Sermons from Park Hill Congregational UCC Denver, Colorado Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] February 25, 2018 “Laughing at the NRA” Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16 – Common English Bible When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am El Shaddai. Walk with me and be trustworthy. 2 I will make a covenant between us and I will give you many, many descendants.” 3 Abram fell on his face, and God said to him, 4 “But me, my covenant is with you; you will be the ancestor of many nations. 5 And because I have made you the ancestor of many nations, your name will no longer be Abram but Abraham. 6 I will make you very fertile. I will produce nations from you, and kings will come from you. 7 I will set up my covenant with you and your descendants after you in every generation as an enduring covenant. I will be your God and your descendants’ God after you. 15 God said to Abraham, “As for your wife Sarai, you will no longer call her Sarai. Her name will now be Sarah. 16 I will bless her and even give you a son from her. I will bless her so that she will become nations, and kings of peoples will come from her.” When Abram was 99 years old, God appeared to him. In response, the text says he fell on his face, perhaps out of awe or humility or respect. Then God proceeded to promise him a child and many, many descendants. Oh, and by the way, from the womb of a 90-year-old woman. For some reason, that’s where today’s lectionary reading stopped. But the far more interesting part of the story, to me, comes in the very next verse: “Abram fell on his face (again) and laughed.” No disrespect meant, I’m sure. Maybe he just chuckled or giggled, but falling on your face sounds like he hooted and hollered and rolled around on the ground. The text explains that while he laughed, he said to himself – “What?! From a 100-year-old man and a 90-year-old woman!” But God was serious and told him to name their son Isaac. Here’s something else to laugh at. Apparently, Abraham didn’t bother to tell this news to Sarah. Nor is there record that he told Sarai that her name was now Sarah. Wouldn’t you want to know that?! Or that she should now call her beloved Abram Abraham. Abraham didn’t bother to tell Sarah that she was about to get pregnant. She found out because she overheard it. As the story goes, Abraham saw three strangers passing by.[1] As would be the custom, he pleaded with them to stop and proceeded to treat like they were travelling royalty, providing water to wash their feet, commanding his servants to roast a fatted calf, and rushing into the tent with their best flour to tell Sarah, quick, make a cake for our guests. “Gee, thanks for the warning! I had nothing better to do!” They had been married for something like 70 years, so she probably wasn’t that surprised, perhaps snickering under her breath – “oh, that Abram! (oops, Abraham!)” and then got to work. From behind the wall of the tent, she heard those three strangers tell her husband that when they passed by again in a year, Sarah would have a son. Hearing this, the text says, “she laughed.” I can imagine she was genuinely amused. “Me give birth? At my age?” Maybe just a snicker, or maybe a deep belly laugh, quickly stifled. Or maybe a little nervous laughter, thinking OMG, what if. But I can also imagine her laugh might not have been amused but bitter. A short “ha,” or a cynical “humph.” Bitter at being barren for a lifetime. “And now I’m supposed to give birth? At my age?” She could easily have been bitter that Abraham actually already had a son with Sarah’s slave Hagar… an arrangement Sarah herself had suggested, but regretted immediately.[2] But that’s another story. Whatever “she laughed” means in the text, whether hiding some deeper pain, a little snicker, or an all-out guffaw, God asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh?” Sarah quickly shot back, “No I didn’t.” God immediately said, “Yes, you did.”[3] It’s a cute little exchange, until you realize Sarah wasn’t a 6-year-old playing a game of “yes you did” “no I didn’t” but was arguing with the all-knowing Almighty God, El Shaddai. All this laughter is significant because guess what God tells them to name their baby. Do you know? Isaac means “He who laughs.” Laughter isn’t just incidental to the story but an often overlooked central theme. Everything is so tense in our polarized world. And despite the efforts of Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers and SNL to lift our mood, so much of what is happening in our country is genuinely not funny. And yet, thank God for them, because, as you’ve heard, laughter is the best medicine, good for the soul. Do you laugh enough? Various studies suggest how laughter makes you healthier.[4] One study showed that laughter lowers the stiffness of your heart’s arterial walls – meaning your heart doesn’t have to work as hard. Laughter contributes to greater emotional wellbeing. Although it could be said that the reverse is the cause – emotional wellbeing leads to laughter. But, get this, laughter can cause weight loss. I had to read more about this one! But I learned it has to be deep laughter for 15 minutes, and even then, it only leads to the loss of between 2 and 10 calories.[5] Oh well… But laughter can also be bad for you. It has led to asthma attacks. People have dislocated their jaw from laughing, not to mention you can pull a muscle. But a study found that it also makes us more susceptible to marketers. Reportedly, consumers react more positively to companies whose commercials make them laugh. As I watched the news this week, I began to wonder if the sounds of laughter at the NRA headquarters have changed. Normally when there’s news of another mass shooting, money rolls in. Business booms as people quickly renew their memberships and chip in a few extra dollars, just in case. After every previous mass shooting, gun sales soared to record-setting new heights.[6] It doesn’t matter who’s just been massacred.
Guffaws and belly laughs and slapped backs abounded as executive bonuses were increased. But are they laughing now? Maybe it’s still too early, maybe I’m unrealistically hopeful, but I don’t think they’re laughing in the same way at all the high schoolers who have been mobilized. I can hear a lot of nervous laughter.[7] Perhaps that’s absurd. Just like there’s no way a 90-year-old woman is going to give birth. It’s laughable. But, of course, it’s really a story about the power of something that is absurd, and how nothing is impossible for God. And sure, it’s absurd that a bunch of high schoolers are going to bring down the NRA. But should we have so little faith? It’s the NRA which sells a story of its own invincibility.[8] These kids are exposing that fantasy and shaming those willing to take their blood money. If it weren’t possible, FOX News and the conspiracy theorists wouldn’t be working so hard to prove that these kids are fake. Kids who can’t buy beer or rent a car but are mature enough to own an AR15 or an AK47, or heck, why not a grenade launcher. No, they’re really just left-wing plants, crisis-actors who travel to sites of tragedy. It reveals their desperation. And all the rest of their crazy, ridiculous, disgusting, tactics.[9] Their insecurity has been revealed. On Friday the news began including stories of banks and companies severing ties, one after another.[10] Sure, Wayne LaPierre may still be laughing, thinking they can outlast this one too, but more people than ever are laughing at the NRA. The Prophet Isaiah wasn’t laughing when he said: “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”[11] Somehow, Isaiah didn’t mean that as a joke, as absurd as it would seem. Just like Sarah, it is meant to say that for God, the absurd is not impossible. So, we can laugh, because change is in the air. Like Sarah, we shouldn’t mistake the improbable for the impossible. The invincible for the simply insecure Wizard. Of course, while Abraham and Sarah did give birth to a son whose name means laughter, they did not live long enough to see the sands on the beach and the stars in the sky expand into the promised multitudes. It was a long game. Even so, they trusted God it would happen. They lived with confidence and conviction, not cynicism. And so should we. I could get pretty cynical about bringing down the NRA, or we could laugh at them and trust the children to accomplish what others have not yet done. We could also trust responsible gun owners to shame the NRA – hunters, sportsmen and women, and those truly protecting their families in isolated, rural areas. Shouldn’t they be ashamed more than anyone at the lack of common decency at NRA headquarters? So, I wondered, besides putting our faith in high schoolers, remaining diligent in our prayers, putting pressure on more companies, engaging in dialogue with responsible gun owners; besides attending rallies and calling our legislators, participating in Colorado Faith Communities United Against Gun Violence[12], and sending flowers to Eileen[13] to say thank you, what else can we be doing? Do you own a gun manufacturer? Or rather, does your mutual fund or pension fund or whatever investments you have own a gun manufacturer?[14] It’s not unlikely. Teachers in Florida were shocked and appalled to learn that their pension fund owns stock in the very company that killed their students and teachers.[15] Or do you own a company that lobbies for mass incarceration? Private prison corporations depend on maintaining the pre-school to prison pipeline to increase investor profits.[16] If you care about the environment, do you own a coal company? The United Church of Christ has long championed the tools of corporate social responsibility, including using exclusionary screens so that the church’s money is not supporting companies that harm people and the earth.[17] Divestment strategies in South Africa, including by religious groups, played an important role in bringing down apartheid.[18] What’s something we can do? We can make sure our investments screen out gun manufacturers, or at least those whose profits come from semi-automatics, not hunting rifles.[19] We could laugh about how small our investments may be, but look what God can do. Abraham fell on his face and laughed. Sarah listened from behind the tent and laughed. Their son’s name is laughter. But the absurd is not impossible. What was it Margaret Mead said? “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” And then, who gets the last laugh? [1] Genesis 18: 1-18 [2] Genesis 16 and 21 [3] Genesis 18: 15 [4] https://www.fastcompany.com/3023576/how-laughter-effects-your-mood-and-health-and-its-not-all-good [5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16652129?dopt=Abstract&access_num=16652129&link_type=MED [6] https://www.fastcompany.com/40475808/why-gun-stocks-always-go-up-after-an-attack [7] https://www.thedailybeast.com/nra-usually-shuts-up-after-mass-shootings-not-this-time [8] http://theweek.com/articles/756680/myth-invincible-nra [9] https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-mainstreams-conspiracy-theory-about-parkland-students [10] https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/02/23/First-National-Bank-Enterprise-hotel-chains-sever-ties-with-NRA-after-shooting-outcry/1881519397440/ [11] Isaiah 11:6 [12] http://cfcu-co.org/ [13] One of our church members who started Colorado Ceasefire [14] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-401k-probably-has-gun-stocks-in-it-heres-how-to-get-rid-of-them-2018-02-23 [15] http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article201335279.html [16] https://www.aclu.org/banking-bondage-private-prisons-and-mass-incarceration [17] https://www.pbucc.org/index.php/master/16-cat-csr/351-exclusionary-screening [18] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/protest-divestment-south-africa.asp [19] I’m not personally against gun ownership. I grew up in a family that hunts. I grew up in a rural are that could not count on police arriving to protect us. But no one needs military style weapons to do any of that. There should be background checks on every sale – no loopholes.
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PHOTO BY CAITLIN SWITALSKI Sermons from Park Hill Congregational UCC Denver, Colorado Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] February 18, 2018 “Anguish and Rage at the Slaughter of Innocence” Genesis 9: 8—17 New Revised Standard Version Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” It is “funny” how the story of Noah and the ark is found in the form of rainbows and bunnies and elephants on the walls of nearly every church nursery in the country – a virtual trip to the children’s zoo. We even sang about it in Vacation Bible School. The Lord told to Noah to build him an arky, arky…. Another verse, there’s like 10 of them, sang how The animals they went in by twosies, twosies, twosies, and a later verse sang how they came out in threesies, threesies, threesies, (who knew that Bible School was covertly teaching sex ed). The last verse proclaims that everything is now hunky dory, dory… Both religious and non-religious people know this story. But turning Noah’s Ark into a cute story about pairs going two by two, about how everything works out in the end, robs it of the shock. Right? All but two of every living creature is destroyed in an act of vengeance. Every man, woman, and child, except for one upright, but still imperfect, family dies by the intention of their creator. But, hey, everything worked out in the end. This is nothing if it isn’t a story of genocide. Using violence as a solution. Noah’s Ark describes divine wrath, explained as disgust so deep that God is said to have even regretted creating humankind.[1] That’s extreme, but in other ways, I get it. There are times I’m right there with God. Well, maybe not with the whole genocidal death and destruction thing, but tempted by the exasperation of thinking that perhaps the only way to make things right is to start over again. It’s often a theme of the prophets heard in Advent. But, in fact, at the end of Noah’s story, things didn’t actually work out very well.[2] Which God realized even before the whole episode was done. “So,” God said, “I’ll put a bow in the sky to remind me not to do it again.” Let me stop for a moment and acknowledge how this story and many others in the Bible are highly anthropomorphic – which means God is assigned human characteristics. Human feelings, not unlike the fish in Finding Nemo or Charlie Brown’s dog Snoopy. But a dog is a dog, no disrespect, and a fish is a fish. And God is God. We can’t comprehend with our limited intellect and language what is ultimately a mystery. So, therefore, to understand, we often assign God human characteristics – language, feelings such as anger or despair, impulses, or the lack of impulse control, such as, for example, resulting in the death and destruction of all humankind and every living creature. It’s OK to assign God human characteristics. We can’t help but describe God through the lens of human experience. But we have to acknowledge we’re doing it and why. And to me, the why is, God is personal, not just a mystery. I need some form of language to express this, to express a relationship built on feelings and faith. It matters to me that I know that God “hears” our prayers. It matters to me that I know God “speaks” words of encouragement and caution and guidance. Although the song In the Garden is hopelessly hokey, dripping with sappy sentimentality, sometimes, like we experienced again this week, these words about Jesus say exactly what we need to hear: “And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own.” Indeed, God is a mystery: described both as distant as the farthest star and as close to us as our breathing. So, yes, God is incomprehensible. And, God is completely comprehensible. So, back to the text. You know the basic outline of the Noah story. 40 days and 40 nights of rain. Months aboard an arky, arky before landing on dry ground, evidenced by a dove and an olive branch, everything back to hunky dory, dory. Genesis chapter 6 is the set up for the story. In it we are given the reason why God was driven to start over: “The inclination of the human heart is evil.”[3] Therefore God initiated a flood. But then, even before the end of the story, God promised, “I won’t do that again. The next time I’m ready to destroy humanity, I’ll put a bow in the sky so I can see it and stop myself.” How human of God to have a bad memory! But, curiously, then God reiterated, “The inclination of the human heart is evil.”[4] For exactly the same reason, God brought about the flood and God promises never to do it again. It’s easy to see why most interpreters describe this as a story of divine wrath. And as the justification for God’s anger to boil over. And even the extreme consequences – although it’s resemblance to an excuse for an abuser is disturbing. Did anyone else catch that? But that’s another sermon. This is a story of divine wrath. Or. At least one interpreter sees Noah’s story as one of divine grief. The kind of grief felt by a parent whose children get into trouble. Scott Hoezee explained: God’s heart was broken by the way humanity treated one another. God was deeply wounded and in pain. And so, this was God’s grief, not wrath. So, think about it from the perspective of a parent whose son or daughter gets into serious trouble. If it hasn’t happened to us, we watch enough news to imagine it. Hoezee said, “Most of the time what parents feel is not as much anger as it is deep, deep pain and heartache. Their response is often more tears than tirades. Sometimes people speak the language of anger and retribution, but at the heart, it’s grief.”[5] What they say and do is anguish, not rage. Although I’m not sure the distinction matters. In America on Wednesday, 17 more children and coaches and teachers were gunned down, at least 14 more wounded, and more than 3,000 were mentally, spiritually and emotionally wounded for a lifetime, caused by another mass shooting, by gun violence at their school. Classrooms and hallways and sidewalks that will never be seen the same. And add to that thousands of parents, families, siblings, cousins, and neighbors forever traumatized. In my anthropomorphic way of understanding, God grieves too. Holds us. Cries with us. Lifts us when we fall. God is anguished, and raged. Rage at the cowards who only offer their spineless “thoughts and prayers.” Their “now is not the time.” Whichever it is, rage or anguish, or whatever, God, I’d like to order up some good old-fashioned fire and brimstone wrath, vengeance and retribution to reign down on the headquarters of the NRA. Just send a lightning bolt to torch Wayne LaPierre’s multi-million-dollar mansion, paid for by the blood of these 17 children and their teachers, and the 20 1st and 2nd graders gunned down in Newtown, and every other death caused by their insistence on easy access to military style guns. Yet even God learned by the experiment of a flood that violence won’t solve the problem of human evil. Which, by the way, is not a teenager with a mental illness, not to excuse him, but the greed and power of the NRA and its lobbyists and their slaves in Congress who are purchased with campaign contributions. It is my heartbreak that wants to lash out with the power of divine retribution – by flood, fire, or both. And yet, in the story of Noah, that didn’t cause humanity to change. Remember how before and after the flood, God said the “inclination of the human heart is evil.” Although, I’m not sure I agree with that conclusion. That is a particular theological point of view which also embraces that humankind was born into original sin, that we are hopelessly, incapably fallen beings. No, instead, I embrace the theological point of view known as original blessing, that we were created good, or as God said, “very good.”[6] At the deepest point of our being, God created humans good, but too often we reject the good in each other. And, too often, in ourselves. What is a theologically sound response? How does our faith inform us in times such as these? First, we begin with our own grief. That’s where we start. To feel it. Change is not imposed but comes from within. With honest prayer that falls at the feet of God, begging for mercy. Like the prayer of Rabbi Joe Black on Thursday morning:[7] “God of the teacher and God of the student. God of the families who wait in horror. God of the dispatcher who hears screams of terror from under bloodied desks. God of the first responder who bravely creeps through ravaged hallways. God of the doctor who treats the wounded. God of the rabbi, pastor, imam or priest who seeks words of comfort but comes up empty. God of the young boy who sees his classmates die in front of him. God of the weeping, raging, inconsolable mother who screams at the sight of her child’s lifeless body. God of the shattered communities torn apart by senseless violence. God of the legislators paralyzed by fear, partisanship, money and undue influence.” It’s a beautifully, painfully, written prayer. Rabbi Black confesses to God: “We are guilty of complacency. We are guilty of allowing ourselves to be paralyzed by politics. The blood of our children cries out from the ground. The blood of police officers cut down in the line of duty flows through our streets.” You really have to read the whole thing. See below. In our anguish, we turn to words of comfort from the Lord, our Shepherd, who leads us by still waters and walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. But that’s not where it, or we, end. What comes next in the Psalm? Valley of the shadow of death, therefore: I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Your rod and your staff-- they protect[8] me. 5 You set a table for me right in the presence of my enemies. We don’t just move on, comforted. We will fear no evil. We refuse easy solutions and instant gratification. In fact, even if every gun disappeared tomorrow, there is something deeper in the psyche of our nation that is tearing us apart. I tried to put my finger on just what it is that insists I have a right to own a gun whose only purpose is to kill humans – not hunt, not protect my home and my family. It is a killing machine intended for war. What happens when school playgrounds become a war zone? God weeps at the human inclination for evil. But for that matter, what is it that insists my tax bracket is more important than public safety; that my comfort is more important than whether a child eats or a parent can take their children to the doctor? I’m reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and staunch pacifist during World War II. He struggled with questions like “what kind of love is it which refuses to act when innocent people are being slaughtered?”[9] How agonizingly relevant. To the horrors of his day, he came to the gut wrenching decision to participate in a plot to kill Hitler. He concluded that “to endure evil oneself is one thing, while to stand by as innocent people suffer is quite another.”[10] For his decision, Bonhoeffer was martyred. And just to be clear, this is not an endorsement for the assassination of our leaders. The innocence of children who sang about arkies and twoosies and threesies and everything is hunky dory, dory was slaughtered in an act of selfishness. “It’s mine. You can’t have it.” One of the, literally, seven deadly sins. Today God comforts a nation in mourning. And reminds us we must not fear evil. I remind us we must refuse to give up hope. And humbly remind God to have mercy upon deeply grievous humankind and forgive our erring ways. “Look, God! I see a rainbow.” But I will also understand if God simply isn’t in the mood. As the words of the song we will sing say: If we just talk of thoughts and prayers, and don’t live out a faith that dares, and don’t take on the ways of death, our thoughts and prayers are fleeting breath.[11] Thursday, February 15, 2018 Opening Prayer For the Colorado State House in the Aftermath of a Tragedy February 15, 2018 Our God and God of all people, God of the Rich and God of the poor. God of the teacher and God of the student. God of the families who wait in horror. God of the dispatcher who hears screams of terror from under bloodied desks. God of the first responder who bravely creeps through ravaged hallways. God of the doctor who treats the wounded. God of the rabbi, pastor, imam or priest who seeks words of comfort but comes up empty. God of the young boy who sees his classmates die in front of him. God of the weeping, raging, inconsolable mother who screams at the sight of her child’s lifeless body . God of the shattered communities torn apart by senseless violence. God of the legislators paralyzed by fear, partisanship, money and undue influence. God of the Right. God of the Left. God who hears our prayers. God who does not answer. On this tragic day when we confront the aftermath of the 18th School shooting in our nation on the 46th day of this year, I do not feel like praying. Our prayers have not stopped the bullets. Our prayers have changed nothing. Once again, a disturbed man with easy access to a death machine has squinted through the sights of a weapon, aimed, squeezed a trigger and taken out his depraved anger, pain and frustration on innocents: pure souls. Students and teachers. Brothers and sisters. Mothers and fathers- cut down in an instant by the power of hatred and technology. We are guilty, O God. We are guilty of inaction. We are guilty of complacency. We are guilty of allowing ourselves to be paralyzed by politics. The blood of our children cries out from the ground. The blood of police officers cut down in the line of duty flows through our streets. I do not appeal to You on this terrible morning to change us. We can only do that ourselves. Our enemies do not come only from faraway places. The monsters we fear live among us. May those in this room who have the power to make change find the courage to seek a pathway to sanity and hope. May we hold ourselves and our leaders accountable. Only then will our prayers be worthy of an answer. AMEN [1] Genesis 6:6 [2] Noah’s curse of his son Ham has been used as justification for slavery ever since [3] Genesis 6:5 [4] Genesis 8:21 [5] Scott Hoezee, Lent1B, Center for Excellence in Preaching [6] See Matthew Fox [7] https://rabbijoeblack.blogspot.com/2018/02/opening-prayer-for-colorado-state-house.html [8] Or “comfort” [9] William Bittinger, “Rachel Weeping” [10] Charles Marsh, “A Perplexing Contradiction” [11] Carolyn Winfrey Gillette Sermons from Park Hill Congregational UCC Denver, Colorado Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] February 11, 2018 “Memorial of White Privilege” Note that today is Racial Justice Sunday in the UCC Mark 9: 2b-9a – The Message Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain. Right before their eyes, his appearance changed from the inside out. His clothes shimmered, glistening white, whiter than any bleach could make them. They could see Elijah, along with Moses, in deep conversation with Jesus. 5-6 Peter interrupted, “Rabbi, this is a great moment! Let’s build three memorials—one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.” He blurted this out without thinking, stunned as they all were by what they were seeing. 7 Just then a light-radiant cloud enveloped them, and from deep in the cloud, a voice: “This is my Son, marked by my love. Listen to him.” 8 A minute later, the disciples were looking around, rubbing their eyes, seeing nothing but Jesus, only Jesus. 9 Coming down the mountain, Jesus swore them to secrecy. “Don’t tell a soul what you saw until the time is right.” CONTEMPORARY READING: “Follow Me” in the Rise Up[1] devotional by Traci Blackmon Whenever I read the gospel accounts of how Jesus organized The Discipleship Movement, I am reminded of how important it is to understand the roles of both leader and ally. “Follow Me,” Jesus proclaims over and over again as he invites others to help change the world. Some of his actions may seem illogical. He is a carpenter from Nazareth telling fishermen to “follow him” and he will make them fishers of men. Who is he to tell others how to fish? Later, Jesus issues an invitation to a tax collector to “follow him” in the Movement with no promise to make him treasurer. Time and time again, Jesus invites others to join him. The invitation is broad, and the directions are minimal but consistent. All who are willing to join are welcome, but you must “follow me.” Isn’t it just like Jesus to teach us so much with so little? The organizing skills of Jesus remind us that true movements of liberation are best led by those who are being oppressed. This is why it matters that Jesus did not come as a person of great privilege, but rather as an Afro-Semitic Palestinian born on the wrong side of the tracks. It is from this context that Jesus begins a Movement, and it is from this context that Jesus invites others to follow. And allies begin to show up, with their bodies and their gifts and their skills, to follow. Even when the plan does not seem to make much sense, even when some think a more aggressive agenda is needed, over and over again, they agree to be Jesus’ allies in the struggle and they follow. There are moments when the disciples struggle with the leadership style of Jesus, yet they still follow. Most of them were oppressed themselves. They knew what it felt like to be hurt and marginalized in varying ways. But they followed. I offer Jesus’ example to us as we continue to strive together in the Movement work of our time. The invitation to the ally is always to follow the leadership of those who are at the center of the pain. The story matters. And choosing to work toward liberation of any kind requires a commitment to support the narrative of the ones who own the story. The role of the ally is not to lead or to fix. The ally holds the story and amplifies the voice of the storyteller. “Follow me,” Jesus says. Perhaps this simple invitation is the hardest of them all. LITANY: ALL PEOPLE OF COLOR: As a person of color, every day I see examples of white privilege that most white people do not recognize. Karen: As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage. My African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact, in this particular time and place, cannot count on most of these conditions. For example, I can easily arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time. ALL WHITE PEOPLE: I can go shopping alone most of the time, assured that I will not be followed or harassed. Smokey: I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented in a positive light. ALL WHITE PEOPLE: If I am the only member of my race, it is likely my voice will be heard in a group. Amy: Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability. ALL WHITE PEOPLE: I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection. Priscilla: I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group. ALL WHITE PEOPLE: I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge", I will be facing a person of my race. Lucy: If a traffic cop pulls me over, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race. ALL WHITE PEOPLE: I can go home from most meetings of the organizations to which I belong feeling connected, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared. Mollie: I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race. ALL WHITE PEOPLE: I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race. Eileen: If I apply for a job and get turned down, I can be pretty sure it was because of my lack of experience or connections and not my race. ALL WHITE PEOPLE: I acknowledge my white privilege, or unearned power, and will work to dismantle racism and white supremacy. ALL PEOPLE OF COLOR: We seek a community of faith that wants to dismantle racism. Follow me.[2] SERMON: That last line is profound. “We seek a community of faith that wants to dismantle racism.” You’ve heard it before how Martin Luther King, Jr. said that 11 am on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America.[3] But he said that 58 years ago, so things have certainly changed since then. Barely. According to studies, upwards of 90% of churches in the U.S. are of one single race or ethnicity. That doesn’t mean there are no people of another race, but no more than 10%. For example, in a church of 100, fewer than 10. 90% still seems too low to me. And sure enough, if you break it down further, only 2-3% of mainline churches like ours are racially or ethnically diverse. 20% of Catholic parishes are.[4] But worse, the motivation to change that is pathetic. LifeWay Research is a respected organization. In 2015, on the weekend of Dr. King’s birth, they did a national poll of church goers. Only 40% said their church needs to become more ethnically diverse. Remember, 90% are not. But two-thirds said their church has already done enough to be diverse. People are OK that Sunday morning remains the most segregated hour of the week.[5] I understand some of that. Immigrant churches provide safety and a common language, potlucks with familiar foods, familiar customs in a completely foreign land. However, those same churches have difficulty holding on to the second, and especially the third, generation who no longer even know the language which once bound their community together. I understand why African Americans would want to be part of a Black Church. Yes, foods and customs, but after a week of insensitivity and outright discrimination, church is the last place you would want to experience even, what I call, accidental racism. Well-meaning white people who either don’t get it or want to prove something. But why would white people, who are the majority everywhere, why would we need or prefer or simply find ourselves in a single race church too? Certainly, there is some measure of tradition and ancestry and upbringing; we go where our parents brought us – and because of that we recognize certain styles of worship, and especially music, as being the way “church is supposed to be.” But it also says that, for many, church is more about comfort than challenge. But what did Jesus say? Follow me. Where? Out of your comfort zone. It got me thinking about today’s scripture text from the Gospel of Mark. There’s a lot of bizarre stuff in the story of the Transfiguration. Some of the details seem unnecessary – like what does it matter if the clothes of Jesus are whiter than they could be bleached? But there was one thing that stood out for me. Peter’s impulse. Let’s build something. Whether it was so they could stay in that moment forever or to remember this moment. When Peter didn’t know what else to do or say, he blurted out, “Let’s build a memorial.” Or, at least, that’s Eugene Peterson’s interpretation. The word Peter used clearly had multiple meanings because various translations can’t agree what he meant. King James says, “let’s build three tabernacles;” the NRSV, our pew Bible, says, “dwellings;” which was an update of the RSV, which spoke of “booths.” Other translations speak of building houses or shelters. The other translation we often use in worship at Park Hill, the Common English Bible, calls them “shrines.” That’s a wide range of meaning – houses, dwellings, shrines, or memorials… But on this Racial Justice Sunday, it was the word “memorials” that spoke to me, like the memorials to white privilege increasingly being called into question. And disputes over what history should be remembered. You can’t take down a statue of Robert E. Lee because that would be erasing history, denigrating a whole culture. But many see building memorials of slavery, or the proposed memorials to lynching victims, as too divisive, too ugly for children to have to encounter. Why one and not the other? Who gets what memorials is another application of white privilege. When I was in Cambodia last year I visited the Killing Fields.[6] It was brutally and horribly honest. For example, this is the tree against which the heads of infants and children were smashed. Those are bone fragments leaching up from beneath the soil. A three-story building in the shape of a shrine was filled from top to bottom with skulls, tens of thousands on the spot where one million were killed, labeled by age and sex, such as a section filled with the skulls of 5 to 10-year-old boys, or girls between the ages of 10 and 15. It made me more than sick to my stomach. I was dizzy. My head hurt, my heart ached. But I was also fascinated as I watched busloads of school children, hundreds of young children guided through these gruesome horrors and being told over and over, don’t forget this. Don’t let this happen again. Look at what your parents and grandparents lived through, and in some cases, look at what your parents and grandparents did. The scale of the atrocity is staggering. But the honesty was instructive. Which is why I think there needs to be a memorial in the middle of Stapleton of the KKK celebrating his election, whether the name changes or not. Actually, especially if the name changes. Memorials don’t have to mean we celebrate or glorify what happened here, but that we can’t forget it. Ignore it. Cover over how he filled City Hall with fellow Klansmen – from police chief to city attorney to manager of safety and other key positions. Yes, memories like that bring pain. But pain brings healing. Art and I hiked on South Table Mountain a few weeks ago and wondered where Stapleton and the KKK did their celebratory cross burnings or planned and celebrated the completion of more torment and torture of Jews and Catholics and Chinese and immigrants and people of color. There should at least be a plaque on South Table so we don’t forget. Just like the effort Bryon Stephenson and the Equal Justice Initiative is spearheading to build a memorial at all 4,000 sites of lynchings.[7] Yes, memories bring pain. But pain starts the healing. And dismantling racism starts with honesty about our painful history and working to change our present and future path. The Cambodians were certainly determined to keep doing this for each generation. And I agree. I also don’t just want a church that knows our history and knows we have white privilege but one that is then dismantling it. If we truly want to be a multi-racial, multi-cultural church, we must be a church that takes apart our own privilege. But I am cautioned by Traci Blackmon: “The invitation to the ally is always to follow the leadership of those who are at the center of the pain. The role of the ally is not to lead or to fix. The ally holds the story and amplifies the voice of the storyteller.” For people accustomed to privilege, perhaps this simple invitation is the hardest of them all. To follow. [1] To order: https://www.uccresources.com/products/rise-up-spirituality-for-resistance?variant=44663171407 [2] This is adapted from Peggy McIntosh’s Invisible Knapsack, which includes 50 examples. We added room for People of Color voices missing from the original. http://www.ywca.org/atf/cf/%7B6EDE3711-6615-4DDD-B12A-F9E0A781AE81%7D/White%20Privilege%20Unpacking%20the%20Invisible%20Knapsack.pdf [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q881g1L_d8 [4] http://www.phil.vt.edu/JKlagge/ConductorChurch.htm [5] http://lifewayresearch.com/2015/01/15/sunday-morning-in-america-still-segregated-and-thats-ok-with-worshipers/ [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_Killing_Fields [7] http://www.newsweek.com/slavery-lynching-and-racism-america-will-be-inescapable-ejis-memorial-and-709624 Sermons from Park Hill Congregational UCC Denver, Colorado Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] February 4, 2018 “Gay and Ordained Twenty-Five 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 the ark was. 4 God called to Samuel, who replied, “I’m here.” 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 God 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 Samuel didn’t understand because Samuel didn’t yet know God, and God’s word hadn’t yet been revealed to him.) 8 A third time God called Samuel. He got up, went to Eli, and said, “I’m here. You called me?” Eli finally realized that it was God calling the boy. 9 So Eli said to Samuel, “Go and lie down. If you hear the call again, say, ‘Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down where he’d been. 10 Then God came and stood there, calling just as before, “Samuel, Samuel!” Samuel said, “Speak. Your servant is listening.” Almost every ordained minister has something they can describe as their “call story.” And often, it is a variation of this very passage; the description of the process or a particular moment when we first heard our call to ministry. I was 16 years old, and a remarkably similar thing happened to me. I 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. I had already told God I wasn’t interested. But, because I was so involved in my church, I was an organist, active in the youth group, locally and even on the state level, and because my family was basically at church every time the door was open, people assumed I would go into the ministry. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I was sure it wasn’t that. Nevertheless, God, She persisted. The dreams became more and more annoying. While at a statewide meeting, I told some ministers I knew about my dreams. Every one of them said, “It sounds like Samuel. When you wake up, say yes to God.” But I wasn’t having that. That is, until I’d finally been sufficiently worn down to finally wake up and say, “All right, enough already.” And I instantly knew it was right. I had what I can only describe as a feeling of being washed in peace. And so, the course of my vocation was set. College, seminary, church. Except. Nothing can be that easy. Enter all those years of feeling different, of not wanting to be different in “that” way, and the word which I dared not name. Until I could no longer not use the word gay. And so, well, there go those plans. But did it mean that? I knew the call from God was real. The only problem was the church. Thanks to another very convincing dream, I realized it wouldn’t be easy, but I had to proceed anyway. The next verse in the Samuel story is, “God told Samuel, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of all who hear it tingle!” Eli asked Samuel to tell him everything God told him, “don’t hold anything back,” even though the news would be disturbing and devastating for Eli. Yet Eli concluded, “God is God. And God will do as God pleases.” I believed that. So, I did what I could to figure out my part. I kept going, opening different doors, climbing through different windows, and persisting through the obstacles that were thrown in my way. But I want to be clear. My persistence was not of my own doing. God is the One who made a way out of no way. Born of God’s strength, not my courage, it was 25 years ago this weekend, the first Sunday of February 25 years ago, that I was ordained in Cleveland with the laying on of hands and a prayer for the Spirit’s blessing. I don’t want to make this all about me, but I would like to share a few stories of what it was like to be ordained as an openly gay man 25 years ago and marvel at, and give thanks to God, how different things are today, at least in most of the UCC. So, I finished seminary. In the UCC, no one can be ordained without a call to a recognized ministry of some sort. Most commonly, that is as the pastor of a church or a chaplain. But something must say, “We want you.” That was the hard part. At the time there were about 100 Open and Affirming congregations, but many said, “Sure, we welcome gay people, but we don’t want one of them as our pastor.” And so, while the first openly gay man, Bill Johnson, had been ordained in 1972, it wasn’t to ministry in a church. It wasn’t until 1984 that Diane Darling went from being an intern to associate pastor to co-pastor, but everyone knew her. Everyone else was left wondering, should you be out on your profile or wait until a search committee gets to know you before telling them? That didn’t always go over so 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. Of course, it only took her 7 years of trying first. And then, while the church welcomed her, many others didn’t. When the church in Cleveland voted to call me four years later, we may have crossed over to fingers on a second hand to count the number of such pastors out of more than 5,000 churches. Still, I was the beneficiary of an incrementally slowly changing world; but slow and incremental it definitely was. I was also the beneficiary of those who had spent a lifetime working to change the church – with much personal sacrifice and heartbreak. So, it was 1992. We had a really good first search committee meeting. I was Archwood UCC’s third candidate in three years, but the first gay one. Since it was near death, they were desperate enough to consider calling a gay or lesbian pastor. 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. Archwood’s 1,000 members had plummeted to 30 on a good day. Why go to a church you might have to close? Working with that search committee was another story for another day, but ultimately, we arrived on the December day of the vote, the day when the congregation would first listen to me preach and then hold a meeting to ask questions, and then I would leave the room while they talked. The search committee assumed, correctly, that some of the questions might be inappropriate, questions about such things as my sex life, 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 graphic. That tactic lasted 15 minutes, after which he was too red faced to continue and just stepped aside. But showing no shame, the undignified questions continued, occasionally relevant to church, ministry, and vision. Finally, I was invited to leave the room while they deliberated. It took forever. I even toyed with the idea of leaving. But then I heard a loud ruckus in the sanctuary. The vote had been 27 to 13 in favor. Someone got a calculator to check that it was the necessary 2/3rds margin. And what was the ruckus? Upon the announcement, someone took the microphone and spoke into it too loudly – Congratulations. Then yelling from the other side began, including the church secretary who declared everyone was going to hell. The search committee chair explained this to me, and then said, now come, let’s go downstairs for tea and coffee. Mary Mae Meister, that secretary, was a whole story in itself. The most outwardly racist and homophobic church employee you’d could ever want. I was still shaken from hearing all the yelling, but I nervously went downstairs. As I was adding Sweet and Low to my coffee, Mary Mae raced toward me from the other side of the room and began screaming – we’ve got to keep the children away from you. You can just go home now and have sex with anything you want. I was a wreck inside, but I calmly listened and thanked her for her honesty and stepped away, while she 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 elderly women 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. My first Sunday was a month later, but only after insisting they “retire” Mary Mae, which was further fuel on the fire of my detractors. And even supporters. People had become so used to her they actually wanted me to try working together for six months. Eleven of the 13 no votes never set foot in the church again. And a few of those who did vote for me didn’t stay long. One man said, “I just don’t see a pastor. I see a homosexual in the pulpit” – and I had never once pulled out my feather boa. I grew close to the people, and they to me, so it was devastating that when some of them died, family members wouldn’t allow me to conduct their funeral. So, the ordination, 25 years ago. The Cleveland Plain Dealer did a very large story the week before, which unleashed the 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 they would, said they could only do something if indeed the church had burned down with me in it. I lived in the parsonage right next to the church, so I felt more than a little vulnerable. A very prominent and 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 and then sent a letter of greetings to be read at my ordination, expressing regrets he could not personally be present. The day before my ordination one of the pastors in our ecumenical cluster, a United Methodist church, asked to visit. He handed me a letter that said he and his church would not attend any future event or joint service where I would be involved. He wanted to give me the letter in person as a “friendly gesture” and said, “I hope we can still be friends.” Earlier in the week the pastor of a large suburban UCC invited me to coffee. They had promised to do some work around Archwood as a mission project, but over a piece of pie he said they were pulling their support. I would have rather received a letter. Another church in our Association left the UCC, citing me in their history book as the reason. Even the pastor of the nearest UCC said he wouldn’t attend my ordination because he didn’t approve, although, a few years later I officiated at his wedding. Despite these, I felt very much loved and supported. Including by the church right across the street, also United Methodist, a stark contrast to the “friendly fellow.” They were wonderful. And the pastor organized a group to be on the watch for the promised protestors. In the end, only one protester showed up, who put little handwritten cards on all the car windshields that read “God does not create people gay,” in response to my statement in the newspaper. We knew the newspaper article was risky and the response it would likely generate. But we also knew it was the best way to get word out. And on the day of the ordination, the 20 or so members of Archwood were dwarfed by a church packed with supporters, many of them complete strangers hungry for a church that would welcome them. Some of them came back and helped lay the foundation for the congregation that was to come. Nearly every one of those initial twenty-something people who voted to call me died within a few years, Penny, Alice, Clara, Betty, Lillian… and without their radical hospitality, so would have the church. It’s still there, small, but every single other church in the neighborhood has since closed – UCC, Lutheran, Episcopal, both United Methodist churches and even the Catholic church, all replaced by Pentecostal and fundamentalist churches. Ten years after I started at Archwood I began a doctoral program. My final project was a study of others who had followed the same path. To be included in the study, they had to be out on their profiles, honest in their interviews, and the predominantly straight congregations which called them had to be aware that the candidate was openly gay or lesbian. Conference Ministers around the country helped me identify study participants. Instead of just one in 1989 and a handful in 1993, by 2005, there were well over 100. I can only imagine how many more there are today, more than 10 years later. And what I found in my study was that despite the consistency of a great many fears expressed about losing members and money and families with children, churches with LGBTQ pastors outperformed the rest, particularly with families looking to raise their children in an environment of openness and acceptance. Not as though it’s a contest, but it was quite revealing. But the other side of the study also identified the great 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 a funeral, but I did get worn down and I struggled with some severe depression for a while. Pressure by some to fail; pressure by some that I had to succeed or I would set the movement back. But my challenges were nothing like the pastor who was at home when a gun was intentionally shot at the parsonage. And those who have endured numerous acts of vandalism, to mention only a few incidents. Or when Gene Robinson was consecrated a bishop wearing a bullet proof vest. I feel so blessed and grateful for having been here for ten of those 25 years. Please believe that it was quite surreal to go from the congregational meeting filled with insults and inquiries about my sex life to the one here involving questions of theology and preaching and church growth. I am grateful for my 25 years – and many more to come. Yet, the struggle for the rest of the church is far from over. More churches would condemn you than congratulate you for being Open and Affirming. To us, here, now, the danger is in thinking it’s not a big deal anymore. But church deacons still pour acid on LGBT members in Jamaica. Churches in Uganda demand the death penalty for the crime of homosexuality. In fact, it’s still a crime in 76 countries. And in the US, transgender people of color have some of the highest murder rates, while Christians are up in arms about which bathroom they use. God has been and is making a way out of no way – making the ears of many tingle. I have seen it. But it pains me for those for whom change is still terribly slow and only incremental. Or non-existent. Battles fought over the fundamental dignity of human persons. Or that God shouldn’t do what God wants to do. God has been and is persistently at work on earth, but it is with human hands. And so we must remember: We are called to act with justice, we are called to love tenderly, we are called to serve one another, and walk humbly with God. |
AuthorI love being a Archives
March 2024
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