The Courage for Conversation Preached for Wollaston Congregational Church On January 24th, 2021 Scripture: Jonah 3:1-5, 10 This morning we re-visit, a fishy tale. Perhaps you heard this story in Sunday School as a child. The story of Jonah and the story of Noah – whose names are intertwined in Hebrew – are often told to children. Perhaps this is because children are known to lap up these larger than life tales that feature animals and water. Sadly, we have no children to hear the story today, but I’m inviting all of us to approach this story “as a child.” To engage the imagery in our imaginations. To laugh out loud at the absurdities. To be awed by the awfulness of being swallowed by a fish. Because this is the way the story was intended to be heard. And so we can relax our serious faces for a few minutes and figure out what God has to teach us through this tall tale. I think we will discover that this story has more to say about us than the Prophet Jonah, who in the words of Veggie Tales “didn’t really get it.” The story begins as “The word of the Lord came to Jonah …” He must go to the city of Nineveh and cry out against the residents for their wickedness. Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria, a powerful empire that was a long-time threat to the Israelites. In the seventh century BCE the Assyrians destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel, leaving the southern kingdom of Judah to fend for itself. In short, Nineveh was the enemy of Jonah and his people. Jonah is a reluctant prophet. He does not want to go to Nineveh. And no wonder, it’s an enormous city and Jonah is just one man. How is he supposed to prophesy and call for the repentance of the people, the whole mighty empire? And so, Jonah tries to flee from God. He goes in the opposite direction, and boards a ship in the seaport of Joppa, going to Tarshish, somewhere across the Mediterranean Sea. The sailors and the captain find out too late that Jonah is trying to flee from the powerful God of Israel. A great storm threatens to sink the ship, but Jonah sleeps soundly in the hold. He has given up on life and would rather die than fulfill his mission to Nineveh. When the crew realize that Jonah is the one who has brought the storm upon them, they insist that he prays to “his god.” But he knows this will do no good, and tells them the only thing that will save them is to throw him overboard. Once the jinx has gone, the storm subsides, and the crew are awed by the God of Israel. The reluctant prophet has made his first conversions, even as he is thrown into the sea. Jonah’s plan to drown in the Mediterranean, rather than go to Nineveh, is thwarted yet again. God sends a huge fish, to swallow him whole. Jonah survives for three days and nights in the belly of the fish, until he is spat up onto the shore. We might think that this is enough excitement for Jonah. But oh no, the next chapter begins “The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time…” This is the point at which we joined the story in our reading this morning. God sends Jonah to Nineveh again calling it “that great city.” God will give Jonah the message he is to deliver, but we don’t know what that message is. The huge city, three days walk across, intimidates Jonah, especially as the Ninevites’ main sin is violence. Still Jonah goes this time. He does his work as quickly as possible. His message is hardly an oracle of God’s great grieving for the people who are lost in their ways. He simply says “Forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Despite Jonah’s lack of effort, the message works. Even the king puts on sackcloth and sit in ashes, as a sign of penitence. Even the animals are forced to fast. And so God changes God’s mind about their destruction. As even Jonah knows, the Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Jonah might be pleased with his own success on behalf of God, but he is resentful instead. He throws a tantrum, storming off to a place outside the city to watch what happens, declaring that it is better that he dies. And so the tale ends here. The Ninevites have repented, turned from their violent ways and toward the God of Israel. And Jonah, who was supposed to be a faithful Jew has turned away unrepentant, determined to destroy himself. The story of Jonah conforms to the rules of satire. The characters are larger than life, the events are exaggerated to extremes. We know that people do not get swallowed by fish. We can assume that whole empires are not converted by simple threats of divine retribution. And we can also assume that there is no such thing as a city of pure sin and evil, in which every adult, child, and even the livestock are wicked. The messages God gives us to deliver to our “enemies” are not so clear cut. We do not possess full knowledge of the mercy of God, while the “other” remains ignorant. The world is just more complicated than that. When I think of real-world stories in which people have turned toward God, there’s usually change on both sides. I’m reminded of St Francis of Assisi, who lived in the days of terrible violence in the “Holy Land” between Christian Crusaders and the Muslim world, the Saracens. Francis decided to try to broker peace at this time, and so he traveled to Egypt and crossed enemy lines, to speak with the Sultan. The Francis and the Sultan “discussed interfaith conflict, war and the search for peace” probably over a meal. [1] The 2017 movie about this event, “The Sultan and the Saint” is seen as a model for interreligious dialogue today. We – you and I – will probably not get the opportunity to travel to far away lands to broker peace between warring nations. But we have recently heard calls for peace and unity here in the United States. These calls are timely, considering that we have been drawing down into our respective siloes over the past few years: our religious siloes our partisan political siloes our racial or ethnic siloes our socio-economic siloes. And even when siloes mix and mingle, the topics that differentiate us are considered taboo. Politics and religion are at the top of the list of taboos, closely followed by race and money. If peace and unity are to be achieved, we will need to begin talking to one another. We will need to talk beyond the simple pleasantries on which we can agree. We will need to start talking about the things that matter to us with those in the other camp. That won’t be easy and I doubt we will be able to do it alone. These past weeks I’ve been noticing a couple of groups whose specific mission is to build relationships across divisions. One is called “Braver Angels.” [2] My introduction to this group was via a webinar that they recorded just last Tuesday. The moderator of the session introduced pairs of people of differing political views. In some cases they were also from different ethnicities and religions. These “blue/red pairs” shared details of their mutual conversations and the friendships that have developed. Each pair had committed to civil discourse with one another, talking about the things that really matter to them. They had committed to listening and treating their partner’s perspectives with respect. The pairs on the webinar demonstrated strong friendships, they clearly respected one another. They cared about the views of their own political groups, but more than that they cared about unity and peace of the nation. One speaker congratulated the pairs on their bravery. She made the point that it takes courage to engage in this kind of dialogue. That is the courage it takes to be vulnerable. I learned about another organization from a member of the congregation whose spouse is involved in a group called “Coming to the Table.” This group was founded by descendants of Thomas Jefferson, from both Jefferson’s wife, Martha, and Sally Hemmings, an African American woman who was enslaved on Jefferson’s plantation. Black and white Jefferson descendants, and descendants of another slave owning family, the Hairstons, formed the group “Coming to the Table” in 2003. They drew on their own experiences of creating family reunions across the racial divide. The word “table” has a double meaning for the group, as it is also is an acronym for the phrase “Taking America Beyond the Legacy of Enslavement.” Coming to the Table’s vision “for the United States is of a just and truthful society that acknowledges and seeks to heal from the racial wounds of the past—from slavery and the many forms of racism it spawned.” [3] The creativity and bravery of these two groups brings us back to the story of Jonah. When God sends Jonah to Nineveh, God isn’t asking Jonah to do an act of amazing physical courage. God is not asking Jonah to lead the people through the sea while being pursued by an army. God is not asking Jonah to survive a lion’s den, nor telling him to build an ark to accommodate all the animals of the earth. All God asks is that Jonah goes to talk to the people of Nineveh. Not much courage required really, unless you’ve heard the expression “shooting the messenger.” Coming to the table, or becoming a Braver Angel requires courage. And yet, are we feeling God’s nudges to move toward conversations like these? Are we being prompted to go into virtual or physical spaces that feel foreign to us because they are inhabited by the “other”, the “enemy”, or someone who may wish us harm? We could flee in the opposite direction from which God is sending us. We could entrench ourselves more deeply in our own tribes or groups. We could avoid the difficult conversations with those people, steering clear of the things that really matter. But, what if, we prepared ourselves for braver, deeper engagement with the other? What if, this coming Lent, we held an all-church book study, in which we took on the topic of the partisan political divide, or the racial divide, the religious divide or the socio-economic divide? We could start be talking to each other. Over the next week, I will be assembling a list of possible titles for this study. I’m going to send them out to you as a survey. If you have any interest at all in going along with God’s nudging, please respond. We can do better than Jonah. It may take courage, but we are not alone, we can do this if we do it together. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2017/12/08/1219-st-francis-crossed-crusade-lines-meet-egypts-sultan-what-can-we-learn [2] https://braverangels.org/ [3] https://comingtothetable.org/about-us/
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When to Speak, When to be Silent Preached for Wollaston Congregational Church On January 17th, 2021 Scripture: 1 Samuel 3:1-20 Every year, coming up to the observance of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther Kings Jr.’s birthday, I am faced with a dilemma. Should I speak, or should I not? Should I play a recording of one of those powerful Martin Luther King speeches? Should I read from one of his prophetic and, to this day, “right on” sermons? Or, should I preach to you? There’s good reason to play a recording or read from Dr. King’s sermons. First of all, he had an exceptional command of both scripture and American politics and civics. He had extraordinary eloquence and delivery. And Dr. King lived his truth, even died for his truth. There is every reason to have Dr. King preach today. And yet, given the observation of Martin Luther King Day tomorrow and the events in our nation the past couple of weeks, there is also a reason for me to speak. There is a reason not to leave all the work to the long-deceased Civil Rights leader. Martin Luther King is safely revered because he is tucked away in the pages of history. And we white Christians might not feel so comfortable if he was here today. His message often spoke of the complicity of white moderate Christians by our silence and politeness in the face of racial injustice. And so, other years may well be different, but I have decided to speak today. Our scripture reading for today tells of the young prophet, Samuel, and his first experience of being called by God. The story of Samuel begins just after the end of the era of the judges. This was a chaotic and lawless time. Israel’s history picks up again with Hannah, Samuel’s mother making an annual pilgrimage to the temple in Shiloh. Hannah comes to the shrine, were Eli is the priest. She prays for a child because she is barren. She promises that if she is blessed, she will dedicate her first child to the service of God. True to her word, Hannah brings her firstborn, Samuel, back to the temple, to the care and keeping of Eli, while he is still very young. At this time, Eli and his family have neglected their duties to the temple. Eli’s sons have run amok and desecrated the place, stealing the sacrificial meat for themselves, and sleeping with the women who inhabit the entrance to the shrine. It is hardly surprising that word of the Lord has become rare, and there have not been any visions of holiness. Eli’s family have not made a conducive atmosphere for prophecies and visions. However, Eli takes the young Samuel under his wing. Perhaps he has a sense that this is his last chance to raise a God-fearing child. One night as Samuel is sleeping in the temple. The lamp of the Lord, set to burn all night, is close to going out, when he hears someone calling his name: “Samuel, Samuel!” Samuel assumes this is Eli, of course, and rushes to his mentor’s side saying “here I am.” He is sent back to bed, as so often happens to children who wake in the night. The hearing of his name and the coming to Eli continues until a third time when Eli realizes that God’s silence has finally broken. Samuel is being called by the Lord and had better answer, and so Eli gives Samuel the words to say “speak, Lord, for you servant is listening.” And Samuel does indeed listen. He listens while God tells him something that will make the ears of anyone who hears it tingle! We don’t know what kind of tingling this is. Maybe the delight of hearing some hot gossip from God. Or perhaps the chilling tingling that comes when someone’s guilty secret has been exposed. Eli’s house is going to be removed from power, they are going to be punished forever because of their blasphemy against God. And now Samuel is left with a dilemma. He is afraid to tell Eli the message he received from God. He doesn’t want to anger Eli or hurt his feelings. He wants to remain silent on the matter. Perhaps Eli knows in his bones what is coming. And so he persuades Samuel to speak. Eli is not angry about the message, and simply says “It is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him.” This is the beginning of Samuel’s service to God as prophet and king maker. From this day, he is always listening, always ready to receive. And also he is not afraid to speak, when called upon. Eli has done well with Samuel. When to speak and when to remain silent is a dilemma many of us are dealing with daily. Do we speak up, when we witness racist attitudes in our friend groups and families? Do we challenge our friends and neighbors when we hear them repeating falsehoods they have absorbed from the media? Do we intervene when we witness verbal or physical abuse, bullying or other unacceptable behaviors? Are you afraid to speak, because you are intimidated or because it’s uncomfortable? Are you afraid of angering your friends or neighbors with a message of truth? We, you and I, may not think of ourselves as prophets, like Samuel. And indeed the life of a prophet can be lonely and short. But Jesus – our prophet, priest and king – did not shy away from speaking truth to those in power. In particular he spoke out against injustice for the poor and the powerless. And Dr. King reminds us that if we claim to follow Jesus we will be called to speak truth to people who do not want to hear it. And that is not a comfortable thing. Often I wrestle with when to speak and when to be silent. I have noticed that when I am in a group that seems very well educated, perhaps a little high and mighty, I tend to keep silent. After all, I don’t want to give away my lack of knowledge or say something that would make me look foolish in that setting. On the other hand, when I am in a group that seems on a level with me, I feel quite comfortable in sharing my opinions. Effectively, I get it backwards. I’m inclined to speak when I feel most comfortable to do so, and clam up when speaking feels uncomfortable. A couple of years ago, a group from the church attended the Boston City Mission Martin Luther King day of learning. In a church hall in Brookline there was a gathering of people from a variety of churches and backgrounds. The speakers and the attendees were both people of color and white people. Some were ordained ministers, and others were interested lay people. What had not occurred to me until that day in Brookline was that whether I speak up or remain quiet, my decision is often shaped by the race and gender makeup of the group. When I’m in a group dominated by older white men I may naturally assume I am at a disadvantage. I shy away from taking the lead and speaking. When I am in a group consisting mainly of women and people of color, I’m not so hesitant to take a lead and speak. I feel comfortable to do so, and yet I realized that there is entitlement in that feeling of comfort. When we broke out into groups of young and old, white and black, and some who identified as men and others women. In my group there was an older black woman, who told her story: it was one of a life of poverty in Boston. She talked about her community and the ways in which they had been pushed out into forsaken neighborhoods. She was spiritually grounded, articulate and also a little edgy. She wasn’t going to let anyone get away with entitlement, based on their age, gender or race. At one point I began to say something and then stopped. This woman finally looked at me, “Liz, I want to know what you are thinking. I can see you have something to say, tell us what it is.” I was so glad I had waited for the invitation. I confessed that I had the privilege of a good education, focused on productivity. That had set me up for a successful career and a comfortable life. But I had not been educated on the history of racism in the US. I had found this out much later and only recently. Through my children’s education, the new books I was reading, and my seminary experiences, I had come to realize that I had been ignorant about the true meaning of racism. I’d recently learned that the median net worth of African American households in Boston was $8. I’d learned about the displacement of black American communities through gentrification. I’d learned about red-lining of certain districts and the way in which black families had been shut out of home ownership for generations. I confessed that I was just getting to grips with the reality of my white privilege and it’s meaning in today’s world. The woman who asked me to speak seemed satisfied with my reply. It would have been quite different if I had jumped in earlier. First I needed to listen to her story. Then I needed to confess my own. This weekend we remember Dr. King as we look back on a year of struggle for black Americans. In the summer we witnessed protests in American cities, including Quincy, against police brutality particularly on young black men. We have also witnessed pushback from those see white privilege and supremacy as an American and God-given right. We saw Confederate flags carried into the Capitol building last week. We witnessed minimal resistance to the attack on the Capitol, something we could not have imagined if the protesters had been black. We read stories of black churches being burned and desecrated. If we are being called to remain silent and listen, it is not because we are intimidated but because there are things we need to learn. And then we are called to speak, even if we are afraid we will anger or upset the ones we speak to. And so, is God calling your name in the night, like Samuel? Are you being nudged to first listen and then speak? And if so, what would God have you say? May all God’s people say, Amen Whose Epiphany? Preached for Wollaston Congregational Church On January 10th, 2021 Scripture: Mark 1:4-11 This past Wednesday marked the last of the twelve days of Christmas, and also the Feast of the Epiphany. Epiphany celebrates the coming of the Magi, or the wise men, to the infant Jesus. This day is Christmas in many traditions, such as the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Spanish and Latin American Catholic Church. Over the next few weeks we will observe the season of Epiphany, a word that means revelation. This is one of my favorite liturgical seasons, which encompasses our remembrance of the Baptism of Christ today. The season is a celebration and a reminder that God reveals God-self to us in Jesus. The symbols of this season are light, Jesus is known as the light of the world, and water, which is itself a powerful symbol of baptism. The message of this season, revelation, comes over very powerfully in the scripture we read this morning. In the story we heard, Jesus comes from Galilee to be baptized by John the Baptist in the river Jordan. John is gathering crowds, calling them to repentance and then to be baptized in the river. It is the first appearance of Jesus in the gospel of Mark. John has already told the people that he will be coming. He has prepared them for someone greater than himself. Now the moment has come for Jesus to be revealed. Jesus presents himself for baptism. John knows his role. He pushes Jesus down under the river water. As Jesus emerges from the river, the water streaming from his hair, his beard, his clothes, and we hear of the heavens being torn open, and the voice of God booming loud and clear. As if to crown this moment, the Spirit of God descends on Jesus. This is not a calm and gentle event. The Spirit does not flutter down, but practically dive bombs Jesus. There is no doubt who this is. It has been revealed, loud and clear. Jesus is God’s beloved Son. This is the moment we have been longing for, from the time we read from of the prophet Isaiah back in Advent: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.” How many times over the past year, as unthinkable things happened, have we longed for God to be revealed in our midst. How we have longed to have the same clarity as on the day of the Baptism of Jesus, that Jesus is the Truth come to the world. Jesus cuts through the noise, knows the way of peace and justice, and can guide us on our way. On January 6th, 2021, this Epiphany, the unthinkable happened. There was an attack on the Capitol building in Washington DC. An attack on a building where all the senators and representatives were gathered to affirm the election of the next President of the United States of America. This event is traditional and ritual. There is no expectation that anything other that the outcome of the election would be confirmed. And still, like the rituals of religion, it is vitally important for the stability and unity of the nation. The storming of the Capitol did not happen without warning. Protesters of the election, some of whom were known to be armed, were known to be gathering in the city. Anxieties about a disruption of the process were circulating in mainstream media. In genera in the nation’s capital, the police, the Secret Service, the National Guard … to name a few … are ready for all kinds of protests, disruptions, and even riots. But, for some reason, only a small contingent of the Capitol Police were on guard, and were completely overpowered by the mob. Members of this crowd had brought automatic weapons, pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails. Many brandished confederate flags. Five members of the mob died, including one woman who was shot by police. Members of the Capitol Police were seriously injured and since Wednesday one officer has died. The lives of the Capitol staff and members of the government were threatened. This must have been a terrifying experience for everyone who went to work in the building that day. At the end of the day, some of the rioters were arrested and many others were free to leave. We are left wondering what happened, and why was this terrible event was allowed to happen. We are left wondering why the same level of security and response was not used as when Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter protesters came to the capital. The fact that this crowd was invited, encouraged and cheered on by the sitting President explains a lot. We will have to wait for investigations to be done, before we get the answers to some of our questions. And I am sure there will be some questions that are never answered to our satisfaction. What we do know is that many Americans are living completely different realities from one another. What we describe as an attempted coup will be explained as a patriotic protest in other settings. The people, who came from many parts of the United States, believed in what they were doing because they have absorbed messages that make no sense to you and me. These messages have come from their news sources, their internet feeds, their communities and even their churches. Occasionally I have tried to understand the kinds of messages that spurred on this mob, but I can make no sense of the supposed information. It is confusing and chaotic. We know that people can be misled if they are fed a diet of conspiracy theories and lies. They have been gas-lighted: fed a false narrative they have internalized. This week, I hoped and prayed that the Americans who are influenced by the false narratives would experience an Epiphany. I hoped that the attack on the Capitol would be a defining moment in which the scales on many eyes would fall off. And perhaps that has happened in some cases. But, this is not the meaning of Epiphany and the Baptism of Christ for me. My hopes for others gaining greater clarity through this Epiphany distract me from the need for my own discernment of truth and clarity. A hymn that has been quoted often this week says “Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me.” Epiphany needs to begin with us, you and me. These past few days I have been pondering what it means to discern the difference between reliable information and misleading messages. I’ve come to a couple of conclusions. First, it’s important to remember that no news source will contain the pure truth. All writers and reporters are influenced by implicit biases, even the writers of our foundational national documents and our sacred scriptures. I have my favorite podcasts and news presenters, but I need to look further afield to gain a broader perspective. One way I can do that is to listen to sources outside the United States reporting on the events that take place here. Sources like the BBC won’t always get the nuances of life in America but they will offer a fresh perspective. A gentler source I loved in the past was “Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America.” My dad would play it every Sunday morning, as he prepared the Sunday bacon after attending early communion. Cooke’s report was of the long, slow variety, filled with deep historical perspectives on the weekly events in the USA for listeners across the pond. We could benefit from that message today. [1] Second, it is easy to absorb our own biases from our families and communities of origin. Were you told, growing up, that you shouldn’t talk to the family across the street because they were Catholic, or Protestant? Were you taught to avoid Muslims or people who spoke with a foreign accent? And then later as you expanded your horizons you learned that Catholics, Protestants, Muslims or foreigners could be your friends and their families were no different from your own family. We disentangle ourselves from the false narratives we learn in childhood when we are ready to listen, form new relationships and experience new revelations. This applies to what we hear and read in the media, as well as what we read in the scriptures about God revealed in Jesus. Again, I look to a number of sources for fresh perspectives on our faith and other world religions. The “The Christian Century” is like my trade journal: articles and editorials written from the perspective of the American mainline Protestant Church. But “Sojourners” magazine prompts me to look harder at justice issues, and “Christianity Today” informs me of what the more conservative Church is thinking. And still, I return to “The Upper Room Disciplines” reflections on the daily lectionary readings with contributions from a variety of traditions and cultures from all around the world. The news and other information comes at us at lightening speed. But our processing is best done deeply and slowly. Ultimately, moderating our consumption of media information and spending more time in scripture study and prayer will open us to the deepest revelations. When Jesus is baptized and emerges from the waters of the Jordan River, there is a revelation. God blesses Jesus, calling him God’s beloved Son. Something that seems like a barrier or a veil between heaven and earth is torn open. God is breaking into the world in the person of Jesus. This is not a military take over, or a mob riot like the one we saw on Wednesday. This in-breaking is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry of healing, justice and peace. It is the in-breaking we long for, particularly in times of chaos and trouble. It is an in-breaking of clarity. We may be despairing that conflicting voices and arguments in our culture will never be reconciled. We may be longing for God to break through the heavens and come down to mend and heal our nation once and for all. In all this desperation, we may be missing a truth has been in the midst of us all along. God’s tearing open the heavens is not really so rare. And there is not really so much of a barrier between heaven and earth, other than in our heads. And so, my prayer this week, is that we take in the powerful revelation of God made known to us in Jesus. That we drink deeply, the long and slow truths of the gospel, through times of study and prayer. And then, we come to our news with fresh clarity, open hearts and open minds. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00f6hbp |
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