Sermon for October 25, 2015

In Plenty, Do Not Forget

“Keep and live out the entire commandment that I’m commanding you today so that you’ll live and prosper and enter and own the land that God promised to your ancestors. Remember every road that God led you on for those forty years in the wilderness, pushing you to your limits, testing you so that God would know what you were made of, whether you would keep the commandments or not. God put you through hard times. God made you go hungry. Then God fed you … so you would learn that men and women don’t live by bread alone; we live by every word that comes from God’s mouth … It’s paramount that you keep the commandments of God, your God. God is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys. It’s a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. It’s a land where you’ll never go hungry … It’s a land where you’ll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills. After a meal, satisfied, bless God, your God, for the good land God has given you. Make sure you don’t forget God, your God … Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don’t become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God”

Deuteronomy 8, selected verses

I have to admit a guilty pleasure: I love junk mail. And I love those live demos at the home show where they sell overpriced vegetable peelers and miracle window cleaning fluid. And I love NPR fundraising. Actually it’s worse than that. I love the infomercials that air during the late night hours when sleepless television watchers are most vulnerable to being talked into buying questionable goods from the friendly-looking hucksters. I want to be as excited as the customers on the infomercial who are about to find out all the versatile uses for the No!No! Home Hair Removal System instead of sleeping peacefully (Or Magic Bullet. Or Shake Weight. Or Pajama Jeans). The hosts of infomercials are hilarious … and terrifying … due to their Silly Putty grins and their desperation to unleash the shoddiest products in the universe upon the compromised late-night consumers of the world.

A read a story of a Seattle mom who has spent thousands of dollars buying more than 50 infomercial products in the last year alone. Her stash includes the Ninja Blender, the George Foreman Grill, and the Snuggie. Her infomercial infatuation began while working the overnight shift as a home care aide. Watching infomercials helped her stay awake. They promised a better and easier life. Trapped in a tough job, she was hungry to buy in to that dream, always wondering if the product could match its promise.

There is actually a term for people who cannot stop buying stuff. It’s called Compulsive Buying Disorder (CBD and it affects 15-30 million people in the United States.  Like any addictive behavior, it can be so easy for us to pursue and accumulate more of what we don't really want. Whether it’s infomercials, alcohol, drugs, sex, food, prestige, career achievement, power, wealth – whatever – as long as we are never satisfied, we will continue to seek more, while our real needs are never fully met.

I think addiction, in one form or another, characterizes every aspect of our society. And, I think consumerism is a bit of an addiction. The desire to accumulate and use reflects a culture that does not always support deeper forms of meaning and purpose in our lives. We fill our empty, lonely, vulnerable places by consuming more. Consuming puts a buffer between us and the awareness of our emotions. Consuming numbs us so that we are out of touch with what we feel. The evidence is overwhelming that people who are characterized by materialistic attitudes and values actually experience lower well-being, lower happiness, more depression, more anxiety, and more anger than people who aren't materialistic.

By the way, our country’s market economy backs up our tendency to numb life through consumption. Market Ideology is dead set against the practice of transformation. Market Ideology insists on stinginess towards others (no free lunch); self-centeredness (you are entitled); vengeance against those who disrupt our privilege; anxiety over scarcity; and the compulsion to hoard resources. Market ideology can cause us to treat other people as competitors, or threats, or rivals.

From the spiritual side, there is one glaring issue with consumerism: where abundance prevails, when faced with the intoxicating allure of economic prosperity, we may forget God. It’s hard to be grateful when we are tempted to create classes of haves and have-nots through building warehouses of abundance at the expense of those who suffer.

Consider the warnings in our reading from Deuteronomy. Centuries after the death of Moses, let’s say somewhere between 800 to 500 BC, a group of wise teachers see that the people of Israel have not been distinctive in their faithfulness.  The people of Israel face conquest and demise by foreign armies. The political system is corrupt. The rich get wealthy at the expense of the poor. Resources have been plundered. The people are about to be banished from the Promised Land. The wise teachers begin to write a sweeping history of Israel. They indict the current political and social order by pointing to Moses and using his story as a way to comment on current crises. Their history book calls a fractured nation to remember their past, to remember the promises of God, and to remember the promises Israel made.

The teachers want people to remember what it was like for their ancestors who stood on the brink of the Promised Land. It was a land rich with resources. There was plenty of food for everyone. No one was be hungry. Everyone had a roof over their families’ heads. Everyone was satisfied. It was a time to give thanks. In today’s story from Deuteronomy, Moses says, “After a meal, satisfied, bless God, your God, for the good land God has given you.” In a place of plenty, do not forget.

If you say a table blessing at your home, when do you do it? In our home, we say grace before the meal. Here, Moses says to give thanks after eating. Why? Because it is often easier to turn to God when we are hungry rather than after finishing an abundant meal. In many ways, we have a much greater need for a reminder about God after eating than before the meal.  In a place of plenty, do not forget.

The ancient Sages knew that life in covenant with God alters one’s heart, mind, and spirit. Let’s call it Covenantal Economics. Covenantal Economics wants us to think in terms of a neighborhood, in terms of being in solidarity with other people, sharing our resources, and living for more than just ourselves. It’s a system that contradicts the Market Ideology, which encourage self-protection and self-sufficiency at the loss of the common good.  One of the most dangerous times for us to ignore our covenants is when we live in times of plenty. Do you know what makes it worse? When we live in times of plenty and privilege and feel like we are the have-nots; when we have so much, but feel upset because we don’t have so much more; when we see what others have and fail to be grateful because we envy them. In a place of plenty, do not forget.

Covenantal Economics provides a vantage point for critiquing every system of this world that falls short of what God intends. God stands in judgment of human impoverishment, excessive accumulation and consumerism driven by greed, and gross economic exploitation. When we keep resources to ourselves, when we hoard, when we take at the expense of another’s survival, we keep from God. And what we give to the least of those among us, we give to God.

I get restless when I see us offer less than what God intends for the world.  As people of faith, we realize that what human beings want is not necessarily what they need for the sake of life.

Covenant Economics acknowledges that what is in our interest must be placed in the context of what is good for our neighbor.

Covenant Economics recognizes that consumerism can destroy relationships and work against the mutual support God desires among people.

Covenant Economics affirms that God promises a world where there is enough for everyone, if only we would learn how to use and share what God has given for the sake of all.

Covenant Economics is based on the idea that in plenty, we do not forget. We provide counsel, food, clothing, shelter, and money for people in need. We respect human dignity. We advocate for public and private policies that address the causes of poverty. And we support organizations that help low-income people to obtain more sufficient, sustainable livelihoods.

Self absorption can really get in the way of gratitude. When we fill our emptiness and loneliness by consuming more, we can become preoccupied with meeting our personal needs. When people feel grateful, they begin to focus at least some of their attention on the needs of other people.

I think about this when it comes to our life together at CCC. As some of you know, we are in a period of financial concern. Our income is down. We have run deficit budgets for years, and it’s caught up to us. Our Trustees have asked Boards to cut their spending, which also affects our mission giving to the UCC. I am glad the Trustees take our budget seriously, and I really appreciate their prayerful work. They are being good Trustees.  And I want to remind us, we are also a rich church. I was at the Potomac Association Fall meeting yesterday and I saw the annual budgets and giving levels of all of the UCC churches in the D.C. Metro area. Let me just say, 4/5 of those churches would love to have our budget. There are faithful congregations doing God’s work with a lot, lot less than what we have. CCC has a robust budget, sound investments, a great building, generous givers, dedicated volunteers, a loving community, and a committed staff of ministers and professionals. Thank God! Praise God! In a place of plenty, do not forget!

We have so much to be grateful for. Gratitude is a response to joy. We have a God who loves us enough to send us a Savior. We are nurtured by God and given a place in God’s family. We give thanks because no purchase from an infomercial will ever be as good as what God has already given.

If you don’t know how to be grateful, here are a few ideas: Give thanks for your parents – for giving birth to you, because if there is no them, there would not be you. Give thanks for your family, your friends, and your companions in this life. Give thanks when you are able to see the colors of life, for each time you can hear the trickle of rain, for the voices of your loved ones, for the harmonious chords of music. Give thanks each time you can feel the texture of your clothes, the breeze of the wind, and the hands of your loved ones. Give thanks when you smell scented candles and beautiful flowers in your garden. Give thanks when you can savor the sweetness of fruits, the saltiness of seawater, the bitterness of a lemon, or the spiciness of chili. Give thanks for your heart that pumps blood to all the parts of your body every second since you were born. Give thanks for the ability to think, to store memories, and to create new solutions. Give thanks for the teachers in your life who passed down knowledge and wisdom to you. Give thanks for the tears that help express your deepest emotions. Give thanks for the disappointment that help you know the things that matter to you most. Give thanks for your fears that expose opportunities for growth. Give thanks for certain pains that help you become stronger. Give thanks for sadness that helps you appreciate the spectrum of human emotions. Give thanks for happiness when you can soak in the beauty of life. Give thanks for the sunrise. Give thanks for rain that waters and nurtures the earth. Give thanks for pets who love us unconditionally. Give thanks for the Internet – for connecting you and others despite the physical space between you. Give thanks for D.C. traffic, because you still have an easy commute compared to others in our world. Give thanks for mobile phones, and computers, and blogs, and iTunes.  Give thanks for your home, and your bed, and your soul mate who understands everything you are going through right now. Give thanks for your best friends for being there whenever you need them, and your enemies for helping you uncover your growing edges so you can become a better person. Give thanks for your mistakes, and your heartbreaks, for your laughter and for love, for life’s challenges, and for life itself – for giving you the chance to experience all that you’re experiencing, and will be experiencing in times to come.

And last but not least don’t forget to give thanks for the most important thing.

Give thanks for … you.

Give thanks because God loves you with an everlasting love and promises to never leave you and never forsake you.

Give thanks because absolutely nothing, not even death itself, can keep you from the love of God.

Give thanks.

In a place of plenty, do not forget.

Sources:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/infomercial-junkie-hookedare/story?id=13597996
http://www.brightreviews.com/article/are-you-an-infomercial-addict-how-to-identify-and-fight-compulsive-buying#sthash.gq61WlRw.dpuf
http://www.alternet.org/story/82013/are_you_unhappy_is_it_because_of_consumer_addiction
The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, Volume 1, by Walter Brueggemann, p. 322.
Deuteronomy by Deanna Thompson.
http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2015/01/09/walter-brueggemann-church-gospel-bible/35739
http://www.theglobalday.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Gratitude1.pdf
http://alcoholrehab.com/addiction-recovery/the-importance-of-gratitude-in-recovery/
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/60-things-to-be-grateful-for-in-life/

Sermon for October 11, 2015

Let’s Review

I am God, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a house of slaves.

No other gods, only me.

No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. Don’t bow down to them and don’t serve them because I am God, your God, and I’m a most jealous God. I hold parents responsible for any sins they pass on to their children to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation. But I’m lovingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments.

No using the name of God, your God, in curses or silly banter; God won’t put up with the irreverent use of his name.

No working on the Sabbath; keep it holy just as God, your God, commanded you. Work six days, doing everything you have to do, but the seventh day is a Sabbath, a Rest Day—no work: not you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, your ox, your donkey (or any of your animals), and not even the foreigner visiting your town. That way your servants and maids will get the same rest as you. Don’t ever forget that you were slaves in Egypt and God, your God, got you out of there in a powerful show of strength. That’s why God, your God, commands you to observe the day of Sabbath rest.

Respect your father and mother—God, your God, commands it! You’ll have a long life; the land that God is giving you will treat you well.

No murder.

No adultery.

No stealing.

No lies about your neighbor.

No coveting your neighbor’s wife. And no lusting for his house, field, servant, maid, ox, or donkey either—nothing that belongs to your neighbor! ~ Deuteronomy 5:6-21

Judge Roy Moore is often known as the “10 Commandments Judge.” He’s become known as a devout Christian who relies on biblical scripture in his rulings. Judge Moore began his judicial career as an Alabama circuit court judge in the 1990s. He placed a hand-carved tablet of the 10 Commandments behind his courtroom bench and began jury selection with prayer. Soon enough, the American Civil Liberties Union sued Moore for violating the Constitution’s Establishment Clause. In 1996, an Alabama circuit judge ruled that prayer in the courtroom was unconstitutional and later ordered that the 10 Commandments display either be removed or placed alongside secular documents like the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Moore responded, saying: “I will not surround the 10 Commandments with other items to secularize them. That’s putting man above God.” Moore eventually won out. In 1998, the Alabama Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuits, and the commandments stayed. Judge Moore’s popularity, thanks to his defiance, skyrocketed. Two years later, he was elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

Moore resurrected the debate when he commissioned a 5,200-lb. granite 10 Commandments monument and placed it inside the Alabama State Judicial Building. By August 2003, a federal judge ordered the monument removed. Again, Moore refused, forcing his fellow justices to remove it instead and sparking thousands of protesters to rally in support of Moore outside the state judicial building. But they weren’t able to save his job. Later that year, a state judicial panel removed Moore from his post as chief justice. In 2012, Moore won election back to the office of Alabama Chief Justice.

In the latest round of debate over the 10 Commandments, just last week, a granite monument of the 10 Commandments installed on the Oklahoma Capitol grounds was removed and transported to a private conservative think tank for storage. The Oklahoma Supreme ruled that the display violates a state constitutional prohibition on the use of public property to support, "any sect, church, denomination or system of religion." In other cases, the City of Bloomfield, NM has been ordered to remove a 10 Commandments statue in front of City Hall. Meanwhile, a circuit court agreed that a 10 Commandments monument on the Civic Plaza in Fargo, ND could remain.

Some would think that 10 Commandments would not create such a storm. Telling people not to kill and steal seems like a moral code that almost all civilized people can embrace. To some, the 10 Commandments seem to be as much a part of America as baseball and apple pie. Disputes over the 10 Commandments are nothing new. Today, the challenges to posting them government facilities and public schools focus on the church-state issue. However, our Christian and Jewish family trees had their own challenges with the 10 Commandments over many hundreds of years. In the ancient Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the 10 Commandments were always proclaimed in worship. However, outside the Temple, the recitation was banned. Some ancient Rabbis taught that too much emphasis on just 10 statements might lead people to believe that these were the only commandments, or the most important commandments of the 613 commandments that were given to Moses. Christians debate their use in worship, too. The Protestant Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin both insisted on the public reading of the 10 Commandments. They thought that keeping God’s commandments showed gratitude for our salvation. Other Christians claim there’s no need for the commandments anymore, because if we are in Christ we have a new law to follow.

Let’s think about the 10 Commandments as Ancient Israel’s mission statement. God and Moses both knew that the people of Israel needed a document pointed them toward their destiny. It had to be a statement broad enough to encompass a variety of interpretations, yet compelling enough to be shared by everyone. The 10 Commandments formed the Israelite people into a unified nation with a shared purpose.

I’ve been reminding us, as we work our way through the book of Deuteronomy, that it wasn’t actually written by Moses. Let’s say somewhere between 800 to 500 BC,  many centuries after the death of Moses, a group of wise teachers face a fractured political system in which the rich get wealthy at the expense of the poor, worship of God has been forgotten, and Israel is about to be evicted from the Promised Land.  The wise teachers begin to write a sweeping history of Israel, calling on a fractured nation to remember their history, to remember the promises of God, and to remember what God has done for them. The writers are saying, “Like Israel of old, disobedience to God will bring calamity. The only way to find renewal is through the commandment.” In other words, they remind the people of their mission, their covenant, their reason for existence.

Having a shared purpose defines community. In today’s reading, Moses reminds generations of Israelites, bonded together over centuries, of their shared mission: to learn and to do God’s will. As they stand on the brink of the Promised Land, they need to be review of their shared purpose so that they become one nation.

In Hebrew, the 10 commandments are not actually called commandments at all. They are called the 10 Sayings, the 10 Statements, the 10 Words, even the 10 Things, but not the 10 Commandments. I like that. What if we thought of the 10 commandments more as 10 sayings? Instead of trying to get us to walk in line to receive God’s favor, what if the Sayings are really teaching people how to live in covenantal relationship with God and community? What if, instead of prohibitions, these 10 Words convey positive aspirations about how to respect one another deeply? What if instead of laws of the court, they become laws of the heart, intended to lead to fullness of life and freedom within the bounds of faithfulness to a liberating God?

I agree with Luther and Calvin on this point: simply obeying commandments will not save you or make God love you more. God already loves you. But what impoverished people we would be if we never took the opportunities to behave in ways which are intended to please our beloved. The enjoyment of our relationships would be tragically weakened if we had no idea how to express your love in return. And for that, these 10 Words are a precious and positive gift. Israel sustains one side of the covenant by loving God and by not putting any other value in place of God.

It takes a lot of trust, doesn’t it? The fundamental condition that Israel had to meet in order to enjoy God's blessing was trust in God’s best intentions for the people. The only way to receive forgiveness is by trusting the forgiver. And the only way to benefit from the promises is to trust the promiser.

The act of placing trust in someone or something else is a basic human experience. Without trust, fear rules. Every day we make choices about whom and how much to trust, and sometimes we are more willing to trust than at other times. That’s a good thing; a total lack of mistrust would indicate a serious psychological problem. Judgments about when and whom to trust help keep us safe and alive!

During the 1930s, 250 men were holding the ropes to a dirigible (an airship similar to a blimp) to keep it from floating away. Suddenly a gust of wind caught one end of the dirigible, lifting it high off the ground. Some of the men immediately let go of their ropes and fell safely to the ground. Others panicked, clinging firmly to the end of their ropes as the nose of the dirigible rose to greater heights. Several men who couldn’t keep holding on fell and were seriously injured. One man, however, continued to dangle high in the air for forty-five minutes until he was rescued. Reporters later asked him how he was able to hold on to the rope for so long.  “I didn’t hold on to the rope,” he replied. “I just tied it around my waist, and the rope held on to me.”

Some people think that commandments tie them down or put them in a bind. But, what if the ropes of God’s Words are there to hold on to us when life is tough, and dangerous, and scary? Trust means seeing, and hearing, and feeling sure signs of God’s presence during life’s pain.

What would it means for Christ Congregational Church to cultivate a place of trust in a perilous world?

What would it mean for us to encourage a place of faith where we are reminded that God can be trusted?

What would it mean for us to foster a place of refuge where we feel safe with each other?

What would it mean for us to support an open place where we freely explore our values and honor our diversity as a source of communal strength?

What would it mean for us to sustain a forbearing place where we recognize that all people are free to make choices regarding their own personal and spiritual journeys?

What would it mean for us to nurture a responsible place where we hold one another accountable for our individual acts while we promote justice, inclusion and peace as a community?

What would it mean for us to provide an honest place where we deal with disagreements constructively, and communicate with others in direct, caring, supportive, and responsible ways?

What would it mean for us to continue on as an inspiring place where the quality of our worship and the deepness of our caring renew our trust?

At CCC, we’ve been talking about reconciliation over the past few months.  Our Congregational Support Team reminded us that there are times when we all fail one another, often unintentionally. We all have shortcomings and failures, and nowhere is that more apparent than when we disappoint each other in our church home. Each and every one of us is called to repentance and forgiveness – to support each other with open minds and loving hearts.

Churches use the reconciliation a lot. I don’t think you can have reconciliation without two ingredients: covenant and trust. First, the community has to establish some new norms. Like Moses and the people of Israel on the brink of the promise, we review the covenant expectations that brought it together in the first place. After times of conflict, sometimes we move to quickly to the forgive-and-make-up phase, but we skip a step. As a conflict ends, we need structures in place that can help those who feel wounded to deal with the new realities of living together. We rehearse and review our covenant all the time. It helps remind us of the values and visions that nurture our community and form our identity.

We also learn to trust those structures. Good structures are like the rope on that blimp – they hold us safely when we need help. We need to live with our structures for a while, we talk about how they are working for us, and we make sure they are not oppressive or manipulative. We learn to trust the good intentions of others. We remember that most people want peace and forgiveness. We trust that life together in God can give us a sense of newness, a strengthened mission, and the assurance that we can heal together.

In this spirit, we are trying something new here at CCC.  All church-sponsored events that happen off site will have an opportunity to rehearse our covenant together. At each event, like Beach Weekend, or the Homecoming Day at the Retreat House, we are carving out intentional time to review who we are and who God calls us to be. We remind ourselves that we are all valuable, worthy, loveable people. We remind ourselves that our love and care for one another is made known in how we treat each other. We remind ourselves that we are committed to following community rules in order to make a safe, nurturing space for people of all races, colors, ages, abilities, sexual orientations and gender identities. We review the values and visions that nurture the community and give it identity. And we commit to holding each other accountable. It’s OK to let people know when we are not meeting the expectations we agreed to. It’s OK to have conversations about how we can propel each other to behave better. It’s hard, but it’s OK.

I believe this is our time. It is time for us at CCC to reclaim our place as the church known for its compassionate, prayerful response to the world around us. It’s time to move forward with trust and faithfulness, humility and hope, engaging in the urgent tasks of support and transformation, both within our own lives and in the life of our congregation. It’s time to review the covenant the brought us together and, again, be pointed towards our destiny.

Sources:
•    http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/10/10_commandments_monument_remo.html
•    http://time.com/3701176/roy-moore-alabama-same-sex-marriage-supreme-court/
•    http://www.beth-elsa.org/Worship/Sermons/Rabbi_Stahl_Sermons/Shabbat_Sermons/Controversies_About_the_10_Commandments_02_01_02
•    http://www.reformjudaism.org/10-commandments-israel%E2%80%99s-shared-purpose#sthash.WpGriQ70.dpuf
•    http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/termination-resolution-phase
•    http://www.jewfaq.org/10.htm
•    http://www.goodtherapy.org/therapy-for-trust-issues.html
•    http://bjconline.org/8th-circuit-approves-10-commandments-monument-in-fargo-nd-082814/
•    http://www.dispatch.com/con10t/stories/faith_and_values/2014/08/29/ruling-on-town-display-put-on-hold.html

Sermon for September 27, 2015

The God of Exodus and Exile

“And now, Israel, listen carefully to these decrees and regulations that I am about to teach you. Obey them so that you may live, so you may enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. Do not add to or subtract from these commands I am giving you. Just obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you. You saw for yourself what the Lord did to you at Baal-peor. There the Lord your God destroyed everyone who had worshiped Baal, the god of Peor. But all of you who were faithful to the Lord your God are still alive today—every one of you.

“Look, I now teach you these decrees and regulations just as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may obey them in the land you are about to enter and occupy. Obey them completely, and you will display your wisdom and intelligence among the surrounding nations. When they hear all these decrees, they will exclaim, ‘How wise and prudent are the people of this great nation!’ For what great nation has a god as near to them as the Lord our God is near to us whenever we call on him? And what great nation has decrees and regulations as righteous and fair as this body of instructions that I am giving you today?

“But watch out! Be careful never to forget what you yourself have seen. Do not let these memories escape from your mind as long as you live! And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren. Never forget the day when you stood before the Lord your God at Mount Sinai, where he told me, ‘Summon the people before me, and I will personally instruct them. Then they will learn to fear me as long as they live, and they will teach their children to fear me also.’ You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while flames from the mountain shot into the sky. The mountain was shrouded in black clouds and deep darkness. And the Lord spoke to you from the heart of the fire. You heard the sound of his words but didn’t see his form; there was only a voice. He proclaimed his covenant—the Ten Commandments—which he commanded you to keep, and which he wrote on two stone tablets. It was at that time that the Lord commanded me to teach you his decrees and regulations so you would obey them in the land you are about to enter and occupy.”
~ Deuteronomy 4:1-14 

On the walls of the Chambers of the U.S. Congress are 23 marble reliefs of famous lawgivers of history. Eleven profiles in the Eastern half of the chamber face to the left and eleven profiles in the western half of the chamber face to the right. They all look towards the full-face relief of the greatest lawgiver in history. When Pope Francis addressed Congress, he began by pointing to that central relief in the middle of the north wall – the image that all the others face – it’s the face of Moses. Pope Francis said, “The patriarch and lawgiver of the people of Israel symbolizes the need of peoples to keep alive their sense of unity by means of just legislation.” Moses reminds Congress to protect, by means of the law, the image and likeness fashioned by God on every human face.

People have been pointing to Moses as a symbol of loving justice for millennia. Much as Pope Francis invoked Moses as a reminder of Congress’ sworn duties to protect the common good, I think the book of Deuteronomy was written for the same purpose.  While tradition says that Moses wrote Deuteronomy, it does not make sense when you read through the book. Last week I offered another scenario. Many centuries after the death of Moses, the people of Israel face conquest and demise by foreign armies. Let’s say somewhere between 800 to 500 BC, a group of wise teachers see that the people if Israel have not been distinctive in their faithfulness.  The political system is corrupt. The rich get wealthy at the expense of the poor. Worship of God has been forgotten. Israel is about to be expelled from the Promised Land, which will ignite an enormous refugee and prisoner crises. The wise teachers begin to write a sweeping history of Israel. They indict the current political and social order by pointing to Moses and using his story as a way to comment on current crises. Their history book calls a fractured nation to remember their past, to remember the promises of God, and to remember the promises Israel made. The writers say, “Like Israel of old, disobedience to God will bring calamity. The only way to find restoration is through obedience to God.”

The word “obey” is mentioned five times in today’s reading alone. Obeying God is a constant buzzword throughout the book of Deuteronomy. The basic message of Deuteronomy could be summed up in one sentence: “Listen carefully and obey so that you may live.” Listen and Obey. Obey and listen. The same message reverberates throughout the New Testament, like when Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

Many of us get tense when we hear the word obedience. Maybe it’s because we tend to associate obedience with pressure, punishment, following rules, and even words like “shame” and “belittling.” In the American experience, obedience can mean a loss of liberty. Consider Thoreau, who said, ““Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” Obedience can go bad when people are asked to trust and obey without engaging the systematic thought and critical thinking skills. So, it makes sense many of us struggle with obeying God.

When the Bible talks about obedience, it has a different flavor. We tend to think about obedience as following a person in order to make the other happy, or to win the approval of another. We obey because compliance means safety. I obey the law because I don’t want to go to jail. An element of compliance and threat certainly exists in biblical law. But, I think biblical obedience says, “We obey God not to be loved. We obey because God loves us.” We obey God because we trust that following God’s prophetic call to compassionate justice makes love abound. Obedience is a way to claim that we belong to God and want God’s love to be known in the ways we relate to one another.

Obey literally means “to hear.” The English words “obey” and “obedience” come from two Latin words that mean “to hear thoroughly.” Notice how the word hear or listen is mentioned 3 times in today’s text. Those who heard the text proclaimed would not have missed the connection between the Hebrew words for obey and hear. They have the same root letters and sounds.

The words obey and hear or listen are actually related in a lot of languages. Lorrie Anderson, a New Testament translator in Peru, searched for months to find a word for “believe” in the Candoshi language. No direct equivalent existed for that all-important term in Bible translation. What she finally discovered was that the word “hear” in that language also can mean “believe” and also “obey.” Anderson writes, “The question, ‘Don’t you hear [God’s] Word?’ in Candoshi means ‘Don’t you believe/obey [God’s] Word?’ In their way of thinking, if you ‘hear,’ you believe what you hear, and if you believe, you obey.”

The connection between obeying and hearing God’s law goes back to the people of Israel standing at Mount Sinai. Moses reminds people of their experience in our reading for today: You heard the sound of God’s words but didn’t see God’s form; there was only a voice. God proclaimed the covenant — the Ten Commandments — which he commanded you to keep, and which were written on two stone tablets.

The original story comes from the book of Exodus. In that version of the story, the people of Israel signal their acceptance of the law with the words “na’aseh v’nishma” (נעשה ונשמה)–“We will do and we will hear/understand,” or “we will obey and we will listen.” The word order is important. They did not listen first and then act. Action came first, then listening. That’s why Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel described Judaism not so much as a leap of faith but as a “leap of action.” He was convinced that one should first obey all the commandments that are possible. The understanding and meaning come later.  As he put it, a person is asked to “do more than he [or she] understands in order to understand more than [she] or he does.”

Obey and listen carefully and you will live. If you were here in August and listened carefully to Bob Tiller preach, he talked about faithing – faith as a verb. He said faithing means trying to find God in the daily activities of life and to giving thanks for the love of God in our lives. Faithing means living each day by embracing the goodness and holiness of all creation. Faithing means pursuing peace, justice and love for all creation – and sensing God’s spirit joining us in that pursuit. Faithing means seeing God’s face and God’s presence in every person on the planet. In other words, if I may take liberties with his words, we act and we hear. We do and we believe. When we live out our most loving and generous understandings of the word of God, that’s when we truly hear it.

How will we obey and hear God in the world around us? Can we obey and hear God in the lives of our sisters and brothers across the globe in the global refugee crisis? Globally, one in every 122 humans is now either a refugee, internally displaced, or seeking asylum.  An estimated 60 million people across the globe are displaced from their homes because of war and persecution. Those who flee violence in their homelands become targets for robbery, boat smuggling, human trafficking, and mistreatment from border guards. The stories of refugees invite us to find God through obedience and listening. Our path to obedience, as individuals, faith communities, and nations is the path of welcome; receiving others with gladness and delight. In order to do so we must recognize the face of God in all people. As Pope Francis reminded Congress, “We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation.”

Can we obey and hear God in the voice of the earth? As we honor Climate in the Pulpit Sunday, I wonder what Earth would say if Earth could speak?  Would she would groan loudly in pain? Would make people ask for forgiveness?  If we listened, we might hear Earth say, “I give you food and drink and I keep you warm. Why burn me down? For what do you blow me up? I've been dreaming of rest for centuries." If we listened, we might hear Earth say, "Enough of feuding! Our fate has bound us together forever."

Can we obey and hear God in our relationships at CCC? I like the dream that Sister Joan Chittister offers us – a human community in which everyone exists to support the others. She calls it “mutual obedience.” She says:
Mutual obedience--
the willingness to listened
to the needs
and the hopes,
the dreams and the ideas
of those around us
rather than promote our own
by ignoring
everyone else's--
is surely the foundation …

It is what we need
to be able to think newly
because we think
with the others
about their ideas
rather than simply
about our own.

It is the way we come to learn
respect and reverence,
for the insights of others
are meant to become
the foundation
of the next step
on our own path …

“Obedience to one another”
is the strength of community,
the brilliance of community,
the voice of community
in the midst of which
we can now hear
the voice of God.

Can we do it? Can we learn to obey and listen carefully, so that we may live?

Sources:
http://www.aoc.gov/capitol-hill/relief-portrait-plaques-lawgivers/about-relief-portrait-plaques-lawgivers
http://time.com/4048176/pope-francis-us-visit-congress-transcript/
http://www.betham.org/sermon/naaseh-vnishma-we-will-do-and-we-will-heed
Likrat Shabbat Prayerbook by Jack Reimer.
http://ourrabbijesus.com/articles/the-wisdom-of-hebrew-words/
http://www.ekklesiaproject.org/blog/2012/09/hearing-and-obeying/#sthash.gnpPnwHU.dpuf
Music, Madness, and the Unworking of Language by John T Hamilton.
Deuteronomy by Deanna Thompson
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-dr-cari-jackson/syrian-refugee-crisis-our-chance-to-see-god-mark-930-37_b_8134156.html
“Oh, if the Earth could speak,” lyrics by Lyudmila Zykina
https://www.monasteriesoftheheart.org/blogs/mutual-obedience
http://www.cccsilverspring.org/sermons/sermon-for-august-23-2015

Sermon for September 20, 2015

The Summons
Deuteronomy 1:1-33

From where you are right now, if you could look back on the arc of your life and address your younger self, what advice would you give? I resonate with a blogger who says, “I would grab my younger self by the neck, and I'd say ‘listen to me carefully you fool:

1. Forget the fear of looking ridiculous when attempting something. Just do it! If it turns out well, you won. If not, nobody cares, just go on.
2. Some opportunities come only once in your life. Don't let them pass.
3. Failure is just one step closer to success. Just learn and do it better next time.
4. It's better to try and fail, than spending the rest of your life wondering, ‘What if...’
5.  The future never comes like you planned. Seize the day. Enjoy every minute.”

I would also add, “"When given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind."

A 70 year old man said he would offer his younger self the following advice:
Keep a diary, organize your life, don't get into debt, don't assume you will ever have time to do anything you can't do now, don't involve yourself with people who intend to use you, don't use other people, learn to trust those who accept your trust, value people for their true worth, learn to talk to your parents, learn to believe in yourself, learn to be tolerant of others, learn to think before you speak, learn to think before you answer, learn to appreciate the moment, learn to share your thoughts, and learn to respond according to the situation.

What strikes me is that none of this advice is innovative or unusual. We’ve heard it all before. When it comes to living a good life, these lists are time-honored counsel. 

Now imagine another scene about giving advice. Moses, the greatest prophet in all of Jewish history, stands on the brink of entering the Promised Land with the people of Israel.  Moses, who led his people out of slavery, Moses who stood up to Pharaoh and said, “Let my people go,” Moses who talks with God and gave Israel God’s law, Moses who has forged and guided  his community for 40 years in the desert,  readies the people to enter the land of Canaan.  Did you hear me say 40 years? A journey from Egypt to Canaan that was supposed to take 11 days, two weeks tops, has lasted 40 years. All of the years of struggle and promise are about to be fulfilled. And Moses, now a timeworn man, knows he will not go with them; he is destined to die in the desert.  So he speaks. The entire book of Deuteronomy is Moses’ farewell message. He’s going to remind them about why a two week journey took 40 years. He will tell the story of Pharaoh and the crossing of the Red Sea. He will repeat the 10 commandments and the important points of the law he received on Mount Sinai. Here, in the opening chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, THE central human character in all of Hebrew Scripture, speaks to the people about their past, present and future. Moses will leaving them with everything they need to become the people God wants them to be. Standing on the brink of the Promised Land, will Israel be faithful to the Lord and the Law? Will they live as a renewed humanity? The answer is up in the air – to be determined.

The word Deuteronomy actually means “Second Law.” Older Moses, knowing he will soon die, looks back on the arc of his life give some advice by remembering the past and imparting commandments. His words summons the people to faithful living. The summons comes with both kiss and commandment: that’s the pattern of how laws are given in the Bible. Remember the Ten Commandments? Before God thunders down the commandments from the mountain, God says, “I brought you out of Egypt. You were slaves, and I saved you.” Moses wants people to remember that kiss. Then comes the commandment, expectation that God’s people must be distinctive in their faithfulness.

I think one of the reasons the book of Deuteronomy was written was to help people hold kiss and commandment, grace and law together. Tradition says that Moses wrote Deuteronomy, but that tradition does not make sense when you read through the book. Imagine another scenario. Many centuries later, the people of Israel are looking at conquest and demise by foreign armies. They’ve been living in the Promised Land and have not been distinctive in their faithfulness to God. We estimate Moses lived around 1450 B.C. Let’s say somewhere between 800 to 500 BC, a group of wise teachers face a fractured political system in which the rich get wealthy at the expense of the poor, worship of God has been forgotten, and Israel is about to be evicted from the Promised Land.  The wise teachers begin to write a sweeping history of Israel, beginning with Moses in a book called Devarim, or “Words” – it’s called Deuteronomy in our Bibles. Their stories call on a fractured nation to remember their history, to remember the promises of God, to remember the promises Israel made, and to remember what God has done for them. That’s the kiss. And then these writers indict the current system by taking Moses, a hero from the past, and using his story as a way to comment on current crises. The writers are saying, “Like Israel of old, disobedience to God will bring calamity. The only way to find restoration is through the commandment.”

Kiss and commandment. Grace and obedience. Good religious people like us usually want one without the other. Some would say the kiss is enough, and nothing else is necessary. After all, the heart of the good news is that God cherishes us, particularly in our own divided and dangerous world. So why not bask in God’s eternal mercy and do whatever we want?

I’ll never forget that fateful day, as a fifth-grader, when I closed my bedroom door and blurted out a few cuss words. I thought I’d try it out, see how it sounded coming from my mouth. I got away with that awful crime, and felt good that I got away with it. In fact, I felt so free that when my father told me to clean my room a few days later, a few of those words rolled right off my tongue. I was exiled to spend the rest of that evening in that very same messy room. Never a quick learner, I tried out my newfound freedom again at Scout Camp. I remember trying to console my bunk mate who had been yelled at by the scoutmaster. I said ,”Yeah, the scoutmaster is such a ________” (fill in your favorite expletive). As I spoke, I saw a shadow looming over me. There stood my scoutmaster who heard every word I said. I took me a few embarrassing moments like that to realize that freedom comes with some tremendous consequences.

On the other hand, you probably know someone who keeps all the commandments and ignores the kiss. “All that gushy grace?” they say. “It’s a distraction from our duty.” For some people, duty is what life is all about: do the right thing, live the right way, walk and talk in truth. Living within those boundaries can be a great comfort. I can understand that. I don’t like it, but I can understand it. Legalism is the most comforting religion of all. It makes life certain and clear.

In Judaism, there is a well-known teaching about commandments and freedom. It is written: “Greater is the one who is commanded and does it, than one who is not commanded and still does it.” In other words, "It is better to do something under command than by choice." This seems counter intuitive. We might think it is better to do good willingly and voluntarily, out of the pure intentions of our hearts. Jewish sages talked about the yoke of the commandment. Like a beast of burden, we need to feel the weight of the commandments on our shoulders, and carry them because God has expectations of us.

You would think that personal initiative to do good would be most honorable. What’s going on here? The sages said that humans have an inclination we can’t shake. We have a desire to resist external demands. We want to act independently – nobody is going to tell us what to do. The challenge is that we decide to do good – to help another, serve another, and forge just communities – but our decision may be wrapped up in a personal agenda. Our desire to do good may have some ego-centric motivation. For the Sages, it was better to act out of obedience. That way, we can set aside own personal agenda and own self-interests and do good with the pure intent of serving God.

This all causes me wonder.
I wonder if we have lost some of the pure intent of serving God.
I wonder if we get distracted by our own sense of goodness.
I wonder if we are living in divisive times, standing on the brink of a promised future, needing voice of wisdom to remind us of who we are and what we are called to do.
I wonder if it is time for us to review and remember our covenants and hear God’s summons to obedience.

• The summons to seek a deeper relationship with God through prayer, study and service;
• The summons to honor our cherished traditions as life-giving witnesses to us and to future generations;
• The summons to encourage hospitality, extending a generous welcome to all our members, friends, and visitors;
• The summons to grow a church family that embraces diversity within a safe, positive, and nurturing environment;
• The summons to move beyond simple tolerance toward genuine understanding – to listen attentively, to seek others’ opinions, and to understand that differing values do exist within our church family;
• The summons to deal with disagreements constructively, communicating with others in a direct, caring, and responsible manner;
• The summons to recognize that children and youth are a vital part of our church family and to welcome them into all aspects of church life;
• The summons to extend God’s love, through service and outreach, to those in the community and the world, as best as we are able.

In other words, a summons to be a distinctive people, a faith community that provides a healing, transforming alternative to what we see in the world around us.

Sources:
Deuteronomy by Deanna Thompson (WJKP, 2014)
http://www.reformjudaism.org/commanded-ness
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/eichah-where-are-we-now/
http://www.divreinavon.com/pdf/YishuvHaAretz_GadolHaMetzeveh.pdf
https://www.quora.com/What-would-you-like-to-do-in-your-life-1

Sermon for July 19, 2015

Recognition and Response

The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught. Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat. So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. But many people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things …

After they had crossed the lake, they landed at Gennesaret. They brought the boat to shore and climbed out. The people recognized Jesus at once, and they ran throughout the whole area, carrying sick people on mats to wherever they heard he was. Wherever he went—in villages, cities, or the countryside—they brought the sick out to the marketplaces. They begged him to let the sick touch at least the fringe of his robe, and all who touched him were healed. Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Did you know that somewhere in America, it is illegal to feed the homeless in public?  It can’t be true can it? It is true in Fort Lauderdale, Florida after passage of an ordinance by the city council.  The scary part is that Fort Lauderdale is not alone in taking this anti-compassionate stance. Why would any city want to stop the feeding of the homeless in public? The City of Fort Lauderdale claims that they don’t want hungry and homeless people fed in public because they claim it will only keep them from trying to get out of the cycle of homelessness. “It’s a pubic safety issue. It’s a public health issue,” Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler rationalizes. “The experts have all said that if you’re going to feed them to get them from breakfast to lunch to dinner, all you’re doing is enabling that cycle of homelessness.” Not only that, the city has arrested and jailed people who have decided to break the law and feed the homeless on the streets. It seems that Fort Lauderdale would rather punish the poor and the people trying to help them rather than attempt to help solve some of the problems that lead people into the streets.

Imagine a similar situation in Jesus’ day. Grinding poverty. Immoderate taxes. Oppressive laws. A widening gap between the haves and have-nots -- a time when those in power use excessive fear and force to dominate, all in the name of peace. Imagine hungry crowds of people with nothing. Imagine Jesus, who orchestrates a miraculous mass feeding of thousands of hungry people. The story that we call “The Feeding of the 5000” is the context of the scriptures we just heard.  By feeding hungry crowds of people, Jesus criticizes a political economy that becomes rich on the suffering of others. He indicts a political economy in which the shepherds have failed to feed the sheep. He has compassion on his people. And they run to him. With all of their needs, with their hopes for the future, with their thirst for justice, they run to him. The hungry sheep who have been ignored by their shepherds will do anything to be in the presence of Jesus.

If that was you, to what lengths would you go to be with Jesus? I really love the closing lines of today’s reading: Wherever he went—in villages, cities, or the countryside—they brought the sick out to the marketplaces. They begged him to let the sick touch at least the fringe of his robe, and all who touched him were healed. The Greek word translated as “touch” can also mean “to fasten.” The idea is not that people casually touch Jesus as he passes by, and they are healed. They fasten themselves to him. It is a kind of touch that transforms everyone.

We need that kind of healing transformation, don’t we? As we mark the one-year anniversary of Eric Garner being choked to death by NYC police, I’ve been thinking about how we still live in time if oppressive poverty, immoderate taxation, oppressive laws and a widening gap between the haves and have-nots – a time when those in power use fear and force to dominate, all in the name of peace. Just this week, two black women, 18-year-old Kindra Chapman and 28-year-old Sandra Bland, were found hanged in jail cells under suspicious circumstances. Video shows Sandra beaten by police for what was supposed to be a routine traffic stop. Saturday morning, almost a year to the day that Garner was killed, Jonathan Sanders was buried. The Stonewall, Miss., man was unarmed when he was allegedly choked to death by a white police officer, and according to relatives, the 39-year-old father gasped, “I can’t breathe.”

Some people, in a flash of insight, will see the troubles of the world, will see systems of oppression and injustice, and choose to respond. Ask people. Ask them, “What did you do once you knew? What did you do once your soul was opened to the cruelty around us?”

For some people, the answer will be, “Nothing. I didn’t do anything” People who are content with the world as it is don’t think they need a shepherd who liberates sheep from hunger and oppression. People who benefit from normalcy, people who are successful under current conditions, have no reason to believe that God desires a different social order.

Some people will look at the current order and want to take us back to the Golden Age when everything was better. They will want to re-establish paradise on earth. It’s a form of retreat, really. It a way of saying, “Let’s go back to how things used to be. We were happier then.” The challenge with retreat is that it abandons our participation in actual struggles for justice.

If we choose to either ignore problems or retreat from them, we are being passive. Jesus never taught passivity in the face of evil.

“What did you do once your soul was opened to the cruelty around us?” Some people will look at the current order and lead us to a future end-time at which God will restore justice and punish the wicked and unrighteous. Some people teach that God is waiting for just the right moment to break in and make everything right again. The challenge with this worldview is that justice is often replaced with a divine vengeance that results in human slaughter. I am firm in by belief that Jesus abhorred violence. He offered a way by which evil can be opposed without being mirrored, a way by which the oppressor can be resisted without being emulated; a way by which enemies can be neutralized without being destroyed.

“What did you do once your soul was opened to the cruelty around us?” I want to propose another way. It’s a way that’s been taught and practiced by many others – the way of non-violent love.  It has to do with running to Jesus and fastening ourselves to his love. Our primary calling in life is to receive and trust justice-making and compassionate love, and to live it into the world. We refuse to accept injustice by living in nonviolent protest against a violent world. Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan puts it this way:

"If enough people ... lived in nonviolent protest against systemic evil, against the normalcies of this world's discrimination, exploitation and oppression - the result would be a new world we could hardly imagine.”

The idea that human beings could actually create such a just, peaceful world by fastening ourselves to non-violent love is almost unbelievable. When we try, we can’t seem to sustain it. This land is replete with profoundly caring human beings, motivated not only by self-interest but also by infinite wellsprings of compassion and by desire for justice and goodness. And yet everyday life, a “good life” in the United States, entails consumption, production, and acquisition that threaten Earth’s capacity to sustain life as we know it, and exploits vast numbers of people worldwide, some even unto death. 

We need to be careful here. The critique of non-violence is that white people have a distorted conception of the meaning of violence itself. We like to think of violence as breaking the laws of society or creating disorder or disharmony. That is a very narrow understanding of reality. There is a much more deadly form of violence, and it is camouflaged in such slogans as “law and order,” “freedom and democracy,” and “the American way of life.” Our society has whole a social structure that appears outwardly to be ordered and respectable but is ridden by racism and hatred inwardly. Violence is embedded in American law, and it is blessed by the keepers of moral sanctity. If we take seriously the idea of human dignity, then we know that the annihilation of Indians, the enslavement of Africans, and the making of heroes out of slaveholders were America’s first crimes against humankind.

Change is in the air. Turn to God’s non-violent will, and God’s non-violent will circle back to you.  Nonviolence is based on the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice. Turning, conversion, change – these are all ways of stepping out of the way we’ve always done it, so we can live into God’s promise of redemption and release.

What can we do? What did we do when our souls were opened to the cruelty around us? I’d like to say we ran. We ran away from our fears of inadequacy and ran to Jesus. We fastened ourselves to non-violent love. We fastened ourselves to the kind of love that confronts violence and injustice wherever we find it. We fastened ourselves to the kind of love that challenges prejudicial jokes or remarks. We fastened ourselves to the kind of love that challenges the purveyors and sponsors of violence. We fastened ourselves to the kind of love that that steps up against gun violence. We fastened ourselves to the kind of love that explores new frontiers of equality, whether it be transgender rights in the workplace, food security for those who are hungry, or immigration reform on our borders, or Black Lives Matter in our own backyards. We fastened ourselves to the kind of love that puts into practices the words and example of Dr. King:

“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late...Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: ‘too late.’... Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter — but beautiful —struggle for a new world.”

Sources:
http://whosoever.org/v3i6/amanda.html
https://www.ualberta.ca/~cbidwell/DCAS/third.htm
http://moltmanniac.com/james-cones-critique-nonviolence/
http://jonathanturley.org/2014/11/09/why-is-it-illegal-to-feed-the-homeless/
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/07/one_year_anniversary_of_eric_garner_s_death.2.html

Sermon for June 28, 2015

The Healing or the Cure?

Jesus got into the boat again and went back to the other side of the lake, where a large crowd gathered around him on the shore. Then a leader of the local synagogue, whose name was Jairus, arrived. When he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet, pleading fervently with him. “My little daughter is dying,” he said. “Please come and lay your hands on her; heal her so she can live.” Jesus went with him, and all the people followed, crowding around him. A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.

Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?”

His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’” But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.” Mark 5:21 ff.

In a documentary about the death penalty, produced about 10 years ago now, a camera crew was present in the home of a woman whose son was to be executed that day. At the time the state carried out the death penalty, the mother burst out of her front door and fell to the ground screaming and crying. Friends and family followed her outside and tried to help her up, as if her being on the ground was the problem. However, whenever people would try to touch her, she would scream at them with fury to keep away. Her behavior was similar to that of a wounded animal, scaring others away because her pain was so great. There was no tangible threat to her personal health or safety. But there was no doubt, this woman was overwhelmed with agony.

Researchers watching this documentary realized that not only was this mother in the throes of grief, she had also been excluded from many of her social connections.  Knowing that she would be rejected, excluded, and ignored by her community, knowing that those around her were not likely to be safe or stable sources of support,  feeling like she might actually be in harm herself, this mother’s reaction demonstrated a way that people protect themselves when feeling threatened. It’s the old fight, flight, freeze reaction, right? Without meaningful social support, people react to protect themselves physical threat and emotional threats. In this case, the mother scared others away out of fear and pain. I wonder if her friends and family came back. I hope so. I hope they did not take her fury personally. We can easily imagine a scenario where someone says, “If she rejects my help, then I’ll just let her be alone until she asks for me. Anyway, she should have known he was no good.” Talk like this is a way of blaming and shaming others.

How often have we witnessed victims of abuse get blamed for their pain? Ever heard this: “She should not have been in that situation/known that person/lived in that neighborhood/walked down that street/gone to that bar or dressed in those clothes”? “People of certain races/ages/classes/backgrounds are just more prone to violent behavior”? “People of certain races/ages/classes/backgrounds just act ‘that way’”? The victim’s parents should have taught him the warning signs”? Why in the world must we blame victims to get distance from them?

Maybe it’s because human experience is defined not by empathy and outreach, but by fear and rivalry. At least that’s what a French literary critic and philosopher named René Girard says. Rivalry and violence are visible at the beginning of all human culture.  To overcome these twin problems, early societies turned to sacrificial violence.  An individual or group was deemed guilty of starting the rivalry. The larger group, the majority, united to sacrifice the ones supposedly guilty of stirring up the original conflict.  After the sacrifice, anxiety decreased for a while. Eventually, though, conflict arose again and the sacrifice needed to be repeated. Someone must be blamed. Atonement must be made. Society unites around an individual or group it can blame for all its problems. Frightened people who want to protect their power over limited resources produce scapegoats. An effective scapegoat has to be someone weaker, someone more vulnerable.

Here’s the important catch: The scapegoat is an outsider, but still lives inside the border of society. The victim belongs to the community but has traits that send her or him to the edges of the community. Those in the majority are brilliant at creating outsiders: the difficult person; the odd-one out; the member with the "wrong" skin color or sexual orientation; the incorrect gender or unfitting religion; too smart, or too rich or too poor. It's difficult to be the one who stops the scapegoating because if you speak up, you can easily become the next victim in a cyclical human activity of destroying those who symbolize a challenge to the status quo.

I want to view today’ story from Mark through this lens. First, let’s look at this woman in the crowd who touches the hem of Jesus’ robe. She is the victim in this scenario. The translation is polite. We are told she has been bleeding for 12 years. Read between the lines, and realize that the woman is menstruating nonstop. According to Jewish purity maps at the time, she is unclean. Impure. No doubt, she’s been told that she’s sick for a reason. God is punishing her for some misdeed. It’s her fault. So, not only is she looked down upon as a woman, but she has been tossed aside as a sick sinner. Ignored. Disconnected. She has become unimportant to the covenant people, residing on the fringes of Jewish society. Anyone who comes into contact with her is also deemed as unclean.

I imagine this woman as a victim of trauma, living in survival mode. Oppression is a social trauma.  For targets of oppression (also known as underprivileged people), social trauma perpetuates itself through scapegoating -- through physical, emotional and spiritual violence, and through the withholding of basic resources necessary to survive and thrive. When people are targeted, discriminated against, or oppressed over a period of time, they may begin to internalize the biases that society communicates to them about their group. In other words, their self image may begin to conform to what the privileged group says about them. Internalized oppression affects many groups of people: women, people of color, poor and working class people, people with disabilities, young people, older adults, immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and many others.

So, I imagine the woman in Mark’s story as a target of systemic, multi-generational, pervasive social trauma. She does whatever it takes to protect herself, even if it means taking the perilous risk of showing up in public and letting go of the remains of her well-being for the hope of healing. She is not just looking for physical healing. She needs to be restored to her community. She needs to be re-connected in order to survive.

We’ve been thinking about the targets of oppression. Let’s change tracks for a minute, and think about the role of the oppressor – the perpetrators of social domination. Agents of oppression may also show certain trauma symptoms as symptoms of dealing with taking part in dehumanizing practices and beliefs:
•    Denial,
•    emotional numbness,
•    obliviousness to harassment of target group members,
•    defensiveness,
•    attacking and blaming target group members,
•    refusal to take responsibility for repression,
•    self-absorption,
•    avoidance of oppressed people,

In other words, because of severed social connections, sometimes the perpetrators will fight, flight, or freeze rather than inhabit the wounds they have they have created.

I’m hoping you can see the parallel to today’s issues. Can you see this going on with the open, bloody, perpetual wound of racism in the country? And while I am thrilled about the Supreme Court decision to allow safe-sex couples to be married in all 50 states, the fact that there was an ideologically divided court is emblematic of the rift in opinion in our country. In the midst of the celebration, members of the LGBTQ community in our country still have to decide where and when it is safe to be out and accepted. There are whole groups of people who have to listen to the biases and misinformation that society communicates to them about their group. People simply can't fight effectively for themselves when they are told that the problem is their own fault or that something is inherently wrong with them.

There is only one hope of change and that’s the power of non-violent love. It’s the only way to confront our fears and end our dependence on fear and violence. It’s the only way to heal our scapegoating and defy the will to power of the privileged.

My hope begins with listening for brokenness. Can we offer good news to those who are broken, those who ache and grieve deeply? I’m talking about both the targets and the agents of oppression. All are broken. All are wounded. Speaking very personally – speaking just for me – I cannot inhabit the wounds until I do the difficult work of listening to my own brokenness in the events I wish to condemn. You see, I know something about myself. I know that when I see somebody else do something wrong, I self-righteously call on God for justice. But when I do something wrong, I self-righteously call on God for grace. How can I ask for justice and also be a grace-filled person? When it comes to awareness of discrimination, as a white person of privilege, the problem is not whether I love people who are different than me. The problem is whether I unknowingly participate in and benefit from systems of racism. I inherited a whole bunch of stereotypes and fears. When I allow myself to take part in an “us versus them” system, if I insist on justice for wrongdoers and forgiveness for myself, then I run the risk of denying my participation in brokenness. There can be no reconciliation within myself, forget about with other people. If I simply denounce violence instead of using it as a mirror to see inside of myself, I’m just projecting the problem onto a scapegoat.

If we want our communities to become more effective at securing better health care, good education, a safe environment, and adequate jobs, community members have to learn how to overcome the discouragement, confusion, and divisions that are a result of scapegoating and internalized oppression. I know many in this congregation, including me, want some concrete action items. So, here are some ideas – some broad brush strokes:

•    Become a close friend, ally, or mentor to individuals who are struggling with internalized oppression. Friendship and caring are more powerful than the message of oppression.

•    Take pride in and celebrate your culture. Our cultures often give us our values, our sense of ourselves in history, our humor, our identities, and our world views. We depend on our cultures to provide us with a reference point, a home, and a place to get our bearings and remember what is important to us. Our cultures help us to survive, to be resourceful, to have a sense of humor, and bounce back.

•    We can commit to learning about cultures that are different from ours. Reading and learning more about other cultures helps people gain perspective on how hard their ancestors fought for themselves, often in the face of great odds.  Attending cultural celebrations and rituals helps us understand how other people survive and show resilience.

•    I’ve noticed that in the wake of Charleston, some groups of white men are beginning to meet in order to get a handle on their abuse of privilege. They realize their part in the trauma of oppression. They take turns talking about how oppression has personally affected them while others listen. It can be helpful to meet in groups with people from similar backgrounds, to heal from the emotional hurts of internalized oppression.

•    Take action against injustice and oppression. The only way I know for victims to not be victimized or blamed is to claim their own agency. In the book The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It, the author talks about the sense of pride that she felt when determined and committed Blacks joined together for the bus boycott.

"There was open respect and admiration in the eyes of many whites who had looked on before, dubious and amused. Even clerks in dime stores, all white, were more cordial. They were heard to add, after a purchase by a black customer, ‘Y'all come back and see us,’ which was a very unusual occurrence. The black customers held their heads higher. They felt reborn, important for the first time. A greater degree of race pride was exhibited. Many were themselves surprised at the response of the masses, and could not explain, if they had wanted to, what had changed them overnight into fearless, courageous, proud people, standing together for human dignity, civil rights, and, yes, self-respect! There was a stick-togetherness that drew them like a magnet. They showed a genuine fondness for one another. They were really free--free inside! They felt it! Acted It! Manifested it in their entire beings! They took great pride in being black.

Let us continue to build communities where people can be proud of who they are – communities where our stories and languages and cultures are valued, where our wounds are healed by deliberate listening and non-violent action. We strive to know and respect our differences and make possible the highest expectations for humanity. We do the work of liberating ourselves from hatred, beginning in the modest places of our longing souls and always reaching out with our words, our actions, our prayers, our love and our hands to all souls – to all souls. This is how we can be made whole again. This is how the world can be made whole again and all her people one.

Sources:
http://www.vanissar.com/blog/surviving-oppression-healing-oppression/
http://web.psych.utoronto.ca/gmacdonald/macdonald%20&%20leary,%202005a.pdf
https://www3.nd.edu/~jneyrey1/Purity-Mark.html
http://sojo.net/magazine/april-2006/house-all-peoples#sthash.4mqlkFUn.dpuf
http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/cultural-competence/healing-from-interalized-oppression/main

Sermon for June 21, 2015

Passages

As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water. Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”

When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” The disciples were absolutely terrified. “Who is this man?” they asked each other. “Even the wind and waves obey him!” ~ Mark 4:35-42

It is not a proud moment for the disciples. Mediterranean males in Jesus’ day are not supposed to show such open fear. Their panic reveals a serious loss of honor. Yet here they are, trembling with terror. Some translations of this passage, like the NRSV, say that at the end of this event the disciples are filled with awe. But that’s not quite what’s happening. The disciples are not inspired. They are frightened. The Greek indicates something closer to the New Living Translation. The disciples are absolutely terrified -- scared out of their wits. It’s not the fierce storm that scares them. It’s not the high waves. It’s not that the boat is about to capsize. Jesus challenges their faith. He confronts them with their lack of trust. That’s what scares them.

Let’s try to imagine the first audience who read Mark’s story. The Roman Empire had just tamped down a Jewish revolt. Rebels fled to Jerusalem to gain support. Rome cut off all avenues of escape, and slow starvation beleaguered those who were trapped in the city. Eventually, no one could resist the military might of Rome. The Roman army seized Jerusalem, burned the Jewish Temple to the ground, and looted it – the Jewish Temple that was supposed to exist eternally, just like heaven and earth. Soldiers plundered the city, killed the rebels, and crushed the rebellion. All of Israel was impacted profoundly. Rome pursued a scorched earth policy in order to teach the Jewish rebels a lesson. They spared those who offered full collaboration – mostly the Jewish aristocracy. The poor, as usual, suffered greatly, left defenseless before the wrath of Roman counter-insurgency. Peasants who were unable to flee where slaughtered or enslaved. Mark writes from this perspective – from the vantage point of the poor people of Galilee. To those who are deprived and suffering, Mark tells about a man of God named Jesus who equally disdains the Jewish aristocracy and the Roman occupation. Jesus comes to sow the seeds of a radical new order, pressed into the weary soil of the world. And he calls it Good News.

Now back to the wind and waves. Back to the absolute terror of the disciples. In the stories and myths of the time, the seas were seen as obstacles. Bodies of water were ruled by chaotic demons and destructive cosmic forces. The wind and waves are symbolic of the opposition and violence that threatens to drown Mark’s peasant community. And, here is an important part of the story. Jesus and the disciples cross the lake into Gentile territory. Jews and Gentiles don’t mix. Most Jews thought that associating with Gentiles violated the law and made them unclean. So, that evening on the lake is meant to be a journey – a passage from segregation to integration. Any evil that wants to keep segregation in place, any chaotic tempest that interrupts the journey to equality, is silenced by Jesus, who says, “Silence! Be Still!” The winds of opposition are calmed. And the disciples are terrified.

You see where I’m going with this? Some hurricanes are howling around us. Yet again we are confronted with systems of injustice and oppression that protect the power and wealth of a select few by subjugating entire groups of people. We are caught, tossed about in our own waves, wondering what we are going to do. How long are we going to watch what’s going on around us, trembling in fear, before we understand that the One we claim to follow, Jesus the Christ, has come to lead us from fear and oppression to a new shore? When will we be part of his Good News?

Some people are calling the events in Charleston Couth Carolina a tragedy. In my mind, this was no tragedy. I have to agree with John Stewart who opened his Daily Show by saying, if you call what happened in Charleston a tragedy, you’ve completely missing the point. “Nine people were shot in a black church by a white guy who hated them, who wanted to start some kind of civil war. The Confederate flag flies over South Carolina and the roads are named for Confederate generals. And the white guy is the one who feels his country’s being taken away from him. We’re bringing it on ourselves.”

Did you see that the shooter’s racist manifesto was found online yesterday? The slaughter of nine African-American people in an historic African-American Church is not about gun ownership. And it’s not a war on Christians. Ascribing the shooting to mental illness is a smokescreen. This was a terrorist hate crime.

Most of us white folk will watch the news and read our Facebook feeds, weeping and wringing our hands, believing that there is nothing for us to do, nothing for us to say, nothing that can make a difference. We righteous progressives have all kinds of excuses for our silence: We don’t know what to say, we are afraid to say the wrong thing, we are overwhelmed by it or we just don’t understand. But truthfully, in a day or two, just as we did after Baltimore, and Ferguson, and Tamir Rice, and Michael Brown, and Travon Martin, most of us will move on to the next news cycle and the next drama in our lives and this will be just another one of those experiences that we file away as an annoyance. White folk can do that. We can move on to the next thing because this stuff does not happen to us as much. We do not face this kind of terror. We are not at risk for being assassinated because of our race. We can move on to the next news cycle while our brothers and sisters of color must sit back and watch us our denial and silence.

I think many white people choose not to face racism because we are afraid.  The great African-American preacher Otis Moss once preached a sermon called “Going from Grace to Dignity.” He said, “As long as we were struggling in the cotton fields of Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi with our cotton sacks across our shoulders and to our sides, picking cotton and having our fingers burning from stinging cotton worms that would hide under the cotton leaves; as long as we were barefoot, actually and symbolically, laughing when we were tickled … America was satisfied … But one day America saw us marching to the voting booth, sitting down at lunch counters, and all of America became afraid.”

Here’s what I want to know. Why is it that some people are trying so hard to make excuses for this Charleston killer? Was he just misguided and disturbed? Maybe. But what he did was an act of hatred. Hatred is a learned state of being. So is cowardice. So is ambivalence.

When white people say NOTHING about the abhorrent violence that occurs repeatedly in the Black community, when we don’t even acknowledge what happened, it leaves our African-American friends and family and co-workers in wonderment and sadness. No posts. No in-person conversation. No water cooler comments. That’s not okay. It’s okay to empathize. It’s okay to question. It’s okay to disagree. It’s NOT okay to act like nothing is happening.

I’m probably offending someone right now, so let me just direct this at myself for a moment. I’m really asking myself what I have done to change the culture that allows for events like Charleston to happen. What have I done to change an oppressive, scorched-earth status quo? What have I done to resist that self-centered, fear-motivated demand to protect my place in society by ignoring systemic conditions that privilege white over black, brown and a whole horde of other differences? What have I done to plant some of those seeds of justice and peace that Jesus came to press into the weary soil of the world? What am I doing to be part of his Good News?

I am going to do my part. I am going to take responsibility for getting white folk in our congregation and our community to have sacred conversations on race. I am going to create space in my ministry to keep talking about oppression, systemic racism, white privilege and white supremacy. I am going to demand of us white folk that we start taking responsibility for our own understanding of the history that brought us to this place. I’m going to stop asking my Black friends how we are going to fix this, and I’m going to start doing more reading and research and listening to those who are being the change we need to see. I am going to try to create a safe place for us to seek solutions to the oppressive systems and terrorizing conditions in which black and brown people live and are oppressed every day.

I ask you to join me. I ask you to be brave enough to not just move on when the news cycle shifts. I ask you to keep engaging when the conversation gets hard. I ask you not to change the subject when fear, denial and self-preservation try to scare us into inaction. 

Here is where I want to start. Wednesday night June 24, at 8 PM, I will be down by our Black Lives Matter Banner on Colesville Road. I’ll be there to talk, and sing, and pray outside, in public, in honor of those who were targeted and killed at their church Bible Study at mother Emmanuel: Cynthia Hurd, a 54-year-old branch manager for the Charleston County Library System; Susie Jackson, and 87-year-old longtime church member; Ethel Lance, a 70-year-old woman who worked at Emanuel AME Church for 30 years; Rev. DePayne Middleton, a 49-year-old doctor and admissions counselor of Southern Wesleyan University; 26-year-old Tywanza Sanders, who earned her business administration degree from Allen University; Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., a 74-year-old retired pastor; Rev. Sharonda Singleton, a 45-year-old track coach at Goose Creek High School; 59 year-old church member Myra Thompson; and The Honorable Rev. Clementa Pinckney, age 41, state senator and Senior Pastor of Emanuel AME Church.

I think we need to let the community know that we will not be afraid. I think we need to re-affirm that Black Lives Matter, and that we, at Christ Congregational Church, worship a God who stands on the side of those who are marginalized and oppressed. In the words of AME Minster Jennifer Bailey, our God is not docile. Our God is big enough to hold our anger, frustration and questions. Our God understands that narratives of reconciliation and peace are not what my community needs right now. What we need is truth-telling and accountability. We need those in positions of power to acknowledge that this was not simply a "single incident," but the latest in a 400-year history of violence against Black people in the United States. We need religious and community leaders to step up and speak out against acts of racial violence in their congregations. Please let me know if you can join me.

Sources:
Binding the Strongman: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus.
Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels.
Rolling in Sackcloth and Ashes: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-bailey/rolling-in-sackcloth-and-ashes_b_7614210.html
I’m Done Praying. I’m Just Done… White People. http://sanctuaryucc.org/im-done-praying-im-just-done-white-people/