Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] 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.
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Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] 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:
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.
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?
But remember,
[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 [email protected] 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. |
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March 2024
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