Who’s Missing?
Rev. Doris Cowan

Faith Presbyterian Church
1 Samuel 16:1,6-13 & Psalm 133 – August 12, 2018

I’d like to talk to you today about church – the church as denomination – Presbyterian Church USA – and Faith Presbyterian Church – my spiritual home for many years!

Baptized in a German Lutheran church – a church my mother found unfriendly – I’ve been a Presbyterian for most of my life – though I haven’t always completely understood what it means to be a Presbyterian! It took becoming an elder & serving on Session & becoming active in Presbytery – being a General Assembly Commissioner & later, an ordained minister – to fill in a lot of those gaps in understanding.

But long before my ordinations & Presbytery activities, I can remember the excitement & pride in being a Presbyterian I felt the year that the Stated Clerk of the PCUSA (Stated Clerk is the highest-ranking officer & the official parliamentarian of the denomination) Rev. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake walked with other clergy of many faith groups and many African Americans to integrate Gwynn Oak amusement park, which had banned people of color from attending. It was an important ‘quality of life’ issue – for all who marched that day! And those white clergymen would have been admitted to the park, but when they insisted their black fellow clergy & friends be admitted – they were arrested for trespassing! July 4, 1963!

It was another Stated Clerk of the PCUSA – in 2018 – Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson – at the General Assembly meeting in St. Louis, MO – organized GA commissioners & other attenders – to march in the streets of St. Louis all the way to City Hall to protest the bail/bond policy of the city – a policy that kept people in jail til a court hearing – if they couldn’t pay bail money. Who did this affect? Anyone charged with a misdemeanor crime – people of any color – especially poor people of any color. Many lost jobs because of being in jail & were unable to pay bills or support their families. But these GA people didn’t just march or protest – they raised $47,200 to deliver to City Hall to cover the bail costs of people sitting in jail cells awaiting trial – because they couldn’t pay bail!

It was another moment for me to be proud to be a Presbyterian! You’ll find in your bulletin today information about some of the other actions taken by this GA – impressive & dramatic actions that we owe it to ourselves to learn about! This is who we are as Presbyterians! By the way, this is the denomination that has worked to bring about justice – for many people – especially LGBTQ people! All toward the goal of becoming a more inclusive church! All in the pursuit of justice!

Some of you know that I spent a number of years doing interim ministry in the church – six churches in three states over 14 years. One of those churches was in Bordentown, NJ – whose most recent pastor, William Stell, was & is a gifted preacher! Sometimes he posted his sermons on Facebook – always thoughtful, fine-tuned, scripturally based – SHORT!

A recent one told the story of how David came to be chosen by God to be Israel’s king. The sons of Jesse – apparently all tall & handsome – were presented & rejected. Why? SS gives us one answer. “God looks not on outward appearances, but what’s in the heart!” A good answer, according to William, but he has another answer – God looked at all of them and asked, “Who’s missing?” It was of course, David – the youngest – out tending sheep. That’s whom God chose – the one missing from the line-up that day – the same David to whom God would promise ‘steadfast love’ despite his short-comings!

Who’s missing? That question started me thinking about Faith church – and its early days here on Loch Raven Blvd. Ward & I arrived in Baltimore in 1958 – joined Faith in February of ’59. Membership was close to 2000 – with 2 services on Sunday morning – 2 complete Sunday schools with classes full to over-flowing – all white, of course!

And I believe God looked us over & said: “Who’s missing?” Well, people of color, of course! Remember, it was about this time that people of color were moving into the neighborhood & ‘white flight’ was occurring.

Sometime in the early ‘60’s, a man ‘of color’ asked to speak to the Session of Faith church. Could he & his wife be given permission to worship at Faith? They didn’t want to join – just wanted to be able to worship on Sunday mornings – they didn’t want Session members to think that their being here would be used as a wedge to bring in others like them!

Can you imagine someone – anyone – needing to ask that question or make that promise?

Lt. Col. Edward C Johnson, happened to be the ROTC commander at Morgan State in the early ‘60’s. He & his wife, Gladys, had been the couple chosen to integrate U.S. Army housing in Germany after WW-2.

You’ll be happy to know that Session said “Yes!” I’m convinced that God smiled! It was a very small beginning of racial change at Faith.

So for the period of time they were here this couple attended worship & in fact, did join church – she came to the Women’s Evening Circle meeting of which I was a member. What do I remember about her? Her warmth, her sense of humor, her giggle! She had the best giggle!

I was not on Session at the time – in fact there were no women on Session yet, but it was in the mid ‘60’s that the first women were ordained. Some names most of you won’t know – Helen Yates, Libby Heath – one you will know – Marge Wyser – who became Marge Turner! They were the pioneers!

I’d like to think God had a hand in this, too, asking again, “Who’s missing?” “You’re missing someone on Session!” Well, women, of course! And women were ordained! And, again, God smiled!

Nettie Harrell, African American, had joined in ’69. She & I were ordained in ’71. A year later, some Session members decided that it wasn’t enough to ordain women – we had to be given responsibilities. Nettie was a natural for the Education committee – I was to lead the Outreach committee – a job I held for years!

It was also in the late ‘60’s that neighborhood children began coming to Sunday School – and some came to Bible School. But we didn’t see much of their parents. Some would say it was because they had churches back in their old neighborhoods. Others would say that neighborhood people saw Faith as ‘that big WHITE church on the corner’ – meaning ‘white’ in more ways than one!!!

But some who started out in Sunday School stuck around for Youth Group & trips to Camp Puhtok! I’ll never forget when Karen Brown came to my Sunday School class – but it was the Sperlings, the Jim McGills, Nettie Harrell, JoAnn Robey, the Doug Lomans, who kept them here. And they even recruited Ward Cowan to go camping with them!

Faith continued to attract new members – some white, some African American. Interestingly there was one Chinese family who’d actually been members for many years – the Wu’s! Jimmy Wu was on Session at the same time Marge Wyser Turner was! And interestingly, there would be others with Morgan connections who would come – like Sandye McIntyre, Joseph Eubanks, Adelaide Cooke, Curtis Moore! Others?

In the early ‘70’s we gained a group of members – all at once – the folks from Montebello church. Montebello was being closed – they had wanted to merge with the Waverly church – Presbytery saw both of those churches in danger of closing – & said, ‘no.’ Some chose to go to the Perry Hall church – many came here! I can’t remember all the names, but you might remember the Leary’s, the Smith’s, the Wellers, the Ted Wallace’s – who may be the last Montebello folks still with us! I’m sure you can think of others!!!

The Day Care Faith had for many years was a factor for some neighborhood families. The Day Care was a place to welcome a variety of children – both black & white – even special needs children – so important to another family still here – the Slacums!

It was while Dick Wereley was here as Pastor that I think God looked around again and said, “Somebody’s Missing!” Who’s missing? And Joe Dungan came to be organist & choir director. There may have been other gays in Faith’s history, but we just didn’t know about them! And, of course, Robin White later came to be pastor.

While Robin was here, Christa came – her coming was the impetus for some to join her here from a previous church. Christa was the perfect welcoming presence – always welcoming to everyone regardless of color – gay or straight – young or no longer young!

In recent years Faith’s leadership hasn’t waited for God to ask, ‘Who’s missing?’ but has worked hard to reach out to the community – starting with a mailed invitation to every resident in 21239, 21212, & part of 21218! (Not as productive as hoped for!) then with outdoor movies – more recently with block parties – inviting families to have a bite to eat, to play games, to enjoy some time together & to learn about summer programs. And demonstrating that Faith church isn’t just that big white church on the corner, but a church that is very intentional about being a place for everyone! I’m convinced it was that mind-set that brought us Samuel Springer to be our Minster of Music! We owe a large debt of gratitude to Mike Billings & Bill Millen & all who worked with them!

Has everyone here always accepted & welcomed the new people that God was searching for – to join us – to become part of this church family?

Well, of course not! Some moved because of change. Many who accepted change are no longer living. Some moved out of the neighborhood & found new churches. Some have moved out of the neighborhood & have continued to return as often as they can & continue to provide leadership and a welcoming presence for others!

I did not intend this to be a comprehensive history of Faith church! Remember that I was gone from here for a number of years – many of you found your way to Faith church while I wasn’t looking!

But I’m convinced that every time God asked, ‘Who’s Missing?’ and you came to be part of this church family – whatever your race, your skin color, your sexual orientation, your age – whether you entered on foot, or on a walker, or in a wheelchair & whether you were carried in as an infant 90+ years ago or arrived within the past year – God smiled! And the lives of all of us have been enriched by your presence!

This is who we are – who we have become! But former pastor, Cal Jackson, would remind us that we are still ‘becoming!’ Our friends in the United Church of Christ like to remind us that “God is still speaking!” If God is still speaking, I hope you will be here to hear what God has to say! (Christa wanted me to say that)! And she would also want me to remind you – you are loved! The psalmist reminds us, “How very good & pleasant it is when kindred (sisters & brothers) live together in unity!”

Thanks be to God! Amen!

Truth…Or Consequences
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
John 8:31-32, Ephesians 4:25-32  – June 3, 2018

This morning we are going to tackle the subject of truth. One of you recommended a sermon on the subject of truth, which, in all honesty, is kind of a broad topic. The danger in taking a topic and then selecting Biblical passages that deal with it is that you run the risk of reading something into the text that may not be there. Such was my experience this week when I took a closer look at Jesus’ famous words in the 8^th chapter of John: You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. When I looked closely at John 8, it occurred to me that Jesus’ statement was perhaps more about being free than it was the truth. Consequently, I suggest that we also consider a passage from Ephesians this morning. My guess is that all of you would conclude that truth is an essential Judeo- Christian tenet, which may be stunning considering we live in a time when the word “post-truth” has been added to the dictionary. The billionaire, Michael Bloomberg, recently gave the commencement address at Rice University in which he argues that the erosion of truth telling in America is a major threat to our identity. After all, one of this country’s formative stories is that of George Washington telling his father that he could not tell a lie: it was he who cut down the cherry tree. We all know that this story is probably legend but the fact that we tell it says something important about what we value. We value the truth and those who tell it.

In the passage from John, Jesus is having a debate with Jewish officials in the treasury of the Temple. According to John’s version, there has been escalating opposition to Jesus and, in this passage, Jesus takes on his opponents. If you are the descendents of Abraham, you would act like him. But you are out to kill me, Jesus charges. The descendents of Abraham would not behave like this. You haven’t listened to me, Jesus argues. You do not realize that what I say is the truth. I am the truth. Later, Jesus charges that the people who oppose him are not descendents of Abraham but of the “father of lies”: “But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is from God hears the word of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.” (8:46-47)

After these words, Jesus is lucky to get out the temple alive. In fact, the crowd picked up rocks to throw at him but Jesus was able to elude them unharmed.

The fact is we don’t always want to hear the truth. It seems like what we are getting in our public discourse these days is merely what some people want to hear regardless of whether it is the truth. Jesus’ listeners that day did not want to hear the truth which was that their world view was skewed. They had forgotten what it meant to be a descendent of Abraham or else they would be doing the works of Abraham and not spewing hatred toward other Jews. If you knew me, Jesus says, you would know the truth and the truth will set you free.

The truth will set us free. Free from what? I like the way Frederick Buechner puts it: “Free from imprisonment within the narrow walls of your own not-all-that enlightened self-interest. Free from enslavement to your own shabbiest instincts, deceits, and self –deceptions. Freedom not from responsibility but for it. Escape not from reality but into it. The best moments we any of us have as human beings”, according to Buechner, “are those moments when for a little while it is possible to escape the squirrel-cage of being me into the landscape of being us.” (Wishful Thinking, p.21)

The idea that truth makes us free to be in the “landscape of us” brings me to the second passage from Ephesians. In Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus, he says basically that if we are Christian we should act like Christ and clothe ourselves with the new life of Christ. We shouldn’t be like Gentiles who “live in the futility of their minds”, “darkened in their understanding”, “alienated from the life of God” because of the hardness of their heart. (Eph.4:17-18) Doesn’t this sound like what Jesus was saying in the temple – if you are the children of Abraham then act like Abraham?

Paul goes on to say that we should, all of us, “speak the truth to our neighbors for we are members of one another.” (v.25)

I have two observations to make about Paul’s suggestion. First, speaking the truth is not always easy.

I’ve shared the story before that William Willimon tells about the time he and his wife attended a funeral at a little church in rural Georgia. Willimon had grown up in a big downtown church in a different denomination. Funerals were different where he grew up.  The funeral in question had an open casket and most of the service was a sermon by the pastor.

The pastor pounded on the pulpit and looked over at the dead body in the casket and roared: “It’s too late for Joe.  He might have wanted to get his life together. He might have wanted to spend more time with his family. He might have wanted to do that, but he’s dead now. It is too late for him, but it is not too late for you. There is still time for you. You still can decide. You are still alive. It is not too late for you. Today is the day of decision.”

The preacher went on and told about how a Greyhound bus had plowed into a funeral entourage on the way to the cemetery. That could happen today and that would be it for us. Today is the day to get your life together. Too late for old Joe, but it’s not too late for you.”

Willimon says he was furious with that preacher. On the way home, he unloaded on his wife. Have you ever heard anything like that? Have you ever heard anything so insensitive and manipulative? That poor family. It was disgusting!

His wife replied: No, she had never heard anything like it. It was insensitive. It was manipulative. It was disgusting. Worst of all, it was also true. (Will Willimon, The Writing on the Wall, Preaching Today.com) The truth may not be what we want to hear.

First of all, then, telling the truth is not always easy. Telling someone that they are going to die is not easy but it is the truth. We are all going to die. How then are we going to live?

Second, and this is perhaps the more salient point. We tell the truth because we belong to a community. As Paul puts, we are all members of one another. We owe it to each other. The sense of common obligation is what is missing in our America today.

When Bloomberg spoke to those college graduates he pointed out that the honor code every Rice student signed was historic at Rice. The words honor and honesty come from the Latin word honestus which can mean either. We have honor codes because we believe that the academic community is worth our living up to certain standards, honesty being one of them. We have an obligation to each other to tell the truth.

I don’t know how it has happened but it seems to me our country has given way to what Buechner described as escapism from reality, to the squirrel-cage of being me rather the landscape of being us. Maybe that is why they tell us churches are dying…because we stand for the idea that community is stronger than individualism, that truth is more valuable than self-advancement, that kindness and forgiveness, and respect are more valuable than winning.

This past week Roseanne Barr used untrue racial epitaphs to describe Valarie Jarret. The comedienne, Samantha Bee, trashed Ivanka Trump. We are separating children from their parents at our borders. This morning I arrived at church and someone had simply dumped their trash in front of our driveway. We are, it seems, in the squirrel cage of being me.

I don’t know how we got this way and I don’t have all that many solutions. But, at the age of 68, I still have faith in the church as viable, prophetic alternative. On Wednesday night, we welcomed our neighborhood to a party. We served hot dogs, we played games and music, we shared each other’s stories and prayers. The block party was all about community. It was all about communion. It was all about the landscape of being us.

The String Around Your Finger
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
John 14:18-34 – May 27, 2018

As you can imagine, this leave-taking is a nostalgic time for me and I find myself doing a lot of remembering. In fact, most of the sermon on June 10^th will be about things I remember, things they did not teach us in seminary. As it is Memorial Day, it seems appropriate to think about remembering. I’ve always been ambivalent, as you know, about acknowledging civil holidays in worship. However, since there seems to be so much collective amnesia in our country today, Memorial Day takes on an added importance.

After all, the idea of commemorating, of memorializing our experiences is a very Biblical idea. Simply put, God wants us to remember. And if it were not enough that God wants us to remember, we should point out that there are dire consequences for forgetting what God wants us to remember. It could be argued that Eve simply forgot God’s instructions about what to eat and what not to eat and it did not go well. God tells Jacob to make an altar in Bethel so that he would remember how God was with him when he ran away from his brother Esau. When the Israelites escaped slavery in Egypt, God instructed them to keep the Passover as a remembrance of their time of slavery and how God delivered them. One of the ten commandments is that we should “remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy”. (Ex.20:8) When the Israelites forgot the ten commandments, when they built that golden calf, God is not pleased. God tells Moses to go down there and remind those people who it was who brought them out of Egypt. God wants to wipe them out.

The disciples, we know, were a forgetful lot. Peter, the rock on whom Jesus says the church will be built, had a case of amnesia when asked if he knew Jesus on that night before his crucifixion. You wonder if Jesus knew all about our case of collective amnesia. In John’s Gospel, before he is arrested, Jesus gives his friends a long goodbye speech in which he tells them that if they love him, they will keep his commandments. In other words, it they love him, they will remember what he taught them. And, Jesus says, I am not going to leave you orphaned. I am going to send an advocate, the Spirit, who will “remind” you of everything I have taught you. It is almost as if Jesus knows they are going to forget so he is going to send the Holy Spirit to remind them to get off their duffs and get busy. I hadn’t thought about the Holy Spirit that way – as sent to us so we would remember.

The fact is, we are a forgetful people. We are like the elderly couple who worry that they are losing their memories. On one of their doctor’s visits the couple asks the doctor what they can do. The doctor suggests that, perhaps, it would help if they wrote themselves notes to remember. One night the couple is watching TV and the husband says he’s going to the kitchen – can he get his wife anything? Sure, she says, can you get me a bowl of ice cream? Glad to. Don’t forget, will you? I won’t forget. Do you need to write it down? No. I will remember. Oh, and if there are any strawberries left, can you put some on top? Sure. Don’t forget. Shall I write it down? I won’t forget. Oh and maybe some whipped cream. OK. Don’t forget. I won’t forget. Ice cream. Strawberries. And whipped cream. Don’t forget. The  husband disappears into the kitchen and is gone for a suspiciously long time. When he comes back he is carrying a plate of bacon and eggs. When he sets it down in front of his wife, she asks, “Did you forget the toast?”

When I hear a lot of the debate these days over supposedly Christian teachings, I wonder if people have forgotten what Jesus actually taught. Of course, it is possible people don’t know what Jesus said in the first place! I think it is more likely that people have simply chosen what to remember and what to forget. A group of prominent faith leaders have composed a document entitled: “Reclaiming Jesus: A Confession of Faith in a Time of Crisis”.   The statement is a list of affirmations that remind us of who Jesus is and what Jesus taught. For example; “We believe how we treat the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the sick, and the prisoner is how we treat Christ himself.” In other words, do we remember how Jesus said: Blessed are the poor –they will inherit the earth?

“We believe that truth is morally central to our personal and public lives”. In other words, do we remember how Jesus said, You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32) More on that next week.

“We believe that Christ’s way of leadership is servanthood, not domination. We support democracy, not because we believe in human perfection, but because we do not.” In other words, do we remember how Jesus said, “He who must be first of all must first be a servant of all”

One more: “We believe Jesus when he tells us to go into all nations making disciples. Our churches and our nations are part of an international community whose interests always surpass national boundaries. We in turn should love and serve the world and all its inhabitants rather than to see first narrow nationalistic prerogatives.” In other words, do we remember how Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember (remember), I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  (Matt.28:19-20) By the way, the entire statement is posted on our Facebook page and copies of it are in the narthex.

We are a forgetful people. I believe we need Memorial Days…not to have a day off with hot dogs and hamburgers. In fact, maybe Memorial Day should be in church. Maybe we need a time in which to collectively remember those who died in service to our country and why. As South Korea and North Korea are so much in the news today, do we even know who so many lives were lost in the Korean War? 5.7 million – most of them Korean. Do we know why? Our former custodian, John Ward, fought in the Korean War and I remember his disappointment that his country did not seem to remember that war. In fact, the potential for a summit to resolve the nuclear weapon issue reminds us that the Korean War is not really over. An armistice was signed in 1953 which ended active fighting. If there ever is a summit, perhaps there could be a formal end to the war.

We were talking about the passage for this morning in our Bible Study last week and one of the African American members in our group said that she is appalled that the younger generation of African American youth do not want to remember the Jim Crow laws in this country, not to mention the lynchings that occurred during that time in our history. It doesn’t affect them – or so they think.

As Christians, as believers we have an obligation to remember. God requires us to remember.

I came across recently the observations of a Rabbi who addresses our shared propensity for forgetting. What can we do, he asks? What can we do to be more mindful people? The first suggestion he has for us comes from the Jewish tradition of wearing fringes, a tradition that originates in the book of Numbers: “The Lord said to Moses: ‘Speak to the Israelites, and tell them to makes fringes on the corners of their garments throughout their generations and to put a blue cord on the fringe at each corner. You have the fringe so that, when you see it, you will remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them….” (15:37-39). I suppose wearing blue fringes is sort of like tying a string around your fingers – wearing something that reminds you to remember.

Another suggestion Rabbi Markus offers as a help for remembering is to remember together. Being together helps us remember. (A String Around Your Finger, David Markus, My Jewish Learning, June 11, 2015)

I will be going to a family reunion this summer. Whenever my cousins and my siblings are together we share our memories of growing up and it is always stunning to me that we don’t remember the same things and the things we do remember we remember differently!

Faith Church is a memory bank. Some people remember things others don’t. Some people remember things one way, some another. Somehow when we all get together the truth about the past comes alive.

On this Memorial Day, I suggest we tie a blue string around our finger so that we remember…those who died so that we could be free and, most of all, the one who said; If you love me you will remember what I taught you.”

A Sheep of Your Own Fold
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
Psalm 23 – April 22, 2018

Psalm 23 is the most requested scripture at a funeral and I am always impressed when I look out at a congregation so diverse, a congregation that includes Christians and non-Christians, young and old, people from different nationalities and I see that they all , all of them, are saying together the 23^rd Psalm. Why, do we think, the 23^rd Psalm is so beloved? After all, its images are archaic.  Shepherds, green pastures and still waters are surely becoming things of the past. Anointing a head with oil – who does that? A rod and a staff that comfort me  – who knows what a rod and a staff are?

I find myself this week thinking about death. The poet wrote that

“April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.” (T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland)

Perhaps it is because it is April that I think about death. It should be Easter, after all. It should be about life and new life.

Sometimes, though, the world is too much with us here and now, as another poet put it and one feels overwhelmed by the front page of the paper with its pictures of fathers carrying their gassed children in their arms, like a shepherd would carry a sheep. Yes, like a shepherd would carry a sheep. Then there was the picture of the patch of burnt grass where a man had immolated himself because of what we are doing to the earth. One day there was a picture of the whale that washed up on a beach, dead, with its stomach full of plastic bags. We read this week about the sewage runoff into the Jones Falls caused by so much rain. Sometimes, the anguish over who we are is just so acute. Who are we? Who are we that human beings are sprayed with chlorine? Who are we that we treat the earth as if it were dispensable? Who are we that convenience is more valuable than a whale?

I heard on the radio this week someone talking about the German word “fernweh” which means, literally, distance sickness. For some people fernweh is the image of a beloved place, like the wide meadows of Scotland. For some, though, fernweh is a longing for a place you’ve never been, a homesickness for other places. I wonder if the allure of the 23^rd Psalm is that it summons up for us a longing for a place where there are even now still waters, and green pastures, a place where we are safe. Perhaps Psalm 23 is a fernweh.

The Lord is my shepherd. Even though, for Americans, shepherds are a quaint memory, in many parts of the world sheepherding is still practiced in the same way it always has been. In the middle of the Sahara in Morocco, I saw shepherds herding their flocks with nothing but a stick. I wondered what on earth those sheep were finding to eat in all that sand. We know that the psalmist may very well have had another image of shepherd in mind. In the ancient Middle East, kings were depicted as shepherds. Imagine that! The president of the United States depicted as a shepherd carrying a little helpless lamb! Jesus described himself as the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. The earliest depictions of Jesus on catacomb walls are images of a shepherd carrying a lamb. Can we imagine, then, this place where we are safely protected by a shepherd who has only our best interests at heart? In the shepherd’s care, we will not want for anything?

He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. We imagine, in our fernweh, a world in which the green land and the water are pure and undefiled. We won’t have to worry about chemical contamination of our water supply or what pipelines will do to the land or that our natural treasures are being sold off to oil companies or that our food comes from animals who feed on polluted land…in our fernweh.

There is a shift in the grammar of Psalm 23 in verse 4 and God is no longer referred to as other. In verse 1 we read: The Lord is my shepherd. But in verse 4 we read: I fear no evil for you are with me; your rod and your staff – they comfort me. Some have suggested that the psalmist’s true faith is communicated when God becomes close and personal: You are with me. Your rod and your staff comfort me. What is interesting is that this shift in God-language comes precisely when we move away from the idyllic fernweh garden and find ourselves in the darkest of valleys in the presence of enemies.

Perhaps, then, the reason we find Psalm 23 so important is that it does not suggest that we always live in fernweh, that pure land that is undefiled. Rather, the psalmist admits that there are dark valleys, there is abuse, and there is evil and there are enemies. It is precisely when we live in the real world, not in that mythical land of pure water and abundant green, it is precisely when we face the worst that human kind can do that God becomes “you” and is personal and close and real.

It is precisely at that moment when a loved one dies and our world is torn apart and our hearts are broken and we are in the darkest valley that God is close: You are with me. Your rod and your staff they comfort me.

I admit it. Even though the sun is out and the red bud outside my window is in bloom, I am thinking about death this week.  It is the anniversary of my husband’s death, for one thing. I had forgotten that Barbara Bush lost a child, Robin, and I am imagining what that must have been like. Former parishioners of mine lost their only child to cancer this past week. She was young, in her twenties, and engaged to be married. I don’t know what words were and will be said at their funerals. Perhaps they will read the 23^rd Psalm and they will be comforted by the imagination of a green place with pure water where there will be a shepherd that watches over them. Or perhaps they will recognize the darkest valley. Perhaps they will be comforted by the psalmist’s description of the enemies we all face. Yet even in the presence of life’s opponents, even there God prepares a table for us and feeds us and anoints us with warm oil, bestowing on us affirmation and more than affirmation. In our sorrow and pain, God will confer on us a confidence in our ability to go on. That is what the anointing with oil means.

When we read the words, those personal words, about how “you” are with us, will we recognize that, for us, God is as near as our breathing in and breathing out and will we realize how strong our faith actually is…so strong that we know surely God intends goodness for us all the days or our lives?

I’ve said the 23^rd Psalm a gazillion times and only just now thought about that change in grammar in the 4^th verse. Even though we may not have thought about it, I wonder if that is why the psalm is so beloved. It describes the kind of faith we want to have and the kind of God we want to have.

I do not know if they will recite the 23^rd Psalm at these funerals. No matter what is read at a funeral, I always end the service with the commendation in which we commend the deceased’s life to God and I always use one particular wording:

Into your hands, O merciful Savior,
we commend your servant,
a sheep of your own fold,
a lamb of your own flock,
a sinner of your own redeeming.
Receive her into the arms of your mercy,
into the blessed rest of everlasting peace,
and into the glorious company of the saints of light.

In this April time when the world seems oddly cruel and exquisitely beautiful, when we face what damage we’ve done to the earth and to ourselves and we find ourselves in dark valleys surrounded by any number of enemies, may we recognize the shepherd who calls to us across the field, who sets an abundant table no matter where we are, and who, in the end, carries us home.

Breaking and Entering
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
John 20:19-31 – April 8, 2018

Well. Here we are. It is the Sunday after Easter. We are still waiting for Spring. It is a bit of a let down, isn’t it? After all, last Sunday the church was full, we had the sound of soaring brass, children filled the garden with their laughter as they hunted for eggs. Now we are back to reality. It is fifty years after Dr. King’s murder and we are still battling racism and war mongering. It is the Sunday after Easter and we are back to the time being. Like the poet wrote:

But for the time being, here we all are,

Back in the Aristotelian city

Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid’s geometry

And Newton’s mechanics would account for our experience,

And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.

It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets

Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten

The office was as depressing as this. (Auden, For The Time Being).

At least we aren’t alone in our post-Easter malaise. I am thinking the disciples must have felt the same way. There they were holed up in a room with locked doors because they were afraid. John says they were afraid of the Jews but we know now that John had reason to write his version of things. He had an agenda. There was tension between Jews and Christ-followers when John wrote his gospel at the end of the first century. In the time since Jesus’ death, there was increasing friction between his followers and Jews. John wants tell a story that will bring people to faith in Jesus.  \He has an anti-Jewish bias which we need to hear for what it is when we read his gospel. \ The most important thing about this description is that the disciples were afraid. \ Perhaps they were afraid of what the Romans would do since Jesus’ body had gone missing. Perhaps they were afraid of being accused of having taken his body. Perhaps they were afraid of what the empty tomb meant. I am thinking the disciples could have been just like us: we don’t always know what to make of the resurrection. Things hadn’t turned out like they thought they would. They responded to the reports from the women who had been to the tomb with disbelief. It was an “idle tale” (Luke 24:11). They didn’t believe them. Perhaps they were expecting a different result. Perhaps they were disillusioned. The man they had expected to lead them into a triumph over Roman oppression had been brutally executed. It was over.

So. There they were – huddled together in a locked room because they were afraid. It is evening of Easter Day.

Suddenly Jesus is there. He stands among them and says “Peace be with you.” Then he shows them his wounds. The disciples jump up and rejoice…when they see his wounds. Jesus says again “Peace be with you.” Then he breathes on them. He tells them to receive the Holy Spirit. And, he tells them if they forgive someone they will be forgiven but if they do not forgive there will be no forgiveness.

The disciples had a secret room where they thought no one could find them.

I just read a mystery in which a murder takes place in a room in a small town church that no one knew about. It was a root cellar with a secret entrance that had been created during prohibition when liquor was smuggled and hid in the church. The mystery caused me to wonder if our church has a secret room some place; if our church has secrets I don’t know about. After all, the church I served in Brooklyn had a mysterious undercroft where runaway slaves were hid during the Civil War. We used to take our kids down there on Halloween, which they loved.

Don’t you remember as children wanting to have a secret room? My grandchildren have discovered the space underneath my basement stairs where they love to explore. What was your secret room?

In his book The Art of Pilgrimage, Phil Cousineau shares the story of a couple who bought an old farmhouse:

“It was a ‘warren of small rooms,’ and once they settled in and began to furnish their new home they realized that the lay of the house made little sense. ‘Peeling off some wallpaper, they found a door that they pried open to reveal a tiny room, sealed off and hidden, goodness knows why; they found no corpses nor stolen good.’ (The Painted Prayer Book, Jan Richardson Easter 2)

According to the author, every pilgrimage has a secret room. To discover that room, we must peel off the wall paper, knock on walls, jiggle the floorboards. We have to find our own secret room or we will never understand the hidden reasons why we left home for the pilgrimage in the first place.

The disciples had been on a pilgrimage. They left their homes and walked with this man they barely knew all around the country. They listened as he preached. They saw him heal people. They ate with him. They were afraid for him. They had been transformed from simple fishermen into those who had the power…to heal and to forgive in Jesus’ name. And, now they were in their secret room…afraid and confused and sad.

Somehow, Jesus gets in. Jesus breaks into even the most secret of our rooms. Once he is there, what does Jesus do? He offers us peace. He breathes his spirit on us and into us. He invites us to touch his wounds thereby touching our own. And he gives us permission to forgive.

My own personal journey is about to take a different turn and I do not know what it will be like. I do not know what to expect. I’ve had all sorts of advice. Someone just this week looked me straight in the eye and said, “Well I hope you have a plan!” Do I have a plan? Probably not in the way the inquirer thought I should. I mean it occurred to me as I mailed my taxes that I should figure out how my income tax report will change. Did Jesus have a plan? I am figuring the disciples didn’t have much of a plan or else they wouldn’t have been holed up in that secret room.

I think sometimes that Jesus showed up after the crucifixion precisely because the disciples didn’t have a plan and they were forgetting what Jesus told them should be the plan. They were paralyzed by grief and by wounds – both Jesus’ and theirs. Jesus shows up in order to get us to move on.

We know that we, too, need to move on in our pilgrimage. People like to tell us that as if it were so simple: Just move on. It seems to me that Jesus was ahead of his time. Psychologists tell us that in order to move on we first have to look at the wounds of our lives – honestly. And, don’t just look at them. Put your fingers in the holes – touch them. Own them. Secondly, forgive whatever needs to be forgiven – the one who made the wounds…ourselves, most especially ourselves.

In order to receive the peace that Jesus offers, deal with the wounds and forgive.

The poet, Ann Weems, wrote a book of poems called Psalms of Lament. Her son, Todd, died in a motorcycle accident the day after his 21^st birthday and, as she put it, and “still I weep” (p.xv). As a way of coping with her wounds, touching her wounds you might say, Weems was encouraged to write her own version of those psalms the ancestors in our faith wrote to express anguish and sorrow and anger.

Weems concludes one of those psalms this way:

Consider my weeping,

O Holy One,

be tenderhearted

when you speak to me.

Handle my bruised heart

with gentleness,

for without you,

I am nothing.

O God, you speak

and the sky is alive

with music!

Your hand reaches out

and colors the world

with a touch!

My soul is a rainbow!

My sobbing bursts

into song!

My God is here! (p.16-17)

Isn’t that what happens in that locked room? Somehow God breaks and enters in. God’s hand reaches out and colors the world with a touch. And, all our sobbing bursts into song!

The Last Laugh
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
John 19:1-16 – Easter April 1, 2018

One of our most esteemed Protestant theologians, the German Jurgen Moltmann, believed that at Easter we should hear the “laughing of the redeemed, the dancing of the liberated. Even in the days of Protestant orthodoxy”, he said, “Easter sermons used to begin with a joke.”

I don’t know about you, but I have never imagined German sermons beginning with a joke! However, as it is April Fools Day, I am going to begin this Easter sermon with a joke…or two.

A preacher said to a farmer, “Do you belong to the Christian family?”

“No,” he said, “they live two farms down.”

“No, I mean, are you lost?”

“No, I’ve been here thirty years!”

“I mean, are you ready for Judgement Day?”

“When is it?”

“Could be today or tomorrow.”

“Well, when you find out for sure when it is, you let me know. My wife will probably want to go both days!”

A minister decided that a visual demonstration would add emphasis to his Sunday sermon. Four worms were placed in separate jars. The first worm was put into a container of whiskey.  The second worm was put into a container of cigarette smoke. The third worm was put into a container of chocolate syrup. The fourth worm was put into a container of good, clean soil. At the conclusion of the sermon, the minister reported the following results:

The first worm in whiskey – dead.

The second worm in cigarette smoke – dead.

The third worm in chocolate syrup – dead.

The fourth worm in good, clean soil – alive.

So, the minister asked the congregation: What can you learn from this demonstration?

Maxine, who was sitting in the back of the church, quickly raised her hand and said: “As long as you drink, smoke, and eat chocolate, you won’t have worms!”

That pretty much ended the service.

Finally, since it is Easter, I thought I’d throw one in about a rabbit.

A man is driving along a highway and sees a rabbit jump out across the middle of the road. He swerves to avoid hitting it, but unfortunately the rabbit jumps right in front of the car. The driver, a sensitive man as well as an animal lover, pulls over and gets out to see what has become of the rabbit. Much to his dismay, the rabbit is dead. He feels so awful; he begins to cry.

A beautiful, blonde woman just happened to be driving down the highway when she sees the man crying on the side of the road and pulls over. She gets out of her car and asks the man what’s wrong.

“I feel terrible”, he explains, “I accidentally hit this rabbit and killed it.”

The blonde says, “Don’t worry.”  She runs to her car and pulls out a spray can.

She walks over to the limp, dead rabbit, bends over, and sprays the contents of the spray can on the rabbit. The rabbit jumps up, waves its paw at the two of them and hops off down the road. Ten feet away, the rabbit stops, turns around and waves again. He hops down the road another ten feet, turns and waves and repeats this again and again and again until he hops out of sight. The man is amazed. He runs over to the woman and demands to know what was in that can. What did you spray on that rabbit? The woman turns around so that the man can read the label.

It says “Hair Spray – Restores life to dead hair, adds permanent wave.”

My first title for this sermon was simply going to be “April Fools” but when I told people about it, some of them were incredulous. You aren’t really going to do that are you? We are such a serious bunch, aren’t we? Do people really not get it that the joke is on us?  God’s joke is on us…and the whole story of our faith is full of laughable examples of God’s joke. God always has the last laugh.

Think about that for a moment. Adam and Eve…a talking serpent, walking around naked, sewing on fig leaves? Eve saying the serpent made me do it. Abraham hearing God tell him to drop everything and go – somewhere – just go. Sarah- she is eavesdropping when she hears that age 90 she is going to get pregnant? She laughs! Can you imagine Sarah going to her doctor and telling her doctor that she thinks she is pregnant! Take Noah.  God tells him to build and ark. An Ark! God says to build it because there is going to be a lot of rain. Not only that, but Noah has to collect two animals of each species and keep them on the ark. Really?

Psalm 2 tells us that He who sits in the heavens laughs…happy are those who take refuge in him.

Jesus said: Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. (6:21)

And on this April Fools Day, I am reminded of the Apostle Paul’s advice to the church in Corinth. See, the problem with the folk in Corinth is that they took themselves way too seriously. Paul tells the church that they should remember that God chooses what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. Paul urges us to be fools for Christ!

Why are we here today? We love the music. We love to get dressed up. Our mother made us come. We love the egg hunt.  Speaking of which – some of my colleagues think that an egg hunt or having the Easter bunny appear is a mockery of Easter, somehow trivializing the solemnity of the resurrection story. Well, what is the story?

Jesus has been brutally executed. Jesus was no match for all the power of the state. They made fun of him. They taunted and tortured him and there he hung for the world to see vulnerable, all too human on the cross. In John’s version, Jesus is visibly dead and there is no need to speed up his execution. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wrap Jesus’ body in white cloths and bury him in a garden tomb. That is it. We get that story. The story of Jesus’ death makes sense. That is, after all, how the world works, isn’t it?  Those who make claims that make people uncomfortable end up is a court, they pay the price. That is the way the world works. Might wins.

But, that is not how the story ends! Today, we tell the rest of the story. The Roman government does not get the last word. Those who were out to get Jesus do not get the last word.

Early in the morning, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb. Someone has moved the stone! She runs and gets Simon Peter and another disciple and they run to see for themselves. Sure enough, the tomb is empty.

Meanwhile, Mary is outside crying when she turns around sees this man who she thinks is the gardener. You can almost hear her: “If you took my Jesus, you better tell me where you put him!” When Jesus says, “Mary”, she knows who the man is. Jesus tells her not to hold onto him because he hasn’t yet ascended to be with his Father. Just go and tell the others, he says. So, Mary Magdalene goes and announces to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, and she tells them that Jesus has said these things to her. Mary Magdalene, a woman, a woman from a town that no one counts as much, in John’s version, is the first Easter preacher! God has a sense of humor, don’t you think? The last laugh is God’s. God shows up the Roman Empire, God shows up all those who think they know who Jesus is, all those who think they can keep Jesus where they want him. God shows up all those who say that the dead can’t rise – it just makes no sense. It is not explainable. It is not scientific. God has the last laugh.

William Willimon tells the story about a time when he was the Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. One spring, a reporter from the student news paper called him and told him that he was doing a story about things that were going on around campus that spring. He asked, “Now, over at the chapel, what would you say is the goal of Easter?

“The goal of Easter?” Willimon asked.

“Yes. What is the point, the purpose? Why do you do it?”

Willimon said, “Well, we just do. Easter is just, well, it’s just Easter. We just celebrate it.” Whereupon Willimon said he could just see the headlines the next day: “Dean of Chapel Says Easter Is Pointless.”

If we are practical, serious, rational people…a lot of Easter may be just that…pointless. But, if we have a sense of humor, if we are willing to be fools for Christ, perhaps we will celebrate Easter for “the sheer fun of it”. Willimon argues that is perhaps the point after all. We Christians…just do it for the seer fun of it. (The Last Laugh, p.16)

Orientation
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
Psalm 24 – Palm Sunday, March 25, 2018

Snow in late March? Who can believe it? Our first daffodils and hyacinths, those harbingers of Spring, have been shocked by frozen whiteness. We don’t expect snow this late in the year. The snow is disorienting, is it not? We may very well wonder if there is not some change afoot in our reality. We are disorientated.

Of course, there is much in our world besides snow in March that makes us wonder about our grounding, our relationship to the order of things. We march in Washington because our children are being shot in their schools. We worry about climate change and rising seas and, well, snow in late March. We don’t know from one day to the next what changes there will be in Washington, or who our friends are in the world, or whether what we read on public media is, in fact, orchestrated by a foreign government. We feel disorientated.

It seems to me that the mood in Jerusalem that day when Jesus arrived on a donkey was one of disorientation. People were anxious. Their country was under foreign occupation. There was a large military presence during Passover to keep the order. Religious leaders were trying to figure out how to hang on to their authority. Then, Jesus arrives on a donkey, the symbol of humility. People were waving their leafy branches and shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord – the King of Israel!” But is Jesus…the king of Israel? This one who rides, not on a fancy horse as you would expect of a king, but on a donkey…is he the Messiah? What will the authorities do to someone who claims to be king? What will the authorities do to us who proclaim him king? Who is this man who said that he came “not to bring peace to the earth” but, in fact, disorientation. (Matt. 10:34). Who is this man who said that we are not going to be able to know the day or the hour of his coming? We just have to keep watch in the midst of so much…disorientation. Who is this man who says we may not be able to read the signs; we will be disorientated?

Indeed, who is this man who ends up on a cross and the earth turns dark and the curtains of the temple are torn in two, and the earth shook, and the graves were opened? This man who brings disorientation, who shakes the world up – is he the Son of God?

Or perhaps the better question is: What does it mean to believe in a man who came, not to keep the status quo, who didn’t tell us just to wait it out, keep safe in our beds, everything is going to be OK? No. what does it mean to believe in a man who literally shakes everything up?

One of the things about travel is that it is basically a disorientating experience. You don’t speak the language. You have trouble reading the map. You find yourself in crowded, twisting souks fearful that you will lose your way. We were out in the seemingly endless expanse of desert in Morocco and there seemed to be that brick red sand for as far as the eye can see. How do you know where you are the desert? We passed piles of stones on the roads, here and there were piles of stones. What are those I asked? Our guide replied that they were markers to help you know where you were.

We visited ruins built by the Romans in yet another occupied land. The Romans were very good at making one feel orientated even in a far away place. Their forums and roads and market places and basilicas were always laid out in the same way so that if you were a Roman soldier in retirement in a distant land far from where you grew up you would always know your way around. You would always be orientated.

It seems to me that one way to read our story of faith is to see it basically as a story about being disorientated. Adam and Eve, after all, got uprooted from their garden and had to make their way in a place they did not know. The Israelites got exiled more than once in foreign lands where they didn’t speak the language, didn’t worship the same gods, didn’t have the same food. Then they wandered in the wilderness for years looking for home. Jesus’ family had to flee their home because of danger, ending up in a strange land. Disorientated. And, then, when Jesus discovers in the wilderness, what God is calling him to do – it is not all sweetness and life that he is to preach. No. Jesus has to tell folks that their world is being turned upside down. The old assumptions will not hold. God is going to trouble the waters. Yes. God is going to trouble the waters!

All of this disorientation frames the scene when Jesus rides into Jerusalem that day; when Jesus comes to die.

Walter Brueggemann’s classic book on the psalms points out that there are basically three types of psalms: psalms of orientation, psalms of disorientation and psalms of new orientation. In other words, some psalms are meant to describe seasons of blessings, seasons in which we are well-situated and grateful. Some psalms are intended to describe seasons in which we know despair, hurt, disappointment, and even hatred. Finally, some psalms are meant to express great joy at having been delivered from darkness into light and the realization that we have a new reality, a new orientation.  (The Message of the Psalms, p.19)

The psalm we read this morning is a psalm of orientation. Life is understandable in Psalm 24: “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it…”. God can be understood. Those who have clean hands and pure hearts will be able to climb the hill of God. The world is orderly. If you live right, follow the rules, those who do not swear deceitfully, those who do not follow after that which is false will receive blessing.

Why then do we hear this psalm on Palm Sunday when Jesus comes to mess up the order of things? Why do we hear this psalm when our world is such disaster? Why do we hear this psalm of orientation just as we are about to be radically disorientated? Shouldn’t we have one of those psalms that cry out “How long are you going to forget me, God?” or the psalm that begs God to save us from our tormentors, those who are out to get us, or the one about how the temple has been violated, or the psalm that specifically describes the disorientation of being in Babylon: “By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion” (Psalm 137)? Shouldn’t we have one of those psalms on Palm Sunday when Jesus comes to die?

Maybe, just maybe, one of the most radical things we can do when we are disorientated is to announce to the world what it is we believe. This earth we inhabit is not ours to do with what we please. It belongs to God. It does not belong to any political empire whether it is the Romans or the Americans. The earth belongs to God. Despite the massive array of armed might in Jerusalem that day, this is not who is in charge. God is the one who is in charge!

Who gets to stand in God’s holy place? Not those with titles or money or power. The ones who get to stand in God’s holy place are those with pure hearts, those who tell the truth. They are the ones who will be blessed.

If you are in a jail cell, if you are in mourning, if you are afraid and feel powerless, indeed, if you see Jesus coming into town and you know, you know, things are not going to end well, maybe just maybe you will remember Psalm 24 and you will say in the midst of your disorientation that this is not forever. God is doing something even in this mess. And you will lift your head up. You will lift up your gates and open the doors to your heart because the one who looks so humble, the one who the world will scorn, is the king of glory. Let him in! Lift up your heads, oppressed as you are by so many things. Lift up your heads! Let the king of glory in!

 

The Blessing of the Light
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
John 8:12-20 – 25 February 2018

 

“I am the light of the world”.

During the Feast of the Tabernacles, Jesus is again in the temple. The Feast of the Tabernacles, also known as the Festival of Booths or Sukkoth is one of three pilgrimage feasts and the faithful are encouraged to go to Jerusalem to celebrate the harvest. Farmers and their families have been working around the clock to finish the harvest. They’ve constructed shelters out by the fields so that they can sleep close to their work. Part of the festival is about water, water being vital to the success of crops. Jesus has already announced that anyone who is thirsty should come to him and that out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water (7:37-38).

When night falls, four huge candelabras are lit in the temple, casting light beyond the temple walls out into the darkened city. The candelabras remind the faithful of their ancestors’ time in the wilderness where they were led by a pillar of fire.

Like water, light is essential to the success of the harvest. Light is the first thing God made. Light is essential to life. Weren’t we all outside on Wednesday just soaking up the warm sun – getting our therapeutic dose of vitamin D?

It is in the context of the temple at the Feast of the Tabernacles that Jesus announces that he is the light of the world…summoning memories of how God provided light in the wilderness darkness. Jesus is the light of the world in the current darkness. It is, we think, six months before Jesus’ death when the world would be covered in darkness as Jesus hung on the cross. Jesus is the light of the world in our current darkness – a world in which children are crucified in Florida and Syria, a world in which there is so much suffering and pain.

What does Jesus mean when he says he is the light of the world?  Does he mean that he is the source of understanding, as in to shed a light on something? Does he mean that he will be the one to lead us out of darkness, whatever that darkness represents (oppression, depression, hopelessness, etc)? Does he mean that he will be the one to deliver Israel from its occupiers? Does he mean that he will be the one to expose the corruption and misdeeds of those who have power? Does he mean that in him God is revealed? According to Bruce Chilton, who argues that Jesus was a rabbi in the mystical tradition of the Kabbalah, when Jesus says he is the light of the world he sees his “own practice of purity and healing illuminating Israel, and Israel as God’s light among the nations”. (Rabbi Jesus, pg.122.) With the exception of the idea that Jesus sees himself as a political liberator, all of these interpretations make sense to me. At any given time, we may prefer one or the other.

However, the more challenging part of this passage may be that Jesus continues: “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life”.

Uh oh – is he talking about us? Is he saying that if we believe in him we will be the light…of life? If we believe in him, we will never walk in darkness? Is he talking about us?

Martin Luther King wrote a sermon on the parable Jesus tells about being in bed in the middle of the night and hearing a knock at the door. Even though the owner of the house tells the visitor to go away, the knocker persists. Jesus’ point is that we should be persistent in prayer. However, King points out the obvious – it is midnight in our world. Recent events in our country have prompted us to question just how far we’ve progressed on that arc King referred to – the one that bends towards justice. We still have racism. We still have super powers who don’t trust each other and who have atomic weapons. We still have extreme poverty that lays waste and we still have war.

In addition, King points out that it is midnight inside us. He wrote: “Everywhere paralyzing fears of anxiety and depression are suspended in our mental skies. More people are emotionally disturbed today than at any other time of human history.” “The popular clergyman preaches soothing sermons on ‘How to be Happy’ and ‘How to Relax.’ Some have been tempted to revise Jesus’ command to read, and, lo, I will make you a well-adjusted personality.’ All of this is indicative that it is midnight within the inner lives of men and women”. (Strength too Love, p.57) In other words, it is not morning in America. It is midnight in America.

As King points out, the visitor who knocks at midnight is asking for bread. Maybe the visitor who knocks on our doors, the doors of our church, the doors of our homes is looking for light.

If that is the case, what do we give them?

In your bulletins today is Jan Richardson’s Blessing Are You Who Bear the Light. That’s us.

Blessed are you
who bear the light
in unbearable times,
who testify to its endurance
amid the unendurable,
who bear witness to its persistence when everything seems
in shadow
and grief.

In other words, blessed are you who bear the light when it is midnight in America.

During my sabbatical, I was in India on New Year’s Eve. We were outside on a large lawn and there was entertainment and it was dark – so dark one had to be careful where one walked. At one point, women processed to the stage wearing their brightly colored saris and carrying bowls of fire on their heads. It was magical and slightly scary. None the less, that is the image that came to me this week – we are the ones who are to bear the light…like those women with bowls of fire on their heads!

Ms. Richardson, alas, does not tell us how we bear the light or what that looks like. So, I am just going to throw out some ideas. I like to think I got them from Jesus.

We learned on Friday night that Sondra’s daughter died after a horrific car accident. Now, we do not know Sondra very well. She is a friend of Mary’s who comes to Bible Study. She is the member of another church. However, the care, the concern, and the empathy that has been demonstrated by people at Bible Study are full of light. We cannot solve a lot of the world’s problems but we can be Christ to each other in our love for each other, especially in those times of sorrow and pain. Jesus took the time, even on the Sabbath, to heal a lame man and to give sight to a blind man. And we remember that when Jesus discovers his friend, Lazarus, has died, he cries. When Daniel Rich sang There is a Balm in Gilead on Friday night, I was thinking of Sondra and hoping for her some of that balm. We all need that balm. More importantly, we can all be that balm for each other. We can be light for each other, even if it seems what we do is small and seemingly insignificant.

When Jesus taught in the temple and elsewhere, he threw a light on some of the injustices of his time. When he told the story of the man lying in the ditch who was ignored by the privileged of his community only to be helped by a despised Samaritan, Jesus illuminated the calloused indifference of those who should know better, those with power.

So, we can bear light by taking a hard look at ourselves and our society. Who are we leaving in the ditch? Who are we ignoring?

One of the stories that is indelibly printed on my clergy brain is the young woman who told me that the reason she struggles with the church is because, when she was a teenager, her youth pastor sexually abused her in a dark room at the church. The clergy abuse, the sexual assaults, the racial mistreatment, all are done in the dark places of our neighborhoods –yes – our own neighborhoods! Have we, too, simply walked by without looking? To bear the light means paying attention to those who are lying in the ditch.

I do not want to suggest that bearing light is always a courageous or a serious obligation. Sometimes to bear the light means to simply smile. I was cheering on Maame Biney, the Olympic short track skater, in part, because of her infectious smile that just seemed to make the world a better place. She has prompted me to make smiling a Lenten practice. We shouldn’t underestimate a smile. Happy are those, sings the psalmist, who know the festal shout, who walk, O Lord, in the light of your countenance. (Psalm 89:15) Happy are those who…smile!

Blessed are you, writes Ms. Richarson,

in whom
the light lives,
in whom
the brightness blazes –
your heart
a chapel
an altar where
in the deepest night
can be seen
the fire that
shines forth in you
in unaccountable faith,
in love that illumines
every broken thing
it finds.

If we are going to have a heart that is a chapel, an altar where, even in the deepest night, even when it is midnight, there shines out of us a fire, love that illumines every broken thing, we need to be able to recharge our batteries. We need to put in a new light bulb. We need to stock up on kindling. What do you do that recharges your heart? Maybe music recharges our souls. It did Friday night. Maybe playing with your grandchildren recharges our souls –suspending reality and pretending you are a turtle. Maybe sheer silence recharges your soul. Maybe prayer recharges your soul. Maybe, as the poet writes, being in the presence of wild things recharges our souls:

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feed.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.  I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.  For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. (Wendell Berry, Collected poems, pg.69)

Blessed are you…who bear the light.