Sermon for September 25, 2016

Awareness, Empowerment, Embodiement
Mark 13:34-37

Ignatius of Loyola was born in 1491, one of 13 children in a family of minor nobility in northern Spain. As a young man, Ignatius felt inflamed by the ideals of courtly love and knighthood and he dreamed of doing great deeds. But in 1521,  Ignatius was gravely wounded in a battle with the French. While recuperating, Ignatius experienced a transcendent spiritual awakening. He began reading about the life of Jesus and the  saints, and realized that the awakening feelings he experienced were clues to God’s direction for him.

Over the years, Ignatius collected his insights in a book called the Spiritual Exercises, one of the most influential books on the spiritual life ever written. With a small group of friends, Ignatius founded the Society of Jesus, a.k.a the Jesuits. He thought of the Jesuits as “contemplatives in action.” The ignatian way seeks to unite action, contemplation, and imagination to discern how best to love and free the soul from all unnecessary attachments so that we can seek God’s will.

Today I want to highlight two of those movements. These are tried and tested means to grow and nurture our spirituality. The first is awareness. Awareness is the beginning, middle and end of the spiritual life. We begin by thinking about an event near the end of the earthly ministry of Jesus. Mark 13:34-37

“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his workers in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

When we read texts like this, we can get so caught up on the literal details of Jesus’ return. I think Mark points us to something much more significant.  In Jesus’ day, there were only two groups of people who had any business being out and about at night;  shepherds who tended to their flocks and Roman soldiers who kept the watch. The most scrupulously kept regimen of the Roman Army was the night watch. Lack of courage in battle was a severe thing, but it could be remedied. Lack of disciple on a night watch was unforgivable. One Roman historian described what happened if a soldier was found asleep. A court-martial tribunal met, and if the soldier was found guilty the tribunal took  a cudgel and touched the condemned soldier with it, sealing his fate. After the sentence, all in the camp beat or stoned him. If the soldier managed to escape, he was not allowed to return to his home. None of his family would dare to receive him. Because of  the extreme severity of the penalty, the night watches of the Roman Army were taken seriously.. Mark’s readers would have known all about the night watch, so Mark borrows from this tradition when he writes about the events leading to Jesus’ arrest and death. Pay attention to what Mark does in the story.

• Mark 14:17ff. When it was evening, Jesus came with the twelve. And when they had taken their places and were eating, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” The disciples vehemently defend themselves. They are not aware. Evening has come and gone. The 1st watch is over.
• Mark 15:32 ff. After sharing dinner, Jesus and the disciples go to the Garden of Gethsemane. It’s midnight. Jesus says, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.” He falls on the ground and prays that the hour might pass from him. After praying, Jesus finds the disciples sleeping. He says to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The 2nd watch of the night has ended, and the disciples are not awake.
• Mark 14:66 ff. After his arrest and detention, Peter follows to watch. When asked if he knows this man, Peter denies knowing Jesus. Just then, a rooster crows. The 3rd watch has come, and Peter’s lack of awareness is fulfilled by his denial.
• Mark 15:1 ff. “As soon as it was daybreak . . .” The 4th watch is here. Jesus is bound and led away to Pilate. The drama has unfolded, and the reader knows that the failure of discipleship is a failure of awareness. We all play in this drama. The final act is dependent on us keeping awake. And what does he mean? On a practical level, how do we practice awareness?

Soren Kierkegaard once said, “Life must be lived forwards, but it can only be understood backwards.” His words remind me of Sankofa, a symbol from West Africa. Sankofa portrays a bird with its feet facing forward and its head looking back, usually with an egg in its mouth. It reminds us to keep an eye on the past, to draw from its treasures, while moving forward into the future. Picture this little bird joyously dancing its way through life – feet forwards, eyes backwards, looking ahead and then looking behind to fetch the essence of life. Imagine this bird singing in your heart, “If I hadn’t gone through that struggle back then, I wouldn’t be prepared for this struggle now.” The first movement of the spiritual life reminds us to be aware that life is beautiful yet broken.

The second direction or movement is empowerment, or, embodied love in the world as seen through the message and actions of Jesus. Empowerment means noticing, offering, and listening to your gifts in order to claim your own potential for transforming the world. It means living awake to your passion. It means finding your voice, or letting your voice find you. As novelist Emile Zola says, “If you ask me what I have come to do in the world, I will tell you: I am here to live out loud.”

One writer (Jurgen Moltmann), put it this way: The secret of human life is easy to understand: anyone who wants to keep his life, and therefore holds onto it and keeps it back, will lose it; he already loses it by becoming incapable of living. But anyone who lives life and commits it and surrenders it, will gain that life; she already gains it by becoming alive. Keeping his life means withdrawing his soul from his body ... In this affirmation life becomes alive in the truly human sense. Anyone who lives like this will be mortal, but dies meaningfully. Life that is never lived cannot die. But life that is truly affirmed can die.

To get to this place, we learn to live by our values and core beliefs. By the way, I am fierce in my determination that at CCC, we don't tell you what your core value and beliefs are. This is not a sign-on-the-dotted-line church. Everyone looks at the world differently. Two people can have the same experience yet have very different interpretations of what happened. Core beliefs are the deeply held beliefs that influence how we interpret our experiences. We may share many of those core beliefs. We may agree to work together to live them out. But we never impose one strict rule of thinking or behaving on another. Think of core beliefs like a pair of sunglasses. Everyone has a different “shade” that causes them to see things differently.

Imagine this situation: you meet a new person whom you find interesting. You think about asking the person out for coffee. A lifetime of self-talk and internalized messages kicks informed a core belief in you which says, ”I’m not worthy.” The next thought is: “Why would they ever go out with me?” The related behavior? You do not ask person to coffee. Many people have negative core beliefs that cause harmful consequences .To begin challenging your negative core beliefs, you first need to identify what they are. We hear them all the time: I’m not smart enough. I’m not successful enough. I’m not beautiful. I’m a failure. I’m no good. I’m boring. I’m stupid. I’m undeserving.

Let’s re-think the same situation: you meet a new person whom you find interesting. You think about asking the person out for coffee. After years of work and deep listening, you develop a core belief that says, “I’m am worthy,” which leads to the thought: “We might have fun if we have coffee together.” The behavior? Asks the person to coffee.

So, I have some homework for us. I want you to think of three negative, limiting messages you tell yourself all the time. Write each down somewhere. And for each one of those negative messages, think of three positive ways to describe yourself. You are kind, intelligent, loyal, hard-working, down-to-earth, attractive, organized and creative. You are strong, friendly, nurturing, thoughtful, confident optimistic, determined, enthusiastic, and motivated. You are insightful, funny, patient, honest, generous, independent, reliable, brave, innovative, and trustworthy. I think this is more than a schmaltzy self-affirmation exercise. When Jesus spoke words of affirmation, people’s cells as well as their souls were transformed. Jesus transformed people’s spiritual identities and transformed their place in society. We are empowered when we can tap into that and express it in our bodies. God wants us to have abundant life. Within the limitations of our current life situations, including our healthy and unhealthy professional and personal habits, our prayer lives, our addictions, and our deep desire for wholeness, God is at work, providing creative possibilities and power to live out who we truly are.

Empowerment means noticing, offering, and listening to your gifts in order to claim your potential for transforming the world. As you cultivate qualities of passion, compassion, gratitude, imagination, and openness to surprise, they build on each other as your inner work and outer work connect with glimpses of the greater work.

Awareness, empowerment and Black Lives Matter -- think about this at the lunch and learn after worship today. What are the realities to which we need to wake up? And when we do, how do we align our values, our thoughts, and our actions to embody God’s love and God’s will?

Sermon for September 18, 2016

“Awareness: Awakening to the Spiritual Life”

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
    and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
    Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
    as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
You saw me before I was born.
    Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
    before a single day had passed. Psalm 139:13-16  (NLT)

How do you define your Self? I am a married, white, straight, educated, 45-year-old child of the ‘80s with four children, who enjoys variety in my menu, who likes to dress in mismatched plaids and who enjoys a relatively good amount of health and happiness. Each of these descriptions is a code to more understanding. When I was born, what I eat, how I dress, how much money I make, where I live and with whom – you form assumptions based on what you see and hear about me.

I am also more than any of that. I can define my Self by my consciousness. I think. I evaluate. I act on decisions. I am aware of my world. However, I don’t always know why I do the things I do, so something else must be at work. Sometimes I sense unknown motives and desires behind what I do. Sometimes these things just pop out and shock me. How can I explain an urge to suddenly call an old friend or to take a drive alone? How can I explain why I want to cross my legs when I sit down? Sometimes we can find triggers for our impulses, but usually we just move from one subconscious desire to another without any real awareness of why we do what we do. So I know there are two parts of my Self, conscious and subconscious. But I don’t know enough about these parts and how they work to form a good picture of who I am.

I have a spiritual Self -- driven by unseen forces and universal realities that are bigger than I can fathom. I have a Self that others see. People have an opinion about me when they get to know me. Am I any of this? Can I know my real Self? Can you know my real Self?

Over the next few weeks, we will be talking about how we, as a church, take good care of the Self, the Self as individual and the Self in relationship with others in our church and in our world. We will be thinking about a process of spiritual formation that includes letting go of old ways of doing things so Self-transformation can emerge in our individual lives and in our church. Before we can engage on any journey of transformation, before we talk about empowerment and new life, there’s a beginning step. We must become aware. Awareness is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the spiritual life. Today, we become aware of the Self in relationship with God and others.

 ______

When I was a teenager, trying to figure out who I was and where I fit into the world, the church I belonged to had an answer for me. The Self is created by God, fallen into sin, restored through the atoning work of Christ, and destined to inherit life through resurrection.

Sounds good on paper, but what does it mean? I was taught that a self-existent, totally unique, Supreme Being called God creates and controls the universe. This God is self-sufficient, does not need creation to be complete, and does not rely on creation for anything. God can’t rely on us, the creation, because creation is corrupted … sinful … separated from a holy, perfect God. The difference between the Creator and the human creation is so vast that God exists fundamentally in a different order of being -- an infinitely superior, stronger, more excellent way. It’s as if one compared the sun and a candle, the ocean and a raindrop, or the universe and the room we are sitting in.

The Self is created by God and fashioned in the image of God. The job of the self is to love God. But, because of our sinful nature, we can only love God, Self, and others imperfectly. I was told that the only way to know perfect love is to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior of the world who takes away our sin and restores us to right, perfect relationships.

As time went on, I had some issue with this answer. It did not take into account how we are fearfully and wonderfully complex, as the Psalmist puts it. It does not take into account how God partners with us to forge a more just, compassionate world. The theology I grew up with wanted me to understand myself as someone who inherited sin – someone who is originally cursed. Over time I began to wonder what might happen if we understood ourselves as originally blessed, rather than originally cursed?

Instead of being suspicious about our bodies, we would welcome our bodies and we would be gentle, instead of combative. Humility would no longer mean despising of one’s Self.

Instead of trying to control everything, we would be more ready to experience and celebrate the passions of life. Instead of regarding humans as sinners we would regard ourselves and others people who can choose to create or destroy.

So, let’s flip the assumptions. Let’s become aware of a different way of thinking about God and Self. Here is my first provocative proposal of the morning: God does not know the future. You see, I was also taught, back in the day, that God has the future all mapped out and pre-determined. My teachers took the poetic words of Psalm 139 literally: every day of life is recorded in God’s book. Every moment is laid out. If we don’t live into that future, we are straying from God. So God needs to use coercive force and punishment to correct us and guide us and get us back on track.

The God I worship is a God of relationship –a God who shares power with us instead of using power to punish us. In my experience God is the creative and transforming power in my life, ever new, ever leading me to put my faith and trust in the beckoning future.  And if our relationship is truly mutual, then God grows as I grow, as we all grow into a more compassionate, peace-building humanity. God is present in all things, but God’s presence leaves room for growth, creativity, freedom. 

Instead of a sinner in the hands of an angry God, I think the Self is created with agency. That means the Self acts in freedom to birth a future that is best for the nature that has birthed us. God’s will for humans is that we use our freedom to co-create and nurture the world.  The Self exists in relationship with God, with others, and with all of creation. The Self always has choices. Each of us is in charge of shaping our lives and justifying our choices.

Now keep in mind, freedom should not be mistaken for equality with God, the Creator. We partner with God in a cosmic, ongoing creative process.

The theology I grew up with did not leave a lot of room to think about the Self. In fact, I was taught that thinking about Self was selfish. As we talk about awareness of Self in relationship with God, I want to re-think that idea. I guess I’m feeling contrary today. Here is today’s provocative proposal #2: Selfless behavior is immoral. People who act out of selfless love may in be in danger of losing the very Self they ought to be developing and they may end up hurting the people for whom they care. Think about it. If a moral saint is spending all her time feeding the hungry, healing the sick, raising money for Habitat for Humanity, and packing peanut butter sandwiches for the homeless, then she’s not taking time to read a good book, go for a brisk walk, or enjoy the smell of warm wet earth after a passing Summer thunderstorm. If a moral saint is giving all of himself to save the world, he has no time to be an artist, or a good parent, or a skilled listener. There’s no chance for a truly selfless person to have the time or moral permission to develop the skills, talents and personality that make us interesting, well-rounded people. Selfless behavior is immoral when it prevents you from knowing your own intrinsic and equal value as a human being. What kind of love asks you to discount your Self for the sake of the other? What kind of love asks you to deny your needs? Where’s the mutuality? Where’s the trust? Is this the kind of love God wants from us? Selfless love? No! There is no such thing. Everyone wants to be desired. Everyone wants to feel needed. Selfless love may seem ideal, but it eventually denies partners what they need—to be desired and needed as equals.

I know plenty of people who give selflessly of themselves and feel rejected by those they love. What kind of love is that? As long as we feel rejected, we cannot love fully.

I know people who have been manipulated by others in the name of serving God. If God appears to us as an unhappy recipient of selfless love who gives according pleasure and condemns according to wrath, we cannot love perfectly.

If we can be in touch with the true spirit of love, our imperfect relationships can change. We can share in a love so extravagant, so complete, so true, that once we feel it, we can’t stop sharing it.

Closing Act of Awareness

Imagining the three Divine Persons gazing on the whole surface or circuit of the world, full of people. Consider what the Divine Persons (and you) see and hear: men and women of different sizes, shapes, and colors; rich and poor; old and young . . . People speaking different languages. Some being born, others dying; some running and playing, others sick and suffering . . . Some laughing, others crying. Some screaming and shouting, others praying and singing. With the gaze of the Trinity, consider how people are treating one another: some loving, others hating; some hugging, others hitting; some helping, others ignoring, hurting, and killing. What do you see and hear? How do you feel as you imagine the world in this way? How do the three Divine Persons respond to the joys and sufferings of the world?  How does the God who is Love respond to us, God’s children, who are lost, aimless, suffering, sinning, confused, and hurting? Hear the Divine Persons saying, “Let us work the redemption of the human race”

What words do you want to speak to God, who is Creator, Christ and Spirit

Sermon for September 4, 2016

Hope

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
~ Proverbs 13:12

Can you remember a time when you lost hope; a time when you thought that life would not get better; a time when you chose to run rather than weep because you did not want to get involved?

As Christians, hope is our currency. Lose hope, and what do you have left. Yet, we all know people whose lives are truly hopeless. There are no remedies or cures to sustain hope. For some, hope is a curse. Recently I read the myth of Pandora’s Box. Do you remember that old story? Pandora was the first mortal woman, created out of clay by the Titans. She was given a box as a wedding gift. It was probably more like a decorated storage jar. Zeus had one very important condition on the gift – Pandora must never opened the box. As we know, curiosity got the best of her. She took a deep breath and slowly lifted the lid of the box. She peered into the box, expecting to see fine silks, gowns or jewelry or even piles of gold coins. But there was no gleam of gold or treasure. There were no shining bracelets and not one beautiful dress. The look of excitement on her face quickly turned horror. For Zeus had packed the box full of all the terrible evils he could think of. Out of the box poured disease and poverty. Out flew misery. Out came sadness. Death took wing. The creatures stung Pandora over and over again as she slammed the lid shut.

Pandora shut the lid before the last spirit one could escape. Its name was Hope. In some sanitized versions of the myth, Hope remained to touch and heal the wounds created by the evil creatures. That’s the fairy tale ending. In early versions of the myth, Hope remains trapped in the jar because Hope is the worst of all evils. Hope prolongs the torments of humankind. Think about that for a moment. Too much hope can be a bad thing. I witness this when I speak with people in one-sided love fantasies or failing marriages.  I see it in the self-inflated hubris of people who imagine themselves as more than they are despite daily evidence to the contrary.  I hear it in those who want the easy way out and avoid the trials and discipline of transformation.

Think of another ancient classic – Dante’s The Divine Comedy. As Virgil leads Dante through the gates of the Inferno, he sees the inscription, “All hope abandon ye who enter here.” It is pointless to waste time on hope when one is about to become a permanent resident of Hell.

I think of this when I read the poem that many people consider to be Emily Dickinson’s homage to optimism, “ ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

If you don’t think I’ve completely lost it yet, bear with me. In that first line, “Hope” is the thing with feathers – the word “Hope” has quotation marks around it. That’s why when I read it to you, I lifted fingers in the air and make bunny-eared, air-quote hand gestures. Dickinson exaggerated the word hope. She called attention to the word to move us beyond our conventional understanding. And notice how the ceaseless, sweet-song of “hope” in the poem never asks anything of the poet, except to keep on listening and hoping in the midst of the tempest. Such optimism in the face of horror can actually be a burden, not a gift. Spiritual values like faith, hope, and love always require active response on our part. To remain so passively optimistic, so hopeful that everything will be all right when clearly it is not, can be naïve at best, and heartlessly callous at its worst.

I remember times when I chose to detach and look on rather than get involved because I did not want to even hope that things could get better. It is all too easy to look the other way and abandon hope when it feels like the world around us is crumbling to ashes in our human-made hells. Although humans appear to be creatures who can anticipate a better world, we are also are creatures so wounded and battered that we do give in to despair. “Hope” alone is not enough to fix the unjust structures that cause unimaginable suffering. “Hope” alone is not enough to help us understand our complicity with systems and structures that marginalize certain groups of people.

I write all of this knowing that hope is a cornerstone of Christian religious experience, rooted in a theology of a heavenly paradise for those who are faithful to the Kingdom of Christ. Proverbs says a desire, a hope, for fulfillment is a tree of life. Our theologies point us to an eternal utopia where pain is gone, tears are wiped away, and we live in God’s presence forever. But this kind of thinking has gotten Christians into trouble over the centuries. Sometimes, we have become so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good. So, we need to know the difference between false hope and realistic hope.

False hope is Dickinson’s “Hope” in quotes. There was a European philosopher named Ernst Bloch, often called the philosopher of hope, who criticized abstract utopian thinking.  He said abstract utopias are expressed in dreams conjured from gossamer without any trace of possibility for breaking into history. Abstract utopias are wishful thinking without the will to change anything. They focus only on fantasy and memory. The same definition could be used for false hope. False hope is full of expectation, but cannot fulfill what it desires.

Realistic hope is similar to what Bloch called concrete utopian thinking. Instead of being bound in a fantasy of the past, realistic hope reaches towards actual possibility with both wishful and willful thinking. Realistic hope focuses on what can really be achieved.

Are human flourishing and liberation all but impossible? Must the forces inertia prevail over our struggles for justice? To help us navigate these questions, I let’s make another distinction. While we think about the differences between false hope and realistic hope, let’s put another filter over our framework. Let’s think about “collective” hope and “personal” hope. Collective hope is also called public or social hope. It embraces the big vision: our unending efforts to create a decent world will one day pay off; the universe does not have to be cold and unresponsive; humans build systems of law and dignity’ we develop vast knowledge systems and scientific medicine; we demonstrate compassionate response to the plight of the vulnerable. We are creatures of will, determination and action.

Personal hope requires attachment and care for something – anything –outside of ourselves. It demands self-reflection that recognizes our dependence, our finiteness, and the incompleteness of our understanding of others.

We need both collective and personal expressions like these to help us develop realistic hope. The difficulty is that we confuse personal hope with privatize hope. In our disturbed and damaged world of unbridled consumer individualism, people are encouraged to abandon social hope to grab for their own personal well-being. Our unhinged world is a expression of what happens when we think blessings limited to individuals and their families alone. When this happens, hope shrivels. We lose the critical capacity to see and name the social structures of domination, inequality and oppression that strand in the way of the resurrection of a new world.

Worn, weary, wounded, we may wonder if hope is a gift or curse. My hope is a blessing when it moves me, in cooperation with my community, to become the presence of healing love. Real hope helps us become one with God and God’s creation. And they are one with us. We are changed. We are God’s hope. We are God's love.

Sermon for July 31, 2016

Love: Forgiving Without Punishing

“Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”Colossians 3:13

As President Obama stepped into a pulpit to console a family and a nation after a hate-filled man killed nine black worshippers in a Bible Study, he also called the country to account for its racist legacy. The New York Times called the speech, “…one of his presidency’s most impassioned reflections on race” during his eulogy to the slain state senator and minister, Rev. Clementa Pinckney.

To the surprise, if not consternation, of some, various family members of the murdered parishioners proclaimed that they forgave the shooter. Just one day after the massacre at Emanuel, a son of victim Sharonda Coleman-Singleton said he forgave his mother's killer. The following day, family members of the dead joined the first court hearing for the21-year-old killer and told him via video conference that they, too, forgave him — even as some acknowledged also feeling angry and hurt. Alana Simmons, granddaughter of victim, Rev. Daniel Simmons put it his way:"Everyone's plea for your soul is proof that they lived in love, and their legacies will live in love. So hate won't win.”

After the killing at Mother Emmanuel, Jamilah Lemieux, a Senior Editor at Ebony wrote,
“Despite my personal hurt over the idea that anyone on this planet should forgive such a vile creature as Roof … I can’t help but wonder what it feels like to have the sort of peace that the black church seems to provide for so many others. Granted, for some the church inspires a lazy, inept sense that “Jesus paid it all’ that they don’t have to use their God-given gifts to do anything measurable to improve the world, and that our Earthly suffering at the hands of racism will be rewarded with milk and honey in the afterlife.” Lemieux’s article points to a nuanced form of public theology around conflict and forgiveness. She points to a world in which Jesus comes to heal the world; not only of our illnesses and individual sins, but also to exorcise the demonic lies that uphold oppressive systems. It’s a theology that says: If Christians want to walk in the steps of the living Christ, then our teaching, our healing, and our spiritual care must challenge the corrupted foundations that people think are keeping them steady.

While the meaning of forgiveness in black church faith is complex, their forgiveness is not about the exoneration of the killer for the deadly injustice he perpetrated. It is about the loving justice of God and the liberation of the families from the killer’s sinful act. Forgiveness opens a way forth to a new relationship with history and a sense of being a people. It opens the way for healing relationship with one another even with God.    Forgiveness recognizes that the love of God is more powerful than white racist hatred.

Making the choice to forgive can be a liberating practice. We must remember that forgiveness is possible because we have the ability to make choices. We have the choice to forgive or not to forgive. No one can force us to do either. If we want to forgive someone, no one can stop us no matter how poorly the offender may have acted.

Forgiveness happens in stages. In the beginning, you are filled with self justified anger. At some point in your life, you have been wounded and you are mad at and hurt by the person who wronged you. You blame the offending person for how you are feeling. You are certain that it is another’s actions that cause your distress. You have forgotten that you have choices as to how you can react. You feel so injured that you are convinced it would not be right to forgive the offense. You are angry. You are in pain. But anger and pain don’t have to declare the final word.

The second step towards forgiveness emerges when, after feeling upset with someone for a while, you realize that the hurt and anger do not feel good to you. It may be impacting your emotional balance or your physical health. You may wish to repair the damage done to the relationship. You may begin to see the problem from the other person’s point of view. You may simply decide to let the problem go. In either case, after a while you are no longer done in by your anger. You forgive the person with whom you were angry.

The third stage of forgiveness comes after you have seen the results of forgiveness. You are now ready to work to either repair damaged relationships or let go of seeing the situation as a problem. You decide to forgive because you have had some practice with it and see the benefit in your life. At this stage of forgiveness you are aware that the length of time you experience a situation as a grievance is primarily up to you.

I can tell you exactly how when my thinking about forgiveness changed in my own life. I was reading a quote about hypocrisy by the famous activist and preacher William Sloane Coffin. He wrote, “Of course we all pass ourselves off as something we are not, but not as anything we are not. Generally, we try to pass ourselves off as something that is special in our hearts and minds, something we yearn for, something beyond us. That’s rather touching. “

Reading that quote changed my perspective. I realized that I’m human and I act to protect the wellbeing of myself and my family. Others are human, and they act to preserve their interests. I don’t need to harbor anger. I can make a different choice. I can forgive. And I hope that people can forgive me. I make mistakes. You make mistakes. If I have done things that anger you, I ask for your forgiveness. If I make decisions that you don’t understand or agree with, please forgive me. And if you can’t do that, at least know that I make decisions that are imperfect. If I say or do something and your feelings are hurt, please forgive me. And if you say or do something and I let me feelings get hurt, I will work to forgive you. Let’s walk in the healing love and unity that can be the trademark of our congregation.

Thankfully, that’s not the end of the journey. There is still one more step to forgiving without punishing.

The fourth stage of forgiveness involves the choice to rarely if ever take offense in the first place. There is an ancient and well-kept secret to happiness that sages have known for centuries. They rarely talk about it, but they use it all the time. This secret is called The Fine Art of Not Being Offended. In order to truly be a master of this art, one must be able to see that every statement, action and reaction of another human being is the sum result of one’s total life experience to date. In other words, the majority of people in our world say what they say and do what they do from their own set of fears, conclusions, defenses and attempts to survive. We all act out of self interest. When we understand that, the world can become more manageable.

Maybe you are now at a point in your life where you don’t want to waste your precious life in the discomfort caused by anger or hurt. You are ready to feel differently. You are able to forgive yourself, forgive others, forgive life, and forgive God.

Maybe you’ve learned that life is filled with incredible beauty and wonder and you are missing these experiences when you’re stuck in the remembrance of old hurts or disappointments.

Perhaps you realize that everyone, including you, operates primarily out of self-interest. In my self-interest, I will be annoyed by someone else’s self-interest. If I can understand this is an ordinary part of life, what is there to be upset about? If I understand that self-interest is my guiding principle, how can I not offer forgiveness to everyone, including myself for behaving that way?

In this sense, forgiveness is an art. It takes practice, discipline, and patience to get to a point where you desire not to get offended in the first place.

As it turns out, there is also some science to forgiveness. Forgiveness may be a choice and a discipline, but it also comes from the involuntary level of impulses. The subconscious is ruled by our most in-grained fears and desires. If we can train our impulses to crave reconciliation and lessen fear, then the world can be changed one thought at a time.

I’m going to keep this very basic, because that’s all I can understand. There is a part of the brain called the Cingulate Gyrus. The Cingulate Gyrus is an evolved feature of the mammalian brain. It functions as a clearing house for the subconscious mind, deciding which primal instincts are appropriate for a given situation. Think of the Cingulate as the belt around your consciousness. It functions in the brain a little like a mediator. It helps restore balance between your thoughts and your feelings, between behaviors and emotions.

 What’s this got to do with forgiveness? Research shows that activity increases in the Cingulate during moments of forgiveness. The brain is hardwired for forgiveness. Your brain is able to consider another person’s intentions, another person’s emotional state and the forgivability of another’s actions. If the brain wasn’t so crowded out with competing demands and opposing stories from the past, there would be more forgiveness because our brains would be free to do what they can do so well. We tend to think that forgiveness only benefits the person being forgiven. However, research shows that forgiveness is good for the person forgiving as well. It lowers blood pressure, improves cardiovascular health and strengthens the immune system.

This is not to mention the social benefits. People who forgive tend to have less depression, longer lasting marriages, and stronger social networks.

The science and spirit of forgiveness is summed up like this: You can forgive without punishing others. You can absorb pain and injustice without becoming a bitter person. You can come face to face with pain, your own and others, without becoming hostile. Forgiveness is good for you, and so much better than holding on to resentment. Forgiveness is one of the powerful thoughts that change the world, beginning with your inner world. Stop expecting the world to be perfect. Forgive. Forgive because it’s part of your biological make-up.Forgive because it’s good for others. Forgive because it’s good for you. Forgive because God forgives us.

A Prayer

Say to yourself:
May I be at peace. May I be a lake of forgiveness. May I be truly happy.

Think of someone who has harmed you, or needs your forgiveness:
May you be at peace. May you be free from suffering. May you be free from pain. May you be happy.

Bring all the peoples of the world into your focus:
May the world be at peace. May it be free from suffering. May it be free from pain. May it be happy.

Finally, bring the Earth into your focus:
May she be at peace. May she be free from suffering. May she be free from pain. May she be happy.

Sources
•    “'The Science and Spirit of Forgiveness " By Ian Lawton. February 24, 2008
•    The Art and Science of Forgiveness by Frederic Luskin, Ph.D. Available online at http://www.cancersupportivecare.com/forgive.html
•    http://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-black-church-forgives-dylann-roof/
•    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/04/charleston-church-shooter-forgiveness_n_7726414.html

Sermon for July 24, 2016

Love: Speaking Without Accusing

Based on James 1:19, "Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry."

Click HERE for a link to audio.
Sermon starts around 19:00

Sermon for July 17, 2016

UCC Beliefs: God Is Still Speaking

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 2 Timothy 3:16 (NLT)

Do you ever wonder if God still speaks to people? I once had a friend who heard the voice of God. His name was Willie. Willie always made me a little nervous because the things God told him were not very pleasant. God told Willie a lot about judgment and death, plagues, and deadly diseases. No, Willie’s God was not a happy God, and Willie let us know it. For the most part, the messages he shared made me nervous for selfish reasons. I was afraid God was going to tell Willie some secret detail of my past, and I didn’t want to be around if the voice of God was going to embarrass me, with Willie as God’s mouthpiece. Let’s just say I haven’t always been the angel I am today.

Now, when people say God spoke to them, I wonder if they just heard what they wanted to hear, or whether those voices and visions were the product of all that spicy food the night before. We walk a fine line when trying to figure out whether God speaks. If someone claims to hear the voice of God directly, we usually consider the person to be a fanatic or demented. The other side of the line is that we want to hear from God. In our age of competing spiritualities, we want to know that the God we worship is real and involved in our lives. We desire God to communicate a message of love directly to our hearts.

T.M. Luhrmann, an anthropologist trained in psychology had the same questions. She wondered: How is it that otherwise rational and logical people are convinced they hear from an invisible being—in the face of profound and vast evidence to the contrary? Luhrmann took her research into the field. She attended services and various small group meetings at a local charismatic church. She interviewed worshippers, sat through prayer vigils, watched people do bizarre things in attempts to communicate with God, and walked away with a profound sense of mystery and awe in people’s experience of the divine. About a third of the people she interviewed reported an unusual sensory experience they associated with God. While they found these experiences startling, they also found them deeply reassuring. After her experience, Luhrmann said she was impressed with the thoughtfulness with which people talked about hearing from God. They were acutely aware they might be wrong. In her research, there was a sense of discerning God's voice, which meant that people were not to take what could be hurtful to other people or to oneself as a word of God.

In the UCC, we have a slogan that sums up how we think about God’s willingness to communicate with us. We say, “God is still speaking,” Now, there’s a punctuation mark in our motto. God is still speaking {comma} … not {.} … not {!} … not {?} … but {,}. In grammar, a comma places a badly needed pause between parts of sentence.  It’s a moment of brief suspense, a quick rest to prepare for the next clause. In the UCC, that comma summarize how we listen for God’s action in the world.

Many of us were taught that God stopped speaking to us when the Bible was closed to any additions around 390 CE. We were taught God placed a firm period on any new revelation. Everything we need to know about God’s will is found in the Bible. Period. In the UCC, we say, “Everything we need to know about God’s will is found in the Bible, comma ... but there is still more light and truth to break forth from God’s word.” When we think that God only ends sentences with periods, we get ourselves into the old Christian habit of excluding people.  The continuing witness to Jesus Christ that we proclaim today is that the old prejudices that functioned to deny God’s grace for some people are false and sinful, even when they find some isolated, flimsy textual support in the Bible. We proclaim that love overcomes legalism every single time. God’s love is universal and unconditional.  All are welcome at God’s table regardless of gender, race, sexual identity, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, or any other feature of a person’s particular humanity. Once we shift how we punctuate our faith, we have hope and inclusion instead of an immovable boundary. Have there been times when you punctuated your faith with a period rather than a comma? I’m sure we are all guilty of that….many times guilty of that. The UCC believes we should never put a period where God has put a comma, because God is still speaking.

Here are three quick reasons why I think God still speaks to us today. First, God is not done with you yet. There's more good news to be heard in your life!

• No matter how old you are, God is not done with you yet
• No matter how insignificant you think your problems are, God cares about them and is working within you to work them out. God is not done with you yet.
• No matter what your limitations, there is a way for you to participate in fulfilling God’s aims for the world. God is not done with you yet.
•  No matter how uncertain you are about what comes next, God knows there is hope for your future. God is not done with you yet.
• On those days when you think you are a lost cause, even if you have given up on God, that’s when God does her best work. God is working in the waiting, in the silence, when it seems that nothing is happening. God is not done with you yet.

Second, God is not done with the church yet. There's more good news to be heard in our life together! There are no perfect churches and no perfect pastors. But God who is love, God who is good, is not done with us yet. God’s love is changing our lives and building us into a community of love and faith. It’s the example of Jesus that keeps us going. It’s the Spirit who stretches us and empowers us to be lovers of all, healers of hearts, channels of peace, seekers of truth, and laborers for justice. Each of us here – we are imperfect people who’ve experienced God’s love and chosen to follow God’s way through Jesus. We’ve seen God’s love and work in our own lives and in our church, and we can’t wait to see what she will do next. As Pierre Teilhard de Chardin reminded us, “ … trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability — and that it may take a very long time.” In other words, be patient. Have hope. God is not done with us yet.

So, God is not done with you. God is not done with us. Lastly, here is an important, wonderful, confusing reason why God still speaks today. God is not even done with God yet. God has more good news for God’s self.

Some of our Christian ancestors handed us an untenable orthodoxy. They taught us that God is omniscient, omnipresent,  and omnipotent. In other words, God is all-knowing and all-powerful, everywhere, at all times. When we use words like almighty and omnipotent, we almost always connect that with controlling everything. We start confusing God’s power with the power of force rather than the power of love. At best, we experience god like an over-functioning parent who never leaves a child alone, but constantly hovers, over-protects, guides, and counsels. The intimacy of this omnipresent god is stifling, as this god plans every detail of our lives without our input. That’s the best scenario.

At worst, the all powerful, all knowing, every-present god we’ve been taught to fear is silent to tears of injustice and the venom of violence that poisons our world.  If god is all-powerful, then god sees injustice and chooses to ignore it. How could there be suffering if god really does care about us and has the power to make it better?  When I see someone I love suffering I want to make it better and will do what is in my power to help.  Why doesn’t god? I think the all-powerful god failed us. It’s time for us to abandon the adolescent belief that god gives good to the good and sends the plague upon the wicked.  An omnipotent deity is not capable of genuine relationships or love.  Loving relationships require mutual openness, shared vulnerability, and shared risk.  The god of unlimited power always asks us to yield our selves, but doesn’t seem to give much in return for our unwavering obedience.

The God I worship is a God of relationship –a God who shares power with us instead of using power to punish us. My God is present in all things, but God’s presence leaves room for growth, creativity, freedom.  In my experience God is that creative and transforming power in my life, ever new, ever leading me to put my faith and trust in the beckoning future.  And if our relationship is truly mutual, then God grows as I grow, as you grow, as we all grow into a more compassionate, peace-building humanity.

As people of the still-speaking God, we affirm the ways that God still moves through our world, even through us—opening new possibilities, bringing healing to places of violence and despair. With God we can transform the dominating culture of death into a life-sustaining community of grace and peace. God still leads us to places where hope, faith, forgiveness and justice have been abandoned.

In other words, God is not done with you yet. God is not done with us yet. God is not even done with God yet. We are, together as God and humanity, still listening, still growing, still changing, still speaking.



Sources:

• http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/deeper-walk/features/29394-does-god-really-talk-to-people#v7lTAfkQZwrlCqIB.99
• http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/29/my-take-if-you-hear-god-speak-audibly-you-usually-arent-crazy/
• http://liberatingchristianity.blogspot.com/2010/11/continuing-testament.html
• PROCESS THEOLOGY AND LIVED OMNIPRESENCE: AN ESSAY IN PRACTICAL THEOLOGY by Bruce G. Epperly http://www.ctr4process.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/29_2%20Epperly.pdf
•  http://www.kuc.org/sermons/god-is-still-speaking-we-just-need-to-learn-gods-punctuation/
•  http://uubinghamton.org/2012/01/power-and-process-theology-2/

Sermon for July 10, 2016

Anti-Opression Values

“Today, we are the most frightening people on this planet.”

Those are the words of Arthur Schlesinger, the American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. He spoke them in 1968. Hundreds of urban riots had wracked the country, the war in Vietnam was grinding up lives. The country has witnessed the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Medgar Evers and Malcolm X. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy had just been murdered within two months of one another

Many people wondered about America and its character, about what kind of country – and people – we were. As New York Mayor John Lindsay said at the time, “This is a drifting, angry America that needs to find its way again.” His words, like Schlesinger’s, feel regrettably relevant to this era, almost 50 years down the line.

Columnist Leonard Pitts writes,

“There is a sickness afoot in our country, a disintegration of the soul, rottenness in the spirit. Consider our politics. Consider the way we talk about one another – and to one another. Consider those two dead black men. Consider those five massacred cops. Deny it if you can. I sure can’t. Something is wrong with us. And I don’t mind telling you that I fear for my country.”

I can’t say I disagree.

Maybe what I’m feeling isn’t fear. Maybe it’s more like despair – the feeling that hope has been divided and scattered into a million fragments.

I’m a pastor. I tend to see people and situations through a pastoral lens. Pastors teach and counsel. We plant and nurture. We mend the rifts and wipe the tears. We are the kind of people who see good in others. We listen, and we desire to see the people in our care grow and flourish. We are people who keep hope alive. Sometimes, that outlook can be skewed. It’s not a bad way to see the world. But it’s also not complete. I’m learning to balance my pastoral perspective with another perspective.
Sometimes I put on my oppression glasses and imagine the stories of both victims and oppressors. I try to understand people who are locked in patterns of being silencers, or racists, or abusers -- and those who are silenced and abused. I try to think about those who have internalized a sense of inferiority and those who have internalized a sense of racial superiority. How did they get there? With whom do I resonate and by whom am I repelled?  If it’s true that the Gospel of Christ brings liberation for all people, both the oppressed and the oppressor need consistent, strong and graceful work to find freedom. My faith surges, freeing me to see my connection to each and every story, each person, each quiet call for help or hope of healing.

So, I try to wear my pastoral lens and my anti-oppression lens together. When I do that, I can be even more effective in helping groups humanize, care for, and commit to learn from one another. These lenses help us to see Christ in each other and call us to be Christ for the other. I wonder what your lenses are? How do you see the world? What would happen if you pair your worldview with an anti-oppression outlook on life?

Of course, it’s not enough just to see the world anew. As part of my commitment to Christ, I commit to living anti-oppressive values in the communities I am a part of. It takes not just new lenses, but new patterns; a new set of ongoing, habitual reactions when I see oppression. You see, I know myself. I know when I’m faced with the news of the murder of Black men by police, and the murder of police by a sniper, I want to shut out the violence. When faced with the killing of 49 gay men in a bar in Orlando, or the gunman and hostage situation in Bangladesh, or the death of 200 innocent people in Iraq by a suicide bomber, or the bombs going off in the airport in Istanbul, I want to give in to the despair. That’s fear at work.

Fear does not get to define my values. If my behavior is not in line with my values, I need to do something different. I think giving in to fear can be a luxury – an indulgence – a privilege.
Living anti-oppression values means when we witness, experience, or commit an abuse of power or oppression, we address it as proactively, either one-on-one or with a few allies, keeping in mind that the goal is to encourage positive change.

Living anti-oppression values means challenge oppressive behaviors, not the people themselves.
Living anti-oppression values means when someone offers us criticism, we treat it as a gift rather than an attack. Give people the benefit of the doubt.

Living anti-oppression values means understanding that we will feel discomfort as we face our part in oppression. Be brave. It is a necessary part of the process. Being part of the problem doesn’t mean you can’t be an active part of the solution.

Living anti-oppression values means contributing time and energy to building healthy relationships, both personal and political, both one-on-one and in the community.

Living anti-oppression values means challenging ourselves to be courageously honest and open, willing to take risks and make ourselves vulnerable in order to address racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and other repressive dynamics head-on.

I want to close by saying two more things. First, racism is processed in the brain as trauma. Race-based trauma literally leaves bruised spots on the brain.  So, when people of color are exposed to repetitive acts of racism a kind of post traumatic stress syndrome can develop. Race-based trauma can come in several forms: Witnessing ethno-violence or discrimination of another person, historical or personal memory of racism, institutional racism, micro aggressions, and the constant threat of racial discrimination.

Like and traumatic event, racism can be marked by an acute state of fear, anxiety, and hopelessness. If the trauma is not addressed, or is not diffused within a reasonable time frame, it can develop into post traumatic stress disorder. To our African American members and friends, please take good self-care during this time. Make sure to connect with people who are empathetic and supportive and process your feelings with them. And if you find yourself unable to cope, let’s find a trauma-competent therapist or group to help you out.

In times of trauma, we all can hold space for one another. Holding space means we are willing to walk alongside another person in whatever journey they’re on without judging them, making them feel inadequate, trying to fix them, or trying to impact the outcome. When we hold space for people, we open our hearts, we offer unconditional support, and we let go of judgment and control.

Give people permission to trust their own intuition and wisdom.
Don’t take their power away.
And keep your own ego out of it.

When people feel that they are held in a deeper way than they are used to, they can feel safe enough to allow complex emotions to surface that might normally remain hidden. Holding space means you allow others to make different decisions and to have different experiences than you would. Holding space is about respecting each person’s differences and recognizing that those differences may lead to them making choices that we would not make.

In all of this, I remember the words of the Apostle Paul: 

“We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies. So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you” (2 Corinthians 4:8-12 NLT).   All is not lost. All is not hopeless. With resilience, hard word, hand-in-hand, and heart-to-heart, the sickness around us can be made whole.

Sources:
http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODN/BellinghamHerald/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=BHD%2F2016%2F07%2F09&entity=Ar00601&sk=B5325881
http://beautifultrouble.org/theory/anti-oppression/
http://justjasmineblog.com/self-care-for-people-of-color-after-emotional-and-psychological-trauma/
http://upliftconnect.com/hold-space/