park we thought we were making. They look like our tender child we’ve been nurturing is getting put on the road to his crucifixion.

These days feel like moments of despair – times to move away or just stay put and give up.

But my hope is we can shed our tears and feel our fears and shout our frustrations when we need to, but then partner with one another and God again in re-creation. To be people who, when others tear down, say we’re going to be on the team that builds up.

I don’t know how we re-create democracy after these times of white supremacist, autocratic rule. But I know people are organizing. This past week many thousands of leaders from the churches of America’s largest Black church denominations gathered together on calls to start organizing for the mobilization and representation of Black voters. To insist that while the Supreme Court can tear apart the Voting Rights Act and try to tear apart our communities, we will not go silently and just yield to the erasure of the Black vote in America.

And I don’t know exactly what this is going to ask from us and how we can participate yet, but friends, I know that I don’t want to just shrug my shoulders and do nothing, when my Black Christian brothers and sisters call upon our votes, our voices, our bodies to participate in this struggle.

Building a beautiful park out of a dump, nurturing the life and call of a child – even a child like Jesus – may seem like small things compared to re-creating a tottering nation.

But I like to imagine some of the same ingredients are there:

Honesty about the way things are today
A vision for the future we want to see, that we think God would want to see.
A belief that if things have changed before, then things can change again
And enough faith, hope, and love that we keep showing up and keep doing our part.

These days, I’m not hopeful for this country of ours. I’m not. But for most of us, it’s the only one we’ve got.

And after all, It is part of our birthright and call as human beings to co-create and re-create with God, our Ever Creator, who creates out of the depths, and who nurtures holy possibilities out of ever fallow field and every torn down dump of a clay pit, and every life on earth – however shiny and hopeful it looks or not.

We, friends, are God’s co-creative partners in all this.

And this country certainly needs our part to encourage them, to pray for it, and to build it up to something better.

A Joyful Resistance

We began this season talking about all the thieves out there – all the people and forces out to steal, kill, and destroy – to steal our joy, rob us of our peace, harm our neighbors, destroy our democracy.

And we’ll end this season, or close to it, with joy, a joyful resistance.

Two reasons.

One, I asked God at the start of this season what would a resilient Reservoir Church look like? A community that no matter the troubles of our lives, and the deep troubles of this world, is unshakable in faith, hope, and love?

And the picture that came to me was of us singing together, loudly, joyfully. I think our capacity for joy, and for full-throated song is a sign of life, of strength, of joyful resistance. It’s so good to sing.

And two, we end here because the holiday invites us to.

It’s Palm Sunday, which is an ancient festival of Jesus’ joyful resistance that every year in the church, the Spirit of God invites us back into.

We’ve got palms. In the ancient near east, they were a symbol of life, of victory, of joy and peace.

And we’ve got this old word that started in Hebrew: Hosanna, which means Save us. Deliver us. Heal us.

Because that cluster of words are all connected, all intertwined. Save us, rescue us. We need help in times of trouble. “Deliver us” speaks to the external – bring us into freedom and safety and well-being, by removing that which threatens us, or if it can’t be removed, at least diminishing its power over us. And “heal us” speaks to the internal – make us well, make us whole, restore our peace and our joy, because life is a killer sometimes. And we need help getting well again.

Save us, deliver us, heal us – that’s what hosanna means.

I’m going to share three hosanna stories, three stories of joyful resistance, and each time, I’ll invite us to wave the palms as high and as vigorously as we can and shout: Hosanna. And I would love it, if you’ll go all in with me. I think you’ll love it too.

And we can practice at the start here, because I’m going to read the Palm Sunday story now from the good news of Matthew, and three times we get that word: Hosanna. And I’d love it if you were ready to shout it with me and shake those palms.

Can we practice once?

Hosanna.

Alright, let’s go.

Matthew 11:1-17 (Common English Bible)

21 When they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus gave two disciples a task.

2 He said to them, “Go into the village over there. As soon as you enter, you will find a donkey tied up and a colt with it. Untie them and bring them to me.

3 If anyone says anything to you, say that their master needs them.” He sent them off right away.

4 Now this happened to fulfill what the prophet said,

5 Say to Daughter Zion, “Look, your king is coming to you, humble and riding on a donkey, and on a colt the donkey’s offspring.”

6 The disciples went and did just as Jesus had ordered them.

7 They brought the donkey and the colt and laid their clothes on them. Then he sat on them.

8 Now a large crowd spread their clothes on the road. Others cut palm branches off the trees and spread them on the road.

9 The crowds in front of him and behind him shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

10 And when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up. “Who is this?” they asked.

11 The crowds answered, “It’s the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

12 Then Jesus went into the temple and threw out all those who were selling and buying there. He pushed over the tables used for currency exchange and the chairs of those who sold doves.

13 He said to them, “It’s written, My house will be called a house of prayer. But you’ve made it a hideout for crooks.”

14 People who were blind and lame came to Jesus in the temple, and he healed them.

15 But when the chief priests and legal experts saw the amazing things he was doing and the children shouting in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were angry.

16 They said to Jesus, “Do you hear what these children are saying?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Haven’t you ever read, From the mouths of babies and infants you’ve arranged praise for yourself?”

17 Then he left them and went out of the city to Bethany and spent the night there.

So you know what happened this year that made me think of Palm Sunday, long before today?

It was the Superbowl.

And not the game itself, which was a tough one for the local team, but the half time show, and Bad Bunny’s Palm Sunday, joyful resistance moment.

Now honestly the Palm Sunday connection for me first was all the grass. The field full of sugarcane and grasses, bringing the ecology of Puerto Rico to the stadium was really cool, and I had no idea at the time that there were like 380 people who got paid $20 an hour to wear the grass suits and turn that field into an island landscape. That was really cool, and it kind of looked like Palm Sunday – with all that green waving around.

But the real connection was deeper, it was the joyful resistance.

Now Bad Bunny has become wildly popular and wealthy and successful singing really interesting, catchy booty-swinging dance songs. And if he had wanted to use his Superbowl moment to just fill a stage with his band and an army of dancers and grass and bang through his greatest hits, that would have been fine. That’s his right as an entertainer, that’s what normally happens in that space.

But instead of just that, he brought a whole beautiful, colonized, American island’s history and people and culture and language to life to be recognized and celebrated as unmistakably its own glorious thing, and also at the same time indisputably American.

And in an era when Puerto Rico has been repeatedly neglected, disrespected, and in many ways spat upon by the country that claims it as its own, this was a powerful act of joyful resistance.

Now don’t get me wrong, Bad Bunny – talented as he is – is not Jesus Christ of course. His joyful resistance is not explicitly religious. It is more secular than spiritual, if we can even really make those distinctions.

But there was at least something of the good news of Jesus being channeled through his show that night. Because core to that good news is this repeated refrain in the scriptures that the proud will be humbled and the humbled will be exalted, that when God makes the way for the good news of Jesus to break through, mountains will be made low, and valleys will be exalted.

And in a hemisphere where one country, this country, has flexed its powers for centuries to dominate this American hemisphere and have its way again and again, we were invited to proclaim God’s blessing on all of the Americas – no one higher, no one lower. We were given a witness to Beloved Community – together we are America. And we were asked to believe the good news of Christ that love is more powerful than hate.

And all of that sounds like Jesus to me.

Tia Me Pregunto by Bad Bunny

Hosanna. Hosanna. Hosanna.

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

And that one who comes in the name of the Lord is firstly Jesus, but that night for a moment, Jesus spoke to us through Bad Bunny as well.

Now Jesus’ own Palm Sunday moment happened a long time before football and televised half-time shows, and booty-swinging Reggaeton were invented.

But Jesus was also a colonized person, in an old and proud culture that had been conquered and terrorized by a mighty empire. That day, on the other side of town, Roman armies were streaming into Jerusalem on war horses, armed with swords, for crowd control and intimidation, to remind the Jews they were in charge.

And Jesus entered on the other side of the city, sure that his message of love and justice would not play well, and would get him crucified.

You would have understood if Jesus wanted to come up to Jerusalem quietly, use his final days to seek out his favorite falafel and humus vendors, or something. But Jesus does the opposite of that. He comes in big with a dramatic, attention-getting march on the other side of town.

He finds his path, his call in the history and scriptures of his faith, as he so often did, that proclaimed God’s true leader would have no interest in weapons of war, but would be armed with love and the respect and praises of God’s people. And God’s true leader wouldn’t ride a proud, intimidating war horse, but would ride humbly, on a steady, earthy, slow-moving donkey.

So that’s what Jesus did.

The crowds saw something special. They longed for deliverance and healing and salvation. So much was not well in Jerusalem, which bristled with corruption and oppression and violence.

And so as Jesus rode in, they waved and threw down their palms for the kind of would-be king that represented the best of their culture and their faith, and they shouted this two-part prayer – Hosanna. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna.

I heard another pastor break down this two-sided prayer in a way that was helpful.

It’s saying – save us, deliver us, heal us. And then it’s saying here is the way those things will happen.

To go back to the Superbowl for a second, imagine in an alternative universe, the Patriots had had a chance and were down by just one score near the end of the game. And their quarterback Drake Maye dropped back to hurl his last pass, in hopes of a big score. And some people in the stadium are yelling, come on, throw a touchdown. Don’t mess it up. That’s the Hosanna part. And at the same time, other people in the stadium are like, you have got this, Drake Maye. We believe in you. This is it. That’s the Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

And so it was with Jesus. As Jesus rode on that donkey, and palms were laid down, and Jesus spoke with joy and power as he flipped those moneylending tables in the temple, and prayed for the sick, and celebrated the voices of children, some people shouted Hosanna and hoped beyond hope that this could be a day when God’s help had come. And others whispered with a quiet confidence: this is the day. I think this is what love looks like. If God were to come back to our city, I think this is what it would look like.

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Friends, there’s a lot in the Way of Jesus here that’s worth remembering.

Safe people who represent something of God to us are never loved and respected by everyone. Sometimes they are crucified. But often, they earn the love and trust of children.

Also, the most important instruments of God’s help and healing are not likely to be our politicians or are latest technologies, no matter how much they say they are. To put a point on it, neither AI nor the next Democratic nominee for president is coming to save the day, and if they say they are, they are lying.

Jesus doesn’t save us through some new great power that will set all things right, or some flashy tech that will marshal in a golden age of ease and efficiency. Nah, he saves through awakening love and courage in the hearts of people, and through helping us pay attention not only to ourselves, but to the rocks and the children and the better possibilities for healing and deliverance and justice for us all.

Also, it’s worth remembering that our saving – the answers to our hosanna prayers, won’t mean that everything has a happy ending. On Palm Sunday, Jesus is on his way to crucifixion after all. But it does mean that by the grace of God, joy and peace and love that go past all our understanding can yet break through, anytime, everywhere.

I saw that happen once in this very room while a dear woman was on the way to her untimely death. And that’s the last joyful resistance moment I want to celebrate.

It happened in a prayer meeting in this room, in 2014. It was called by one of our members, Julie O’Connor. She had been diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer seven or eight years earlier and told she had maybe two years left to live. And after a remarkable run of beating those odds, she had no more treatments left to try, and lots of cancer in her body still, and she was dying.

So this prayer meeting wasn’t so much to pray for a final miracle but to gather her friends and faith community and to say thank you and to bear witness to all God had done for her.

I think for some folks in the room, it was difficult. Because to pray Hosanna, save us, deliver us, heal us God was to pray for another miracle, that Julie would not die at all but that this cancer would be eradicated entirely.

After all, Julie was only 55 years old. She still had two school aged kids at home. She was a force of a leader, at home and in her career and in this church. She’d been the project manager for the redevelopment of this church when we bought it, and she was still on the Board of the church until her final year of life. I remember one hospital visit I’d made to see Julie in her final year, and Julie wasn’t content to have me catch up with her and just pray for her. She brought me down the hall to someone else she knew on the floor, someone who didn’t have a pastor, so I could meet that person and pray for them as well. Julie was a force.

And surely, a good, saving God with the power to heal would do more, right?

But Julie didn’t see it that way. When we gathered here for that evening prayer meeting, she stood up and thanked this community and thanked God for how good we had been to her, and how good God had been as well.

As I remember it, she had two main things to say, two ways she’d experienced the goodness of God.

One was all her extra years. Julie had been diagnosed in her late 40’s and told she could hope to reach 50, maybe. But she’d beaten those odds by bunches. She’d gotten five or six more years of her children’s lives, five or six more years to be a mom to them. Five or six more years of marriage, of friendships, or career contributions, of good meals, and of the kindness and generosity and warmth of her church, that she wanted to thank for walking with her and praying for her and loving her this whole time.

Julie attributed these extra years to great work of her medical team and also simply to the goodness of God. She didn’t count herself as cursed but very much blessed.

And the other thing Julie wanted to say was that she was so thankful that God has sustained and deepened her faith through this trial. She said she was raised to believe God always had a plan and was always in control, that all things that happen, happen by the will of God. But she said, if her faith hadn’t changed, she couldn’t have kept it through her illness.

She could not believe that it was God’s good will for her to get cancer in her 40’s, for it to be caught very late, and for her to eat at her body until she died in her mid-50s’, without even seeing her children reach adulthood. A God who willed and planned something like that would not be good.

But she had learned in this church different ways to trust and understand God’s goodness and power. She learned that a loving god is always fighting evil in its many forms, but that this God was always loving, and love doesn’t control, love cooperates. And sometimes people and all the other creatures of this earth don’t cooperate with God. Cancer cells certainly don’t. Sometimes they respond to treatment and go away or stay quiet for many decades, but sometimes they don’t, and that’s not God’s fault.

It was so important to Julie that she could know God loves her, and God loves her family, and God loves us all, even if she had suffered and had to die too young. She was losing years she wished she could have, but she hadn’t lost her faith or her joy and her peace, and for that she was thankful.

Her hosanna prayers had been answered in the love of her community and the extension of her years and the preservation of her faith, so that she could still say, Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Jesus had been God’s blessing to her. And this church and all who loved her had been as well.

Julie’s faith was important to so many of us. She gave us another picture of how, as some old words in our tradition say, even as we go to the grave, we will still sing Hallelujah.

No one and nothing can eradicate the goodness of God. No one and nothing can steal our faith, steal our joy, steal our peace, because nothing can separate us, nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna….

For Julie O’Connor, and all the beloveds who have gone before us here and elsewhere, and for our own fragile little lives, friends, I pray that every time you say your hosanna – deliver us, save us, heal us, you will have eyes to see how Jesus is coming to you in many forms, that you be blessed by him who comes in the name of the Lord. And that this blessing will sustain your faith, sustain your peace, sustain your joy.

Land of the Living

Tomorrow February 2nd sun will set at 5:00pm (and the temperature will be above freezing!) — we have objectively made it through the darkest weeks of the year.

We are in a series called Praying the Psalms that I’ve been enjoying over the last few weeks. And honestly how timely (and timeless) are the Psalms? For me, I find their hyperbolic tendencies especially refreshing, as well as the invitation to join in the emotional journeys of so many people of faith who have gone before us. Those that have railed against God and those who have unfailingly loved God. … often the same person, in the same breath —

“God why have you left me and forgotten me forever?”

“I love you with my whole life and heart, I will sing of your goodness forevermore.”

This emotional range — isn’t just a one-off, or accidental —most of the Psalms follow this movement and orientation. To me, it feels like human spiritual formation. It teaches us how to stay in relationship (with ourselves, one another, and God), even when things are broken.

The Psalms help us stay in this thing called life, and this thing called faith, which, in the Psalms, aren’t really separate. They offer us a way to match the fervor of our times. To not back down on what it means to be human. To allow our emotional states — all of our heightened energy (or lack thereof), and all of our sadness, and anger and vengeance and fear — to have an honest landing place.

AND the Psalms allow us, with the same fervor TO NOT BACK DOWN from the GOODNESS of GOD. From the undeniable love of God that somehow we continue to reach for as a lifeline in a world that seems to be heckling us, daring us to give up on hope, and give up on kindness, and give up on one another.

Lately, I’ve been describing how I feel during these times, as something akin to having a constant low-grade fever.

Heavy.
Exhausted.
Sad.
Sweaty.
Not sick enough to collapse, but not really LIVING fully.

And when life feels like that, the temptation is to curl up in a ball. (*I’ve done it. A lot!*)
But when it stretches on for so long, it can veer toward paralysis, numbing out, isolating. Shutting down altogether. Where we disconnect from the goodness of God and that same goodness that is implanted in one another.

So today, I want to talk about what it looks like to stand together in solidarity when injustice is rampant. What it looks like to stay human with one another in community. What it means to keep choosing life, this life, this faith, in what Psalm 116 calls

“the land of the living.”

Pray: Our God, who never gives up on us — help us to stay in this life with you –and with one another.

Last weekend I was in California — moving our middle kiddo into college — and simultaneously missing the big snowstorm here. San Diego does not have snow. It has beaches and palm trees and blooming flowers and lots and lots of sunshine. **some of my favorite things**

But I was very much keeping a close eye on the homefront! I was watching notifications from our front porch camera come through, and wondering how much snow we were going to get and how shoveling out was going to go. Both my husband in treatment and my son post-surgery are not in prime condition for a ton of shoveling.

As those notifications kept pinging my phone, I started seeing people show up.

People coming to help — and not just one person … but lots of neighbors. And not just for us, but for all the neighbors around.

Neighbors came out and borrowed snowblowers from one another – and people shoveled and shoveled and shoveled.

One neighbor said,

“it’s just neighbors being neighbors.”

It’s what I love about a big snowstorm, even though I don’t like the cold! There’s a sense of ‘aliveness’, humanity, community that surfaces, even in the midst of a storm.

It reminded me of something MY meteorologist Dave Epstein once said after the ‘great snow of 2015’ — which if you don’t know, the greater Boston area got 110 inches of snow that season — it was monumental! It was truly all anyone could talk about and Dave Epstein said this:

“all of us have our own way of existing during this historical period of weather. You might not be fazed by the winter onslaught, perhaps you even enjoy it. Maybe you would do anything to be anywhere else, but no matter what your feelings about it, we’re all living it.”

“We are all living it.”

Different stories, different experiences, but same stormy, ICE-laden world.
And I think Psalm 116 is one of those that gives us a look at someone who lives in a world like this and still reaches for God and one another.

Psalm 116 (NIV)
1 I love the Lord, for God heard my voice;
God heard my cry for mercy.

2 Because GOD turned God’s ear to me,
I will call on God as long as I live.

3 The cords of death entangled me,
the anguish of the grave came over me;
I was overcome by distress and sorrow.

4 Then I called on the name of the Lord:
“Lord, save me!”

5 The Lord is gracious and righteous;
our God is full of compassion.

6 The Lord protects the unwary;
when I was brought low, God saved me.

7 Return to your rest, my soul,
for the Lord has been good to you.

8 For you, Lord, have delivered me from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling,

9 that I may walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.

10 I trusted in the Lord when I said,
“I am greatly afflicted”;

11 in my alarm I said,
“Everyone is a liar.”

12 What shall I return to the Lord
for all God’s goodness to me?

13 I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord.

14 I will fulfill my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people.

15 Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his faithful servants.

16 Truly I am your servant, Lord;
I serve you just as my mother did;
you have freed me from my chains.

17 I will sacrifice a thank offering to you
and call on the name of the Lord.

18 I will fulfill my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people,

19 in the courts of the house of the Lord,
in your midst, Jerusalem.

Praise the Lord.

Like many Psalms, this one doesn’t just offer us one steady emotional plane. It feels a bit frenetic to me when I read it — it moves a lot.

There are moments of love, “I love you, God.”
Moments of desperation, “I’m in distress.” “Save me.”
Moments of relief, “You have saved me.” “You are gracious.”
Moments of self-talk, “Okay, soul… calm down. Rest.”
And then, almost out of nowhere, “I’m greatly afflicted.” “Everyone is a liar.”

It’s a little scattered and a lot real! And I love that! Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann says that the Psalms tend to move through three broad movements: orientation, disorientation and reorientation.

Times when life makes sense.

Times when things fall apart, and times when somehow we reimagine, reshape a new way forward.

Psalm 116 isn’t a great example of that at least not in a neat, linear order. It sort of weaves all of those movements together. Kind of like what real life does. We trust, we panic, we talk calmly to ourselves, we remember God’s goodness, and then we can feel like there is no truth to be had anywhere!

Having said that, as I’ve been sitting with Psalm 116, three phrases keep rising to the surface for me:

“God turns an ear.”

“Return to your rest.”

and

“Walk in the land of the living.”

One of them is right near the beginning;

Verse 1 & 2 say:
I love the Lord, for God heard my voice;
God heard my cry for mercy.
Because GOD turned God’s ear to me,

It’s poignant that this Psalm starts with a God who listens.
Thank goodness.

This seems like a good starting point.

A given.

An obvious claim.

One I would make myself.

AND also one I keep holding up against the world as it is.

Let me explain a little bit. . .

**When I get into a song — either because I like it or because I’m intrigued by it, I play it over and over and over again.(much to the disdain of my family)… And even before I knew I’d preach on this Psalm — I was listening to the actual song version of Psalm 116… ON REPEAT.

And every time the song got to this lyric:

“I will bless You Lord, for You heard my plea, and the God of Heaven turned His ear to me.”

I would sing it as,

“And the God of Heaven turned HIS BACK TO ME!”

Everytime.
And I’d be like, “oh, shoot — wrong lyrics!! I’ll get them right next time.”
Except I wouldn’t. It just kept coming out of me the same way.

And I wondered, “Huh, maybe the Psalm itself is inviting me to wrestle with the truth of a statement that didn’t ring true in my body. I mean after all scripture is regarded as the “living word”, right — I’m getting some feedback in real time.

Part of me isn’t convinced that God is turning an ear right now…not in the way I would like it to translate at least!

Part of me thinks, “Whoa! Have you seen what’s going on?”

And it seems the Psalmist knows this feeling — even with the declaration that God is one who listens, the manifestation isn’t immediate calmness or unwavering confidence in the Psalmist’s body …. There isn’t a neat arrival at peace….

Instead, what we see is a very human oscillation.

First the Psalmist has to pause. And then they talk to themselves.
In verse 7, the Psalmist says to themselves:

“Return to your rest, my soul,
for the Lord has been good to you.”

This is a nervous-system-aware Psalm.

Noticing their internal state and offering themselves a gentle intervention.
Which I appreciate very much — because it’s not harmful, intrusive self-talk…

Not,

“Get it together!”

But,

“Come back to yourself. Come back to rest. Remember what/who has carried you before.”

This is some way to regulate in the midst of potential chaos, showing us how to keep breathing.

But yet as the Psalmist goes on — we are jarred again!

Because they say,

“In my alarm I said, everyone is a liar!”

Which tells me the self-talk didn’t magically fix everything. Again fear & distrust don’t always immediately resolve.

And in some ways, there it is. The inside of faith exposed, right? When the world feels untrustworthy — in every corner — we *not shockingly* feel uncertain!

And yet, I also know that uncertainty can induce a sense of panic, especially when we feel alone! It can cast an ‘absolute’ frame around everything. Around everyone — even God.

And the truth is —

There are real lies, lacing the air we breathe… . There is real corruption. Real manipulation. Real systems built on distortion and greed. Real violence.

But scripture is not surprised by this.

The Bible is full of false kings, and corrupt rulers, and prophets screaming, truth-to- power…

Our hope is not in the moral goodness of leaders.

Psalm 116 begins:

“I love the Lord, because God heard my voice.”

The Psalmist doesn’t say, “I love the king because he told the truth.” or “I love the empire because it’s just.”

Hope isn’t often anchored in rulers. Hope is rooted in a God who turns an ear toward us (wherever we are at). Scripture doesn’t seem to ask us to pretend rulers are trustworthy.

But Scripture does invite us to decide whether God is trustworthy. And to move from that real/honest place.

I think this is why it matters that this Psalm has been prayed for generations. Psalm 116 has long been prayed at Jewish tables during Passover. It is recited near the end of the meal with celebratory wine. Passover, tells the Exodus story.

One that feels all too familiar– a ruler’s power is threatened by the growth of those he oppresses. A story of danger, domination, resistance and deliverance. A story of God being with those being trampled. But Passover is not only about remembering an ancient story. It’s also about telling current stories — stories of the people who are gathered around tables — OR AROUND SNOWBANKS. About naming the world we are living in now. Stories about current issues of injustice, a communal remembering (yes), and a communal witnessing.

This feels appropriate because Psalm 116 isn’t particularly tidy. It reads like a story of someone trying to live, trying to keep going.

We do not know exactly what happened to the psalmist because so much of the language here can be interpreted as poetic — we can think,

“Really? Was it really “cords of death entangled you?” “The anguish of Sheol laid hold on you?” . . .

But maybe they did.

When we read Psalms like these, we may feel tempted to write them off — too dramatic — too all over the place… But maybe it’s not exaggerated at all. Right? Because all around us, people are experiencing their versions of hell.

People trapped in systems that are rigged/ inescapable.

People whose nervous systems are shot.

People who are shot.

And we ourselves may feel like the “snares of death” encompass us. So what would happen if we took this part of the Psalm seriously? What could we be encouraged to do if we believed folks about their own testimonies, stories? If we turned our ears toward each other…. Just as God

“turned God’s ear toward us?”

“What if we did indeed believe the evidence of our eyes and ears?”

Maybe that is in part what it means to live in the LAND OF THE LIVING — learning how to turn our ears (not our backs) toward one another, too.

The land of the living is what happens when people refuse to abandon one another in a world that keeps training us to go numb.

“Land of the Living”

This phrase —

“I will walk in the land of the living”

— is probably one of my favorite bits of scripture right now — it is one of my deepest prayers:

“God, please help me to keep walking in the LAND OF THE LIVING… keep convincing me however you can that we still have heartbeats that care for one another. Keep my heart beating.”

Because, “the land of the living” — isn’t just a destination to me, it’s a practice. A way of staying in this life together..

It makes me think of something James Baldwin wrote in “Nothing Personal,” as he spoke of dehumanization and its cost:

He said,

‘if a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe. …..and what we then are struggling against is death in the heart which leads not only to the shedding of blood, but which reduces human beings to corpses while they live.” (Nothing Personal, James Baldwin, 1964).

And while Baldwin is speaking in the context of racialized violence and the brutal realities of anti-Blackness in America, I hear in his words a truth that keeps showing up across time and place.

“Death of the heart” – – the slow erosion of our capacity to care for one another.
Kind of the opposite of the land of the living.

At community group a week ago, I learned the phrase, *that maybe is obvious*: “poly-crisis.”

We are living inside what social scientists call a poly-crisis. Overlapping crises —political, economic, environmental, relational and public health — a crisis of democracy, a crisis of trust — and it makes sense that many of us feel like we are living with a “LOW GRADE FEVER” – stuck, tired, unable to imagine a future where we are well.

I offer this — because it isn’t personal failure to some days feel paralyzed — it’s a very human response to such layered and sustained pressure.

Which is why it’s comforting to see, across the arc of scripture that we are not commanded to simply “try harder!” — we are invited to stay human with one another:

Scripture says:

“Love your neighbor.”

“Defend the dignity of the foreigner.”

“Love the stranger, provide them food and clothing.”

“Care for the widow, for the orphan — care for the vulnerable.”

Omid Safi, a Duke professor of Islamic studies, says that being close to God — real closeness, lived closeness — reshapes how we see. It trains us to recognize the movement of God and the movement of our lives as deeply intertwined — beyond political decrees, external circumstances or dominant opinions that try to inject fear.

With a real, good and living God close to us, the passion for justice and care for all of humanity – becomes a non-negotiable — because God stands with us in the threats, in suffering, in our lives.

Safi says the

“love we recognize in other people — people who love their babies and their community — is the same love that we love our babies and our community with…”

AND when we recognize that shared love, we will not stand for something happening to other people’s babies or communities that we would not accept happening to our own.

That is simply what we call justice —
Justice is not born primarily out of rage.

Justice is born out of a heart that still knows how to love.

A heart that still knows how to recognize itself in another.

That’s the land of the living.

A nation that refuses to become loveless.

Which means we don’t stay alive alone.

We stay alive together.

Where we — I guess — do actually have to try hard to stay in relationship.

To keep our hearts soft, and our ears open . . ..

The land of the living is communal.

My meteorologist that I mentioned earlier — Dave Epstein — is often referred to as a kind of, “meteorologist Mr. Rogers.” I think in part because he isn’t just disseminating information about the weather — he really cares about helping us orient inside of it. And he reminds us not to panic, to be prepared and to remember that we are all in it together.

In that crazy year of 2015, he wrote:

“As the streets continue to narrow and our tolerance and patience for the transformed world we live grows short, think about the collective experience all of us are sharing. No one is immune from these storms; Everyone has a story about the snow or what the snow is doing…..

I know that this week, I have heard stories of ice dams turning a driveway into a skating rink, . Stories about snowbanks so high, people (like me!), get nervous for high schoolers driving to school. Stories of extensive, front-yard snow tunnels and caves. Stories of a snow bench carved into a bank — perfect for whiskey sipping and meeting new friends.

“Whatever your personal take on this, everyone is connected, because most of us can’t escape” . .. . the weather, or the world! We often use the term “hardy” as a way for New Englanders to describe ourselves. We are agile and nimble, smart and innovative, we will keep on shoveling and pushing through.” (Dave Epstein).

We keep figuring it out. As frenetic as it might seem!

And this is exactly what autocratic regimes hope we won’t keep doing –– figuring it out. They hope we won’t care for each other, that we’ll turn on each other. That we’ll settle for the way things are, that we won’t trust each other, or name what we sense is wrong.

But when institutions lie — we look for people – – yes, the helpers, but also the healers, and those telling the truth with their lives…

We look for meteorologists.
We look for neighbors.
Organizers.
Teachers.
Nurses.
Therapists.
Parents.
Volunteers.
Mutual aid workers.
Church communities.

We look for ordinary pockets of honesty and we connect and build there.

We’ve seen this in places like Minneapolis (and all over the country), right? Ordinary people saying,

“No, no, no. We won’t stand for this.”

Ordinary people organizing food, safety, and care. Utilizing whistles and cell phones for resistance. Affirming that we will stand in the land of the living. Fellow citizens being human, showing that we are made of potent stuff, that

“good stuff within us comes through.”

The land of the living certainly isn’t a utopia. But it is what it looks like when people refuse to abandon one another. And solidarity is that refusal. Solidarity says — even if people in power lie, we will not lie to one another about what we are facing, and we will not lie about our need for one another.

The arc of justice might be long — but it bends with pressure. The pressure of people who love one another and refuse to give up on being real, and refuse to give up on the goodness of God.

And maybe this is why the Psalm ends the way it does.

“ I will fulfill my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all God’s people,” (v. 14 and v. 18)

The fulfillment of our vows to God — is to be human with one another, seeking a good, and just and living God in our midst.

Reservoir Church is sometimes called a “unicorn” of a church … and I love that.
But what we have here isn’t magic… and maybe if I’m honest, shouldn’t be that special.

I mean if anything, I think we are just stubborn. (in the best way).

We are stubborn and imperfect. .. but we are steady in our VOWS to be human with one another.

And in our refusal to stop seeking the image of God in each other.

So may we continue to situate ourselves in our ordinary lives, *in these EXTRA-ordinary times* and may we turn to one another — and to the God who turns an ear toward us — in the land of the living, that we won’t give up on.

Amen.

RESOURCES
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2026/jan/14/new-year-polycrisis-psychology-feeling-trapped

https://www.boston.com/weather/weather/2015/02/10/the_great_snow_of_2015/?utm_campaign=23369841-boston+sunday&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2anqtz-81gars7mz_lc3n4kukeqxboc6qbgkbh03_zidadd0taazeq9e-hh-6_uk6gcn_0vco6ot7biy72o_t6ynno_ohdmg8bb17nzs_nesakhiovzrqcie&_hsmi=400246725&utm_content=400246725&utm_source=hs_email

Be An Elizabeth

Have you ever had to start over?

Starting at a new school. Moving to a brand new city. Starting over single after heartbreak.

I started a new job one time at a church, not here. Another church. First day, I went into the church office, I walked in. No one’s there that early. It’s empty. No one cares that it’s your first day. The communications guy walks out and I’m like,

hi I’m the new hire.

And he’s like, uh I’m not sure, let me see find… And I tried my best to make him like me by making a joke.

“Oh it’s alright, don’t worry about me, I’ll just sit in this corner and pray until someone needs me.”

There are two opposing feelings that can happen when you are starting something new. Excitement and fear. There’s a name for this feeling. Ambivalence. I thought ambivalence was like hesitation but you might hesitate because the feeling is both positive and negative. You are both looking forward to it and want it and you don’t want it at all and want to run the other way. Both, at the same time.

Maybe you might be feeling that way a bit about the new year coming. Another year is coming to a close. A part of me is glad that it’s over. Could use a new leaf.

But will the new year bring new good things to me?
Will it be just more of the same, same grief work, same heartbreaks, same loneliness and sadness or busyness trekking along another year?

Maybe there is something delightful and surprising in store for me.

I wanted to kind of extend the Christmas story today. Everyday is Christmas day at church! I wanted to reflect on this story of waiting and expecting something new and what that could mean for us. Actually it was Pastor Dan, our elementary pastor who shared the Bible story with us, his idea, or wonderings. I wonder what it feels like to welcome this new baby Jesus into our lives. Along with, as we’re welcoming a new year, What does it mean to welcome the Gospel of new creation into our lives?

For Mary it did begin with fear. And she needed not just her own story, but to hear someone else’s miracle to make it even a possibility in her mind. And then, she took off flight into a vision of hope she dared to entertain in her mind with joy.

So those are my 3 points today.

Fear is okay.
You might need a friend.
Dare to Rejoice and Hope.

I’ve been in therapy for the past few years for… anger. That’s right. I’ve apparently got anger issues. We’ve been working for years on managing it. How to regulate myself when the kids are screaming, crying, and breaking down. She told me to write anger, like cursive letters, and say, I am feeling angry. That was the most surface level the way it’s been manifesting. How to process grief and anger about systemic injustice and racism. My therapist pushed me further down.

What else? What else are you angry about? She was like, your parents. I’m like, I mean yeah when I was in my 20’s, I already did years of therapy because of my anger at my parents. Now that I’m a parent, I understand everything! Umma, Appa, if you’re watching I forgive you. You were great.

Then one day, after I got off the Zoom therapy session. With these questions in my mind. What am I so angry about? What feels so unfair and unjust, that was out of my control? I went to the bathroom, and on the throne it hit me, I burst into tears thinking about the nine-year old little Korean girl moving to America. It seemed like such a stupid thing to be angry about.

Like, the immigration story? Comeon. That’s so overplayed. But then I remembered the movie Inside Out. And how hard it was for that little girl to move to San Francisco from Minnesota. Lydia’s Sadness did not get to take up space. Lydia’s Joy definitely just shut everyone up. Which is why Lydia’s Anger is sometimes so angry. Apparently the whole point of the movie is Sadness and Anger is valid and okay.

My favorite part of Mary’s story is not the poetic prophetic part, the triumphant obedient Mary. It’s too holy and perfect for my taste. Give me broken humanity. One with doubt and fear and disbelief. One who is suspicious and greatly troubled at what an angel is saying, wondering what kind of greeting this might be. And I’m still slightly annoyed at the obsession with these great origin stories in virginity.

Somebody with a PhD in history of the gaze of women’s sexuality talk to me about this please. Regardless, just imagine. You’re engaged. And someone comes to you and says, you’re pregnant. It would be confusing times. Maybe afraid of what your fiancee might say or do or think, as last week’s Kids Church Christmas pageant Joseph confessed.

“What would my relatives think?”

I wouldn’t break out into a song either immediately.

The Good News, whether through an angel, or Scripture, or a conviction in your heart through a spiritual experience, might come at us abruptly with an audacious even suspicious power that can feel daunting. It might invite us to move into that fear and grief, asking us to let go of the old way of doing things. And letting go of old ways of doing things feels scary. And you know what helps when you’re scared? Not being alone. Having someone to comfort you and encourage you.

And that’s why you might need a friend. We need one another to share our testimonies. To hear it, share it, and believe it. To share our struggles and the suffering. To share our miracles and God’s answered prayers. We need one another to remind one another. Especially when you’re afraid.

When you are afraid, tired, anxious– you need a hype woman. Listen to this

Luke 1:39-42

39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea,

40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth.

41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

42 In a loud voice she exclaimed:

“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!

43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

Do you have an Elizabeth in your life? You know, one who’s all hopped up on the Holy Spirit, in a loud voice exclaiming,

“Blessed are you!”

Everyone needs at least one of those. One who tells you that when you come around, their baby leaps for joy at the sight of you. If you don’t, I pray that God will give one to you. She’ll keep us grounded. She’ll remind us of the blessings all around us. She’ll tell you the struggle that she’s been through. She’ll praise God with you and for you when you’re scared. Go stay with her for three months.

And be the Elizabeth for someone. Go around sharing God’s miracles in your life. Be a testament. We need your loud vibes please. This is why we do faith in community. Not isolated. Because our destinies are shared and intertwined with one another.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed lately but we’ve been working to integrate our youth group into the service more. You might’ve seen high schoolers on stage in the band or in other ministry areas. They do have a youth program where they meet in the basement of the Ministry Center the first three Sundays of the month.

And as I’ve been having the privilege to work with our Elementary Pastor Dan, Pre/k Pastor Aubrie, and Youth Pastor Bri, we’ve been discussing in our weekly team meetings, where and when and why and how did we get to a church culture where we tuck the kids away to their own rooms? Is the purpose to keep them occupied while the grown ups do the serious Jesus stuff and not have them distracting us? Our team says a strong no. That’s why we don’t call it Sunday School but Kids Church. The kids are doing church too.

I mean of course there’s age appropriate content, considering the stage of development in spiritual formation. We’ll actually have a really cool Workshop called Parenting After Deconstruction happening in April where an expert will talk to us about how we can be thoughtful about that. But, one of the beauties of church actually is the intergenerational space we get to be around with one another. That’s not just the job of a Kids Church volunteer. Because it’s not about learning Bible content. Church is being in community with one another, hearing each other’s stories, rooting for each other, leaning on one another. Ages 0-99.

A study from the Fuller Youth Institute, called “Sticky Faith” research, found that about half of high school youth group kids drift from faith in college. It led a longitudinal study identifying key factors for lasting faith. An important one is the impact of intergenerational relationships, with a 5:1 adult-to-kid ratio. Our young people need meaningful relationships with 5 grown ups outside of their parents in the faith context.

That means they can’t just stay in the basement during church. They need to be mixed into the wider church. In order for them to be able to receive Christ into their lives and live into the new creation in faith, they need Elizabeths in their lives. An elder saying, look at me, God did miracles on me and look at the mercy God’s bestowed upon me. I was not disregarded as worthless. God used me. I am worthy of love and so are you. They need five Elizabeths in their lives, at least.

Actually they’ll probably be an Elizabeth for you. Last week one of the high schooler boys said hi to me, first! And I felt so cool. And the teens were also the winners of the Cookie Bake Off on Christmas Eve earlier this week, with that chocolate cookie with Cayenne Powder, a little spicy sweet goodness, for The Most Delicious category and the chocolate dipped pretzel “cookie” that looked like tiny Christmas trees for the Most Creative. Sylvie, Freya, Harvey – good work. I bet you Elizabeth made cookies for Mary, I’m sure of it.

And so with some cookies in our belly for the journey we can maybe

Dare to Rejoice and Hope. As you welcome the new year. As you welcome God’s new creation in your life. Fear is okay. And, Joy is okay. Both of them, co-existing is okay. As Brene Brown would say, and I say to my kids,

that’s being brave. Being scared and doing it with the belief, I can do it, even if you think you can’t.

My third point is to dare to rejoice. And if you’re going through a season of depression or grief, I mean it’s the dead of winter, let’s be honest, many of us are, or in a season of depression, you might be thinking,

“oh gee thanks, tell me more, to rejoice.”

Look I’m not saying will-power into being joyful. I’m not saying,

“Just be positive!”

because your Sadness will respond with,

“I’m positive that’s not going to work.”

Daring to rejoice is the imagination of a faithful protest. It’s praying words you don’t believe or are not sure about. It’s receiving and expecting the gifts of God coming at you, like a fool in love.

To rejoice is to take the leap of faith. And leaping, sometimes works.

Like just try skipping and tell me you don’t feel a little childlike wonder.

Our movement, our practice in the ritual of worship reinforces and proclaims even before our minds and mouths can.

Do you dare worship and sing praises when your world is crumbling?

My kid asked me the other day, while listening to Christmas Carols in the car. Is Bethlehem a real town? And good thing she couldn’t see my face. I said,

“yeah, it’s real.”

She asked,

“have we been there?”

I said,

“no, we haven’t been there”

with a pinch in my heart. I’m thinking of the videos of Palestinian Christians celebrating Christmas in Bethlehem this year, after three years of war and bombing. I’m thinking of their Christmas celebrations with deep deep grief in their hearts. How stark the joy is at the heels of destruction and death. How precious the joy is, all the more, than ever before.

Even if you are scared of the unknown, starting anew, daring to wonder if God has a new mercy waiting for you tomorrow, worship and sing. Praise Jesus. Bring glory to God in the dark of your rock bottom. It’s a ridiculous thing for me to tell you to do but that’s the gospel. Ridiculous.

Ridiculous for a young lowly pregnant out of wedlock girl to proclaim the glorious riches of Jesus. But she dares. She dares to prophesy.

Listen. This is Mary’s Song

Mary’s Song

And Mary said:

“My soul glorifies the Lord

    and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has been mindful

    of the humble state of his servant.

From now on all generations will call me blessed,

    for the Mighty One has done great things for me—

    holy is his name.

His mercy extends to those who fear him,

    from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

    he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones

    but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things

    but has sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,

    remembering to be merciful

to Abraham and his descendants forever,

    just as he promised our ancestors.”

What is her song’s thesis?

She’s happy, humbled, blessed and… her reasons for these are not just because she’s pregnant with a baby. She paints a vision for a future

Where God has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble,
filled the hungry with good things,
but has sent the rich away empty.

Her joy does not come from a surface level joy, everything’s fine, or simply lofty thoughts but grounded in a real picture of what heaven on earth can look like. Her joy is from a place of resistance and an unapologetic thrust of her imagination of justice, in spite of all that she saw in her world, the rulers on thrones oppressing the humble and the hungry going empty, the rich filled. She doesn’t even put it in the future tense but past tense.

Do you have that kind of audacious foolish joy? Do we dare look so ridiculous being that joyful when the sky is falling? No, many of us, I often, don’t have that kind of faith. I don’t expect and hope that much, because, well, I don’t want to be disappointed again.

I’ve been listening to a kind of silly podcasts lately on productivity, efficiency and organizing. Because you know, with the new year and all, I want to be more organized. More of my work streamlined, daily routines automated. And one of the podcasts suggested as one of six ways to get organized. She said, after you organize and clean one little drawer, celebrate. She said celebrate, and maybe do a little dance whenever you pass by it. It sounded silly but she elaborated, how it’ll halt your feelings of being overwhelmed by all that you should do. That celebration motivates and puts you in a good mood to do the next thing.

Look, I have been feeling pretty jaded about justice lately. It looks as though evil continues to just prevail. And it feels pretty overwhelming.

What if the joy to the world was actually real?
What if what Jesus did by coming into this world was actually worthy of me doing a little dance and cleaning up and community organizing my little corner of the world?
What if praising worshipping Jesus is the only way to welcome him into my life again and again, year after year?

As we start a new year, maybe you are feeling dread or fear or anxiety. That’s okay. Even the mother of God felt such things.

Maybe you could use a friend or a community. Myself, Steve, and Ivy, the pastors of this church are all starting new community groups in the new year. Join one. Mine’s on Wednesdays at Noon on zoom.

And maybe, claim a little joy and step into the new year with a little dance, even if it feels silly. Let us dare to rejoice and hope with fear and friends. Let me pray for us.

Christ Lord Jesus,

Who came into Mary’s world like a wrecking ball.

One who disrupts our lives of numbness and mundane apathy with a call higher for justice and love. For peace rather than destruction. We worship you and praise you for the joy that you bring to us. Remind us of that joy again and again, even this week, as some of us continue to endure the cold, the loneliness, the chronic pain, the aching grief, hold us in your loving arms and comfort us in the warmth of your love and mercy we pray. Amen.

GOOD GRIEF: Let your heart break so your spirit doesn’t

Good morning! I am Ivy, a pastor here.

Today we are entering into a participatory liturgy service, called, “Good Grief: Let your heart break, so your spirit doesn’t.” If you haven’t been with us for one of these participatory liturgies – welcome! It’s a little different than our usual Sunday morning service (but we do these only about 2x a year – so hang in there!).

The title comes from the late poet Andrea Gibson, who died earlier this year. Their work often holds space for both ache and aliveness, reminding us that heartbreak and hope often live side by side. In a way, that’s what all of our services aim to do: to tell the truth about what it means to be human, to feel pain, loss, and uncertainty, and also to remember what it means to be human with Jesus. To keep engaging our spirits toward hope, mercy, and grace, even when our hearts are breaking.

This season we have been exploring The Way of Jesus and Jesus’ healing ministry. Acknowledging in part that many of us are enduring heartbreak after heartbreak after heartbreak in constant succession — with little to no opportunity to heal.

It can feel, as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians, that we are

“pressed on every side, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down.”

And yet, even in the breaking, light still finds a way through. Every traditional service we hold and every special liturgy we create holds in tension this truth: to be human is to experience heartbreak. And to follow Jesus is to trust that God’s creative power is still at work in the very places we feel undone, that when something breaks — it can break open — making room for the Spirit to fill.

And so that is the spirit with which this liturgy has been framed. The slight difference is that there is no central sermon from the front — the service is set-up to invite your collective participation, which is central to this service. And with it, I’m excited to see what unfolds together.

Along the way, you’ll hear the voice and wisdom of the late Vincent Harding, a civil rights leader, theologian and speechwriter for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Though he spent much of his later life teaching in Denver, his roots included time here in Boston, where he connected with King’s circle and the early justice movements that shaped this city. Please let his voice accompany you this morning as well.

And one last bit before we begin: throughout our time together, you’ll hear and be invited to speak a simple refrain: “Let there be…”, echoing the words spoken at creation. May these words become a prayer that moves in you as we make our way this morning:

Let there be… Jesus in your heartbreak,
Let there be… light in your breaking,
Let there be good grief … the kind that lets your heart break, so your spirit doesn’t.

*Each part of this service is an invitation, not a requirement. Embrace it with freedom. Bring all that you can, and trust that it is enough. Remember, you are not alone in this space. This is why we gather — to acknowledge the power of the presence of others beside us, surrounding us, joining with the presence of a God who is already here, always here, already creating something new and possible among us.*

Prayer

Oh Jesus — one of heart and spirit, would you tend to our hurts and hearts this morning? For those of us who have become accustomed, expectant even of heartbreak — could you return us to your deep and ever-abiding love? A love that raised you from the dead, a love that casts out fear and demon-esque pain, a love that roots for our participation in this life, that roots for our thriving, that roots for us to embrace the belief that with your help, we can create beautiful things — even those we can not yet imagine. Amen.

Part #1 | Heartbreak

You’ll now hear the words of Vincent Harding from an interview in 2012.

“I am. You are. A citizen of a country that does not yet exist —and that badly needs to exist.”

Harding spoke those words as a Black man in America, carrying the heartbreak of knowing how far we are from that dream. His words often blurred the line between history, prophecy, and invitation. And oh, did he carry heartbreak. Heartbreak for the gap between the America that is and the America that could be… and yet he believed that facing the pain of the world was part OF LOVING IT IN TO BEING. He invites us to consider that to love a place, or a people, is to hold both the beauty and the brokenness at once.

WRITE
As we sit with Harding’s words, I invite you to take a moment to name your own heartbreaks, the gaps you feel between what is and what could be.
Maybe it’s a heartbreak for our country, or our world, or for something closer in: a relationship, a loss, your school, your career…

Whatever it is, this is a space to name what aches.

On your plate in front of you, write as many heartbreaks that come to mind.
On-line folks I invite you to share with one another in the chat.

SHARING
In groups of six or so, you are invited to share what you would like from your plate with those in your group. You don’t have to share everything and you don’t have to explain anything. Just read what you prefer and are comfortable with.

Let this be an act of love and prayer, to see clearly, and name truly what breaks your heart.

Guiding principles: Freedom & Listen
Freedom — share what you’d like or pass.

Listen — if you are not speaking, your job is to actively and compassionately listen. Fixing, advising or additional questions is not the name of the game here today.

Communal response: “Let there be God in your heartbreak.”

2 Corinthians 4:7-9, 16 & Good Grief

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. I am hard pressed on every side, but I am not crushed; I am perplexed, but I am not in despair; I am persecuted, but I am not abandoned; I am struck down, but I am not destroyed.”

Good Grief!

Let your heart break

So your spirit doesn’t (Andrea Gibson)

v16 Therefore we do not lose heart.

(IVY) We do feel pressed on every side, perplexed, persecuted, struck down. But sometimes, what our spirits need most is not to hold it together — not to RUSH to hope or healing — but to let something break.

This morning you are going to be invited to break the plate that you just wrote your heartbreaks on. You are invited to put it inside your canvas bag, pull the drawstring, and as a table (group of six or so at a time), go to one of the six breaking stations. (two at the front, two at the back and two in the Dome Gallery).

As you move toward the breaking station, you’re invited to break your plate as an act of release — not of destruction for its own sake, but a small symbol of trust that even in the breaking, God is creating. That the fragments of our heartbreak can become part of something sacred and shared — even if we cannot yet see it.

As you approach the breaking station, your group will also be offered the chance to receive communion together, if you would like.

As Jesus gathered with his friends for a final meal, on the night before his death he knew heartbreak intimately — the kind that comes from love. He knew what was coming: betrayal, loss, and the shattering of what they thought would last forever. Still, he took bread, blessed it, broke it, and said,

“This is my body, given for you.”

In that moment, the breaking of the bread became more than sorrow — it became communion. The table became a place where heartbreak and hope sat side by side, where love took on flesh even in the face of loss.

As we take part in this ancient practice today,, may we remember that Jesus meets us not beyond our heartbreak, but right in the middle of it. All of you are welcome to receive the gluten-free cracker and the grape juice, as you do may you hear and hold this prayer:

“Let there be light in your breaking.”

A Couple of Guardrails:
There will be ‘breaking station’ attendants. They’ll give you safety eyewear, show you how to place your plate face down, and invite you to give it one firm, healthy strike with the hammer.

Be careful, move slowly.

IVY: “As you find yourself back at your seats you can let the phrase,

“Let there be light in your breaking”

— be a prayer for yourself, and those still breaking.

PART #2 | Oath & Spirit

IVY:

“We won’t back down”

might seem like a tall order when our hearts are shattered. And yet, maybe it’s a reminder of the stubborn hope of our spirits —hope held in community, held in love,

and held by the belief that we can still help shape the world as it could be, as it should be.

Here are the words of Vincent Harding again, video & audio.

Reading | 2 Corinthians 4:7-9, 16 & Good Grief

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but we are not crushed; we are perplexed, but we are not in despair; we are persecuted, but we are not abandoned; we are struck down, but we are not destroyed.”

Good Grief is to let your heart break, so your spirit doesn’t (Andrea Gibson)

v16 Therefore we do not lose heart.

Therefore we do not lose heart.

We might not be used to language like ‘making an oath’. But it seems worth remembering that, as followers of Jesus, we’ve already made one, by the way we live our lives out. Our oath is to believe and embody that we love and serve a living God, a God who is very much alive and involved in our lives.

One who desires that we, too, be fully alive.
Alive! Not shredded by the shards of our broken hearts.
To take an oath, then, is to say something like,

“I deeply feel the heartbreak — and I will not give up….”

It is good grief to let our hearts break, so our spirits don’t.

So maybe even now, we can say oaths like:
I will not give up on love.
I will not give up on healing.
I will not give up for myself, for my kids, my neighbors, for this world God so loves.

With that we turn now to the words of Scripture again. You have on a card in front of you the words of 2 Corinthians. Take a second to sit with the version that uses the pronoun “I”.

And when you are ready at your table, say the phrase that most resonates with you this morning:

Example:

“I am hard pressed on every side, but I am not crushed…”

Communal Response:

“Let there be mercy.”

It is so good to acknowledge what we, individually feel and how we can orient to God as our heartbreaks. And it is good to know that we are not alone. That we, as a community, are holding one another.

As you are ready let us read the 2 Corinthians version with “we” as the pronoun together:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that
this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

We are hard pressed on every side, but

We are not crushed;
We are perplexed, but
We are not in despair;
We are persecuted, but
We are not abandoned;
We are struck down, but
We are not destroyed.

Therefore we do not lose heart.

One last time, I invite you to listen to Vincent Harding’s words .

“You will be what you could be. You will be what you should be.”

Those words might feel big, maybe even impossible, especially when our hearts still feel so fragile. But maybe that’s exactly where God begins.

We cannot rush healing.
But we can keep moving.
We can refuse to give up.
We can choose not to let our spirits break, trusting that even now, God is creating something beautiful out of all that’s been broken.

When our heartbreak feels too sharp to hold alone, when the pieces cut too deep, we need others to hold the weight of our heartbreak with us, to remind us that love can hold what we cannot.

In just a moment I’m going to invite you to move to the walls and take two things with you,
1) your marker and 2) your heartbreak bag (by the drawstrings!)

You are going to pour the contents of your bag, the fragments of your broken plate, into the communal bowl at each panel of the wall.
And then you are going to write a “let there be…” word/short phrase on one of the empty plates on the wall. A prayer — of “let there be…” for the world that could be, should be…

The Great Commandment Christian

1 Kings 19: 14, 18 New International Version

14 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.” . . . “

18 “I reserved seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.”

Matthew 22:36-40 New International Version

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a]

38 This is the first and greatest commandment.

39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]

40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

My talk won’t be so much of a sermon and more of a reflection of how I got to where I am this morning. I invite you to come along for the journey.

Elijah witnesses the apostasy of Israel; realizes that his faithfulness will be in vain as he believes he is the only one left, and if they succeed in killing him, the religion will be destroyed.

Like Elijah, who watched Israel abandon its covenant and felt utterly alone in his faithfulness, I too found myself grieving what I saw in the church. As I watched much of white Evangelicalism in America align itself with the positions of the political right and conflate Christianity with the MAGA movement—to the point that it looked and felt like a cult—I remember seeing a poll on the demographics of President Trump’s base: whites without a college degree, white supremacists, and white evangelicals. Why would anyone want to be in the same group as white supremacists?

For the Christians who are strong supporters of Project 2025, and the Big Beautiful Bill, which calls for cuts to WIC, e.g. food for women, infants and children, SNAPP, Food Stamps ($186 billion) and school lunches, I like Rev. Jesse Jackson come from a faith tradition where

“We pray for the food we are about to receive, not the food that just left.”

For me it was further affirmation that I didn’t fit into the faith tradition that I had been a part of for so long. My faith journey started in an Independent Fundamentalist Churches of America. Or (I fight Christians anywhere).

When I shared with a Christian leader my trouble with Evangelical positions on some issues, his response was of course, I belong to that liberal church referring to Reservoir. But are my positions liberal or conservative as I still believe in the fundamentals of the faith, the Trinity, deity of Christ, bodily resurrection. I believe I am conserving the gospel and the traditional Christian message.

In missions, we are taught the dangers of syncretism. In this case Christianity and Maga ideology.

And what’s wrong with being liberal or progressive anyway. Remember, it was Pharoah who was the conservative and Moses who was the liberal.

When I began to question why Christians were always on the wrong side of every issue, I learned that it was not a “bug” but a feature. Those who are rich or part of the elite controlled the interpretation of scriptures and their interpretation was always the preservation of the status quo, because that’s what keeps them in control.

Evangelicalism as a movement was a middle path between liberalism and fundamentalism. A movement that was 100 years old, perhaps it had run its course. Now there was: Neo-Evangelical, Post-Evangelical, Ex-Evangelical, or Deconstructionist. My friend Chris, who is a Black Christian, said he refuses to call himself as Christian, because he doesn’t know what the other person who hears that term thinks—-it means. He refers to himself as the hopes and dreams of his ancestors.

All I knew was that I had to step away from something that increasingly resembled Christian Nationalism—whether white, Christian, or both, white Christian Nationalism—and toward something uncertain, something without a clear name or tribe.

For a while, I wanted to describe it as being a Lausanne Covenant Christian, but that was a little obscure; or an Evangelical Refugee, but that seemed a little negative. Then one day, I decided I was just a Great Commandment Christian.

What I really believed was Jesus’s call to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, and soul—and to love your neighbor as yourself. That is how I would define myself.

What follows is my journey.

The Plagues – The People who left Egypt were not just Hebrews, but anyone who wanted to leave. The Bible says,

(Exodus 12:37–38)

“600,000 men, besides women and children,” and a mixed multitude also went up with them.

According to Exodus 12:38, when God gave the Torah at Mount Sinai, a

“mixed multitude”

converts, slaves, prisoners of war, fugitives, Egyptians who had married Hebrews and their families?

Cairo and Alexandria lie along a major trade route, and this route saw travelers from many nations. Some settled in Egypt. The “mixed multitudes” likely included Egyptians who saw the God of the Hebrews lay waste to the gods of Egypt—and to Egypt itself—through the plagues. Because of the plagues, there were those who thought Egypt was cursed or that God was showing favor to the Israelites. Undoubtedly, they were there, along with those who simply wanted to follow the winner.

The mixed multitudes also included other Semites, those who trace their heritage back to Noah’s son Shem—Arabs, Assyrians, Akkadians, Canaanites, and certain groups in Ethiopia. These people all ended up at Mount Sinai.

The Israelite Community consisted of more than the Israelite bloodline. Diversity was part of God’s plan from the beginning.

The tests along the way e.g.

Crossing the Red Sea, Ex. 14,
The bitter water Ex. 15,
Mana and Quail in the Wilderness 16,
Water from the rock Ex. 17,
at Mt. Sinai Ex. 20,

were all part of turning this diverse people into a nation.

The History of Biblical Inclusivity and Diversity

Joseph was sold into slavery, but through God’s favor, he rose to the top—he became second-in-command of Egypt. Eventually, Joseph married Asenath, an aristocratic Egyptian woman and

“the daughter of Potiphera, priest from the city of On”

—an interracial, if not interfaith, marriage. Asenath would go on to have two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, of the 12 tribes. Joseph, being from a nomadic, shepherding culture, married up. This tells us that diversity included social class.

Jacob’s other sons went to Egypt for food during the Hyksos (foreigner) period. During that time, the pharaohs were all non-Egyptian Asiatics. There were many Asiatics and others going to Egypt. Many settled there, as did Jacob, his sons, and their families. The fact that Moses married a Cushite (Ethiopian and/or Sudanese, but definitely Black) woman is just one of many pieces of evidence showing how the Israelite people were being joined by and welcoming non-Israelites into their community.

So, Moses was bicultural, if not tricultural—a Hebrew raised as an Egyptian and married to an Ethiopian woman. When Miriam (his sister) complained that Moses had married a Black woman, God basically said,

“Since you like being white so much, I’m going to turn you white (with leprosy).”

Their diverse backgrounds of Hebrew, Egyptian, and Ethiopian made them the perfect couple for leading a diverse group of people. God chose an interracial couple—a visible sign of diversity—to lead the people of God.

Throughout the Torah, there is evidence of assimilation. Moses had an Egyptian, not Israelite, name—as did Miriam and Aaron. Many proper names from the tribe of Levi are Egyptian in origin, such as Phinehas (Aaron’s grandson). This name, in particular, appears to be from an Egyptian root meaning a dark- or bronze-colored person.

And so, God builds the nation of Israel upon this diversity.

Honoring God Through Diversity

Everyone at Mount Sinai would have expressed some faith in God to cross the Red Sea—that’s what they had in common. God takes this diverse mass of over 600,000, with different cultural practices, values, and beliefs, and builds a beautiful, diverse nation. To do that, God gives the Torah, the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments—because the people of God need some common rules to live by.

God deals with privilege right away so that the Hebrew followers of God and converts don’t receive special or better treatment than the aliens, foreigners, strangers, resident aliens, and righteous gentiles.

Exodus 12:49 (English Standard Version)

“There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.”

“The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”
—Leviticus 19:34

Neighbors are often very similar in terms of ethnicity and social class. We usually think of our neighbors as nice people, but a better translation is to treat the “other” as yourself—don’t make people into “others.” Treat the other person, even if they are an immigrant, refugee, poor, a widow, or stranger—whatever the “other” is for you—treat that person as yourself.

The nation of Israel consisted of God-fearing Jews, gentile converts to Judaism, and God-fearing gentiles—not converts, but willing to follow the rules of the Ten Commandments. And God continues to express the desire for diversity throughout the Hebrew Bible:

“My House will be called a house of prayer for ALL nations.”
—Isaiah 56:7

“Let ALL the peoples of the earth praise you.”
—Psalm 67:5

Part I

For me, I saw diversity as a fundamental part of God’s plan from the beginning.
It took me a while to realize that it was never about the law of God, as in law versus grace, but the love of God.

I was taught that the answers to all of life’s questions were in the Bible.

“God said it, I believe it, that settles it.”

Whether it was God says, Scripture says, or the Bible says—it was all the same thing. The Bible was the Word of God: authoritative and without error. Therefore, if you could prove that the Bible supported your position, you couldn’t be challenged.

But over time, I began to realize that focusing on the Bible’s authority wasn’t enough—it became a red herring. We were focused on the wrong thing. It wasn’t as important to learn what the Bible said as it was to understand what it meant—how to go from text to context and from context to text. While the Bible might be inerrant or infallible, our interpretation of it isn’t. As sinful human beings, we’ll use anything to gain advantage—including Scripture. No one should be surprised that people “weaponize Scripture.”

We should have been debating how to interpret and apply Scripture. There are literally hundreds of bad examples doctrines that theologians have created.

Flat-earth belief from Isaiah 40:22

Young Earth Genesis 1:1-31, Ex. 20:11
Polygenism – Blacks and whites had different creation origins.
Opposition to Copernicus based on Psalm 104:5 and Joshua 10:13
Opposition to anesthesia in childbirth, citing Genesis 3:16
Strict dress codes, the Bible seemed to have a lot to say about what you could wear, no tattoos (Leviticus 19:28), especially if you were a woman—such as no pants (Deuteronomy 22:5), , no jewelry (1 Timothy 2:9), no makeup (Jeremiah 4:30), no short hair, and required head coverings.

I remember going to a church where they handed me a list of 89 things I couldn’t do, each “backed” by a Bible verse. Smoking, drinking, listening to rock music (including Christian rock), dancing, and even speeding—because it violated Romans 13—were all on the list.

Once, I was at dinner when a woman asked if it was okay to have a glass of wine. Another time, a friend asked if I’d mind if he ordered a beer. While I appreciated their consideration, I had to wonder what kind of Christianity they were taught. One of them said that’s why she didn’t go to church—too many rules.

In seminary, I was asked about predestination or free will, my baptismal view (pouring, sprinkling, immersion), and my eschatology. I said predestination felt too anthropomorphic. As for baptism, I didn’t care—just get wet. When it came to my eschatology, all I could say was: “unknowable.” Unfortunately, I was asked that question on a theology exam! All I know is we’ll face judgment, and the good guys win in the end. Meanwhile, I was wrestling with weightier questions—like whether the just war theory applied in an age of nuclear weapons.

Some scriptural interpretations have had major societal consequences:

Support for the Inquisition, Crusades, divine right of kings, the Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny, and American Exceptionalism
Justification for antisemitism, slavery, segregation, apartheid, Japanese internment, and discrimination against Native Americans , Chinese, other Asian Americans, Central and South Americans, and Arab Americans. Basically anyone non-white
Support by ~90% of German Christians for the German Christian Movement aligned with the Nazis

Again, these views were rooted in what people believed was a “plain reading” of the text. But is dispensationalism really a plain reading? Or the so-called biblical basis for the inferiority of women? Clement of Alexandria once said,

“Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman.”

One day, a friend and I were doing street ministry and met a woman who may have been struggling with addiction—I can’t recall. What I do remember is her claiming the Bible supported getting high. Surprised, we asked where she got that from. She said:

“Why do you think the Bible says over and over again, ‘To the most high God’?”

Her interpretation might sound silly—but is it really any stranger than some of the ones I’ve just mentioned?

So when someone claims that God or the Bible clearly opposes all things LGBTQ, or supports something, I’m skeptical. Especially since claims were made to justify the Confederacy, the Vietnam War, the nuclear arms race, and even the right to own assault rifles—all supposedly supported by Scripture (like Jesus saying,

“If you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one”).

That’s how I became a Great Commandment Christian. I don’t claim to know the mind of God on every issue with certainty. But I believe that with the Great Commandment as a guide—loving God with heart, soul, and mind, and loving neighbor as self—and with spiritual discipline, I can walk in the right direction.

When I reflect on 2,000 years of Christian interpretation, I see a pattern: when Scripture is used against Jews, Blacks, Asians, Native Americans, and LGBTQ+ individuals, any marginalized group, it’s eventually and I mean eventually recognized as the wrong interpretation.

And when someone insists,

we must obey earthly rulers,

as in Romans 13, the government has lawful authority —used to justify Apartheid, the Confederacy, or Nazi Germany—it time, it will be viewed as the wrong interpretation.

Part III: Jesus and the Law

Jesus not only embodies the law rightly understood, but also confronts those who misinterpreted and misapplied it—most notably, the Pharisees.

The challenge of interpreting Scripture correctly did not begin in modern times. It stretches back to Jesus’ day. And to be honest, I’m not sure we understand Jesus and the Law any better today than the Pharisees did.

Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: Fulfilling and Deepening the Law

Jesus takes the law and intensifies it, moving beyond external behavior to address inward righteousness:

Not just “Do not murder,” but “Do not even be angry”
Not just “Do not commit adultery,” but “Do not even look with lust”

He raises the bar—but re-centers the law on love, mercy, and intent, rather than legalism and loopholes. Jesus demands that we go beyond being performative e.g. go to church, read the Bible, have a quiet time and tithe.

His concern isn’t rule-keeping for its own sake, but the motivation of the heart. In doing so, Jesus directly challenges the Pharisaic approach to the law—one that had turned the Torah into a burden rather than a gift.

I think a current example is Jesus and divorce. A woman told me how her father was physically abusive to her mother. One time her father broke her mother’s nose. Her mother went to the priest who told her Jesus hates divorce and she had to keep her vow. In such a case the law or scripture was a burden, not a blessing.

Jesus and the Sabbath: Reclaiming God’s Intent

When the Pharisees saw Jesus do things such as healing on the Sabbath, they looked at Jesus’s actions through a legalistic lens accused Jesus of breaking the law. But the right way to look at Jesus’s actions is through the lens of the great commandment. When Jesus healed on the Sabbath, he wasn’t breaking the law—he was restoring it to its true purpose. The Sabbath was meant for rest, healing, and liberation—not rigidity. As Jesus said in Mark 2:27:

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

When it comes to correctly interpreting scripture Jesus gave us guidance.

Jesus summarized the entire law with two commands:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.
Love your neighbor as yourself.

Whoever you’re most tempted to exclude—that is the person God is commanding you to love.

Just remember what you learned in Sunday School

“Red, yellow, brown, black, and white—they are precious in His sight.”

Or, as that other great theologian Dr. Seuss once put it:

“Don’t give up! I believe in you all.
A person’s a person, no matter how small!
And you very small persons will not have to die
If you make yourselves heard! So come on now—TRY!”

And as David wrote in Psalm 8, marveling at God’s care for humanity:

3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,

4 what are we that you are mindful of us,
human beings that you care for us?

5 You have made us a little lower than the angels
and crowned us with glory and honor.

When the writer refers to the fingers of God versus the hands or arm of God, it refers to detailed, intricate work, like needlepoint. Or think of hanging the stars like one hangs Christmas tree ornaments. There is a passage in Isaiah that says God can look at the heavens and tell if a star is out of place. The writer is trying to point out how small people are in the universe. The writer reminds us we are but dust.

It is those same people who God gives His Spirit. And that is what occurs at Pentecost.

God Gives People the Spirit of God

No longer do we have to look to the laws of God, for God’s laws would no longer be written on tablets of stone but on our hearts.

Jeremiah 31:33 (English Standard Version)
“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Once again, we see a mixed multitude, similar to what we see at Mt. Saini.

Acts 2:5–11 describes a crowd in Jerusalem made up of Jews from every nation under heaven, including converts to Judaism (proselytes) and possibly God-fearers (non-Jews who worshiped the God of Israel but hadn’t fully converted).

While it’s not labeled as a “mixed multitude,” Pentecost absolutely includes people of diverse ethnic, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds, much like the mixed multitude that left Egypt. It reflects a multiethnic, multinational, multilingual gathering, gathered for a Jewish feast—and it becomes the birthplace of the Church.

Acts 2:5, 8 says:

“Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”

Looking for an explanation, Peter says,

Acts 2:17: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on ALL people.”

This is the vision Jesus invites us into:
A community that goes beyond bloodline and borders, beyond legalism, toward a kingdom of mercy, justice, and love, where the law is no longer a weapon, but a way of life grounded in grace.

The message was clear: The spirit of God is for everyone!

It’s not Jews or gentiles, it’s both Jews and gentiles.

It’s not Blacks or whites but Blacks and whites, rich and poor, gay and straight. God’s kingdom is a rainbow, a mosaic, a quilt where every piece fits and belongs. These are the people of God that God has loved—with unfailing, everlasting love. These are the people of God to which God has been faithful.

Which brings us back to 1 Kings

In First Kings 19 Elijah says

he is the only one left and they are trying to kill him.

But God says,

No I have reserved 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

Look at Reservoir Church. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Look at the diversity in the congregation!

Reservoir Church, like what happened at Mt. Sinai or Pentecost, Everyone without exception is invited to discover the Love of God, the joy of living and the gift of community.

Reservoir Church is a small taste of what heaven will look like.

John’s vision in Revelation: A Multiethnic Vision

When the future is unveiled and the apostle John sees the future, what does he see?

Revelation 7:9–10 (English Standard Version)

“I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language.”
—Revelation 7:9.

Diversity was, is, and will always be God’s plan A.

This “great multitude” is clearly a diverse, redeemed people, unified in worship of the (Jesus). This is the fulfillment of what was foreshadowed at Sinai and begun at Pentecost.

In the Black Church we might say,

When all God’s children get together, what a time, what a time, what a time!

I’ve never been to Heaven, but I’ve been told that the gates are pearl and the streets are gold.

Or oh I want to see Him, look upon his face there to sing forever of his saving grace, cares all past home at last ever to rejoice.

When we have been there 10,000 years shining as the sun, we will have no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first began.

The Kin-dom of God is like….

We are four weeks into Lent, a season observed by many Christian traditions and rooted in Jesus’ time in the wilderness. This season invites us to reflect on our own spiritual journeys, as much as it does Jesus’ experience of fasting and facing temptation. The wilderness was a period marked by chaos, uncertainty and also growth. Jesus was tempted by a vision of a kingdom built on power, wealth, and authority—values that contrasted the way of Jesus –and the kin-dom of God that he was trying to unfold. Instead of giving in to these temptations, Jesus drew close to God, to the wind, the Spirit, and the air— invisible forces that surrounded him in the wilderness and sustained him in desolate times.

This Lent, our theme has been Air—an ever-present force that shapes and sustains life in all its complexities. Just as air is essential for our breath, the Spirit, too, is essential for our spiritual well-being — wherever we might be at — and however we might be feeling. I love that Lent doesn’t shy away from the realities – the wildness– of our days. In fact, its boldness invites us to sit right in the gap—the “in-between” space—between the “now” of our lived experience here on this earth and the “not yet” of God’s dreams and our shared hopes for a world transformed by God’s Kin-dom.

Lent, in its stripped-down, unassuming bareness, invites us to pay attention to and carry the smallest of things — hope, wonder, awe, compassion — as much as we carry grief and fear.

Today, I want to invite us to not only get curious about where God is at work among us, but also to ask where we can get to work with God, who IS ALREADY among us. And I want to ask not just what our best chances at ‘heaven on earth’ are, but how we can leave nothing to chance and actively participate in shaping heaven on earth—here and now. Even when the air feels still, when change seems impossible, when it feels like the Spirit has gone silent.

In desolate times, how can we remember the truth that the Kin-dom is never far? How can we remember that it is around us, within us — never separate, always close?

I’ll invite you to hold these questions as we turn to the words of Romans 8 as a prayer this morning:

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered/treated as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,

39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:35-39 (New International Version)

Amen.

This week I read Suleika Jaouad’s memoir (soo-lay-ka jew-wad), her husband is Jon Batiste. The title of her book is, “Between 2 Kingdoms — a Memoir of a Life Interrupted.” She reflects on living between the worlds of health and illness, navigating the emotional landscapes of two “kingdoms.” One kingdom is defined by normalcy, vibrancy, and health, while the other is shaped by survival, trauma, and the constant presence of sickness.

Throughout the memoir, Jaouad reflects on her experience and the tension she feels between these two worlds— In the midst of this, a friend shared a perspective that stuck with her, actually about travel, he said:

“When we travel, we actually take three trips. There’s the first trip of preparation and anticipation, packing and daydreaming. There’s the trip you’re actually on. And then, there’s the trip you remember. The key is to be present wherever you are right now.”

“Present to ‘what is’— It is a beautiful sentiment and also a challenging posture, especially when we hold within us the promise of heaven on Earth, but find ourselves in a reality that often feels and looks a lot more like hell.

As many of you know, cancer is part of my family’s and my story now as well. My husband, Scott, was recently diagnosed, but let me say the

“prognosis is good — the treatment plan is in action and after just 2 treatments, Scott’s feeling better than he has in years!”

There are likely lots of public speaking courses that would advise me to not talk about something so live, so raw, specific and personal like a cancer journey — but maybe it’s obvious — I haven’t taken any public speaking classes.
And the reality is – is that illness, in whatever form we encounter it—whether personal illness, the illness of a nation, or global—is a deeply universal experience.

A writer I admire, Susan Sontag, says,

‘Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship—in the kingdom of the well and the kingdom of the sick.’

Though we all prefer to carry the ‘good passport,’ sooner or later, we all find ourselves identifying with the other place. And now, with months of treatment ahead, Scott and I find ourselves holding that dual citizenship.

Throughout Lent we have been guided by a single line from a prayer written for times of great rupture and uncertainty:

“Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

At community group a couple of weeks ago — we talked about ‘stillness’ —

“what is stillness to you? When have you been Still — what did it feel like? What did you encounter?”

I thought about those questions, and my experience in the cancer infusion clinic — discovering in part what stillness is not:

Stillness is not necessarily sitting, or achieving silence or free of discomfort.
Stillness is being present to what is — in between two kingdoms — perhaps even OPENING to the fullness of the tension that exists there.

And Stillness is in part about cultivating space within, space where even the smallest things can take root and create change. FOR ME, change comes in the tiniest shifts of perspective – enough so, to pivot away from the temptation of cynicism and despair, enough to not let heartbreak hijack my entire scope… small, small, shifts. Sure I’d love a BIG , efficient fix — half the time in the clinic, half the treatments — or how about no cancer at all… !

But the reality is — is that this is not our “now” —
Our “now” holds infusions of a chemo drug that in medical speak is called “the red devil” — AND it also holds an oven-like contraption that is full of stacks and stacks of warm blankets to use at our whim, views of Costco from the clinic window (which is literally Scott’s version of heaven on earth), fig newtons at the bottomless nurses snack station — perfect little ice cubes… is saturated with the littlest sparks of the presence and work of God.

I’ve had times where I thought “I should be still” — I was on a retreat in the Fall and I couldn’t quiet my racing heart. By day #2 my heart rate had actually climbed like waaayyy higher than it should be… And I was like,

“come on — you know how to do this retreat thing, this STILLNESS thing — CALM DOWN, just Breathe. . . just breathe.”

And yet my body didn’t respond in form — because my body was actually messaging something important to me — that the season of life leading up to that retreat was furious, fast and hard — and rather than “shushing” it into stillness — what my body actually needed was for me to give credence to where it was at. Health practitioners in that moment and since, have said the best thing to do is get in a cold shower, or do a plank for 1 minute. Your body needs to have the intensity be “seen and heard and met — acknowledged,” and then it can downshift a little bit. Meeting yourself in that tension—of longing to be in the serene/wellness/the kin-dom of God — while feeling the hard stuff—that too is stillness.

Sitting in a chemo room for 11 hours — isn’t a space to pretend “all is well.” It is an invitation to turn and face “what is.” Not turn away from it. To sit squarely in the ‘inbetween’ — “I wish this wasn’t what this is..” and also “I’m not alone — there are many, many people picking fig newtons from that snack bar too — and yes these seats are uncomfortable, but there is life and dignity here — and it’s there I can find and “know that God is God,” giving air to my own spirit — keeping me breathing in the GAP between the “now” and the “not yet.”

SCRIPTURE

Thankfully Jesus had a lot more to say about life on Earth than he did about theology. Rather than talking about loft ideas — which totally would have missed where most people were at — he talked about everyday things. There is hardly a divine truth that doesn’t take some shape on Earth. And most of us, I think, get what it is to live this real life on Earth.

Jesus’ parables reflect real life – and speak on multiple levels to multiple groups with the same words. Religious leaders, ordinary people, farmers, disciples — through them he invited people to begin imagining what the Kin-dom of Heaven could look like in their everyday lives – through the simple, the familiar, the tangible.

In the telling of parables Jesus says the Kin-dom of God is like a whole lot of things — wheat & weeds, yeast in dough, a hidden pearl, a seed — and seems to suggest that it is about right relationship, creating a community where all are seen as kin and kith. It’s a KIN-dom (rather than a KING-dom), growing from the smallest, least likely things into something inclusive and expansive.

Take, for example, the parable of the mustard seed:

Matthew 13:31-32
He told another parable to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and planted in his field. It’s the smallest of all seeds. But when it’s grown, it’s the largest of all vegetable plants. It becomes a tree so that the birds in the sky come and nest in its branches.”

Maybe there’s not a whole lot new to say here — it’s pretty straightforward — something tiny can become something big. Big outcomes, transformation, big goals accomplished, big growth — a big KINGDOM …

And I think, while it’s tempting to focus on that lesson of the parable specifically, perhaps the deeper invitation is to recognize the growth and evolution that happens in the “gap” between. The cultivation and partnership — and the hardship — that happens before it becomes something big. This isn’t just about size; it’s about the life and flourishing that emerge through those small steps, the unseen process, and the shared work that occurs from many actors along the way. The Kin-dom of God isn’t simply about the end result but about the ongoing unfolding of love and life and relationships in our midst.

Ezekiel

We can see this same theme echoed in the Hebrew Scriptures, long before Jesus spoke his parables. In Ezekiel we see God’s kindom described not as the towering, imposing force many would expect, but as a tender shoot growing into something that offers shelter and life to many, something life-giving:

Ezekiel 17:22-24 (New International Version):

God says: I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will rest in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the forest will know that I the Lord bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish.

The Israelites here were in exile, far from the land of promise. Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed, leaving the people disillusioned and in grief. And the hope nestled in these verses details a dramatic reversal of the natural order: God brings down the mighty, proud kingdoms and causes the lowly to rise. Subverting and disrupting oppressive structures that appear unshakable and dominant, challenging the power dynamics that the world clings to.

God’s promise wasn’t for an earthly kingdom of power, ego, and success— but a kin-dom where new life could emerge from what seemed broken, bringing flourishing not just to Israel, but to all people. This is the kin-dom that Jesus came to proclaim: a kin-dom that grows even in the midst of hardship and pain.

The virtue for living in these “in-between” times is what Jesus calls “faith.” It’s about having the grace and freedom to live God’s dream for the world now, while not turning away from the world as it is. The secret of this Kin-dom life is learning to live in both worlds simultaneously.
(Richard Rohr 2020).

In light of this, I’m grateful for how Jesus gives us these simple, ordinary pictures of the kin-dom—seeds, trees, birds, and shoots –things the world often overlooks in favor of big goals and measurable success. Yet in the kin-dom, growth isn’t about mass or numbers — but about furthering life. Creating life, hosting life, holding life. For even just one bird, the tree becomes a source of hospitality, home, and sanctuary. This is what the kin-dom is like.

It can be hard for us to value that which depends on others for life and growth, and that which is not about controlling or dominating. But this is the kin-dom that Jesus invites us to help shape. It’s not something we’ll experience only someday, if we work hard enough and the evils of this day are overcome….It’s here in the middle of our ordinary lives — connected to other ordinary lives. A resource I love called “Enfleshed,” puts it this way, “The kin-dom is better thought of as the meal that feeds the weeping in the midst of grief”, rather than in an entirely different world. Jesus’ ordinary examples offer us hope now — for such a time as this.

Part of this Lent guide is meant to bring the ordinary to your experience as well. The accompanying imagery chosen of birds and feathers wasn’t just done so on a whim. I curated this guide sitting in MGH waiting rooms (I’m not trying to be a martyr here — they are called waiting rooms for a reason). But I sat with the words that Steve wrote in this guide, and the theme of AIR — and the reality of being in a hospital waiting room — we’ve all been there, right? Listening to snippets of stories, and diagnosis, and witnessing frustrations, and parking garage validations, phone calls to loved ones, and tender hand holding, and tears being blinked away — all of life, trying to unfold in that in-between space — Floating perhaps to transform, as Emily Dickinson said into “Hope” – the thing with feathers – that perches in our soul.

Birds — those who fly freely between the worlds — the heavens and this earth — remind us that the kind-om isn’t out of reach. Our vision is often limited by life’s harshness, tempting us, like Jesus in the wilderness, to seek control and quick fixes. But the bird’s-eye view offers a freer, broader perspective (John O’Donohue). These ordinary creatures remind us that the kin-dom is like a seed in our hand—its potential, right at our fingertips.

Emergent strategy

As we continue the work of creating and growing the kin-dom of God, it’s clear that SIGNIFICANT change is needed here and now. Adrienne Maree Brown’s work on Emergent Strategy (and her book by the same name), has been so helpful to me. While big movements and systemic changes are vital, what stands out in emergent strategy is the recognition that the powerful shifts we hope to see are made up of small, intentional, strategic actions that deviate from the dominant patterns of our times. Brown emphasizes that meaningful change doesn’t solely come from grand gestures or monumental shifts. It begins with small, deliberate acts—practices that align with our values and yet radically challenge and veer from the systems that govern us. The culture of emergent strategy critiques the capitalist, colonial legacies of our world.

Brown insists that we must begin to “shape change” rather than seeing ourselves as victims of change. Just this week we heard Senator Cory Booker say,

“I’m not going to allow my inability to do everything undermine my ability to do something.”

and then he fasted and spoke for 25 hours — (ok, maybe that’s not the best example of a small thing — because that’s pretty impressive), but just think of all the “small somethings” we can do together.

Amidst the challenges, there is a profound truth: the smallest sparks of hope can grow exponentially—planting seeds that inspire us to take action. We — you and me –“WE” — are very small actors in a world rife with COLOSSAL problems, spinning within a vast galaxy. But We the People carry the seeds for change and transformation. In this very moment, We the People are called to bring the Kin-dom of God to earth, nurturing a more perfect union, establishing justice, and promoting the general welfare, right where we are.

Brown says this

“is the central work of each generation: to SEED and expand the fields of possibility for those to come, weaving together the best practices and lessons from the generations that came before. In the face of narrowing options for human survival, it is our purpose to create more possibilities. Many of which will come from an evolution of how we are in relationship with each other and from an evolution of spirit.

Octavia Butler said,

“kindness eases change,”

OUR kindness to others in the gap of the “now” and the “not yet”, creates more possibilities for us to move forward together.

Jesus showed us how to live in that gap, over and over again. He embodied healing, sat with and spoke truth to, and lived among hurting people, broken cities, and oppressive systems—and STILL He saw the possibility for wholeness. What a wonder, what compassion.

To allow our astonishment, our wonder, and our compassion to fade is a privilege we cannot afford. (For many of us), it is a privilege to give in to despair, to abandon hope, to resign ourselves to the idea that the kin-dom of God will come—someday—when it is ours to shape today. The kindom of God’s love is here — around us, within us, between us – just waiting for our participation. Again, as

Romans 8 reminds us:

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,

39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Prayer:
May the Spirit of God, like the air we breathe, continue to move us forward, helping us to live in the “now” and the “not yet”—toward a kin-dom that is already here and still to come.

Resources:

enfleshed.com

July 2020

Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds

by adrienne maree brown

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

by Suleika Jaouad | Mar 1, 2022

The Way Out of No Way

Most months, I have one day where I clear my schedule for a prayer retreat. I know, it sounds wicked lazy, and maybe it is, but don’t say I didn’t tell you.

Beyond an aversion to real work, though, I do it for a few reasons. As the senior pastor of a church, I don’t really have a pastor myself, so during this day I meet with one who’s looking out for me. Pastors also pray for people, we promote a life of prayer, so if I’ve fallen off the wagon at all in my spiritual life, I use this day as a reboot. And lastly, it’s a day for my own focus and health and well-being and all that. And last month, on my prayer retreat, I weirdly found myself doing the Baby Shark song motions over and over… Mama shark, Daddy shark.. Just holding out my hands in a big triangle as I was thinking about life.

And what I was trying to get at in the gloomy mood I was in that day was that I did not like the range of possibilities available for us all.

Here’s what I mean.

You can imagine your past as a single point at your birth, and then every moment, every hour, every year, there’s different ways your life can go. Get read to or get sat in front of the TV when you’re two. Eat oatmeal for breakfast or a big plate of sausages when you’re six. Parents make that big cross country move when you’re 14 or they don’t. Walk down the street where the car crashes into you and end up in the hospital or walk down the one where you bump into and meet the love of your life. There have been a maze of possibilities in our lives, personally and as a whole collective human family, and the one set of lines we’ve followed by accident or choice or other people’s choices to this point represents our past.

But then today, here we are. There’s only one present. I can’t be here in Cambridge and down the street in Boston at one time. I can’t be preaching this sermon and working as a plumber at the same exact moment. We get one present – here we are.

And then out in front of us, so to speak, there are all our future possibilities. There are so many, and they’re not sorted out and all decided yet, not even by God. We have real choices we get to make. And so does everyone else. And there is chaos and accidents and all kinds of good and bad things that will affect our future paths.

Our futures are open. But they are not infinite. When one of my kids was little, someone asked them what do you want to be when you grow up, and they said:

a frog.

I loved that – what a bold vision. A frog!

But becoming a frog next year is not in my range of possibilities. Not mine, not yours.

And that day on my prayer retreat, when I kept making the daddy shark arms to express what seemed possible now, I was struggling with these ranges of possibilities. There were a couple things I wanted in my life and in a couple of other people’s lives – people I love very much – that for a variety of reasons – were off the table in the near future. They just weren’t going to happen! Those possibilities were out here somewhere, in the land of the impossible. And I was like I hate that.

I felt the same way for our country. As 2024 was wrapping up, there were a few things that really pissed me off, pardon my language. As a country, as a species, as a planet, there were things that I wanted for us all that were not in our range of possibilities, at least in the near future. And I had not made my peace with that yet.

Here I am.

Here we are.

Here’s what’s possible.

And I do not always like it!

What do we do with this present moment that we have inherited?
How do we make our peace with it?
How do we embrace this moment for all that is possible?
How do we live into what the Way of Jesus says are the most important things in life – increases in faith, hope, and love – wherever we are?

One way or another, I preach about this a lot, because it comes up a lot and I think it’s near the center of our meaning and purpose in life.

One way I talk about this is through a phrase I’ve learned and love, that Reality is the Friend of God.

And another way I want to talk about it today is through another lens, which is the radical hospitality of God.

We’re talking about Radical Hospitality for much of this winter. Some of this discussion is growing our human to human radical hospitality in how we pray, and how we interact with friends and strangers and everyone in between, but some of this is deepening our perception and experience of what God is like too.

So let’s talk about the radical hospitality of God some more.

For our scripture, I’ve got the beginning of a prayer from the Bible’s prayer book called Psalms. Here it is.

Psalm 116:1-7 (Common English Bible)

I love the Lord because he hears
my requests for mercy.
2 I’ll call out to him as long as I live,
because he listens closely to me.
3 Death’s ropes bound me;
the distress of the grave found me—
I came face-to-face with trouble and grief.
4 So I called on the Lord’s name:
“Lord, please save me!”

5 The Lord is merciful and righteous;
our God is compassionate.
6 The Lord protects simple folk;
he saves me whenever I am brought down.

7 I tell myself, You can be at peace again,
because the Lord has been good to you.

I herniated a disk in my back last year, and I’ve been spending months rehabbing, trying to get stronger as the pain slowly subsides. And my physical therapist had me weightlifting again. And some of the exercises – like the deadlift – are kind of weird. Because if I do it just right, I get stronger in all these places that support a healthy lower back. But like 10% off in my approach, and I push up all that weight, and, PAH, like there goes my back again. Not good.

The approach really matters.

Reading the Bible is like this, friends, all of it, including these Psalms.

Our approach really matters. Bible reading can be so encouraging and life-giving and empowering for more loving and just and flourishing lives, or it can mess us up, make faith more difficult or make us more difficult to the people around us. The approach matters.

Like with this Psalm.

There are three movements going on here. The first two are clear and moving.

One, there’s the state of the human.

Full of trouble and grief, calling out to God – I need kindness, attention, help. I need mercy. We’ve all had our moments like this. We’ll have more to come. Because life is vulnerable. And the Psalms in the Bible give voice to a huge range of our vulnerability.

Two, there’s the posture of God.

Once, early in our work together, my therapist asked me about a particular time in my life – she said,

when things hurt, who did you talk to?

And I thought about her question, and I said

the answer, truthfully, was nobody.

There was nobody to tell, at least I didn’t think so.

Friends, moments in our lives if you’ve ever had them, when our troubles command nobody’s attention are heartbreaking. We were not meant to live without any relationships of tender care. And if that’s your current state, I pray that the warmth of an attentive, compassionate friend or family member returns to you. I do.

But the Psalms tell us that

with God at least, this is never true.

That when we ask God for attention and mercy, this is what God is like.

God is faithful and compassionate and attentive. God says:

I hear you. I see you. I know how important this is to you, and I am glad to be with you in this.

This is the radical hospitality of God, to attend to all the experience of everyone and everything with empathy, compassion, and care. It’s beautiful really.

But then three, and here’s the tricky part, here’s where the approach makes all the difference between rich, empowering faith, and a way of religion that ends in judgment, delusion, or despair.

Three is the reaction of God. What God does in response to us because God loves us so.

The language in this Psalm is that:

God looks after simple folks, like you and me. That God saves us. And that our peace can and will return because God has been our help.

God saves us.

God has been and God will be our help.

Let’s talk about an approach to these big claims.

If you think that God’s help is going to be fixing everything, or reversing time and taking us back in those past possibilities that have moved on, well, that’s not going to go well for you.

Me in December with my range of possibilities, if I’m like God, I want a world with healthy wise governments that respect human rights and the rule of law, and protect children and treat the earth with respect and choose compromise and collaboration instead of war and battle, if I’m praying that our world will look like that today, then my choices are delusion or despair.

Find a way to pretend that God’s 100% in control and everything is OK, or lose my faith.

If I pray for my friend who is hurting, like God, I hate this problem. Take it away, make it like it never happened, again, that’s not the way things work.

Faith involves in part a surrender to the way things are. Here we are in reality. This present moment. Like it or not, what can mercy and saving help from God look like?

This is a three point sermon – you ready?

One, it’s not fantasy based but reality based.

When we call out to God for help, God’s not like:

shoot, how did we get here? Where’s the rewind button? Can we get a do-over?

God does not live in the past, but in the present. And whatever faults, even whatever horrors the present may hold, reality is the friend of God, because reality is where God lives. Remember, God is compassionate, omnipresent, empathetically attentive everywhere. And so God is always re-wondering, revising the best possible range of options we’ve got today.

Hey, what have we got here that can be great, or at least better?

Maybe God didn’t want us to burn all that wood and oil and gas. Too much carbon! But there were so many of us, and we didn’t know better, and then some of us did know better, but we hid those insights and we lied, because some of the human family knew we could make an awful lot of money burning all that stuff. And then, now, most of us know better, but it’s really hard to change our habits. I’m there, friends, right?

So here we are, with our species changing our climate at unsustainable rates, and we call out to God, and God’s never going to be like, hey, let’s pretend this never happened. God doesn’t deny the present or change the past. And God’s also not going to be like:

“ha, ha,told you so, now you’re screwed. Good luck, y’all!”

God doesn’t give up on us. God’s not like:

you all have made a mess of this planet, I’m out of here.

No, in the radical hospitality of God, God will sit at every table we have set, no matter how messy or stinky we have made it. God will work with every situation we have got, no matter how weird or complicated or dysfunctional. God is with us still. God’s going to work with reality.

So one, God is reality based, not fantasy based.

Two, God does not control, but inspire.

Keeping with the whole environment thing, God’s not going to take our cue from all our burning and just lightning zap all the fossil fuel equipment, and lightning zap all those of us who still burn gas in our cars and our homes, and just like – bam, make us stop.

God’s not doing that.

Change the example, if I’m praying for the course of my beloved friend’s life to change or for my beloved child’s life to change, God is not going to take over their brain and body and circumstances and just MAKE THEM CHANGE.

Like puppets control their life into health and function and thriving choices. Not gonna happen. God does not control like that. God does not force. What God can and will do is inspire, invite, lure, woo.

Maybe God empowers some awesome scientists to invent cleaner, cheaper ways to mass produce energy.

Maybe God inspires cultural movements to be more content and consume less.

Maybe God helps more people get curious about indigenous wisdom that thinks more sustainably and looks forward seven generations, not seven freaking minutes, when making big policies and big life choices.

And with my friend or my kid, maybe God helps them grow a friendship with a person that has a nurturing, healthy influence on them. And maybe God stirs a kind of yearning in their soul for a new way forward.

And I know God does these things. I have experienced it. And I have borne witness to it again and again, in history, and in my life and in so many others. But it’s on us to perceive it and to pay attention and to walk in some faith and hope to say yes to a next step that is healthier, freer, move full of love and goodness. God doesn’t control, but God inspires.

And lastly, God has not pre-planned every bit of the future, but God improvises toward the best possible ends given where we are today.

Improvisation is the art of acting or making music where things aren’t all scripted out. But you listen to what’s happened to what’s happened so far, you work with the reality in front of you. And you say yes to that. You accept it, receive, and then take it somewhere interesting. Yes, and…

This is actually what God is like.

God has not magically steered and controlled every person and every creature of all kinds and every minute of time and every element of nature to follow a single pre-set course. Some religions, some forms of Christian faith talk like that’s the way things are. But if that is true, then our sense of freedom and choice is 100% an illusion, and our faith, our will, our efforts, none of it matters.

God hasn’t scripted out the exact course that anything will follow going forward. But, given where we are today, and given the everlasting kindness and love and wisdom of God which in God’s character do not change, God will again and again inspire whoever is listening toward good paths forward.

The saving help of God is based in reality, is about God’s next ways of inspiring and encouraging, and is adaptive to our every cry for help and every need. Our loving God, our ever present help in times of trouble.

Friends, I took some acting classes when I was young. We had a kid that took all the acting classes their big high school offers too. So I’ve seen a lot of bad improv. Where you’re like: what the heck is going on here? And folks, this is not funny. Nice try, kids, but can we have a different show please?

And I don’t know if I’m laughing or crying with this connection now. But sometimes these days I feel like life is a bad improv show.

Like:

how did all these people get on stage?

And what the hell is happening? Like how did it get so weird? And by the way, this is not funny. Is this supposed to be a joke? Because it’s not. It’s not.

Couldn’t somebody have written a script for this moment?

Friends, if you feel this way, I would encourage you simply to not give up on God. And also to not give up on ourselves or each other either.

This is not the first time in history that people have had big troubles. It is not the first time in history where nations have faltered.

It’s the start of Black History Month, and there’s an old saying that’s been circulating in the Black church now for centuries, that God makes a way out of no way.

That when the present or future looks bleak, hopeless, like all is lost – no way forward. Just then God has an idea. A way appears. And we can have the courage to get up and go there with God or not. Making a way together out of no way.

A friend just told me she’s using the word “FEARS” as her wordle starter, because it gets her curious about what we can make out of our fears. I love that.

In every fear, there’s an opportunity, a set of actions hiding there. In every time of trouble, there’s a God who’s ready to help.

I love the Lord because he hears
my requests for mercy.
2 I’ll call out to him as long as I live,
because he listens closely to me.

Friends, don’t give up on God. Because our radically hospitable God is still with us, and God hasn’t given up on us.

Let’s pray together.

A theological coda note-

Some theologians talk about what I’m saying by calling this the consequent nature of God. They see God has a primordial, everlasting nature. God has God’s ever changing essence and character. God is spirit. God is truth. God is wise. God is love. God is creative. Always has been, always will. And God has original intentions: the desire to grow life, to see increasing love and beauty come into being. The primordial or the everlasting nature of God.

But God is also adaptive. God is radically hospitable. God receives into God’s being, into God’s heart and mind, all of our experience. God takes it in. God feels it all. God smiles. God weeps. God sings with joy. God yells in anger. Whatever response is appropriate to a fully wise and fully loving God who receives the present moment. And based on everything that is happening, and based on all God knows and has experienced, and based on the range of possibilities, what is actually possible yet, God does everything God can to inspire creation to the next best possible actions.

A Year End Reflection

How are you all doing post-Christmas, at the end of this year?

Me, it’s been an eventful year, but sometimes a confusing one too. I’ve been injured this year – dealing with a back injury for the first time in my life at the same time my children have all become adults.

And I’m noticing that life can really fly by quicker than you realize. And if you don’t stop, it’s easy to miss a lot.

It’s easy to miss the biggest joys and treasures, to not linger over those in gratitude.

It’s easy to miss the opportunities for really deep connection in our lives.

And it’s easy to miss the opportunities for course correction. We can be stuck in a rut, stuck on auto-pilot and miss how very free we are at any moment to adjust the course of our lives.

I want to give us a chance to do some of that paying attention today.

I’m going to reintroduce us to a way of praying called the examen. It’s a way of paying attention to your life, of being grateful, and asking God’s help to live life to the fullest – with the greatest love, joy, peace, and purpose.

We get this prayer from a man named Íñigo López de Oñaz y Loyola, better known to us as Ignatius of Loyola.

Íñigo was a young man growing up in 16th century Spain. His grandparents had been very rich but the family had lost some of their wealth and Íñigo’s mother had died when he was a little boy. So he was raised by the family of a local blacksmith. Still, Íñigo dreamed of being a hero, of living a big and important and exciting life. And in his times, that meant proving yourself in the army as a young man. And so he went off to battle. But when he was thirty years old, a cannonball shattered Íñigo’s right leg.

And in a time when there was no anesthesia, no medicine for pain at all, he had to endure several surgeries on his leg, and a long, long period of rest and recovery.

While confined to his bed for months, Íñigo had very few friends and visitors. He had no phone, no television, no computer, only two books. A book about the life of Jesus, and a book about some famous followers of Jesus from years past – a collection of little tales of the saints.

And while laying alone, with just these two books and his thoughts, and his pain and disappointments, Íñigo decided that he wouldn’t try to be a hero any more. That he would try to follow Jesus.

He started very literally. He took his disabled self on a trip to Jerusalem and Galilee to walk where Jesus walked.

But later he found other ways to follow Jesus in his heart and mind and actions wherever he was. And he thought of ways to encourage other people to follow Jesus too, wherever we are, when he founded a movement called the Society of Jesus.

And one of the biggest gifts he passed on to his friends in the movement and that they passed on to us today almost five hundred years later was this way to pray called the examen.

The examen is a way to live like God is real and can be your guide to a fuller life.

It connects to these words of Jesus which are so important, they are etched into the entrance of our church you walk under in the lobby.

Jesus said:

John 10:10-11 (Common English Bible)

10 The thief enters only to steal, kill, and destroy. I came so that they could have life—indeed, so that they could live life to the fullest.

11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

The examen helps us notice that we can be robbed of life, that all kinds of things can steal our love, our peace, our joy, and our purpose.

And the examen helps us notice that we can be full of life. That with the help of the spirit of Jesus, God – our good shepherd – and sometimes with the help of friends too, we can be guided back to abundant life.

In the examen, you do four things.

First, you remind yourself that God is with you and ask for God’s guidance.
Then you look back on your day and notice your highs and your lows, the times you moved closer to God, closer to love, joy, peace, and abundant life.
Then you think about what you noticed, and you talk to God about it. Maybe you say thank you. Maybe you say sorry. Maybe you ask for help, you say please.

Thank you, sorry, please.

And then lastly, you look forward to the day to come, with hope, with resolution, and with prayer for help.

Since it’s just about the end of the year, I’m going to invite us to do this together right here, right now. So take a moment to gather a card to write on a pen.

Let’s take about 10 or 15 minutes and we’ll do this in four parts.

This was actually in our Advent guide this year, but I know a lot of us might not have gotten to spend enough time with it. So we’ll use it again, or for many – maybe most of us – for the first time.

I’ll give the instruction for each of the four parts, and then give you two or three minutes while music plays to do it.

You ready?

Here’s part one.

First, take a look back at the year behind you.

You’ve lived another year, eaten a thousand meals or so, traveled millions of miles around the son with the rest of us, whizzing through space with the rest of us at some 67,000 miles an hour. Congratulations. That is very fast, and a long way you’ve gone, without even realizing it most of the time.

Now ask yourself: what were the most satisfying parts of my year?

These might be specific experiences you’re grateful for. They might be old or new relationships you treasure. Perhaps growth or accomplishments. Even if this past year feels like it has been a series of unfortunate events, take a moment and notice what has given you life, what has kept you going amidst that. Think of three to five things if you can. What has been satisfying?

Second, with whatever came to mind, I want to encourage you to take a minute and say thank you.

Thank your mother and father God, your creator. Send a text and thank a person who’s part of this story. Maybe you can even thank the past version of you for a courageous choice you made or a new path forward you chose. Go ahead.

Thirdly, now I invite you to look back again at your life this past year, and ask yourself: what were the least satisfying parts of my year? What wore me out?

These might be specific experiences that hurt you or left you disappointed. They might be old or new relationships that have worn thin or worn out. Perhaps setbacks or failures or regrets. Even if this past year feels like it has been wonderful, take a moment and notice what has sapped you of life and left you thirsty. Think of three to five things if you can. What has left you unsatisfied?

And now instead of the usual final step of prayers for help and focus, we’re going to do something a little different. I heard someone on the radio talking about words of the year for 2024, and one of the sets of words they were talking about were different ways to say tired and fatigued.

So for our last step of this examen, we’re going to look to God for opportunities for refreshment going into the new year. OK?

Here’s how we’ll do this. Close your eyes again, if you’re willing. I’d like to imagine Jesus sitting with you. He has the voice and the vibe of a compassionate friend. Maybe he looks like a person who loves you very much. And imagine that Jesus says to you what he said to the people at the festival, so long ago.

“All who are thirsty can come to me.

If you believe in me, then drink the living waters of the spirit.

Drink, until they well up in you like a reservoir.”

As you sit with these words, and imagine them spoken to you, I wonder if you know how to find and drink this living water.

Will it come in the voice and company of a friend?
Is it calling to you in an old spiritual practice you’d like to renew, or a new one you’d like to try?
In the form of art or rest or a good meal?
What do you need to find connection and peace and direction for this new year?

I wonder how God’s spirit will call out to you to offer you renewal. If you’re not sure, I wonder who you might ask or where you could try.

Friends, if this was helpful and timely for you, I’m so glad. If it was hard to do on this day or in this space, maybe you can try by yourself or with a friend another time. In this week’s newsletter you’ll get on Wednesday, I’ll recommend trying to pray the examen regularly and I’m sharing a piece I wrote on our website, called How and Why to Pray the Examen.

Today, though, my hope is that at year end, in this Christmas season, we can remember that God is with us and that with the help of God and friends, good things are possible in the year to come.

In a very hard time in the old histories we read in the Bible, a poet said these words in a book called Lamentations.

Lamentations 3:22-24 (Common English Bible)

22 Certainly the faithful love of the Lord hasn’t ended; certainly God’s compassion isn’t through!

23 They are renewed every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

24 I think: The Lord is my portion! Therefore, I’ll wait for him.

Friends, may you today and tomorrow and the day after that and each day of 2025 that the steadfast love of God never ceases, that God’s help and goodness and mercies have no end, that they are new for you every morning. Because you are alive, and God is faithful.

Amen.

The Letters We Write

Recently I’ve been revisiting an essay that I have returned to again and again over the last eight years. It was written by Vincent Harding in the early 2000’s. Vincent Harding is a late civil rights elder who was a friend and speech writer for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – he was a historian and a theologian, and among many wise writings he published an essay called, “Is America Possible? To My Young Companions on the Journey of Hope.”

It’s actually not really an essay — it’s a letter that he writes to young people that have inspired him and the many hundreds of people that those young people represent. And it’s not a letter where he coercively crafts an argument with an answer to this roaring question — it’s an unfolding conversation (that he invites us to enter), that gives voice to the history of hope (often times blood-stained hope) that he lived and experienced. And it’s a conversation that also elevates the dialogue of contributions and possibilities of what creating a new America, “a more perfect union,” could be with the many young people’s voices that he has recently worked with and learned from.

I return to it because it is a love letter.

His letter starts as many do, “Dear so-and-so” — naming the recipient of the address. In this letter he addresses each and every youth that has been inspiring to him — for a full page and a half. And for each person he names he provides an additional little note — a blessing – a TRUTH that follows that person’s first name.

Dear Mumia (with appreciation for your refusal to submit to the threatening darkness),

Dear Rachel and Jonathan (as you manifest the blessed beauty of your mother),

Dear Pastor Sheila (because I know the Lord has laid her hands on you),

Dear Maria and Santiago (beloved adopted sister and nephew, continue to chant and live your hope),

And so on and so on and so on — he does this.

The very salutation of his letter communicates his deep care and love for humanity, for the possibility of this nation — for the beloved community that he felt was a spiritual responsibility as much as a political one.

The letter is a moving, tattered tapestry of story after story. Conversation after conversation of people — of all ages, races, ethnicities, connections and convictions — seeking to create and grow the beloved community. In America — and beyond.

I return to it because it’s a political letter.

It’s a letter that invites us into these dialogues too — asking us at a fundamental level — political questions. Political of course in its Greek origins means how we gather in public life, and who we gather with — and how we agree on how we gather? Public life is about putting our dreams into formation — giving shape to them , organizing how we gather as communities, neighborhoods, a nation.

It’s a gospel letter.

The gospels do this very thing, right? They tell story after story after story of the people of God. The followers and friends of Jesus – trying their best to live out the values and the teachings and the practices of God — so that our dreams and ignited imagination can create the kin-dom of God here on earth — so that we don’t lose sight of that.

It’s a lovely, political, gospel-y letter that denies giving way to define itself as any one of those categories — nor argues that one should stand as greater than the other. It is all actually one letter, one story, one way of being in private and in public life. And this is what makes it an inspiring letter.

And on most days – particularly as we draw closer and closer to an election — I need a little inspiration. I can give way pretty quickly to the verses in Ecclesiastes that say:

4 Generations come and generations go,

11 No one remembers the former generations,

and even those yet to come will not be remembered

by those who follow them. (Ecclesiastes 1)

And get stuck in thinking that all of this just doesn’t matter. All of this is meaningless — a horrible set up for the next generation, a house of cards, a letter that’s ending has already been written.

But Vincent Harding inspires me to return to what has indeed already been written — that truth and integrity and love matter in the face of violence, hatred and despair.

That much of the New Testament is a compilation of letters written to us. And they are not dead letters, they are letters of our living Jesus, letters of love encouraging our public life — even when it feels so (gosh darn) hard.

And it is our role — it is actually our calling to continue to write letters like this into our present day landscape. To write hope into the hearts of those around us — and to allow our hearts to be malleable of the same accord. Because we want the next generation to have blessings and possibility known and as close as their very names. So that they are emboldened – so that amnesia doesn’t take root — so that they have some signposts to read along the way. Along the way that makes way for other people. A chain reaction if you will, of making way for the way of Jesus. And to have the empowerment to re-write what we might get wrong along the way.

Today we’ll look at an interaction with the disciples and Jesus that might help us — and continue to hear thoughts and the voice of Vincent Harding. As we keep going in this sermon series called, The Way of Jesus in Public Life.

STORY | Writing letters to my daughter

Our daughter started college three years ago — and every morning of her first year (for a chunk of time) I got up early and wrote her letters of the heart — the truest form of a love letter.

“Dear Elle — (my beloved, the one who made me a mother).”

I wrote letters when she was feeling homesick — told her how she was missing nothing back here at home — how to keep looking forward even when nothing was familiar…

“Dear Elle (the one who holds so many dreams, those that are formed and those that are still to take shape — keep going).

I wrote letters to encourage her voice and her connection:

“Dear Elle (the one who has the great advocate at your side – say “yes” to office hours and say “yes” to parties too).

And I wrote to her with practical wisdom when she seemed to forget some of the basics

“Dear Elle, (may wisdom befall you in the form of time-management, setting an alarm clock — eating a banana).

And I signed each letter with a refrain —

“A new day comes, keep your head up — you are surrounded in love.”

I wrote so many letters that first year.

Ooooo! It was some of my best writing — love letters, gospel-y letters (inviting her into an awareness of something beyond herself).

I felt like such a good parent – inspiring, present, responsible.

And yet . . .Elle did not read one of those letters.

This girl did not even get her mailbox key until APRIL of her first year. *super*

SCRIPTURE

Now Jesus might know a thing or two of what it feels like to have his words not be fully taken in. All of his teachings are recorded and written as letters for us, right?

Teachings that are meant to help us when we feel homesick for the world we dream for but do not yet see. Fundamental practices that are meant to buoy us when we forget how to start our days or live our days — encouragement to forge our way forward when all/so much looks like chaos, unrecognizable and unjust.

And yet — sometimes I flail around like I’ve never read a word — of the Word.

And so this morning I wanted to invite us to read some of the gospel of Mark, together. It’s where the disciples seem to flail around a little bit too.

We enter this scene where Jesus and the disciples have been traveling around and they’ve witnessed a lot of Jesus’ actions, listened to a lot of Jesus’ words — heard about the kin-dom of God, the one that is among them and yet not fully realized. And where we pick up here in Mark 9 is where Jesus has just added a little tidbit of information that foretells his death and then his resurrection… so the disciples are spinning a little bit, I think:

Mark 9:33 – 37

33 Then they (the disciples) came to Capernaum, and when he (Jesus) was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”

34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.

35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

36 Then he took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms he said to them,

37 “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Now the disciples have the unique opportunity to be with Jesus in real time. To see the teachings, the practices of Jesus enacted in their very presence. And yet they seem to not be reading the scene here.

I can imagine Jesus, as he sits them down addressing them:

“Dear disciples — dear , dear, dear disciples… (of whom I wish to bless, but who seem to not pick up anything I’m putting down), pray tell…
“What were you arguing about along the way?”

Now in the disciples defense — they’ve had a lot to digest. They’ve just witnessed the transfiguration of Jesus — they see Moses and Elijah on top of a mountain. They hear the voice of God through a cloud — they try to help a boy with an unclean spirit — but they can’t. And then Jesus calls them a

“faithless generation”

and then Jesus easily heals the boy — and then Jesus tells them he’s going to die… and then also in 3 days come back to life.

Soooooo — I get that they were just trying to figure out what was going on, and they feel the pressure, right? I mean Jesus has been doing/saying a lot of great things. Large crowds are following him and increasing daily. So if Jesus dies, the disciples think, “well we have to be “GREAT” too! We are supposed to carry something helpful forward for the kin-dom of God. And the prospect is scary. They are afraid.

I feel this too. I look around some days at our national landscape and I think I DO NOT understand. at. all. What is happening here? And Jesus, I do not understand what you are doing — call me a

“bad reader” — or a “member of a faithless generation”

but I think I need a little more “greatness” attached to my name to make an impact here.

I get why the disciples were arguing about

“who would be the greatest.”

It feels like a deep spiritual responsibility to create the kin-dom of God on earth. And the most recent experience they have is of FAILING to heal a boy — it’s what’s likely most fresh in their minds.

*Now I want to pause for a moment on this story of the boy.*

There are a fair amount of verses devoted to detailing what this unclean spirit does to the boy. It throws him to the ground, it convulses him, it makes him foam at the mouth, grind his teeth, it casts him into fire and into water — it tries to destroy him — it makes him not be able to speak or to hear.

Jesus — asks the father of the boy

“how long has this been happening?”

and the Father says,

“since childhood.”

Jesus casts the spirit out and turns to the disciples and tells them that it can only be cast out by prayer.

Now it’s not lost on me — that when Jesus hears the disciples arguing about ‘who is the greatest’ — that instead of getting into the minutiae of what they were talking about or the details of debate — that he brings a child to the center of their meeting.

A child who is not violently possessed by something trying to destroy it at all costs.

Despite not being recorded as saying anything — I think the child is the one holding the conversation here. Yes, We know Jesus gives voice to the voiceless – it is the vulnerable, the ones regarded as hopeless, useless, purposeless — held at the edges of society with no social or physical power — for whom Jesus writes the letters we read today.

“You belong, you are welcome.”

*Yes, Jesus of course — likes to flip our hierarchical ways of structuring our communities — as well as our ways of thinking of leadership — or who’s powerful, etc.. He flips it all upside down.

“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

Yes – and I think here he’s saying to the disciples,

“If you are going to talk about ‘greatness’ – let’s talk about what kind of “greatness that is” — and let’s think about the child you saw a couple days ago and the child you see here today….”

If you are writing a letter to them — about the kind of kin-dom/beloved community you are creating with the “GREATNESS” you are arguing about — how does that letter read?

Is it a letter of possession?
Of dominance?
Of control?
Is it Full of “BIG, BIG, BIG-ly — HUUUGE” — violent voices?
Ones that overtake the voices in their path — ignoring them, silencing them, stomping on them?

Or do you write of a greatness that points to something even greater?

“If you believe in the kin-dom, if you believe in me — yes you will do the works I have been doing AND you will do even greater things than these…..”

Ones of compassion and of help. Of healing and of possibility. Of good news and great love.

But if you build a kin-dom that argues about how much greatness you can showcase in ideas, buildings, power or money — you will destroy this child, you will send him to the ground foaming at the mouth.

But if you embrace the child of which the kin-dom is born within — you start with a salutation:

“Dear young person, (beloved child of God — I see you…)”
“Dear young person, (beloved child of God — you are welcomed here….)”
“Dear young person, (may you be embraced by a future that needs your voice).”

And I can imagine that the disciples would think, “but Jesus this child can’t even read yet.”

And that’s the truth — the young may never read the letter — but they will get the message. The message of whether or not they are left alone in the wilds of our day, or whether they are embraced into the fold of greater possibilities, given greater capacity to receive and give love, and greater capacity to hope.

In the 1930s, the poet Langston Hughes observed that the origin of a deeper American Dream is not to be found in some GREAT, distant, abstract idea but very near, in the stories of our own lives — of those around us. Especially the young. His insight rings true to this day:

“An ever-living seed,

Its dream

Lies deep in the heart of me.”
(https://fetzer.org/resources/america-possible-letter-my-young-companions-journey-hope)

I think Jesus is inviting the disciples and us to grapple with the idea that if we are going to engage or even touch a conversation about what/who is the “greatest” — let it be unto developing this ever-living seed in all of us. Let it be unto growing the greatest humanity, the greatest spirit, the greatest community — a way of living alongside one another — that opens up the greatest capacities, the greatest gifts. Vincent Harding would say,

“let’s find ways to move against that which crushes our greatest human development, and our greatest communal and public development — like segregation — like white supremacy.”

Let’s find ways to work unto a shared flourishing — which creates a greatness we’ve never quite experienced before.

“Our work in public life is to care and receive care from each other. To create a world where those who are hurt and harmed — who are right now being harmed by patterns and practices of dominance and greed and deadly indifference to shared flourishing is a priority, a promise, a practice we collectively commit to”. (enfleshed.org)

What happens though is that when we are tired — when we are confused or dismayed – or afraid – we argue. Often loudly. And like these disciples — we can quickly get into a sickening spiral.

One that takes us away from whatever is true — whatever is honorable — whatever is just — whatever is pleasing — whatever is lovely — whatever is admirable — and those things are the things we need in our perception in our public life. (Philippians 4)

Because without them — the realities of life — will swallow us up — will throw us to the ground, to the fire. The bullies, the loud-mouths, the violence of our days will seep into the fractures that are ever-widening. And it will poison the roots of the childhoods of this generation and the next — if we continue to argue along the way.

SIGNPOSTS
https://onbeing.org/programs/vincent-harding-is-america-possible/

Vincent Harding started a project called Veterans of Hope – at the age of 66 in 2004. (And to be clear, in this context “veteran” refers to individuals who have dedicated their lives to activism and social change, rather than military service). It was a project designed to inspire and promote public civic engagement of disaffected youth by connecting them with organizers, artists, religious and political leaders, educators, healers and visionary activists from 50 to 90 years old. Veterans like himself that were not holding HOPE as a way to bypass the past or present darkness of our land — but still believing for such hope along the journey.

He recounts a time that he met with a young man – who as they started talking in a more personal way, turned out was one of the “leaders of the drug-running folks at the time” – but this young man shared that one of the reasons why he felt like he had gone in the way that he had gone — not trying in any way to excuse himself — was the fact that he, like many other young people, were operating in a situation where they felt it was just very, very dark all around them. And what they needed were, as he put it, some signposts, some lights in other peoples’ lives, that would help them…

“Live human signposts,” is what they needed.

These lights would help them to see the possibilities for themselves (to bring to life something that already was inside of them — that ever-living seed). Often the approach when working with marginalized youth is to educate them to figure out how quickly they can get out of the darkness and get into a more pleasant situation. When what is needed again and again are more and more people who will stand in that darkness, who will not run away from those deeply hurt people and communities and will open up possibilities that other people can’t see in any other way except seeing it through human beings who care about them. And Vincent Harding says, “if we teach young people to run away from the darkness rather than to open up the light in the darkness, to be the candles, the signposts, then we will do great harm to them and our communities.”

Imagine living a life in such a way where our lives could be signposts for what’s possible?

Imagine not having to be THE ONE — the only — the best/greatest signpost of all time for all humanity — but one of a constellation of signposts that could help guide us all unto greater movement into a true, honorable, just, admirable — nation/world?

Much of what Jesus had shown the disciples was exactly this — how to be a collection of people alongside other people — unto a better future they craft together. To the disciples they recorded these moments as “miracles” (the feeding of the 4,000 — the healing of the blind/sick and so on), and perhaps that’s what it would feel like to us too today if we were to witness a world where there was enough food for everyone to be fed, where the evil of pain and sickness was addressed seriously and holistically and transformed into healing — where the smallest, the weakest, the vulnerable the oppressed were brought into the center and given equitable access and voice — all of it does indeed sound miraculous. But it also sounds like a letter I would read again and again — if someone would just write it.

Jesus — reminds us it has been written….

“Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice – (live it!) And the God of peace will be with you.” (Philippians 4:9) — Sincerely, Jesus.

And Jesus — Vincent – – the disciples — invite us to be the living letters we wish to be written into the future.

Elle eventually read my letters. I don’t know how much or how little –but I do know she can return to them when she needs the reminder that she is loved and that I believe in her.

But actually the greatest thing of all — has very little to do with me – or my words — but rather the collective humanity around her. The many signposts along the way in a year that was really tough — people who cared and loved her too; coaches, friends, lab partners, strangers at the store. Helping her live out what she is for and what she is meant for… saying, “Dear Elle (beloved child of God, I see you…).

Vincent Harding said that,

“Now it’s a powerful time in this country for young people and us to be asking the question: and what are we for? Do we exist for some reason other than competing as the greatest nation — or finding the greatest possible technological advances? Are there some things that are even deeper that we are meant for, meant to be, meant to do, meant to create?”

Jesus is asking us the same — and also reminding us that:

“We are not alone in this struggle for the creation of the beloved community it will take…

He reminds us that,

“It has long been written and known that those who choose to struggle for the life of the earth and its people are part of an ageless, membrane of light that is filled with the lives, hopes, and beautiful visions of all who have fought on, held on, loved well, and gone on before us.”

“This task is too magnificent — too hard — too great — for a few disciples to shape alone, to be carried by us alone, in our house, in our meeting, in our organization, in our generation, — but we try anyway — for the next generation — so that they will remember us — and for the generation after them, so that they will remember them… We are all a part of one another, and we are all part of the intention of God — to continue being light and life to everyone around us.”
Words by Vincent Harding. (“The Greatness of the Myth, The Goodness of the Man”, Eboo Patel, onbeing.org).

Prayer

Dear God, the one who reads all our letters — who regards them as prayers. May our lives — both private and public be holy renderings of the love you seed in us, the dreams you call out of our beings. And may you remind us that “a new day comes, to keep our heads up — and that we are surrounded in love — come what may.”

Resources:

https://fetzer.org/resources/america-possible-letter-my-young-companions-journey-hope

https://onbeing.org/programs/vincent-harding-is-america-possible/

https://onbeing.org/blog/the-greatness-of-the-myth-the-goodness-of-the-man/