Number in Series: Third

The Spirit of God Who Calls Us Out

For this week’s Events and Happenings, click “Download PDF.”

For this week’s Spiritual Practice, led by Trecia Reavis, click HERE. The images to accompany the Spiritual Practice are located in the PDF. .

Thank you Trecia. Namaste, namaste, namaste, may it be our guiding prayer as we walk, and breathe and have our being on this Earth.

If you missed the beginning of announcements – I just want to reiterate the Prayer Vigil for Hope and Healing coming up in 2 Sundays, on May 2nd.
Come with your prayer, come with your song.  It will be a time to give space for the voices of  Black, Indigenous, Asian American, and People of Color. All are welcome to attend and listen and stand in solidarity.  Sign up if you’d like to register.  Link in the chat – After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

It is good to be with you today my friends. I’m Ivy – a Pastor here on staff. And I’m going to share some words around this new series we are in called, “Listening to the Spirit of God, with Freedom and Power.”  It is an invitation to both chronologically follow the events of early followers of Jesus and how they found their way with the Spirit of God, in post-resurrection days –  that were bewildering and confusing and laced with fear!  And it’s also an invitation for us to consider what we think of the Spirit of God IN these days. As Trecia led us through those images – maybe you felt those questions rise in you – where is the Spirit of God, where do I recognize it? What does it mean to listen to the Spirit? And what does that listening call us unto?

Our Lenten season centered the voices of the minor prophets and concluded with the promise of God, that we hear in the minor prophet of Joel –

I will pour out my spirit on all people

…not just kings, prophets and judges (people that had status and power and “religious” value), but poured out on all people. 

Today, this is the phrase I want to invite us to deeply mine, to revisit with fresh awareness.


I will pour out my spirit on all people

Because not only is this vital to our own experience of flourishing and wellness – especially in days of chaos and hurt (when only dead-ends appear on our horizon), and not only is it essential in piercing through our boundaries and limits of what and who God is, BUT it is also vital for our conceptions of what the “gospel” is, and who/what “church” is, as we revisit this promise.  

Today we’ll look at words shared to us in the book of Acts, particularly those of Stephen.  A voice that echoes around us, with the Spirit of God – just as strong today.  A voice that if we still/quiet ourselves long enough to listen, may just help us believe the RESURRECTION STORY is an everyday possibility – not just an Easter story. That death and violence and hatred will not be the message that wins out , the one that soaks into our veins and into our  next generations, but it will be a message of LIFE and Love that we create with the Spirit of God that wins out. Where the “gospel” and “church” represent the Spirit of God. Because the spirit of God, CALLS US OUT into liberation and new ways of living alongside one another – calling us into Beloved Community – which will take more than our human imaginations, it will take the power, inspiration and courage of the spirit of God. 

PRAYER

Oh Holy, tender one.
In faith, this morning we ask for your presence.
Aliven us, freshen us, tune us to your movement.

Within us… in the midst of us.. and beyond us.

Amen

MY STORY

Three years ago at this time of year – I took a trip to Duke University for a several day conference. The conference itself took place in Duke’s Chapel, this outstandingly gorgeous building, right in the center of campus. Actually it’s the tallest, most prominent university chapel in the world.   The first session of the first day – started with a woman leading us in song. I don’t even remember the song or the words, I just remember her singular voice starting us off. No instruments – just her voice echoing off these ancient stone walls,  and traveling up to the cavernous ceiling and reverberating back down – it was stunning.  And in a room of 1,000 or so strangers, it was uniting and the holiness. The Spirit of God. I felt it –  reverberated through all of us. 

Over the course of the next few days all of our sessions were centered in this sanctuary.  All the big speakers and all the great worship happened in this gorgeous building.  Except for this one opportunity where you could choose from a myriad of different breakout options. One of them was off-campus, which required taking a bus a few miles away in Durham, and visiting this property that was 1) a school – called the “School for Conversion, ” 2) a church, St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church, and also 3) a declared “Sanctuary” for a member of the neighborhood – Jose Chicas who was being faced with the risk of deportation – due to increased ICE raids in the area. He had been living there for a year at that point.. 

We would be able to meet one of the representatives of all of this – a guy by the name of Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

A LOT going on there – and I wanted to hear & see more about what all of this was. 

A church, a school, a neighborhood, “Sanctuary”, community?  What was the vision in all of this? The plan? The thru-line? The Program?

And also as you might guess, I was a little suspect of this word “conversion.”

“Conversion” has been a word that was often synonymous with the word “gospel” in my faith background. I held the “gospel”/the power – to “convert” others – which then gave them this separate/”holier” status. 

“Conversion” though, in its truest form, is a new way of being. And actually an on-going, ever-evolving way of being as we think of it situated in a faith context, with a living, resurrected God. IN YOUR FULL LIFE.  “Conversion” is a transformation of heart – and it is an active process that follows the movement of the SPIRIT OF GOD – that is not always visible or defined (as in a prominent tall building), but one that unmistakably introduces us into new patterns, spheres, people. And as Stephen shows us in the book of Acts – this newness and expanse –  is not always embraced or accepted by those in power. 

So let’s press into Stephen’s story a little bit here – we meet Stephen in chapter 6 of Acts where he is chosen to help with the daily distribution of food to widows who were being discriminated against – and we see here, that he is described as one who is

full of faith and the Holy Spirit 

and is one who performs many amazing signs and miracles.  This gains the attention of the religious elite – and they behold Stephen as a threat to their position and way of understanding God.

So they persuaded some men to lie about Stephen saying,

“This man is always speaking against the Temple and against the law of Moses.  We have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy the Temple and change the customs Moses handed down to us.”

And so they arrested him and brought him before the RELIGIOUS COUNCIL. 

These accusations are a big deal.  Stephen knows that to continue to live in the Spirit – presses against the honoring of hierarchies of religious authorities. HE is transgressing the borders – closing the distance between insider and outsider.. Neighbor and foreigner… friend and stranger.   Suggesting that the Spirit of God sees no boundaries. 

So Stephen responds to the council – and it’s about 50 verses in Chapter 7 of Acts – I won’t read them all – but it is very powerful, so I’ll summarize a bit,

The interesting thing about his response to the council – is that he doesn’t start with a list of retorts for each point he’s been accused of .

Instead he decides to remind this religious council of the movement of the Spirit of God – to all of God’s people over the history of time.  

He starts way back with Abraham.

He details the movement of God throughout lands – out of Egypt, through the Red Sea and back and forth through the wilderness. The widening circles and borders and cultures that God embraces.

He reminds the council of God’s promises that have occurred throughout history – and how God came through on those promises.

He reminds the council of the Spirit of God’s bewildering ways – of how God created a whole nation from Abraham and his descendants even though there were no children yet.

He reminds the council of Jacob and Isaac and Joseph, and Moses  – who are pivotal characters in the religious elite’s present day understanding of God.

He reminds them of the spirit of God speaking through people, and bushes, and angels and fire –  occurring in curious ways  – but ALWAYS present.

The Spirit of God always present  – he also reminds the council (in this historical recollection), that at EVERY turn the Spirit of God has been rejected, forgotten, and disbelieved by the ‘people of God’ –  again and again – throughout history.  

 Stephen’s address ends with these powerful words (picking up at the end of Acts 7):

Acts 7: 45-51

45 Years later, when Joshua led our ancestors in battle against the nations that God drove out of this land, the Tabernacle was taken with them into their new territory. And it stayed there until the time of King David.

46 “David found favor with God and asked for the privilege of building a permanent Temple for the God of Jacob.

47 But it was Solomon who actually built it.

48 However, the Most High doesn’t live in temples made by human hands.

As the prophet Isaiah says,

49 ‘Heaven is my throne,

    and the earth is my footstool.

Could you build me a temple as good as that?’

    asks the Lord.

‘Could you build me such a resting place?

50  Didn’t my hands make both heaven and earth?’

51 “You stubborn people! You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? 

Stephen ends here with the words of the prophet Isaiah.  Challenging them to consider these words of God,

“Didn’t my hands make both heaven and earth?”  “Oh religious council – can you understand that God’s presence has been and will always be present everywhere? Covering heaven and earth?”  “Do you see that *your God* is the same God of Abraham? 

And like Joel’s words,

“I pour out my spirit on all people.”

Can you see that

“I, Stephen have the same spirit of God in me – that is present in you?”

Stephen shows and calls out, in the same way that  prophets do, big patterns. They are seers of big patterns. They see what has always been true – and will forever be true of God.  Recognizing that one of the big patterns of God – as Stephen recollects through history –  is that God’s message of love and spirit – always gets wider and more universal, that God is IN all things.

It’s profound, because Stephen is showing here (to the council that is accusing him and will shortly murder him through stoning) that the very truths they speak of – and are so vehemently protecting and guarding – the “good news”, that speaks of the incredible power and goodness of God for ALL PEOPLE – is being warped and turned into “bad news” as they use it against the people in their midst. 

And herein Stephen not only reveals a big pattern of God – but he also reveals one of the biggest patterns of humanity -our continued effort to limit the Spirit of God.  Discredit the Spirit of God.  Cover our ears and not listen to the Spirit of  God.  Especially as we seek to retain comfort, power, and status. 

The pattern over history is that we (the bearers of God’s image and Spirit – are the destructive forces that hijack the gospel) resisting it

“by believing that faith is our business to manage, our tool to use on other people or society.” 

This is why it is so important to figure out where you are, where we are, I am with the Spirit of God today. Because the Spirit of God calls us out – to continue the good work of reconstructing the gospel – to keep “converting”/transforming to new ways of being in beloved community with one another. 

The council before Stephen couldn’t listen to the truth that Stephen – by way of the Spirit of God revealed in his speech … so much so that it says in verse 57, that they

Acts 7:57

“put their hands over their ears, and drowning out his voice with their own shouts they rushed him, dragged him out of the city and stoned him.” 

HANDFULS of STONE and HANDFULS of CERTAINTY.

As suspect as I was getting off the bus and walking a few blocks over to this “School for Conversion” – I warmed to Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove as I listened to him speak of “church” as in the Greek of the New Testament, “ekklesia – translated as “the called-out ones.”   Which he said is to be called out of the patterns and practices of this world’s sinful and broken systems into the economy of God’s abundance and  grace which is enough for everyone – this he said, is to be church. 

To participate in an institution called church that reinforces this world’s broken systems is easy. But to live by the spirit, is messier – because it requires that which we can not fully know – the person in front of us – and the only bridge to knowing is “love.”

As Jesus says in his first sermon,

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because the Spirit has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor”

This is the gospel. To challenge the injustice of poverty – those who have been made poor, kept poor, by unjust systems.

And what if this first sermon was an invitation – not to create or imagine a bunch of auxiliary ministries, dependent on the central mission of “church building/entity” – but what if it was a “calling out” of the Spirit of God? As a way of living with love, in this world, and fighting everything that comes against that love, by the power of the Spirit?

To walk by the power of the Spirit in an unpredictable world, is one that liberates us from the most powerful authoritative/hierarchical institutions and systems that lay in our land.

This freedom is what the COUNCIL didn’t like. Stephen was living alongside people. MORE THAN HE WAS IN THE TEMPLE, he was being the gospel, more than he was studying the mosaic laws, he was walking alongside, sharing his food with those who had been abandoned and cast aside – widows.  Yet what was the shape of this? What was the plan? The spelled out vision? The structure? How could they know if it was really of God or not? 

They couldn’t.  

It was too unpredictable. Too mysterious, one might say, even miraculous. 

And herein lies the miracles we get to encounter with the Spirit of God.  The miracle is that the Spirit of God can be found, in backyards and at playgrounds, and in neighborhoods and in offices. In you, and in me, and in all of us.  IF, as Trecia invited us to consider, “we choose to recognize it.” God is IN ALL THINGS.  God is in all things.

Our days are over-flowing with miracles.

What I discovered as I learned more about Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s work (which by the way was by standing in the parking lot of this property because it really wasn’t as much about the building or what goes on inside the building as a school/ or as a church/ or as “sanctuary”) it was more about the way of life that was found as he engaged with his community, neighborhood – as he was part of the area that surrounds him.  This has led to meaningful partnerships with so  many folks in his area – including Reverend William J. Barber (who created the Poor People’s Campaign of Moral revival – which takes up the unfinished work of the Poor People’s Campaign of 1967-1968 by Martin Luther King Jr.).   

It’s led to Jose Chicas being free to reunite with his family – after 1300 days in sanctuary.

It’s led to this “School for Conversion” being shaped by God’s vision of a Beloved Community. 

It’s led to the embodiment of “conversion” not being a separate set of doctrines that people have to subscribe to – but a WAY OF LIFE – that leads us ALL toward beloved community  –  a new way of living together and being in the world.

And it’s led the church to be not primarily about how many people show up for services, but rather about how many who are oppressed will encounter liberation. It’s about how many neighborhoods and families and individuals can be freed by the oppressive structures that continually try to limit life. And limit the Spirit of God.

And here we are today. The church, in this post, resurrection reality, just 2 weeks out from celebrating Easter, declaring that CHRIST is RISEN, CHRIST is HERE, CHRIST IS ALIVE. And our hearts are burning within us, with this awareness and hope. And yet we start this week, again, with death.  Another murder of a black man at the hands of police.  Daunte Wright, a 20 year old, a bearer of the image of God. Full of joy, given to laughter, a doting father, full of life, full of the Spirit of God.  We would do well, to listen to the Spirit of God.   We would do well to listen to the question that Daunte asks of us in his death, “Do you recognize the Spirit of God in me?”

Stephen says,

“the most High doesn’t live in temples made by human hands”

It’s us. 

We are the temples. We are the living-breathing sanctuaries – filled with the Spirit of God. Capable of miracles, capable of loving those around us – yet Stephen poses piercing questions – will we listen to the Spirit?  Or will we be a stubborn people? Heathen at heart and deaf to the truth?  Or will we be able in faith, to trust  like Moses did? And in faith, suffer like Joseph did? And in faith, persevere like Abraham? Will we be able to push against the spirit of our times – power, violence –  like Stephen did?

Howard Thurman says to,

“listen to the Spirit of God in our hearts – often CALLS US OUT to act AGAINST the spirit of our times – and often causes us to anticipate a spirit which is yet in the making…”

Stephen listened to the Spirit – that was “yet in the making.” And he invited this council of religious elite – to listen to the Spirit that was “yet in the making.” The free, powerful, unboundaried Spirit of God. 

And in that he invited them to answer the same question Daunte Wright does of us today, one they couldn’t face and embody, one they covered their ears to, “Do you recognize the Spirit of God in me?”

God says in

Joel 2:12-13

  12  “Turn to me now, while there is time.

Give me your hearts.

    Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning.

13 Don’t tear your clothing in your grief,

    but tear your hearts instead.”

Return to the Lord your God,

    for God  is merciful and compassionate.

May we return. Return to the good, loving, powerful story of God in our lives – that has been written over the arch of history – so that we can write it into the future.  And so that our efforts to rid this world’s systems of racism and every other sickening toxin are freed from white supremacy – addressing our hearts, our souls in the light of God’s mercy and compassion.

So that we can greet one another with Namaste. With reverence, with honor.

May the spirit of God in me – greet the spirit of God in you.

May we see and behold one another  – as holy sanctuaries.

May we continue to become the church – embody the Spirit of God – that “calls us out.”

Amen – 

 

 

Love Mercy

For this week’s Events and Happenings, click “Download PDF.”

For this week’s spiritual practice led by Ivy Anthony called “Micah & Rocks,” click HERE.

Micah 6:6-8 6

With what should I approach the Lord and bow down before God on high? Should I come before him with entirely burned offerings, with year-old calves? 7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with many torrents of oil? Should I give my oldest child for my crime; the fruit of my body for the sin of my spirit? 8 He has told you, human one, what is good and what the Lord requires from you: to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God. 

 

Let me pray for us… We walk humbly into this space of worship this morning. Longing to hear you, see you, to feel you. Give us your grace we pray.in Jesus name. Amen

 

It was a hard decision to become a pastor. I loved Jesus so much. He had changed my heart. But when I began to feel the call and eventually got to seminary, the rest of the 4 years of seminary was about becoming. A process. And a lot of unbecoming, what I used to be. Shedding and changing. My heart was changed but changing my life, took a bit more time. For one,I had a pottymouth. And I struggled with addiction. And though I had stopped as I entered seminary, the temptations were still there. I was still a work in progress. 

 

And the fact that I was work in progress gave me a lot of doubt. Here I am, sitting in a seminary dorm. Ha! Who do you think you are? You’re not holy. You’re sinful! I said to myself. And the flashbacks would flood in. See? Remember what you’ve done? You? You want to become a pastor? When those voices would rise up, I’d kneel. I’d pray to that tender voice. I asked God, like the old Jennifer Knapp’s Christian pop song I grew up with, called Refine Me. 

 

Lord, come with Your fire

Burn my desires, refine me

Lord, my will has deceived me

Please come free me, come rescue this child

For I long to be reconciled to You

Refine me, refine me

 

I prayed and prayed. There were so many things that I needed to give up. But the funny thing about doubt and the imposter syndrome is that it turns the idea that “there are mistakes I’ve made” to “I am a mistake”, or “I’ve done wrong” to “I am wrong”. 

 

On one of those many nights where I battled with my own shaming voices, in prayer to God, a verse came to me. I have a vivid memory of this experience that I had forgotten about but recently came back to me with details. 

 

And when I say a verse came to me, I just mean, I thought of it. When things like this happen, I think it’s God speaking to us, because it feels like a gift, that it just comes into my mind. I don’t know, maybe I read it somewhere earlier that week. Maybe I heard it somewhere. So it’s hard to say, exactly how God speaks to us, but nevertheless, it felt as though God gave me this verse. Jesus said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” It came to me as a mystery because I did not understand it. I googled it. Jesus said it in Matthews chapter 9,  “But go and learn what this means:  quoting Hosea, prophet we read last week, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’

 

I desire mercy not sacrifice. I desire mercy not sacrifice..

The statement confused me. Sacrifice was such a positive thing in my mind. Selfless. Pure. 

It also happens to be high value in Korean culture. To sacrifice. How much our parents sacrificed themselves for the next generation. In fact, it’s a complement. 

 

I remember growing up in church, and on Sundays, everyone served. Ladies cooked all morning to provide beef seaweed soup and rice with kimchi to the entire congregation. Men moved chairs, tables to set things up. Deacons cleaned. Elders arranged the flowers. People had meetings, babysat, sang in choirs, made booklets. Sunday went on from early morning set up to late afternoon filled with band practices and prayer meetings. At the end of the day we would part ways saying to each other, ‘soogo hetsuhyo!’ which means ‘you worked hard!” or ‘goseng hetsuhyo” which means “you struggled!” or “you endured!” And everyone responded the same, saying “oh no no no” denying their work. It’s like a competition to see who took on the most burden, which is another complement. Sacrifice is next to godliness. And I’ve been taught all my life to sacrifice, to thank those who sacrificed, how much others have sacrificed for me. 

 

So when Jesus said, Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice? I didn’t get it. 

 

I marinated on it for a while. I journaled in my notebook. God, refine me. God, make me better. God, change me. 

I wrote, God use me. And I started to play with these words, as I often do when I journal, where my thoughts become play, and I riff and roll around the words with ittierations, rhymes, and rhythms. Yes, I get a little poetic prose-like in my journaling sometimes. I wrote…

Use me. Useful. US…FULL.  And then I wrote in capital letters, URS. Yours. And it hit me. 

That I’m not supposed to be “useful” but “urs.” Your beloved. 

It wasn’t about what I needed to do, 

But who I saw myself to be

I don’t need to make sacrifices for God or to God

But simply, see the way God see me, 

Which is full of mercy

I needed to have mercy on myself. 

And it brought me to tears. I think I felt mercy. I felt the love enveloping me. 

 

But still and again, I wrote in my journal. I asked God, what do you require of me? And I heard God respond to me with the same question, “What do you require of me?” God asked me. And I thought about that…. And I wrote “acceptance.” I asked God, “Am I good enough?” Do you accept me? 

How could it be? That I legitimately questioned whether I was good enough to be loved by God. That’s why I was sitting there asking God to change me, so that I could be pleasing and acceptable to the Lord. 

The questions of Am I good enough, came with a pang, like a sadness, to see my desperate insecure self in need of just love. I felt mercy toward her. Poor girl, of course, of course you’re good enough, Lydia! God loves you no matter what!

Jesus doesn’t ask us to make sacrifices. Jesus has mercy on us. Jesus loves us no matter what. Let me say that again. God doesn’t ask us to make sacrifices. Are you thinking in your head, well yes but there’s still some things I need to work on or things I need to clean up. Or Are you thinking about others, that one person, sure Jesus loves them but they’ve got some work to do. Sure the theological term sanctification has had much to expound on over centuries. But moral achievements are only meant to be the natural outpouring of the spirit through mercy and grace. Not by merit, through grace, GRACE, alone. 

 

In 2010 Jennifer Knapp the Christian musician came out publicly sharing that she’s been in a loving relationship with a woman for 8 years. I can see why she might’ve been asking God to burn her desires and the song, not being about how God sees her but maybe more about how others saw her or how she saw herself and felt the need to be seen and accepted a certain way. She longed to be accepted and loved. And sadly, when she came out, many were shocked, even angry. This is not God’s way. It’s what we do to each other. We demand sacrifices from each other. 

 

We don’t need to tell each other what to do, what to give, what to give up, and how to live. Like the question we’ve been asking this Lent “what’s the most important?” It says in our Lent Bible Guide, “Our church doesn’t try to define what should be most important for all of us; we don’t tell you  exactly which way to go. But we believe that as we lean toward God in prayer and listen to the prophets,  the Spirit of God will be our teacher and guide and show us each some of what is most important as well  as show us the way forward.” 

 We only need to show one another, God’s love and how we walk in God’s love, and walk humbly together. Any sacrifice that may come, is not up to you or me, but it’ll come naturally flowing out of the life of love. That’s between them and God. And for everyone who struggles with something, we only need to show mercy. 

 

So much guilt driven theology I swallowed growing up, that I needed to be cleansed, that I needed to be better. Sometimes “worldly” views come through the lens of “Christian values”. But at the core, there is only one message, God loves you. And not you should but you can have a loving reciprocal relationship with God. And love is not gained through a series of actions or sacrifices. You do not inspire God to love you by being good. What it means to love God isn’t to do things for God that is pretty or satisfactory to God. To love God is to receive and return love, delight and enjoy God. To know God’s heart and share your heart with God. To walk with God. 

 

So this is my humble walk. It’s not perfect. I’m not that holy. But I need to walk really closely with others to remind me what this walk is like. That sometimes this walk can feel like a show. Sometimes I feel like I need my faith to be a certain way. Ya’ll, I have major baggage with this being a Pastor’s Kid. We publicly sacrificed everything for the show. Don’t. Don’t sacrifice your first born, or the last born. 

 

6 

With what shall I come before the Lord

    and bow down before the exalted God?

Shall I come before them with burnt offerings,

    with calves a year old? Shall we come to church to log in hours of prayer, with bank checks with a year of interest? 

7 

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

    with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Will the Lord be pleased with a thousand committees working on stuff in our organization, with ten thousand staff members? 

 

Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,

    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Shall I give up things that are most precious to me, even the good and beautiful things most near to my heart? 

No, God does not require these things of you. Maybe church does. Maybe people do. But not God. 

 

The only thing that we’re told to DO in this text is, actually, justice. While I was on maternity leave I discovered that I enjoy listening to audiobooks while I’m feeding and holding the baby. I got a chance to hear “How to Be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi and the main message of the book really took the whole book to drill into my head. He posed that being racist isn’t mainly about moral fallacy. In fact, when we dwindle down a thing like racism to moral or ethical failure, it fails to tackle the real root of the problem or more important the scope and power of the problem, which is how insidious and prevalent racism is, by chalking it up to almost excusing it as, oh that person is racist who is a bad person. When the reality is, racism is beyond personal individual moral failure, and plays out more powerfully as public policy. He says that it’s not ignorance or hate that fuels racism. It’s power. Power that’s carried out and implemented through racist policies. He says that ““Institutional racism” and “structural racism” and “systemic racism” are redundant. Racism itself is institutional, structural, and systemic.” He presents that it’s not moral failings of racists that we need to be working on but racist policies. 

 

Stop focusing on moral failings. It’s not enough. It may be a part of it, sin, sacrifice, sanctification. But what’s more at stake is bigger than your moral failings. 

Here’s what I read. Don’t worry about purifying your moral ethical failures through sacrifices. DO justice. Change racist policies. Even in the realm of race, as Ibram Kendi would point out, it’s less about individual righteousness but about implementation of justice. DO Justice. We don’t need to change the hearts of men, but change the policies that perpetuates and reinforces more racism at a systemic mass sophisticated scale, well beyond a hurtful racist remark. It’s less about personal holiness and piety, it’s more about doing public love and mercy, which is justice. It’s much more relational and community oriented, a thing like mercy, rather than transactional, like nullifying one’s sin through sacrifice. 

Again from the prophet Micah,

 

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

    And what does the Lord require of you?

To do justice and to love mercy

    and to walk humbly with your God.

 

Be fair. LOVE MERCY. And just walk. That’s it. Step by step. 

 

Let us walk together, doing justice, loving mercy. Can we? 

 

Let me pray for us. 

 

God of Justice, God of Love, God of mercy. Show us. Show us the way to not only fix ourselves, but love ourselves, and love our neighbors like we would love ourselves. Teach us we pray, lamp our feet, that we may walk, in justice, in mercy, in humility, with you. Help us. Have mercy on us Lord Jesus, Amen. 

What We Mean When We Say “God Is Love”

For this week’s Events and Happenings at Reservoir, click “Download PDF.”

This week’s spiritual practice which opens our recording of the service, was led by Vernee Wilkerson.

Along with my friend Ivy, I’m part of a class this year that certifies us in a spiritual direction: listening well and paying attention to how God is with us. Last weekend we had a longer session than normal that included a several hours long silent retreat. This being the year it is, we didn’t go anywhere, but I shut myself in a room for a few hours to be alone with my thoughts about my life.

 

And I found myself drawing a little box on a page in my journal. And that box was me, so I put my name in it. And I thought about the forces I’ve been feeling inside me and around me all year. And there were four forces that came to mine that push on my mind and my heart and make this year heavy. And I wrote words for those four forces. And those words were sadness, anger, fear, and pressure. 

 

Sadness, anger, fear, and pressure – I’ve felt a lot of all of those this year. Have you felt any or all of those? I wonder what else have you been feeling.

 

As I looked at this picture and prayed, I asked God where God fit into the picture. Because I believe God is always with us, that God accompanies us in all things, I asked God: how are you with me? 

 

And because I follow Jesus, I believe that what is most true of God is that God is love. And so I asked God: if this is my life today, what does it mean that you love me? Where is your love? What does love feel like?  

 

One of the only times in the Bible where someone tries to describe God in a word is when the author of a little letter called I John writes: God is love. God is love. Full stop. That’s where we start, and that’s where we end, when we talk about God.  

 

This is that writer reflecting on the life and teaching of Jesus, that so centered love in his life and teaching. And this is that writer taking a daring stab at summing up the whole of the Bible’s teaching on God as well, which so often talks about God’s love.

 

But when we dig into the details of our own experience, asking what does it mean when we say God is love, we aren’t always sure. And when we dig into the details of the Bible’s teaching and stories about love, it can also get complicated, since the Bible is a big collection of writings, by many people, all from very different times and places than we are from.

 

So what do we mean when we say God is love? 

 

I want to talk about that today from one of the beautiful and troubling and messy and passionate biblical writers about God’s love, the prophet Hosea, who is the second prophet in our series this Lent: What is Most Important.

 

Hosea was a favorite of Jesus. Jesus liked to quote an important line from Hosea that we’ll come back to when I preach next in two weeks. That line Jesus liked to quote is: I desire mercy and not sacrifice. Or I desire faithful love and not sacrifice. Jesus had a lot to say about this line and we will too.

 

But today, I want to talk about the basic set-up for the book of Hosea and what it is saying about God’s love – because depending on how you read it, it’s either beautiful and stirring, or creepy and misogynist, or a little bit of both at once.

 

The book of Hosea begins with a brief little story about Hosea’s life and his unusual marriage. It goes like this:

 

Hosea 1:2-11 (CEB)

2 When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to him,“Go, marry a prostitute and have children of prostitution, for the people of the land commit great prostitution by deserting the Lord.” 3 So Hosea went and took Gomer, Diblaim’s daughter, and she became pregnant and bore him a son. 4 The Lord said to him, “Name him Jezreel; for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will destroy the kingdom of the house of Israel. 5 On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Jezreel Valley.” 6 Gomer became pregnant again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Name her No Compassion, because I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel or forgive them. 7 But I will have compassion on the house of Judah. I, the Lord their God, will save them; I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen.” 8 When Gomer finished nursing No Compassion, she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. 9 Then the Lord said, “Name him Not My People because you are not my people, and I am not your God.”

10 Yet the number of the people of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it will be said to them, “Children of the living God.” 11 The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be gathered together, and they will choose one head. They will become fruitful in the land. The day will be a wonderful one for Jezreel.

Where does one start? 

 

There’s a lot here to unpack, isn’t there? 

 

This chapter is trying to convey this beautiful message of God’s love. That no matter what God’s children do with our lives, God will continue to delight in us. God will always seek relationship with us, will always offer us God’s presence and God’s best possibilities for our next steps. God will never stop loving us, whether or not we reciprocate that love.

 

That is good news.

 

And yet, the story of God’s love as told through Hosea is complicated. 

 

Imagine being Hosea. You’re a young adult living your life best as you can, praying as you do, since you love God, and you become convinced God wants your love life to mirror God’s, by loving someone who doesn’t know how to love you faithfully, or doesn’t want to love you faithfully. I would not advise this. 

 

Or imagine being Gomer, with problems of your own, but your life as a sex worker is used as a symbol for a whole culture’s failings. And the poor kids, with these awful names – No Compassion, and Not my People. Even Jezreel – that’s the site of a shameful episode in Israel’s mythic early history, like naming your kid Benedict Arnold, or naming your child after some infamous mass gravesite of old. 

 

These poor people. Now it’s easy enough to resolve this discomfort. Because after all, we don’t know if this story is historical. For the sake of everyone involved, I hope not. It may well be a parable, a fictional story with a message. 

 

But even the message.

 

Hosea thinks God is cursing people, punishing them for a lack of devotion. And somehow the restoration of future generations is supposed to make up for this generation’s pain. For the ancients, to believe God was punishing you but that things would eventually go well for your descendants may have been comforting, but it’s hard to see any of us finding peace in this. 

 

The beginning of Hosea also uses female prostitution or sexual unfaithfulness as a metaphor for human waywardness, for our tendency to stop listening to the wisdom of God and instead mess up our lives, harm our neighbor, and hurt the earth. Many of us, myself included, find the misogyny in this really problematic, like why pick on the woman? We find this to be a cultural relic we’re more than ready to set aside, not the part of the Bible that speaks to us of God.

 

So with all this mess in the story of Hosea, is it even possible to still hear this as a love story? 

 

One set of artists in our time thought: yes. We need to repackage and repurpose this story a bit to place it in our times, but we think we can. And they were the team who made the contemporary film, also called Hosea. Which you can rent and watch on youtube and amazon prime, maybe other places. 

 

The film Hosea imagines a woman’s path into sexual trafficking, where through neglect and abuse, poor luck and poor choices, and a fair bit of exploitation by bad men, a woman’s life could end up in a terribly difficult mess. The film doesn’t belittle the character that is our version of Gomer, but simply invites us to imagine her tragic story. And then it imagines what love might look like for her, and what love might look like for the one who’s loved her since childhood and loves her still, even when it hurts.

 

The film is full of adult content, as you can imagine, but I’ve got a 2-minute preview which I think is appropriate for church. I’d like you to see it. Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YnAwCr24yE

 

What do you think love feels like? 

 

On the negative side, Hosea tells us that love is pain.

 

I was praying with a friend of mine about our kids and about the pain we feel at any loss one of our kids has. And my friend prayed that we’d know something of the life and love of God through this. And that just broke me open. Loving parents give up a piece of our hearts that forever lives inside our kids. Their joys, triumphs, and satisfaction are our delight. And their losses, heartbreaks, and trials are in some part, ours to hold and feel as well. 

 

This is what it means for God to be invested in God’s creation. God’s decided God isn’t going to be God without us. And God’s a good parent too. The delights and joys and discoveries and loves of humanity enrich the life of God. And the losses, pains, and disappointments of humanity hurt the heart of God. This is uniquely true when we participate in our own hurt or when we turn our powers against one another and participate in the unravelling of God’s good creation. God feels all of this in God as well. 

 

Love is pain.

 

Positively, though, love is relentless. And love isn’t higher or lower. Love seeks real relationship with the beloved.

 

The prophets try to give us a window into the emotional life of God. Which is a new thing for some of us, to imagine that God would have all these emotions. 

 

Given the prophets’ views of God, in their time, when God is angry over the mess we make of our lives and one another and this good world, they communicate God’s anger through threats of punishment. Some of you all know parents like that, threatening to do this or that to their kids, if they don’t stop whatever-ing. Real talk, here, some of you all are parents like that. 

 

But we shouldn’t take all this talk of punishment too literally. Because after all, Hosea shows the tradition wrestling with itself. Again and again, you’ll read this week in the Lenten guide, Hosea says God can’t help Godself from compassion. When God is fed up with the violence and injustice and fickle faithlessness of us and God feels the very understandable sadness and anger of all that, God still can’t help but love us. 

 

And when love doesn’t work, when we don’t turn to God and turn to the good in response to God’s love, God keeps trying.

 

Hosea begins to hint at a radical posture of God that is intensified in the story and witness of Jesus, that if it is hard for us to listen to and love an unseen God, God will take responsibility for that gap. And God will do everything possible to close it.

 

In the film Hosea, the character of Gomer says if this is going to work between us, I can’t always come up to your standards, beloved. I can’t always fear your judgement. I need you to come down to me. And that’s just what the character of Hosea does. 

 

When we don’t know how to love God, the God of Hosea, and especially the God known to us through the teaching and life of Jesus Christ isn’t one who waits for us at a distance. Isn’t one who gives up on us. Isn’t one who sees our pains and problems with sympathy – like, aw, I’m so sorry for what you all are going through. God takes our pains and hurts into God’s own experience. 

 

It reminds me of the difference Brene Brown talks about between sympathy and empathy. Say you fall into a dark hole. Sympathy looks down and says – wow, sorry you’re stuck in that whole. Want a sandwich? It’s well meant, maybe, but it doesn’t connect us. 

 

Empathy, though, remembers one’s own experience of pain and so climbs into the hole with us, says, “I know what it’s like down here. You’re not alone.” 

 

I’ll post a great little animated video in the chat about this after the sermon.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZBTYViDPlQ]

 

Love is empathy. Love will be with the beloved, no matter what they’re going through. I want to be with you in that. This is what love feels like. Someone who wants to be with you in all you are and everything you going through.

 

And this is the love of God for us all. Not sympathy, not even just empathy, but union. Every part of our experience is part of the life of God – isn’t just seen by God, but known and felt by God. 

 

Here’s one way that’s speaking to me right now. When I look at my life, and it feels like I’m in this box, with sadness, anger, fear, and pressure pushing in. One, I know God knows the way through this. I’ve been talking to God about my way out of this moment, what I’m going to do, what help I’m longing for to see me through what’s been a long year. 

 

More importantly to me, though, God’s love means I’m not in that box alone. God sees what I see. God knows what I know. God feels what I feel. 

God is glad to be with me in this, and God is strong enough to help. And that’s speaking to me and meaning the world to me right now. 

 

Friends, no matter what you are experiencing today, whatever mix of good and bad, joy and pain this year has brought you, you are not in it alone. A loving God feels with you all you feel. And a living, life-giving God walks with you offering the next creative possibility for you to respond to as well.

 

Pray with me for a moment please.

Miracles in the Mud

For this week’s Events and Happenings, click “Download PDF.”

For this week’s spiritual practice “Alienation and Belonging” led by Steve Watson, CLICK HERE.

Thank you to Reverend Carrington George Moore for preaching at our online service and fellowshipping with us today!

Text from Rev. Moore’s sermon can be found below or in the slides during the service:

Luke 15:11-32 (NRSV)

11 Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. 13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ 20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

25 “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ 31 Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

 

Comfort, For All God’s Favorites

For this week’s Events and Happenings, click “Download PDF.”

For this week’s spiritual practice led by Trecia Reavis, CLICK HERE.

As I get started, I’m going to light our Advent candles as we welcome Jesus, Emmanuel, God-with-us to our memories and hearts and worship today. And as we prepare room for the joy, the peace, and the comfort of God with us.

Jesus, our joy, our peace, our comfort, bring us into awareness of your light shining upon us, shining within us. Give us eyes to see that you have shown us what God is like. And give us the power to know that you are with us always, to sustain and comfort us, and to guide us into lives of meaning and purpose and great joy, for all people. Amen.

 

I grew up in the 70s and 80s, when school year afternoons, and whole summer days were unscheduled, unstructured, unsupervised. As kids, we often met up for games of pickup basketball, whiffleball, kick the can, capture the flag, all kinds of other competitions. There was a lot of fun.

 

But one of the least comfortable memories of all this was the way these games just about always began. In any group, the older, alpha male boy, and the guy who was the closest thing he had to a rival, would be anointed as captains, lords of our playtime, and they would one by one pick their teams. 

 

Sometimes they’d choose the strongest first, sometimes the fastest, sometimes the oldest, sometimes their little brother or best friend. In my memories, I was often one of the younger ones. And I wasn’t a really athletic kid, so I was never near the fastest or strongest or best, and so never amongst those favored with the highest choice. 

 

So as other kids were picked first, I remember looking around my fellow unfavored ones, and sizing up their degree of disfavor, as I’d wait, hoping, just hoping I wouldn’t be chosen last. 

 

Now this was not the end of the world, of course. Most of us experience being unfavored, left out, inadequate at some point as children. For me, eventually, there were games besides neighborhood sports, and I could find places in my life where I’d feel more successful, more desirable, more favored. 

 

But I’m aware that these life questions of status and favor can run much deeper and longer. Last week I read Isabel Wilkerson’s new book Caste. I’d requested it from my library when it came out earlier this year, and it finally got to me last weekend, and I tore through it this week. It’s really good. 

 

Wilkerson illuminates the history and presence of racial injustice in our country by placing it alongside the genocidal regime of the Nazis, and the ancient caste system of India. All three societies – ours, Nazis, India – were built around strictly reinforced hierarchies of status and favor.

 

Wilkerson writes: “Through no fault of any individual born to it, a caste system centers the dominant caste as the sun around which all other castes revolve and defines it as the default-setting standard of normalcy, or intellect, or beauty, against which all others are measured, ranking in descending order by their physiological proximity to the dominant caste. 

 

They are surrounded by images of themselves, from cereal commercials to sitcoms, as deserving, hardworking, and superior in most aspects of American life, and it would be the rare person who would not absorb the constructed centrality of the dominant group.”

 

Wilkerson writes about the racial apartheid of American history that has favored white Americans and disfavored, disfranchised, and discriminated against Black Americans. 

 

But our own culture of unequal favor encompasses us all, in all aspects of our identities. 

So, as a little white boy born to English speaking parents in 1970s America, I could turn on any TV channel, any time of day, and find my culture centered, normalized, favored. My wife, a child of immigrants from China, same era, could hunt and hunt to find her culture anywhere in media, and usually it was invisible, except maybe for a racist portrayal of an animated cartoon Chinese dog named – I kid you not – Hong Kong Fuey – who lived in a file cabinet. 

 

Who among us is seen? Who has good news? Who is favored? 

 

As we approach Christmas, I want to take a fresh look at a familiar Christmas story. Today, we greet the shepherds, abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night.

 

And we ask: say God wanted to to be present to us in human form, to resuscitate an ancient royal lineage, and then to expand it to encompass the whole human family in a great big community of good news renewal? With whom would God begin? Who would first welcome God’s comfort? Who would get to tell the story? Who would be God’s favorites? 

 

And what is that comfort now so many years later for you and me, and our neighbors near and far? What does it mean to us to be God’s favorites? 

 

Let’s read, from Luke’s second chapter. 

 

Luke 2:8-20 (CEB)

8 Nearby shepherds were living in the fields, guarding their sheep at night. 9 The Lord’s angel stood before them, the Lord’s glory shone around them, and they were terrified.

10 The angel said, “Don’t be afraid! Look! I bring good news to you—wonderful, joyous news for all people. 11 Your savior is born today in David’s city. He is Christ the Lord.12 This is a sign for you: you will find a newborn baby wrapped snugly and lying in a manger.” 13 Suddenly a great assembly of the heavenly forces was with the angel praising God. They said, 14 “Glory to God in heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.”

15 When the angels returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go right now to Bethlehem and see what’s happened. Let’s confirm what the Lord has revealed to us.” 16 They went quickly and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger.17 When they saw this, they reported what they had been told about this child.18 Everyone who heard it was amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 Mary committed these things to memory and considered them carefully. 20 The shepherds returned home, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. Everything happened just as they had been told.

My Saturday morning Bible study was reading this passage last week. We were curious about this city of Bethlehem, the ancient city of the famous King David. And about the parents Mary and Joseph, and what it was like to make an improvised crib for your child out of a feeding trough, a manger. 

One person had a great question about the message this army of angels has for the night-shift shepherds. They praise God in heaven, and then for earth, they say: peace among those whom he favors. Peace, if you remember last week – shalom, salaam, justice, wholeness, wellness – peace among those whom he favors. And she was a little uncomfortable: what does this mean? Does God play favorites? And if so, who are they? Who is included? And who aren’t they? Who is excluded? 

Great questions. 

Now first, there are some translation issues. There’s a reason that different Bibles say somewhat different things here: good will to all people, peace to the ones with whom God is pleased, or as we read today, peace among those God favors. 

The Greek words here that speak to pleasure, delight, and choice have some ambiguity, and even they are translated whatever the shepherds heard and thought in their old Aramaic language, which wasn’t recorded. 

So we don’t know precisely how to state this phrase. But it does beg the question: these beloved ones, these chosen that delight God, these favorites that are comforted with the blessing of God’s peace?

Let’s start with the shepherds. It’s been overstated over the years just how outcast shepherds were in this culture. Still, though, find me a culture where the people who labor with the animals and the land are at the top of the pyramid.  Find me a culture where the night-shift workers are the ones who are favored.

I’ve wondered: where would these shepherds fall on our society’s scale of favor? Are they the underpaid construction workers laboring on the big building project in my neighborhood? Or are they the unemployed union laborers picketing that siame site? I don’t think either really. They’re more like Achut (a-choot) Deng, a Sudanese refugee who made her way to the US some twenty years ago. She got a job in Sioux Falls, South Dakota at a Smithfield pork processing factory, starting wage of $12.85 an hour. By this year, she’d made her way up to a job as supervisor in a division that uses knives to cut the fat off pork loins as they fly by on a conveyor belt. Earning $18 an hour now, she supported nine people: herself, a single mom to four boys, as well as a family of five relatives in Sudan. This year, though, as an essential worker in a company that gave no protections to their employees, she got COVID at work, got very sick, was worried she’d die and leave her children orphaned. She was out of work for weeks, lost a lot of income – first from being sick, then when the plant shut down. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/podcasts/the-daily/meat-plant-coronavirus.html

Like the shepherds of the gospel of Luke, I think Achut Deng is acutely clear that she is not among those most highly favored among us. 

And yet, it’s to shepherds that this army of angels appears, however that works. The night sky brightens, and one who has appeared to them says: Don’t’ be afraid. I have a proclamation of good news!

Now listen, these shepherds, just like us, knew a pile of bull when they heard one. They were used to the propaganda of the Roman Empire that would announce their victories and the expansion of their imperial might with proclamations that were called “Gospel – good news” The content of this supposed good news was attached to this empire’s glory of Rome, which offered residents of their empire the pax Romana – the peace of Rome. But since Rome had conquered their region some sixty-five years earlier, established the province of Syria in which they lived, they had begun to be heavily taxed and saw their countrymen kept in line with a hideous form of torture and capital punishment called crucifixion. 

Like a contemporary advertisement – we treat our workers right, as they bring you Smithfiled marinated pork – it’s what’s for dinner! These shepherds would have recognized the empty promises and lies of commercial and political propaganda. 

So what separated this message? Why did they listen? 

I think it was in the details. The big news here isn’t coming out of Rome, but out of a nearby town of significance in their culture, Bethlehem. And this baby to be called “Lord” – well, the only birth announcement of a Lord in this time was if an emperor had a child who would succeed him as Caesar. But Caesar Augustus still lived, and this baby was a Jew like them, one of their own colonized, conquered, low caste people. And the place of this birth wasn’t a palace with a throne, but a tiny two-room village house nearby, with a crib fashioned out of an animal’s feeding trough. 

This message was different. This good news got their attention. 

But maybe it wasn’t just the content of this message, maybe it was that someone was taking the time to bring this message to them.

Maybe they’re comforted, by knowing for the first time in their life, that they are God’s favorites. After all, this good news for all people, came first to them, nightshift, low wage, vulnerable, essential working shepherds. 

Maybe they are God’s favorites, worthy of God’s peace and wholeness.

Next, they go to Mary and Joseph – a teen mother and a village carpenter, unwed, as well as unimportant, unknown, unexceptional. Not prominent people, not beautiful people, and – in some tricky circumstances at the moment – what seem to be some very unlucky people. 

But they are at the center of this story, parents to this God-with-us child king. Maybe they are also God’s favorites, worthy of God’s peace and wholeness.

There’s a pattern here. As Jesus grows up, and the gospels tell the story, the next messengers of good news are a dozen or so young fish catchers and tax collectors. Maybe they are also God’s favorites, worthy of God’s peace and wholeness.

 

But while these trainees of Jesus are still getting their act together, there are two other messengers of good news sent out by Jesus. These are the first two who effectively spread this new good news, an empowering good news, very different than the extractive, exploitive message of Rome.

 

One of these messengers is a formerly homeless man, who’d been living in a graveyard. With a complicated mental health history, and years of self-injurious behavior, he’d eked out a life on the edges of society, until Jesus made him his friend and guided him to recovery. This man also appeared to be God’s favorite, worthy of God’s peace and wholeness.

 

The other of these early messengers was a young widow who’d been serially abandoned by men, who’d left her broke and alone. Though she had a natural genius for religion and theology, she wasn’t a teacher or pastor or really known for anything professionally. She was mainly known by her string of failed relationships. Until Jesus engaged her keen spiritual mind and empowered her to teach her whole community. This woman also appeared to be God’s favorite, worthy of God’s peace and wholeness. 

 

These two are both cultural and economic outsiders, aware of their disrepute and disfavor. The gospel writers don’t even dignify them with names, but Jesus favors them with the power of ambassadorship. 

 

Here’s the upshot. God’s first favorites in the gospels, all God’s first favorites, are people accounted as nobodies. Low-wage, low-caste, low-status, low rights, low named ordinary people.

The way this world counts and measures you as big or small, high or low, worthy or not – these are not God’s terms. God counts, measures, and favors differently. God starts God’s stories with hidden treasures, worthy beauties unnoticed, undervalued by others. 

 

Good news of great joy can find all of us, just as all of us can miss it too.

 

So this Christmas, how do we welcome God’s news of great joy? How do we welcome peace on earth among God’s favorites? How do we favor as God does, and find ourselves with the comfort of being among God’s favorites? 

 

There’s a social element and a personal element to this. 

 

Socially, the path to peace on earth comes through learning we are all God’s favorites. 

 

Practice favoring as God favors. I’ve been stewing on these words for weeks now: Words of affirmation can drive out demons and diseases. Affirm others more. And in situations where you have power or privilege – in your family, in your workplace, in your community: take on God’s dedication to honor and empower those who have been ranked and favored lower by others. 

 

And when you are intimidated or dismissed in your own eyes or others, hold your head high and walk with the dignity that is yours. I remember a couple years ago preparing for a meeting with one of the most powerful politicians in our state. I was leading a team in this meeting, and knew I’d be sitting across a table of high-skill lawyers and public officials, leading a team of some of the more prominent clergy in our city. And I was so nervous. What was I? And a Muslim friend and brother on the team turned to me and said: Steve, remember what we believe. No one is higher or lower than any other human. We are all the same under God, all in God’s image. 

 

And that gave me the power I needed, remembering that at some level, we are all God’s favorites. 

 

And lastly, personally. Endeavor to see and treat yourself as you are seen by God, no higher than any human, no more favored, but also no lower, no less favored. No matter your failings, no matter your age, no matter your education, no matter your ranking in the racist, classist, sexist order of this world, you are seen and loved by God. Ultimately, the path to peace within comes through God’s favor as well – we are loved not because of what we accomplish or how we are valued by others. We are loved because we are. 

What Makes Church Great (or Not)

For this week’s Events and Happenings, click “Download PDF.”

 

November is the month of the year when we remind ourselves of what this church is about and what it means to belong here, and if you’ve never joined as a member, to consider doing so. If you’re newer here or have been around a while but haven’t become a member, you can join Ivy and me and a couple of our leaders right at 11:00 today, right when the live service ends, to hear a bit more about the church, including what membership means. We’d love to have you.

 

And today, as part of our November Salt of the Earth series, I’m going to talk about church in particular. What makes church healthy and useful in the times and place where we live? 

 

Because, let’s be real, I’m very much aware that church has often not felt healthy and useful for many reasons.

 

As a pastor, sometimes I meet with people who are taking a chance on church. One time I met up for coffee with someone who was considering visiting Reservoir. Based on this person’s profession and some other things they told me over email, I was expecting to meet a pretty confident, charismatic individual. But that day, in the coffee shop, they were kind of skittish. They were so nervous they had brought notes to remember what they wanted to talk about it. 

 

Because of their sexual identity, they had experienced exclusion from churches in the past and wanted to make sure our church would be fully accepting, which we were and are, but that wasn’t even top of the list, to be honest. 

 

It was really important to them that they went to a church that was really engaged in their community, because they’re like I really believe in contributing to a better world, and I can’t go to a church that has its head in the sand. So we talked about how we try. 

 

And then they got to their big one. They asked me: has this church had any scandals? And I was like, uh, depends what you mean, I guess. I mean we’ve had arguments happen here, and people that didn’t like the church, stuff like that. And they were like no: big scandals. And they told be about their reaction to the clergy sex abuse scandals in the history of the church in Boston, and some of what that meant to them and their partner, and why they needed a church that did better. So we talked about our church’s good history on that front, thank God, and also the many things we put in place to commit to being a safe church as well. 

 

I’ve had many conversations where this kind of stuff comes up, and it’s sobering every time because it reminds me that church – the space that is supposed to be home base, a community of acceptance and belonging and inspiration and empowerment for the follower of Jesus; the institution that is supposed to engage in the world as salt and light, that which is healthy and useful – that church has very often not been any of these things.

 

In fact, bad church experiences, where churches are places of conformity, where there’s a right way to believe and act on just about everything and you better toe the line, this has been a major factor in driving people away from church. Churches’ judgmentalism, their being dogmatic and inflexible about all kinds of things, even hypocritical and downright abusive in managing the authority of a church in people’s lives – these have driven people away from the faith, or at least from church, as well. All this has accelerated our journey toward being a post-Christian society, a time and place where more people are leaving churches than coming, more people have moved on from faith in Jesus, rather than moving in. 

 

So it’s an important part of my life calling, and an important part of Resevoir’s identity as a church, to offer a healthy and useful experience of church, that helps make Jesus-centered faith viable and exciting in the time and place where we live. 

 

Let me read you a little section of the New Testament, from a letter called Hebrews, that is one of the places in the Bible that most directly encourages churchgoing. It goes like this:

 

Hebrews 10:19-25 (NRSV)

19 Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

 

Hebrews was written to first century followers of Jesus who were struggling in life. Being a Jew in the Roman Empire had its challenges, and at this time being both a Jew and a follower of Jesus made your challenges larger. You faced misunderstanding and all kinds of trouble – from what we’d call microaggressions all the way up to violence. And Hebrews is telling these folks, God is with you. It uses the ancient temple imagery to say this, how there was a time that behind a large curtain, a priest would connect with God on your behalf. But now Jesus is that priest, and Jesus is also the curtain that has been opened up for you to know God without fear, and to be forgiven any faults so that before God you are free and clean and accepted. 

 

And Hebrews says in general, in this hard life, given God is with you, don’t give up. It’s worth staying engaged. And it’s worth staying engaged in faith in Jesus in particular. But, the writer says, you’re all going to need help. So don’t give up meeting with each other and don’t give up encouraging each other to show up as your best, most loving self in the world. And remind each other of the help and promise of Jesus in all that. Be there for each other.

And as Hebrews goes on, it’s clear that the writer is hoping this meeting together, this staying grounded in this faith that centers the love of God in Christ, and this inspiring one another to love and good deeds, it’s clear that Hebrews hopes this will accomplish beautiful things in the world. Hebrews ends in chapter 13 encouraging radical hospitality, encouraging these folks to show up on behalf of prisoners and those who are tortured, encouraging them to not just hang out inside the church but to go outside the camp, as the writer puts it, and be salt of the earth people in the world, people of powerhouse love and encouragement. And the writer seems to think these Jesus followers can be this way not because they’re any better than anyone else, but because they know that God, who looks like Jesus, is always with them, and is always their help, and because they keep encouraging one another to know that love and to show up with that love. 

 

Alright, this is just one little picture of what church is supposed to be, but it’s not a bad one. And my question as I encourage you to help make Reservoir this kind of church through your active presence in this community, my question is why aren’t all churches like this? What goes wrong?

 

We used to teach a members class here a few times a year. These days we’re doing this month of November for the whole church instead, although we do have the welcome conversation just after our live service today. You obviously don’t have to join the church as you come, but it’ll help inform you some more. 

 

Anyway, I taught these members’ classes for our church many times, and they were fun. We always had free food, and I’d tell stories about the church and what we’re about, as we’ll do in the welcome gathering after service today, and people would ask all kinds of interesting questions.

 

One question that would come up a lot, though, is that people – particularly if they had churchgoing experiences other places – would ask us about our church position on this or that behavior. Do we approve of this? Do we have a stance on that? And I’d almost always say: no. We aren’t a church with a whole lot of positions at all. And sometimes they’d persevere in this line of questioning and say, well what I mean, is when do you tell people about their sin? And I’d ask them, would you like to talk about your sins, because I’m always happy to do that. In fact, as we teach scripture and follow Jesus together, I hope we’ll all discover ways our lives are short of what we and God want them to be and we’ll confess our sins to God in assurance of God’s great love and mercy for us all, and we’ll move forward as free as we can be. So sure, if I can help, which of your sins would you like to talk about? 

 

And they’d kind of awkwardly be like, no, no, no, I don’t mean my sins. I mean… and fill in the blank, they’d name something they thought was other people’s sin. Something other people do they consider to be wrong, and they’re wondering if the church will agree with them in their position. 

 

And I’d think, oh, you might be at the wrong church for you. Because we don’t try to use church to feel better than anyone else. We don’t use church to develop a really tight, look alike us that we can belong to so we won’t be like the them we judge or fear or look down upon. 

 

And sometimes at this point, I’d draw a circle and a dot on the wall. And say some churches are like a circle, a bounded set. They tell you really clearly what it means to be in the good favor of the church and what it means to not be. And that often is synonymous with what it means to be in good favor with God, or not, what it means to be a good Christian or a good person, or not. And the job of that kind of church is to tell you to get inside the circle and stay there. 

 

And I’d say other communities are more like people clustered around this dot. They have a center of their interest, which in our case is the God who looks like Jesus, the God Jesus taught about and embodied and revealed. And to be in that community is simply to share an interest in that God. There isn’t so much of an in or an out. I mean you be a member or not, but that’s not about having approved beliefs and lifestyle, it’s just saying I belong here and I’m going to contribute to this place being the best place it can be. 

 

And I tell them we’re trying to be that kind of church. Which means you’re going to meet people here who read the Bible differently than you, or who don’t read it at all. And you’re going to meet people here who believe differently than you do, and live differently than you do in many ways. And we’re going to teach people here, and we’re going to encourage each other to love and good deeds, but we are not going to police people or judge people over our differences. 

 

A little side note here, but I’ve heard stories in old churches where a longtime member of a church hears their pastor teach something they don’t believe, and they tell their pastor: I think you’re wrong, but don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to be here longer than you will. 

 

I kind of wish people said that to me more often, not the old, crotchety attitude in that, but the ease of recognizing that a church where everyone believed all the same things would be a failure, not a success. It would mean difference had been eliminated, total conformity accomplished. I wouldn’t trust a church where everyone believed all the same things I do, because I’m sure I’m wrong about plenty of things, I just don’t always know which ones. It’s OK to disagree with your pastor. It’s OK to not believe the exact same way other people in your church believe. That is not grounds for crisis, or leaving or anything. 

 

Anyway, I want to give you one other way of thinking about these two different ways of being church that I find really helpful.

 

Just over a week ago, we lost a great light in thinking about faith and religion in public life. One of the most prominent rabbis of our lifetime, Jonathan Sacks, passed away eight days ago. Jonathan Sacks being Jewish did not write about churches per se at all, but he did advocate for a way of practicing faith together in a pluralistic society that I find really helpful along the lines we’re talking about today. And others called it the Jermiah option. It was in contrast to some popular Christian talk in America about a Benedict option. 

 

Hang with me for a second while I tell you what each of these are. 

 

Benedict was a sixth century monk who founded a dozen monasteries, where holy people could live separate from a less holy world. And these monasteries developed rules of life that they lived by, in retreat from an impure surrounding society. Some Christians have suggested in recent years that as America becomes more and secular and pluralistic, diverse in faith or lack thereof, and in all kinds of ways of thinking and being, that the best thing for Christians to do is to withdraw from the world in decline, and to live holy and separate lives in community with one another. Live by your faith as separately as possible, so that you can save yourselves and your faith and stay pure from the corrupting influence of the times we live in.

 

The Benedict option.

 

Now Rabbi Sacks heard about this kind of approach, and he’d argue, oh, this is one of three ways that religious people have lived that haven’t worked so well. Religious people often assimilate entirely to their surroundings and so lose their faith, or they fight their neighbors and try to make them just like them and so lose their battles or lose their souls if they win them. Or religious people retreat away from a dangerous world. This is the Benedict option. But in that retreat, you lose any influence on the world around you and you also become insular, and so sometimes pretty unhealthy without outside influences upon you. 

 

Sacks said there’s a fourth option, to embrace being a creative minority in the wider world. Others labelled this the Jeremiah option because Sacks based it upon the ministry of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah, who called people to maintain their faith, even while in exile, but also to engage in the broader world where they found themselves, and to seek the common good of the city at large too.

If he were a Christian, he might have used the language of Hebrews. Don’t give up meeting with one another. Listen to invitations from Jesus, follow Jesus, encourage one another to love and good deeds and to know God is with you. Sing your songs. Take communion. Listen to teaching. Pray for one another. Be church. But be church for the common good as well. Live lives of love that salt the earth, that are healthy and useful for us all. 

 

Don’t hide out together. Don’t try to be exactly like one another. Get out in this big, beautiful, hard world of ours and be love there. And on the way, encourage each other. Encourage each other.

 

One last thing from the Hebrews text that I skipped over until now. The text says: don’t neglect to meet together, but encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. 

 

What is this big Day that is approaching, and why do we need to encourage each other now?

 

Well, there’s some evidence that in the first century context, a lot of the believers thought a big day in history was just around the corner, a day of the Lord, they called it sometimes, a Day of judgement other times, sometimes just the Day. A day when Jesus would return, and complete God’s work of making all things new. Parts of the New Testament think God’s big culminating day in history was right around the corner.

 

And it seems they were wrong on that. We’re still waiting. But I want to take this in another direction, because big Days come in our lives and in our world all the time. And we need each other, and we need encouragement to greet those days as best as we can. 

 

I look around the people of this community that I know and I love and I know some of you have big days coming of your first children being born. Others have the big day of your graduation coming, the big day of your marriage, the big day when your visa expires, the big day when your savings run out. 

 

A friend reached out for prayer the other day with a big day of their child’s surgery. Others face the big day of a divorce or a crisis of faith. We have big days we share, like election days and holidays, and the long, long days of this public health crisis. We have the day when we come out of the closet or our child does. Or the day when racial violence hits too close to home. We all face the big day of our own mortality, whether it be bad news from a doctor or the day of our deaths that will someday come for us all. 

 

Big days of one kind or another are always approaching. Sometimes we see them coming, sometimes not. A boring, head in the sand, fearful church will never prepare us to face all our big days in the world. But no church, or a church where we stay around the edges and don’t really know others and aren’t really known, that won’t prepare us for our big days either. 

 

We need a community that helps us know in our bones God is with us. And we need one another’s encouragement to face our big days together. 

 

I of course don’t know what big days are ahead in each of your lives, but I want this community to be there for them. And I want you to be there for someone else’s big day too. This whole being church without seeing each other very much face to face – this isn’t going to last forever. It’s just for a time. So hang on, friends. Hang in there. Let’s keep showing up for each other. We need our God who is with us. And we need each other’s support and encouragement. 

The Power of Befriending

For this week’s Events and Happenings, click “Download PDF.”

For the spiritual practice led by Ivy Anthony, related to Steve’s sermon, click HERE.

To view the online service and sermon, click the YouTube link above.

 

Hi, Friends. 

Yesterday was Samaritans’ annual 5K for suicide prevention. Though I captained a team again, I did not technically run the 5K, or even walk it. It was a virtual event, so nobody knew whether I ran or not, until now, that is. But I promise, I will jog my 5K before the month ends, likely on my birthday, this Wednesday. And since that too will be virtual, you are all invited to my birthday party, in your hearts.

 

Anyway, some of you did in fact run the Samaritans 5K yesterday. It was Adam Bakun’s first 5K ever – go, Adam! And many more of you contributed to one of our teams, helping fund Samaritans suicide prevention work. Reservoir Church sponsored the event. Butcher Box, a company founded by a Reservoir member, also sponsored the event. We at Reservoir have in fact been connected to the work of Samaritans for years now. 

 

It’s partly because of suicide. Sadly, death by suicide has touched our community before, as it has almost every community, and Reservoir loves life. The joy of living is part of our mission because we love God revealed in Christ who said: I came that you may have life abundantly. So Reservoir loves Samaritans mission of helping us find hope and resilience no matter what we’re facing. 

 

But there’s another thing I love about Samaritans work. It’s that they believe in and practice befriending. Offering friendship to everyone. Samaritans volunteers are trained to recognize the risks of suicide and to encourage life and safety, but they are especially trained to be good friends, even to strangers. To offer respectful, non-judgmental listening and support to everyone. 

 

This particular form of love, befriending, is at the heart of the good news of Jesus expressed in Beloved Community. We all need a few good friends in our lives. And it’s good to have a good friend and to be a good friend to a few people in your circles. But I’m talking about something bigger and deeper than that. To befriend widely, to befriend across difference, to befriend in private and in public, to grow ever-widening circles of befriending that touch more and more people – this heals lives and communities and reveals the goodness of God.  

 

I’ve been praying about what I have to say in this Beloved Community series. You’ll hear from Lydia again as well as Ivy, but with two more sermons to give myself, as I pray and search the scriptures, I have realized I have two things to say, one sermon on power and privilege which I’ll give in a couple more weeks and one today on befriending. 

 

I’ve been reading the letters of the Bible’s New Testament a lot this year, notes to little house churches from a founder or a coach, encouraging them to keep discovering and living the good news of Jesus. These letters have lots to say about power and privilege (more on that next time). And they have an awful lot to say about Jesus’ vision of the Beloved Community and the importance of a deeper and wider befriending than many of us have yet practiced or experienced.

 

Let me read a couple excerpts from the end of the letter called Romans.

 

Romans 12:1-5, 9-18, 21; 15:7 (NRSV)

12 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 

9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

 

Romans 15:7 (NRSV)

7 Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

 

I lead a Saturday morning Bible study, one of Reservoir’s community groups. Yesterday, we were in person here on the church property to share communion together. But most weeks, we talk and pray and read the Bible while gathered online. And last year, we read Romans together, all year. One of the many bits of scholarship that helped me prepare was a little book called Reading Romans Backwards. The idea there is that in Romans, and in some of the other letters that Paul – the author – wrote if you only read them forwards, you can think they’re little works of theology – abstract ideas about the God we see in Jesus Christ – and that at the end, they have some random instructions, dos and don’ts for life together. 

 

But if you read these letters backwards, if you start reading them with their end in mind, you realize that the main thing Paul is doing is coaching these early churches to be healthier communities, to be the kind of places of love and belonging where people and communities will live better and discover what God is like. 

 

These communities were super diverse, best as we can tell, probably the most diverse community gatherings in the first century Roman empire. Like our own times, their society was enormously divided, people stratified and separated by culture, creed, class, sex, power, money. The pyramid of privilege in the Roman empire was clear and powerful. 

 

And so these house churches were some of the only places in the whole empire where men and women, migrant day laborers and wealthy landlords, people of opposing culture and religion came together on equal terms. Which, as you could guess, would have been as complicated and hard for them as it would be for us. 

 

Romans 14 and 15 are a long discourse on making right an old, painful story of injustice and exclusion. Roman house churches would have likely been majority Gentile, minority Jewish. And Jews were an often persecuted, oppressed minority in Rome. Not long before this letter was written, Jews had just been allowed back into the city, after a previous emperor had scapegoated them and kicked them all out. Now that they were back, these house churches probably didn’t know what to do with their Jewish members, who were like them in faith, but had some their own customs and practices and values. 

 

And Paul gives them a roadmap, which is so much deeper than “be nice” or “try to get along.” He talks about even-ing out the power dynamics, about honoring people who have experienced exclusion and dishonor, about living with difference respectfully, lovingly. At the heart of these instructions is the verse I read: Welcome one another, just as Christ has welcomed you. Include one another, as Christ has included you. Embrace one another, as Christ has embraced you. 

 

When we welcome, include, embrace another, we reveal to the other and ourselves and anyone that is watching what God is like, the one who welcomes and includes and embraces us all. And when we welcome, include, and embrace the one who leasts expects that from us, we especially reveal the welcoming, including, embracing love of God. 

 

Before this, Romans 12 and 13 talk about the healing power of the good news of Jesus, as it is lived out in community. Every time we read the word “you” in Romans, or pretty much anywhere in the Bible, it’s the plural you – you all, not just an individual. The Bible, after all, was written to communities, not to individuals. And that is especially explicit here. 

 

The transformation that Paul has in mind for followers of Jesus is to be active participants in a community  that loves God by moving from coldness to kindness, by finding and practicing love in a world of division and hate, by countering enmity and hostility with wave after wave of befriending. 

 

There’s a lot of texture in here, again way beyond calls to be nice. The privileged are to learn to be humble, we are all to honor people who in other places are dishonored. In a world where touch and affection are used to manipulate and abuse, we’re told practice safe and holy affection,  and to be radically hospitable and to counter hate with love, evil with goodness. 

 

Let me zone in for a minute on just one line, the line that tells us that love is built on empathy. That says friends rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.

 

It sounds basic, right? When your friend is happy, celebrate with them. When your friend is sad, share in their sadness. But remember, Romans is not a private letter teaching us how to be nice to our best friends and family. 

 

It’s a call to love in public. It’s a message to a community of people that will not be able to hold together without the power of God and the healing love of community. 

 

Friends, we do not do this well. When people who are unlike us weep, we ignore it. We secretly or not so secretly say or at least think: it is their fault. Or if we have some measure of power or privilege, if in any way, it’s our fault, we get defensive. This is more the American way. I read a powerful piece of Israeli journalism this morning, written for the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur which begins tonight. On the eve of this holiday of atonement and forgiveness, which encourages even forgiveness of enemies, the author was like: can we take a pass this year? Because our enemies are truly awful now. Beyond forgiveness. We all feel that way these days. For good reason. This is the way of our world now.

 

But God is not like this. God who is revealed in Christ rejoices with those who rejoice, and weeps with those of us who weep. God lives in radical, loving empathy with all God’s children. So when we befriend, when we offer the best non-judgemental, compassionate, listening ear that we have to offer, we reveal what God is like. That’s what happens every time Samaritans practices befriending. Every time Samaritans listens kindly to a lonely old man living by himself, and shows him he is not alone, they show him what God is like. Everytime Samaritans encourages a scared, depressed kid wondering how to come out to his parents or friends, and let him know he’s going to be OK, they show him what God is like. Everytime Samaritans listens to someone who’s cut herself, or hated herself, or given up on herself, that she is worth listening to and knowing, just as she is, they show her what God is like. Without a single word of theology or religion. 

 

The healing power of befriending shows us the nature of God. 

 

We find this healing power even among our friends, when we share our stories truly, and rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. My wife Grace and I met up with friends outdoor for dinner the other week, and prompted by an issue one of us had had with a parent, we each for the first time shared the stories of the families we came from. There was a lot of good there, but oceans of hurt too. 

 

And as we shared our sadness, as we celebrated the impossible joy of who we’ve become despite our pains, this thing happened. A month that for me had been a real bummer – lots of desolation – started to turn from despair to hope, from lifelessness to energy. There is healing power in beloved community. 

 

Friends, there is so much invitation here, but let me just name three.

 

When I see American citizens joining undocumented neighbors working to get them drivers licenses so they’ll have safety and security, I see beloved community. When I see my daughter, busy with herself in college, spending time every week in friendship and tutoring with a peer of hers in the slums of Delhi, India, I see beloved community. 

 

The befriending of Beloved Community encourages new levels of empathy and solidarity. If you are not learning to advocate for the needs of others unlike yourself, if you have not found a way to be in meaningful relationship across significant difference, if you can’t share the tears of people whose sadness is not your own, then the good news of Jesus hasn’t fully found you yet. Pray that it will. Beloved community invites us into the life of Jesus, where we learn to understand and love those who we used to misunderstand or ignore or reject.

 

Secondly, beloved community utterly rejects scapegoating. Scroll your social media, talk to some friends about the state of the world, and you’ll be convinced that everything that is wrong with the world is someone else’s fault. Often some particular person or group of people. And there’s an irony that the faith – Christianity – that in Rome was constantly scapegoated has now become an serious force of scapegoating. Christians are sometimes the worst at this, blaming things on other people all the time. We can’t do this. Whether heaping our rejection on innocent but powerless people, or even thinking that if we can just get rid of such and such person or such and such group of people, we’ll be good. This is always a lie, and it’s not part of the Beloved community Jesus calls us to. 

 

Lastly, beloved community invites us to find God and offer a reflection of God by growing a local version of beloved community among ourselves. By actively participating in growing community of powerful love and belonging, as we read about today. 

We’re paying attention at Reservoir to becoming a community of befriending, to making sure this church is a safe place to befriend. We invite you to be part of that journey. The body of Christ needs you. 

 

In the terrible loneliness of a spiritually poor and hostile world – to practice and experience beloved community, the befriending of God and our reflection of that befriending to others, this will save us. Beloved community will heal us all. 

Listening to the Voice of God in Chaos

What does Resurrection and reflecting on Jesus’ water baptism teach us during pandemic? Our Virch service allowed us the time and space to worship, examine our highs and lows, and reflect on God bringing us  – sometimes through water, wind, and chaos – to better understand our identity as loved and called forward.

Click PDF above for this week’s slideshow.

Sermon:

Good morning folks, it is an honor to share this time with all of you. I’m Ivy – a Pastor here at Reservoir Church.  We are for the next few weeks, going to be sharing thoughts about Resurrection – where life and love persist to emerge each and every day..


In our days as they are now, signs of death and separation seem most prevalent… And yet I want us to consider that the voice of God is inviting us to new life, new beginnings even in the most chaotic of times – and that we can find God’s VOICE and direction in the most foundational ways – through the wind and water.  

 

Growing up we had 5 or so steps that led up to the front door of our house … a door that we never really used.. There was too much of a draft caused by that big, old door, and with no system of heat in our house, we had to seal shut where any wind could find its way in.. Walls of plastic weathering material and some mixture of sheets or blankets were hung to block any of that breeze..  BUT on the most blustery of nights  –  the wind would still make its way through whatever cracks or fault lines we had missed –  or I guess, the fault lines we knew, but just accepted. 

 

On breezy nights like these – I’d find my mom out on that little 5 step platform – often taking a long slow drag off her cigarette, and lingering to enjoy the gusts of wind –  leaning back in a plastic chair she had pulled off the lawn.  I never remember joining her – whether I knew not to intuitively – or whether it had been a directive from her, I’m not sure … but I remember pausing, watching, and being captivated by the picture of her there in the midst of such power, such wild wind – as if she had dipped into something profoundly holy – if just for a few moments. 

 

When I talked to my mom this week, I asked her about the accuracy of these memories… she confirmed, and said the wind for her was like a “bubble bath without the trouble” – and I sort of laughed at that, but listened as she said the wind brought order to the chaos of whatever day she had had, and in some way re-ordered her, internally too – a moment of pause –  allowing her to find her bearings in some sense and enter back into our house, (which often times still held quite a bit of chaos). 

 

WIND

You may have noticed that it’s been pretty windy here in Massachusetts, these last few weeks…  MUCH windy-er than normal… In March and April we have experienced nearly double the average mph gusts.  Where I live in Milton – we clocked the highest wind gust at 80 mph this month… Branches and whole trees have been taken down, power to folks across the region has been lost…and these strong winds, of course brought with them delightful elements – like snow, hail and soaking rains. 

 

Which all seems to somehow match the greater chaotic tenor of our lives right now. 

 

In some ways we are….much like that old front door of mine… being exposed to the fault lines in our society’s framework by this coronavirus.  It is exposing where we have for a long time been symptomatic – sick with injustice and inequalities  – running a race to be the best, most powerful….

 

AND with the world shutting down – in this forced pause, we as a whole, are revisiting what it means to be human… that we aren’t impenetrable, that we are not invincible.  

We are coming to terms with what, and how, productivity should be gauged – realizing that the demands of our work, our schedules, our activities, our academics, our DOING – our ALWAYS DOING – for so long was actually inhumane. 

And we are feeling this disturbance as the wind blows through the cracks of homes – our systems, our organizations…..
(healthcare systems or justice systems, our family systems – and education systems… )

 

It’s scary – because, as many of you have shared, it feels: 

APOCALYPTIC…ghostlike streets

CHAOTIC… overwhelmed hospitals, epicenters of pain and suffering.

DISORDERED…..days, and rhythms and schedules.

 

so much of our regular ways of making meaning and purpose for our lives feels right now, 

FORMLESS
SHAPELESS

 

Leaving us feeling

VULNERABLE

UNPROTECTED. 

 

Leaving – as I find – many of the cracks within myself equally exposed!

 

And this widespread cracking – fracturing… feels like with one stiff blow of the wind – it could all come crashing down.   

 

… Our choice it seems – is to, 

  1. See it all as the end of the world as we know it..
  2. Or to see it as the beginning of the world as we can make it. . 

 

Option #2 means we go to the cracks.. we see what is up with the wind blowing in, we pay attention to the disruption of this draft…

And we listen…

Because maybe we find God hovering over this chaotic time and speaking to us, inviting us back to our very beginnings, what it is to be human …  who we really are, what we are made of, and made for …Giving us direction and anchoring  – reminding us that we too are made of wily and wild, and unrelenting forces… forces that love, shape, imagine, and find cracks to be our most fertile starting points .. lined both with CHAOS and the Spirit of God..

 

Prayer:  OH GOD – invite us to hear your voice in the chaos.  To see that your Spirit blows wherever it wishes, and invite us to tune in – to hear its sound, to trust it….whether we know where it comes from or where it goes. And may we find our own (new) beginnings as we enter into these wild and powerful currents. 

 

My Story:  The chaos I’m feeling these days is not as much in the big highs and lows of emotions that I cycle through on any given day – That seems quite normal actually for what’s going on -given that we are in a pandemic… 

 

But these unique days are exposing a fundamental crack in my being, I think – where my internal gauge of whether I’m doing a good job at life – actually has been lost…AND this is what I find to be chaotic.  Because the energy that I expend – and have expended…. to pivot and turn – and look and seek, and be so dependent on external feedback as a barometer of my worth –  is scattered all over the place..  And my own sense of self has scattered with it… So in these times of  quarantine –  I’m trying to find the pieces of myself. .. and it’s unmooring because I thought I had taken great strides in this area – that I had sealed the cracks. 

 

And yet the wind is blowing through these days, moving that great blanket I hung over this section of my heart – and I find the Spirit of God hovering close to me – and inviting me to wade in DEEP waters, not to find the next CREATIVE WORK that I can DO, and  feel really good about,  but to FIRST RECOVER “Who I am” – and  what fundamental truths I have in my soul –  Even in times of chaos.

 

Because chaos it seems, is where God does indeed hover.

  1. Genesis 1:1-3

The first verses in Genesis – tell us a story that beginnings often look like chaos.  That at the beginning of creation there was a watery chaos – and ALSO that there was a great wind blowing, the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters.. AND out of this combo – comes the world, with God’s voice sealing it all saying: “This is good.” (Being Christian, Rowan Williams – Archbishop of Canterbury).

 

A pattern built into our very world – a pattern of beginnings … chaos… wind… and the voice of God…

 

MOM
I totally dismissed my mom’s comment the other day –  that moments in the wind were for her like “a bubble bath without the trouble”, (mostly because I was like  yah, of course there were 7 of us – and one bathroom)…  but as I was thinking about this embedded, fundamental pattern of creation – of chaos, wind and the voice of God – as a starting point of new beginnings – it actually felt her comment was pretty profound. 

 

That somehow every night as she sat in a plastic chair, in the wind – she was baptized. 

Immersed fully in the depths, the messiness of her human-ness, the chaos of her day – AND was met with the deep, hovering LOVE of the Spirit of God.  

This is baptism – it sheds us of any falsehood that we can climb our way- produce enough to gain worthiness or holiness…and it just invites us to “die and resurrect” – over and over again, day after day”.. Filtering out the old crust of the day, the things that didn’t work, the versions of ourselves that don’t match the heart of God – and rising again with a new filter,  that we are “good” and honored recipients of God’s love. 

 

The voice that spoke into an empty cosmos at the very beginning, that brought shape and form, direction to the world …  is the same voice that we can find today in the wind,  

 

The same voice that said long ago, “this is good”.  

Is the same voice that says to us, even in our chaos… 

“YOU are GOOD.”

 

“GOODNESS” is a fundamental beginning point for us.  AND it is a message that Jesus himself needed to hear…

 

In the gospel of Mark we see the story of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist, it says… 

2) Mark 1:10-11
10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the wind of the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, my beloved, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

 

Chaos… the wind… and the voice of God. 

A new beginning… 

 

Jesus has not yet launched his crowd-gathering, miracle performing, great teaching movement yet…  he’s here standing in front of John, fully human… and we watch him dip into the mystery of death and love and life – to the depths of where it all begins. 

And we hear this VOICE TAKE JESUS into the depths of his own soul, 

“YOU are loved, you are good, IN you I am so pleased” (already with no “earning” or “striving”).

I take such delight in you.

You matter.

I believe in you. 

 

This is the deep baptismal message to us – that we need to be dunked in over and over and over again – AND we don’t have anywhere to begin –  if we don’t have this. 

 

Maybe we are all in a time of baptism my friends, as much as we are in a time of pandemic. 

 

Baptism – as Jesus shows us here – that is much more than separating ourselves out as privileged – elite – or holy…. 

…but baptism shows us how to go into the depths of human chaos – to be flesh (as Jesus took on).  “To be vulnerable and fully human in the heart of a needy, contaminated, messy world” (Rowan Williams). 

 

AND to do the great, productive work of remembering that as we wade into those waters, we can “reach out our hands from the depths of chaos to be touched by the deep loving hand of God.” (Rowan Williams)

Jesus doesn’t ask us to be all sealed up – free of cracks – .. .but He does call us to recognize the Holy Spirit whose voice flows through those cracks… to recognize what is being exposed at those fault lines.

 

Baptism affords us the surrender to not fear chaos or be free of it – but to find each other (and be connected to one another), in the neighborhood of chaos – “to be near to those places where humanity is most at risk, where humanity is most disordered and needy.” (Rowan Williams).

 

It’s in these depths that we find the Spirit is re-creating and refreshing our lives!… calling parts of ourselves out of the grave of self-doubt, apathy, prejudice, hurt, pride and despair and into the garden where we recognize his voice, where Jesus says, “I’m so proud of you…”   “I’m so incredibly proud of you.”   This returning –  to the beginning – allows us THEN to move, to love, to act in this world – in ways that are clear, that GENERATE the founding message of this world, as God’s vectors we say,  “THIS IS GOOD”.  Rather than divide, destroy or turn a blind eye.

So right now I am trying to find a way to be sealed in the voice of God.  This returning to who I am …  To reorder my relationship to myself and my vocation – whether in normal or abnormal times to see it as larger than any individual job description I’m given, (or ascribe to).  

To see that I already have God’s love – and when I can fully allow this love – to be the meaning, direction and purpose of my life – then I’m DRENCHed in my humanity and DIVINENESS as I was made to be –  I am baptized.

 

“This type of baptism restores my human identity and the potential for it to be overlaid by anything” (Williams)…. Baptism takes us right to where Jesus is, IN US, where something keeps coming alive in – where we can see that the cracks in us afford new birth, new sights, new creation in us – for the very work that our fractured world needs.

 

And maybe our work in this time – or in any time really is to say, “hold up – before you race to do that next project, or submit that proposal, or try to help your kids with on-line school…….take a moment, pause in the wind…
 “Do you remember who you are?”
 “Do you remember the call in the wind? 

The direction in those deep waters….”  

THIS RECALLING of who we are in God, gives us the direction, the guidance to do the great work of no longer just accepting where the cracks are – in our neighborhoods, communities, society – but to do the work of asking the question,  “Do you remember what you were meant to be?” 

 

This time of pandemic is ripe and rich with the possibility for change now and in the future.  How will we act in love? Many of our community groups are considering this question right now – across their own neighborhoods and cities – but I think it will take us fully entering the baptism of our times – – finding the voice of God that actually asks us to go, “Back to the beginning, back to where it all comes from.. Pleading with us to try and listen again to what God first said to us…” 

“This is good.”

“You are good.”

 

I don’t know what my mom heard in those small moments of sitting in the wind – what the voice of God specifically said to her, (but she must have said something to my mom), – but I do know that she entered back into our tiny, drafty chaotic house – and she showed us love – great love… and how to walk humbly and show mercy.   And I know that she returned to that chair again and again – to be baptized in the truth of who GOd made her to be… 

 

So my friends, may we FIND ourselves again – and OUR deep PURPOSE again- in these days –  on porch steps, in plastic chairs, as we wash our hands, in living rooms, on sidewalks as we sit at tables, or in the wind – and hear the truth GOD speaks to us, “that we were created by the wind and the water”, and we only need to turn an ear to hear the quiet, persistent refrain, in it – “that we are greatly loved – and that in us – God is greatly pleased.”

 

End Prayer:
Dear Jesus, may we all drink from the holy waters of your One Spirit.. And rise from chaos with your power of resurrection embedded deeply in our souls. 

 

Resource: Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer by Rowan Williams

 

 

 

Virch Service: The Cross and a Cure for Scapegoating

This service: catching up on Reservoir news, worshiping in music, a prayer exercise in “Finding,” Steve’s thoughts on Jesus’s sacrifice freeing us from blaming others for pain, and a chance to pray together for ourselves and the world during Covid. This and all the warmth of connecting with each other. Catch it all or catch it again by watching.