Ivy Anthony - Reservoir Church

You All Are Amazing!

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

Good morning, friends! Thanks to everyone who helped put that fun video together – and Cate for leading us and inviting us to experience how shared, embodied, celebration is a spiritual practice. You who are students and educators – who touch learning environments and schools in whatever manner – we honor you! It is so well deserved. As Emmett declared in the video, “You made it! You made it!” And that is really becoming the anthem of this June (and I know the pandemic is not over – but we are at a significant reopening moment).

And in that it’s so tempting to say, “woo – we made it !” and keep running right into the summer. But I want to give us a second to pause today and take note of just what has helped us ALL “make it through” these last 15 months. I want to give attention to the aspects that we have done well – our collective resilience, and shared suffering, and deep belief at the core of our faith – that there is a loving Jesus who has remained with us in ways that we could have never imagined 65 Sundays ago when we first started this virtual service.

Today I’m going to veer away from Steve’s sermon series for the summer, which is Reinterpreting the Apostle’s Creed, and instead I’ll preach a sermon on “how we’ve all made it through”, and really how amazing you all are, and how proud you can be of yourself, and of us, this Reservoir community – because you really have done well. My hope is this message will come through clearly – but without veering off into platitudes, or glossing over the horrors of this past year. I do want to open up more deeply the spiritual grounding of HOW and WHY we’ve made it.

It. Has. Been. A. Year. Right? It’s worth some reflection. We have been disrupted, thrown off course, thrown into new depths – of isolation, of ourselves, of the history and sin of our nation. The pandemics of our year – have made visible – to many of us who were willfully blind so much, so many things that I hope we won’t be able to un-see. And we are in the resultant grief of this – with layers and layers of new and very old laments.

It has also been a year that has also shown us how vital we are to one another. How the sparks of innovation, the power of social movements, and change is found through our fundamental way of being with one another – in connection, and in collaboration with one another.

And we’ve discovered perhaps even more deeply how ‘yes’ God is in the sanctuary which we will open and start worshiping in (in just 3 weeks – more on that at the Member’s meeting after this service). And we have discovered how God is also beyond those walls. We have clung – and lived out – that belief this year that GOD IS REAL. That the power and the tenderness of God matters to our human flourishing. Whether we cry or rejoice – whether we loathe the days – or long for new days to come – we have been moved this last year – and we have remained in God’s love, all at the same time.

Today I want to talk about how we have remained in God – and how God has remained in us. And why this is part – if not ALL of how we have made it!

Let me pray for us.

Oh God who steadies us and shows us new growth of life and love – all the time. Could you show us this? This new morning, as the new light is upon us – with fresh eyes, and a soft heart to encounter you wherever we are? – Amen.

MY STORY

A few weeks ago when we were still in the “wear your masks outside” mode regardless of proximity, I was out for a mid-day walk in my neighborhood.

And I was coming around the corner to my street at the end of my walk when I saw a biker coming up behind me.

He was going pretty slowly, just moseying along on this quiet street. A straightaway – really wide – nothing unexpected in the terrain, no obstacles in his path.

And I waved “hi” and then crossed the road to give him a little more space.

And shortly after crossing the road – I heard this big crash and I turned around and this guy was laying on the ground with his bike all bent up around him.

He had hit a patch of slippery wet leaves that were obscuring where the start of the curb was, and he just went flying.

And I immediately felt this lightning bolt of adrenaline go through my body. Like I had just gone flying off of a bike. And I guess that’s a natural reaction when you see someone potentially hurt on the ground. But it was also a sign to me that-

My nervous system was on – and had been on high alert – for a loooong time. A sign of “too much” coursing through my body – a sign that there was a pile up of expectant bad news, and horror and fear and suffering from this year.
But I was simultaneously aware of this other jolt and body response, from within me – which was just as strong. And it was to run – back across the street – toward this man and be with him.

I’m not sure I can suss out all the “learning” of this past year with clarity just now — but there are these everyday moments and events where I reacquaint, in a fresh way, with the unmistakable truth that Jesus remains with me. The force of Jesus’ deep love runs strongly through my veins. That Jesus abides and dwells within me.

Again – this might not sound like the new or profound thing I should be discovering at this point as a pastor – but it is.

Distance and separation and isolation this past year – were our strongest survival techniques. And I think I wondered if that way of being would just take over – would rewire my brain in a weird way. I wondered if my ability to love and really be in community with other people again – had somehow atrophied beyond the point of resurrection? In this moment with a stranger on a bike – I think Jesus was saying “oh no, there’s always life on this vine of love.” Always.

Jesus emphasizes this way of love to his first followers for the new community that would form. In their context – he saw that because of the persecution they were facing it would be tempting to be exclusive to keep distance to be separate. But Jesus calls the community to act justly and hear (and respond) to cries of distress. To do this, Jesus shows us in the Scripture we’ll read together, we need to recognize our need of one another. He invites his first followers as he does us

John 15:4

to make our home in him, as he makes his in us

Real relationships, with all of the weight of what we might be carrying, whether we are invigorated by life (or tired by life) these real, messy, bumpy relationships Jesus shows us, are the trellises of love.

John 15:4-12 (New International Version)

4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.

7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.

10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

So much this year has withered. It seems as though branch after branch has fallen – and been thrown into the dumpster fire and burned. Branches of hope, connection, joy, …snapping under the weight of so much.

We have borne the weight of so much.

We have borne witness to the weight of each other’s burdens

We have borne witness to the weight of our nation’s original sin.

And we have borne witness to isolation, inequities, and suffering.

How could the branches not fall?

And the word “witness” is derived from a root meaning “to bear in mind” “to remember” To witness is to recollect an experience and tell about it accurately.

And we WILL be able to tell stories of this year to our next generation.

What will we speak of?

How will we tell the story of how “we made it?”

What will we say we bore witness to?

There’s a word, I learned recently from Dr. Christena Cleveland that I think might help us tell our stories of the past 15 months… in part. It’s this term, “with-ness”. W-I-T-H-N-E-S-S. Which is this way of being, acting and knowing that allows you to enter into your own story – with all it’s particular realness and lament – and yet to also remain present to another’s story and suffering that is not your own.

It’s to be a participant – as Cate’s embodied spiritual practice showed us at the beginning of the service. THAT allows you to enter into the flow of connection to another, even if the set of circumstances or variables are not exactly yours. You may not be a student/educator, but you could fully enter into the celebration – and find yourself connected to the joy of Lily. 🙂

And I guess that’s the distinction – it isn’t just witnessing/as a bystander from the outside, from the periphery – as if you are peering in.

But our stories this past year – speak of “with-nessing”…of bearing witness to the love of Jesus that is within you – and also another.

To see that you are in the branches, in the vine, in the brambles of life and love. In all its intertwined messiness.

MY STORY PART 2

Now part of being with someone whose story holds pain, which so many of ours do, is that you often get in touch with your own wounds. How deep they are. And when you are already in pain it sometimes feels like it’s just “too much”, too much energy, too much time, too much emotion and there’s just not enough capacity to dive into – or go toward more pain.

The day I saw the man crash on the bike I had been processing the grief of losing someone we loved over the past year. I was feeling the weight of kids transitioning back but still scared about in-person school, and a myriad of other things.

And part of me to be honest, wanted to just “witness” the bike crash – make sure he was conscious, but just give him a thumbs up from across the road. Because I thought there was no more left in me.

But the spirit within me said, “there’s enough.” And so I ran back across the street to this man and could tell pretty quickly that he was conscious and wasn’t 100% broken, just shaken up a bit.

I asked from a little distance, “Are you ok?”

And he said, “Yes. yes. Thanks for coming over.”

And that was really it.

“With-ness” is a way of being – that sometimes takes just a second. But it’s a second that can give someone’s life reality, especially when it would otherwise be swallowed by pain, tragedy, isolation. Because it’s to let them know they are not alone – AND it’s reciprocal – I too, in that moment was reminded in my grief, that I was not alone.

And my friends, this is what you’ve done so well this year.
You have let others know that they are not alone.

You have gone to each other, in the midst of your own lament and pain. You have crossed the road (sometimes) unto more pain. And in that you have borne witness to the kin-dom of God – here and now – even as the foundation of our earth fractured and it felt like the fruit of the very way we were made to be was withering on the vine. It didn’t – you found life. And the weight of it all didn’t sink you – because it was shared.

The Spirit of God, as this scripture suggests, remains in you and you have acted in witness to that abiding love and in with-ness to those around you. Calling people, writing to them, crying with them, praying with them, listening to them, sitting in silence, enacting virtual plays, and poetry nights, coloring clubs, and times around fire pits, driving by and dropping flowers, or cookies, or drinks, or books, or trading puzzles, or waves or smiles or texts – to just communicate “you are not alone.” And you did this all through your own disappointment, sobbing, and screams of rage.

You said,

“I’m lamenting too – but in that, I am present and connected to your lament as well.”

Now, and even in the dark days of the pandemic Jesus says in this Scripture, we are called to bear fruit – as much as we are to bear the weight of each other’s burden and witness.

We are emerging from our pandemic cocoons, and we get to figure out how to give shape to the way we gather again. To see how the experiences of this year will give form to the values and priorities of what we want community to be. Experts say this is a “once-in-a-generation chance.” Non-experts, like me, say, “this is an everyday- every moment chance.”

Because to create Beloved Community – is an every day, every-moment-way-of-being in the world. It’s this vine and branches abiding. It’s where we take on being anti-racist, and generous and create spaces of belonging, and empower people and communities and find new ways to be “the church.” Which is by the way – our church’s 5 year vision.

And the “chance” we have – if any – as we re-enter society is to RE-UP on doing this collectively, not as a single actor. This is how we bear fruit for future generations.

An Episcopal priest and theologian that I love, Cynthia Bourgeault, says

We flow into God—and God into us—because it is the nature of love to flow. And so And so “we” (God and me and you), live together in mutual, loving reciprocity, each belonging to the other and dependent on the other to show the fullness of that love. That’s Jesus’ vision of no separation between human and Divine.”

This is the fruit.

And the fruit looks like Jesus, and at the same time it looks like us — it looks like us being the people God made us to be.

Building beloved community with our own specific gifts and passions.

The fruit looks like love – messy, tangible, down-to earth, intertwining, tangled, vibrant love. It’s the fruit, that when we smash into the curbs of life – and yelp in pain, and pray to God that someone will be with us, when the roads appear empty. Love appears. Where in our aloneness, the presence of love – sets the fruit of true belonging.

Because abiding in Jesus is always about belonging. Abiding in Jesus reminds us that our branches and God’s vine are tangled and interwoven into the fabric of humanity. We are a part of one another, and this is our strength if we so choose.

This year has shown us that :

We are never really running the show, never really in control, and nothing will go quite as we imagined – from our own individual efforts. No branch can bear fruit by itself – we are always part of, always grafted into another.

And this doesn’t mean we are not to be empowered, or have agency or voice, however we tend to the whole and our collective healing, as we do this in partnership and in love with Jesus and with one another.

“And you have done this well.”

And I know it’s a risk to keep saying “you have done well,” “you are doing great” when you might not feel well or great. I know for sure that this year I have not felt “great.” I’ve said more curses than blessings this year. I’ve wrestled with more questions and shot out more demands of people and God than ever, this year. I’ve shook more fists and beeped more horns than I have knelt in prayer.

And yet, God continues to say,

“well done.” “I see you.” “Well done.”

The vine of God has trailed around you and held you. Has climbed your arm and fist that’s struck to the sky – and laid with you on the kitchen floor when you’ve been too tired to move.

This vine – the Spirit of God – is one that searches for us – and binds us together across distance, disease, disorder, and deconstruction.

It is what remains in us. God can not be stripped away from us.

AND, I want to be intentional as I close, about saying this again,

“you have done well – you are good and faithful servants.”

You have remained in God – and to one another.

And so let “Phewf! We made it!” be the holiest of prayers as we emerge and look ahead to this summer And might I offer one quick extension to that prayer, which is, “Phewf! We made it …AND thank you, Jesus.”

Let me pray a prayer of thanksgiving in this vein as we close-

Thank you God, for Zoe, and Charlie, and Naomi, and Tim, and Lyssa and Reed, and all the educators and students and school personnel out there who made it through this year. Teaching and learning from desks, and living rooms, behind screens and masks. And yet who have remained in your love.

And thank you God, for the parents and caregivers, who stretched to work with toddlers crawling over laps – who couldn’t buy enough mental bandwidth to cover all the connections needed to be made in a day. But nevertheless remained in your love.

Thank you God for being with those who were infected and sick this year, who were separated in their illness and in their fear. And yet remained in your love.

Thank you God, to the healthcare professionals who risked and cared – who’s vocational call became one of warrior, protector, healer – saint. And remained in your love.

Thank you God, for the front line workers – who put groceries on shelves and delivered them to homes… Lyft drivers and public transit workers. Who kept our world moving – connected – and food to our tables. And who didn’t have the choice of safety on their own tables. And who remained in your love.

Thank you God, for the babies born this year, who’s first cry greeted a world of masks and virus…and yet were held in arms of your remaining love.

And Thank you God, for those who have chosen rest. Who have chosen health – pushing against systems of patriarchy, capitalism and white supremacy…and rest fully, remaining in your love.

Thank you God for the poets and artists and musicians – who have given spacious expression to our grief, where our language falls short…and who have remained in your love.

Thank you God, for being WITH those who have lost – jobs and homes, food and lives and yet found resources and provision remaining in your love.

Thank you God for all of us – who are here today – who have so much healing to come and so much story to tell. Help us to remain in your love.

God help us to remain in your love to really see this pandemic to its end. And help us to continue to remain in your love to really see this Beloved Community come to be.

AMEN.

3 O’ Clock Prayer with the Spirit of God

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

Good morning everyone! I am Ivy. It’s a gorgeous day here in Milton, MA – I hope it is also wherever you are calling in from. For those of you who enjoy celebrating Mother’s Day – and honoring the “motherly” influences in your life and within you, I hope today holds lots of opportunities for you to do that. My sermon will not be a “mother’s day specific sermon” – but we will explore the Spirit of God – who I find to be quite motherly.

We are in a Sermon Series called, Listening to the Spirit of God with Freedom and Power. This series was inspired by a conversation we had as a staff (I believe in February) wondering what this Spring would look like, and what we might all need at this point?

We hoped, as it is, that this Spring would be a season of “promise. O vaccines, reuniting with people, of travel, society re-opening. And we also thought we might not be out of the woods yet… We also learned, thanks to the wisdom of many health professionals and trauma specialists, that these “cusp” seasons where “promise” comes into real view, are also the times where the tiredness, the grief, anxiety – the trauma of all this last year- also come into view. It’s often when we start to process, and feel the impact of all of what we’ve endured.

And so we realize that this spring, while “yes” a hopeful season, is also an intense season.

And we wondered, what did the first followers of Jesus need in seasons like this – after Jesus’ death and resurrection? When everything was different and threats were still real and it was hard to imagine a way forward? We found that what they needed was implanted – poured INTO THEM – the SPIRIT OF GOD – this accessible resource that grounded them and became the core of their faith and their beings.

This morning, I invite you to come face to face with the ground and core of your faith…

I invite you into a space of deep wisdom, and great knowing that goes beyond even the best things you’ve been taught about God – beyond the well crafted Bible Studies, prayer practices, and sermon “tips”(all amazing in their own right).

I invite you into the internal landscape of your soul, your heart, your mind, your body. Here it is, that we can access a wealth of “education”, knowing, and expertise – that goes beyond convention.

Where the raw materials of the spirit – the signs, and wonders, and miracles lay in waiting – wrapped in the DNA of God – and found in our own intuition and in our gut.

We’ll take a look at a couple of Jesus’s closest friends, Peter and John and see how the Spirit of God trains them for such love, in the midst of the complexities and realities of the world around them.

Let me pray for us first!

Oh Spirit of God – this morning could you be our great teacher? Could we listen to you as you draw us into deep love! A deep love of ourselves, each other, and GOD! Enliven us – remind us that your love that you have poured into us is a resource that steadies us with courage and strength for the days ahead.

MY STORY:
As we enter the story in Acts, that we will read together in just a few minutes, Jesus has left John and Peter, and all of us, his Spirit. Franciscan Priest Richard Rohr says that as a result we have an

indwelling Spirit as a permanent, strengthening gift.

God has implanted in us a true “homing device” that we can depend upon (in any season). We have been given a source for a true inner knowledge, which becomes a calm inner authority by which we know spiritual things for ourselves.” AND we have that resource – accessible – within us, always.

And yet we have been, Rohr says,

“so afraid of this in most churches; most religious people have been told to look outside for such knowledge, instead of inside.”

Coupled with our society that is infused with a focus of accumulating knowledge, being “smart,” “articulate,” and “educated” as a way to gain status, maintain control, and establish hierarchy, this culture then permeates our spiritual contexts, our understanding of God (even though we regard love as boundless and God as mystical) and we still veer toward needing to be “experts of the subject of God.”

The Spirit of God – mercifully and gently reminds us that we are not subjects to be studied or mastered, and neither is she.

Last week I had an interview with Oprah Daily – this new offering that Oprah is putting out in digital and print editions. One of the writers was trying to connect with Steve, (our Senior Pastor), around a sermon he preached last fall, “An Attempt at a Sex Positive Sermon.” They found he was on sabbatical – and so ended up with me.

We had a good chat about Christianity and Sex – and inparticular how church leaders have gone about this topic.

So much of this conversation centered the attempts of church leaders to convey their knowledge – and their “training/educating/teaching” on the ways of a good and holy sex ethic for followers of Jesus. And how most of these patriarchal voices rely on an external structure of testable – behavioral rules that will prove one’s holiness/purity. Versus surrendering their moral high ground and surrendering trust to the Spirit of God.

This allows them to be experts on the matter, and speak from the vantage point of God – often offering statements that start with, “this is from God. ” What follows this statement is often not of love, but a set of behavioral rules to follow:

“This is from God” – you should not have sex before marriage.
“This is from God” – don’t look at yourself in the mirror too long, don’t masturbate, don’t trust your body, don’t be weak, don’t desire, don’t long for…

This knowledge then takes the form of doctrine. As we’ve talked about many times before at Reservoir, this approach is not an educational program that leads folks into wholeness/integration of their full selves… but is one that is controllable, through separation.

It sets up hierarchies of holiness. “Insiders and outsiders” producing either arrogance (inside) or despair (outside).

AND

It separates us from ourselves.

It separates us from our bodies.

It separates us from feeling.

It separates us from our own HUMANITY, which in turn separates us from the DIVINE within us – and then we lose our grounding with the spirit of God – our access to all training and education.

The book of Acts, written by Luke, begins with the promise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We then see Jesus’ closest friends and followers make their way without their Rabbi, teacher present – but with such a knowledge of the Indwelling Spirit that it creates the foundation of the “church” that will spread throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. And this “church” doesn’t depend upon an educated patriarchy and hierarchy to generate itself, (or measure itself), but depends on the Spirit of God which guides with freedom and power.

Let’s read this story in Acts together:

Acts 3: 1-6

1Peter and John were going up to the temple at three o’clock in the afternoon, the established prayer time.

2 Meanwhile, a man who couldn’t walk since birth was being carried in. Every day, people would place him at the temple gate known as the Beautiful Gate so he could ask for money from those entering the temple.

3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he began to ask them for a gift.

4 Peter and John stared at him. Peter said, “Look at us!”

5 So the man gazed at them, expecting to receive something from them.

6 Peter said, “I don’t have any money, but I will give you what I do have.”

So we’ll pause on the slides there – but the story goes on…

Peter then said,

“IN the name of Jesus get up and walk”

and the man does! He leaps, he jumps and praises God and then goes into the temple with them.

And Peter starts to preach to the people in the temple about Jesus.

The priests, the chief of the Temple police, and some Sadducees are not happy about this. They arrested them and put them in jail for the night.

The next day there’s a meeting with the rulers, religious leaders, religious scholars, the Chief Priest, and they ask Peter and John

“Who put you in charge here? You are not qualified! What power – authorized you to do this?”

And then we see this response -again picking up on slides:

Acts 3 8- 13

8 Then Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, answered, “Leaders of the people and elders,

9 are we being examined today because something good was done for a sick person, a good deed that healed him?

10 If so, then you and all the people of Israel need to know that this man stands healthy before you because of the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene—whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead.

11 This Jesus is the stone you builders rejected; he has become the cornerstone!

12 Salvation can be found in no one else. Throughout the whole world, no other name has been given among humans through which we must be saved.”

13 The council was caught by surprise by the confidence with which Peter and John spoke.

After all, they understood that these apostles were uneducated and inexperienced. They also recognized that they had been followers of Jesus.

The longing of John and Peter, as they’ve understood Jesus’ teaching – is for connection and integration, as a way of continued learning.

They didn’t reject the Jewish religion.

They didn’t try to separate themselves from the Jewish community.

They still went to Temple and synagogues for worship and prayer.

They saw Jesus’ message and resurrection as the fulfillment of everything they knew and believed of the Old Testament.

And as they walk into the temple for 3 o’clock prayer they notice this man outside who can’t walk. And in that brief moment they listen to the Spirit of God, they listen to this man and they listen to their inner authority and trust that they know spiritual things for themselves – AND THEY THEN embody the very lessons – they hope to learn within the temple.

And here, the New Testament begins to be written. And what’s written, is that the law isn’t upheld by us…neglecting/separating, silencing and ignoring anyone who sits outside of the “formal temple.”

What’s written, is that we can fulfill and expand the law by, listening to, loving and healing anyone who sits anywhere,

Peter and John have accumulated this deep knowing by being with Jesus – walking with him, listening to him, watching him, questioning him, laughing with him, crying with him – and this has been written as “LOVE” in John and Peter. And the spirit of God in this passage is TEACHING them to harness that knowledge, that LIVED learning, and to not hesitate putting it into action.

As John, Peter, the spirit of God and this otherwise marginalized, silenced, neglected man interact we see the kindom of God come into being. Jumping out of the sacred texts that the religious elite have been studying and we see the kindom become real – in and through them.

Peter & John came to experience God in the Temple – and yet they experience God in the temple of a human being who can’t walk.

They came to meet God at 3’oclock prayer – and yet they find the timelessness of prayer in the touch of a beggar’s right hand.

They came to study scripture – and they find themselves learning the scriptures by “loving their neighbor.”

They came to the temple to draw the attention of God and improve their “goodness” – and yet they find the “goodness” of the Spirit of God already attending to them.

They came to strengthen their spirit for the unknown days ahead – and they find the same spirit strengthening weak ankle bones and feet.

They came to be TAUGHT, to be educated about God – and they find the endless lessons of God in the gaze of a man who longed to be seen.

To see, to be aware, to love – and to move with so much knowledge and confidence is what I hope the Scriptures, the verses that we continue writing in our day, are FULL of.

Because what John and Peter add to the scripture that we read – is that there is no “outside of the temple.” There is no “qualified” or “unqualified” or “expert trainer.” In fact these are all arbitrary labels that are assigned by patriarchy and hierarchy that is afraid of losing it’s footing inside the temple.

Yet with the spirit of God, everyone should be able to move in and out of the temple – sure-footed- just as this scripture shows us.

However, as we see in this scripture, those in power, that hold the reigns, the credentials, those that love to say, “THIS IS FROM GOD,” to exert control don’t love to embrace the vibe of the spirit of God. In fact these religious elite will silence John & Peter try to remove the name of God , the name of love from their tongues. But they can’t remove it from the core of their faith/their beings.

The spirit doesn’t operate in a linear way, she creates, empowers, flares, has no three part vision plan with pretty “slide decks” to sell us on her power. The spirit doesn’t care about proving herself to some outside “system.”

And she doesn’t care about making you prove yourself, either.

This man that couldn’t walk – didn’t have to show John and Peter what he had tried and failed at, OR his three step self-improvement plan. He just “looked up.” And as he did Peter and John came face to face with the ground and core of their faith – which is to say, “You are loved.” “You are loved.”

And it’s in this space of love – where we are and can be “saved.” Saved not “from” the world but saved INTO the world of God’s abundance, INTO the spirit of love, and INTO ever-evolving knowing of such love within ourselves.

MY STORY PART 2

As I was finishing up my time with the journalist last week, she asked me,

“So what’s your experience as a woman in your role right now?”

And I genuinely responded that it’s been pretty amazing! And that it’s also not lost on me that it’s not the majority experience as we look at Christianity as a whole to have non-white-male voices fully incorporated.

The way in for my voice here at Reservoir, was very natural. I walked into my first service many years ago and heard Val Snekvik preach (our guest preacher last week). And her voice was what brought me back for a second visit – and obviously many, many, more visits these 19 years later. Her presence and other women who have been pastors here – paved the way for me.

AND I also know that just having “representation” of a woman’s voice, or a Person Of Color’s voice, or a transgender voice – doesn’t mean we all immediately UNLEARN the toxic ways of white supremacy and patriarchy that we’ve been steeped/schooled in.

I have had folks come up to me after a service, within the last few years who have said:

“I have no idea what you just said, but I like your boots.” (eruption into great laughter.)

“Glad to have your voice, Ivy – but I sure hope we hire someone who actually has a degree in this stuff.”

I come to those comments with such mercy now.

Because I know they are not intentional, these folks were not consciously trying to tell me how unqualified they thought I was/am.

And I am working on not taking any heretical message of internalized misogyny as personal.

But it points to how much we have been inoculated by the system that values hierarchy, “formal” training, masculine dominated “teaching,” patriarchy, and whiteness as the gold standard of “knowing.”

It’s why it’s so compelling to see Peter and John naturally greet this man who can’t walk moving with the spirit of God that is now WITHIN them. Woven as part of their INTUITION, part of their DNA. Inviting us all to see that we can access the ABUNDANCE of LOVE that the Spirit has poured out on us all. So that at any point when society/systems/structures tell us we are unqualified, try to strip us of our worth and dignity, we can face the core of our faith inside ourselves, and be reminded that the only three words that can follow, a statement like, “This is from God,” are…

“YOU ARE LOVED,” “YOU ARE LOVED.”

May this be our 3’oclock prayer with God as we enter the temple – and our “any o’clock” prayer with the spirit of God everywhere.

I just finished spending the last couple of months with activist and public theologian Dr. Christena Cleveland, who offered an experience for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) and White folks called, “Liberating your mind, body and spirit from White Supremacy.” And she says, that

“Whiteness is always doing push-ups in the basement of our hearts.”

Whiteness is always in training – trying to discredit us, hold us to external standards of perfection (which isn’t a real standard because perfection is a figment of the colonial imagination) and yet it strives to separate us from our true source of knowing.

We need to continue the powerful training of surrendering to the spirit of God.

Peter & John were “uneducated,” “common” they had no “formal training” in rhetoric or Jewish theology. They weren’t members of a privileged class that could afford higher education, or a religious class that would sit under a scholar. They were fishermen.

And Jesus, their Rabbi, didn’t have formal education either

Acts 2:22

“his credentials were/are through miracles, wonders, and signs.”

And yet they – along with this man who couldn’t walk outside of the temple – school us in theology. They teach us to revisit the ground and core of our faith, and not as a test, but as a great returning to ourselves – where we find strength – and great courage to answer these questions by a lived way of being:

What is the nature of God? Love

What is the core of your faith? Love

What is the foundation of 3 o’clock prayer? Love

What binds you to your neighbor? Love

What can disrupt and then rebuild? Love

What connects and heals? Love

What does the spirit deposit in you? Love

What force can right injustices and free the oppressed? Love

What are the miracles, signs and wonders of our day? Love

What does the Spirit of God say, “is from God’? Love

We would do well to revere, and honor this education implanted in us – lest we be left crippled by the weight of white supremacy and patriarchy.

Spirit of God, we honor you.

Let me pray for us.

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 –

Wrestling to See

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

For this week’s spiritual practice led by Lydia Shiu, How is Your Heart, click HERE

To those of you here this morning, that identify as Asian, Asian American, Pacific Islander – SE Asian, please know that I grieve with you, we grieve with you. Know that our God, our helper is one who grieves with you too. Is with you. Sees you. You are not alone. If your grief is laced with rage – that is exactly as it should be.. .and if you are tired and afraid – take rest. And this morning, may the words of the prophet Habakkuk wash over you – in ways that resonate, affirm where you are at today – and may you be loved and held by God.

Today we’ll hear from the prophet Habakkuk.

Habakkuk is a prophet that raises timeless questions – about humanity and God – in a very timely way. He is one who translates the chaos, the violence and un-ending suffering of his ancient time – to ours – today. And does so from a platform of faith that is real, fierce and disruptive to the status quo, the dominant culture. This is why Habakkuk and the other prophet’s voices that we’ve listened to this Lent have been so powerful to me – because they do not just offer us ways to treat the symptoms of injustice in our days, but they show us how to wrestle and uproot the foundation of them. The prophets dismantle – and in doing so – they keep us grounded to the vision that God has for this world – and its people, which is US.

The whole book of Habakkuk is 3 chapters.

And it’s a dialogue between him and God.

An honest, emotion-filled, back-and-forth conversation that starts with Habakkuk’s cry and maybe universal question:
“HOW LONG GOD?” HOW LONG? Will I ask for help – and you will not listen?

Today I invite you to consider what it is you have been crying out to God for.. Keep this at the forefront of your heart – a heart that maybe is broken – weary from the years you’ve been crying out to God – with no God in sight.

And I invite you to re-up with God – as you listen to Habakkuk’s words. To consider what is most important for you? What it is you need to inspire, sustain, enliven faith?

These days – like Habakkuk’s – can feel bereft of a living, loving God – a God who is A REAL agent, who acts in this world for good? WHO addresses injustice and suffering – who does SOMETHING about evil and power and oppressors.

Habakkuk’s words are raw, charged, uncovered and red hot. Birthed from a heart situated in reality – and yet longing for the Divine One to show up – Habakkuk as we’ll see, confronts God, and argues with God – and gets in God’s face and demands that God turn God’s attention and eyes to him.

“Let me see you, GOD! Show me that you are listening to me.
Show me that your eyes are open, that you see what’s going on here – and that you see me too!”

Habakkuk shows us how faith hinges on this necessary dynamic.

Us and God seeing (and listening) to one another.

And just how hard it is when so much of what we see – resonates as evil.

Habakkuk like no other prophet – invites us to strip down any notions we have of God – and be energized with new vision for what we find there… and not be afraid of the wrestling it might take to get there. Let’s follow along as Habakkuk “wrestles to see” God.

Through song, and scripture and the heart of our own stories – we are eager to be with you God, this morning. TO be refreshed in our spirits – that you are a God who speaks to us, cares for us and sees us. .. in all things, in all places. May it be so. Amen.

My Story

From the early days of Scott (my now husband) and I knowing one another – I always bugged him about making eye contact with me – when we were in conversation .. I come from a bustling, large family – and I often found the pace of conversation to be one that was a blur – happening often as we were in movement. Moving from the table to the stack of books to study, or the coveted spot in front of the wood-burning stove – or back to the car – one sibling leaving for practice, another returning. I think somewhere inside, I longed for steady connection (really) – where we could have conversation, looking one another in the eye, and linger there a bit – SEE how that practice went, SEE how it felt to be dumped by that boyfriend (me!) – to listen to one another – in whatever space we might be in…

You can ask Scott – when you see him again – how often I still do this to this day, ask him to repeat something he’s just said, (even if I’ve heard it just fine) and this time share it with me, while looking at me. It’s sometimes annoying – or even unrealistic in the movement of life – but when it can happen, it’s connecting, it’s steadying, and there’s a deepening of listening. It’s through the eye, that I often feel like I’m listened to, and where I can listen to another’s heart that’s speaking.

Scripture, is written from the point of view of those on the margins. And unlike most prophets Habakkuk is speaking to God on the people’s behalf (in most cases prophets are speaking to the people on God’s behalf). And he’s speaking to God of all this violence, all this injustice he sees around him -he’s speaking from the point of view, of those in society who were never looked in the eye. never listened to. Who’s lives have been trampled upon. Essentially erased. Invisible.

So Habakkuk – at the front of scripture here (as you’ll see on a slide) is asking GOD TO SEE THEM!

Habakkuk 1:2 -4

1:2 Lord, how long will I call for your help and you not listen?

I cry out to you, “Violence!” but you don’t deliver us.

3 Why do you show me injustice and look at anguish

        so that devastation and violence are before me?

(look at all of this!) There is strife, and conflict abounds.

4 The Instruction (the law, the Torah), is ineffective….

            Justice does not endure

            because the wicked surround the righteous.

        Justice becomes warped.

Justice becomes warped. Habakkuk stands in Jerusalem and looks at the unrecognizable state of his nation Judah. Everything that should undergird faith, society, humanity – is ravaged. Everything that one’s eyes and heart should be set on – justice, mercy, compassion is nowhere to be seen.

And so Habakkuk protests! He goes directly to God. Not to the King of the day – but God.

And he wrestles… which is appropriate – since at least some scholars believe his name means “wrestler.” The name of the river that Jacob crossed before wrestling with God: Jabbok, means “wrestling.” Habakkuk is another form of that Hebrew word.

Habakkuk wrestles…

To see if and what God’s response will be to him….AND to figure out what he can see of God’s character – the God who he thinks cares about the fact that all of the “righteous are being swallowed by the wicked.”

So he stands before God and He asks, this question that Howard Thurman poses in his own commentary of Habakkuk,

“Why does the ‘evilness’ of evil seem to be more dynamic and ENERGIZING than the ‘goodness’ of good?”

This is a question within a question, a question to God, about God: Who are you God if you don’t intervene here – or at least say something!

Because right now it appears that you are the “God who sanctions or at least tolerates all of this injustice/violence.”

Is that who you are God?

In Habakkuk’s dissent, doubt, his crying out, his anger, he is expressing PAIN.

Are you a God who can handle pain?

To “know God “ at this time – was very contractual… IF you obeyed God – then you got God’s blessing. And if you disobeyed God – then you suffered God’s wrath.

In expressing his pain (and the pain of the people around him)- AND in his demands to be heard with this pain – Habakkuk is shifting the paradigm of how to see/know God. . He is cracking open something new in this compacted faith… and expanding more of God’s character, That God is not just someone you extend “faith to” , but someone you engage “Faith with,” THIS crack – formed by his own pain – allows his faith to breathe, allows faith to be a live, living faith… one that responds to present day reality, and all that comes with it.

Habakkuk – is wrestling and dismantling – this idea that destruction is all there is for society – for the earth – that this misery and injustice will win out. He is challenging that picture – and saying that HE CAN be an effective force in challenging it.

And he’s also dismantling the idea that this is all there is to see and know of God – a distant, removed, transactional God.

And he shows us that all of this dismantling – starts with the groans and complaints and the crying out of his heart.

The question that still stands for him though – is God listening?

And soon enough we see God’s response to Habakkuk… that God has listened, and God says:

“Oh yes – I hear your complaint – and here’s my plan:”

I am going to raise up the Babylonians, these cruel and violent people.

They will march across the world and conquer other lands.

And then he goes into detail, with a bunch of images like cheetahs, and eagles, and desert winds, and a bunch of devouring/conquering pictures, to really allow the visual of utter destruction to set up in Habakkuk’s mind.

So God’s answer to Habakkuk is to deal with the injustice of his people – by an oncoming assault of the Babylonians – an immoral and pagan empire – who are more corrupt and more violent than what is already happening – this will be the instrument of God’s great plan.

Now, A prophet is someone who sees as God sees.

And Habakkuk is struggling to make sense of, to see the vision that God is detailing here. He’s perplexed and so he goes back to God a second time and says, “Ummm, this is a bad plan. A very, very bad plan. It can’t be that you just want to wipe us out, right?”

… God?

And so to try to get a better view – to be as intent as possible in not misunderstanding what God might say in response, Habakkuk does this.

Habakkuk 2:1

2:1 I will take my post;/ I’ll climb up this watchtower

        I will position myself on the fortress.

        I will keep watch to see what the Lord says to me

        and how God will respond to my complaint.

Habakkuk says, “oh I’m waiting GOD – I am waiting for what your next big, fantastic plan is!” I’m staying close to you. I’m watching you.”

And this is an interesting posture. Habakkuk’s intention was to be with God, as he waited for God’s reply. A good posture – because the vista he’d gain of the land around him, as he climbed into a physical watchtower, increases his sense of desolation – later in scripture it says that the

fig tree doesn’t bloom,

            and there’s no produce on the vine;

        the olive crop withers,

            and the fields don’t provide food;

        the sheep are cut off from the pen,

            and there are no cattle in the stalls…

For as far as the eye can see…there is no evidence of truth, beauty or goodness – sprouting up on the horizon. The earth itself appears absent of God – this great nothingness- barrenness.

And yet – being in the watchtower close to God, with God – in the vastness of all of this nothingness, Habakkuk discovers that there is something with God.

Let me circle back to this in a moment.

Going back to my great value and joy of being able to see Scott’s eyes (and/or any of your eyes really) when you are sharing something, I’ve realized that in this pandemic, we’ve all had our hand forced a little to look into one another’s eyes a lot more. Right? We are wearing masks – and if we are really trying to listen to one another, really trying to understand and connect to one another, we are watching each other’s eyes in a more intense manner. To listen to what our hearts are saying, when our facial expressions can no longer convey it fully.

I went to visiting hours of someone who passed away this week. I didn’t know the person who passed, but I know her son. I had prayed with and listened to the son, on the phone in the weeks leading up to the death and I knew it was so hard- painful, and sad. Death is always a rupture – a violation. And it was even harder to walk into a funeral home. With masks on, and protocols, and lines – and there felt like a vastness/vista of sorrow – to traverse, and I was having a hard time trying to see/locate God.

Until I finally got to the son – behind this big rope and above his mask line, I found his eyes – saw his grieving heart – and I found God.

So whether it’s being on a physical watchtower or in an intentional watchtower posture w/ God, in what is real – hard – pain and encompassing nothingness – you might discover a sacred nothingness.

For Habakkuk there was nothing good left of humanity, nothing fruitful of the earth, and in the watchtower he found that there was nothing between him and God’s eyes.

Everything is stripped away. It’s just him and God.

Just you and God. In the watchtower. And it’s where you find what is most important again – a God who is with you.

When God looks into your spirit (in that sacred nothingness) what God do you see?

At those visiting hours – I saw a God who grieved with this son who had just lost his mom. I saw a God who was angry at death, I saw a God who was tender and got it – all the swirl of emotions, who was far from judging any of them and close to pain.

Wrestling with God, perhaps allows us this perspective as if from a watchtower. Somehow seeing the heart of God anew – and taking on the eyes of God. It’s how we anchor ourselves from letting the “evilness of evil” to seep in and take over the “goodness of good” within us.

We still doubt (humanity and God), we still wrestle – we still long and are passionate about all that we want to see better. We stay in our real lives – and by that we activate faith – we give it just enough oxygen to ignite.

Faith is a storehouse of reality. It is the nexus by which we dream, doubt, rage, shout, wrestle and live with God on this earth – here and now – with everything this earth gives us. Habakkuk shows us that faith is the co-partnering of us and God. Something that we can not craft on our own – and something that God cannot move within us – without our willingness and welcome.

Faith is born from where we are stripped down to eye-level with the ones around us and God – where we are asked not to deny what we see (not be separate or turn a blind-eye – even from the horrors, what most disturbs us ) – but to respond to what we see, to act on what we see – and to also believe – hope even, that all of what we see – is not the totality of the kin’dom of God here on earth… that it is not the end, the final word.

Ida B. Wells an early leader in the civil rights movement – who battled sexism, racism, and violence her whole life says that

“Faith and doubt were bound together, with each a check against the other – doubt preventing faith from being too sure of itself and faith keeping doubt from going down into the pit of despair. With faith in one hand and doubt in the other – we can contend against the evil in our day.”

THIS IS HOW WE CONTINUE TO SEE and dream and vision as GOD does for the future of our lives – our world (The Cross and the Lynching Tree, Cone, 131).

A prophet is one who sees as God sees. One who can articulate God’s vision for a world still to come, a world as it should be – Habakkuk’s prophetic ministry is to nourish, nurture and evoke a consciousness – that is counter to the dominant culture of the day… so that such a vision can be carried forth.

And this is exactly how God responds to Habakkuk from his watchtower posture….God says

Habakkuk Scripture 2: 2-3

2:2 Write a vision, and make it plain upon a tablet

    so that a runner can read it.

3 There is still a vision for the appointed time;

            it testifies to the end;

                it does not deceive.

    If it delays, wait for it;

        for it is surely coming; it will not be late.

And then in a bunch of verses to follow – God goes on to just make sure it’s clear that plundering, murdering, the violence – the hoarding of wealth and corruption, and cutting down of forests. The efforts for self stability and the idols that are formed and shaped, carved – are not where we find the vision of God.

And then he ends it all by saying,

20 the Lord is in God’s holy temple.

Let all the earth be silent before God.

So what’s the vision? What does Habakkuk write down? What do we write down and where? Where’s the holy temple?!

My guess is that the answer to those questions was different for Habakkuk than it is for us today.

But the beauty of prophets — IS that they speak to us today.. That they translate and reframe these same questions for us in our context now.

And my guess is that Habakkuk says….

“Your hearts are where you write this vision down”

“And the temple is the Spirit of God within you.”

THE VISION – is for you to fill out – actively write – as you live. As you call out injustice, as you see and listen and love your neighbor. As you engage both the Spirit and your heart – then the imprint, the inscription of God’s vision will always be seen, visible to anyone passing by.

Can we embody this vision?

Ocean Vuong (vong)- this Vietnamese poet and professor at Umass Amherst – is one who has asked this question of me as well… I read his book this summer – the only book I read cover to cover in one sitting, it’s entitled “On Earth We are Briefly Gorgeous”.. And in it there’s this line that keeps coming back to me, it says,

“the human eye is god’s loneliest creation. So much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing.”

This is the challenging and jolting reality. How much of the world – the people that inhabit it – pass by our gaze – without recognition.

Habakkuk says, “We are in a time in history where we need to listen to the prophetic hearts all around us – the marginalized, oppressed and one’s who have been kept silent. They are speaking, continuing to cry out and asking to be seen.

As is our earth, our natural resource – it is groaning from our mistreatment;

We are in a time in history – evident this week – where the LGBTQ community once once again is messaged that their lives are invalid.

It is a time where black and brown people are continuing to die – pinned under the knee of white supremacy.

It’s a time where Asian siblings – like those named by Lydia at the top of this service – suffer and die from erasure, imperialism and immigration laws.

it is a time in history where the deadly impact of white supremacy overflows- and can no longer be unseen.

Unless this is the vista we want to see – barren of God’s image.

AND THIS – this to Ocean Vuong’s point is where we must acknowledge that we HAVE seen. That we have seen, and seen, and seen, and seen – the markers of racism, capitalism, and misogyny for so long – and let it pass through our field of vision- without a blink of an eye.

Write this on your hearts – let this be a vision to you – that these people who die violently – those who suffer, who have been left unprotected by society. They bear the burden of all the world’s actions (and inactions). They are prophets, – in their crying out – they seek to break the hold of injustice and open our eyes to see God in them.

We would do well to see and listen to what these prophets among us – speak to us today – even beyond the grave.

It’s a lot. It’s too much sometimes. But as Habakkuk teaches – don’t give up, hang in… continue to wrestle God into view. Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly – with your heads up and eyes open. And may we be stripped down in our watchtowers with God, to what is most important – and what Ocean Vuong reminds me, that

“I want to love more than death can harm.”

I want to love more than death can harm.

Prayer: God this morning, as we pause to listen and be with you – cast your loving gaze upon us – may it energize us for the stretch of days ahead. And may we feel it as known as the radiance of sunlight, as sweet as the birds calling outside right now – and hear it as clear as our neighbors, “hello.” – Amen

Inspiration & Resources

Walter Bruegemann, “The Prophetic Imagination”

Howard Thurmann – always

Megan McKenna, “Send My Roots Rain”

Ocean Vuong, “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” and “The Weight of Our Living: On Hope, Fire Escapes, and Visible Desperation.”

The Kin’dom of God is Like…

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

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

Thanks so much Trecia, for this invitation to be with God – to scan ourselves and ask to be ‘risen’.

I’m Ivy, a pastor here – good to be with you..
We will in just a minute press into the parable Trecia mentioned – but first I wanted to say a little bit about why parables may be really meaningful to us – particularly in these days…

Why Parables

I love parables because they cultivate our imaginations to consider a reality beyond the present world we see. They help us continue to unlock ways that we’ve gotten stuck and/or comfortable with the status quo, and they help us reacquaint with the mysteries of the Kin-dom of God that also exists and resides here & now in our “ordinary life.” This is what parables do. It’s what they’re for.

As you might imagine, this means parables often provoke, challenge, and inspire us.

Today – still early on in this New Year of 2021 – I need inspiration. I don’t know about you? I feel familiar with the hard, the anger, the dislike – and I need a little “rise” as Trecia so beautifully stated…. SO I greet this little 4 week mini series, before Lent we’ll be doing on the parables – with a deep hunger. . . a deep longing… to see what God might reveal…

I need a refresher on “how to live in and believe for community/humanity”- I need a refresher on “how to keep pressing forward in a life that God wants me to live”, when I wonder how much of the small stuff that I do – or touch, really matters anyway? I need a refresher on what the “kin-dom of God is like”…..

Parables are goood, gooood, good. Because they reveal to us hidden aspects of ourselves over time, as much as they expand our understanding and knowing of God.

They ask us to dive deep within ourselves with those questions … They ask us to check ourselves – and often create more questions – of whether or not these parables are still live to us today – or have we domesticated the parables? Have we tried to reduce Jesus’ story-telling down to one single meaning?

Amy-Jill Levine, a Jewish Scholar and professor – says that “the parables, if we take them seriously not as answers but as invitations, can continue to inform our lives, even as our lives continue to open up the parables to new readings”, new meanings and new truth.

Parables invite us to stand in the light of today…this moment, our present reality – As hard as it is, and as tired as we are – and “rise beyond” as Trecia says…”peer just above” the burning world, to see flickers of “God’s kin’dom on earth as it is in heaven…” and ask ourselves what part we will play in that continued creation.

Prayer: – Could you settle our minds God? Could you stir our hearts? Could you tend to the most tender parts of our souls and usher in peace and release to our bodies this morning? Amen.

The parable we’ll look at today is found in Matthew 13:33, it says

“The kin’dom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

It’s one of the Kingdom parables, often coupled with the parable of the mustard seed. And the quick interpretation we get – of both these parables, is that the mustard seed and the yeast – are “tiny”, yet will grow – and the kin’dom of God is “like” that… – but if we walk away with just that – we likely will miss some of the particular invitations God might have for us .

The word, “parable” means to throw something side by side. Jesus does this throughout his storytelling…comparing the kin’dom of God to another element (such as seeds, a pearl, or yeast), and as He does we are invited to uncover new insights of each element.

For example:

With the parable of the mustard seed, the two images upon which Jesus is building are 1) a therapeutic image of life and healing (mustard was known to be a medicinal plant), and 2) a fast-growing weed. . .

And so likewise, as Jesus compares the kin-dom with yeast. The two images upon which Jesus is building – and that I want to unearth more today – is a communal image of interconnected life and transformation, and a fast-growing natural, but WILD fungus.

YEAST

You see, commentators have suggested that while parables were told to be relatable to the audience – they were also meant to raise their expectations and invariably surprise them. Parables were radical, even subversive in their original context- they shook the religious status quo, provoking the audience to see that, “God and God’s kin’dom were more than they thought.” The parable of the yeast would have been especially disturbing to Jesus’ first century audience. All three of the elements of the analogy—the yeast, the woman, and the amount of flour—would have really been challenging – AND perhaps challenging still to us today.

You see, the Messiah, and the reign of God that God’s people were waiting for – was one that once it came – they felt would surely be recognizable – clear, defineable – and as the Torah had taught, with many a precise and detailed rule to follow, God’s reign would be controlled, certain and contained.

And so as we look at this parable – YEAST – being related to the kin’dom of God would have given the audience some pause.

Yeast – as they would have known it – was more of the sourdough starter variety – (versus the little packets of Fleischman’s that you pick up at the market). It was this wild, natural occurring fungus that existed all around, all the time…this indeterminate living thing!

It’s not clear whether yeast would have had a purely negative or positive connotation to Jesus’ audience though – we certainly see in the New Testament ‘yeast or leaven” show up many times in a way that suggests something was “off” -“As Jesus said beware of the yeast of the Pharisees” – but we also know that some of the Thanksgiving offerings made in the temple were inclusive of leaven, part of their worship.

I think perhaps the greater disruption for Jewish listeners was that yeast was such a WILD, uncontrollable force, this single-celled fungus that pops up everywhere, on the surfaces that ANYONE could touch, on any day, in any place. On the skin of those they would come in contact with, on the cloaks of the priesthood and the commoner alike. A living organism that exists so boldly – available to take up residence indiscriminately of its host – is the provocative message – as it’s compared to the kin’dom of God.

It would be very challenging for a Jewish listener to figure out this comparison. They would wonder if this is what the kin’dom of God is like then how would they know where the kin’dom of God begins and where it ends? How would they know their place in the kin’dom?

This was jarring and stretching for many – to imagine that the elements of the kin’dom of God could somehow already be available – in the very structure of their lived environments, as close as their skin, and as pervasive as air. And yet this parable revealed something they knew to be true of the nature of the world around them, and at a fundamental level – for many listeners – this was compelling (as it was confusing).

BREAD MAKING PANDEMIC
You may have noticed that bread-making became quite a frenzy in pandemic.

First it was Store-bought bread to leave the shelves of grocery stores…

Then it was flour.

Then it was flour mills.

And also yeast.

There’s something about bread…

Why bread? Why not some other baked good?

I think it’s something to do with the primal aspect of yeast. IT’s so TINY – but so FUNDAMENTAL to our lives – to the makeup of the environment around us. It is unruly and mysterious – and ignites transformation that we play a part in – at our very finger tips, as we knead and knead it into dough.

In some ways during pandemic – through bread-making – we’ve had the opportunity – to become reacquainted with the keys of the kin’dom – which maybe is this way of standing in the midst of a world that is ravaged by a virus and ravaged by each other’s violence, and to be alive to the tiny possibilities for newness hidden within. Bread baking allowed people to be part of creating something new, from what appears to be lifeless – nothing – flour …This newness that we can witness in a rising bread… the way yeast inhabits the world of dough around it in a new way…. somehow gives us vision to live out God’s kin-dom – to inhabit the world around us in a new way – while not rejecting the world as it is.

Bread echoes in our bones – as something fundamental/primal, and of new life – simultaneously.

A bread-maker I listened to at the beginning of pandemic said, “I really do like to think of what happens in fermentation [as in a sourdough starter] — how it’s a breaking down, a decay, and with that comes something nurturing, something that can feed you”…“Therein lies a transformation.”

Jesus is inviting his followers to see that he didn’t come to destroy the law – but that the law through him might be fulfilled. So Jesus is entering fully into the reality around him – while the religious elite were trying to uphold and grow a kin-dom by conserving, preserving and controlling at all costs. Protecting/defending against any wild yeast – anything that would change their way of knowing God… In this way Jesus suggests – it’s hard to bring new life….

God’s kin’dom is one that seeks to live – seeks to grow – not by limiting partnership – by expanding – by overflowing — and coaxing in/drawing in all who were around to be a part of it. To bring in new life, this is the way of love – the active ingredient in the kin’dom of God.

He’s cautioned to say, “it’s not change (this element of yeast), that’s the nasty thing – Status quo is the nasty thing.

Yeast eats. It breathes. It’s alive – it’s active and in the right environment, it will multiply and flourish – wildly! Yeast is life… much like the Kin’dom God talks about. And he’s speaking to his audience then and NOW – saying, “and you are the activators of such life… “

Woman

As is the woman in this parable. Jesus doesn’t give us any details about this woman in the parable. And perhaps that’s why like in Matthew’s translation we are drawn to focus our attention on the leaven being the meaning-maker as it relates to the kin’dom of God.

But in another translation – it isn’t the yeast that resembles the kin’dom – but it says “the kin’dom is like “the woman” who took the yeast.

The kin’dom is like the woman…

This suggests that this woman is as much an active ingredient in the creation of the Kin-dom of God – as is the yeast. That she is an agent of the kin-dom – in her own sphere of influence…. AND this suggests that this woman in her “ordinary” role, doing a regular domestic task – is you, and me – any of us – all of us. In whatever it is we do in our day.

The kin’dom of God isn’t magic – it doesn’t transform our harsh realities – but it does have the potential to transform us … I imagine this woman to live in a small Galilean town – without a lot of resources, or position in society…she likely could never earn her way to high status in the temple. … But God suggests she’s already part of the kin’dom… She’s present to her surroundings, alive to the world around her… and in doing so she becomes an active ingredient. She’s’ willing to work with what is around her, in an effort to spring forth more life.

Three Measures

Scripture says, she took the yeast and

“…mixed it in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

Now there’s a piece in here that would have stood out to Jesus’ listeners – likely in a way that it doesn’t for us… They would have responded to this measurement of flour – and said something like – “WOW! That’s a lot of flour.”

Three measures doesn’t equal three cups.

Three measures of flour – is somewhere between 50 and 60 pounds, or 60 – 80 loaves.

This suggests to us that this woman did not intend to just make a loaf for herself, or just for her household, or maybe even just for her neighborhood. This amount of bread is enough to feed a village. The kin’dom of God is like a woman who takes all of what she has around her – even if it looks lifeless and like nothing – and grabs some wild spores from the air – and believes that she can feed the world around her (in partnership with God).

It is a heart posture – a leaning in with belief that what we can touch/see/do is never too small in the kin’dom of God.

MY STORY, PART 2
Despite all the lovely bread making – and bread-eating that I did… – (and there was a lot of it at the beginning of quarantine )…

I still circle around to this very question and ask, “but isn’t there a “too small” category?” When we are talking about real meaningful impact in the world… I mean really.. The ruptures in our social fabric – the devastation in our souls is too much…for a “too small”, right?

Because that devastation – I feel it in my soul – my “soul is sore.”

In moments when I start to sense again the kin-dom of God near… when God’s love rises within me – something else occurs that deflates that stirring of hope in me.

And I feel our social contracts with one another – are stretched, and frayed, and nearly beyond repair.

*BELOVED COMMUNITY FUND

However, the truth is – it’s exactly these little moments, these moments that so often fall under the radar .. that catch my heart off-guard and surprise and inject this fundamental truth of the kin-dom of God – of locating ourselves as part of a community – that still believes in one another – by being present, aware and alive to those around us.

As you’ve heard over the last few weeks on Virch – we started a new initiative, called the Beloved Community Fund – which seeks to provide financial short-term assistance – AND also to provide a network of HUMAN resources – to holistically support the wellness of someone in need.

Over the last seven weeks .. So many of you have expanded the kin’dom of God.

Locating yourselves, your resources, your time, your coats, your boots, your food – as PART of a beloved community. Knowing full well that to give and receive – to be in need and to offer to those in need is part of the pattern of life – that any of us will find ourselves in.

This heart posture has touched folks who would identify as “part of Reservoir community” and also those beyond Reservoir INTO ALL of the kin’dom of God here on earth.

You’ve helped provide a Christmas Eve meal for a group of folks with a history of chronic illness, and substance abuse and homelessness.
Helped someone be able to continue with therapy…
Helped someone who is sick and in need of surgery..
You’ve been present to a family – recently new to the US – with no winter gear or resources…

THIS community – so many of you showed up in that regard. Shared your bread. Treated these folks you don’t know – NOT AS IF they were angels, AS IF THEY were GOD – but regarded them AS angels – AS God in your midst… not b/c you can solve or fix all of the circumstances – but because you believe that your engagement, within your sphere – within your touch – can activate the love of God within and without – THAT NOTHING IS in fact “too small”, and that love can flourish greatly, even wildly so….far beyond where we can see.

You see- one of my favorite parts of this VERY short parable are the last few words of that verse – where it says, “….all of it was leavened.”

Once the love of Jesus is activated… There is no barrier to where that love spills out – no edge, no dark corner, no person, no action, no addiction, no sickness – that it won’t touch. ALL will be leavened, with God’s love…. As we greet those around us with the belief that God’s image resides within them.

Genesis 18
I want to share one last thing – that I think fills out this parable… anchors it in the long line of God’s presence here on earth…

Parables were not unfamiliar to Jesus’ audience – in fact many of the parables evoked earlier stories that they would have been familiar to them… The story in Genesis 18 does this, I believe. Here’s what it says:

1The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

3 He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. 4 Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. 5 Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant.”

“Very well,” they answered, “do as you say.”

6 So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. “Quick,” he said, “get three seahs/measures of the finest flour and knead it and bake some bread.”

So you can see here – probably some obvious parallels to the parable of the yeast… a woman, bread, three measures. . . . We also see, three strangers seem to appear out of nowhere.

Abraham and Sarah greet them as holy – as God – whether they understand that to be true in real time or not!

Bread is made. Again with a ridiculous extravagance and generosity – huge portions…! As if they were feeding a whole nation of God to come.
And in the mix of sharing bread with one another…
One of the men tells them that they would have a son in a year.

Sarah laughs – and says, there’s no way, it’s too late – I’m worn out – I’m too small, I’m insignificant..

And then Sarah becomes pregnant. This mysterious , unexpected, miraculous thing happens…
She is transformed – yes physically she becomes pregnant
But something changes within as well – in her heart – from the idea that she’s ‘too worn out – she doesn’t matter…’
To this belief, “I’m not too small,” “I’m willing to partner with you, GOD”
And in her transformation…A nation of God is born…

As we know of parables – they reveal more about our true selves, as much as they do of the nature of God – and they reveal that the birthplace of the kin’dom of God is within us…

Like yeast, God’s love can not be contained. It is everywhere. It shows up in 3 strangers to Sarah and Moses, it shows up in a family you’ll never meet, in a worn out womb, in a heart of despair, at the edge of a Galilean town, in a baby’s cry, in the scent of bread filling your house…

“The love God had for the world couldn’t be contained by heaven – it spilled over the heavens, and came to Earth, came to be in human form, in Jesus.” (Nadia Bolz-Weber).

And now God’s love has active potential – to touch everyone, to speak to the oppressed, to heal the sick, to touch the soul sore….through us.

We learn through these stories that God’s kin’dom is ordinary and wild.. Full of fish and pearls, and surprise and doubt, and leaven and laughter and nurture, and banquets and mustard seeds, “with kings – but also with shepherds” (Amy-Jill Levine).

It encompasses everything.

God’s kin’dom is already folded into the stuff that makes up our world – and it’s already folded into us.
To be a part of God’s kin-dom will continue to feel disruptive, unbelievable, surprising, challenge us to believe our efforts matter/our small pieces matter – and even, like Sarah – feel laughable at times…
We need to allow these parables to be active in our stories today –

DAILY BREAD

Each day we need this refresher – of what the Kin’dom of God is like..

God, help us remember what it is to be part of your kin’dom, “Give us this day our daily bread”.

When we feel like lumps of lifeless flour – or when we look at this world and just see dark, stinky, decay… God bubble up – rise up – from the cracks in our lives… help us to nurture this heavenly yeast, Because this is the yeast that we will need for decades – centuries to come.

OUR TIMES

We are in a time of leavening.

GOD IS STILL AT WORK. in the upheaval of covid, of racism , of insurrection. May we keep kneading the yeast of God’s love – so we can live in this kin’dom life – both in the world as it is – and the world we are creating with God – simultaneously. (adapted by richard rohr)

As we close today, why don’t you consider what “The kin’dom of God is like __________ .” What is the kin’dom of God like to you?

Prayer:

Oh God, Divine parent of us all – *in whom is heaven*.

Holy, Loving, Merciful one is what we call you.

May your love be enacted in this world,

and be our guide to dream, to hope and create the world now, and as we imagine it to be.
May your kin’dom come.

May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day, our daily bread.

Fuel us for the work of our days. Feed us with rest and with love. To love ourselves and neighbors well.

And lead us into your big heart – that expands our own, for the greater good, the common good, and the stranger.

Lead us not into isolation, and new lines of division.

Lead us into your presence, apparent in every part of our days,

where the glory of your kin-dom of love, restores us all – now and forever.

AMEN.”

*in whom is heaven* – wording from New Zealand Book of Prayer

In addition they offer these words/phrases which might resonate with you:

inflammation

– right side of the body

– waiting

– recovery

– a racing heart

– a purposed loudness (like at a bowling alley)

And an image that might tie these last 4 together:

I looked up and there was a wellspring bubbling up – a sign of hope, new life, growth.

BENEDICTION: A word of blessing as we transition from Virch this morning….

My friends as you go out into your spaces today.

May you find the sense of god’s kin-dom rising within you….

May you find that your hands and the works of your hand are already touching it….

May you find that the words of your mouth are already speaking of it….

May you find tiny spores of newness in your ordinary life…

And may you be inspired, delighted and enwrapped in holy peace as you do…

Let it Be Scandalous Joy that We Birth: The Song of Mary

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

For this week’s spiritual practice “Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room” led by Cate Nelson, click HERE.

—-

Good morning everyone! As always it is a pleasure to be with you today.

As Cate mentioned we are entering Advent today…this season of waiting and longing (and remembering and dreaming) for the coming of Jesus and all that it meant, and still means for us and the world around us today. Throughout the weeks to come- here at Virch – we will be looking at different characters of the Christmas story – and how they prepared their hearts room for Jesus and what unexpected things were birthed as they did – like joy, hope, peace, and wonder – even in the midst of harsh reality. And after each sermon we’ll have a short intentional time of reflection – which you’ll be led through – to let the words and character settle into your own story. Today, I’ll invite us to enter the story of Mary, particularly through her song, called the Magnificat and see what joy we can uncover.

For many of you it might be hard to imagine as we enter this Advent season – that you have any waiting or longing left in you… For me, every day feels the same kind of hard….and so the waiting and longing for things to change – feels pretty weary-ing.

And yet part of Advent is to in tandem look for the light – and also be acquainted with the darkness. A seemingly scandalous birth place for joy.

Advent makes space for a different type of waiting – and longing… one that isn’t just empty sameness…but one that asks us to expectantly go to the edges of our same hard days, the same melancholy mood we might wake up with, – and speak out a prayer, into what might feel like an abyss, “Come! Come, Jesus! Come close to me – be real to me.” You see, Advent is a time of preparing our hearts room to receive – not the vacant echo of our own voice – but to receive, with welcome, what might be birthed in us, when we hear God’s voice echo back.

We need to prepare our hearts and we need room because the story of Jesus’ birth – is a scandalous story – one that is born out of an imperfect partnership of humanity and the Divine. It’s a big story – born in “tiny” places – like fields, and a house in Nazareth, in a manger, in the hills… And a story told by unlikely form – coming through bodies and wombs -blood and sweat, hearts – leaping and singing….Intersecting with curious characters – like lowly shepherds, astrologers, teenagers and… women.

It’s a story told that …”This baby will be great. The son of the Most High. The son of God,”

Jesus’ coming disrupts the ordinary, and turns this world upside down, a world that needed and still needs to be changed.

So much scandalous-ness.

And yet the real scandal is that:
God came to the edge of God’s own divinity and knocked on our human hearts – and said “May I come in?”

And our vulnerable hearts now are the birthplace of where and how, we & God, continue to change the world.

This is why we take time in Advent – to ’enwomb’ these central elements of our faith..joy, hope, wonder, peace and comfort .. Because likely they are not rolling off our tongues these days … yet they are the FUEL of all the work we hope to do in our time – and in our culture.

For the work it takes to continue the Christmas story – that is indeed revolutionary, scandalous and greatly needed – especially in our dark…. same ….days.

I invite you to open your hearts to Mary’s story, and to the wisdom she sings to us ..let me pray.

Prayer – Open Unto Me – Remix
Oh God, the one who comes to open our hearts.

Open unto us this morning.

Open unto us the story of Mary, her song, her love, her power.

Open unto us our story, our song, our love and our power.

And may you unfold the gifts of your presence, your mystery and joy to us today.

My Story:

As I mentioned it’s been hard for me to really feel much joy or hope these days… But just about a month ago – the day after the election – I had a moment of IMAGINING JOY. I woke up that morning and promptly checked my phone in bed (intending of course to look for updated results), but my attention was caught by an Ad by National Geographic.

The ad was for this raft.. But.. tent… thing… that you can use on bodies of water, rivers.

The tagline in the ad said, “This Tent-Raft Mashup Lets You Drift Off to Sleep on the Waves.”

I… truly spent several minutes imagining how much joy this tent-raft could bring to my life.

How I absolutely could become a “person of the river” – or “river person”, whatever that entails…(covid safe!)

And just “drift off” as the Ad promised. Drift off, drift off, away – away – away from reality. A way to bypass the waiting/ longing.

What joy.

MARY:

Now, if Mother Mary speaks to me today – I’m pretty sure she’s saying something to me about this version of “joy” I was trying to formulate from a river tent.

*And let me say, before we really get going with mary’s story – that Mary’s voice – and Mary’s invitation to joy should be heard, repeated, remembered and spoken in our churches and in the Christmas story more than they are.

My faith background,in the evangelical tradition – silenced Mary.

As best I can remember Mary’s appearance was only as a mute figure in the yearly Christmas pageant.

Demure. Submissive.

A mere vehicle for Jesus.

And the silencing was intentional because too much direct attention or reverence for Mary would compromise the patriarchal theology I was taught.

But lo and behold, Mary speaks (!) and shares the longest set of words spoken by a woman in the New Testament.

Her feminine voice begins the Jesus story.

Which I invite you to follow along with the scripture here from Luke 1, on the slides: *I’ll pause a little bit as we make our way through the whole story, but we’ll enter here – where the angel has appeared to Mary – and we learn a bit about their conversation.

Luke 1:28, 35-38, 46-55

28 When the angel came to Mary, he said, “Rejoice, favored one! The Lord is with you!”

Rejoice! I have a message of “Joy” for you….

ANd then we have a few verses of back and forth with Angel and Mary – where we kind of get the sense that Mary’s top emotion is not immediate joy.

The scripture says that she’s confused at the greeting of this angel? And wondering what the angel is actually saying?

And the angel of course goes on with “angel-like” things to say such as “fear not!”

you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great – the Son of the Most High. He’ll rule forever and ever, and there will be no end to his kingdom.” JOY!

Mary though still is not effervescent with joy – and moves to practical questions like how

HOW will this happen? – “I haven’t had any sexual relations.” (and then we pick up the scripture on the slides again):

35 The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come over you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the one who is to be born will be holy. He will be called God’s Son.

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

So let’s stop here for a minute:

After all of this back and forth between the angel and Mary – Mary trying to take in all of this wild, and scandalous message that’s coming to her, we hear her say this pivotal thing – I think – in this last verse, “Let it be.” “Let it be with me just as you have said.”

“Ok – yes.”

“Yes, God.”

“I’m not bubbling with ‘JOY’ right now – but I will “OPEN” unto you nevertheless.”

You see, Mary’s “let it be”, is the move that opens the door to change everything – This opening – is the crack where God implants God’s self . God’s divinity and LOVE takes up residence in our human hearts – and births something new (perhaps joy)…. Mysteriously..Unexplainably… miraculously – within us. EVEN AS WE STAND IN places/a reality that we are all done with – that we have no patience for anymore. Where we feel no joy.

Mary’s reality is somewhat akin to our reality too, – hers is not a blissful, copacetic existence. She is disadvantaged in a world that would neither notice nor protect her. Women and babies – were definitely not at the top of the societal power structure.

She lived in the time of Herod the Great – full of terror – “innocents were being killed”. A census was devised to document the undocumented for governemtal control .. and there were burdensome taxes that cost the poor their land – and left the masses impoverished.
People were hungry, shelter was scarce and people lived in fear for their lives and their children’s lives.

Mary’s setting is not a roadmap to quick joy.

But it is a birthplace of what I would call, “scandalous joy” …

TENT – Part 2:

It’s probably pretty obvious – but the tentraft I pined for … isn’t particularly designed to take on much, if any of the forces of nature (like rapids or waterfalls – or currents). In fact as I read reviewers comments, that was the primary critique. Reviews ranged from, “Oh yay, now I can peacefully drown while I’m in bed.” TO “bravo! Everyday people invent a new way to die”, or “ If you go to bed at the right part of the river, the plummet over the waterfall can be Nature’s alarm clock”, and on – and – on.

So basically this raft-tent is good for sitting on a stagnant small pond, barely moving. Infact the given name of this tent is “Shoal Tent” – shoal means shallow, or of little depth.

My fantasy of finding joy – removed from the rapids of life, zipped up in my own bubble – creates a shallow external joy….. Not this deep joy – like Mary’s that is birthed within her, that becomes a source of strength and the fuel of resilience and of change – CHANGE that she inspires – and spearheads… that she delivers to the world around her…AND not by violence or by weapon – but by song.

Mary after receiving the message of the angel – goes and visits her older cousin, Elizabeth who is also miraculously expecting a child, after decades of barrenness. And Mary starts to sing, as she and Elizabeth share … and here’s her song:

(and we’ll pick up the scripture on the slides here:)

46 Mary said, “With all my heart I glorify the Lord!

47   In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior.

48 He has looked with favor on the low status of his servant.

    Look! From now on, everyone will consider me highly favored

because the mighty one has done great things for me.

Holy is his name.

50 He shows mercy to everyone,

        from one generation to the next,

        who honors him as God.

The beginning of this song – is a song for all of us… and especially for those who like Mary – are discounted by society, pushed to the edges, invisible …It’s a song for when we think God has forgotten just how long we’ve been waiting and longing! It’s a song that invites us to join in the ancient chorus – that God’s promise is to be with us forever, that God loves us forever, that God will never leave, or forsake us.

This song was birthed long before Mary – sung by Deborah, Miriam, Hannah who sang of their own struggles and God’s love – a song breathed into Mary’s DNA

She says, and in those depths – ‘the depths of who I am…that’s where the joy is…. I rejoice in God my savior.”
I say, “let it be” – and I open unto the love and long-standing favor of God.

JOY is the gift of knowing God’s deep LOVE.

ANd from here …from the foundation of love and joy – that Mary gets in touch with – Mary’s “power and willingness to disrupt, intervene and invert the world”….takes off, we hear this as her song continues:

(we’ll pick up this last bit of scripture on the slides:)

51 He has shown strength with his arm.

      He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations.

52 He has pulled the powerful – taken princes – down from their thrones

        and lifted up the lowly.

53 He has filled the hungry with good things

    and sent the rich away empty-handed.

54 He has come to the aid of his servant Israel,

        remembering his mercy,

55 just as he promised to our ancestors,

        to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants forever.”

This is not a soft, dreamy, understated Mary song. This is a revolutionary, a wild, vehement protest song! IT is in direct contrast to the Empire and powers of the day.. And it is laying out Jesus’ kingdom and ministry to come.

Priest Barbara Brown Taylor says, this “was all happening inside of Mary, and she was so sure of it that she was singing about it ahead of time—not in the future tense but in the past, as if the promise had already come true. She says, prophets almost never get their verb tenses straight, because part of their gift is being able to see the world as God sees it.”

And some days this is all we can do, to keep trying to see the world as God sees it – even if our reality defies it at every turn. Even if the powerful are still on their thrones, and have their hands full of riches – and even as the poor and powerless are still in the trenches – hungry and suffering. Some days all we have is the mystery and promises of God’s love and presence – that reside deep within us…

We might not have the vaccine we all wish for yet, or the return to hugs, or the justice we want to see rise up in our structures and institutions…

Mary too, doesn’t have the things that would make this an easier go of it for her….Barbara Taylor says, “she doesn’t have a sonogram, or a husband, or an affidavit from the Holy Spirit that says, “The child really is mine. Now leave the poor girl alone.” (Priest Barbara Brown Taylor) All she has is her scandalous willingness to believe that the God who has chosen her will be part of whatever happens next—and this apparently, is enough to birth joy and to make her burst into song.” – and to give her wisdom and focus on where it is her work will be to come.

She does not wait to see how things will turn out first, she prepares her heart room for God no matter what the outcome.. and she doesn’t jump onto a raft in the Jordan River and drift away- she remains actively engaged and grounded in her reality.

HISTORY:

Mary’s song – has been controversial throughout time. It has enlivened prophetic imaginations, beyond the walls of the church, into the real lives of people…..and it also has threatened and enraged the powerful elite.

During British colonial rule of India, Mary’s song was banned. The British East India company prohibited this song as part of any church liturgy. Finally when British rule was over, Gandhi asked that the Magnificat be recited at each site where English flags came down.

In Argentina, in the 1970’s the mothers of people who disappeared organized protests at the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires with the Magnificat written on their protest signs.

The military junta in response ….banned the Magnificat. https://www.stmarysforpeace.org/blog/2017/4/9/a-song-for-change

In the 1980’s when hundreds of thousands of citizens were disappearing in Guatemala, the government banned Mary’s song – 9 verses from the Bible – because it was considered politically dangerous, subversive, revolutionary.

Oscar Romero, a martyr, priest and saint – whose ministry was distinguished by his particular attention to the most poor and marginalized – prayed Mary’s song every day of his priestly life.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and one who fought against and yet was executed by the Nazi’s – called the Magnificat “the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary hymn ever sung.”

And white evangelicals have devalued the role of Mary, her song, her voice, her message (her gender) – to the point that she’s nearly been erased.

You see – those who impale others as a way of shirring up their authority and power – are threatened by those, (like Mary), who enwomb the treasures of faith – hope, wonder, peace – because they can not be conquered, claimed or secured by might….. but if given room, in a heart that has been prepared and opened, by voices and song, and history and the promises of God, our hearts will prove to make way for the scandalous story of a tiny baby to rule and overturn the world by love.

JESUS
Mary teaches this tiny baby Jesus – about God. And I imagine Mary doing this in part, through her song. Jesus first heard this song in the womb, his ear already tuning to this melody.. And maybe it was the song sung throughout their home while Jesus, as a toddler, scurried under Mary’s foot …perhaps it was the lullaby she sang to him each night … and maybe this song, was the clarion call that Mary sang through the streets when Jesus went missing for 3 days in the temple. . . Maybe it was the song that inspired his first words of his public ministry to be,

“The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners, and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed”, (Luke 4:18-19).

Maybe it was the ravaged, sobbing song he heard his mom sing – or the one he hummed himself – as he died on the cross… It is a song he heard again and again throughout his life.

Mother Mary’s song continues to be sung to us this Advent, and beyond. It is a daily song that we get to make our own. With old lyrics and with new lyrics ….of our longings, our protests, and our bodies. Advent prepares our heart room for a revolutionary Christmas Story that is to be delivered to the world, by us – one that is meant to shake this world free of violence and injustice – and to also shake our faith down to the central, ancient promise of God’s love … that births unexpected gifts in us, like joy and song.

I stand in solidarity with Mary today – with her longing for a new and just re-ordering of society – and I pray with her “let it be, God” – “COME, open unto me”. For to follow in Mary’s footsteps is to be a mother of God ourselves.

TODAY

Meister Eckhart, a mystic and theologian said that,

“We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself. And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace and if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to a Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? (Meditation with Meister Eckhart, Matthew Fox, 74, 81.)

Today in our time and in our culture, we get to birth the disrupting, upending, reckless love of God into this world. … and this is deep, scandalous joy.

JOY TO THE WHOLE WORLD

So may we repeat,

And repeat, and repeat,

This sounding joy.

Let me pray for us:

“Mother God, come close to us now. Keep singing to us. Show us how to love. Show us how to wait, to long, to push, to deliver you into this world.” Amen.

Sources:

Singing Ahead of Time, by Barbara Brown Taylor

https://www.stmarysforpeace.org/blog/2017/4/9/a-song-for-change

Retreat Into Your City!

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

For this week’s spiritual exercise “Paying Attention” led by Steve, click HERE.

For this week’s worship service, click the YouTube link above.

[This week’s sermon has no script, but is captured in the video from our service. Thank you to Reservoir members speaking in the video: Herma Parham, Mardi Fuller, Grace Watson, Lyssa Paluay.]

Beloved Community, the Beatitudes and Radical Empathy

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

For this week’s spiritual practice engaging the Beatitudes led by Josh Comas-Race, click HERE.

To watch or rewatch this week’s online worship service, click the YouTube link above.

LOVED by God: Beloved

We are in the midst of a Fall sermon series on Beloved Community, if you’ve been around the last couple of weeks – you’ve heard Lydia and Steve both speak to this. It’s not solely a Sunday Virch experience though – our community groups have also been engaging with this idea of Beloved Community, as they meet with one another throughout the weeks. And I’d say even beyond that, the hope of us spending time exploring beloved community is so that we can take on this way of being out into the fullness of our lives, in our neighborhoods and cities.

At the heart of beloved community is this idea…that a human community can be built on love. And that such a community can promote and establish justice, welfare, create deep belonging, and be unified even across differences.

And so this type of community – beloved community -is not just a representation found in a church community, or a cul de sac community, or a school community, or a sports community.

Its only platform really is all of humanity – stretching across and encompassing all the communities that we touch, where we worship, where we work, play and live.

It also encompasses ALL of who we are as human beings – our failings, our short sightedness, our particular traits, behaviors, opinions, amazingness and our okay-ness. And it has to account for our history – the experiences that have shaped us – where we’ve come from, and where we stand today.

Beloved community, then, is pretty vast.

It is not easy to create.

And yet we need Beloved Community, more than ever.

We need help. I need help.

To live this life together.

Howard Thurman, who was a theologian and mentor to the beloved community, says that,

“The term beloved community has a soft and sentimental ring. It conjures an image of tranquility, peace, and the utter absence of struggle and of all things that irritate and disturb. But beloved community is far from such a utopian surmise… Disagreements will be real and germane to the undertaking of us becoming at home in our world – under the eaves of our brother and sister’s (siblings) house.” (1966: 206)

If prophetic voices like Thurman’s are right, Beloved Community is a deep, bold, vision that will ask of us provocative fundamental questions. What do you believe of God? Where do you stand today, where do you belong? Who do you notice?

These mentors of beloved community, say that our starting point – the only way we can even discuss – no less vision or BE A PART of CREATING beloved community IS TO KNOW deep in our beings, that we are loved by God. That we are God’s beloved. AND that every single person around us – is also loved by God. This is the starting point, the belief system, the theology that we have to buy into. If we are not close to this truth – this deep love of God for all of us – then we can not be close to co-creating this wild and messy beloved community that we are talking about this Fall. The courage, the power, the capacity it demands of us will be too much to bear ourselves without this anchor of God’s love.

Still though, this Beloved Community can feel abstract. So I want to help us get somewhere more concrete….the first step 1) acknowledging this deep love God has for us – the second 2) a “tool” of sorts to get us on our way- “ radical empathy” (which you’ll hear more of in a moment)… and third 3) a posture I’d like you to consider, a willingness to see that any moment where you are in time and place with other living human beings is the foreground for beloved community. This is WHERE you move from concept of beloved community- to reality.
ANY TIME AND PLACE WHEN YOU ARE INTERACTING WITH OTHER HUMAN BEINGS.

Scripture – Matthew 5:3-12
Jesus gives us a way into this practical, concrete picture of beloved community in the scripture we will read together today. This is the scripture that our community groups are spending 7 weeks in – exploring the foundation by which we can create beloved community.. Here’s the starting point he gives us, and Jesus said: (follow along on slide)

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,

    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 Blessed are those who mourn,

    for they will be comforted.

5 Blessed are the meek,

    for they will inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness/justice,

    for they will be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful,

    for they will be shown mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart,

    for they will see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers,

    for they will be called children of God.

10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

There is a lot to draw out from these verses, the beatitudes – the first words of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount…

I just want to mention a couple of things – one is context, which I think is informative:

That the large crowds that are following and listening to Jesus come from all over.
From Galilee, a very Jewish area, that they came from the Decapolis, (these 10 towns – a very Greek area which is not Jewish, not religious, not pure, not clean, not holy), and they also came from Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan.”

All sorts of different people, from many backgrounds – races, ethnicities, non-”christian”, “christian”, very, very, elite religious – and non-religious.
People who were curious to learn more from Jesus and people who thought they knew all they needed to know of Jesus.
People who were oppressed like Jesus himself – and people who were the oppressors.
This crowd is a representation of the wide, massive spectrum of humanity.
– and JESUS is speaking to everyone, not just some of them.

And so in that vein,

There are some ways that these beatitudes have been TAUGHT that I think might miss the full spectrum of humanity. One way that I’ve heard is to take on these attributes that Jesus lays out – to lead a more godly life: Be more mournful, more poor in spirit, more meek. Or be more invested in fixing the problems of the poor, the meek, and the mourning.

But I think Jesus here is less interested in teaching us new things to do, to check off – to be more holy and in turn get his blessing. And I think he’s less interested in US fixing problems that we have no knowledge or history of – coming in from a distance to be a savior of sorts.

I think he’s more interested in inviting us to a new way to live with one another in beloved community.

These verses are not just platitudes, like a sweet way to go about a godly life. THEY ARE robust, disruptive, in-your-face words that shake the dominant culture. Suggesting that to inherit the riches and glory of heaven – one must unlearn all that one has known of power, authority and even of God.

This was very hard to swallow for those whose inheritance had been built on generations of religious exclusiveness.

You see, the systems of power that were at work in Jesus’ day were really good at erecting boundaries. They had an established way of being with one another in community, which is to keep people unlike them OUT. And not only OUT, but DOWN, and oppressively so. Their community is self-sufficient, separate and sacred to them.

The way of life and living, loving God that they knew had never been touched. They knew what was required of them to ‘obey’ or ‘not obey’ the commandments of God. And their community operated this way too.

And yet, Jesus in these verses says, here’s a different way of being in community – and it requires you to move in from the edges of the crowd, down from your hill, OUT from your system and connect to all of these people here (those you deem unclean, impure). Community is rooted in concrete experience – IN REAL LIFE – natural and free.

This is the point of beloved community that Jesus makes.

And Howard Thurman echoes this, saying that,

“Community cannot for long feed on itself, it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, our unknown and undiscovered brothers and sisters.” (Thurman 1971: 104).

Jesus was saying the comfort, the inheritance of the earth, the mercy, the kin-dom of heaven, that everyone in that CROWD wanted (including the religious elite), could only be realized in partnership/community with the people that fill the earth.

AND THIS – THIS way of being, is to be BLESSED, blessed in relationship with those we know we despise, and those unknown and undiscovered siblings that we live among.

Radical Empathy

You see these beatitudes are a summons to live in the present, as if it is the future we vision for, dream of…to love our neighbor as ourself. And I think there is a concrete tool by which we can embody love, and that is empathy. RADICAL empathy.

Author and journalist, Isabel Wilkinson says,

“The missing link in our age is empathy and the recognition of the shared humanity of another who may on the surface appear different from us. Empathy is a muscle that goes flaccid with disuse. The lack of empathy is the source of division, injustice, and unnecessary suffering. The times in which we live call not just for empathy, but for radical empathy.

And she makes this distinction by saying:

“Empathy is putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and imagining how you would feel. This is not true empathy. It’s role playing. And it still centers yourself. It’s a good start, but not enough for the dangerously fragmented world we live in. Radical empathy on the other hand, means putting in the work to learn and to listen with a heart wide open, to understand another’s experience well enough to know how they are feeling it, not as we imagine we would feel. It is not about you and what you think you would do in a situation you have never been in and perhaps never will.”

As I mentioned many of our community groups are engaging with Beloved Community content – The Beatitudes are one part – but another part of the content actually set tracks for this radical empathy. By sharing with one another childhood stories of experiences of passion, strong emotion, of your town, of what has been passed down to you. And the aim of these story sharing times – is to know more of your context, your history – what shaped you – formed you – what memories or moments stung, still reverberate in your bones and body. These are not just frivolous icebreakers, they are not just community-building prompts. THEY ARE active inroads to know one another deeply, to tap beneath the perspectives and opinions that might be so quick to fall out of our mouths – and tap the well of the abundant love of God that comprises that person, that is so recognizable in our own beings, that becomes visible and impossible to ignore in them.

DOUBLE DOWN WHEN IT’S HARD?

I find that these days that the margins of my kindness are eclipsed by compounding bad news, hard conversations and pain in my heart. And when I’m confronted with differing opinions or perspectives that I don’t agree with or understand – I’M SO QUICK TO DOUBLE DOWN. I double down on the point I want to drive home, to stand my ground.

And in that doubling down – I can feel myself narrow, where everything in me constricts, becomes rigid from my jaw, all the way to my heart.

I do this enough that I’ve learned that this doubling down is often an invitation to PAUSE with God for a second. God often asks, “Where are you standing Ivy?” “Are you on some hill of isolation?” “You’ve climbed really far.”

I often realize that I’ve come very close to the issue or subject of what it is I’m in discussion over, which isn’t bad, but I’m often really far from the PERSON I’m having it with – and far from that sense of God’s love for me.

The further out of focus people become – the further their landscape, their life… the further they are from being real to us.

We have to tap back to God’s generous spirit in these constricting moments.. It takes such supernatural loosening to stay engaged with a heart that’s wide open. With radical empathy.

Wilkerson says,

“It is the generosity of spirit that opens your heart to the true experience and pain and perspective of another. And, radical empathy does not necessarily mean that you agree, but that you understand from a place of deep knowing. In fact, empathy may hold more power when tested against someone with whom you do not agree and may be the strongest path to connection with someone you might otherwise oppose.”

It may be really helpful in building beloved community.

THIS IS THE POWER OF these beatitudes. It’s why Jesus didn’t use individuals to identify who the “Poor in spirit” were – or say the names of those who were meek that he had met, or point to the faces in the crowd that were mourning. He left it open, descriptors for us to wrestle with, to define.

Because the invitation the Beatitudes lay out is the invitation of beloved community. And it is for YOU and I to fill out the names, the faces, the stories of the individuals who we encounter – all around us. Everywhere. And it is to see not only the people who we might perceive on the surface as completely different from ourselves, but to see ourselves in those people.

BELOVED COMMUNITY – TODAY’s CALL

Beloved Community, is an ancient spiritual call….

That Jesus responded to…

That philosophers have pontificated about…(Josiah Royce)

That Civil rights leaders, have laid bricks in building.
That churches respond to – like ours – with vision…

This Fall, we are in a moment of POLARITY and PROMISE… We are in the largest antiracism movement (many of us), have seen in our lifetimes, and we are in the most deadly pandemic any of us have encountered.

The polarity is obvious.

The promise is “beloved community. ” A spiritual, personal, collective call to all of us. A call to the human heart.

Jesus said in the verses to follow the beatitudes that “he came not to destroy the law, -that laws are necessary for structure and guidance of society – but they aren’t always sufficient – so he said he came to fulfill the law” – to give dimension to it. To puff it out – to give it texture – to give it heart – and that heart is US.

Us – as living, breathing beings.

So let us with radical empathy fill out justice to be a living breathing thing , and love to be a living breathing thing, and mercy to be a living breathing thing…. WE, humans are the ones who populate this earth with these values.

They can not stay locked up in systems.

VISION…

As I close, I want to say that beloved community has always and will always be a life-long pursuit.

An ever-evolving way of being, living, and responding to the people around us.

AND YET – it is a compelling vision ….

It is, as any true vision is – one that will always guide us to deeper belonging with one another – and into LIVED wisdom.

BUT it’s one that can not be contained, or claimed, or printed on a “BANNER”, declaring:

“WE ARE BELOVED COMMUNITY”

Because it will be up to those who have been most left out – marginalized and oppressed to reflect back to us whether that’s true or not… did they find comfort? Experience the kin-dom of God in beloved community with us?

“BELOVED community – can never be achieved as an end in itself. It must emerge as an experience after the fact of coming together” – Thurman

And so we must come together – before we declare ourselves anything we are not.

We must come together and join with the spirit of God, that is still in the making, still on the move…
WE THE PEOPLE, are needed to help create a beloved community – to form a more perfect union …

WE THE PEOPLE, need to promote the general welfare and develop a culture of radical empathy.

WE THE PEOPLE must establish justice as we do the ongoing work of fulfilling the law of love.

It is on us, to greet one another across difference with the blessings of the image of God in each of us.

We are ……who we have been waiting for.

Prayer:

Blessed are those who come down off their hills, for they will be in godly company.

Blessed are those who pause when they double down, for their hearts will be loosened by the spirit.

Blessed are those who breathe life into vacant forms, for they will create beloved community, rather than destroy it.

Blessed are WE, for we need each other.

Church Community

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

For this week’s spiritual practice on God of Community and Friendship, click HERE.

To view this week’s worship service, or “Virch,” click the YouTube link above.

You may notice that I’m in the Reservoir Church Sanctuary. It’s a little wild to be in here – to be honest. It reminds me a bit of this “story” I learned when I was little… “Here’s the church, here’s the steeple… open the doors “where are all people?” A story that conveyed to me at a young age that people should show up where the building of church was – at the designated time – on a Sunday. It took me a little longer to see that Jesus’ message to us – is actually to recognize Church as wherever people are gathered.

Church, of course, has never been about the building. It’s been about a way of being in the world. An invitation God hands to us – to live fully, remembering that God’s presence is everywhere, in our world.

I’ve got to confess though what a beautiful building this is – the stained glass, the architecture… the memories of bagels – this great sound system.. (Ha!) It’s amazing to sit in this space in some ways… and it’s also a little weird.

It’s so disruptive to sit here – because I can get in touch with the grief that I feel – how much I want to be able to join with all of you and listen to our voices singing together, greeting one another, taking communion – laughing, crying, praying…. and I can get mad, that we had no choice in this. That a tiny virus has wreaked havoc on our way of connecting and being in community with one another.

And as I sit in the echo of my own voice this morning – the stillness and the Spirit gently reminds me that this is the way it is .. this is how it will be for a bit – that we won’t gather in person here…. and that I can choose disconnection, and pull away, or just sit back and enter a “holding pattern” waiting for this all to be over and return to “normal”…. OR I can re-up on Jesus’ invitation to see that we are the church, we are the temple.

To see that we are living breathing sanctuaries… AND that when two or three of us are gathered together in God’s name (Matthew)– God’s presence is there also!

Connection to one another, in this time IS vital, it is necessary for yes our survival – but also a means by which we can still flourish!

God gives us a model for this, how we can flourish – live! – Gather. Eat. Share. Remember me. He doesn’t say “where” or how… – he just says “gather”

He gathered with people in fields, and in boats, and on shore-sides, in gardens, lounging in chairs, on hills, at tables, and in deserts, and in the bustle of crowds, on mountaintops, and in the valleys…. early in the morning, at midnight …. Anywhere and everywhere. Connection, community, faith, spirituality it’s all possible when we gather together.

We are in deep time my friends… depths of grief, depths of unknowing, depths of anxiety, depths of frustration…. AND WE ARE in deep need of community. And I could preach a pretty good sermon on community, (I think)… but much like this Sanctuary – it would feel pretty empty….. If it wasn’t given voice by so many of you – the church, the community.

So this morning I invite you to listen to a sermon, one that is preached over and over again every time we gather together. A sermon given across towns, through masks and via virtual platforms – in our community groups… where the necessary ingredients for church it turns out – is you/us and the presence of God. Here are some voices from the Reservoir community:

Video: Stories from Community Groups

Ending:
If these stories show us anything they show us that the heart of the church is in us. Not WHERE we gather – but AS WE gather. Maybe not all of us will find this in a labor and delivery room – like Rose – but the potential is there! And it is there that we EXPERIENCE that we are not alone – that we are held by the love of the Spirit – yes, even through ZOOM – and the love of one another.

Jesus says, “Gather. Eat. Share. Remember me.” – this is to truly live.

I don’t know how you are feeling this morning? But if you – for even just a second – have had a fleeting thought of, “I wonder how long I can hold on through these months to come?”… I would say….don’t hesitate! I invite you to actively protest the tug of these days to isolate – and check out a community group! You’ll see a link to a Google form in your chat and on youtube… you can quickly fill this out to let me know some of your preferences and information. We have 30 or so community groups that offer a variety of ages, makeup and focus, meet on a variety of days and times – and it is where you’ll find other human beings – living breathing sanctuaries – who will offer you welcome, without exception just as you are.

The Bread of “As If”

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

To view the worship service, click the YouTube link.

To view Steve’s Spiritual Practice on Grief and Lament, click HERE.

We lost a legend, two days ago, Congressman, John Lewis.

I wanted to talk just a little bit this morning – about how he’ll continue to teach us to hope and change, and be in this world if we keep listening to his voice that is embedded in our society.

He was a great preacher and a teacher from birth – he said in his early years he was known to preach to his chickens! And his voice couldn’t be tucked away – and we would continue to learn from that voice as he became a seminal figure in the civil rights movement. He created and employed strategic plans and spiritual disciplines to bring about change in the face of brutal injustice. This is the work we know that he did “yes” in the 50’s and 60’s – and it is also the work of civil rights that he continued to do, right up until his death. He fought the fights and he did the actions… AND he also taught us how to center love as the mode by which we STAY in the fight – how we stay engaged when the justice we seek isn’t yet realized, when the fight becomes bone-achingly tiring, and it feels like midnight at every turn.

He showed us how to keep asking, how to keep seeking, how to keep knocking. – and not give up on this beautiful and broken world.

And he asked us to do this, by not giving up on one another. By releasing bitterness and believing for the beloved community. And he said, “you have to do this by seeing, by visualizing, by having this sense of faith that what you’re moving toward, what you believe for, what you imagine this world COULD BE, is already done. Imagining that it’s already happened.

He said, you have to live “as if.” “As if” that sense of community, that sense of family, that sense of one house”, has already happened. “As if” it is real.

This is what I want to talk about today – how we keep moving, keep asking, keep seeking, keep praying for the world we want to create, even when it feels like midnight.

Communion:

Some of you may know that I’ve been holding a mid-week Communion service since the onset of Covid. I looked back and the first one we held together was on March 18th! Isn’t that wild? 4 months ago. To be honest I started this little 10 minute communion because I knew I would need a constant time in my week to pause. To commune with God. And I didn’t want to do it alone. I wanted to be in the company of others, to be held in connection with one another – even if it was quirky and done virtually!

And to be honest these 4 months have felt like a maze of days. I tried so many days to find my way out, to find the right path that would lead me OUT of the global pandemic! It’s been a time of asking all. the. questions – when will this be over? Which way do I turn now? Should I pay attention to this cough, should I get tested? They have been long days, long weeks, long months – where I have deeply found myself seeking the direction of God. … because it has felt like midnight. Dead ends, no answers, no one opening a door that says “This …THIS… is the way through this awful time” .

I came to that communion table week after week, with all of my asking, all of my seeking, all of my knocking – with my deepest needs of the day, asking for bread from God – hoping God would answer.

The surprising practice of communion – is that I did get to personally commune with God – but I also got to sit at an ancient table, in beloved community – with all of you who hopped on the call – and also with all of the stalwarts of faith, the prophets, the saints, the disciples, John Lewis – those who have sat at this table before me.

And I got to take into my BODY – the dreams, the visions, the abundance of hope, the strength, the bewilderment, the tears that they came with …. And I got to take in the bread, that was broken and passed around that table – and passed through centuries of Jesus followers – reminding me that I eat this same bread today… The bread of God’s love, the bread of strength, the bread of “as if”...

Communion has shown me that God will give me my daily bread – but that it has never been meant for personal/individual consumption alone – but for the breaking, the sharing/giving and feeding of those around me. It is the fuel I receive, to be an active, attentive and aware member of society – so that I can stay connected to those whose days are shrouded in midnight.

Because this is what our journey of faith is about.. It’s what these aspects of faith – taking communion and prayer – are about – it is about our relationship to God – AND – it is deeply about our active and attentive, PERSISTENT relationship to one another. Persistently engaged with one another, persistently showing compassion and working for justice -persistently honoring our shared humanity, all the while eating and partaking in the bread of God.

So before I pray could you take a moment with God to get in touch with, “what you are asking for, what you are seeking, what bread you need from Jesus, right now?”

I’ll give you a second to think about this with God.

Prayer: “Dear God – the one who offers us your full self – the one who breaks yourself open to each and everyone of us… may you bind us to one another in your spirit right now. Would you give us the bread we desire …. The sustenance… the resourcing we need… to keep moving, to keep acting… to keep loving.”

Scripture

We are going to look at this parable today found in Luke where Jesus invites us to consider how we might respond when our days feel like midnight – when darkness covers our days.

A Knock at Midnight: Luke 11:1-10

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

2 He said to them, “When you pray, say:

“Divine Parent,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come.

3 Give us each day our daily bread.

4 Forgive us our sins,

for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.

And lead us not into temptation.’”

5Then, teaching them more about prayer, Jesus used this story:

“Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to your neighbor, ‘Friends of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for them to eat.’ And suppose your neighbor calls out from the bedroom, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you.’ But I tell you this—though your neighbor won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, your neighbor will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.

“And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Now parables as Lydia mentioned last week, hold so much! They are both fun and frustrating to roam around in … the characters, the ordinary elements in the parable can hopefully illuminate more of God’s nature to you… but also note that the hope of a parable is NOT that you would solve it, the hope is to see what is revealed to you in this moment in time. A pastor friend says, “that the best way to suck the life out of a parable is by attempting to neatly allegorize it or worse try to figure out the so-called moral of the story. Parables aren’t about morals; they are about truths — hidden, unyielding, disruptive truths. The kind of truths that simply can’t be contained.” (Nadia Bolz-Weber)

Parables are these beautiful stories that talk to us today. Parables that have so much play in the margins – beyond maybe the most known interpretation – which I think is often where the greatest truths reside.

This parable has been taught over time to me as the amazing power and value of persistent prayer. That makes sense – the disciples had just asked, “God teach us to pray” – and then he tells this parable of a relentless knocking, a persistent neighbor who in the middle of the night will not stop ringing the doorbell of their friends house.

And the message I’ve absorbed is to be bold. Be brazen. Be shamelessly persistent. Because it will pay off, with God – if you knock, pray, plead and shout long enough. You see here – it’s obvious that of course God will be so much kinder and more good to you than this friend in the house – who won’t even rise and get out of bed to open the door?

Ask, ask, ask, seek, seek, seek, knock, knock, knock. In Luke and all throughout scripture we are told to pray constantly, without ceasing. And we read that God will give you what you want if you ask, directly and incessantly, and long enough?

It so fits our American, individualistic tendency right? WORK hard enough, long enough, knock until your knuckles are bloody – and you’ll get what you’ve strived for…and it maps so nicely onto an American brand of Christianity that when you pray hard enough – you’ll be given, you will find, you will receive – the door will be opened unto you.

Except when it’s not. No matter how hard you’ve tried.

My guess is that many of you:

Have found yourself outside of a firmly closed door.

A door that has never been opened to you, no matter how hard you knocked.

Have asked again and again – and nothing has been given…

and your voice is sore, hoarse from shouting.

Have sought and sought and sought – and nothing has been found.

Many of you perhaps, have only found midnight. Darkness. Maybe some of you have found “darkness so deep that it’s hard to know which way to turn”, (MLK Jr, 53), how to make sense of your faith – how to pray.

IF parables really can reveal truths that cannot be contained, I wonder instead of approaching this parable – with the lens of individualism – trying to find ourselves in a particular character; the weary traveler, the friend with no bread or the friend with bread. We could instead look at this story as a picture, a flow of community, of neighborhoods – of society. Of the interconnectedness of a beloved community – as John Lewis’ (and Jesus’) try to remind us. Because this parable IS indeed about persistent prayer – but it is about the kind of prayer that can not be uttered or heard, without connection to one another – and it is the persistent kind of prayer that requires an unreliquishing leaning IN, an awareness, an attentiveness to the collective shared humanity and needs around us. The truth is that prayer is seen and spoken when we embody Jesus, when we take on his way of persistently BEING in the world, take on his heart that seeks and longs for compassion, beauty and justice relentlessly.

Parable:
Just prior to this passage in Luke 10 – we see the parable of the Good Samaritan… Which is Jesus’ answer to the lawyer’s question, “How do I inherit eternal life?” Jesus directly answers: “Love me – and love your neighbor as yourself”… and then tells the parable – to give a container of how to imagine, to stretch that answer into full, real life, living it out, embodying it. He says, “ Go and love – go and show mercy.”

He’s doing a similar thing here with the disciples when they ask about how to pray.. Jesus answers: “This is how you should pray – say:

“Our Divine Parent in heaven,

Hallowed be Your name.

Your kingdom come.

Your will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

3 Give us today our daily bread.”

And then he stretches it – he says – oh that’s not the full answer! You have to live this prayer out – you have to engage with the people around you, the complexities, the structures, the resources, the lack of resources, the inequities… “To love your neighbor… to pray persistently”… is to live IN – to be a part of, this messy world. AND to be fully AWAKE to it.

I do think this parable is about how asking, seeking and knocking – can be the key to a prayerful, abundant life that leads us into greater connection with one another and God.

I just think that God could be giving us this parable to reveal truths about our current day society – where being awake or not awake in love and prayer, to the present needs – is consequential to the health of our whole society.

I’m going to invite us to consider that the friend inside of the house with the sleeping family – and behind the locked door, with the bread… is one who is not fully awake to the needs and desires of the community.

We don’t know how long the friend on the outside of the door, has been knocking. We just know that for at least some amount of time the friend inside the house, was not conscious of this knock.

He didn’t hear the knock, he didn’t see the person knocking because he was asleep, and his response is delayed and reluctant.

And even when he becomes aware of the knock, it’s not regarded as an invitation to answer, to give, or to open the door. It’s regarded as an unwelcomed disruption, it causes him discomfort and annoyance.

There’s no movement. No getting up. No running to the entrance. No seeking.

Just yelling from the inside, “stop bothering me.” Your neediness is bothering me.

The bread on his counter – represents the bread of comfort, the bread of status quo (the doors locked, that’s the way it is), the bread of “see you in the morning. At dawn, when it’s light out.”

What is consequential here, is that the dawn can not be found when there is no one to crack the door of light. The dawn can not be found even when in the morning, the bread is stale and tastes of injustice. The continued sleepy state of the friend inside the house, who holds the resources in society, is an active perpetuation of the long midnight of the weary traveler’s existence.

Embodied love. Embodied prayer will always demand us to be conscious to the knocks of our day.

The Friend with no bread

BUT we also have this other picture – the friend on the outside of the door… who seems to have nothing – his hands empty. But his heart is full – of a belief of – maybe as John Lewis would have said, of living “as if”. As if the world he lives in – is the world he imagines it can be – and he locates himself as a part of that. .. .

He shows us that to love your neighbor – whoever that might be – a stranger, a weary traveler – is to be disrupted.
He shows us that to pray – is to extend energy – physical, soul energy.
AND he shows us that to TRULY be awake to the needs around us we need to:

…ask, seek and knock…

He ASKS this weary traveler what he needs…
- ANd he finds that this traveler needs rest and food.
- And he’s not deterred that he himself can’t provide it – he goes and seeks for it.
He SEEKS – he gets up, goes out, he MOVES. He believes that there is a way forward when all it looks like is dead ends – when all there is is darkness.
And then he KNOCKS – he knocks – that knock of justice at the site where resources are known. And he commands the attention of these needs, PERSISTENTLY – he knocks and knocks.. calling attention to the greater community.
Waking up others to the needs evident in the community.
He INVITES others to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with their God.. he refuses to give up on one another.

The friend who loves and prays – despite having nothing at midnight – does so by Asking, Seeking and Knocking with and behalf of his fellow neighbor. And he shows me that it is both important to do our part in finding and fighting for the bread of justice – these fundamental resources that the weary travelers in our society needs… AND he also shows me that I have rich resources within me – even when I feel like I have nothing to give…. He shows me that these resources: faith, hope, love, compassion, strength – are the daily bread of “as if”, that I get to receive and be given by Jesus.

This friend shows the weary traveler and all of us – that DAWN can crack through the eternal midnight.

Martin Luther King Jr. has an amazing sermon on this parable. (Please check it out if you have a chance)… and he says, “The most inspiring word that we can speak, as the church, as followers of Jesus, is that no midnight long remains. Because the weary traveler by midnight who asks for bread is really seeking the dawn. Faith in the dawn arises out of the belief that God is good and just. AND it is on US to show that God is good and just by our actions and movement in the world.

So we need to not just talk about how “ good and just God is” from behind our comfortable, safe, locked doors… we need to act as if we believe that truth and live it out. We need to open the door.

Because so many in our nation have been locked out, for too long.

So many are asking for bread. The bread that might be sitting on my counter – or your counter right now.

And the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples and us – is to create a world we could imagine for… God’s Kin-dom here on earth, now. To “work with what is”, “what the current state of the world is” – and build it together, as we imagine it to be.

To again and again ASK for our daily bread from Jesus.

To unlock the doors of our threatened hearts, our resources, our positions in society and SHARE THEM.

To SEEK justice and re-equitize the stockpiles that reside behind certain locked doors.

To re-distribute, to SEE and LOVE our neighbors.

To take part in repairing – to take part in KNOCKING on the doors where the bread of justice, the bread of faith, the bread of compassion, the bread of freedom lies – before it goes stale again in our hearts.

John Lewis, lived by an African Proverb, “when you pray – move your feet.” And I feel like this parable encourages this…. Pray persistently – yes – and move your feet.

When you pray – be in connection with one another. PRAY deeply with your whole being. Be, as communion is teaching me – the eyes, the ears, the mouth – the body of Jesus wherever we are.

Get uncomfortable.
Persistently ask how your placement in this shared tapestry of life, is consequential to others.

Seek the guidance from our good, justice-loving, God – and learn from those that have come before us. To attune our ears to the ask of us, in our time.

Because if we listen – I think we’ll hear that the ask is akin to the work of John Lewis’ life and his legacy that we get to carry out – “to do the work of creating good and necessary trouble”… to willingly confront injustices… to aid in removing the persistent midnight.

And to ask ourselves, and collectively ask – “how do we remove the midnight – rather than perpetuate it?”

As we rest our heads to our pillows tonight – do we pray for our fellow siblings and neighbors and their perceived needs? Asking God to help us in that – “YES . we. do!”

AND we also wake up – get up – and move – pray with our feet, with our arms linked to one another….

And we go out into our neighborhoods, our communities and we ASK what the needs are…..and we listen.

And we SEEK – we search to help FIND what is needed. And we commit to going out even if it’s midnight.

And we join in the knocking, the knocking of centuries… we join in the persistent knocking that JESUS has been banging on our doors with – for justice to roll down into our neighborhoods like a mighty river…

Prayer is being connected to one another and to God. To know that we are not alone at midnight – and to do our best each day, in making sure the dawn comes for those who can only see darkness right now. This is how we see, visualize the beloved community – this is how we stay hungry for the bread of connection – the bread of “as if” – connected to that sense of family, that sense of one house here and now.”

As we close this morning, I ask you again to take a moment with Jesus… “What is the bread that you are hungry for, in need of? And what is the bread you have to give?”

And as we often did in mid-week communion – I invite you to offer now a “One Voice Prayer”. Whatever bread you need – or whatever bread you have to give…say it outloud. On the count of 3… 1-2-3…, “The bread of ______________________________”.
Amen.