Deering Community Church Sermons

GO Sermon for June 15, 2008

2008-06-26T07:16:00.000-07:00

Scripture: Matthew 9:35-10:8

In the Gospel of Matthew for the last few Sundays we have been hearing about the many miracles of healing that Jesus performed. Today we make a slight transition as Jesus goes out and about in all the cities and villages, teaching in the synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. He also kept on curing every disease and sickness. What he encountered were all kinds of people in great need; Matthew’s words describing these people are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” He quickly realized he was going to need some help.

Let me tell you a story. One day I was walking in the neighborhood of my old city, a rather poor area, when I came upon a lemonade stand with several children sitting behind the box that held the lemonade with a homemade sign, “Lemonade 10 cents”. I decided to stop and refresh myself. The kids were excited that they had a customer. One boy came over and asked if I wanted to buy a cup of lemonade. As I assured him that was just what I wanted, he went back and brought me a cup of lemonade that his partner had poured. I gave him a quarter and started drinking while he went back to get change. By the time he brought back my change, I was almost finished drinking. He gave me the change and then asked if I were finished drinking. “Almost”, I said. “Why?” He then said, "That's the only cup we have, and we need it to stay in business."

Now I’m sure that you would agree that it's difficult to operate a lemonade stand if you only have one cup . (Adapted from an illustration in e-Sermons.) We sometimes make that same mistake in the church. By that I mean expecting the pastor to be the only one that goes out to share the Good News. In our gospel reading, Jesus looked at all the harassed and helpless people and said, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. He then calls his 12 disciples and gives them the authority to do all that he has been doing. He calls them to GO. He doesn’t preface his instructions with professional sounding words such as, “Your mission, should you choose to accept it…” Oh, No! He just calls to them and gives it to them straight: “Go, proclaim the good news, cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” Wow! What a job description! I can imagine that they must have felt some anxiety. This was to be their first solo mission without their leader. Yet if Jesus authorizes his apostles to do these things, it means he will be working through them, giving them the necessary power.

As I started to reflect on these instructions, it made me think about what is church all about today. Our faith talks about the priesthood of all believers; we have some set aside, ordained, to be leaders and teachers, yet all are being called to help out. We are all called to teach, to share the good news, and to bring healing to our broken world. In our modern day we don’t talk about cleansing lepers or casting out demons or raising the dead; however, I believe those tasks are still being asked of us with a slightly different vocabulary. We are certainly called to minister to the outcast—last Sunday’s sermon was all about Jesus being sent to those that were on the margins or were excluded” by the “proper folks”: the lepers was sort of a code word for all those seen as unclean or sinners such as the hemorrhaging woman, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the Samaritans. Moving right along, are we called to cast out demons? What about rewording this concept to speaking truth to evil—going out with the armor of God, to stand up for those who are being treated unfairly, where injustice reigns? The church is certainly called to do something about systemic evil, the powers and principalities who are institutionalized in ways that cause suffering and injustice; for example, those not having enough money to pay for doctors or healthcare and therefore, suffer with illness and die in much greater numbers than those of us who can obtain medical services. And that leads us to death. Raise up the dead? Although we know some people who are pronounced medically dead do survive, most of us no matter how hard we try, probably can’t bring people back from physical death but what about emotional and social death? How many people do you know or have you known over the years that seem so depressed, so isolated, so lifeless that we may have described them as appearing half-dead? That group of people certainly needs some attention, some care. So it seems to me, in one form or another, all of Jesus’ instructions to his disciples still hold, still apply to us.

One of the most important characteristic of the church that comes to me as I observe Jesus’ words and actions is that the church has to be about movement. The church is not following Jesus if we just stay static, “preserve-our-level-of-comfort-and-let-them-come-to-us spirituality. (From S.A.M.U.E.L.—UCC online preaching help for 6-15) Here it comes again: we must go out and share what we have, our gifts from God, with those that have not known about the “good news” nor been touched by God’s love. The helpless and harassed evoked Jesus’ compassion. He knew that he could not do it all himself, that he needed help. It’s very much the same for me as the pastor of this church. I can’t do it all by myself; I need you, God needs you to go out into the world. I know how uncomfortable most of you are with the word evangelist. This church is much more like St. Francis, who said: “Go out and preach the gospel and when necessary use words”. I had heard that expression; however, I only learned the background of this statement this past week. Let me share it with you: According to legend, one day St. Francis “informed his brethren that he planned to go into the nearby village on a preaching mission. He invited a novice to go along. On their way, they passed an injured man and Francis promptly stopped, saw to the poor fellow's needs and arranged medical care for him. They went on and soon passed a homeless man who was near starvation. Again, Francis stopped his journey and ministered to the hungry, homeless man. So it went, all through the day: people in need, Francis lovingly caring for them as best he could until the sun was low in the sky. He told his novice friend it was time for them to return, now, to the monastery for evening prayers. But the young man said, "Father, you said we were coming to town to preach to the people." Francis smiled. Then he said, "My friend, that's what we've been doing all day." E. Carver McGriff, Relationship Evangelism,Times of Refreshing, CSS Publishing Company.)

This is wonderful, faithful evangelism, ministering to people in their need, not worrying about numerical growth, just sharing God’s love in a concrete fashion. Yet there are times when we need to use words. Even St. Francis would admit to that, “when necessary use words.” I want to share how joyous I am to have Jesus as my guide and comforter when I reach out to others, especially those that seem to have something lacking in their life, those that are lonely, those that are dealing with one or more serious problems. In our Gospel reading, Jesus saw all these folks that seemed like sheep without a shepherd and knew he had to enlist his disciples to minister to them. Apostle means those sent. God is calling the people in our church to be apostles, to go out with compassion and tender care. The particular way and the particular people we are being called to vary. There’s one thing that I’m sure of and that is we are not called to just sit still, but to be on the move as Jesus and his apostles were, to be open to those that we meet along the way. I’m very aware that today’s sermon sounds a lot like last weeks sermon. Most preachers will admit that they probably have only 3 or 4 sermons, different words certainly, different illustrations, but only a few important messages. This is certainly my “Go” sermon, Go out into the world and share the good news with others. Go! Follow Jesus’ words and actions. Amen!

HOPE AGAINST HOPE June 8, 2008

2008-06-26T07:05:00.000-07:00

Scripture: Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

What an amazing number of possibilities to preach on from today’s lectionary! After much reflection I feel called to focus on the readings as being filled with people faced with great challenges, in situations where many people would be overwhelmed and probably very discouraged. In spite of this, they continued to hope against hope that things could change.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he reviews the Genesis story about Abraham: this man is called by God to leave his home, his country and go to an unknown land that God was to show him. As most of you remember, Abraham did not have any children by his wife Sarah, and yet God promised him that he would have many descendants, and this was when they were already in their old age. Yet God told Abraham to look toward heaven and count the stars—if he could—and that would be how many descendants he would have. Abraham had faith in God and kept journeying on with hope against hope.
In the Gospel of Matthew we are first introduced to a low level tax collector. Tax collectors were scorned because they worked for the Roman government and cheated their own people by taking more taxes then required in order to line their own pockets. So we find this tax collector, also named Matthew, sitting at the tax booth. He was financially better off than most but because of his job he was a social outcast. Jesus approaches him and said “Follow me”. With a sudden spark of “hope against hope” in his heart, Matthew drops everything and got up and followed Jesus.

Continuing on in our scripture, we are introduced to a leader of the synagogue whose beloved daughter has just died. This man would have been part of the group that criticized Jesus for eating and drinking with the outcasts—the tax collectors, the prostitutes and other sinners. Yet he loved his daughter soo much that he risked his reputation to ask for help from Jesus. He was hoping against hope that Jesus could help him and Jesus responded and started to follow him.

Suddenly there was an interruption. In the other gospels we are told that Jesus felt a power going out of him and asks who touched him; however in Matthew we are simply told that there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Jesus responds by saying “Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well. (9:21-22) She hoped against hope that Jesus would pay attention to her, but why would he—she was an outcast, a woman seen as ‘unclean’ for all those years. Can you imagine how she must have felt when Jesus spoke to her and the bleeding immediately stopped
Jesus then continues following the synagogue leader; he is laughed at by the mourners when he tells them that the daughter is not dead but sleeping. He takes the girl by the hand and the girl gets up. Amazing things happen when we follow our hope against hope.

Let’s look at some examples from the recent primary campaigns. John McCain, several months ago was at a very low ebb in terms of supporters, especially low in the money needed to wage a successful campaign. He had to dismiss most of his primary workers and take regular airplanes as opposed to chartered jets. Now McCain had experienced hope against hope before as a prisoner of war so it was nothing new to him, to hope against hope and be determined to go on fighting for the nomination of the Republican Party. Although others thought it was hopeless, he persevered and became the presumptive nominee. On the Democratic side we have Barack Obama, who by the very fact of his African blood had two and a half strikes against him. Even many of my black friends didn’t dare support him at first as they didn’t want to waste their vote. Obama and those who believed in his candidacy from the beginning had to hope against hope that he could be the nominee. Obama, like McCain, had earlier times in his life that he had to hope against hope, even writing a book called the Audacity of Hope. Whatever happens next November, we will have a president that knows what hope against hope is all about, and I believe that will be positive for his leadership.

What about the gays and lesbians that have been discriminated against in so many ways? Here’s a group of people, like African Americans, who can relate to Abraham’s journey of leaving his home and family to go on an unknown journey. Even though they may not travel a long way physically, the alienation and hostility, the differences of life style, make them feel as removed from their families as those who have traveled a long way. Many of them give up and succumb to depression and addictions; however, many more hope against hope and continue to journey to better times, some even to reconciliation with their families.

Another example of hope against hope are the illegal immigrants that cross the border at great risk to their lives in order to have opportunity to earn a living, to be able to take care of their families. Now some of you may think, why be concerned about them, they are breaking the law. I only ask you to remember that Jesus says very clearly in our gospel that he desires mercy not sacrifice, that he has come to call not the righteous but sinners. We, also, only have to look into our own lives to see the many things we have done or left undone to know we also are in need of God’s steadfast, unconditional love.

In my own life as your pastor, I sometimes get discouraged, sometimes my faith is challenged. For over 50 years I have been praying, “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.” I wonder why the membership and attendance of this congregation remains so low. What am I suppose to be doing? I am so thankful for the Holy Spirit praying for me when my own words seem inadequate. I will continue to hope against hope that I can lead this church to be faithful to Jesus’ teachings whether we have 20 or 80 participating in worship.

What can each of us do this week to follow Jesus and bring some healing to our hurting world? Those of you that are in the work world see many people each week, people that need to be touched, to be listened to. Those who do not go to a job, go other places—the grocery store, the doctor’s office, the drug store, the gas station. We see others that are in need of a smile, in need of some attention. There may be someone, like the hemorrhaging woman, that is searching for someone to relate to, to share her pain with. A few days ago I had a phone call from my, and she was really down; I asked a few of you to pray about the situation. When I called her the next day, she was feeling so much better. Not one, but two, friends had visited her. I believe those friends were God’s angels. I believe each of you is also God’s angel, meaning you have the Holy Spirit inside of you, and you are being called to do God’s work in this lonely, stressful world. Jesus has asked us to follow him, to provide for others that gentle healing presence. There are so many people who are in need of acceptance, recognition, forgiveness and love. Will you go from this holy place this Sunday and compassionately reach out and touch the lives, the hearts, the souls of others? You can do it even if you feel that you are inadequate, even if you feel too shy, even if you feel unworthy. You can go forward with hope against hope, and Jesus will be with you. Thanks be to God! Amen and amen!

LISTENING, SHARING, DOING AND HEALING

2008-06-26T07:01:00.000-07:00

Beginning a Sacred Conversation about Race
Sermon for May 18, 2008
Gen 1:1-2; 4a; 26-27; 31a; 2 Cor. 13:11-13; Matt 28:16-20

My dear brothers and sisters, today is a special day in the United Church of Christ; it is the day that many churches in our denomination are beginning a SACRED CONVERSATION ON RACE. It is also Trinity Sunday; however, I have chosen to focus on race and will use the scriptures chosen for this Sunday to elucidate some of the thoughts I will be sharing with you. Today’s sermon will indeed be a very personal one. As many of you know my first husband, Roland Luckett, whom I married in 1964 was an African American from Jackson Mississippi. Some of you have met our biracial children, Jason and Josslyn. I will share with you some of the experiences I have had being part of a biracial family.

I see two important points in the Genesis reading that pertain to our focus: 1) God made humankind (literal translation, earthlings) in God’s image; and 2)God saw everything that he had made and pronounced it very good.

While there is nothing in the Genesis creation story mentioning race or ethnicity, the claim that all humans were created in God’s image does point to equality. However, in the history of race relations in our country, this equality has not been present. People of African descent have often been considered less than human; our early constitution specified that those people not free, in other words African slaves, who were then called Negroes, would be counted as 3/5’s of a person.

Now to go to our Gospel lesson in Matthew, we hear Jesus telling his followers to make disciples of all nations. What was Jesus’ conception of all nations? From the names cited in Matthew, there would be Palestine, Transjordan, Syrophoenicia and possibly Egypt, certainly Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and Romans.(Norman Gottwald and Laura Lagerquist-Gottwald, “Lectionary Readings for Trinity Sunday with Resources for a Sacred Conversation on Race, May 18, 2008”) As far as we know there was not a lot of racial animosity and prejudice in the ancient worlds; however, there was animosity between various political and religious groups, much of it based on class and gender; there were slaves but instead of these people being slaves because of their race, they were usually slaves because of economic problems or because of being captured in battles. There was also a prejudice of the able bodied against the disabled and those with diseases such as leprosy. We hear again and again in the gospels how much separation and division existed, and we also hear how Jesus, again and again, would break through the stigma that separated people. The stories of the tax collectors, the Good Samaritan, the Woman at the well, the lepers are few of the more familiar ones. The early Christian church followed Jesus’ examples of inclusion, not exclusion.

Sadly, in modern times there is a history of colonialism, slavery, and militarism that has fueled more and more discrimination, perpetuating and sadly reinforcing oppression of people based on skin color, national origin, ethnicity—Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Asians and most recently Middle Easterners. In the days of slavery in this country, the notion that African Americans were less than human made it okay to deny them freedoms: their right to maintain families, earn a livelihood, or even a right to life. So much of racism in this country is rooted in a 400 year-old system of economic exploitation that continues even today. At this point I want to make a differentiation between prejudice and racism. All racial groups have prejudice, stereotypes associated with different racial groups; however, racism, as with all isms such as capitalism, socialism, etc. is a system that has power. Our power brokers--political, economic, and religious--have for a long time been white males and are just recently in this country becoming more diverse. Blacks in this country have not had the power to do such things as racially profile whites, deny housing or jobs to whites, in the way that whites can do these things to blacks. This is what I’m talking about when I speak of racism, This racism has definitely been part of our Christian faith—for a radical example think Ku Klux Klan. It’s always amazing to me to see how much prejudice and hatred is justified by one’s religion. Jesus’ compassion for the poor and the marginalized, his command that we love even our enemies, is in my mind so contrary to what Christians have done over the centuries. We all have our blind spots, our irrationalities and if we are to have a sacred conversation about race it’s important that we listen to others, share our own stories, and then figure out a plan of action that we can take that will contribute to abolishing racism in both those places close to us and in the larger world.

When I think about the stories that have defined my attitudes about race, I have to go back to my family of origin and the place where I lived as do most people. As most of you know, I grew up in a small town in Maine, not too different from Deering. My family was middle class, early settlers in the town, owned a lot of property, ran a small seasonal hotel and were very prejudiced. Early on I heard derogatory comments about Jews, Negroes and even Roman Catholics. Anyone that was not like us, was inferior and someone with whom I should not to be in close relationship. I remember at about age 12 having a crush on a boy staying at our hotel whose name was Peter Brady. My mother quickly discouraged the crush saying that I could never marry anyone like that—he was Irish and Catholic, beneath us. To me these prejudices didn’t make any sense, especially as I got more involved with reading the Bible, where it seemed to me that God created all equally, and Jesus said to love our neighbor as our self, not specifying religion, race, class, etc.

Growing up I did not have contact with black people except when I went into Portland, the closest big city and would occasionally see a black woman running the elevator in one of the fancy department stores. As a teenager, probably 13 or 14, I went to a summer camp on Lake Winnepesaukee and met two blacks, one a minister and leader of the camp and the other, a boy of my age named Jesse Owens Perry. Jesse and I became special friends and continued writing to each other for a few years. When I was 15, I heard about Emmet Till, a northern black youth visiting in Mississippi who was killed for making a wolf whistle and saying, “bye Baby” to a female white store employee. That incident I believe was a beginning of my heightened interest and resolve to work for civil rights. Then the summer I was 19, back home from college, I had a job at a nearby institution for the mentally retarded. That same summer there were a group of young people from around the country working there from the American Friends Service program. That was when I met Roland. He was a very charismatic young man, and we quickly realized that we were attracted to each other. My parents didn’t forbid me to date him, yet were very critical, saying it wasn’t right because of the difference in our races. On our dates that summer we ran into a lot of stares and some negative comments, all of which made Roland very anxious. His history of discrimination in Mississippi caused him to know the terrible things that happened when races mixed, especially in a romantic way. Until 1967 when the Supreme Court overturned the Loving case of the marriage of a black woman and white man, most Southern states had what were called antimiscegenation laws, forbidding interracial marriages. The judge that tried the original case of the Lovings gave them a choice of a year in jail or move to another state. He said, Almighty God created the races, white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix . (Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 388 US. 1 (1967).)

Well, Roland and I continued our courtship for two years with letters and phone calls and a couple of visits. After graduating from the U. of Maine, I went to graduate school in Hawaii where Roland was stationed at Tripler Army Hospital. After two years of courtship in a multi-racial atmosphere, we were married and a year later, Jason our son was born. We moved to California when Jason was a year old and were blessed with a daughter, Josslyn. Those of you that have met my children know how lucky I am to have such loving adults in my life. Both have suffered from being black and sometimes from being white. Let me just share a few examples: The children grew up in a very white suburb of Orange County, CA, and Jason had many experiences of not being allowed to date his white friends once their parents realized he was biracial. He was stopped by police while walking in our neighborhood as they didn’t think he lived there; because he was black, he must be up to some mischief. When the children went off to college and were around more African Americans, they were sometimes discriminated for their whiteness, not sounding like or looking like the black students. Just in the last year, Jason told me the story of being followed by security when he was shopping in a drug store in a primarily white neighborhood with no evidence other than he was black. By the way it’s really hard to call a biracial person white, but no problem calling him black which goes back to the old “one drop” rule , which came out of the American South, meaning that a single drop of "black blood" makes a person a black.

Well, there are many more stories I could tell you about my own experiences, but I want plenty of time for us all to share after the service. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he urges followers to put thing in order, agree with each other, and to live in peace. Here in this country that means taking on the racial realities of our life together, acting together to change the way our lives are structured, eliminating discrimination which comes both from structural racism and individual prejudice. We have to be aware and understand our different realities shape how we see ourselves and each other. I believe that by confronting the pain and committing ourselves to the common good of all, we can be healed and will flourish as a church and as a nation. May God guide and bless us. Amen

OUT OF MANY, ONE Pentecost 2008

2008-06-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

Scripture: Acts 2:1-13, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

This is a day of celebration. This year on Pentecost we are celebrating the birthday of the church and also Pluralism Sunday. Seven weeks after Easter, Pentecost is celebrated as commemorating the time that Jesus’ words were fulfilled by having the Holy Spirit descend on his followers. It is the third most important festival in Christianity, after Easter and Christmas. Pentecost was and is a Jewish Festival coming 50 days after Passover, it celebrated the completion of both harvest and Moses being given the Law on Mt. Sinai. This story goes back to the Tower of Babel experience in Genesis 11. In the beginning, so the story goes, all people were one tribe and spoke the same language. At the beginning the whole tribe was behind the building of a single tower that would be bigger than anyone had ever seen. Unfortunately the building took much longer than anyone imagined—several generations. The grandchildren of the original builders didn’t have the same devotion to building this tower—it was more a chore than a sacred duty. Now of course we have no way of knowing exactly what happened way back then. One story has it that a worker carrying a brick to the very top, a task that took many months, fell and the people mourned the brick over the worker. As a punishment for their prideful attempt to build a tower with its top in the heavens and for their lack of compassion for each other, God caused these men to be scattered into different language groups. They were fragmented and separated and could no longer speak to or understand each other. (Our English word babble comes from this story.) This story can be a lesson for us that whenever we value the material world over the person, we lose our ability to understand each other, even if we speak the same language.

After Jesus was killed, we all know how sad his followers were. When Jesus made his after resurrection appearances to them, they were comforted and inspired. Peter decided to gather Jesus followers together in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. Now these Jews that followed Jesus came from many different countries and language groups. Peter, however, was not distracted by this problem as he was so on fire with the good news of Jesus the Christ and his promise to give them the Holy Spirit as an Advocate. As he spoke humbly yet forcefully from his heart, everyone understood him and each other in their own language. As the scripture says, they all marveled saying,”Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?"

Is it possible when we dare speak humbly and directly from our heart, we understand each other? Could it be that when we speak from that divine center that is part of all of us, when we speak the truth with compassion, we are able to communicate with others, even without words, that people become one again. It’s such a temptation in our modern world with its busyness and emphasis on profits and deadlines to value the brick over the person. I wonder how many here today spend much of their time fulfilling someone else’s dream and not working on their own. Each of us has the possibility each day to choose what we value: the brick or the person. An example of this compassion that comes to me is the story from the Special Olympics where those with mental retardation and development disabilities compete. In a race for the gold, one of the participants fell down and those behind him took the time to help him rather than taking the opportunity to run ahead and get the prize. Mark Nepo to whom I am indebted for much of the spin on the Tower of Babel story says it this way, “…when I am drawn to speak or listen with compassion, holding what is living above that the living make, things become one. Suddenly I belong again to the one tribe that holds each other at days end. So when we find ourselves speaking a language no one seems to understand, or, more important, when we can’t seem to understand or feel anyone else, we need to ask, ‘What brick am I carrying, and has it become too important?’”

These points carry over so well to the concept of Pluralism. The Center for Progressive Christianity, the Network of Spiritual Progressives and others have designated this year’s Pentecost Sunday as “Pluralism Sunday,” in which we are invited to celebrate the many paths to God. Jim Burklo, the director of Pluralism Sunday, talks about America having a long tradition of toleration for different religions; we tolerate having different faiths in our neighborhoods. What he hopes is that Pluralism Sunday will take a step beyond and actually embrace other religions and honor them at a deeper level. Another goal is to let the world know that there is a way to be Christian without the exclusivity and superiority that is so familiar to us in this country. If we are able to look beneath the outside differences with the compassion of the divine heart as opposed to valuing our own economic or belief system, pluralism will have a great chance of succeeding as we accept and embrace others on a deep level.

I have chosen as my sermon title, of Out of Many, One. Did you know this was the original motto of our country before “In God we trust”? When I was a child I remember the slogan about America being the melting pot, referring to the acceptance of the many different immigrant groups. A little later, maybe when I was a teenager, I heard people talking about America as a Salad Bowl rather than a melting pot, and I remember how much better I liked that term. It seemed more realistic and preserved all the beauty and variety that immigrants bring to this country, the diversity I talked about last week. Dr. Bob Cornwell has a wonderful description of this Salad Bowl: “We may be Americans, but we're also something else - African, Italian, Asian, English, Arab, Latin American. ... We're Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Orthodox Christian, Catholic, Protestant, or perhaps none of the above. A good garden salad has lots of great ingredients that retain their identity even as they're tossed into the salad - tomato, green onion, spinach, baby arugula, radicchio, romaine, radish, carrot, croutons, maybe some blue cheese, and the dressing of one's choice. Each ingredient adds flavor and texture to the salad. It's true that over time assimilation does happen, but even with intermarriage and a standardized education, we remain products of our heritage and common experiences, just like a salad.” Out of Many, One. I really like that!

In this salad bowl we can share and learn from each other. Pluralism is recognizing that my way is not the only way; or as I have preached before, Jesus is my gate to God; however there are other gates for other people that are just as valid for them as Jesus is for me. We don’t have to agree; neither do we have to accept that anything goes. It is important to share our own beliefs respectfully. There are times when we may have to speak out strongly against certain religious or cultural practices such as girls’ genital mutilations. It would be a mistake to say that everything anyone does in the name of God is okay. A pluralistic view believes we get closer to God and each other when we let compassion lead us to understand the traditions of others with whom we share our planet.

Both Pentecost and Pluralism point to a God who enables us to speak and hear in ways that bring unity rather than divisiveness. Our other Bible reading in first Corinthians also celebrates pluralism as Paul talks about how there are many gifts yet the same Spirit or One body with many members—Out of Many, One. Although this reference is pertaining to the early Christians, I see it applying to us all being part of the mystical body of Christ. In researching this sermon, I came across this quote, “Whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the body of Christ because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts they need something that they don't have and they turn to the only light they have…” It might surprise you to know that this was said by Billy Graham.

Paul says we are all made to drink of the same Spirit which for me is like the Holy Spirit coming into all the gathered there in Jerusalem, all the Diaspora of Jews with many different languages. It reminds me of a hymn by Al Carmines that we will be singing after the sermon; according to our hymn book it was the first modern text to claim diversity as a gift from God. “Many gifts, one Spirit, one love known in many ways. In our difference is blessing, from diversity we praise one Giver, one Lord, one Spirit, one God known in many ways.” For me pluralism is a gift of God’s amazing creativity: diversity but more than that—God’s affirming that all of this is good, precious in God’s sight. And that we as citizens of the world as well as followers of a particular belief system are to reach out to the others in humility, affirming diversity and celebrating pluralism in the light of God’s vision of reconciliation, forgiveness and healing of the planet and all God’s children. God is calling us to celebrate our gifts and share them with the world. So I urge all of you to not just celebrate diversity on this Sunday, but to pay attention to how God is revealed in each and every life and nation and to fill our hearts with a compassion that will bring us together rather than separate us. Praise to our awesome Creator. Amen.

SO WE MAY ALL BE ONE May 4, 2008

2008-06-26T06:43:00.000-07:00

Scripture: Acts 1:6-14, John 17:1-11

Today I will preach the first of two sermons on my belief that we are all one, a beautiful unity in diversity. Our gospel reading from John 17 is the beginning of what is known as Jesus high priestly prayer. In the portion assigned to today’s lectionary Jesus is praying for a small group of followers, the ones that God gave to Jesus as his disciples. He prays about how all mine are yours and yours are mine and further asks that the Holy Father will protect them in his name, “so that they may be one, as we are one.” (11 b) Later in this same chapter in verses 20-23 Jesus says he also asks on behalf of others, not part of these known followers that they may all be one.
I want to share with you the image of oneness as a spoked wheel, a image that has been used at least as far back as Lao Tzu in Chapter 11 of the Tao when he writes, “We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move.” The Christian desert fathers, the early Christian mystics of the third century also used this image. Let me share with you the way Mark Nepo,a Jewish Buddhist describes this wheel:
“Imagine that each of us is a spoke in an Infinite Wheel, and though each spoke is essential in keeping the Wheel whole, no two spokes are the same. Clearly, in a spoked wheel, the spokes separate as they each move out to support a different part of the rim. And clearly, they are all connected in a central hub that gives them the strength to form a wheel.
We could say that the rim of that Wheel is our sense of community, family and relationship, and the common hub where all the spokes join is the one center where all souls meet. So, as I move out into the world, I live out my uniqueness, but when I dare to look into my core, I come upon the one common Center where all lives begin. In that center we are one and the same.” (The Exquisite Risk, p. 144),
What Nepo describes is an image for how we are all linked together and at the center is the source of all being, God—by whatever name we call that Source. It is the shared sacred unity of all life, the soul, the heart. The Hindus say Atman, Buddhists call it Dharma, the Spanish have the word El Meollo—that which is deeper that connects the one to many, for Christians it’s the Holy Spirit, that same Holy Spirit that Jesus promised us as he left us in the first chapter of Acts, the same Holy Spirit that came on Pentecost with the sound of a violent wind. This center, this hub of the Wheel signifies that deep realm of being where all souls meet. This happens when we pursue the truth of who we are. As we mysteriously look deeply into each other, we find ourselves. My belief is that no matter the outward diversity that identifies us, deep inside we have common desires and fears. The Beloved Community happens when we allow ourselves to reach out humbly in love and openness. No one, no religion, no one way in my opinion, holds all the answers. To quote Mark Nepo again, “All ways inform each other. Inevitably, all parts are necessary. Without the rim, there is no wheel. Without the center, the spokes cannot support a rim. Without the spokes, the center and rim are useless to the living…Without Spirit and a common ground of being, there is not enough strength in who we are to support any kind of community. And without our beautifully unique selves, Spirit and community will never inform each other.” (p. 142)

Unity does not mean sameness. Jesus was not specific in describing how we would all be one but his prayer clearly was for oneness not sameness. I never heard Jesus pray that we would all be the same in our beliefs. It is clear in both Acts and Paul’s Epistles that the early Christian communities had many disagreements. Just because we do not agree doesn’t mean that we have to build fences and not relate to each other. I’d like to think of that ‘Promised land” as a place where we will all be safe in sharing our disagreements, our differences. If we acknowledge the Hub as the center of our diverse lives, if we honor and respect each other in spite of our differences, I believe that process and that diversity will be a source of strength and joy. If we can listen to and show agape love to others, if we can be authentically whole hearted, all embracing, I believe we can create that Beloved Community that Dr. ML King talked so much about. For him the Beloved Community was a global vision in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. As King became more exposed to oppressed peoples of many races and in many nations, he became more and more focused on the unity of humanity. He liked to talk about a “worldhouse”, a metaphor which captured for him the ideal of a world based on love, justice, and equal opportunity where loyalties to race, class, sex, tribe, religion, political differences, ethnicity and nationality would be transcended.

This notion that we are all expressions of the same Original Being, this Divine Presence that keeps expressing itself uniquely through all beings as we search for a shared truth is at the heart of the Hindu concept Thou Art That which teaches that we need to die to our smaller selves in order to rise to a vision that we share the same human nature with all others. In truth as hard as it is to accept, we are indeed each other—as beautiful and as brutal as the other. About 20 years ago I heard a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh titled “Call Me by My True Names”. It made such an impact on me and may have even been influential in my beliefs about oneness today. In the poem, which he wrote after a long mediation, there are three characters: a pirate, a girl, and himself. It’s a long poem but I would like to share it now:

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood"
to, my people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

Although this poem may be disconcerting, it certainly was to me the first time I heard it, it says to me that as I work on myself to be more loving, more compassionate, more peaceful, more respectful I influence the core of all that is. I believe in a God that loves us all, forgives us and strengthens us. In our reading from Acts, Jesus asks us to be his witnesses in the world, much like that great commissioning that comes at the end of the gospel of Matthew. After Jesus left the disciples, they returned to Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. They went to the room where they were staying and they devoted themselves to prayer along with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus. I urge you not to forget the importance of prayer as you strive to recognize truth for you. Remember that one of the ways that prayer works is that it changes the person that prays. As I pray to see the Christ in all I meet, I believe that God opens my eyes in a new way and I am able to get closer to helping bring about the Beloved Community. I pray that as we participate in Holy Communion as the body of Christ that we will open not just our eyes but our hearts to the Oneness of Creation. Let us ask for the courage to pray with Jesus that we may all be One. Amen.

IS JESUS THE ONLY GATE TO GOD? April 13, 2008

2008-04-23T10:07:00.000-07:00

Scripture: Psalm 23, John 10:1-10

This week I am returning to a sermon that I preached three years ago, one that was quite well received. I have made some changes; however, most of it is the same. I started with a quote from Captain Eddie Rickenbacker about an experience of being lost at sea with his men for 21 days during WWII.[1] This Navy crew was flying to the Pacific Islands on a special mission when their plane crashed. Rickenbacker later wrote and I quote, “In the beginning many of the men were atheists or agnostics, but at the end of the terrible ordeal each, in his own way, discovered God. Each man found God in the vast, empty loneliness of the ocean. Each man found salvation and strength in prayer, and a community of feeling developed which created a liveliness of human fellowship and worship, and a sense of gentle peace.”

My guess is that most people who hear these words feel good about these men being able to find God, each “in his own way”; however, many if, not most, Christians today believe that the millions of people who find God outside of Christianity are not saved. The scripture reference for these beliefs comes from our Gospel today where Jesus says, “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved…” And later in John 14:6, an even stronger statement: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

The author of the Fourth Gospel is very fond of using metaphors, figures of speech where one word or phrase is used to illustrate a certain meaning in place of another word, usually used to help in understanding; let me give you a non- religious example: The Internet is an information superhighway or life is a journey. John is the Gospel of the “I AM” statements; I AM the bread of life, the true vine, the light of the world, as well as I am the gate. Historically, the Johannine community was a small minority of Jews who had become Christians and thus kicked out of the Temple and frequently persecuted. When people are a minority it is especially important to stick closely together and the belief that “our way is the only way” often is an identity marker as well as being a protective and self-enhancing belief. When circumstances change, as in the growth of Christianity, the language and often the original ideas remain. So for over 2000 years we have heard that Jesus is the only way to God, the only way to be saved.

When I was looking for various views to answer the sermon question, I came across quite a few websites that emphatically believed that Jesus is the only way to God. The reasoning was along these lines: “Either the Bible is right and there is no other way to salvation, or the Bible is wrong and all other religions are right. If all roads lead to God then the Bible is a false book and does not have any reliability. If anyone claims to be Christian and says that other religions are equally valid he or she is saying that Jesus is a liar. There are probably some of you here today that agree with these statements. This view is the product of a Christianity that takes the Bible literally rather than a truth set in a historical and cultural time. I can’t remember which Indian tribe has a creation story that ends with, this is all true and some of it actually happened!

Another view of those who believe that Jesus is the only way to God uses the example of the blind men feeling different parts of the elephant and each ending up describing the elephant in very different terms. This view says that each of these men was blind and each was wrong, stating that as long as we are blind we remain in the darkness, not aware of the truth of God being revealed through Jesus. I won’t discuss any more of these beliefs that come from the literal interpretation of the Bible as most of you are well versed in them.

There are Christians that do not believe in the exclusiveness of Jesus being the only way one can enter God’s kingdom. One of these groups is known as Progressive Christianity, a group that I have talked about in many different ways over the almost 5 years I’ve been with you. My last two long-term ministers before I went to seminary were both active believers in Progressive Christianity. One of them, Fred Plumer from the Irvine, CA church, is now the president of this group. They have eight basic points, the first of the original version says, we are Christians who “proclaim Jesus Christ as our Gate to the realm of God;” followed by the second point that says we “recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the gateway to God’s realm”. (Repeat) In 2003 they made some revisions to the 8 points and these two now read like this: “we are Christians who have found our approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus. The second point says we “recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way (or gate) to God’s realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us.” I really like that. It’s the kind of belief that I believe would be very much approved of by the Jesus that I follow. I love Jesus; his way is my life. I believe that in Jesus Christ, God has opened a way into God’s eternal heart and everlasting life with others at the heavenly banquet table. It‘s not up to me to determine who else is sitting at that banquet table. But I know one thing for sure and that is the job of saying Yes or NO is already filled, taken by God, a God I believe has endless compassion and love, desiring all of us to repent and turn to God. There are so many mysteries in our faith, in our life, and I would encourage all of you to approach these mysteries with humility and gentleness. Another Progressive Christianity point is that we find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty—more value in questioning than in absolutes. So we may be surprised at who is sitting around that heavenly banquet table, if indeed we are sitting there ourselves.

In the New Interpreters Bible, the commentary I regularly use in preparing my sermons, Gail O’Day, a scholar of the Fourth Gospel, states that the statement that no one comes to the Father except through me is the joyous affirmation of a community that saw Jesus as the incarnation of God and accepted his statements that he and the Father are one. She differentiates between “Father” and “God” and says that “no one” meant those in this band of followers, not necessarily anyone in the world forever (Vol IX, p.744). She points out that this is not a cry of a powerful world religion but a religious conviction of a religious minority in the ancient Mediterranean world. She sees it as a being particular to this faith community rather than an exclusionary statement for all time and places. This scripture says “This is who we are… the people who believe in the God who has been revealed to us decisively by Jesus Christ.”

Let me affirm that Jesus is my gateway to God—God’s life, realm, being. Jesus is the Lord of the 23rd Psalm, my shepherd that leads me beside still waters. However, that does not mean that what is true for me as a Christian has to be true for all people. A contemporary author and theologian, Wm. Sloane Coffin, says as paraphrased by Marcus Borg, “God is defined by Jesus, but not confined to Jesus. Borg also quotes a Hindu professor at a Christian seminary that was preaching on the Gospel verse about the ‘only way’ as saying, “This verse is absolutely true—Jesus is the only way. And that way—of dying to an old way of being and being born into a new way of being—is known in all of the religions of the world. The way of Jesus is a universal way, known to millions who have never heard of Jesus.”[2] It seems to me that what the Hindu professor means is that the way of Jesus is not about a set of beliefs but about a way of life; not believing doctrines or words like Jesus, rather seeing the way of Jesus, his life as being the way of transformation from an old way of being and doing to a new way of being and doing. For us as Christians that new way is Jesus, the way of non-violent, unconditional love. Borg calls this Jesus as being the disclosure of what a life full of God looks like. We can say, “this is who Jesus is for us” without also saying, “This is the only way God can be known for anyone ever.” For me a theology of Christ that leads us to respect other religious traditions, not to deny their religious truth, is keeping with the belief that God is part of all of us, and we are all a part of God. My doorway may not be the doorway others can enter; however, it is my doorway and I am so thankful that for me that doorway to God is Jesus.

So as I end this sermon, I would urge any of you that are disturbed by what I’ve said today to come talk with me. In no way do I want to have a debate about our differences, yet I am always interested in what you have to say. Our opening story talked about how beautiful it would be to give others the freedom to experience their faith differently than ours. I pray that the words of Edwin Markham’s poem “Outwitted” could be true for us here at DCC.

He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win.
We drew a circle that took him in.

Amen and amen.

[1] Gary Wilburn, Gateway Into God’s Realm, online at www.tcpc.org/resources/articles/gateway.htm .
[2] Online, http://www.beliefnet.com/story/39/story_3972_1.html

TAKE, BLESS, BREAK, GIVE Sermon 4-6-08

2008-04-09T10:46:00.000-07:00

Scripture: 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35

We are an Easter people, Amen? As post-resurrection Christians we have heard, some of us for many, many years, stories about the appearances of Jesus to the faith community. Today’s scripture has one of the most well-known stories—the Walk to Emmaus. Let’s look again at the scripture you just heard: two people are leaving Jerusalem, to go to Emmaus. One is named Cleopas; many scholars think that the other person may be his wife, Mary, as there were missionary couples in those days. Why were they on their way to Emmaus? There may have been several towns called Emmaus which meant hot springs. For these two, maybe Emmaus was home, and they were eager to go home and try to sort out why all of these things had happened to Jesus, their beloved leader. Maybe they just had to go some place and hideaway and try to figure out “what next”. When we don’t know what to do, or we have lost hope some of us probably wish we could find a place, an Emmaus where we could hide away and have some quiet to try to make sense of things.

As these followers were walking along discussing all that had happened in the last few days a stranger joined them and asked what they were talking about. They did not recognize this man and went on to tell him all about the arrest, trial, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. And then this stranger started interpreting scripture to them, explaining how all that had happened needed to happen to give glory to God. Still the couple had no idea who this man was. Yet they invited him to stay with them for the night. I wonder how many times Christ has been present to us and we knew it not. How often we do not see or hear the Christ in the daily, ordinary living of our lives! How many times have we missed a spirit-filled opportunity because of our lack of hospitality! Even though I love the scripture where Jesus says when you do it to one of the least of these you do it unto me, or NOT. I know I let lots of opportunities go by. Maybe you do too.

Back to the scripture: Once Jesus accepted the invitation and sat down to eat with them, putting into motion the title of today’s sermon, the four-fold action of take, bless, break, and give, their eyes were open and they recognized the risen Christ. Now for those of you that are familiar with the Bible, Jesus had done this before—at the feeding of the 5000 and most recently at that Passover Supper the Thursday that Judas betrayed him. Throughout the Gospels, so much of Jesus’ ministry took place at meals. He was portrayed by his enemies as a drunkard and a glutton! Take, bless, break and give are not just part of our Holy Communion sacrament, they are the whole of the Christian life. Let’s look at each of these words separately:

Take: Jesus is there for us, ready to take what we bring to him whether it be a concern, an anxiety, or a gift. We offer what we have to him and more importantly to others in his name. We bring to him our dreams, our passions, our sorrows. We bring the work that we do, the art we create. We offer our brokenness as well as our best selves, and Jesus takes it all.

Bless: Whatever we give to the Lord, whether it be an internal or external thing, Jesus blesses it and offers it on to God. He doesn’t evaluate or criticize, he simply blesses what we offer and gives thanks. Just as Jesus blesses, we too can bless each other and give thanks for the goodness that has been given to us. In fact there’s no better way to respond to life than to bless and praise God.

Break: Jesus breaks the bread because unless it is broken it can not be shared. Just as at Jesus’ crucifixion his body was broken for us so he shares our brokenness, our pain. Very few if any of us can go through life without suffering—failure, loss, divorce, loneliness, illness, death. Brokenness is part of the journey of life. If we can befriend that brokenness, it’s possible to learn from it and to grow because of it. Sometimes it’s through the brokenness that we can be transformed. If a snake does not shed its skin it will become sick. A snake sheds its skin when it’s inside becomes bigger than its outside, a process that continue throughout its life. Part of our brokenness is a need to shed whatever is dead, whatever doesn’t work for us anymore. It could be dead ways of thinking or believing or seeing or relating. Shedding opens us up to self-transformation.

Give: Jesus gives us the bread and wine in remembrance of his life, death, and resurrection. As followers of Jesus when we eat at the Communion table, we know that the Risen Christ is in us. This holy communion that we receive from Christ we then give to those we meet on the way. “He took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them and their eyes were opened and they recognized him.” In giving and receiving our eyes are open so that we are better prepared to bring about God’s kingdom, that life of abundance where peace and justice reign.

Take, bless, break, and give. To close I share a summary of these actions as preached by Rev. Lori Sowdon:

We take the gifts of life, consciously aware of the Giver, our God. We bless the gifts, offering thanks for the gifts and praise to the Maker. We are broken in life, broken yet not destroyed, broken and healed, broken and raised to new life, broken to shine with the glory of God. We give, sharing God’s gifts with others. Perhaps our greatest expression of gratitude is in giving the gift away.

Take. Bless. Break. Give. These are the actions of a life lived in thanksgiving to God. May these four movements mark our lives as disciples of Jesus. May they become daily acts, drawing us into closer communion with God and with one another.

What Now? Sermon for March 30, 2008

2008-04-09T10:40:00.000-07:00

Scripture: 1 Peter 1:3-9, John 20:19-31

Can you imagine if you had been a disciple how you might have felt after the Easter morning revelation by Mary Magdalene that she had seen the risen Jesus? Thinking back on that last week, that week of intimacy, chaos, confusion, denial, horror and grief, what do you think you might have been thinking and feeling? Guilt and fear would probably be high on the list. We know that the disciples were gathered behind locked doors—except for Thomas. The women that went to the tomb probably also had a lot of fear and grief; however, they obviously had something else—great love. They certainly were not expecting a party, not a beginning of a story but an ending. They really had nothing to gain, in fact they could have had much to lose if the authorities saw them and associated them with this criminal. Yet still they made this early morning journey to the tomb, faithfully, lovingly showing up.

The gospel for today tells us that on the night of the empty tomb, the night of resurrection of Jesus from the dead, we have ten disciples huddled together in fear and confusion, behind a door tightly locked. Then suddenly without a knock, without a door opening, Jesus was standing in the midst of them, saying, “Peace be with you.” The same words we say most Sunday mornings right after the children’s story. Jesus said this peace greeting not once but twice; the second time was after he showed them his hands and his side. And then he did a Pentecostal thing—he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”. He also authorized them to forgive sins. Can you imagine? These men were probably thinking that Jesus would be angry at them for their abandoning and denying him. But No, he treated them with great respect and love. The same thing happened a week later when Thomas who had been missing that first night finally saw Jesus. There was no reprimand for his having doubted that Jesus was alive. Jesus willingly let him touch the holes in his hands and side. The Easter scripture up to now has been focusing a lot on seeing, seeing and believing. Now Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” This is indeed a word to us and all the generations after the resurrection. We didn’t have to be there to know that Jesus the Christ lives. It’s amazing how Jesus can enter into us with the Good News even when we are scared, even when we have many doubts. Don’t ever let doubt stop you from believing and sharing the Good News. You may not have it all figured out; it’s enough to know that Jesus has given us peace, and the Holy Spirit is to be with us always. As one of the UCC Easter devotionals pointed out, for Christians, it is always the Easter season, “because ever since the Day of Resurrection we have been in the Easter era…Easter happens when anyone who suffers finds new hope. When anyone who is mistreated or neglected or belittled finds the freedom for a fresh start, (then) Easter occurs all over again.”[1] It’s up to us to put the teachings of Jesus into practice. In the next and last chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus reminds Peter of this three times in a row when he asks, do you love me? And then tells Peter, Feed my sheep and Follow me.

What is the Easter mission of our church? Now we have a long mission statement in the bulletin and then we have a short one, like a slogan, on the front of the bulletin: Love God, love your neighbor; seek justice, peace and diversity. For me that word love is the supreme activity that we are being called to do. Many of you know my concern about evangelizing, going out and sharing the good news. One of my favorite writers, Quaker Parker Palmer has written that “the mission of the church is not to enlarge its membership, not to bring outsiders to accept its terms, but simply to love the world in every possible way—to love the world as God did and does” (In the Company of Strangers).

What will bring the bright light of Easter to overcome the darkness of Good Friday? The Good News—and the scary responsibility--is that we are the ones that will bring the light to the darkness. We do that by faithfully and lovingly showing up like the women did at the grave on that Sunday morning. And then we go forth. We go forth with questions, with doubts, with love and the guidance of the Holy Spirit to bring about the passion of Jesus, to bring about the justice and peace of the kingdom of God. Just as Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into his disciples, he has also given us that Holy Spirit and called us forth.

You know, Thomas gets a bum rap in our society; when people say doubting Thomas it really isn’t taken as a compliment. But you know he was the only one of the disciples that evening that was out and about. Sure he had questions and doubts. We might say he had to have some breathing space to try to understand what was happening and what it meant. I believe healthy faith has space for doubts, questions, unbelief. In fact for me one of the most meaningful verses in the Bible, as well as the scripture for my first sermon at age 17 is “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.” from Mark 9:24b.

Sometimes we have to go on in spite of our doubts. “There is a story about a pre-civil rights African American community in Florida. The story says that during times of political elections, this community would rent a voting machine and go through the voting process. Now, they knew that their votes would not be counted, but they voted anyway. When asked by members of the white community why they did this every year, they replied, "Oh, just practicing. Just practicing." Believing in what is not yet seen means we practice or behave as if it already exists. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." This is what leaders and visionaries do. They believe in something bigger than themselves and they begin to act as if it is so.”[2] I believe that our faith varies as did the disciples: sometimes we are filled with it; other times it’s barely there. Sometimes we believe even when we have not seen; other times we have seen it with our own eyes and yet are still filled with doubt. Last week on Dateline they showed a young man who had been seriously injured in a 4-wheeler accident. Despite efforts to save him, the brain activity was gone and the family was making preparations to donate his organs, when a relative with medical expertise noticed that something was changing in him physically. And to make a long story short, he came back from the edge of death and made pretty much a full recovery. Some people questioned the medical tests and evaluations; some felt there must have been a scientific mistake. The physicians assured that the tests were correct and that scientifically there was no way for someone with that much damage to recover. Yet he did. I wonder how many people who saw that program held on to the belief that there must have been a mistake instead of rejoicing that miracles happen.

Faith and fear, fear and faith: as William Sloane Coffin, one of our great prophets in the UCC, said, "As I see it, the primary religious task these days is to try to think straight...You can't think straight with a heart full of fear, for fear seeks safety, not truth. If your heart's a stone, you can't have decent thoughts – either about personal relations or about international ones. A heart full of love, on the other hand, has a limbering effect on the mind." Another great preacher, Harry Emerson Fosdick has written a poem of sorts about fear vs. faith:

Fear imprisons, faith Liberates;
Fear paralyzes, faith empowers;
Fear disheartens, faith encourages;
Fear sickens, faith heals;
Fear makes useless, faith makes serviceable;
Fear puts hopelessness at the heart of life, while faith rejoices in its God.

This poem certainly makes faith sound pretty wonderful to me. What needs to happen with you so that your faith will overcome your fears and your doubts? For most of us it’s not enough just to read the words; we have to experience Christ’s presence. Maybe you want to touch Jesus and KNOW that Jesus is really right here with you? Then hear what Jesus says to his disciples after they have received the Holy Spirit: “you are being sent out into the world and specifically to the world’s brokenness.” Will you (name some of people present) accept the commission to be part of the body of Christ and go forth in love? You are being called AND empowered to do what Jesus did. You don’t wait until you feel prepared and faithful enough, you go and then your faith and your power will increase. In your own way through the opportunities you are presented with, go, touch, heal, love, forgive in Christ’s name. Bring about justice and peace in this hurting world. Remember the Holy Spirit is within you and Jesus himself promises to abide with you till the end of time. God bless each of you as you go forth. Amen.

[1] David M. Powers, Stillspeaking Lent Devotional: Thursday, March 27.
[2] Wyvetta Bullock, Must We See to Believe? In e-Sermons.com.

THE GOOD NEWS EASTER SERMON 2008

2008-03-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

Scripture: Acts 10:34-43, John 20:1-18

What an exciting day to be a preacher! It’s also somewhat intimidating to be the person whose responsibility it is to lead you in worship on the most holy day of our church year, a day when usually attendance is better than other Sundays. Yes we are very pleased to have each and every one of you here this morning to share this worship with us. One of the reasons preachers want so much to preach their very best on this day is the hope that one of you will hear something that gives you the inspiration and/or insight that will bring you closer to God, that will make a difference in your life. So the pressure’s on!

Yes, today is Easter and I want to shout, “Jesus Lives” and talk about what that means for us. Many of you believe that the stories about resurrection of Jesus are historically and literally true; others of us understand them more as metaphors, yet pointing to a very real truth. During Lent some of us have been studying “The Last Week” by Borg and Crossan, a look at the Gospel of Mark’s account of Jesus activities from Palm Sunday to Easter. If any of you want to explore the truth of metaphors and parables in the Bible, this book is a wonderful resource. Many people like to focus on the empty tomb and what happened to the crucified body and how to explain that to non-believers. But just as Barbara Brown Taylor has said, “The resurrection is the one and only event in Jesus’ life that was entirely between him and God. There were no witnesses whatsoever. No one on earth can say what happened inside that tomb because no one was there. They all arrived after the fact.” For our purposes this morning, it doesn’t matter whether you have a literal belief or a metaphorical understanding of the resurrection, the question for us is what do these stories mean.

The land where Jesus was born and where he did his ministry was a colony of the Roman Empire, a classic example of what is called a domination system, a place of political oppression, economic exploitation, and even religious legitimation—the emperor was called God’s son. This society was established and maintained by violence, Pontius Pilate and the Roman Imperial soldiers. Last Sunday our congregation had two parades into Jerusalem: from the East came Jesus on the donkey, followed by the disciples and the crowds, largely the peasants and outcasts, the rural poor. From the West came Pilate and the soldiers, showing off the power, glory and violence of the empire that ruled the world. Jesus’ procession showed an alternative vision, a messenger of peace and justice for all. Jesus had a tremendous passion for the kingdom of God. In fact his very first sermon, which took place after his baptism by John and the 40 days of temptation in the desert with Satan, spoke about this kingdom, saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mk.1:15) For Jesus the kingdom of God was a life of abundance for all, a society that was the way God intended everyone to live—individually, socially, politically, and religiously—a domination free society.[1]

In the three short years of Jesus’ ministry, he kept showing us over and over again that God is calling us to a life of love, compassion, forgiveness and confrontation of the injustice in the world around us. This passion of Jesus for the kingdom of God led him to stand up for the poor, the outcasts, the women, the children, all those on the bottom rung of society’s hierarchy. As we can imagine this stance made him many enemies, especially the religious and political leaders, those in power in Jerusalem. For Jesus “kingdom of God” was both political and religious. In the society of that first century, kingdom was a common word used in referring to the kingdoms of Herod and his sons, the kingdom of Rome. Jesus used the kingdom word to suggest that there could be a very different kingdom than the one the people of Jerusalem had known. So as Jesus’ passion for God’s kingdom revealed itself more and more, his opposition, his enemies increased. We need look no further than Good Friday to see how powerful the forces are against the Kingdom of God.

Jesus’ last week proceeded from the joyous shouts of praise on Palm Sunday, to his betrayal by Judas, his arrest, his appearance before the authorities, his denial by Peter and others, the crowds (many of the same people who were praising him on Sunday) shouting, “Crucify him”, his being hung on the cross—the official instrument of death for those who showed rebellion against the domination system—his dying and being buried in the tomb. On the day after the Sabbath, early on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene (in other gospels accompanied by other women, but in John’s gospel she is alone) goes to the tomb and finds the stone removed from the entrance and immediately runs to tell Peter and the other disciple, who come and witness the empty tomb and returned to their homes. As Mary remains there weeping, she looks into the tomb and sees the angels and then she turns and sees a man she mistakes for the gardener. This man asks why she is weeping and then calls her by name, and Mary recognizes him as Jesus, the first of many appearances that were reported by Jesus’ followers. Mary goes and tells the others, “I have seen the Lord.”

What does it mean when we proclaim along with Mary Magdalene that, “Jesus lives”? I believe the meaning is that his spirit, his presence as his disciples knew in him before his crucifixion, continues to be known. Through all the many different appearance stories, this presence of Jesus was real and Jesus’ presence continues to be real today although in a radically new way. He is no longer a figure of flesh and blood, confined to time and space. We read in the Bible how he could enter locked rooms and accompany his disciples without being recognized. We are also told that he will abide with his followers, “to the end of the age”. Jesus is not to be found among the dead, in the tombs, but among the living, amongst you and me. Some of us both then and now feel his presence so strongly at times that it might be described as a vision. I can remember the time when I was coming out of a long dark night of the soul, I did without a doubt feel his arms around me, comforting me as the tears flowed down my face. Not all believers have this experience and I think of Jesus’ statement in the Gospel of John, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

Jesus’ resurrection as well as his ascension is not something subject to empirical evidence, scientific proof. For most Christians the tangible evidence of Jesus’ resurrection in our lives today is not the empty tomb but the presence of the Spirit in our lives. We do not have Jesus’ physical hands and feet in front of us. We can’t put our fingers in the nail marks. Although he may not appear physically to us to prepare breakfast, we can see his presence in soup kitchens, in the hands and feet of those like Peter Cram, Sam and Corbin Griest who just returned from building yet another house for Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans. We can see him in the patient and affirming presence of Christine and Lee Marcroft as they regularly make themselves available to the GLBT community in places like PFlag meetings and screenings of that wonderful movie, The Bible Tells Us So. We see Christ in the dedication and gifts of Jane Waters and the choir as they faithfully practice to bring us the beauty of music to our worship. We see him in the children and the Sunday school teachers as they gather to learn more about the kingdom of God. Have you noticed Jesus’ presence in Margaret Seymour as she leads us in Bible study; and what about in the members of that Lenten book study that gave us new insights and understandings about the passion of Jesus? I see that Jesus lives each time one of you reaches out to extend hospitality to a new person worshiping with us. Jesus is right there with Jim Carpenter and the other Deacons as they not only organize and prepare what’s needed for worship, but also minister to me. When the trustees and others gather on a Saturday morning to make repairs, paint and beautify the sanctuary, Jesus is there! I see Jesus in the faces of those in Candlelight vigils and marches and rallies for peace. Wherever a child, woman or man is reaching out in compassion and concern to one another, Jesus lives. When we gather together to pray or pray alone, Jesus is with us. Sometimes it’s hard to feel him and that’s where our faith comes in. For me one of the most important places and times I feel that Jesus lives is when we break bread together in our Holy Communion, but he is equally present when you take the new mother or the sick elder a meal to eat. I could go on for another few hours and mention all of you in this church and the wonderful way you show me the presence of Jesus. Jesus promised to leave with us an Advocate, the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide us after is physical departure. And that Holy Spirit is alive and well in Deering Community Church.

The Good News of Easter is that Jesus lives and the Spirit, love, and passion that he showed to us is available to all. For those of you here today that are not regular members of our congregation, I invite you to let that spirit of Christ in you lead you to be part of this or some other community where you can witness to this love. Jesus taught that the love of God as shown to us by him is available to anyone. At this church most of us believe that just as Jesus is our gate to God, there are other gates to God that are equally creditable, as true for others as our ways are true for us. At the same time we invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable.[2]

So for me the Good News of Easter is that Jesus lives, and Jesus is Lord and the powers of the world are not. Amen!! The miracle of Easter is not in the tomb but in our encounter with the living Lord. Because of that encounter, I believe that it’s up to me to follow the Way, the path of Jesus, to care about what he was passionate about, thus working to bring about a world of justice in which everyone has enough for their daily living, where peace and justice reigns. I invite all of you to join me on this path. Let us say together, Christ is risen! Jesus lives! Amen and Amen.

[1] David Wheatcroft, “Easter is the Celebration of the Justice and Compassion of God.” www.tcpc.org
[2] See Progressive Christianity’s website for more information: www.tcpc.org

Unbind Him and Let Him Go March 9, 2008

2008-03-27T12:03:00.000-07:00

Sermon for A5, March 9, 2008
Scripture: Ezekiel 37: 1-14, John 11:1-7, 17-27, 38-45

I don’t know if it’s all the snow still around us or the fact that Easter is particularly early this year, but it sure doesn’t seem possible that it is the 5th Sunday in Lent. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week. In our scripture today, the author of John reminds us that Jesus and the disciples are getting very close to Jerusalem, only two miles away. For the writers of all the gospels, going to Jerusalem is a code word for Jesus’ crucifixion. In the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, called that because they are very similar to each other, the big event that hastens Jesus’ trouble with the authorities is the cleansing of the Temple; however, in John the temple scene is very near the beginning right after the first miracle of changing water into wine at the wedding in Cana. For John the big event hastening Jesus’ crucifixion is the raising Lazarus from the dead. In the scripture immediately following, the chief priests and the Pharisees are told what Jesus did and "from that day on they planned to put him to death." They also planned to get rid of the evidence as well by putting Lazarus to death "since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus" (12:9-11). There are so many things going on in this chapter and as you probably noticed I only read some of the verses. I encourage you to read the whole chapter as part of your Lenten study.

Let me connect our Lazarus story to our first scripture reading in Ezekiel. In this passage we have the famous story made into song about the dry bones taking form and coming to life again. It was a common idiom of that day for the people to express their helplessness and hopelessness by saying, "Our bones are dried up." So Ezekiel shows them a vision of exactly that: dry bones. Rolf Jacobsen in an online explanation of this passage says that the reference to "bones" here is a way to refer to one's deepest self, or, in the case of "our bones," a way for the community to refer to its most essential self. “What we learn from this is that Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones is a poetic and prophetic response to the situation of God's people—to their sense of hopelessness, to their situation of being cut off from their land, their temple, and—they think!—from their God.” (Jacobsen) An important point here is that whether it is the dry bones of Ezekiel or the dead body of Lazarus, ruah, the Greek word that can be translated both as breath and Spirit, is necessary for life. In both cases it is the Spirit—whether it comes from the Hebrew God or from Jesus—that makes life possible. With God's spirit, there is life—and what Jesus called fullness of life.

Death and resurrection are the themes that permeate both of these lessons. They both present the biblical case for trust in God. The image is that of forgiveness and redemption certified by resurrection and new life. Jesus asks Mary if she believes that he is the resurrection and the life. Do you here this morning believe? In other words, do you trust this power of the Spirit? This power to bring us new life? We can’t do it on our own. The power of the Spirit is not something that we can prove as we would a science hypothesis. It is deeply mysterious, this creative and transforming Spirit, this power that’s available to you and to me. We heard how Jesus didn’t hurry off to Bethany to heal his friend. He knew that he had the power of life and death as part of his divine persona. He was confident that he could use this power to bring Lazarus back to life. However you believe what factually happened with Jesus and Lazarus, there is no question that the event is transforming and life-altering.

Just as Jesus calls Lazarus to “Come out!”, I believe that he is calling us. Jesus wants to unbind Lazarus and set him free. What binds us? What are those strips of cloth that hold us back, preventing us from truly living? Are we being bound by hopelessness like Ezekiel’s people? Do the tragedies of nature and the results of others’ violence lead us to such great discouragement that we feel immobilized? Are we bound by fears, addictions, anxiety? Maybe some of us are bound by hatreds, resentments? Is there someone that you need to forgive? Do you need to put away the “shoulds”, “oughts” and the “ have to’s” and really be who you are, or do what you are really being called to do by the Spirit? Are there things pulling you down or pulling you apart? I wonder how many of you are bound by anger at God or others for what’s happened or not happened in your life. Are you filled with despair because of your lack of faith? Is there a closet that you want to come out of? Do you need new life?

God is still speaking to us today, calling us out of our tombs of despair, denial, and death, calling us to new life right now, right here. We are challenged to believe that it is never too late to hope, to be transformed. Our dry bones can get up and dance! Remember the Psalmist we read in our call to worship: "I wait for the Lord. My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning. O, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is steadfast love and with him is great power to redeem."

If we let Jesus unbind us and let us go, there’s no stopping us! We can be transformed individually and as a church community. What we are on our own cannot compare with what we will be if we let the Spirit transform our life. We can change the world in the direction that Ann Weems wrote about in “Reaching for the Rainbows”:
I keep reaching for the rainbows. Thinking one morning The hungry will be fed, The dying held, The maimed walking, The angry stoked, The violence stroked, The oppressed freed, The oppressors changed, and every tear wiped away.

My sisters and brothers, we have to do more than just reaching for rainbows; if we let Jesus into our hearts, and our minds, and our souls, I believe we will know what we are being called to be and do. As I’ve said many times, none of us can or should even try to do everything; yet, we can all do something. As always I’m available to pray and talk with you individually to help you discern how Jesus is calling you.

Let us pray: Dearest God, Holy Spirit, unbind us and let us go, let us hear the call of Jesus and help us follow in his path. Come, Holy Spirit, come. Fill our hearts with hope and use us to bring about your kingdom. Amen

A FAITH JOURNEY 2-17-08

2008-03-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

Scripture: Gen:12:1-4a and John 3:1-17

One of the most meaningful times in my life as the pastor in your church is the meetings with prospective new members when we all tell our faith journeys, about what has led us to God, to Jesus, to Deering Community Church. In our Hebrew Bible lesson today we have the example of Abram being told that he had to leave his home and his country to go to a land that God would show to him. Already in our Call to Worship we heard the Psalmist assuring us of God’s protection: “My help comes from the Lord..,” He will not let your foot be moved…The Lord will keep you from all evil;… from this time on and forevermore.” (Ps. 121) I’m sure Abram trusted and believed in a God such as is described in this Psalm. In the Abram story, God calls and Abram responds in trust. Abram journeyed from what he knew to what he did not know; from the comfortable to the strange and the unpredictable.

Has something like this ever happened to you? Have you ever been called to go somewhere or to do something that was unfamiliar to you, maybe somewhat mysterious? Maybe the call left the final destination vague or unknown. Remember Jesus’ call to his disciples, “Come and follow me.” There was no way that they could have known in the beginning what they were getting themselves into. There was something special about Jesus that made people follow him with no questions asked. In my early 50’s I felt a call to go to Washington, DC to work with the homeless. I had a couple of places in mind but when I got there, I was drawn to visit another place—a place that I knew very little about, the place I decided to associate with. Most of you have heard me talk about SOME, how meaningful the work there was plus my meeting Neill and falling in love--a very special bonus. When I took an early retirement, gave away most of my things, stored my personal mementos and took off across the country in my old Camry, packed to the roof, I went with trust in God that I was to take this journey; it was indeed for me a faith journey. I did not know how it would turn out. The first night there my car windows were broken, and I wondered how this journey would work out; I was glad that morning that I had faith that God was with me on the journey. Yes, I had journeyed from the familiar and comfortable to the unfamiliar. I journeyed from living alone in a 3 bedroom condo to living with 6 others, my room being the smallest of the bunch, a small monk’s room where lying on my bed pushed up against one wall, I could almost touch the other wall. I journeyed from a white suburb of familiarity to a street where there were very few white faces and all kinds of drug deals and other crimes were taking place. Yet I have to say that I was emotionally comfortable and more spiritually alive than I had ever been.

For many Christians, their faith journey starts with being “born again”. This is a term that often irritates mainline Christians. It may remind them of things they have seen on television with the Evangelists. Or it may remind them of the time someone came up to them and asked “Are you saved?” Often times the one that asks the question seems to feel superior, exclusive, like if we don’t answer yes we are in danger of being damned to Hell.

In our Gospel reading Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a Jewish leader, comes to Jesus in the dark of night. Why did he come? He seems curious; it’s hard to know if he rally believes that Jesus comes from God or if he is just flattering him: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” So before he has a chance to ask Jesus a question, Jesus starts talking to him about being born again. The Greek used can be translated both “born from above” or “born again” or “born anew”. Now Nicodemus is a bit of a literalist and therefore starts asking about how one can enter again into his mother’s womb after having grown old. Jesus responds with different words: No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit.” This makes more sense to us who are familiar with baptism by water and the Holy Spirit. Jesus continues his symbolism by saying “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it.” As some of you may know the Greek for Spirit is the same as for breath and wind. As Marcus Borg says in The Heart of Christianity, “The breath of God, the Spirit of God is the source of rebirth. To be born again is to enter new life through and in the Spirit, a life centered in the Spirit of God.”[1]

So what Jesus is telling Nicodemus and us is that we all need a spiritual rebirth, a personal transformation. Borg points out that being born again as well as the notion of dying and rising with Jesus all relates to the same root image for the process of personal transformation. “It means dying to an old way of being and being born into a new way of being, dying to an old identity and being born into a new identity—a way of being and an identity centered in the sacred, in Spirit, in Christ, in God.[2] Although we are created in the image of God, most of us just in the process of growing up become more formed by the world outside than from the Spirit inside. We often live our lives in the world of estrangement and self-preoccupation; therefore we need to be born again as a way of recovering our true self, a beginning to living our life from the inside out, centered in the Spirit. This process of rebirth can be sudden and dramatic and many of our evangelical brothers and sisters can tell us the place and time as can Saul on the road to Damascus.

I often tell the story of my being born again by mistake, yet as the years go by I feel more and more certain that the Spirit was calling to me in a special way on that day. I was about 10 years old and had gone to a revival meeting with some friends of my family. Near the end of the service, the preacher said—or what I heard him say—was that all of you who love Jesus stand and keep your eyes closed. Our church had nothing like an altar call and like the obedient 10 year-old that I was, I stood and kept my eyes closed. Soon an usher came and led me to a back room, prayed over me and gave me a small gospel of John, stressing that I only had to believe that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (Jn 3:16)

Well I went home and read that whole Gospel of John and then went on to read the whole Bible by the time I was 11 or 12. What got started that day was a transformation that has continued to this day in my loving Jesus and sharing that love with others.

As Marcus Borg says for most of us mainline Christians being born again is not a single intense experience, but a gradual and incremental process that continues throughout our lifetime. This process is not automatic and many of us may thwart it or obstruct it, maybe returning sooner or later. As we get older, I believe more and more of us are more interested in deepening our centering in the Spirit. All of us are called on a daily basis to remember whose we are and why we are here. Following the way of Jesus involves a new heart, one centered in God. As a church I believe one of our purposes of our life together is to be a midwife and help others in the process of being born again. This new life is a reconnection with God. It is marked with freedom, joy, peace and love as Paul so often reports. And any of us that read 1st Corinthians 13 know that the greatest of these is love. Jesus also uses the word compassion, sometimes translated mercy. We are called to love each other as Jesus has loved us. Remember Jesus’ last appearance to Simon Peter? He asked him three times if he loved him and when Peter says yes Jesus tells him over and over to care and love his followers.

Where are you on your faith journey? When Abram heard the call of God to move to a new land, he did so, trusting in God to care for him, to protect him. What would it take to get you to move to a new land? Moving from an old place to a new place in your spiritual lives may be what God is calling you to do. Are you willing to follow the call? What will it take to get you to make that move? As we move deeper into Lent, it is time to intentionally journey on, journey deeper, maybe even begin a new journey, and who knows where it will lead? One thing I am sure of is that we won’t journey alone. God will be there, of course, and my prayer is that all of us here at Deering Community church will be there for each other, our old friends and our new friends as well as those new people that God will send to us. Bon Voyage and Amen.

[1] p.106.

[2] Ibid., 107.

RELIGION AND SCIENCE, 2-10-08

2008-03-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

Sermon for Evolution Sunday, 2-10-08
Scripture: Genesis 1:1-13; 24-31; Genesis 2:4b-9; John 1:1-5

Adam was moping around in the Garden of Eden. He was terribly lonesome. God says, “What’s wrong, Adam?” Adam responds, “I’m lonely. There’s no one to talk to.”
So God says, “I will give you a companion, Adam. I will give you a woman. She will cook for you. She will wash your clothes. She will always agree with every decision you make. She will bear your children and never ask you to get up in the middle of the night to take care of them. She will not nag. She will always admit she’s wrong in every argument. She will never have a headache. And she will always freely give love and compassion.”

Adam queries, “God, what will a woman like that cost?” God replies, “It’ll cost you an arm and a leg.” Adam says, “What can I get for a rib?” And the rest is history.

I think its fitting to start off this Evolution Sunday sermon with a little lightness as it can be a very heavy event with people in this congregation not seeing eye to eye with me or with each other. As always, this church and I, as your pastor, encourage each of you to seek the truth and be respectful of those who disagree with you.

Last year for the first time I joined with many other congregations to take a look at this somewhat controversial subject. Michael Zimmerman in 2004 started this project by writing a Clergy Letter in support of teaching evolution. At this point over 11000 clergy have signed this letter which starts by saying, “Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation…” Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.” It ends by asking that “science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.” This year there are over 786 congregations in each state and nine different countries that are focusing on this topic this weekend.

As most of you know that although I take the Bible very seriously I do not take it literally. One of the big differences between liberal and progressive Christians and the evangelical Christians is the way they read the Bible. Where as evangelicals for the most part believe the Bible is to be read literally, accepting every word as the divinely inspired word of God, for me and most of the ministers in the mainline churches, we regard the Bible as God’s Holy Word found in a combination of history, myth, parable, metaphor, and inspiration. It’s not the place I look for scientific explanations but where I look for help in understanding faith and covenant and learning how to live by following Jesus, both his example and his teachings. On Jan. 29, the Rev. John H. Thomas, the head of our denomination released a groundbreaking theological statement, "A New Voice Arising: A Pastoral Letter on Faith Engaging Science and Technology,". He wants to make clear the UCC's belief that science and religion are not mutually exclusive, as well as to extend an unequivocal welcome to persons who devote their lives to scientific inquiry. When I read the Bible I feel filled with gratitude, humility, reverence and love. So much of the Bible is such beautiful literature, and even the parts of the Bible I don’t accept literally I often am inspired by and see as containing great truths. It’s like that Native American creation story where the story teller at the end says, “I know all of this is true and some of it may have actually happened like this.”

Some of you may have noticed in reading Genesis that there are two creation stories. In the Genesis 1 story, human beings are created last and then God rested. In Genesis 2 account, people are created very near the beginning: “In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up…then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” (Gen 2:4b-7) By the way the Genesis 1 verses have the male and female being created at the same time by God; in Genesis 2, the woman is made from the man’s rib.

I have no problem agreeing with modern science that the universe came about from the “Big Bang” about 14 billion years ago. Ever since then it has been expanding. “From that singular event, space, time and various forms of matter and energy have emerged. Billions of galaxies each made up of billions of stars and countless numbers of planets have come into existence.”[1]
“Biological evolution means living things change over time. A great variety of organisms has come into existence over the last four billion years from one or a few original life forms. All living things descend from pre-existing life forms, and are related and interconnected. Evolution happens because of natural selection; some features of organisms lead to higher survival rates in their environments than others. Charles Darwin first brought together these ideas, and ever since scientists have refined and added to them.”[2] By the way Darwin’s 200th birthday will be celebrated on February 12, 2009. On that same date his important book On the Origin of the Species will celebrate 150 years of publication.

Now do these scientific views eliminate God? No, not in my way of thinking! I think of God as the force behind the Big Bang, the source of life itself. Anglican priest and biologist Arthur Peacocke says, “God acts as creator in, with and under the processes of chance and natural selection.”
In my preparation for this sermon, I read a book by Francis S. Collins, entitled The Language of God. Collins, one of the world’s leading scientists, was the head of the Human Genome Project, the scientists that mapped the DNA of our species, the hereditary code of life. In this book, Collins traces his journey from atheism to becoming a believer in his mid 20’s. With the help of the writings of C.S. Lewis and the Moral Law—the awareness of right and wrong—he concluded that this God was not just someone who started the universe in motion but that it was a theist God, a supreme being that desires relationship with human beings and has created in humanity that “special glimpse of himself.” He concludes that “if God exists then He must be outside the natural world and therefore the tools of science are not the right ones to learn about Him. The ultimate decision would be based on faith, not proof.”

Collins describes Theistic Evolution which he says is the dominant position of serious biologists who are also serious believers: Christians as well as Jews, Hindus, Muslims
Based on six premises
1) Universe came into being out of nothingness, approximately 14 billion years ago.
2) Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life.
3) While the precise mechanism of the origin of life on earth remains unknown, once life arose, the process of evolution and natural selection permitted the development of biological diversity and complexity over very long periods of time.
4) Once evolution got under way, no special supernatural intervention was required.
5) Humans are part of this process, sharing a common ancestor with the great apes.
6) But humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation and point to our spiritual nature. This includes the existence of the Moral Law (the knowledge of Right and wrong) and the search for God that characterizes all human cultures throughout history.
If these premises are accepted an intellectually satisfying, and logically consistent synthesis emerges: God, who is not limited in space or time, created the universe and established natural laws that govern it, even choosing the elegant mechanism of evolution to create microbes, plants, and animals of all sorts. Plus, most amazing, this same mechanism was chosen to give rise to human beings, special creatures, made in God’s image with intelligence, morality, free will, and a desire to be in fellowship with God.[3]

Collins suggests renaming Theistic Evolution as Bios through Logos or biologos. Bios is the Greek word for life and logos is the Greek word for “word” To many believers the Word is synonymous with God and for Christians--Christ as used in the opening chapter of John. I quote from v. 1,2: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” BioLogos therefore, expresses the belief that God is the source of all life as well as that life expresses the will of God. This term “allows science and faith to fortify each other like two unshakable pillars, holding up a building called Truth.” (p.210)

As Collins says the God of the Bible is also the God of the genome, worshipped in both the cathedral and the laboratory. God’s creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful—and it cannot be at war with itself. Only we imperfect humans can start such battles and only we can end them. (211) “Science is not threatened by God; it is enhanced. God is most certainly not threatened by science; God made it all possible.” (233)

So my sisters and brothers, I’m not much of an expert on evolution or science in general. I probably could not stand up very well in a debate with Creationists or scientists; however, I have deep belief that there is not a conflict between religion and science. I believe that God wants us to open our minds to truths in both worlds. Let us go forth, unafraid to seek new insights. I pray that God will help us to be wise in God’s ways with enough inner faith to study and learn truths from the world of science, sustained by the beautiful ancient stories in the Bible, affirming God’s love for all that God has made and the very goodness of life itself. Amen and amen.

[1] Gerald Stinson, 2006 online sermon.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Collins, p.200-201