Your are Seen, You are Valued and You Can Do Hard Things Preached for Wollaston Congregational Church Virtual Worship On June 21st, 2020 Scripture: Matthew 10:29-39 What is it like to feel unseen? People glance your way and then their gaze swiftly changes direction, or perhaps they look over you or even through you as though you are invisible. Perhaps you are old, and your hair is white, your body is shrunk from the stature you once had. Perhaps you navigate the world in a wheelchair. Perhaps your role is invisible to many. You mop the floors, empty the trash, care for and clean the very old and the very young. You are not seen in the office building, the hospital, or the nursing home. Perhaps your skin is the wrong color. Perhaps your body is the wrong shape. Or your identified gender looks odd in the body you were born with. Or people think your mannerism don’t fit the gender you present: you’re not man enough, you’re not feminine enough. There are so many ways to be unseen, unnoticed, ignored. In our gospel passage for today, Jesus makes it very clear: God sees you, God notices you. Your importance to God has nothing to do with your importance in the world. God sees the sparrows, the smallest, most prolific, not necessarily pretty birds. God does not only see them as a collective, God sees each one as individual. God has a granular view of all that is created. It seems hard to believe we deserve it, and yet God pays particular attention to us humans. God pays so much attention that God knows every hair on our heads. The more downtrodden and disenfranchised we may feel, the more comforting and the more beautiful the text is. So let’s sit with it, and let it sink in for a moment. Because there’s something else. The second part of the reading, is a little less comforting. You might even say it is disturbing. Jesus tells the disciples not to think that he has come to bring peace to the world. No, he has not come to bring peace, but a sword. Wait … Is this really gentle Jesus meek and mild, Jesus the pacifist, Jesus the one who says love your enemy and turn the other cheek? Where is this coming from … this announcement that he has come to bring, not peace but a sword? There’s more. He goes on: “For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Right after the declaration that God values us to a level of detail down to every hair on our heads, we are presented with this image. Jesus says he has come to bring the sword. And, on this Father’s Day, of all days, he says he has come to set us against our families. All this is being preached to a group of people who are steeped in the laws of the God of Israel. The ten commandments are of supreme importance. “Honor your father and mother” is the fifth commandment from the book of Exodus. It is the first commandment that concerns human relationships. It follows right on from the commandments that concern a person’s relationship with God. The requirement of discipleship … spelled out in our text today … is to acknowledge Jesus before others, to put God first. Jesus is clear that this will not always make life peaceful and smooth for us. This is hard. And still, we are seen by God, we are valued by God and so, surely, we can do hard things. ------------------ Some years ago, I belonged to a group of young mothers at my church. We would meet each week to discuss and study books and texts that related to our experiences and challenges of raising children in the Christian faith. One week the chapter we read mentioned the family dynamics that come up during the holidays. The moms in the group must have spent the next 45 minutes talking about the conflicts around family gatherings at Christmas. The meeting took place in May! Even in May, these moms were already worrying about Christmas. Just this past week, I heard a discussion between a white radio presenter and a black woman minister, Rev. Irene Monroe. The presenter noted that white families avoid speaking about racism, especially during family events such as the holidays. The issue is just too divisive for most families to handle. Rev. Monroe pointed out that this is a perfect illustration of white privilege. Black families talk about racism all the time, because it is an ever-present issue in their lives. They simply cannot avoid it. Perhaps for those of us who belong to white families, the division Jesus brings could mean conversations about racism. Especially at this time when our country is experiencing disruptions around race. May Americans have also recently celebrated “Juneteenth.” Juneteenth is the holiday on June 19th, commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. I don’t know whether you will be heading off to a physically distanced back yard family barbecue this Father’s Day. Or perhaps you will be doing a family Zoom call. This may seem like the worst time to talk about racism in your family, if this has been a divisive topic in the past. No one wants to be told they are “a racist”, or that they are uninformed, or bigoted. It’s worth remembering that the fifth commandment still holds true. We are commanded to honor our father and mother. And we, naturally love our family members regardless of their opinions. Our intent must be loving, not intentionally hurtful. So how are we to follow Jesus’ example in standing up for the outcast and the downtrodden while honoring our family relationships? Perhaps this starts with curiosity, simply asking co-workers, family members, fellow students, why they say what they say, how they formed their beliefs. There are many guidelines that can be found online. For example the Teaching Tolerance website gives a six step process for speaking up. These steps include: Preparing questions and responses: When someone says something that sounds wrong to you, maybe ask “what do you mean?” Identifying the behavior: Sometimes, pointing out the behavior candidly helps someone hear what they're really saying: "Jess, what I hear you saying is that all Mexicans are lazy." Appealing to principles: If the speaker is someone you have a relationship with, call on their higher principles: "I've always thought of you as a fair-minded person, so it shocks me when I hear you say something that sounds so bigoted." The sixth step is “Be Vigilant.” The guidelines remind readers, change happens slowly. People make small steps, typically, not large ones. Stay prepared, and keep speaking up. Don't risk silence. Bob Carolla of the National Alliance for Mentally Ill puts it this way: "If you don't speak up, you're surrendering part of yourself. You're letting bigotry win." [1] Confronting racism with family and friends may sound like too much of a hard thing. And heaven knows, we have been asked to do many hard things over the past months. We’ve been required to separate from many of our friends and loved ones. We’ve been required to behave differently when we go out and about. We wear masks, distance from others, and are wary about every place we go and everything we touch. This is exhausting. We may wonder, why is our reading for this Sunday throwing one more hard thing into the mix? And, still, I’m convinced that the message for us today is “you can do this hard thing.” Leaning into divisiveness requires courage. It requires us knowing where our allegiance lies. Being in conflict does not mean that one person is right and the other is wrong. Being in conversation about the things that matter helps each party to come to a new and better understanding. In the coming months, in the fall, our church will have some hard decisions to make regarding our future and our building. That will mean talking through some things that may bring up conflict. If we do those conversations well, they will help us get at who God is really calling us to be and what God is really calling us to do. One thing I am sure of: we can do that hard thing. Remember the verses we reflected on in the beginning: God sees you, God values you? I’m going to add one more thing: God also has confidence in you. Remember: You are seen, you are valued and you can do hard things. And now, we’ll listen to a song, sung in community, by Carrie Newcomer … You Can Do this Hard Thing. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/publications/speak-up/six-steps-to-speak-up
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