Sermons from Mission Hills UCC
San Diego, California
 
Rev. Dr. David Bahr
david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org
 
March 26, 2023
 
“Open to Maybe”
 
 
John 11: 1-48 – Common English Bible
A certain man, Lazarus, was ill. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (2 This was the Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped his feet with her hair. Her brother Lazarus was ill.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, saying, “Lord, the one whom you love is ill.”
4 When he heard this, Jesus said, “This illness isn’t fatal. It’s for the glory of God so that God’s Son can be glorified through it.” 5 Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. 6 When he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed where he was. After two days, 7 he said to his disciples, “Let’s return to Judea again.”
8 The disciples replied, “Rabbi, the Jewish opposition wants to stone you, but you want to go back?”
9 Jesus answered, “Aren’t there twelve hours in the day? Whoever walks in the day doesn’t stumble because they see the light of the world. 10 But whoever walks in the night does stumble because the light isn’t in them.”
11 He continued, “Our friend Lazarus is sleeping, but I am going in order to wake him up.”
12 The disciples said, “Lord, if he’s sleeping, he will get well.” 13 They thought Jesus meant that Lazarus was in a deep sleep, but Jesus had spoken about Lazarus’ death.
14 Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died. 15 For your sakes, I’m glad I wasn’t there so that you can believe. Let’s go to him.”
16 Then Thomas (the one called Didymus) said to the other disciples, “Let us go too so that we may die with Jesus.”
Jesus with Martha and Mary
17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Bethany was a little less than two miles from Jerusalem. 19 Many Jews had come to comfort Martha and Mary after their brother’s death. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, while Mary remained in the house. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. 22 Even now I know that whatever you ask God, God will give you.”
23 Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24 Martha replied, “I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die. 26 Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27 She replied, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, God’s Son, the one who is coming into the world.”
28 After she said this, she went and spoke privately to her sister Mary, “The teacher is here and he’s calling for you.” 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to Jesus. 30 He hadn’t entered the village but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who were comforting Mary in the house saw her get up quickly and leave, they followed her. They assumed she was going to mourn at the tomb.
32 When Mary arrived where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”
33 When Jesus saw her crying and the Jews who had come with her crying also, he was deeply disturbed and troubled. 34 He asked, “Where have you laid him?”
They replied, “Lord, come and see.”
35 Jesus began to cry. 36 The Jews said, “See how much he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “He healed the eyes of the man born blind. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”
Jesus at Lazarus’ tomb
38 Jesus was deeply disturbed again when he came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone covered the entrance. 39 Jesus said, “Remove the stone.”
Martha, the sister of the dead man, said, “Lord, the smell will be awful! He’s been dead four days.”
40 Jesus replied, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you will see God’s glory?” 41 So they removed the stone. Jesus looked up and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. 42 I know you always hear me. I say this for the benefit of the crowd standing here so that they will believe that you sent me.” 43 Having said this, Jesus shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his feet bound and his hands tied, and his face covered with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.”
45 Therefore, many of the Jews who came with Mary and saw what Jesus did believed in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
Caiaphas prophesies
47 Then the chief priests and Pharisees called together the council[a] and said, “What are we going to do? This man is doing many miraculous signs! 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. Then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our people.”
 
 

 
So, the basic story is this:  Jesus loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.  And Lazarus is sick.  So naturally, Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus.  They didn’t say explicitly that he should come right away, but clearly, that is what they expected.  But instead of dropping everything to rush over, Jesus promptly did nothing.  The disciples were fine with that because the last time they were there, the townspeople had been ready to stone Jesus. 
 
Jesus gave the disciples some confusing spiritual admonition about light and stumbling, about which they collectively said, “Huh?”  So Jesus told them that Lazarus has fallen asleep.  They descended into a comedy routine, unintentionally of course, about why Jesus would need to go to such a dangerous place to wake him up and so Jesus interrupts and said, “He’s dead.” 
 
Back at Mary and Martha’s, at any moment they expect to see Jesus coming over the horizon to save the day – to save their brother, the one whom he loved so much.  But what did Jesus do?  He sipped herbal tea at small cafés and went window shopping and maybe got his bangs trimmed.  Whatever it is that he actually did, it took him so long to go two miles, he had the nerve to show up four days after Lazarus died.
 
Four days is important.  It was popular belief that it took three days for the soul to separate from the body, so it would have been obvious to everyone who heard the story that at four days nothing more could be done.  The situation was beyond hope.  It was past time that even a miracle worker could do something. 
 
Jesus said, or seems to say, “You’re lucky I wasn’t here.  Now you can give glory to God.”  But what kind of God would do that?  What kind of God would let your brother die in order to prove a point?  And that’s about how Martha felt about it.  She pleaded or yelled or cursed or some combination of it all – “Why weren’t you here?  Why don’t you care?  If you had been here, my brother wouldn’t be dead.”  She then probably crumbled in tears at his feet.  And when she could finally breathe, “Yet, even now,” she said, “I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”
 
Did Martha really believe there was still time for a miracle?  She was probably both desperate and resigned to the fact that it was too late.  Four days. Jesus and Martha then talked back and forth.  If you hold the stereotype about Martha being too busy cooking, the doer, while Mary was the thinker sitting at Jesus’ feet, remember this exchange. Theologically, Martha can hold her own.
 
Just then, Mary comes running from the house pointing her finger and angrily accusing Jesus of neglect.  “If you had been here, our brother wouldn’t be dead!”  Well, maybe that’s what I would do.  Perhaps Mary simply whispered these words under her breath,  “If only you had been here…” 
 
You’ve experienced grief.  You know how mixed our emotions can be.  But whatever her tone and whatever she said, her words moved Jesus.  He was genuinely pained to see such dear friends suffer.  And so, “Jesus wept.”
 
Over the years I’ve asked people about their favorite Bible verses.  Some have said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  “The Lord is my shepherd.”  “Come to me, all who are weary, and I will give you rest.”  “For God so loved the world…”  Do you have a favorite?  It’s hard to choose just one.
 
Well, one time a man answered, “Jesus wept.”  He explained, “It’s how I know he was truly human.  And if he really was divine, it’s how I know that God cries with us when we suffer.”
 
Back with the sisters, Jesus asked to see the tomb.  They warned, “Don’t get too close.  He’ll stink!”  Jesus cried, “Come out!”  And either the Zombie apocalypse had begun or Lazarus came stumbling out of the tomb, his eyes covered, his body still wrapped in unraveling bands of cloth.  Alive! 
 
But you know what, maybe Jesus and Lazarus had this planned all along, just a little prank.  A little hide and seek with his sisters.  I mean, otherwise, if you think about it, how would Lazarus feel when he realizes all that has happened to him?  I’d be pretty ticked off.  But in fact, it gets worse.  In response to Lazarus coming back to life, the authorities had him killed again.  All to prove a point?
 
And what, exactly, was the point of letting him die to bring him back to life?
 
John has been testing us throughout his gospel.  How far will we go?  In fact, the raising of Lazarus is the last of what are known as John’s Seven Signs.  Signs of escalating improbability.
 
The first one is at the wedding in Cana when Jesus turned water into wine.  And we think, yeah, sure, why not.  A little sleight of hand and anyone can do that, right?
 
The second sign was when a royal official asked Jesus to heal his son.  Jesus didn’t bother to go to the official’s house.  He phoned it in and said, “Your son’s healed.”  And sure enough, he was.  But maybe he wasn’t that sick, just a panicky dad.
 
Sign number 3.  Jesus healed a paralytic man in Bethesda.  He didn’t ask for healing, just a little help getting into a pool of water known for its healing qualities.  Instead of helping, Jesus told him, “pick up your mat and walk.”  And he did!  However, maybe he wasn’t really all that disabled.  In my mind, I’m thinking, it was probably just a little joint pain in the morning.
 
Sign number 4 involved a crowd of 5,000 people…  You know where this is going.  Jesus told the disciples to feed them.  They gathered up a few fish and some loaves of bread and after everyone had eaten, there were 12 baskets of leftovers.  You see the escalating improbabilities.  Water into wine.  Healing from afar.  A man who can walk again.  5,000 people fed.
 
Sign number 5:  Jesus walked onto a stormy lake and calmed the sea.  He walked on water.  Really?  How do we explain that?  Maybe he just walked on a strategically placed sand bar at low tide.  A skeptical mind isn’t a bad thing.  Doubts and questions are good. But it’s true that all these escalating improbabilities were also upping the fear factor for the Roman Empire and the religious authorities.  It’s one thing for Jesus to be a good party guest.  Or that Jesus can heal.  But by controlling nature, Jesus is clearly more than an average traveling miracle worker.
 
Sign number 6:  We heard last week about how Jesus wiped spit and mud on the face of a man born blind and he could see.  But wasn’t Jesus really just exposing the blindness of the religious authorities?  And wasn’t #5 just about confronting our fears – Peter tried to walk on water too but couldn’t because he was too afraid.  And #4 was the power of sharing your food.  And #3 was taking initiative for your own healing.  And #2…
 
But then sign number 7.  Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.  Stinking dead after 4 days.
 
I once had a friend who got in trouble.  Or rather, was accused of something.  I don’t know if she did what she was accused of.  I doubted it but I couldn’t be certain.  But the truth is, it didn’t matter whether I believed that what was said of her was true.  I believed in her.
 
I sometimes have the same feeling about Jesus.  I don’t know if I believe all the things said about him.  Sometimes it feels like I’m supposed to believe all those things.  Am I a bad Christian if I’m not sure?  But, here’s what I can say.  I believe in him.
 
In 1910, fundamentalists developed a list of five things Christians must believe in:
1)The inerrancy of the Bible – including a literal 6 day creation
2)The virgin birth
3)The substitutionary atonement of Christ – that Jesus was a sacrificial lamb offered as a blood offering to pay for our sins
4)The bodily resurrection
5)The reality of miracles.  Every miracle exactly as written.
 
The rise of fundamentalism came as people increasingly adopted a more scientific view of the world.  Our ancestors in the Congregational Church were among the leaders in scholarship that questioned certain doctrines that resulted in a modernist/fundamentalist split.  I think there is a middle way.
 
As progressive Christians we take the Bible seriously, not literally.  We don’t have to be locked in two boxes, such as, the miracles happened exactly as written or that miracles are simply metaphors that can be explained.  There’s more to it than that.
 

• For example, I believe in the power of prayer.  I can’t explain how it works.
• And I believe that Jesus has the power to save, but we have to talk about what that means.
• And though I don’t think God goes around changing the course of human events, I do believe that for God, nothing is impossible.
• And like Bryan Stevenson said of people on death row, I believe each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.

 
I don’t believe everything that is said of Jesus but I do believe in Jesus.  And when you believe in someone, it’s not a series of statements about the person but the relationship that makes a difference in our lives.  A creed doesn’t hear us when we cry out in pain, “If only you had been here.”  But Jesus does. 
 
That’s why we lift our loved ones and our world up in prayer, asking for healing, even when what we ask for is impossible.  I can’t explain how prayer changes things, but that’s not as important as the fact that we care and that caring itself is healing.  To pray for healing is to be open to maybe – even after 4 days.  It means that our hearts and minds are not closed.  It means that we refuse to be held down by despair.  It means that we refuse to be crippled by cynicism.  And some days, wouldn’t that be a miracle?

Sermons from Mission Hills UCC
San Diego, California
 
Rev. Dr. David Bahr
david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org
 
March 19, 2023
 
“Who Sinned”
  
John 1: 1-41 – The Message
Walking down the street, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned: this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?”
3-5 Jesus said, “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over. For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world’s Light.”
6-7 He said this and then spit in the dust, made a clay paste with the saliva, rubbed the paste on the blind man’s eyes, and said, “Go, wash at the Pool of Siloam” (Siloam means “Sent”). The man went and washed—and saw.
8 Soon the town was buzzing. His relatives and those who year after year had seen him as a blind man begging were saying, “Why, isn’t this the man we knew, who sat here and begged?”
9 Others said, “It’s him all right!”
But others objected, “It’s not the same man at all. It just looks like him.”
He said, “It’s me, the very one.”
10 They said, “How did your eyes get opened?”
11 “A man named Jesus made a paste and rubbed it on my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ I did what he said. When I washed, I saw.”
12 “So where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
13-15 They marched the man to the Pharisees. This day when Jesus made the paste and healed his blindness was the Sabbath. The Pharisees grilled him again on how he had come to see. He said, “He put a clay paste on my eyes, and I washed, and now I see.”
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “Obviously, this man can’t be from God. He doesn’t keep the Sabbath.”
Others countered, “How can a bad man do miraculous, God-revealing things like this?” There was a split in their ranks.
17 They came back at the blind man, “You’re the expert. He opened your eyes. What do you say about him?”
He said, “He is a prophet.”
18-19 The Jews didn’t believe it, didn’t believe the man was blind to begin with. So they called the parents of the man now bright-eyed with sight. They asked them, “Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? So how is it that he now sees?”
20-23 His parents said, “We know he is our son, and we know he was born blind. But we don’t know how he came to see—haven’t a clue about who opened his eyes. Why don’t you ask him? He’s a grown man and can speak for himself.” (His parents were talking like this because they were intimidated by the Jewish leaders, who had already decided that anyone who took a stand that this was the Messiah would be kicked out of the meeting place. That’s why his parents said, “Ask him. He’s a grown man.”)
24 They called the man back a second time—the man who had been blind—and told him, “Give credit to God. We know this man is an impostor.”
25 He replied, “I know nothing about that one way or the other. But I know one thing for sure: I was blind . . . I now see.”
26 They said, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
27 “I’ve told you over and over and you haven’t listened. Why do you want to hear it again? Are you so eager to become his disciples?”
28-29 With that they jumped all over him. “You might be a disciple of that man, but we’re disciples of Moses. We know for sure that God spoke to Moses, but we have no idea where this man even comes from.”
30-33 The man replied, “This is amazing! You claim to know nothing about him, but the fact is, he opened my eyes! It’s well known that God isn’t at the beck and call of sinners, but listens carefully to anyone who lives in reverence and does his will. That someone opened the eyes of a man born blind has never been heard of—ever. If this man didn’t come from God, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.”
34 They said, “You’re nothing but dirt! How dare you take that tone with us!” Then they threw him out in the street.
35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and went and found him. He asked him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
36 The man said, “Point him out to me, sir, so that I can believe in him.”
37 Jesus said, “You’re looking right at him. Don’t you recognize my voice?”
38 “Master, I believe,” the man said, and worshiped him.
39 Jesus then said, “I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind.”
40 Some Pharisees overheard him and said, “Does that mean you’re calling us blind?”
41 Jesus said, “If you were really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so well, you’re accountable for every fault and failure.”
 
 

 
As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind since birth.  His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned causing this man to be born blind; him or his parents?”
 
A few years ago, a 9-year-old boy named Grayson was excited to bring his brand new backpack to school.  Administrators at the school in Ashville, North Carolina, stopped him at the door and told him he couldn’t bring it in because it could “trigger bullying.”  If the boy was bullied for carrying his My Lil Pony backpack it would be his fault – not those so threatened by the sight of a little boy with a cartoon backpack that they couldn’t control themselves.  After a media storm, the public school apologized and recognized that this was a teachable moment to address the wider issue of bullying.[1]  
 
But not the Christian school in Lynchburg, Virginia.  They expelled an 8-year-old girl named Sunnie because she was “not feminine enough.”  She wore pants and her hair was too short and so they claimed she was not upholding “biblical standards.”  When the child’s grandparents complained, first to the school and then to the media, the school claimed that the grandparents were lying and the media were distorting the truth.  The school dug their heels in even further and claimed they were really the victims.  They claimed they were being “bullied” by secular society. 
 
Lawyers for the school explained, “Parents send their children to this school because of our Christian beliefs and standards.  We have a duty to create an environment that is supportive of these Christian values.  We cannot have conflicting messages or standards because such conflict will confuse students and frustrate parents who entrust their children to us.”[2]
 
So, first the school claimed the grandparents were lying.  Then, that the media were bullying them.  This fantasy-world of victimization is so irritating and outrageous.  You’ve no doubt heard the polls that white evangelical Christians claim that “persecution” against them in this country is much worse than Muslims and every other actually mistreated group.[3]  But by the school’s own explanation, they weren’t victims.  They claimed that had to expel 8-year-old Sunnie because she was a danger to other children and parents for confusing them.
 
And the disciples asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned?”  They assumed that blindness was the cause and effect of sin.  Let’s be clear:  It is not.  Even so, remember the pain that such a question must cause for people who are differently-abled.  Like the man who was formerly blind – the subject of conversation rather than participant, talked about instead of talked with.
 
This story is a long back and forth and back and forth – ironically kind of funny, almost a keystone cops kind of spectacle with lots of characters, including curious people from the crowd, outraged Pharisees, frightened parents, clueless disciples, Jesus and the man himself (who, did you notice, wasn’t asked before Jesus wiped spit and dirt on his face – can we talk about consent!)  Anyway, after all this back and forth and blame game and deflection – “he healed on the Sabbath” – and hypocrisy and false outrage, “how dare you,” – and finally the grand proclamation:  “I don’t know.  All I know is that I couldn’t see but now I can.”
 
What a great response.  How did he heal you?  I don’t know.  All I ask is that you believe my experience, not express an opinion about whether it’s possible or not. 
 
Does Jesus heal?  I don’t know.  All I know is what people have said about their experiences.  And I believe them.  So, let’s believe and celebrate with the man.
 
Perhaps, however, the more challenging question is not whether Jesus does or does not heal, but why some and not others.  I don’t know.  But what I know is that there is nothing I can do to change the situation other than to change myself.  And I believe this is where Jesus leads the conversation.
 
So, we start where the gospel starts, “Rabbi, who sinned?”  And then follow Jesus to the point.  If we stick with it, if we keep engaging this back and forth story, we will finally come to ask – How am I a hypocrite?  Such a question can sting, but we all have blinders. 
 
You’ve perhaps heard these words before:  “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive our transgressions and cleanse us from unrighteousness.” 
 
This is the practice of self-reflection, self-examination, looking for our own blind spots.  Or we can try to make it about everyone else, point fingers, and look for someone else to blame. 
 
But as people of faith, we believe honesty leads to truth.  Self-reflection leads to growth.  And confession leads to transformation.  Unless we refuse to see.  And so, Jesus said, “I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind.”
 
Some Pharisees overheard him and said, “Surely you’re not calling us blind?”  Do you ever think Jesus rolled his eyes?  He said, “If you were really blind, you would be blameless.”
 
Like last week when Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well.  He told her he was the Messiah.  The same woman that one scholar called a “five-time loser” and a “tramp” and others described as living a “morally dubious life.”  Jesus honored her and respected her and yet she was, and still is, blamed for the hard life she had been forced to endure.  Surely, she brought this upon herself.  The disciples didn’t even bother to ask who sinned.  They all presumed she had, never asking, “Who sinned against her?”
 
And they never thought to ask who had sinned against this man, forcing him to live as a beggar?  Instead the question is asked whether the man born blind had sinned to cause his being born blind?  When exactly would that have been?  Eye roll and Jesus dismisses the idea as ridiculous and instead spoke to the man, honored him, revealing, I am the Son of Man.  To which the man responded, I believe.  Just as the woman had.
 
Jesus turned the worlds of both the man and the woman upside down, which threatened the religiously powerful who would do anything – then and now – to keep, hold on to, their power.  These radical ideas of Jesus were becoming more dangerous every day.  He kept including more and more people who had previously been outcasts for whatever blame game religious, cultural, political, or moral reasons they could conceive. 
 
I don’t know why the church refuses to see this.  That when you exclude women, when you scapegoat people of every color, race, and nation, and blame people for escaping violence, when you judge people who are queer, and marginalize people who are differently-abled, and stigmatize people with mental illness… Where is the radically inclusive Jesus of the gospel?  Instead, obsessed with sin – not the kind that leads to self-examination but rather blame.  That’s not Jesus, but it is what too much of American Christianity represents to people outside of or fleeing the church.
 
Sarah Speed (from A Sanctified Art) wrote a poem called “Jesus in the psych ward.” 
 
He’s in group therapy, plastic chairs in a circle.  Paper cups with weak coffee.  Everyone in the room has seeking eyes.
 
The Pharisees admitted him.  They said things like, “he’s more than we can handle.”  They let the rumors fly.
 
The other patients like him.  They say, “He listens to me.”
He calls them by name.

And when one of them asks,
“Is this our fault?  Are we here because we sinned?”
Jesus doesn’t wait for the facilitator to speak.
He crosses the circle and kneels down. 
He grabs their hands in his and says,

Child of the covenant, God loves you too much to ever wish you pain.  Bodies and minds crumble sometimes, but God’s love for you does not.
 
And after that
There were happy tears and the group was dismissed to lunch,
Where they broke bread and no one ever again talked of sin.[4]
 
Jesus said, “I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind.”
 
“Surely you’re not calling us blind?”  He said, “If you were really blind, you would be blameless.  But since you claim to see everything so well, you’re accountable for every fault and failure.”
 
The powerful clinging to their supremacy claimed to be shocked, victimized, and so they intensified their plot to crucify this Jesus who sees all of us exactly as we really are.  And isn’t it amazing that with forgiveness for our own blinders, although once we could not, now too we can see!  See ourselves with honesty and be seen by others exactly as we really are – fearfully and wonderfully made.
 


[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/03/18/my-little-pony-backpack-banned-school-north-carolina/6565425/

[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/26/girl-feminine-school-virginia/6900935/

[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/08/the-evangelical-persecution-complex/375506/

[4] This powerful poem is based on another one called “Jesus at the Gay Bar” and his interaction with a boy who begged to be healed.  He said, child, there is nothing in you to be healed. https://jayhulme.com/blog/jesus-at-the-gay-bar

Sermons from Mission Hills UCC
San Diego, California
 
Rev. Dr. David Bahr
david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org
 
March 12, 2023
 
“Would You Give Me a Drink”
 
 
John 4: 3-30, 39-42 – Common English Bible
Jesus left Judea and went back to Galilee.
4 Jesus had to go through Samaria. 5 He came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, which was near the land Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus was tired from his journey, so he sat down at the well. It was about noon.
7 A Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” 8 His disciples had gone into the city to buy him some food.
9 The Samaritan woman asked, “Why do you, a Jewish man, ask for something to drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (Jews and Samaritans didn’t associate with each other.)
10 Jesus responded, “If you recognized God’s gift and who is saying to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would be asking him and he would give you living water.”
11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you don’t have a bucket and the well is deep. Where would you get this living water? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave this well to us, and he drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never be thirsty again. The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will never be thirsty and will never need to come here to draw water!”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, get your husband, and come back here.”
17 The woman replied, “I don’t have a husband.”
“You are right to say, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus answered. 18 “You’ve had five husbands, and the man you are with now isn’t your husband. You’ve spoken the truth.”
19 The woman said, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you and your people say that it is necessary to worship in Jerusalem.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you and your people will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You and your people worship what you don’t know; we worship what we know because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the time is coming—and is here!—when true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth. The Father looks for those who worship him this way. 24 God is spirit, and it is necessary to worship God in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one who is called the Christ. When he comes, he will teach everything to us.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I Am—the one who speaks with you.”[a]
27 Just then, Jesus’ disciples arrived and were shocked that he was talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 The woman put down her water jar and went into the city. She said to the people, 29 “Come and see a man who has told me everything I’ve done! Could this man be the Christ?” 
39 Many Samaritans in that city believed in Jesus because of the woman’s word when she testified, “He told me everything I’ve ever done.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 Many more believed because of his word, 42 and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this one is truly the savior of the world.”
 
  
In a desert climate, what time of day would you normally go to the well to draw water?  Probably not the hottest time of day.  So why was this woman there at Noon?  It speaks volumes to who she was:

• Someone not welcome in the cool of morning. 
• Someone on the outside. 
• Rejected.  Ostracized. 
• Someone whose hard life other villagers judged. 

 
At least, that’s how I see it.  Because here’s the thing:  We can hear the words of Jesus that she had had five husbands and was now living with a man who wasn’t her husband and think he was judging her.  That’s how many scholars, male scholars that is, have written about her.  Listen to these:  She exhibits a “dubious lack of morals” and “aberrant sexual behavior.”  What?!  One wrote that she was a “five-time loser” and a “tramp.”  These men reveal more about their own attitudes toward women than anything they could possibly find in the actual text itself.
 
Let’s think about the time in which she lived.  As a woman, what kind of power did she have?  For example, even if she had wanted to, she couldn’t have a initiated divorce with one let alone five men.  And if it had been adultery, the man would have been patted on the back in the locker room, while others were out assembling a pile of stones to throw at her. 
 
Maybe every single one of the men died and people thought she was cursed.  I immediately think of the story of the woman forced to marry 7 brothers, one after the other after each man died – like a piece of property handed down. 
 
To recognize that the woman at the well had been married five times means we must realize, sympathize with, what a hard life she must have had.  Imagine a life filled with such grief, a life of being abandoned, the hunger inherent in such instability, and thirst.  Literal thirst as she did everything she could to survive.  And what did she get for all that?  Scholars calling her a loser and women who didn’t invite her to join them in the early morning as they laughed and shared stories on their way to the well.
 
Why was she at the well at Noon?  Not only her exclusion but the time of day also reveals the contrast between her and Nicodemus – a respected member of the religious establishment.  In the chapter right before this, Nicodemus came to Jesus in the middle of the night.  He didn’t want anyone to see him talking with Jesus.  To his credit, he went to Jesus with an open mind, but he couldn’t comprehend the idea that he must be born from above or anew or again.  He walked back into the night unconvinced. 
 
But, by the light of the Noonday sun, this woman with no power, and not only that, a Samaritan, a person of a hated and despised people, regardless of whether she had a “past”… she not only immediately understood who Jesus was, this woman at the well raced to tell other people the good news.  She was the first preacher of the gospel!
 
Now, it wasn’t a coincidence or an accident that Jesus happened to come across her.  On his trip back to Galilee from Judea, he chose to go directly through Samaria.  Imagine you’re traveling from San Diego to San Francisco.  It wouldn’t make sense to drive through Las Vegas to get there, right?  That is, unless you’re trying to avoid Los Angeles.  Not because of the traffic but because you despise the people of LA.  To get from Judea to Galilee it would make geographic sense to take a direct route, but Jews avoided Samaria at all cost.  They hated each other.  Remember the story of the “Good” Samaritan.  There was no such thing because nothing good could ever come from Samaria.  It’s like hearing a story of the “good” smuggler or the “good” white supremacist.  It’s going to get your attention. 
 
And why did Jews and Samaritans hate each other so much?  Well, scholars don’t all agree and it’s too complicated to really go into with much depth, I tried but it took too long, so just know that it existed with intensity.  And yet despite this animosity, or likely because of it, Jesus chose to travel through Samaria.  Jesus explained to Nicodemus in that after-dark meeting just verses before that “God so loved the world…”  And then immediately put that famous “John 3:16” passage into practice.  Samaria represented “the world” and this was just the beginning.  And the message was exemplified, amplified, by Jesus telling this particular woman “I Am.”  It wasn’t a coincidence.  She was exactly the kind of person he was looking for.
 
Nicodemus didn’t understand.  Not even the disciples understood.  But as Jesus engaged in serious theological conversation with her, treating her with respect like an equal, she not only understood, again, she raced to transform the lives of the very villagers among whom she was an outcast. 
 
This isn’t just a nice little story.  This story destroys the labels we attach to people, it explodes pre-conceived notions, this story tears down walls, it’s a blast that flings open the door for anyone who has ever felt judged and shut out.  Anyone who has ever felt excluded is provocatively welcomed by Jesus who offers Living Water to us all.
 
Again, the statement Jesus made about her five husbands wasn’t a dig at her past.  He understood her hard life and offered a healing balm.  Like the choir sang, there is a balm in Gilead to heal the wounded soul.
 
Wait, if you’ve sung that song before, it’s supposed to be “sin-sick,” right?  To heal the “sin-sick” soul.  But is this the same sort of “sin-sickness” the woman was accused of?  Is it the reason she went to the well alone at Noon or the reason she was called a tramp with an aberrant sex life, i.e. sin-sick?  Why must people be so cruel?
 
Right now, in legislatures across the country, the lives of transgender and non-binary people are being debated like never before.  The United Church of Christ reported on Friday that as of March 3rd,  there have been 385 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced,[1] the highest number ever introduced in a single legislative season, with 108 of them aiming to end gender affirming healthcare, affecting 54,000 youth, about whom the same kinds of things were said of the woman at the well.  Rejected, ostracized, and wounded – but called instead, among other things, sinful, aberrant, morally dubious.  And a danger to our kids.
 
Let me introduce you to a woman in Samaria who has had five husbands and now lives with a man who is not her husband.  Jesus didn’t say “if you repent I’ll offer you some Living Water.”  There was no forgiveness needed.  Instead of assigning labels and inciting violence, the church should be offering the water of understanding for how hard life can be when you live under judgment for things over which you have no control.  Do we try to understand?  Or assign some kind of moral deficiency?
 
To me the parallels are extraordinary.  As well as the cruelty.  The religiously-based cruelty.  But there is a balm in Gilead for the wounded soul.  Not the pointed-at = sin-sick.  Wounded.  For all wounded by religion – perhaps because of divorce you’ve been excluded from communion, or judged because you have doubts, or you or your children weren’t baptized, or you or a loved one are LGBTQ, or because you’ve been looked down upon for whatever reason – religious people can come up with a lot of reasons.  Or are you a woman who has been barred from preaching the good news of Jesus who offers the kind of Living Water which will make us never thirst again?
 
I asked our Lunch and Lectionary friends on Thursday, what is Living Water?  Marla said it’s the love of God.  Others described it as having motion.  Water moves.  What is the opposite of living water?  Stagnant – dank, smelly, unfit to drink – water.
 
Like faith.  Think of a stagnant faith or one that is living.  A living faith moves and breathes and changes course.  A living faith says, God is still speaking.  A stagnant faith may counter-propose “God has spoken.  Period.”  And what does the UCC say to that?  Never place a period where God has placed a comma.
 
Is your faith alive or has your faith stagnated?  A living faith, like water, is always in motion, it’s changing, always changing, often in ways you can’t control.  And why would you want to control it?  We are people of faith in motion, Living Water.  Sometimes water can only be found in springs below the surface.  We might fear it has disappeared because we haven’t seen it for a while, yet it is still there nourishing our thirst.  Maybe our prayer is for God to stir the waters.
 
The woman at the well is an inspiration.  Just like our national UCC leaders said to trans and non-binary youth on Friday, you are a beloved child of God, created with intention and vibrant love.  Within your body rests a sacred offering of God’s multitude.  We see you.  You belong.
 
As Danielle read at the beginning of the service, hear Jesus say to you:
 
I’d give you a drink, a warm cup of tea with lemon and mint,
I’d give you a confetti cannon,
roses from the garden,
my favorite sweatshirt, a bed to lay in,
homemade bread, a hand to hold.
 
I’d give you my full attention.
I’d give you my phone and say here, put your number in.
I’d give you the melody line,
a standing ovation,
a sense of security.
 
I’d give you anything and everything
If it made you believe
That you are enough.[2]
 


[1] https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights?inf_contact_key=2a3609f37382a474fa1cadbeb3009123464dbfbc1801014bcbec243a32905af2

[2] Sarah (Are) Speed from A Sanctified Art

Sermons from Mission Hills UCC
San Diego, California
 
Rev. Dr. David Bahr
david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org
 
February 19, 2023
 
“Delight in God’s Ways”
 
 
Isaiah 58: 1-9a – The Message
Shout! A full-throated shout!
    Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!
Tell my people what’s wrong with their lives,
    face my family Jacob with their sins!
They’re busy, busy, busy at worship,
    and love studying all about me.
To all appearances they’re a nation of right-living people--
    law-abiding, God-honoring.
They ask me, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’
    and love having me on their side.
But they also complain,
    ‘Why do we fast and you don’t look our way?
    Why do we humble ourselves and you don’t even notice?’
3-5     “Well, here’s why:
“The bottom line on your ‘fast days’ is profit.
    You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
    You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
    won’t get your prayers off the ground.
Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after:
    a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
    and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
    a fast day that I, God, would like?
6-9 “This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
    to break the chains of injustice,
    get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
    free the oppressed,
    cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
    sharing your food with the hungry,
    inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
    putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
    being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
    and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
    The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
    You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’
 
 
The people are complaining that God should be more appreciative of their sacrifices and acts of piety and devotion.  They want a pat on the back, a gold star, and a cheer – well done!  Isaiah declares, God doesn’t want your busy worship and scripture study and fasting from food for the sake of being pure and holy.  No sackcloth and ashes, just lives lived for the needs of others.  As Micah said so eloquently:  What does God require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?  And Amos: God desires justice to roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream
 
This is the kind of fast day I want, says God:  to break the chains of injustice, to rid exploitation from the workplace, to free the oppressed, cancel debts, share your food with the hungry, invite the poor into your homes, put clothes on the naked, and not to turn away from your families.  That’s the fast that is pleasing to God.
 
As Christians of the social gospel tradition, this is the message we seek to instill in our children and youth.  That’s why two weeks ago, 25 people from Mission Hills UCC were on a roof in Tijuana instead of here in the pews.  Today we’re going to hear their experiences of turning the words of prophets like Isaiah, Micah, and Amos into action.  And then I’ll have a few more things to say about how we can sustain our dedication to such compassion and justice for a lifetime.   
 
Trip participants share their experiences – Watch our service on YouTube to hear 
https://www.youtube.com/@missionhillsucc8846

See a trip video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I67eDy7y3Qs&t=21s  

So, back to Isaiah:  God’s impatience was with rituals only for the purpose of fulfilling rituals; performances for the sake of performing; acts without meaningful action.
 
Many of us grew up in a time that many people went to church because it was the socially expected thing to do.  Perhaps a place to make business contacts or to be seen.  If you didn’t belong to a church someone might wonder what’s wrong with you.  Now, people are just as likely to think there’s something strange about you going to church.  What’s wrong with you!?  There was a time when people went to church out of habit.  Now, social habits are more likely to revolve around brunch. 
 
During the pandemic many of us got into such habits as folding laundry during worship and out of the habit of going at all.  Although, to be clear, American church attendance has declined every year since 1963.  It’s not a recent phenomenon, but it has certainly accelerated.  And yet, this is not all bad because today, instead of habit or social expectation, people are motivated to attend worship – or not – by some positive value they attach to it.  I asked our Lunch and Lectionary group why they go to church.  Listen and think about what you would say.
 
For one person, she explained, it’s grounding.  I’m grounded in community and in 2,000 years of history.  Grounded in community, by the way, as a congregant who lives 500 miles away.  Another person said, we need a place for perspective – to see and understand the bigger picture and be reminded of our calling.
 
Another comment:  I can’t be my best self or live my values without being held accountable, and when I hear about the love and forgiveness of Christ, these stories call me to reflect on my highest values and how I live my life.  Worship is the nourishment I need for the work of repairing the world. 
 
One said, the weekly rhythm of Sundays allows us to step in and step out of the ordinary in order to think about the deeper meaning of life in a way that often doesn’t happen anywhere else.
 
Another person said that worship nourishes her soul and is a place where she finds support and acceptance unlike any other.  For another, it’s the beauty. The beauty of music and architecture and words and liturgy.
 
Community was a big reason people gave about why they come to church – but not necessarily for friends.  In something as simple as the communal act of listening together, breathing together, singing together, we are filled by transcendence and leave with wisdom to share.  In a lonely world, we are not alone.  Many other examples were offered.  What would you add?  Why are you here today?  What do you expect?  What do you offer?
 
Worship sustains a lifetime dedicated to God’s love and justice and compassion in the world.  This is how we delight in God’s ways.  Justice work, let alone life, is exhausting and not easy without pauses to remember why we are on this earth and what we are doing.  The prophets have been calling us back to this for thousands of years.  And when you put it that way, there’s no better way to put a hard week into perspective!
 
Thank you again to all who went on the trip and represented the Body of Christ in the world.  As Jesus calls to his followers, you relieved suffering and offered hope and joy.
 

Sermons from Mission Hills UCC
San Diego, California
 
Rev. Dr. David Bahr
david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org
 
February 12, 2023
 
“The Dangers and Virtues of Anger”
 
 
Matthew 5: 21-26 - Common English Bible
“You have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago, Don’t commit murder,[a] and all who commit murder will be in danger of judgment. 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be in danger of judgment. If they say to their brother or sister, ‘You idiot,’ they will be in danger of being condemned by the governing council. And if they say, ‘You fool,’ they will be in danger of fiery hell. 23 Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift at the altar and go. First make things right with your brother or sister and then come back and offer your gift. 25 Be sure to make friends quickly with your opponents while you are with them on the way to court. Otherwise, they will haul you before the judge, the judge will turn you over to the officer of the court, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 I say to you in all seriousness that you won’t get out of there until you’ve paid the very last penny.
 
 
This is the first of six “you have heard that it was said, but I say to you” teachings of Jesus.  Just to be clear, Jesus is not trying to abolish or overturn these laws.  Instead, he invites us to take it more seriously.  He asks, why stop at murder?  What about anger?  What about just calling someone a name?  What about simply calling someone an idiot or a fool?
 
You have heard that it was said, do not murder.  But, Jesus said, I say to you, everyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be in danger of judgment. 
 
It made me think:  What are the dangers of anger?  I asked our Lunch and Lectionary bible study on Thursday and they had a great list:

• High blood pressure
• It keeps you awake at night
• It drags you into a negative ditch
• It causes you to be unkind
• You can’t see your way forward
• It’s a waste of energy
• It blocks you from being happy
• It damages those around you that you are not angry with
• One said that at least a benefit of anger was a cleaner house.

 
I’m sure you could name many more.  But, I also wonder, isn’t there sometimes a danger in not being angry?  Isn’t that also a danger, for example, to our mental health?  I’m reminded of the poem by Langston Hughes called “Harlem.”
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore – and then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over – like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
 
The “dream deferred” Hughes speaks of is not simply wishes for a better life but basic, fundamental, human dignity and freedom. 
 
In 1961, James Baldwin was asked about being Black in America.  He responded, “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage, almost all the time.  And part of this rage is this:  It isn’t only what’s happening to you.  It’s what’s happening all around you and all of the time in the face of the most extraordinary criminal indifference…” 
 
Cruel indifference, for example, in how some people are more upset about people being angry than oppression.  Stereotypes of angry Black men and angry Black women deflect just how logical anger would be as a reaction to daily microaggressions or out and proud white nationalism so vividly on display.  Why isn’t everyone angry?
 
On the other hand, there is so much anger in our country right now, I certainly don’t want to encourage more.  The lack of civility is astounding.  The constant grievances and attacks.  I’m not encouraging more anger. 
 
Rather, I’m talking about the vision of shalom and peace and wellbeing of the biblical prophets – of Micah and Amos and Jeremiah and Isaiah and more.  Their anger over the lack of justice, the care of widows and orphans, the welcome of strangers and foreigners.  Anger at the lack of wellbeing for everyone.  The prophets call for a religious practice that is demonstrated in compassion and not in compliance with empty religious practices devoid of love.  When Jesus said, “You have heard it was said but I say,” he was painting a vision of the kingdom of God, a world full of people with mercy.  And if not, as we witness a denial of justice and welling for our neighbors, how could we not be as angry as the prophets?
 
It is good to be wary of anger, of not stoking anger, of not provoking anger.  But there can be something very good about anger.  Virtuous, even.  Poet Audre Lord shared how when “focused with precision, anger can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change.  Anger is loaded with information and energy.”
 
Dr. Myisha Cherry is a professor of philosophy at the University of California Riverside.  Her most recent book is The Case for Rage: Why Anger is Essential to Anti-Racist Struggle.[1] In it, she makes a case for anger.  
 
She wrote after George Floyd’s murder about how anger can build a better world.  Anger is not, she said, antithetical to love.

• In fact, anger drives the conviction that a better future is possible.  It urges us to act.
• It dignifies Black children who might have begun to think that their skin tone was a death sentence and communicates the value of Black lives. 
• Anger can make people feel optimistic about the future and increase their self-belief. 
• Anger can make people believe they are powerful and capable. 
• As much as anger is a response to past events, it looks forward to what can change. 
• Fear, she said, motivates us to run away but anger motivates us to run toward a target to disarm the power of hate. 
• Most importantly, she said, anger refuses to allow the temptation to despair. 
• It is a source of hope – Anger is a hope of hope, that is when directed away from yourself or loved ones to systems that demean or deny life.[2] 

 
I’m not sure I’ve ever thought of anger as hopeful or as a virtue.  Still, I wonder what the voice of non-violence might think.  Surely, Dr. King never advocated anger.  But it’s not about advocating anger.  It’s recognizing the power in it. 
 
When Martin Luther King, Jr. was in high school he won an oratorical contest.  As he and his teacher were returning home in triumph, riding on a bus, some white passengers got on.  The white bus driver cursed at them and ordered King and his teacher to give up their seats.  King wanted to stay seated but his teacher urged him to obey the law.  They had to stand in the aisle for 90 miles back to Atlanta.
 
Dr. King told an interviewer decades later that it was “the angriest I have ever been in my life.”  His daughter Bernice told the story too about how extremely angry her father had been at that particular incident.  She said he came dangerously close to hating all white people.  It was when he was in college and seminary that he discovered non-violent resistance as a channel for that anger – to move it into positive forms of protest.  “If you internalize anger, and you don’t find a channel, it can destroy you.”  That’s why he said, “Hate is too great a burden to bear.”  He continued to wrestle with anger throughout his life but tried always to use it as a motivating force for change; as well, to contain its potential for destruction.[3]
 
Feel angry when it’s what you feel.  Anger is not the opposite of love.  It is part of the process of redemptive love.  Without anger we could become numb to injustice.  And that’s not loving.  We could become desensitized to racial terror.  And that’s not loving.   We could succumb to despair.  We simply won’t get to love without going first through the anger we rightfully feel. 
 
Surely Jesse Owens was rightfully angry with the racist philosophy of Aryan superiority.  At the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, he used it set world records in front of Hitler’s face.[4]
 
Surely Marian Anderson was rightfully angry at the denial by the Daughters of the American Revolution to sing in Constitution Hall.  She used it to instead triumph in front of a massive crowd of 75,000 people from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939.[5]
 
Surely Mary McLeod Bethune would have been rightfully angry that her formerly enslaved parents weren’t allowed to learn how to read.  She used it as fuel to found a college in 1929 and eventually became a nationally known educator, philanthropist, and adviser to five U.S. presidents.  Appointed by President Harry S. Truman, Bethune was the only woman of color at the founding conference of the United Nations in 1945.[6]  Her parents were slaves.
 
I could keep going with examples of rightfully-angry injustices that became triumphs, but my point is, you may have heard it was said that anger is bad for you.  I say, use it as the fuel to change the world – to advance the Kingdom of God.  Anger is necessary to the condition of living as a human being with empathy.  It’s the price of being fully human.
 
In addition to the fight for racial justice, where else might this apply in your life?  Where are you angry?

• Maybe some mornings you wake up and you’re angry at your body and the effects of aging.
• Maybe you’re angry at cancer – yours or someone else’s.
• Maybe you’re angry at a boss or co-worker or neighbor or spouse or your children.  Just don’t call them an idiot or a fool and I think Jesus will be OK with it.
• Or, maybe you’re simply angry at yourself.

 
But remember,

• Anger might just be trying to convince you a better future is possible and urging you to act. 
• Or to feel optimistic about your future 
• Or maybe anger is trying to convince you that you are powerful and capable. 
• You may be angry at a past event, but look forward to what can change. 
• Fear will motivate you to run away but anger motivates you to run toward a target to disarm its power. 
• Most importantly refuse the temptation to despair.  Be angry when it’s called for. 
• It is a source of hope.  Amen?

 


[1] Oxford University Press: 2021

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/how-anger-can-build-better-world/615625/

[3] https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/691298594/the-power-of-martin-luther-king-jr-s-anger

[4] https://olympics.com/en/athletes/jesse-owens

[5] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/eleanor-anderson/

[6] https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mary-mcleod-bethune

Sermons from Mission Hills UCC
San Diego, California
 
Rev. Dr. David Bahr
david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org
 
February 5, 2023
 
“A Gay Man’s Ordination 30 Years Ago”
 
  
1st Samuel 3: 1-10 - Common English Bible
Now the boy Samuel was serving the Lord under Eli. The Lord’s word was rare at that time, and visions weren’t widely known. 2 One day Eli, whose eyes had grown so weak he was unable to see, was lying down in his room. 3 God’s lamp hadn’t gone out yet, and Samuel was lying down in the Lord’s temple, where God’s chest[a] was.
4 The Lord called to Samuel. “I’m here,” he said.
5 Samuel hurried to Eli and said, “I’m here. You called me?”
“I didn’t call you,” Eli replied. “Go lie down.” So he did.
6 Again the Lord called Samuel, so Samuel got up, went to Eli, and said, “I’m here. You called me?”
“I didn’t call, my son,” Eli replied. “Go and lie down.”
(7 Now Samuel didn’t yet know the Lord, and the Lord’s word hadn’t yet been revealed to him.)
8 A third time the Lord called Samuel. He got up, went to Eli, and said, “I’m here. You called me?”
Then Eli realized that it was the Lord who was calling the boy. 9 So Eli said to Samuel, “Go and lie down. If he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down where he’d been.
10 Then the Lord came and stood there, calling just as before, “Samuel, Samuel!”
Samuel said, “Speak. Your servant is listening.”
 

 
On Tuesday I will celebrate having been ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament in the United Church of Christ for 30 years.  My call to ministry reminds me of the call of a young Samuel.  I was 16 years old and kept having a series of dreams.  Night after night, I saw myself in the role of a pastor – preaching, visiting the sick, and so forth.  My whole family was very involved in the church so it made sense, but I had already told God I wasn’t interested.  I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I was sure it wasn’t that. 
 
However, the dreams just kept coming and coming and became more and more annoying.  I was a youth delegate to a statewide church meeting and I told some ministers about my dreams.  Every one of them said, “It sounds like Samuel.  When you wake up, say yes to God.”  I refused and the dreams kept coming until finally one night I woke up and with a great lack of enthusiasm said, “All right, enough already.”  And I instantly felt washed in peace.  I knew it was right.
 
Except nothing can be that easy.  Enter all those years of feeling different, not knowing what it meant, and then not wanting to be different in “that” way.  I knew the call from God was real but how could I both be gay, once I could say the word out loud, and still be a pastor?  But thanks to another very powerful dream, I realized it wasn’t going to be easy, but I had to proceed on faith. 
 
In the next verse, “God told Samuel, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of all who hear it tingle!”  It wasn’t good news for Eli, but he said, “God is God.  And God will do as God pleases.”  I believed that.  I just had to figure out my part.
 
So, long story short, I finished seminary, during which I chose the UCC as my new church home – it wasn’t without its own set of problems, but at least it provided a possibility of ordination.  In 1972, Bill Johnson was the first openly gay man in modern history to be ordained.  
 
In the normal course of events, I would have been ordained a few months after graduating.  But no one can be ordained in the UCC without a call – usually to a church or hospital or something like that.  Bottom line:  Someone has to hire you.  That was the hard part.  At the time there were maybe 100 Open and Affirming congregations, but many said “we don’t want one of ‘them’ as our pastor.”  The same thing has been said at times of women and people of color and people with disabilities.
 
Back in 1972 when Bill Johnson was ordained, it wasn’t to ministry in a church.  Twelve years later, Diane Darling went from being a seminary intern at the UCC in Modesto to associate pastor and then co-pastor – and was thus the first out-lesbian called to a church.  But everyone knew her.  The question remained:  How do you get through the search process with “lesbian” on your profile?  Or should you?  Why must you disclose such a thing in the first place?  I remember lots of conversations about waiting until a search committee gets to know you before telling them.  But that didn’t usually go very well.  Committees felt betrayed by someone they liked.  And certainly, don’t wait to come out until the congregation votes!  That will not end well.  It wasn’t until 1989 that Loey Powell successfully went all the way through the process, out on her profile, honest in her interview, known to the whole congregation who voted to call her.  It only took 7 years of rejections first. 
 
Just four years later, I was the beneficiary of an incrementally slowly changing world and of those who had spent a lifetime working to change the church – with much personal heartbreak and sacrifice.  When Archwood UCC voted to call me, we may have crossed over to fingers on a second hand to count the number of such pastors out of 5,000 churches. 
 
So, it was 1992 and I was working at the UCC national headquarters in Cleveland.  I learned that a small inner-city church was willing to consider the profiles of openly gay and lesbian candidates.  They were that desperate.  Archwood’s 1,000 members had plummeted to 30 on a good day and this was their third search committee in three years.  Few people were interested.  In the first go round, the final candidate was voted down because the secretary didn’t like him – for one thing, he had a Jewish sounding name.  The second one was voted in but then he turned it down because the secretary wouldn’t let him begin until she recovered from surgery.  Perhaps I should have known that after a used car salesman turned them down (I’m not kidding), my chances were either pretty good or I was pretty dumb to consider it.
 
So, I met with their third committee, a very dejected bunch of people.  We had a really good first meeting in June.  And then I heard nothing from them for two months.  I finally wrote asking for notice that I was no longer under consideration.  In August I received a nice letter back saying the committee felt it would be too divisive for the already small church.  To be honest, I was a little relieved.  Did I really want to go to a church that might close?  However, they called two weeks later and asked me to consider them. 
 
December 12th was the day.  I would preach, answer questions after worship, and they would discuss and vote.  However, the search committee worried, correctly, that some of the questions might not be appropriate, so they appointed an 85-year-old Republican to field the questions and then he would ask me.  Surely no one would ask him anything too bad.  The tactic didn’t work and finally he was too red faced to continue and just stepped aside.  Showing no shame, the undignified questions about such things as my sex life continued, and occasionally some relevant to church, ministry, and vision. 
 
Finally, I left the room while they discussed among themselves.  It took forever and I even toyed with the idea of leaving.  And then I heard a loud ruckus in the sanctuary, like a fight had broken out.  Upon the announcement of the 2/3rds margin, someone took the microphone and spoke Congratulations! into it too loudly.  Which prompted others to start yelling, including the secretary who declared everyone was going to hell.  The meeting was over and many people just went home.  I wanted to as well.  However, the search committee chair came to get me and invited me down to the Fellowship Hall where people were waiting.
 
As I was adding Sweet and Low to my coffee, the infamous secretary Mary Mae Meister (isn’t that a great name for a villain); Mary Mae raced toward me from the other side of the room and began screaming in my face – we’ve got to keep the children away from you.  You can just go home now and have sex with anything you want.  Seriously.  I was a wreck inside, but I listened calmly and thanked her for her honesty and stepped away.  She then turned around and chose another target to berate because they hadn’t made their pledge yet.  I walked to the middle of the room where a lovely group of women in their 80s held out their hands and formed a half-circle around me, and said, “We’re glad you’re here.”  I can still see their faces.  Penny, Alice, Clara, Betty, Lillian…
 
I had hoped that Mary Mae’s public outburst would convince the church leadership that she had to go.  But she ran the church and they were used to her antics.  How could they survive without her?  So, I had to insist she be retired or I, like the used car salesman before me, would pull out too, which further angered those who opposed my call.  And even upset some of my supporters.  They wanted me to work with her for six months. 
 
Eleven of the 13 no votes never set foot in the church again.  I went to visit each one who would listen but it was just an hour of humiliation.  One man who voted for me stayed only a few months.  He told me, “I love your sermons, but I just don’t see a pastor.  I see a homosexual in the pulpit” – and I had never once pulled out my feather boa.  But to the rest of them, I grew close.  They were like family to me.  However, when some of them died, their family members wouldn’t allow me to conduct their funeral.
 
So, in February, to the ordination itself.  The Cleveland Plain Dealer did a big story about it the week before, which unleashed madness.  Piles of hate mail arrived and continued for months.  A death threat was left on the answering machine to burn down the church with me in it.  I took the little tape to the police who, as I figured, said they could only do something if indeed the church had burned down with me in it.  I lived in the parsonage six feet from the church, so I felt more than a little vulnerable. 
 
In the busy week before my ordination, one of the pastors in our ecumenical cluster, a United Methodist church, asked to visit.  Our cluster did joint services and even operated a hunger center together.  He handed me a letter that said he and his church members would not attend any future event where I would be involved.  He said he wanted to give me the letter in person as a “friendly gesture” and added, “I hope we can still be friends.” 
 
The same week the pastor of a large suburban UCC invited me to lunch.  The church had promised to do some work around our inner-city church as a mission project, but over a piece of pie he said they were pulling their support.  I would have preferred a letter.  Another church in our Association left the UCC citing me as the reason.  Or rather, that our association minister had supported my ordination.
 
In response to the newspaper story, a very prominent and very rich man in Cleveland demanded that the UCC president intervene and stop the ordination or he would no longer give money to his own UCC.  Paul Sherry sent him a very nice letter explaining why he would not do that and then sent a letter of greetings to be read at my ordination, expressing regrets he could not be there personally.
 
One more:  The pastor of the nearest UCC wouldn’t speak to me or even send a letter but had someone else share the news that he would not be attending my ordination because he didn’t approve.  However, a few years later I officiated at his wedding. 
 
Despite all the above, I felt very much loved and supported.  The United Methodist pastor right across the street was wonderful.  He organized a group to be on the watch for the protestors who promised to picket my ordination.  In the end, however, only one protestor showed up and he simply put little handwritten cards on all the car windshields that read “God does not create people gay.”
 
On the day of the ordination, the 20 or so people of Archwood were dwarfed by a packed sanctuary.  Many of them were complete strangers who read the newspaper article and were hungry for a church that would welcome them.  Some came back and helped lay the foundation for the congregation that was to come. 
 
Nearly every one of the initial twenty people who voted to call me died within a few years and without their radical hospitality, the church would have died too.  In fact, Archwood is the only church in the neighborhood still open.  The other UCC, Lutheran, Episcopal, both United Methodist churches and even the Catholic church have closed.  Archwood still meets and worships in the same place but wisely gave its building to a cultural arts center and is now without the burden of any repairs or rent.
 
Ten years after my ordination I began a doctoral program and developed a study of others who had followed the same path – out on their profiles, honest in their interviews, called by predominantly straight congregations.  Instead of just one in 1989 and a handful in 1993, by 2005, there were well over 100 in my study. 
 
Despite the consistency of a great number of churches fearing the loss of members and money, my research proved that churches with openly LGBTQ pastors significantly outperformed the rest, particularly with families looking to raise their children in an environment of openness and acceptance. 
 
But the other side of the study also identified the personal and emotional toll it took on such pastors.  I can now laugh about hate mail and death threats and such indignities as being refused the honor of officiating at funerals, but I did get worn down.  Pressure by some to fail; pressure by others that I better succeed or I would set the movement back.  I struggled with some severe depression for a while.  But my challenges were nothing like the pastor who was at home when someone shot a gun into the parsonage and other hate crimes.  Numerous acts of vandalism.  Or when Gene Robinson was consecrated a bishop and wore a bullet proof vest.  And I can’t not acknowledge this first Sunday in Black History Month what churches and ministers of the gospel have faced in this county – arsons and lynchings and daily aggressions and indignities.  In the grand scheme of things, I was extraordinarily fortunate.
 
And so I’m here to express my gratitude for these 30 years – and more to come – and to see the tremendous progress.  There are now more than 1,800 Open and Affirming UCC congregations, I don’t know how many LGBTQ pastors – hundreds!  And movements within many denominations.  But the struggle for the larger church is far from over.  More churches would condemn you for being Open and Affirming than congratulate you.  To us in this room, the danger is in thinking it’s not a big deal anymore.  It is.  People – straight and queer both – are still hungering for a place that would welcome them.  People are still being rejected and around the world and even worse.
 
It pains me for those for whom change is still only incremental.  Or non-existent.  We have to figure out our part and be faithful to the call.  But God is a God who continues to make a way out of no way.  Blessed be the God who calls you, like Samuel, by name.

​

Sermons from Mission Hills UCC
San Diego, California
 
Rev. Dr. David Bahr
david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org
 
January 29, 2023
 
“Happy People”
 
 
Micah 6: 1-8 – Common English Bible
Hear what the Lord is saying:
Arise, lay out the lawsuit before the mountains;
        let the hills hear your voice!
2 Hear, mountains, the lawsuit of the Lord!
        Hear, eternal foundations of the earth!
The Lord has a lawsuit against his people;
        with Israel he will argue.
3 “My people, what did I ever do to you?
        How have I wearied you? Answer me!
4 I brought you up out of the land of Egypt;
        I redeemed you from the house of slavery.
        I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam before you.
5 My people, remember what Moab’s King Balak had planned,
        and how Balaam, Beor’s son, answered him!
        Remember everything[a] from Shittim to Gilgal,
        that you might learn to recognize the righteous acts of the Lord!”
What does the Lord require?
6 With what should I approach the Lord
        and bow down before God on high?
Should I come before him with entirely burned offerings,
        with year-old calves?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
        with many torrents of oil?
Should I give my oldest child for my crime;
        the fruit of my body for the sin of my spirit?
8 He has told you, human one, what is good and
        what the Lord requires from you:
            to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.
  
Matthew 5: 1-12 - Common English Bible
Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up a mountain. He sat down and his disciples came to him. 2 He taught them, saying:
3 “Happy are people who are hopeless, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
4 “Happy are people who grieve, because they will be made glad.
5 “Happy are people who are humble, because they will inherit the earth.
6 “Happy are people who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, because they will be fed until they are full.
7 “Happy are people who show mercy, because they will receive mercy.
8 “Happy are people who have pure hearts, because they will see God.
9 “Happy are people who make peace, because they will be called God’s children.
10 “Happy are people whose lives are harassed because they are righteous, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
11 “Happy are you when people insult you and harass you and speak all kinds of bad and false things about you, all because of me. 12 Be full of joy and be glad, because you have a great reward in heaven. In the same way, people harassed the prophets who came before you.
 
 
 
In the reading from the Prophet Micah, the lectionary today provides one of the most familiar verses in the entire Old Testament – the Hebrew Scripture.  But what is the rest of the story?  
 
It all starts with God encouraging the people, if you have a problem with me, please tell me.  God invites a jury.  If I’m at fault, tell it to the mountains and hills, make your charge to the eternal foundations of the earth.  And then, let them, the jury, decide.
 
So, God lays out a defense.  God doesn’t complain about ungrateful people or say they are wrong.  It’s not the voice of an angry God demanding an answer.  It is the voice of a God who agonizes and is filled with sorrow.  God doesn’t deflect and instead accuse them of unfaithfulness.  This is a God who simply wants to know.  What have I done to you?  How have I wearied you?
 
This is relevant to so many of us who struggle with who is God.  Last week I asked who is Jesus.  It might not be the Jesus we grew up with.  And this week, who is God?  Some of us grew up hearing about a God who is violent and hate-filled and angry, not just from the pulpit but I remember our high school literature class reading Jonathon Edwards’ famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”  I hope it’s not read in high school or college literature classes anymore!  To do it justice, I need Bruce’s voice to read just one sentence:
 
“The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.” 
 
Yikes!  Sadly, this is the one sermon Edwards’ best known for but he was really a transcendentalist in the same category as Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Edwards, a Congregational minister preaching in the seventeen-hundreds, marveled at the divinity of nature.  The same preacher of the “angry God” said, ”Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts: the sight of the deep-blue sky, and the clustering stars above, seem to impart a quiet to the mind.”
 
This is the kind of God Micah speaks of in our text.  What have I done to you?  How have I wearied you?  God pleads for them to remember their history together:

• I delivered you from slavery in Egypt
• Remember Moses, Aaron, and Miriam – a notable and striking reference to a female leader of the people
• There’s another verse I spared Hannah from having to read with some very obscure references and difficult to pronounce names – most notably that the people were delivered from the Moabite King Balak
• And finally, to remember the final crossing of the Jordan River

 
God lays out this defense, without defensiveness.  Without animosity or blame.  As Edwards delightfully described:  unruffled calm that overawes our little anxieties and doubts.

But then the lawyer for the people gets up and rants and raves and blows everything out of proportion, providing a litany of the most preposterous illustrations.
 
For example, imagine that you lend a friend $10.  They promise to pay you back by the end of the week.  Months later you finally approach your friend, apologetically… I’m sorry to ask, but could you…  But instead of being embarrassed for having forgotten to pay you back, “I’m so sorry…”  Rather, they respond “I suppose you want interest from me too.  What would be enough?  Ten million dollars?  Will that be enough to satisfy your greed?”  Do you know anyone like that?  I’ve actually had it happen.
 
Well, that’s what the lawyer for the people demands.  “What do you want?  Would a thousand rams be enough for you?  How about not just one jug of oil but rivers of oil?  How about my first-born child?  Will that be enough to satisfy you?!” 
 
You know what I’m talking about – rant, rave, deflect – and now somehow, you’re the bad guy!
 
So, the jury of mountains and hills and the eternal foundation of the earth has listened to God, then with their litany of increasingly absurd defenses the lawyer has spoken for the people, and now it’s Micah’s turn. 
 
Micah calmly asks, “What does God want?  What would satisfy God’s supposed blood lust?”  God’s already told you.  What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God?
 
“Get over yourselves and just do it!”  Well, he probably didn’t say that, but I’ll add this:  And if you do, it will make you happy.
 
We often say this about others – I just want them to be happy.  We say it about our children.  Regardless of their choices in life, I just want them to be happy.  We say it about ourselves.  All I want is to be happy.  Is that too much to ask?  Well then, what does it mean to be happy?
 
If you are at all familiar with the Beatitudes, Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount, you’re used to hearing the word “blessed” or “bless-ed” over and over.  “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and so forth.  Well, the translators of the Common English Bible decided that the word happy is more accurate than blessed.  “Happy are people who are hopeless.”  
 
I’m sure they got a lot of pushback on that, kind of like changing the words of Christmas carols.  Part of our discomfort may be that Christians don’t talk much about happiness.  We kind of poo-poo it and say we should be joyful.
 
But to talk of happiness in this setting is certainly intriguing.  What is the explanation of the translators?  By the way, these are serious scholars, some of the best in the world.  They’re not people who change words just to be intriguing.
 
So, they said, the Greek term makarios is often translated as “blessed.”  It refers to a person who is fortunate on account of their circumstances.  In the Beatitudes, no one in the circumstances Jesus describes would ever be called “fortunate.”  That’s the point.  So, the translators explain, by using the word “happy” instead of “blessed,” the Common English Bible emphasizes the flourishing, contentment, and well-being of the people, more than simply circumstances.* 
 
It’s exactly the topsy-turvy, upside-down nature of the life that Jesus describes that is well-being and contentment – that will make us flourish.  Happy.  Most of it is not in our control.  For example, people who are hopeless, people in mourning or grieving, people who are humble, people who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness.  You don’t control being hungry or thirsty.  It’s something you are.  And it often means you are unhappy.  Cursed, even, sometimes.  Jesus does not agree.
 
In the midst of all those descriptions of what we would think of as unfortunate circumstances, there are things we do control, or at least we can decide.  So, happy are people in unfortunate circumstances and happy are people who show mercy, who make peace, and who speak on behalf of Jesus regardless of the cost, such as harassment and insults.   
 
These are remarkably similar to the prophet Micah’s do justice and love kindness.  Do you want to be happy?  Show mercy and make peace.  And that third one that’s a little harder to understand.  To accept the cost of harassment and insults in order to speak on behalf of Jesus… will make us happy.  What?
 
Here’s an example in the news right now.  Jesus is unconditional love – love of God, love of neighbor, love of self, and love of enemy.  With all that love, how can anyone call out the name of Jesus to justify their prejudice?  For example, Jesus hates the sin but loves the sinner.  It’s such bull-doo-doo.  It’s just hate.  It’s the kind of hate that leads to hate crimes.  That’s why transgender women of color have the highest rate of murder in the country and that’s the kind of thing Christians use to justify attacks against transgender people – right here in San Diego County.  It’s wrong.  It’s offensive.  It is not Christ-like. 
 
And speaking out about it is the kind of thing that could sully your reputation – to speak love, only love, in the name of Jesus – and maybe subject you to becoming a target yourself.  But this is what happy people do.  They show mercy and make peace and ask what else does the Lord require? 
 
Happy people.  It still doesn’t sit exactly right, but it’s growing on me and it kind of makes sense.  Most of us don’t walk around wondering “what will make me blessed.”  But I’ve certainly wondered, “what will make me happy?”  And it’s surely the kind of question our neighbors who don’t go to church ask.  It’s the kind of thing our youth want to know. 
 
And it’s why I’m so glad 25 youth and adults are going to Mexico next weekend to build a house.  To work really hard.  To experience that happiness is not more money, it’s not more influence, it’s not being more beautiful, it’s not more likes and followers, it’s not more of anything except doing justice, showing kindness, giving mercy, and making peace.  That’s happiness 101.  Sore muscles, tired backs, and sheer happiness.
 
The CEB Study Bible with Apocrypha page 12 NT

Sermons from Mission Hills UCC
San Diego, California
 
Rev. Dr. David Bahr
david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org
 
January 22, 2023
 
“Which Jesus?”
 
 
Matthew 4:13-22 - Common English Bible
Jesus left Nazareth and settled in Capernaum, which lies alongside the sea in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali. 14 This fulfilled what Isaiah the prophet said:
15 Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
        alongside the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles,
16     the people who lived in the dark have seen a great light,
        and a light has come upon those who lived in the region and in shadow of death.[a]
17 From that time Jesus began to announce, “Change your hearts and lives! Here comes the kingdom of heaven!”
 
18 As Jesus walked alongside the Galilee Sea, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, throwing fishing nets into the sea, because they were fishermen. 19 “Come, follow me,” he said, “and I’ll show you how to fish for people.” 20 Right away, they left their nets and followed him. 21 Continuing on, he saw another set of brothers, James the son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with Zebedee their father repairing their nets. Jesus called them and 22 immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

 
The Ramones sang about the “Job that Ate My Brain.”  Johnny Paycheck proclaimed, “Take this Job and Shove It.”  Dolly Parton sang about “tumbling out of bed and stumbling to the kitchen, pouring a cup of ambition, and folks like me on the job from 9-5.”
 
If only fishing was just a job.  It was the back-breaking, all-consuming, slimy, stinking smelly, life you were born into.  It’s what your father did and it’s what your sons will do – not a choice.  Not something from which you could shove it and just walk away.
 
They could have been randomly pulled away, by Roman soldiers who would force them to serve some task they demanded.  Or they could have been drawn away to fight against Rome.  Someone was always trying to foment rebellion.  Roving prophets and itinerant preachers regularly crossed the land gathering followers or disciples.  So, when Jesus walked by the two sets of brothers, he might not have been the first to say to them “follow me,” though he was probably the first to say, “and I will make you fish for people!”  
 
Did the brothers know anything about him?  Or what are we getting ourselves into?   Different gospels have different ideas about the calling of these first disciples.  Matthew’s story is based on Mark’s so they are the same.  John’s is wildly different.  Luke’s version is similar but provides a completely different motivation for following Jesus.  He ties it to a miracle. 
 
Jesus was walking along the shore where a group of irritated and exhausted men were cleaning their nets.  They had fished all night and caught nothing.  Jesus called out to them to go back and try again.  How would a group of irritated and exhausted men cleaning their nets after a night with no fish respond?  But there was a crowd pressing in on him, so he must be somebody.  They agreed and when they let their nets down this time, they were so full of fish it almost sank the boat and they cried out for help.  In Luke’s gospel, this is what prompts them to respond to Jesus when he said, “I’ll make you fish for people.”  They immediately left their nets and followed Jesus. 
 
That makes sense.  In Luke, the two sets of brothers followed Jesus after they saw a miracle.  Not just saw it, they literally “hauled in” a miracle.  In stark contrast, in Matthew they followed Jesus because… well, why did they follow?  Because fishing was a back-breaking, all-consuming, slimy, smelly, life?  What was the a-ha!  The epiphany.  It’s harder to be called away from a life that is comfortable.  But sometimes you just know.  Right?  In an instant your life changes direction. 
 
We don’t know if these men had ever heard of Jesus, but if they had, it might have been this one thing:  When he arrived in Capernaum from Nazareth, he went around announcing:  “Change your hearts and lives!  Here comes the kingdom of heaven.”
 
Even so, that’s not a lot to go on.  Wouldn’t you want to know more than that?  As I was thinking about it this week, I realized that if you asked me to follow Jesus today, I’d first want to know which Jesus you are talking about.
 
Brian McLaren wrote a fascinating piece called “The Seven Jesuses I Have Known.”[1] 
 
The church he grew up in focused on Jesus who was a ransom payment to God, the judge who has declared humanity guilty.  Jesus absorbed the penalty of all that human wrongdoing by dying on a cross to satisfy our sins.  He saves us from hell so we can go to heaven – if we believe.  Brian said, I heard lots of examples of hell and how I have personally sinned, how I had failed Jesus through cussing and dancing and lust for my girlfriend but almost nothing about how I was supposed to actually live my life, other than to be pure and holy.
 
I also grew up hearing a lot about Jesus who is my Savior who died for my sins but I don’t recall hearing any sermons that included condemnation and going to hell.  I know that is definitely not the experience others had.  But what I remember was how everything was couched in his great love.  What a Friend We Have in Jesus.  And I believed it; I felt it in my heart.  But it was all me and Jesus.  I had a personal relationship with Jesus but there was no talk of that leading to more, such as changing the world so people don’t suffer.  Just that if they do, good news, heaven is waiting. 
 
Brian then described Pentecostal friends in college who introduced him to a Jesus who was alive and vibrantly present in life right now, not to be met in heaven but here.  They were on fire for Jesus and he wanted some of that.  But soon he was turned off by their insistence that he must receive what they called the greatest gift of all – speaking in tongues.  He felt it was divisive – who is in and who is out.  And he knew he was out.
 
I also encountered Charismatic Christians in college and I was taken by their passion and I wanted it too.  They experienced Jesus in a way I never had, but as much as I wished for the same experience, Jesus was more of a quiet presence with whom I would fold my hands in prayer than get up and dance with my hands in the air.  I loved the idea of spiritual gifts but it was also this group in college who spent a shocking amount of time talking about hell and consigning people to it – especially, for some reason, Catholics.  That didn’t feel right or loving to me.
 
The third Jesus Brian encountered was through Roman Catholics in graduate school – a completely different kind of Christianity than he had known before.  He saw the beauty of ancient liturgies that connected him to a long tradition.
 
Where I grew up, there were so few Catholics around they had to go to church in another town.  They were completely foreign to me.  I didn’t get why their Jesus was still hanging on the cross.  But early in my ministry I felt called to spend two months of my sabbatical at a Benedictine monastery in New Mexico.  I went without a clue why and it was here that I first met Mary, the mother of Jesus.  And in the end, I found myself hiking alone along the Pecos River praying “Hail Mary full of grace” over and over.  Their particular emphasis on the suffering of Jesus and his dying for the salvation of the world was a message both remarkably similar to and incredibly different from my upbringing.
 
In contrast to the salvation of the world through the death of Jesus, the fourth Jesus Brian encountered, the Eastern Orthodox Church believes the salvation of the world was accomplished by the birth of Jesus.  His entry into the world saved it.
 
My administrative assistant in Cleveland was an Eastern Orthodox priest, kicked out of the priesthood when he got divorced.  In between bulletins and newsletters, we had lots of great conversations.  He didn’t get the appeal of Jesus as a personal savior by his death.  For him, by his birth, Jesus saved the whole cosmos!  What a delightful idea.
 
Brian had been taught to be careful of liberal Protestants so it wasn’t until his 30s that he first talked to one.  Somehow, they would contaminate his faith because, for example, they questioned whether the miracles happened literally, and was Mary actually a virgin, and they spent too much time talking about a Jesus who calls us to fix the world instead of fixing your relationship with Jesus.  That was his fifth Jesus.
 
As a child I would have never known those were questions we could ask.  But ever since seminary, this has been the focus of my life – to look at the life of Jesus in the scripture for its meaning and questions.  How Jesus inspires us to make a difference in the lives of people, which is how we are saved – to live for others, not ourselves.  Jesus inspires us to actually feed people who are hungry, and if not, that’s a sin.  We are called to be shaped and grounded in the love of Jesus who loves all people unconditionally.  To follow the teachings of Jesus to be Christ-like.  Christ-with, not Christ over.
 
Brian also talked of the simple Jesus he met among the Anabaptists – they are the Amish and Mennonites and others – and the radical Jesus of liberation theologians – the sixth and seventh Jesus he has known. 
 
For me, the greatest influence beyond what I’ve spoken is the Jesus of the Black Church, shaped by the preaching of pastors like Jeremiah Wright at Trinity UCC in Chicago and A. Knighton Stanley at Peoples Congregational UCC in Washington, DC.  And of course, from a distance, Dr. King and the ministers of the civil rights movement.  It is this Jesus that compels me to follow him.  It is this Jesus who says love isn’t enough without justice – the Jesus who is alive and powerful and alongside us in every struggle.
 
So, on Thursday I asked our group at Lunch and Lectionary who is Jesus to you.  Not surprisingly in this liberal Protestant church, almost everyone spoke of Jesus in relation to his teachings and how they inspire us to live our lives.

• Who is Jesus to you?  A wise and compassionate and loving teacher;
• the greatest exemplar of how we’re called to walk through life. 
• if God were human, this is how God would act;
• a vessel through which God can be seen.
• One person said he is “truly the Son of God, my teacher and my guide.”

 
It did not surprise me that only one person used the traditional language of “Son of God” and that no one used the language that “he is my Lord or Savior” or “he is my friend.”
 
Although,

• to say that Jesus is a vessel through which God can be seen is to say to him:  You are the Incarnation. 
• Who is Jesus to you?  To say that Jesus is a wise and compassionate and loving teacher is to say to him:  You are the Word of God. 
• To say that our allegiance is to God over country is to say to Jesus:  You are my Lord. 
• To say he is the greatest exemplar of how we’re called to walk through life is to say to Jesus:  You are my Savior – saving us not from damnation to hell but from the hell on earth of meaninglessness, to save us from the materialistic pursuit of wealth and power over love and sacrifice.  Jesus indeed saves us from the death dealing forces of evil with his example that in the end, evil – hatred, cruelty – does not win.
• And anyone who would do all of that for us is like the good friend who will listen, who will tell us the truth, who is honest, who wants the best for you but is willing to call you to task if necessary.  The same thing we would do for a friend – if it were someone we truly loved.  Jesus, you are indeed my friend.

 
Many of us grew up with a Jesus we don’t recognize anymore and that can be disconcerting.  We may know more about who Jesus isn’t than have resolved the question – who is Jesus, especially with all the competing messages about him.  But Jesus did not make his life about him.  So we may not know which Jesus we follow, but whoever he is, the more important question is:  what does he call you to do? 
 


[1] Chapter in his book Generous Orthodoxy

​Sermons from Mission Hills UCC
San Diego, California
  
Rev. Dr. David Bahr
david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org
 
January 15, 2023
 
“Salty Christians”
 
 
Matthew 5:13-16 - Common English Bible
Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its saltiness, how will it become salty again? It’s good for nothing except to be thrown away and trampled under people’s feet. 14 You are the light of the world. A city on top of a hill can’t be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they put it on top of a lampstand, and it shines on all who are in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before people, so they can see the good things you do and praise our God who is in heaven.

 
It was 1930 in India, a country occupied by the British Empire.  The British liked to project illusions of gentlemen and civility, but like any imperial power, they ruled with an iron fist.  Indians wanted to be free of their colonizers.  Mohandas Gandhi was tasked with identifying a plan of action for the Indian National Congress, the main proponents of independence.  Gandhi’s idea?  Making salt.  Seasoning for food. 
 
Why in the world?  The British forbade the production of salt or sale of it by anyone except the British, who sold it for an exorbitant price with a hefty tax on top.  It was illegal for Indians to collect salt along the sea or anywhere else in the country.  Collect it or sell it.  In the hot and humid country of India, salt not just flavoring; it was a nutritional necessity.  Gandhi proposed collecting salt along the sea as a non-violent demonstration.
 
Delegates to the Indian National Congress laughed at the idea.  And when Gandhi sent a letter to the British Viceroy informing him of his intention for a Salt March, he too laughed and said, “The prospect of a salt campaign does not keep me awake at night.”  Gandhi went ahead with it anyway.
 
He gathered 80 participants and began a march toward the sea, 240 miles away.  Along the way he stopped in towns and villages to explain his program of non-violent demonstration and to gather more supporters.  He provided education and training in his ideas.  By the time he reached the sea 24 days later, there were more than 12,000 people marching with him.  The press started following along, which drew more attention – which is, of course, the whole idea.  Non-violence lets people see the absurdity of the law.  Indians are not allowed to collect and produce their own salt?!  It prompts change when met by an appeal to morality; or embarrassment. 
 
On the appointed day, April 5, Gandhi spoke and led prayers and then walked down to collect the sea salt crystalized at the beach after every high tide.  The British were still unimpressed by the demonstration but just in case, soldiers had crushed into the mud all the salt that had gathered.  There would be no salt to harvest.  Undaunted, Gandhi reached down and picked up a small lump of natural salt out of the mud.  And with that, he defied British law. 
 
Inspired by this simple act, civil disobedience broke out all across India.  Not violence.  Just millions of Indian citizens collecting, boiling, whatever it took to make salt for seasoning food.  British authorities arrested 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself.  He was jailed on May 5th until the next January.  Later that month a poet led another march of 2,500 people.  Several hundred British-led police viciously beat the peaceful demonstrators, prompting international condemnation.  Change did not come quickly, but 16 years later, India won its independence.  And it started with salt.
 
American Civil Rights leaders went to India in the 1940s to learn from Gandhi himself, including Bayard Rustin, a Quaker already steeped in pacifism and non-violence.  He spent 7 weeks with Gandhi learning how to apply his methods.  Martin Luther King, Jr, was introduced to the ideas of Gandhi and non-violent demonstrations while he was in college.  
 
You may or may not know that Bayard Rustin was the architect of many of the demonstrations through which we came to know Dr. King, including the famous “I Have a Dream” March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.  It was Rustin’s leadership that contributed to the success of numerous non-violent demonstrations, but recognition of his role was minimized because he was an openly gay man.  He was open only because he had been set up in a sting operation by police in Los Angeles, but he embraced his identity.  Dr. King was strongly advised to shun Rustin, but he refused to do so, though he kept their cooperation quiet.  Rustin was too much of a genius to ignore.  Much of what we remember as the civil rights movement came from Gandhi and Rustin as well as Dr. King.
 
Anyway, as I was thinking of my sermon for this Sunday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I googled MLK and salt to see if he had said anything about this passage in a sermon.  None that I could find.  But I kept digging and came upon Gandhi’s salt march.  I don’t remember hearing about it before, or if I had, it was long ago and I forgot and couldn’t tell you anything about it.  But I liked the idea of connecting the significant impact of Gandhi upon Dr. King and the larger civil rights movement, and how they connected to the words of Jesus – You are the salt of the earth.
 
These words follow immediately after the Sermon on the Mount – the Beatitudes – where Jesus speaks of “them” and “they.”  Those who mourn.  Those who are meek and peacemakers and so forth.  Then he looked directly at the crowd and said, “You.”  You are the salt of the earth.  You are the light of the world. 
 
Not, one day you will be.  Not that you should be.  Not, if you do such and such, then you will be salt and light.  No, right here and right now, you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world.  However, Jesus asks a very challenging question.  What good are you if you have lost your saltiness?  What good are you if you hide your light under a basket?  Let your light shine so people can see the good things you do and praise God.  Not praise for you and the good things you do but which cause people to praise God.
 
The story is told that one Sunday morning Gandhi decided to visit one of the Christian churches in Calcutta – not to project, just to visit.  But as he entered, he was stopped at the door by the ushers and told he was not welcome.  This particular church, he was told, was only for high-caste Indians and white, neither of which he was.  Because of that rejection, Gandhi later declared, “I’d be a Christian if it were not for the Christians.”  Another story is told that he said “I like the teachings of Christianity.  Christians should try them.”  I can’t verify whether he actually said this or it’s a popular legend but it raises the question I think Jesus posed:  Are you salty enough?  What does that mean?
 
I’m glad Juanita and Larry asked to read from Letter from Birmingham Jail.  I’ve always been challenged by the line:  the greatest stumbling block is not the KKK but white moderates.  Christians without flavor.  Are you salty enough?
 
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus turned ordinary values upside down.  He turned conventional wisdom on its head.  He redefined the idea of blessing.  In his first sermon, instead of those who were used to being privileged by virtue of their wealth or power or status, Jesus elevated the poor, and the meek, and the oppressed and persecuted – they are blessed by God, said Jesus.  Are you salty enough?
 
Jesus declared “blessed” are people in mourning and those who are merciful.  He praises those who get in good trouble for being prophets – who hunger and thirst for justice – and says, “You are the salt of the earth.”  You who live by the values of the kingdom of heaven have a unique flavor.  Is it salty enough? 
 
I have a couple of questions about our saltiness. 
 
At Riverside Church in New York City, a UCC congregation, Dr. King said, “A true revolution of values will cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.  On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act.  One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway.  True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar [or promising they’ll get their reward in heaven].  It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
 
So, first question:  Is your faith salty enough to encourage a prophetic response to injustice or a tasteless complacency with suffering?
 
Second question:  Does your faith promote non-violence?
 
Accepting his Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King said, “Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes in the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation.”
Does your salt have taste?
 
Third question:  Is your faith salty enough to be first and foremost grounded in love?
 
Dr. King said, “there’s a reason Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this:  love has within it a redemptive power; a power that eventually transforms individuals.  That’s why Jesus says, “Love your enemies.”  Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies.  But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption.”  Does your salt have taste?  Or will it be thrown out and trampled underfoot?
 
Final question, though there are many more:
Does your faith work toward the fundamental dignity and equality of all human beings, repairing the breaches of the past, or look the other way when some act like they are superior, even if you don’t believe that? 
 
Dr. King observed, “On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South’s beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward.  Over and over I have found myself asking:  ‘What kind of people worship here?  Who is their God?’
 
It was to those Christians that Dr. King wrote Letter from Birmingham Jail.  “In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say:  Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.  And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.” 
 
But Jesus himself asked:
Do you actually love your neighbor?  Every neighbor?
Do you feed the hungry and clothe the naked or visit the sick and those in prison?
Do you welcome the stranger?
Do you seek justice for the widow and orphan and immigrant?
 
If not, of what use are Christians who have lost their saltiness?  What good is a church that has no taste?
 
You are the salt of the earth.  You are the light of the world.  Let others see your deeds of love and justice in order that they may come to know and to praise God.

Sermons from Mission Hills UCC
San Diego, California
 
Rev. Dr. David Bahr
david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org
 
January 8, 2023
 
“God Changes Us”
 
 
Matthew 3:13-17 - Common English Bible
At that time Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan River so that John would baptize him. 14 John tried to stop him and said, “I need to be baptized by you, yet you come to me?”
15 Jesus answered, “Allow me to be baptized now. This is necessary to fulfill all righteousness.”
So John agreed to baptize Jesus. 16 When Jesus was baptized, he immediately came up out of the water. Heaven was opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down like a dove and resting on him. 17 A voice from heaven said, “This is my Son whom I dearly love; I find happiness in him.”

​
Jesus was born two weeks ago and all of a sudden today he’s already 30 years old!  What happened in between?  Well, according to Matthew, he was visited by some wise men or magi or kings or Zoroastrian astrologers who followed a star.  Then Joseph had a dream that warned them to flee to another country to escape a violent murderous king.  The family lived his early years as refugees in Egypt before finally moving to Nazareth where Jesus grew up following in his father’s footsteps as a carpenter.  That’s the Gospel according to Matthew.
 
In the Gospel According to Biff, Jesus traveled with Biff, his sacrilegious and foul-mouthed childhood pal.  They met up with the three wise men, in this story a magician, a Buddhist, and a Hindu Yogi.  Among other things, they taught Jesus and Biff how to multiply food and how to become invisible.  And the origins of cappuccino.  When Jesus and Biff returned home from their fantastical journey, they shared tales with their friend Maggie, later known as Mary Magdalene.  These young friends shared their hopes and dreams and under the influence of Biff, some occasional mischief.
 
Since the Bible offers so little information, it stands to reason that people are left to speculate.  Biff is a little more blasphemous than most, but speculation has often included the idea that Jesus spent part of his young adulthood traveling.  For example, in the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, he spent his 20s travelling across India, Persia, and Tibet, learning from Eastern religions, especially among Buddhists. 
 
While I love this idea, scholars like Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan assert that none of these theories about Jesus encountering other religions are supported by actual scholarship.  They are “without historical foundation.”  That’s too bad.  I love pictures of the Dali Llama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu poking at each other and making each other giggle and think that Jesus and the Buddha would have made marvelous friends too, although they were 500 years apart in age.
 
But back to the Bible, in the Gospel according to Luke, when Jesus was 12 years old, the family traveled to Jerusalem for the Festival of Passover, just as they did every year.  But when it was time for everyone to return home, Jesus went missing.  He had stayed behind to talk with teachers in the Temple and caused his parents great concern.  Lacking any sensitivity to their anxiety, perhaps under the influence of Biff, Jesus rudely responded, “Where else would I be?”  The only other thing Luke said about Jesus’ childhood is that he “increased in wisdom (perhaps with a good talking-to by his mother), and in years and in divine and human favor.”  How?  We can only speculate.
 
There’s another ancient source called the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, dated around the same time as Luke.  It did not make the cut to be included in the Bible, but in it, Jesus is described like a trickster in Greek mythology.  A trickster and petulant.  A neighbor once complained about something to Mary and Joseph and Jesus made the neighbor blind.  But it was all good because later he healed them.  My favorite story from that collection is
"When Jesus was five years old he was playing at the ford of a rushing stream and shaped soft clay into twelve sparrows.  Jesus clapped his hands and shouted to the sparrows: "Be off, fly away, and remember me, you who are now alive!"  And the sparrows took off and flew away noisily."
 
That’s actually a story repeated in the Quran.  Did you know Jesus is spoken of in the Quran 90 times?  In it, Jesus says, “I create for you out of clay the likeness of a bird, then I breathe into it and it becomes a bird with God’s permission." (Quran 3:49)
 
Both the Gospels of John and Mark don’t bother with any of the lost years of Jesus.  Mark jumps immediately to his baptism, presented as the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.  In fact, all four gospels present the baptism, around age 30, as the point after which Jesus began his ministry of teaching and healing and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God.
 
Perhaps our first question should be:  What is baptism?  What do you think?  I asked the participants in our Lunch and Lectionary group on Thursday what baptism means to them.
 
One said, baptism is the initiation rite into the community.
Similar to what another said, it represents a choice or a promise made to join a community or raise a child in the faith.
 
One said she baptized her children as an insurance policy against hell.  It’s not what she believes now, but it a remarkably common view.  I regularly get asked to baptize babies from people with no interest in being part of a church.  I assure them that their child is not going to go to hell if they are not baptized.  Almost all of them breathe a sigh of relief and I never hear from them again.  I could grow a church if I was willing to stoke their fears and guilt, but it’s not a church I would ever want to be a part of. 
 
Another person said that baptism is an opportunity to be cleansed in order to develop a closer relationship with God.  Cleansing is, in fact, part of what baptism was originally built upon. 
 
There have been practices involving ritual purification for thousands of years, but right around the time of Jesus, shortly before, it became common to ritually cleanse oneself in a mikvah.  Mikvah can simply mean a body of water, sometimes natural, sometimes constructed, into which you could completely immerse yourself in a pool of clean water as a symbol of ritual purification. 
 
Well, a mikvah had been constructed outside the main sanctuary of the Temple, in the court of the faithful.  Enter the temple, make a sacrifice.  But to go a little further, pay another fee.  A hefty fee.  It wasn’t affordable for everyone.  And, if wealthy people wanted an even nicer experience they could pay for a premium upgrade at the mikvah in the home of a priest, away from all the common folk.  It was a lucrative opportunity for everyone involved and all of it getting a little out of control.
 
But, just a day’s journey out of town, a guy named John was doing it for free.  The price of admission to his natural mikvah, a river, was simply metanoia.  A willingness to admit your mistakes and a promise to follow a better path.  Metanoia.  To turn around.  John turned this water immersion into a symbol of forgiveness instead of a purification ritual. 
 
But hold on – only priests had the authority to declare God’s forgiveness.  The religious authorities were upset that this was cutting into their profits.  They came to the wilderness to check out what was going on.  John called them hypocrites and broods of vipers – kind of like Jesus turning over the tables of the greedy profiteers changing money in the Temple.
 
Ordinary people didn’t care about that.  More and more made the journey out into the wilderness to John’s cave along the Jordan River to be baptized.  To be honest and to claim a new life.  That’s where it starts:  a desire to be honest. 
 
So, if baptism by John was metanoia, to repent and promise to follow a better path, why would Jesus ask to be baptized?  Maybe the Gospel According to Biff has some truth – that Jesus and his childhood pal lived a brief life of debauchery among the wise men.  Probably not.
 
Well, Richard Losch (All the People of the Bible) offers a very compelling answer.  Jesus asked for baptism by John to identify with the poor who couldn’t afford the hefty fee at the mikvah at the Temple.  Jesus’ baptism was a sign of his solidarity with the poor.  Which then he made explicit in his first sermon, “Blessed are the poor, for to them belongs the Kingdom of Heaven.”
 
Ultimately, however, what do we do with this passage today?
 
Baptism has a lot of meanings:  An initiation into the church and the Christian faith.  A rite of passage.  A sacrament, a promise, a dedication.  I like the addition of an act of solidarity with the poor.  But I think the best meaning of all, the one we need in our world today, is this:  be honest, let go of your past, and try over again.  That’s a real cleansing.  
 
This is something our divided and polarized world needs.  We often assume the worst about our neighbors.  We think people can’t change and refuse to forgive one another.  But whether we are talking about other people or ourselves, bottom line:  No matter what you’ve done, I’ve done, or they’ve done, no one is ever cut off from the possibility that, with honesty, we can begin again.  That’s the grace of God.  That’s how God changes us. 
 
Bryan Stevenson said of prisoners on death row, and which applies to all of us, “We are all more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”  We accept that in the ritual of baptism.  Or recommit to it.
 
It’s kind of too bad that we don’t wait to be baptized until we have truly and royally screwed up our lives, when the guilt or shame of something we have done weighs so heavily upon us we can’t imagine ever being free.  Then, the dying and rising to new life would make sense and shock us into an awareness of our freedom.  And then with newfound confidence join with Jesus in his ministry: 
​
To welcome the seeker and the refugee
To heal a broken planet
To feed the hungry
To build bridges of trust
To share our gifts
To seek justice and peace for all people
To bring Christ’s light into the world.
 
The invitation and good news of baptism in Jesus Christ is that we can change.  All it costs is honesty.