Love is the Cure [1] Preached at Wollaston Congregational Church On June 23rd, 2019 Scripture: Luke 8:26-39 In our gospel passage today we hear an astounding story. Jesus travels across the Sea of Galilee to the other side. He is in the country of the Gerasenes, Gentile territory. We can assume that Jesus is unknown in this side of the lake. And yet the moment he steps off the boat, he is met by a naked demon-possessed man. This poor soul lives in the graveyard: a place of cave-like tombs. There is no other place for him. The voices inside of him torment him to the point that he screams and shouts and runs around naked. They react to Jesus’ presence, causing him to yell "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me." -------- It’s widely known that many successful celebrities have battled demons. A couple of weeks ago I saw a movie I’d long been anticipating. “Rocketman” is the very human, somewhat fantastical story of Sir Elton John’s breakthrough years. Rocketman tells the tale of Elton’s battle with demons who take residence in his soul. These were the consequence of a difficult childhood and struggles over his sexuality in a time when being gay simply wasn’t acceptable, and sexuality was not discussed. Throughout the years of sex and drugs and rock and roll, John’s inner child cries for affection from his father, who is portrayed as distant and cold during John’s childhood. John’s mom is portrayed as self-involved and inconsistent in her care for her gifted son. Elton’s grandmother is the one who cares for him, bringing him to music lessons and encouraging him to develop his talents. John’s dramatic and rapid success as a rock musician works against him. As a young artist, he is swept to Los Angeles by his the owner of his record label. There he is exposed to a world of drugs and glamor, before he has had a chance for his feet to touch the ground. He gets caught up in an abusive relationship and turns to drugs and alcohol to dull the pain. He uses cocaine to overcome his shyness and to perform in his characteristic flamboyant style. In 1989 Elton John went into rehabilitation. He describes his rock-bottom in a 1997 interview as spending time with teenager Ryan White the week he died. White had contracted AIDs from blood transfusions because he was a hemophiliac. He had been ostracized by friends and neighbors and kept out of school because of his HIV infection. And yet, John says, as their child died his family remained dignified and forgiving. Elton John says "When I knew Ryan [White], I knew that my life was out of whack. I knew that I had to change. And after he died, I realized that I only had two choices: I was either going to die or I was going to live, and which one did I want to do? And then I said those words, … 'I need help' … And my life turned around. Ridiculous for a human being to take 16 years to say, 'I need help.' " [2] ----------- The man possessed by demons in Gerasa cannot even ask for help. When Jesus asks the man what is his name he cannot speak for himself. Instead the demons say “Legion” … there are so many of them. They negotiate with Jesus, begging him not to throw them into nothingness. And so, as he exorcises the demons from the spirit of the man, and allows them to enter a herd of pigs. When the pigs are possessed they become demented and they rush down a steep back into the lake and are drowned. The man is finally restored to his right mind, he dresses and sits and Jesus’ feet. And you might imagine that the townspeople would be grateful and they would welcome him back into the community. Instead they are fearful, they are not comfortable around this kind of power and ask Jesus to go away. And so Jesus prepares to leave on the boat, his work is done. The man who has been liberated from demons begs to go with him, but Jesus does not allow it. He sends him away saying "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." This man becomes a witness to the height and depth and breadth of God’s love for him and his neighbors. ----------- Some years ago, I thought I was managing my life. The way I had it figured out was: there was “work Liz”, “church Liz”, “mom Liz” and “friend Liz”. But, to be honest, things didn’t feel right. I could tell that the rush from work Liz to church Liz, with a little mom Liz squeezed inbetween was throwing me off center. I had begun reading a book with the mothers’ group at my church called “The Christ Centered Women” by Kimberly Dunnam Reisman. One chapter woke me up to the fact my coping mechanism wasn’t healthy. I recognized myself in a description of fragmentation, defined as “being pulled apart by competing demands.” [3] The outcome of fragmentation, says Reisman, is that we become a divided self. This is not very different from the Gerasene man who was inhabited by many demons. “When we are fragmented, we miss what God is doing right now.” These words resonated with me. My mind could not simply shut off “work Liz” or “church Liz” while I was “mom Liz.” In the midst of reading a bedtime story, I might be mentally going over what I would need to get myself to the church meeting. Or I might be distracted by the look I received earlier from a co-worker when I left work on time, to get to daycare pickup. Reisman says “when we are centered on Christ, God’s spirit begins to speak to our spirits. Our fragmented self becomes more whole as we recognize the height and depth and breadth of God’s love for us…” [4] I began to realize that God and my family loved me all the more when I wasn’t trying to “do it all.” And this meant letting go of the demon of perfectionism, or to use Reisman’s words, taking up the spoke or support of “good enough.” That summer I focused on becoming my integrated self with Christ at the center. This involved honoring my own needs as well as those of others. For our vacation we traveled to some low key theme parks, with our kids: Storyland and Santa’s Village. While the children and my husband went on the rides, I’d pull out my book or sit and take in the scenery. Just breathing and filling myself with gratitude made all the difference. Soon, I was going back to my mothers’ group and my friends, and letting them know all that God had done for me. You know that this kind of Sabbath approach to life has become central to my spiritual practice and I am more than happy to share it with you all. ---------------- Elton John’s release from his demons involved going into recovery for his addictions. The movie shows him receiving therapy and participating in a 12-step program. He listens to the needs of his inner child, and forgives the people who have hurt him. And he goes on to found EJAF: Elton John’s AIDS Foundation. This organization has “raised more than $400 million over [25 years,] to challenge discrimination against people affected by the epidemic, prevent infections, provide treatment and services, and motivate governments to end AIDS.” [5] My recovery involved slowing down and paying attention to my needs. My addictive behaviors – or my demons – were perfectionism and trying to do it all. Elton John had to say “I need help.” I had to say the same, to my friends, family and to God. In the book, “Breathing Underwater”, Father Richard Rohr says “’Stinking thinking’ is the universal addiction.” Drugs and alcohol are tangible visible forms of addiction, but we are all addicted to the habits, what we have gotten used to or “our patterned way of thinking.” [6] That is why the people of the Gerasa community were angry and afraid when the possessed man was cured. They were confronted with a new reality in which the man was no longer the “problem” in their town. When something went wrong, they could no longer chain hum up the and say it was all fixed. They were going to have to begin to look at themselves a little more closely. ----------- It seems that Jesus may have been acquainted with the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, when he healed of the Gerasene man. Step 12 of the program says: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we [try] to carry this message to [other] alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. And so Jesus leaves the man with the responsibility of passing on the good news of God’s love. He has received healing and now it is time to pass it on to the community. Elton John’s recent book is entitled “Love is the Cure: on Life, Loss, and the End of AIDS”. [7] This isn’t another Rocketman. It is a book about the AIDS crisis. It is part of John’s work of carrying the message of healing and cure. The book tells of EJAF’s work around the world and how politicians and religious leaders must not stand in the way of sex education and clean needle exchanges. You may have heard about our own Kim Kroegers’s work with Manet Community Health in this area. A couple of weeks ago, I was setting up our church table at the Quincy LGBTQ+ Pride event. I was wearing a clergy collar. A hip young man was setting up resources from a health organization on the table next to me. Suddenly he turned to me and said, “I have condoms on my table … would you like me set up further away from you?” I was saddened that he assumed our church would be disapproving, and reassured him that I was in favor of condoms. In that setting, the condoms were not about birth-control so much as sexual health. I hope I shared a little more gospel that day, I hoped I passed on a little healing to the community. Because, as Elton John says, “Love is the Cure.” May all God’s people say, Amen [1] Elton John, Love Is the Cure: On Life, Loss, and the End of AIDS, (Little, Brown and Company, 2012) [2] https://www.npr.org/2012/07/17/156550286/from-addict-to-activist-how-elton-john-found-his-cure [3] Kimberly Dunnam Reisman, The Christ-Centered Woman: Finding Balance in a World of Extremes, (Upper Room Books, 2000), 24 [4] Ibid., 35 [5] http://newyork.ejaf.org/about-ejaf/ [6] Richard Rohr, Breathing Underwater: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, (Cincinnati, OH: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2011), xxiii [7] Elton John, Love Is the Cure: On Life, Loss, and the End of AIDS, (Little, Brown and Company, 2012)
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Making a Welcome in the Universal Mystery Preached at Wollaston Congregational Church On June 16th, 2019 Scripture: John 16:12-15 It has been many years since the Unitarian and Trinitarian churches separated in New England. Today, we may look back and wonder what all the fuss was about: does it really matter whether we think of God as One or Three-in-One? Does it matter whether Jesus was God incarnate, or simply a prophet? Both the Unitarian Universalist Church, and Congregationalist denominations have diverged and moved on since the time of the split. The Unitarian Universalist Association has embraced a commitment to pluralism and inclusion. They eschew religious iconography, and describe themselves as “open-minded, open-hearted spiritual communities [that] help people lead lives of justice, learning and hope.” I have colleagues and friends in the UUA and I admire their values and commitment to justice. [1] Here at Wollaston Congregational Church we remain Christian and Trinitarian, as members of the United Church of Christ. In worship we generally focus on the gospel message for the day. We share the “good news” of the coming of God in Jesus the Christ. We talk of the relationship between God the heavenly Father or Mother, Jesus the Son, and of course last week we celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit. With this kind of preaching and teaching, some attendants have made assumptions about other aspects of our shared values and beliefs. And they have questioned who is really welcome in our church. Are we making a space that is inclusive enough for people of other faiths and no faith? These are good questions, it is important to ask: how do we live into our identity as Christian while welcoming and including others? To seek the answers, we turn to our reading today from the gospel of John. John is the perfect place to look because it a gospel about identity. John’s gospel tells us who Jesus is for the universe, what is his relationship with us and with the one he called his heavenly father. Fr. Richard Rohr explains that the “divine ‘I AM’ statements” appear only in John’s gospel: I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world, I am the way the truth and the life and so on. The other gospels present Jesus of Nazareth during his lifetime when he calls himself ‘the Son of the Human,’ or simply ‘Everyman.’ It is in John’s later Gospel, “dated somewhere between A.D. 90 and 110, the voice of Christ steps forward to do almost all of the speaking.” [2] In his book “The Universal Christ” Fr. Rohr reminds readers that “Christ” is not Jesus of Nazareth’s last name – rather it is an identity that Christians ascribed to Jesus after his earthly death. At the very beginning of the gospel, John says “all things came into being, and not one thing had its being except through him” (John 1:3). John is describing something more than the human person of Jesus, he is describing something eternal, in unique relationship with God the Creator. “Long before Jesus’s personal incarnation, Christ was deeply embedded in all things--as all things!” This, Rohr says, is “the universal Christ.” [3] From the outset, John casts Jesus as the Christ: the Word, or the anointed One. From there on everything else in the gospel is intended to describe Jesus’ identity as the Christ, and the relationship with the Godhead. It’s mysterious and it’s complex. It describes what is the incarnation: the Word of God, become flesh. And so, we come to our reading for today from John’s gospel. It is a very short excerpt from Jesus’ farewell discourse to the disciples. Jesus says that he has many things to say to his followers, but they cannot bear them now. Could they not bear to hear these things because they were too painful? Would he tell them of upsetting times to come: when their world would be turned upside down by war and destruction in Jerusalem? Or was it because the things he had to say would take away the foundation on which they thought they stood? Just when they thought they had grasped Jesus and what he was about, would they find out they need to grow in their understanding? And would this be too much for them to bear? Jesus doesn’t see this as a hopeless cause, though. He doesn’t seem to be upset that he cannot tell them everything he has to say. Instead, he says that the Spirit of truth will guide them in all truth. Even when Jesus is gone from them in bodily form, they will continue to grow in faith and understanding. This is the purpose of the Spirit. This is a wise reminder for us. Even when we think we know who Jesus is and what he is about, we all have more growing to do. We always have something to learn. Especially when we are contemplating the Universal Christ, which in the end is mystery. Those early followers couldn’t grasp the idea of the Universal Christ all at once, and neither can we. We begin, in Sunday School, with simple stories, analogies, and songs. Yet, if we cling tightly to our Sunday School learning we will end in places like that Unitarian/Trinitarian split. The Trinity was supposed to be a way to understand God, Jesus and Spirit in relationship. And yet it became a tool to drive people apart, and make some feel unwelcome. And so let’s not be afraid to grow. There is something in us that beckons us on to delve deeper into the mystery: the Spirit of truth. And so we return to the original question: How do we live into our identity as Christians, while welcoming and including those of other faiths and no faith? What would people of other faiths expect, if they came to visit us here in church? What would make them feel welcome, or unwelcome? We receive guests of other faiths most frequently when there is a funeral, a wedding, or like last week to a confirmation or baptism. My experience has been that people of other faiths: Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Unitarian Universalism, or Roman Catholicism, expect us to do what we usually do as Protestant Christians. So long as we make them welcome and do not do things that exclude or offend them, they have no problem. They expect us to do our own rites and read from our own sacred texts. That is what would happen if we visited their places of worship. When we are at home in our church, it’s acceptable to talk in a Christian way. It’s acceptable to use Christian references and practices. When we in another space things are different. Over the past 10 years, since first attending seminary, I have learned about interfaith conversation and relationships. I am still learning. One of the most important things to bear in mind in those conversations is to make no assumptions. The most common mistake Christians make is to assume other faiths are just like ours. I’ve heard people say “all faiths are the same” and that simply isn’t true. I have learned that Jewish people will be offended by our offer to pray for them, or a request that they pray for us. Prayer, for Jewish people, is particularly Christian. They use the ancient practice of blessing: there truly is a Jewish blessing for every aspect of life you could possibly imagine. And in interfaith gatherings, we cannot assume that everyone uses the name “God” for what is holy or spiritual. The name used might be my Higher Power; the God of Israel; the Holy Trinity; Allah; Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva; Mother Earth; nature; universal moral law; wisdom and understanding. If you are concerned that you might be making assumptions, don’t be afraid to ask. The guidelines for the interfaith conversations I learned in seminary include having an attitude of “open curiosity.” Most people of faith are very happy to explain things, if they are asked respectfully and with genuine curiosity. Unfortunately, as Christians, we have to overcome a reputation for exclusivity and trying to force our beliefs on others. Christians are known for repeating Jesus’ assertion from the gospel of John “I am the way, the truth and the life” as though it was a litmus test for who is “in” and who is “out”. Christians are not known for delving deeper into the mystery of what that statement might mean, in the context of John’s gospel. Thinking of the Universal Christ speaking these words, we can imagine an entry point for other faiths who know this mystery by other names. I didn’t talk a lot about faith in my working life before I went to seminary. My co-workers could be critical of Christian groups in their lunchtime conversations. They particularly objected to Christians who dismiss people of other faiths, implying that they alone have exclusive rights to the truth. One day I remember saying that I also objected to that kind of thinking. One of my co-workers was surprised and asked how I could rationalize this as a church-going Christian myself. I explained to her that I think of Christianity – and following Jesus – is my entry point into the vastness that we call God. I think of it as a kind of portal to the spiritual. And yet, I am sure that there are other equally effective entry points or portals. That is how I imagine other faiths and other world views. “Ah!!” she replied, “That makes sense.” If only I had spoken up more often, my friends and colleagues may have had a fuller view of what following the Christ is all about. Wollaston Congregational Church, I am a strong proponent of interfaith conversations and making others welcome here in our church. We can do that while retaining our identity. We should never be ashamed of Jesus of Nazareth: our Rabbi, our guru, our teacher. If anything, perhaps we can be more confident in sharing our faith with others we meet as well as learning from them. Then maybe we will erase some of the assumptions that we all make. Mohandas Gandhi believed that “the spirit of all religions is love of God expressing itself in love of fellow-beings.” Gandhi did not ask people of other faiths to become Hindu, like himself, but asked “that Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and others should live up to the best teachings of their own religion.” [4] And so, may we live up to the best teachings of Jesus the Christ. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] https://www.uua.org/ [2] Rohr, Richard. The Universal Christ (p. 26). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [3] Ibid, p. 13 [4] https://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/my_religion.pdf “Mature Oneness” Preached by Liz Williams Wollaston Congregational Church on June 2nd, 2019 Scripture: John 17:20-16 The United Church of Christ website, on the “what we believe” page, states: “We believe the UCC is called to be a united and uniting church. ‘That they may all be one’ … In essentials–unity, in nonessentials–diversity, in all things–charity." The UCC takes this motto directly from our gospel passage for today. It is the prayer that Jesus said on the evening before he went to the cross, interceding with God “that [the disciples] all may be one.” This was a deep, heartfelt prayer on behalf of all who would choose to follow Jesus, not only in his time but into the future. It’s a prayer that applies to us as well as Christians throughout the ages. While it sounds like a wonderful vision, it has not been so easy to follow. Looking back on this prayer of Jesus, I wonder what Jesus knew. I wonder if he knew the disarray the disciples would be in soon after he was gone. I wonder if he knew that the “Jewish Christians” and the new followers would argue and separate. I wonder if he knew that in 500 years there would be a huge shake up in the faith over the nature of Jesus and of Mary as the “Mother of God”; that in another 500 years the Eastern and Western church would separate in a great schism; and that 500 years after the great schism, there would the violent Reformations in Europe. I wonder if Jesus knew all this things, as he prayed that night before his crucifixion. A part of me says he knew the challenges ahead, that is why he prayed so passionately. Another part of me hopes he didn’t know, because of the pain it would have caused him. While he was anticipating the bodily pain of the crucifixion, what a terrible thing to also anticipate the ways in which the future church, the “body of Christ” would be torn apart too. What was this “oneness” Jesus was praying for? Was Jesus actually praying to God to prevent disruption among his followers? Did Jesus really expect, that if he prayed hard enough, the disciples and all future disciples would be in accord and agreement? I think Jesus knew people a little too well for that. He knew his disciples in all their diversity: their different gifts and perspectives. Eugene Peterson’s biblical paraphrase, “The Message” gives us a clue of what Jesus may have been getting at. In this translation Jesus prays that the disciples would be mature in their oneness. I think this means that they would learn to deal with disagreement and disruption wisely and compassionately. They would listen to one another attentively. They would be in accord, but their communities would not stagnate. To paraphrase the UCC motto, in essentials they would have unity, in non-essentials they would have diversity, and in all things they would have love. I gave some examples of the dis-unity of Christians over the past 2,000 years. Writer, Phyllis Tickle, puts a different spin on these great disruptions in Christianity, that have emerged at 500 year intervals. She calls them “Rummage Sales” – which reminds me of the yard sale here yesterday! These sort-outs have been disruptive to the church, but they have provided important shake-ups. Often they were necessary because of changes in the world. For the church to keep pace it needed to change too. And, according to Tickle’s schedule, we are experiencing, such a disruption right now. In a book titled “The Great Emergence” Phyllis Tickle looks at the “emergent church” movement going on at this time. [1] This movement is responding to dramatic changes in the global culture over the past 100 years: - the explosion of scientific discovery and technological development, - the revolution in global communications and travel, - the growing awareness of severe climate change, - dramatic shifts in family structures. As Tickle put it, the church is going through a rummage sale right now. We’re trying to figure out what we need to preserve --- the essentials --- and what we need to let go – the non-essentials, so that we can become the Church of the 21stcentury. This Rummage Sale extends all the way down to the local church. This rummage sale is to be our response to changes in our culture that impact our life as a church. As our culture changes, there are many more options to fill people’s time on Sunday morning.
These are some of the reasons why attendance in many churches has declined dramatically. And, yet, it is clear that there is a spiritual hunger in our times. This is noticeable among young adults many of whom have no religious background. They are hungering for an authentic relationship with the sacred and with one another. It will also be important for the church to respond to this hunger, as we do ourrummage sale. And we arecalled to do a rummage sale! We are called to leave behind what is no longer relevant and embrace the things that enhance authentic spiritual experience for the people of this time and place. This isn’t easy though, because most of us don’t like change. We like things to stay the same, even when they aren’t working any more. This phenomenon is called immunity to change. When I was in seminary I took a class called “Grounded in God”. The purpose of the class was to help leaders diagnose “immunity to change” in their organizations. To do this we began by looking at our own immunity to change, using a tool developed by authors Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey.[2] This turned out to be quite revealing for me. At the time I was co-leading a seminary group with another student. We were supposed to be developing a program for the group. But the relationship between myself and this student was not going well. I tried to work with her, but she seemed to avoid responding to my ideas. I knew that we really needed to sit down and talk. I needed to tell her my concerns. But, I was afraid that my co-leader would think I was biased against her, her background, her age group, her identity and so on. I realized I was very committed to not having my co-leader view me in this way. This way of thinking was affecting my other relationships, too. I was fearful of telling others what I was really thinking and this was something I needed to change. In the immunity to change process you figure out what is your “big assumption”. I decided that mine was this: “I believe that if I say what I am really thinking I will upset the other person and they will not like me anymore. They may then turn against me and turn others against me too, and no one will like me.” Hashing all this out was an important process. The final step was to come up with a “safe modest test” to challenge my big assumption. This was my test: to sit down and talk with my co-leader about how things were going, being honest about what I really thought. I plucked up my courage and did just that. As you might expect my co-leader was reasonable. She didn’t turn against me. She didn’t have any problem with my different age, identity or background. We managed to figure out a program for the remainder of our time as co-leaders. Tools like this one can be applied to organizations as well as individuals. We tried this at the Wollaston Congregational Church Leadership Retreat back in March, and came us with some assumptions. Here are some that group came up with:
These are scary assumptions! We need to be careful with them … and with one another, while living into the future that Jesus prays for us. And still, we can celebrate the mature oneness that is already being manifest in our church:
I call this kind of oneness “wholeness of the body of Christ”, and I love it! And so this is my prayer for us, Wollaston Congregational Church. That we will be brave enough to do our own rummage sale – that we will discover unity in essentials, diversity in non-essentials – so that we will embody “mature oneness” in love. May it be so, Amen! [1]Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why, (Grand Rapid, Baker Books, 2012) [2]Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization, (Boston, Harvard Business Review Press, 2009) |
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