cordeliaknits

"Fishing for People"

This sermon was delivered Sunday, January 22, 2012.

Mark 1:14-20

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea — for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

***

What does it mean to be a disciple?  I feel like, as people who may have grown up going to church, or who have spent much of our lives in a Christian community, many of us hear the term ‘disciple’ and we don’t think much about it.  Perhaps, if we give them any thought at all, we think of the disciples as hangers-on, twelve guys who followed Jesus around, occasionally asking questions, occasionally making fools of themselves, eventually betraying the man they loved and followed. 

But actually, the disciples were ordinary people from all walks of life who brought their skills together to help Jesus in his ministry.  They listened and learned from him, yes, but they also helped him in his work, teaching, healing, feeding, and organizing.

In this short passage, we hear a story that is a bit confusing.  Jesus is walking along the shore, sees a few fishermen and calls out to them, inviting them to come along with him.  Immediately, we are told, they drop their nets and run to join him.  If this weren’t strange enough, a bit further down the shore, he does it again and two more men join him, giving up their family business and the source of their livelihood to follow this strange preacher around the country. 

Now, reading this, we might first wonder what were these guys thinking?  What could have possessed them to drop everything and follow Jesus?  Had they heard him preach already?  Did they already believe he was the messiah?  Or did he just possess so much power and charisma that they were compelled to follow him?  We don’t know. 

Mark doesn’t waste words on petty details like that, explaining why these fishermen were so willing to join Jesus, changing their lives forever and giving up everything they knew.  Mark merely tells us that they did it, and that they didn’t waste any time. 

Jesus called, and they answered. 

I believe we all have stories of being called.  Some are epic and surprising and life-changing, and some are gentle, small enough that it can be easy to miss their importance.  In seminary and throughout the ordination process, potential ministers are asked to tell and retell their story of when they first heard the Call to ministry.  I remember some of my colleagues describing it as being hit over the head with a 2x4, while for others it was a still small voice nudging them ever closer to ministry until they couldn’t ignore it any longer.

My own Call was a mix of the two.  Although I would never use violent terms to describe it, there was a suddenness to my first feeling of being Called…I wasn’t hit over the head—instead, I felt like the Holy Spirit was rushing into me, filling me with hope and excitement.  It was such a powerful feeling that I can still remember exactly where I was walking the moment it happened, the feeling of the leaves under my feet and what the sky looked like. 

That feeling of joy lasted for a few minutes until the doubt came seeping in.  This was crazy, wasn’t it?  How could I be called to ministry?  I didn’t even identify as Christian at the time, didn’t know what I believed about God and Jesus…so God couldn’t really be calling me to be a minister…right?

But, the initial feeling had been so strong that I had to pursue it, to let myself imagine that it was possible, and to seek advice from my pastor.  And that is when the slightly less dramatic, but ever more persistent Calls came.  Opportunities to try ministry fell into place, mentors and friends voiced their belief in my Call, and even though it was scary, it always felt right.

I didn’t immediately drop my fishing nets and leave everything behind to follow Jesus, but I did start walking towards him, changing my priorities and my focus until those feelings of doubt were edged out by certainty.  That feeling of certainty that I was on the path that God was leading me on must have been something like what those first disciples felt when they were called by Jesus.  Mark doesn’t tell us whether or not they were afraid, but he does make it clear that they were certain.  They must have been, to leave all that they knew behind.  Once you have felt the Call, there is no going back.

We are not all called to be pastors, but we are all called to minister to God’s creation, to be disciples...  Because we each have different gifts, our specific callings are different.  When Jesus called these four fishermen, he said “I will teach you how to fish for people…”  He knew what their skills were, and he apparently knew how they could translate into the work he needed them to do.  They didn’t know what they were getting into, they didn’t know how to ‘fish for people,’ but he promised to teach them, and so they went.  Jesus saw potential in them that they perhaps hadn’t seen in themselves, and that is often the way a calling works.

In the United Church of Christ, there are many requirements for ordination, but the most basic two, the ones you must have to even start on the path, are that you feel a personal calling to ministry, and equally important, that other people confirm that you have that calling.  It’s not just between you and God, but also between you and your community.  This is one of the reasons that being in Christian community is so important, because we help each other to recognize where and how God is calling us.

 I think about our friend Yael, who will be ordained here in our church next month.  Did she have any clue the first time she stepped into this sanctuary that she would be starting a life-changing journey?  Did she already know that she had such amazing gifts for preaching and ministry?  I’m sure God had started calling her already, but it was entering into this space, worshipping and ministering with you, being encouraged and affirmed by this community that helped to move her from where she was that first Sunday morning to where she is going, to lead a very lucky congregation in Maine. 

What does it mean to be a disciple?  What does it mean today, for us?  It does not mean that we are all called to be preachers—thank goodness!  Some of us are called by God to be healers, teachers, artists, parents, or activists.  The important thing to do is to follow those calls, listen to your community, take the risk to throw down your net and follow Jesus where he’s asking you to go, and trust that you will learn what you need to along the way.  That is the way we can change the world, one call at a time.  AMEN

 

 

Too Wonderful

This sermon was delivered on Sunday, January 15, 2012

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

O God, you have searched me and known me.
  You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.

You search out my path and my lying down,
  and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,
  O God, you know it completely.

You hem me in, behind and before,
  and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
  it is so high that I cannot attain it.

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
  you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you,
  for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
  that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,
  when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written all the days
  that were formed for me, before they existed.

How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
  How vast is the sum of them!

I try to count them —
  they are more than the sand;
I come to the end —
  I am still with you.

I have preached on this Psalm several times.  It is, in fact, my favorite Psalm, partly due to the allusion to knitting, but also because of the clear message that God is with us everywhere we go, no matter what.  Throughout my own spiritual meanderings as a child and as a teenager, one thing was always clear to me… God loved me, for exactly who I was, and no matter what.  This is what eventually brought me back to Christianity—the memory of that assurance of God’s love.

This Psalm tells us of the ever-present love of God, the amazing, unfathomable knowledge of God, and the assurance that God knows us better than we can ever imagine.  In this way, it reminds me of one of my favorite Rumi poems in which he writes, “When you look for God, God is in the looking of your eye…”  It’s a bit of theology that is central to my understanding of God, and that you might recognize from my prayers and blessings on Sunday mornings.  I think few things are as important as realizing how close God is to us, how much God loves us, and how intimately God understands us.

This is why Psalm 139 is my favorite… not just because of knitting, but because it rings so true to me.  Now, for some reason the psalm is chopped up in our lectionary, but I think it’s important to hear those lines in the middle. 

Where can I go from your spirit?
   Or where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
   if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning
   and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me,
   and your right hand shall hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,
   and the light around me become night’,
¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;
   the night is as bright as the day,
   for darkness is as light to you.

The psalmist says, in every way possible, that God is always there, always with us.  There is nowhere we can go where God is not.  In our times of greatest accomplishment, when we “ascend to heaven,” God is there, and in our worst, most shameful moments, when we “make our beds in sheol,” God is there too.  Even in the depths of depression, when we feel like the darkness is going to cover us for good, God is there.

Now, God is always with us, but God doesn’t necessarily intervene in the ways we would hope.  This is one of the frustrating mysteries about the Divine.  Today is the anniversary of the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King—a man who was certainly aware of God’s presence and God’s love.  God was there when he was writing speeches and organizing marches.  God was there when he was in prison and when he was in church, and God was there when he was assassinated. 

As we mourn the death of such a great leader, we might wonder why, if God was there, why couldn’t God have stopped it?  Why couldn’t God have prevented his death?  Why is it, if God is always with us, and loves us, and knows us better than we know ourselves, that God doesn’t always protect us from harm, or prevent us from harming others?

These questions are painful to ask, and risky to try and answer.  Some people will say that it’s because whatever happens is God’s will, and we shouldn’t question it.  Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t believe God wills for children to be abused or people to be bigots or bombs to be dropped.  A loving God does not cause suffering and pain, but suffers with us. 

Humanity is broken in many ways.  We have an endless capacity for love and creativity, but we also have an amazing capacity to hurt and destroy.  I think this is part of what the psalmist means when he writes, “I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”  Fearfully and wonderfully…somewhat contradictory, perhaps, but it certainly rings true. 

I think this is where faith comes in, where religion can be a force for good in our lives.  As a Christian community, we strive to learn from and follow the teachings of Jesus, who challenges us to transform ourselves and our lives, to make change where it is needed, and to treat even the lowliest people with care and respect.  We do not need to be famous to do these things.  We do not need to be ordained or have a PhD.  We just need to be willing and open and take risks in the name of love.

At Martin Luther King’s funeral, they played a recording of his last sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church.  In that sermon he made a request that at his funeral no mention of his awards and honors be made, but that it be said that he tried to "feed the hungry," "clothe the naked," "be right on the [Vietnam] war question," and "love and serve humanity."  

He got it.  He understood that the important things in his life, the things he wanted to be remembered for, had nothing to do with the letters in front of his name, but with the ways in which he strived to follow Jesus’ example and help others to do the same.

God was there when Martin Luther King was assassinated, loving and caring and weeping along with his family and all those who loved him.  But God was also there with his killer, loving and caring and weeping for the choices he made.  God loves the civil rights organizers and God loves the Klansmen, and that is all part of the mystery.

 For it was you who formed my inward parts;

  you knit me together in my mother's womb.

 I praise you,

  for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

  that I know very well.

 We are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God… God who is ever present.  God who knew us as we were being formed, who has knowledge of us that we don’t even have of ourselves… and that can be a bit overwhelming.  When we try to comprehend that vastness of God, the immense love and understanding that God has, it is too much for our human brains to fathom—it is “Too Wonderful.” 

It is also unnecessary.  We don’t need to understand everything about God to have faith in God’s love and presence.  We only need to feel it, to see it all around us in the beauty of God’s creation and the love we have for each other. 

  When we see suffering and hatred, we can work to make it better, knowing that God is there with us in the work… and when we fall into the darkness of depression, or feel hopeless in the face of seemingly insurmountable troubles, we can read a psalm like this and remember that we are each and every one of us, incredibly precious and deeply loved by a God that will never let go.  AMEN.

 

On blogging sermons...

So, I just posted my two most recent sermons (see below), and I feel the need to write a bit about sermon writing, sermon sharing, etc.

Sometimes (often?) I write a sermon that I am not very excited about.  Maybe I never felt it gelled, maybe I felt distracted while writing it, or maybe I'm just not sure it makes any sense.  It's not a great feeling to be driving to church on Sunday morning thinking your sermon will be boring, or so-so, or just plain bad. 

But here's the thing...often, it's those sermons that people seem to appreciate the most.  This can only be attributed to the Holy Spirit, because I know it's not just me writing those things, and it's not just me preaching them either.  I'm frequently surprised by people's reactions to my sermons, whether it's that they really liked one that I didn't, or that the one sentence that rocked their world was something I barely thought about when I wrote it.

And now, by popular request, I'm posting my sermons to this blog, in all their un-edited glory, and that's a whole other layer of vulnerability.  The grammar and punctuation is not perfect.  A sermon is written to be preached, not to be read on a page.  And yet, people seem to want to read them, and I think it's only right to post them just as I wrote them.  I often want to make excuses for the way they are written, or encourage people to imagine me preaching while they are reading them, but really, they are what they are, and I suppose if I trust the Holy Spirit to help them make sense when people hear them, then I should also trust Her to get the point across when someone reads them on the screen.

 

"The First Day"

This sermon was delivered Sunday, 1/8/2012.

Genesis 1:1-5

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

***

“In the Beginning” … It’s such a perfect way to begin the Bible, isn’t it?  Those first three words carry with them such tension, such promise of the incredible story to come.  How did we get here?  How did all this come into being… that is the great mystery that all peoples of every culture and religion have been trying to answer since the beginning…and this is the way our story starts. 

“In the Beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep…”  It sounds like the start of an epic adventure, doesn’t it?  It’s mysterious and dark, there is a formless void, which is something that’s hard to fathom, and there’s that slightly ominous image of ‘the deep.’

But it’s not completely still, because ‘a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.’  So, what is intriguing about these first few sentences in the Bible is that while it is the story of creation, we are told that there was already something there before God starts the creative process.  There was water and wind… and there was darkness…and, of course, there was God.

The first thing God does is to call light into being.  God says ‘let there be light’ and there is light.  God speaks and creates something new, something good, but there cannot be light without darkness to counteract it, and while we may at first assume that because light was good, darkness was bad, that is not necessarily true.  God creates by speaking, calling the light day and the darkness night, and it is clear that one could not exist without the other.

That was the first day.

The first day…it’s interesting, isn’t it, that God didn’t just make everything at once.  She took her time, created each aspect of the world with care and intention.  One assumes that if God is all-powerful, then God could have chosen to create everything with a divine snap of the fingers, called it good and been done.  But that’s not the way the story goes.  God takes time to create, and time to reflect as well, seeing what had been created, and each day proclaiming it good before moving on to the next thing. 

I think this signals to us, as listeners of this ancient story, that creation is a process, perhaps even a process without a finished product.  It is a long-term project, always in the process of becoming what it is meant to be.  Volcanoes erupt, creating islands…tectonic plates shift, separating continents…rivers slowly wash away rock to form canyons…forests burn and new forests are born…

We are also co-creators with God, and when I say we, I don’t just mean people, I mean all the subjects of God’s creation—people, volcanoes, trees and birds—we each have our own part to play in the continuing, continuous, creation of God.

During Bible Study this week, we talked about the poetry of this passage, and of this whole version of the creation story, what a beautiful way it is to tell the story of creation.  We also talked about the folks who want to be able to take this story literally, who are convinced that the world was actually created in exactly seven days…how sad it is for them that they spend so much energy trying to prove it’s literally true that they miss the real truth entirely. 

I won’t pretend to know the whole point of this story being told this way, but I feel sure that one thing that is vitally important is that creation is a process that requires reflection and evaluation along the way. 

God creates something, and sees that it is good before he moves on to create the next thing.  It’s not the exact timeframe that matters, it’s that there is one in the first place.

So, there was darkness and a void, and wind, and then one day, there was light.  The darkness was necessary for the light to come into being.  God names both—the light is named day and the darkness is named night, because God knew that they were both important.

What do we do in the dark?  Well, the most basic thing is, we sleep.  Our bodies are made to prefer darkness for sleeping, and during sleep, our brains work through things, our bodies heal and grow, and we are rejuvenated.  Without sleep, we would die.  Without darkness, we wouldn’t recognize light.

I often tell the story of how, in my first year in Berkeley, there was not one cloudy day between the time I arrived in August and Thanksgiving.  It was sunny and warm and beautiful every single day.  Thanksgiving week, I came down with the most terrible flu. 

As I lay there on the couch, miserably sick, forced to miss classes and fun, I had a bit of a revelation.  I had gotten so sick because my body was telling me it was time to slow down.  The sun and beautiful, unchanging weather had made me feel like I needed to be on the go and busy all the time, and I was used to the changing seasons signaling a time to change routine.

In Minnesota, where I grew up, the seasons change dramatically, and when the days start getting shorter in the fall, and the air gets colder, your behavior changes.  The changing light signals a time to go deeper, to stay inside more, to slow down the frantic pace of summer and ease into the deeper, quieter, cozy pace of winter.

I decided, in my fevered haze, that my body had been waiting and waiting for me to start that transition, and when I didn’t, it decided to force me to rest by knocking me down with the flu.  Light might signify productivity, but darkness signifies rest and healing.

Now, there can be other kinds of darkness in our lives.  The darkness of depression, of grief, of anger…and as human beings, we often want to get out of that darkness as quickly as possible, rushing through too fast to see what the benefits of it might be. 

But sometimes the darkness can teach us a lot about who we are and what we need.  It can bring revelations and healing if we are able to sit with it, to work our way through it, instead of burying it or denying it or covering it up with temporary solutions.

Just as it may not have taken exactly one day for light to be created, it may take a long time for us to find the light in our times of darkness, but we can still be creating and evolving through that darkness.  The important thing is not to find the light as quickly as possible, but just to keep working through the dark, knowing the light will eventually be called into being. 

Instead of focusing on that formless void, focus on the wind of God sweeping over the waters.  Instead of feeling helpless in the dark, focus on the fact that you are a co-creator with God—in the world, and in your own life.   And when change or light does come, take time to look, to reflect, and to recognize it as good.

AMEN

“Looking for Redemption"

This sermon was delivered on 1/1/2012.

Luke 2:22-40

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord"), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, "a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons."

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,

"Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
   according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
   which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
   and for glory to your people Israel."

And the child's father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, "This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed — and a sword will pierce your own soul too."

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

***

It’s the first Sunday after Christmas, and today we read about Jesus and his parents going to the temple to perform their duties as observant Jews.  It’s an interesting juxtaposition, as last week, on Christmas eve, we read about Joseph and Mary travelling to Bethlehem to be counted in the census—their civil duty as people living under the rule of the Roman empire.  Today, they do their religious duty, and baby Jesus is at the heart of both stories.  Political and spiritual.

That is Jesus in a nutshell—political and spiritual.  Too often, we are tempted to focus on just one of those aspects and ignore the other.  But to do that is to miss the point.  Jesus’ politics and his spiritual teachings were intertwined. 

In this story, we hear about two elderly people in the Temple, Simeon and Anna, a man and a woman, and each of them recognize in baby Jesus hope for the future and the possibility of salvation and redemption for their people.  Salvation and redemption…two words whose meaning has been confused in the years since this story was written…

I’ve been working my way through Marcus Borg’s latest book, Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power—and How they can be Restored.  This book is full of wonderful insights, and today I want to tell you a bit about what he says about salvation.

What comes to mind when you hear the word salvation?  For most people it is bound up with the idea of sin.  We are sinful, and need to be saved from that sin.  It creates an ‘us and them’ mentality—those who are saved and those who aren’t.  In fact, most dictionary definitions define salvation as ‘deliverance from sin.’  But what is so important to understand is that this is not the Biblical meaning of the word. 

When salvation is mentioned in the bible, in both testaments, it rarely has anything to do with sin and forgiveness, or heaven and hell.  In a Biblical framework, salvation is almost always about both personal transformation and political transformation.

In the story of Exodus, salvation is used to describe liberation from bondage and slavery.  In Isaiah, salvation is used to describe a return from exile—coming home.  And in the Psalms, salvation is used over and over again to describe being rescued from danger.  God as savior in the Hebrew Bible is God being present, God helping the people, delivering them not from their own sins, but from oppression and injustice.  These themes continue into the New Testament and the story of Jesus.

When the angels announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds, did they say, “Behold, we bring you tidings of great joy!  A baby has been born who will save you from your sinful ways so you can go to heaven!”  Of course not.  They spoke of a savior; they spoke of peace on earth and goodwill among all people. 

Jesus is a savior who brings justice where there was injustice, a savior who brings peace where there was violence, and a savior who brings a return from spiritual exile—bringing us closer to God, in whom we live and move and have our being.

Personal salvation and political salvation.  These themes are underscored by the two holy people that meet Jesus and his parents in the temple.  Simeon says, “…my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”  While Anna speaks about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. 

Looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.  Salvation for the city, for all the people…not because they were sinful, but because they were oppressed.  Extreme economic injustice, an oppressive government, religious repression…Jesus was born into a world with all of these problems, and as I’ve said before, he is born into a world with all those problems still today.

There are many stories in the Gospels where Jesus provides salvation on a personal level as well, but most of these have nothing to do with any sinfulness.  Jesus brings people from sickness to health, from death to life, from blindness—both physical and spiritual—to a new way of seeing, and from fear to trust.  This personal salvation is not about waiting for something that will happen after we die, but about how we live now, creating the kingdom of God on earth and in ourselves now.

As we continue to celebrate Christmas, remembering and rejoicing in the promise inherent in one little baby’s birth, let us remember the kind of salvation that he really came for: The personal and political transformation of a broken world into the kingdom of God.  AMEN.