Sermons from Park Hill Congregational UCC Denver, Colorado Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] April 5, 2020 “Let’s Be Awkward” Matthew 21: 1-11 – Common English Bible When they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus gave two disciples a task. 2 He said to them, “Go into the village over there. As soon as you enter, you will find a donkey tied up and a colt with it. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that their master needs them.” He sent them off right away. 4 Now this happened to fulfill what the prophet said, 5 Say to Daughter Zion, “Look, your king is coming to you, humble and riding on a donkey, and on a colt the donkey’s offspring.” 6 The disciples went and did just as Jesus had ordered them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and laid their clothes on them. Then he sat on them. 8 Now a large crowd spread their clothes on the road. Others cut palm branches off the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds in front of him and behind him shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” 10 And when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up. “Who is this?” they asked. 11 The crowds answered, “It’s the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.” Brené Brown said, “This pandemic experience is a massive experiment in collective vulnerability.”[1] You might call Brené the guru of vulnerability. She became famous after a Ted Talk a few years ago, which has now been viewed almost 48 million times. Perhaps you’ve seen it. And if you haven’t, I suggest you do. It’s brilliant. I’ll put a link on my and the church’s Facebook page.[2] Vulnerable. Yeah, she nails it. I feel various levels of vulnerability going anywhere, to the grocery store, to get take-out. Seeing someone sneeze 10 feet away causes us to give them the “stare.” I’m reminded of my vulnerability every time I watch the news. Chances are, you feel it too. Maybe that’s not the word you would use. Instead of vulnerable, in the face of a pandemic, how about defenseless? Helpless? Maybe a better word is exposed. Get too close to another human being and we risk being exposed. Vulnerable to something invisible. Again, Brené said, “This pandemic experience is a massive experiment in collective vulnerability.” We keep calling these times unprecedented. There are many things about this pandemic that are unique in our lifetimes, but one of the exceptionalisms is that no one is exempted. It doesn’t matter who we are. No race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, nationality… no amount of money or political influence will exempt us from this massive experiment in collective vulnerability. Yes, but the truth is also that some people are more vulnerable than others. Some people have more ability to limit their exposure than others. For example, people without homes in which to shelter. People in overcrowded jails. Asylum seekers, already extremely vulnerable, living in tents. Our elders in retirement communities and nursing homes. Anyone confined to close living quarters. And of course, exposure is the profession of health care workers. And store clerks. First responders. But while some people can limit their exposure to a certain extent, there’s no option of being vulnerable or not vulnerable. As a human race, living in a red state or blue, a developing country or an industrialized one, in a democracy or under a dictator, we are globally, all collectively vulnerable. There is some comfort in our equality. And something terribly frightening. To her statement of collective vulnerability, Brené added, “We can be our worst selves when we’re afraid. Or, we can be our very best, our bravest selves. In the context of fear and vulnerability, there is often very little distance in between because when we are uncertain and afraid, our default is self-protection. But, when we’re scared, we don’t have to be scary in return.” So, she said, “Let’s choose to be awkward, brave, and kind. And let’s choose each other.” In the face of our collective vulnerability, let’s be awkward, brave, and kind. I like that, although I would never have thought to put those three particular words together. Perhaps, “Let’s be bold and compassionate.” Or courageous and generous. But to add awkward? Awkward, brave, and kind. Bold and compassionate are synonyms of brave. Those are good descriptions of how to be in these vulnerable times. And courageous and generous are synonyms of the word kind. This is how we should be in any times and at all times. But awkward? So, like the other two words, I searched for synonyms and got some pretty surprising and unexpected results. My Word document thesaurus only showed words for awkward like stubborn, uncooperative, obstinate, and difficult. That doesn’t seem quite right for this situation. When I think of the word awkward, I visualize a baby donkey trying to stand up for the first time. I think awkward and I visualize a teenager looking in the mirror, grimacing at all the pimples on their face. Someone who is clumsy, lanky, and gangly. So, why in the world would she suggest being awkward as a response to our collective vulnerability? I was somewhat at a loss. So, I thought about how these words might apply to Jesus on this day we remember his entrance into Jerusalem. We admire that Jesus was brave and kind. He was bold and compassionate, courageous and generous. But, it seems, awkward fits well here. Palm Sunday and Holy Week symbolize ways that he was awkward. Palm Sunday is a veritable lesson in vulnerability. We sometimes talk of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. We hear stories of Jesus riding into town, palm branches waving, garments thrown on the road, shouts of “Hosanna to the Son of David!” But, upon closer examination, those were not acts of triumph. That was going on across town. As Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan wrote in their book The Last Week, “there were two processions that entered Jerusalem on that spring day in the year 30. One was a peasant procession, the other an imperial procession.”[3] Picture it: On one side of town, from the east, Jesus rode down from the Mount of Olives on a donkey, cheered on by a scraggly, odd collection of misfits and outsiders, who shouted and had nothing else to give so they threw their old coats on the ground and tore some branches off a tree. Then picture the opposite, on the opposite side of town. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, riding in on a chariot, the head of an imperial cavalry, surrounded by soldiers. Flags waving, dust rising, the ground shaking under their stomping feet. Pilate’s military procession was a demonstration of Roman imperial power. They came to town for any major festival for crowd control; that is, to control anyone who might use these occasions, such as Passover, to disrupt order and commerce. Pilate entered to proclaim the power of the Empire. To protect that power and the status quo. That’s a triumphant entrance. Again, on the other hand, here comes Jesus, a donkey, and some peasants waving branches. To the enforcers of Roman rule by force, Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God, to protect people from that power. To disrupt that kind of status quo. According to Borg and Crossan, that was the central conflict of the week. That’s what led to the crucifixion, the execution, of Jesus on Friday, just a few days later. Crucifixion on a cross was something Rome generally reserved for those who questioned imperial authority. A warning to other would be prophets – as Cornel West said, similar to the image and message of a lynching.[4] A symbol of their terrible power. But in the face of their terror, Jesus stood awkward – in the best sense. He did in fact interrupt their commerce. Immediately after entering Jerusalem, he went straight to the Temple where he famously overturned the tables of the moneychangers.[5] Later in the week, when Pilate asked Jesus, are you the King of the Jews, he said, “You say so.” He wouldn’t give direct answers. “What is truth?” Jesus asked.[6] When told to explain himself, Jesus infuriated the authorities with questions back. In the face of Rome’s power, Jesus was awkward. Meaning, he was stubborn, difficult, and obstinate. He might not have been executed if he had just been a little more cooperative. But Jesus’ mission was to proclaim the Kingdom of God, to protect the poor, not prop up the powerful. And, he taught, the only way to do that is to be vulnerable, to stand with, not over; to seek the power of love, not the love of power. And so, in the face of Roman imperial power, Jesus was brave and kind. And awkward. But in the end, I doubt that’s quite what Brené Brown had in mind for us. She probably meant the kind of awkwardness that is like, I’m not sure what to do now. Uncertain. More full of doubt than defiance – although, given the constant lies and recklessness of the administration, the playing of favorites with political friends… “You can have these ventilators if you say you like me…”[7] Well, we need a good bit more awkwardness. Yet, the truth is, many of us simply feel awkwardly inadequate for the challenge of this pandemic. Exposed and perhaps self-conscious, and ill at ease. That kind of awkward. So why, then? Why would Brené encourage us to feel awkward? We already do. Or at least, I know I have. Talk about awkward. Technology is the area of life I feel most awkward. But these times confront us with indifference. Who cares if you feel awkward? Do it! Right?! So, thanks to Mindee’s help, we have been learning on the fly how to do worship by live streaming and pre-recording. We’ve learned how to have meaningful conversations on Zoom – something many of us had never even heard of a month ago. Out of necessity, each of us has had to learn new skills, but with each new accomplishment, I feel a little bit more grounded and prepared for the long days that stretch out before us. As we were figuring out all these technical challenges, our staff discussed the need to also create a system to help people in the congregation stay connected. We came up with the name of Care Connection Groups and set off to recruit more than a dozen people to be Care Connectors. And a dozen people said YES! From idea to inception, Terri had this up and running in a couple of days. But, that was the easy part. You have the hard part. You have to do one of the most awkward things any of us can do – talk to someone about how you are feeling. Talk to someone you may hardly know about fear, and anger, and despair. To go beyond chit chat. Making phone calls is HARD! It’s not easy to “sit with” one another in our brokenness. It’s awkward. And yet you have been doing it. You have been awkward, brave, and kind. Thank goodness for the training we have received as part of the relational campaign. You’ve got the skills! Terri has shared how seriously you have been taking the responsibility to care for one another, so that none of us is left alone. If you haven’t been connected to a group yet, reach out. And we can always use more Care Connectors, if you are willing. More than anything, as this gets harder, and this will get harder, don’t withdraw. Stay connected! Together, Brené Brown said, “Let’s choose to be awkward, brave, and kind.” What initially sounded odd, and frankly, pretty weird, is exactly right. To be brave and kind is one thing – not necessarily easy, but we can understand it. But the willingness to be awkward… If we are willing to be awkward with each other, choosing vulnerability, not running from it, not frightened of it, choosing vulnerability means we will have the support to survive this crisis. You understand how important that is!? Could you ever imagine how important a church community would be to actual survival!? But we can do it if we all agree, “let’s choose each other.” Amen [1] https://brenebrown.com/blog/2020/03/21/collective-vulnerability/ [2] https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability/transcript?language=en [3] Borg and Crossan, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Final Days in Jerusalem, Harper San Francisco, 2006 [4] Cornel West, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, Orbis, 2001 [5] Matthew 21: 12-14 [6] John 13:38 [7] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/trump-complains-democratic-governors-don-t-appreciate-virus-help
1 Comment
4/5/2020 01:57:34 pm
That was so inspiring. Awkward is an excellent way to explain these times. We are all awkwardly doing things we've never had to do before. Thank you David.
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