Sermons from Park Hill Congregational UCC Denver, Colorado Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] January 28, 2018 “Bigger? Or Stronger, Readier and Clearer” 1st Corinthians 8: 1-6 – Common English Bible (adapted) Now concerning meat that has been sacrificed to a false god: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes people arrogant, but love builds people up. 2 If anyone thinks they know something, they don’t yet know as much as they should know. 3 But if someone loves God, then they are known by God. 4 So concerning the actual food involved in these sacrifices to false gods, we know that a false god isn’t anything in this world, and that there is no God except for the one God. 5 Granted, there are so-called “gods,” in heaven and on the earth, as there are many gods and many lords.6 However, for us believers, There is one God, From whom all things come from and to whom we belong. And there is one Sovereign Jesus Christ. Through whom all things exist and through whom we live. In his State of the Union address in 2015, President Obama declared “the state of our union is strong.” He then cited extensive data to back up his claim. Commentators noted it was a striking contrast to previous speeches that had been filled more with optimism than reality. And so, in my annual State of the Church sermon on the day of our congregational meeting in 2015, I picked up on that theme and declared something similar: that Park Hill UCC is stronger. I am superstitious enough that to declare something too definitively is dangerous. I declared I would never live in Cleveland. No wonder why, then, I did! For 17 years. Even though, I subsequently came to love and defend it, not to mention, it’s where I met my husband. So, I thought, to declare in 2015 “we are strong,” would have been an invitation to test the theory. A church, and in fact all of us, are never finished. We are always becoming something – either of our choosing or as the result of forces around us. But we were, in fact, becoming stronger. We had just started bloom! a few weeks before. We were nearing the end of our first year of the Women’s Homelessness Initiative, in which 77 people had volunteered. And the narthex project had been completed, transforming our entrance into a welcoming place and adding an area for fellowship. The whole capital campaign was raising our confidence. And there was evidence to back that confidence up, not just optimism. On Annual Meeting Sunday in 2016, my word for the church was “ready.” Ready for what God is calling forth from us next. Ready was a good word, although, as I look back, I wonder if God wasn’t laughing and saying, “We’ll see!” Yet, by then we had completed all our major capital projects. Growth was truly happening. Once we took out the pews in the summer of 2015, attendance and the number of families with children rose significantly. The difference was stunning, as though a switch had been flipped. Our sanctuary now reflected our theology – a sense of community created, the table in the middle of us, and the magnificent reflection of light upwards from the floor. Visitors noticed and kept coming back, some of you included. And yet, perhaps I should have said we are readier, because who could have been truly ready when we gathered in shock for worship the first Sunday after the election. However, I think we were ready for the influx of people. We had begun working with Soul2Soul a few months before to energize and re-engage with issues of racial justice. The now well-established Women’s Homelessness Initiative provided an immediate opportunity to get involved. And again, following the removal of the pews the year before, when people came looking, we had in place a critical core of families and children from which to build. And we have. When we met last year, the inauguration had been two days before. Saturday morning, dozens of us had joined the millions of men and women who gathered on every continent to declare resistance. As the months passed, increasingly it felt like the word of the year was “cruelty.” An inexplicable celebration of cruelty. I started using the words “open, inclusive, just, and compassionate” over and over again to describe what Jesus meant by the Kingdom of God. It was the mission of Jesus on earth and our call as disciples of Christ to pursue such a world. When we gathered last year, we still didn’t know the extent of damage yet to come. What promises would become reality? Now we know. And with that, we all have greater clarity about our mission and importance as a voice on the religious left. And because we know who we are, it’s not surprising that this reflects in our statistics. Every State of the Church sermon has to include some numbers to illustrate the story. I promise to keep them brief. In 2015 our average worship attendance – adults and children – totaled 77. In 2016, 87. Last year, 90. But within that, there are some interesting and conflicting details. There were 60 more people at Easter last year than the previous, breaking a 22-year record. Christmas just broke a 20-year record. On the other hand, however, last summer we had two Sundays with fewer than 40 people in worship, something that hadn’t happened since 2014. I started thinking, “Where’d everyone go?” Statistics about children are the most dramatic. Last year between New Years and Easter, there were 10 or more children in church on 14 Sundays. The year before, 4 Sundays. The year before that, 1. There has clearly been growth. Not so much in formal membership, but in attendance and participation. Yet even more volunteers in WHI. More people committed to our activities of racial justice. But, then again, not as many in adult education after worship or even our innovative Sunday evening bloom! When we started bloom!, we consistently had 25-30 people every month. A few weeks ago, continuing a downward trend, there were 10. In addition, our organizational model to coordinate our ministries has not been working as we thought it should, so at the end of the year, the Coordinating Team declared its work complete. And now in the new year we have to come up with a different design to support involvement and leadership development. I think my word for 2018, instead of stronger, or ready, or a description of our world as “cruel,” I think our word could be “clarity.” Not that everything is clear. But we know who we are as a church and our calling in the world. We have greater clarity. But we also need greater clarity, about how to organize so that everyone can find their place for ministry. And how to build community, if bloom! is not it. And how to do faith formation beyond Sunday School. I pray for greater clarity to find a new path forward on these issues. Looking back, our word for 2017 was clearly “generosity.” Because, wow, one of your clearest responses to the cruelty in our world has been generosity in the face of it. Through Sunday morning Compassion in Action offerings, you gave a remarkable $28,000 to our mission partners; up from $17,000 the year before, and $12k when we started. Add to that our support of ministry through the UCC and the gift market and sponsorships for orphans, among other things, and total contributions beyond our walls adds up to over $67,000 for mission, compared to $51,000 the year before. Not including solar or socks and backpacks and school supplies and sleeping bags… on and on. For a church our size! Now, all of this could start to sound like boasting and bragging. So much so that I was struck by this rather odd passage from Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians, one of today’s texts from the lectionary. Remember that Paul’s letters are listening in on one side of a conversation. Either something’s going on or he has heard something or he has been asked a question… and the letters in the Bible are the response. Which, again, means we only know half of the conversation. In today’s reading, some controversy has been raised about whether Christians should eat meat that has been sacrificed to a false god. Why is that an issue? And why is his response framed as an issue about knowledge? And perhaps more importantly, why should we care? “Now concerning meat,” he said, “We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes people arrogant, but love builds people up. If anyone knows something, they don’t yet know as much as they should know. But if someone loves God, then they are known by God.” Love. And so, about love and meat, he concludes, false gods are false, so what difference does it make if we eat meat sacrificed to them or not? They are nothing, so what harm can there be? It’s a surprisingly open-minded response. It doesn’t really matter, so don’t make an issue out of it. Do you love? (If only the Christian church took such an attitude to so many other issues in our day.) But I still wonder, what’s the problem with knowledge? Scholars suggest that Paul is talking about a social elite, who claim special knowledge. Although, if you think about it, meat was already something only the richest could eat as often as they wanted. Perhaps sacrificed meat was the only thing the poor could afford. Paul said, go ahead, eat whatever you want, because the real point of Christian community is love. Did Paul say this to embarrass the rich? Who is he talking to, or about? To lift the lowly and topple the powerful from their metaphorical thrones? Regardless, I found this obscure passage oddly relevant. It raised in me a caution; to take caution in my celebration of our growth. What does it really matter? It is just like an American, me, to be taken by numbers. Bigger is better. More is better. Success is when you can point to more. Yeah, I know it’s not true. But, oh, isn’t it? So, I appreciate the correction offered by this text. Knowledge doesn’t matter, if you don’t have love; just like the size of our church. Or in our personal lives, the size of our paycheck doesn’t matter; getting our first liver spot or graying hair or deepening crows-feet doesn’t matter, getting recognized for our accomplishments doesn’t matter, titles don’t matter, a bigger office or a bigger audience. And growth does not matter, if your purpose isn’t love. Growth could lead to arrogance. For example, in celebrating our growth, I could point out that only 37% of UCC churches even have Sunday schools any longer. Youth groups. I could cite for you that 88% of UCC churches don’t have youth groups anymore. To put us in context, I could point out that we are now bigger than half of the other churches.[1] Kind of sounds like knowledge flirting with arrogance. But I still think it’s important to know. And it truly saddens me that year after year, while the UCC closes one church every week, it only adds one every month. We now have fewer than 1 million members in less than 5,000 churches. Does it really matter? I can hardly say fewer is better. Yet, are we about growing love in the world? When Park Hill officially voted to become an Open and Affirming Church in 1991, there were fewer than 100 other. Today, there are more than 1,400 welcoming congregations. Isn’t more better? When I was ordained 25 years ago, there weren’t even 10 openly gay pastors serving in churches around the country. Now there may be that many in just the Rocky Mountain Conference alone. More is better, especially because it’s about growing love. But bottom line: Are we, Park Hill, better this year because we have more than last year and the year before that? What is better? I just hope that no matter whether we are growing or not, you know that we are stronger together. And I hope that no matter what else we do, we are readier than ever to love in midst of this cruel world. And I pray that no matter who we are, we are clearer than ever about what really matters. Are we about love and ministry and building community? And if as a church, big, small or in between, if we have helped you become stronger, and readier, and clearer about God’s purpose and plan for your life, then, it is to God that we give the glory. We didn’t do this. As this odd passage about meat says, “It is to God from whom all things come and to whom we belong. And glory to the one Sovereign Jesus Christ, through whom all things exist and through whom we live.” None of this is of our own making. So, in addition to God, let us thank the generations of our past who built this church and upon whose foundation our ministry is able to build. They did not build in vain. [1] http://uccfiles.com/pdf/2017-UCC-Statistical-Profile.pdf
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Sermons from Park Hill Congregational UCC Denver, Colorado Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] January 14, 2018 “Dr. King: His Life, Our Time. His Need and Ours” Psalm 139: 1-14 O Lord, you have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. 3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. 7 Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” 12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. I feel fortunate that every year, to prepare a sermon for Dr. King’s birthday, I get to peruse through volumes of speeches and sermons and listen to audio recordings and watch video clips to find inspiration. There is so much rich material that, at the beginning, the task feels daunting. But every year, some aspect of his life and our times calls out for attention. And this year, my attention was caught by a sermon he delivered in August 1957. We remember the context of that time period. The bus boycott in Montgomery began in December 1955, just days after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man. Local pastor Martin King was named the president of the organization that would lead the boycott. It is said he was chosen because he “had the advantage of being too new in town to have made enemies; young (only 26 years old), well-trained, generally respected,” not to mention, “if the boycott failed, with his family connections he could probably find another pastorate.”[1] Even so, his primary responsibility was still as the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Someone who had to preach on Sundays, conduct funerals, teach Bible study, visit the sick, and watch over the church’s bottom line. That last part was made clear this hot August Sunday. Before he launched into his sermon he gave the announcements, including a funeral the next day, details about pallbearers, and then, I had to laugh. Accustomed to his soaring rhetoric, I was amused by his announcement about financial statements available after worship. Adding, “I would like to say that I noticed several members are behind in their pledges for some reason. I don’t know why that is, but I would like to urge you to catch up in your pledges, for our responsibilities are the same.” OK. But he kept on going, “We have a budget to carry out in the summer months, just as in any period of the year. And I’m urging you to bring up those pledges before too long, so that we can face the many responsibilities that we have ahead in our church.” He gave a few more announcements and then invited the ushers to come forward. “Let us prepare to give liberally,” he said, blessing the offering. And then he went back into his plea. “As I said just a few minutes ago, many of our members are behind in their pledges” and kept going in the hot August Alabama sanctuary for a little while longer. Some things in church life don’t change! And it clearly doesn’t matter whether you are becoming the nationally renowned Dr. King, or just Pastor Martin who also picks up trash in the bushes on Thursday afternoons. But back to the point. If you remember, the bus boycott lasted an entire year and 15 days, ending just before Christmas in 1956. This particular August 1957 sermon was entitled “Conquering Self-Centeredness.” A time when King’s celebrity had exploded and he described this to his Sunday morning congregation: “Living over the past year, I can hardly go into any city or any town in this nation where I’m not lavished with hospitality by people of all races and of all creeds. I can hardly go anywhere to speak in this nation where hundreds and thousands of people are not turned away because of lack of space. I can hardly walk the street in any city of this nation where I’m not confronted with people running up the street, ‘Isn’t that Reverend King of Alabama?’” Pastor Martin told his congregation, “Living like this it’s easy to think, it’s a dangerous tendency, that I will come to feel that I’m something special, that I stand somewhere in this universe because of my ingenuity and I can walk around life with a type of arrogance because of an importance that I have.” I appreciated this window into his internal challenges. And his answer to the temptation: I pray this prayer every day: “O God, help me to see myself in my true perspective.” It’s a universal prayer whether our star is rising or our future is fading and our accomplishments are failing. Somehow, it both humbles when needed as well as lifts us up. He said he prays every day: “O God, help me to see myself in my true perspective. Help me to see that I’m just a symbol of a movement, something that was getting ready to happen in history. And that a boycott would have taken place in Montgomery even if I had never come to Alabama. Help me to realize who I am, that this movement happened because of the forces of history and because of the fifty thousand Negroes of Alabama who will never get their names in the papers and in the headlines. O God, help me to see that where I stand today, I stand because others helped me to stand there.”[2] It was a prayer he commended to his congregation to conquer self-centeredness, to see ourselves in true perspective, and though the members of his congregation were probably among those never listed in the newspapers or given headlines and might not have needed some of the particularities of his advice, even so, I appreciate this insight into his life. And, I also have to wonder, maybe ours too? The circumstances are certainly different, and maybe our struggle isn’t with ego, but on the flip side, don’t we all at times have a way of considering ourselves uniquely burdened by cares that no one else could possibly understand or bear? Nobody knows the troubles I alone have seen. There is something collectively true about our ability to make things about ourselves. But, in every way, we can all still pray, “O God, help me, today, to see myself in my true perspective.” After his quite lengthy sermon on a hot Alabama morning, he invited people to give their lives to Christ and offered a few more announcements, including how the evening service would only be one hour; one hour, one hour, he repeated several times to his sweltering church, but nothing more about pledges. In that sermon, he reveals the fierce pressure of his growing celebrity, of the temptation to find himself more important than the movement. In the coming years, that pressure would only increase, especially after winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. In response, he could have offered all kinds of psychological opinions, alternate solutions to the problem of getting a big head, but it was prayer, he said. Daily, and praying without ceasing. Perhaps it’s not surprising that he would say this – after all, he was a pastor and it was in a sermon. But while Dr. King’s skills at oration are praised all the time, it was this intimate moment that revealed the depth of Reverend King. His prayer life. And that is what caught my attention this year. The way his life meets our times. His need. And ours. There is much to remember about King’s life that inspires us to do justice, but he would also counsel us not forget to his focus on the Source of inspiration. And pray. You can’t fully appreciate or understand his speeches without an understanding of his faith. For that matter, it is impossible to understand King apart from the Black Church. And you can’t note the scriptural references throughout his speeches without also noting that many of his favorite scriptures are prayers,
We know this because a book about Dr. King’s prayer life was released just a few years ago, the first of its kind, noting its striking omission by scholars for 50 years. How could prayer be missing from scholarship about his life? And that’s especially odd, said the author, Lewis Baldwin, because “King never separated intellectual ability, moral responsibility, and social praxis from deep personal spirituality and piety.”[3] For King, the resources of heart, mind, soul, and spirit were a necessary precondition to social change. While some people would elevate the importance of protest over prayer, saying that prayer is just a waste of time, or that Christians should choose to focus on prayer over protest, just spitting in the wind, King would remind us that prayer and praise and protest, confession, intercession and adoration, are all one in the same – and without one, the others wouldn’t have meaning, not to mention, we couldn’t keep doing any of it. That is so true. As we get to the first anniversary of a year in which we have been constantly on edge from one tweet and outrageous comment after another, for which we have no more words in reply; news day after day from the Department of Injustice, the Department of Selling Off Our Natural Resources, the Department of Ending Public Schools; constant reminders that white supremacy still rules – seriously, publicly declaring a preference for Norwegian immigrants over Haitians? It’s only been one year, during which we have been constantly reminded to keep up the resistance, to express outrage… So, no wonder why it was that King’s prayer life called out for our attention in these times. Fittingly, one of his prayers is entitled “I Can’t Face It Alone.”[4] During the bus boycott he was constantly harassed and threatened. But it was a month after the boycott ended that he received a particularly disturbing telephone call from a white supremacist who threatened his life, his home, and his family. King, sitting in his kitchen, collapsed and prayed, “Lord, I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But I am afraid. And I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.”[5] He didn’t say “anymore.” He said I can’t face it “alone.” And less than a week later, his house was indeed bombed. “I’ve come to the point…” “I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it anymore.” Haven’t we all been there. But he said, “Face it alone.” Feeling that same way doesn’t require us to have had our homes threatened or bombed, for wildfires to destroy our possessions, for mudslides to erase our legacy, for hurricanes to clear away any semblance of normality… It doesn’t take a diagnosis of cancer or the realization of addiction… It doesn’t take foreclosure or unemployment for us arrive at the conclusion, “I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone” anymore. Yet, for no matter what reason, the response can be the same every time: O Lord, you have searched me and known me. 3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. 7 Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in hell, you are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” 12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. Not many months into the bus boycott, people were rightfully weary of the inconvenience. Though Rev. King was personally comforted by its words, in an April 29th sermon he reflected that many people do not want to be known by God.[6] He said, “one of the strange facts of human life is that there is within every man an underlying urge to escape God, the mad desire to flee from the presence of Almighty God.” Why? One reason I can think of is that to be known by God is to know God and to know God is to love God and to love God is to love God’s people and to love God’s people is to do the right thing. And when we don’t, or rather, don’t want to, who wants a presence on every rock, heaven, hell, the farthest sea, and everywhere in between reminding us of that? Leave me alone! We’d all rather do our own thing. We get weary of always hearing about the right thing. King cited Jonah in that April sermon. Well, when we too have “come to the point,” we can try to turn off the news, we can log off Facebook, we can stop coming to church, we can stop talking to our neighbors, but we cannot escape God. Now, is that a promise or a threat? We might say, angrily, God won’t leave me alone. Or we could rest in the knowledge that God does not leave us alone; God, who knows our deepest needs and our most desperate longings, who joins us in disgust for the blatant racism of our leaders, the callous disregard for war or the suffering of millions in our country and far beyond… God continues, every day and in every way, to hold out to us the path to life and meaning. God has even prepared our path. Because God knows the way to our health and wellbeing, which, of course, as King so poetically described it, our wellbeing, mentally, spiritually and politically, “is inextricably tied to the same garment of destiny” as the rest of the world. It was Dr. King’s need and ours to hear the encouragement of the Psalm: God is always there, God knows how hard it is, and when “we’ve come to the point” to give up, God is always ready to start again, with prayers like the one in your bulletin written by Pastor Martin: One: O Thou Eternal God, out of whose absolute power and infinite intelligence the whole universe has come into being, All: we humbly confess that we have not loved thee with our whole hearts, souls and minds, and we have not loved our neighbors as Christ loved us. One: We have all too often lived by our own selfish impulses rather than by the life of sacrificial love as revealed by Christ. All: We often give in order to receive. We often love our friends and hate our enemies. We go the first mile but dare not travel the second. We forgive but don’t dare to forget. One: And so as we look within ourselves, we are confronted with the appalling fact that the history of our lives is the history of an eternal revolt against you. All: But thou, O God, have mercy upon us. Forgive us for what we could have been but failed to be. Give us the intelligence to know your will. Give us the courage to do your will. Give us the devotion to love thy will. One: In the name and spirit of Jesus we pray. Amen.[7] [1] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther-King-Jr/The-Montgomery-bus-boycott#ref71123 [2] Sermon “Conquering Self-Centeredness” Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, August 11, 1957 https://books.google.com/books?id=qW-NYdIefPgC&pg=PA255&lpg=PA255&dq=Help+Me+to+See+That+I%E2%80%99m+Just+a+Symbol+of+a+Movement&source=bl&ots=68eYCC-r33&sig=bG7y614CaHNiYSvwJ6_Ml0d0d0M&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjRhoajz9DYAhVCz2MKHQAsAUUQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=Help%20Me%20to%20See%20That%20I%E2%80%99m%20Just%20a%20Symbol%20of%20a%20Movement&f=false [3] Lewis Baldwin, Never to Leave Us Alone: The Prayer Life of Martin Luther King Jr, 2010 [4] http://www.mercymidatlantic.org/PrayerServiceMLK.pdf January 30, 1956 [5] He adds, “The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter.” [6] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/fleeing-god [7] http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/Vol06Scans/5July-6Sept1953Prayers.pdf One of several prayers prepared for radio broadcast in 1953 from his father’s church in Atlanta. I formed it into a litany. Sermons from Park Hill Congregational UCC Denver, Colorado Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] January 7, 2018 “Ripped Apart. Sewing Us Back Together” Mark 1: 4-11 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” When I hike, I want a payoff at the end, like a stunning 360-degree view from the top of a peak, or a waterfall or an alpine lake, preferably with some snow still visible feeding the icy cold water. To me, there’s nothing so dull as just a walk through the woods. Give me a view of the majestic snow-capped peaks behind Brainard Lake, wildflower-covered vistas around Silver Dollar Lake… Give me the Calypso Cascades or Ouzel Falls. …funny how prominent water is in these images. If I ask you to think of images of water, what comes to mind? Close your eyes for a moment. Water. What do you see? Is it a peaceful, serene body, like an alpine pond? Is it a mountain waterfall? A Minnesota lake? The mighty Mississippi. The crashing waters of the ocean? Water from a hot steaming shower to sooth sore muscles or a cold drink to quench our thirst. Are we grateful for clean water running from the tap or frightened, like in Flint, of water that is dangerous, full of toxic lead and pollutants? Do we envision oil washing up on the Gulf Coast? Or images of yellow water flowing through Durango. How about doves? If I ask you to think of images of a dove, what comes to mind? Close your eyes for a moment. Doves. What do you see? Doves flying gracefully or quietly perched on a wire? Memories of doves set free at a wedding. Or trapped in a cage? Do you see their soft white feathers or a bunch of droppings to pick up? Do smile at their peaceful cooing? Or get annoyed when they won’t shut up so you can finally fall asleep? For every image, there is often a counter image. This text from Mark is full of them. So, imagine, the scene of Jesus in the water for his baptism. Children joyfully splashing in the River Jordan next to him. But, talk about a counter image, did you know that today the site of Jesus' baptism has become so dangerously contaminated, tourists are urged to stay out of the river's waters. There is more sewage flowing into the river than fresh water.[1] So, John the Baptist. There’s not a lot left to the imagination. Mark, the gospel writer, is a man of few words. He only writes what is absolutely necessary, so it is notable that Mark uses an entire verse just to describe John. “Clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, he ate locusts and wild honey.” With that image, I picture in my mind the wild, unkempt hair of someone who couldn’t care less about his appearance. An ascetic. I figured that John chose to wear camel hair because it was itchy and uncomfortable. Maybe once upon a time it was, but today, I discovered, it is the must-have fiber of luxury, high end designers. Plus, it is touted as the most environmentally sustainable animal fiber in the world.[2] John the Baptist, fashion icon? Counter images. So, back to the scene in the river. After being dunked, Jesus emerged from the water. The text describes that “he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.” Close your eyes and picture that. The heavens torn apart, the Spirit descending like a dove. What did you see? A dove, gently wafting through the air, cooing a lovely song of adoration? Landing sweetly on his shoulder? Or did any of you picture a bird divebombing, like a pelican plunging headfirst into the water for their dinner of fresh fish. How many of you pictured the revealing of blue sky after a storm? There’s a problem with such a serene image, however. It’s the particular, specific word Mark chose. The heavens were “torn apart.” The Greek word Mark used here is skhizein, or schizo.[3] Some translations say “ripped apart” or “torn open.” One translation simply says “the heavens opened.” As in, the rays of sun emerging. But the word schizo is too important. It has echoes of Advent and the Prophet Isaiah who pleaded for God to “tear open the heavens and come down. Fix this awful mess we have made on earth.” The word schizo appears only one other time in Mark’s entire gospel. As bookends. At his baptism, which for Mark is chapter 1. He provides no birth narrative. And then again only when Jesus breathed his last breath and died on the cross. At that very moment, the curtain of the Temple was torn, schizo, divided from top to bottom.[4] The curtain of the Temple didn’t just open, it was ripped apart. And not like a bed sheet, easily torn by human hands. The curtain that hung in the Temple was as dense as a rug or a thick tapestry. Human hands could never have torn it apart. It could only be interpreted as an act of God. The Gospel of Matthew, which builds off Mark’s original text, adds that an earthquake shook the earth at the same moment the curtain was schizo, being ripped apart. Therefore, it seems like the image of the heavens opening at his baptism should be as equally unsettling, matched in its magnitude. That’s kind of a disconnect from our common practice of baptism in the UCC. A quiet little chaste sprinkling of water upon our foreheads. Or the way most of us join the church. The standard practice in most UCC churches is that people simply stand up in front, give a little introduction, and then we recite a few words of a covenant with each other. Meaningful, but not particularly unsettling. A Connecticut pastor[5] suggested that to join the church we should have to go skydiving first. Step off the plane from thousands of feet in the air, free fall plummet to the earth, and then pull a rip cord to land safely on solid ground. Or something equally frightening. In my case, ride a roller coaster. You’ve never heard such foul language from a pastor than if you were to listen to me on a ride at an amusement park. For me it is simply and absolutely a fearful, frightful form of torment, torture, and agony. But what if baptism or church membership, or better yet, simply the Christian life, meant confronting such fear? Our most extreme forms of fear, whether sky diving, roller coasters, or public speaking. Utterly unsettling. If that were the case, everyone in the church would have had a shared experience of sheer terror at some point in their Christian life. Young people would look at their elders with their walkers and canes and marvel that they too once jumped from a plane to be part of this congregation. So, if I asked you to close your eyes and picture a Christian, what would you see. Let some images roll through your mind. Some of those images are probably pretty terrifying. Not sky divers, but Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell (Sr. and Jr.), Phyllis Shafley. But picture these counter images:
A different question. If I asked you to give me an image of the biblical commandments, you might think of the huge monuments on county court house lawns or perhaps describe a long list of “don’t do this” and “don’t do that.” Or maybe remember that Jesus said, “love one another.” But what is the number one command in the Bible? It’s “Do not be afraid.” The specific phrase “Do not be afraid” is used at least 70 times.[9] Add to that, “Fear not” or “Do not fear,” and the number soars. How about the phrase “love one another?” Only eleven times, but of course, love is spoken of many more times too. But it makes me wonder whether the Bible isn’t more concerned about fear than even love, which might be the biggest reason we don’t love. We’re afraid of the other. Isn’t fear the counter image of love? Perhaps that’s why to fulfill the theme of love in the Bible, prophets, angels, and messiahs must repeatedly assure us, “Do not be afraid.” But it’s more than that. They add, “Because.” Do not fear, because. Fear not, because. Because why? The most frequent answer is because “I am with you.” Or “God is with you.” The angel Gabriel told the young Mary, “Do not be afraid because you have found favor with God” and “because nothing will be impossible with God.” But it’s not just a matter of “because.” The Bible just as often adds “so that.” “Do not be afraid, because I am with you, so that…” Back to the scene at the baptism of Jesus. What was it? A peaceful, serene moment, splashing in the water, blue skies opening, a dove gently floating down? Or the frightful experience of being pushed underwater by a wild-eyed prophet, the skies violently ripped apart, and a bird divebombing its way right toward us. A pretty frightening image. But, if that’s what it was, what happened then? The text says a voice from heaven proclaimed – “You are mine, Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” i.e. Do not be afraid, because you are not alone. But that wasn’t it. Baptism is just the beginning, not an end unto itself. That unsettling experience is just getting us started. I am with you so do not be afraid of the consequences of your baptism because, like Jesus, I am preparing you to face a world that isn’t peaceful and serene but is schizo, being ripped apart. I’m sending you into this schizo world to sew us back together. Like
If I ask you to picture Christian life, what do you see? Our own baptismal vows include the promise, with the grace of God (meaning, not alone), we will follow in the way of Jesus Christ, [which is] to confront the powers of hatred and oppression to show love and justice. That is the witness and work of a Christian. It might be a counter image to some people, more Colin Kaepernick than Tim Tebow. Not as serene but unsettling. But, picture it, that’s how we will sew the world into one that is open, inclusive, just, and compassionate. Litany: Remembering Our Promises One: Do you promise, by the grace of God, to be a disciple, to follow in the way of Jesus Christ, to resist oppression and hatred, to show love and justice, and to witness to the work and word of Jesus Christ, as best you are able? And do you promise, according to the grace given to you, to grow in your faith and to be a faithful member of the church, celebrating Christ’s presence and furthering God’s mission in all the world? [1] https://www.seeker.com/jordan-river-too-polluted-for-baptisms-1765079616.html [2] http://ecosalon.com/fiber-watch-camel-hair-for-sustainable-luxury-from-the-steppes/ [3] https://www.etymonline.com/word/schizo- [4] Mark 15:38. [5] Maxwell Grant, http://day1.org/6319-torn_open_by_god [6] http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/harriet-tubman-an-icon-of-christian-courage-and-faith-in-action [7] http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-33/abolitionists.html [8] http://tenboom.org/ [9] https://bodytithe.com/frequent-command-bible/ [10] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/29/bree-newsome-faith_n_7692004.html [11] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/09/24/colin-kaepernick-vs-tim-tebow-a-tale-of-two-christianities-on-its-knees/?utm_term=.32d6d93c71f6 [12] https://www.breachrepairers.org/ [13] https://thinkprogress.org/rev-traci-blackmon-c81f140e144f/ [14] https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/residents-seek-to-change-stapleton-community-name-which-is-linked-to-mayor-with-racist-kkk-past [15] https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/11/water-cannons-and-tear-gas-used-against-dakota-access-pipeline-protesters/508370/ [16] http://www.knitting4peace.org/ |
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April 2024
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