Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
March 28, 2021

The Parade
Mark 11:1-11

They are a high school student, just months away from the end of their senior year in high school.  They stand on stage alone at a podium, hair buzzed short, buttons and patches covering their green jacket, facing a sea of people: mostly other students, and teachers, and tens of thousands of others who came from across the country to fill the national mall and call for common sense gun reform.  Emma Gonzalez had already called BS on politicians and the gun lobby, just days after the horrific shooting at their school, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.  And for six minutes and 42 seconds on a chilly Saturday in March, they stood silent, in fury, and grief, bearing witness and honoring the memory of the 17 classmates who were killed.  The world was watching.  This was the March for Our Lives, a movement organized by Marjorie Stoneman Douglas students to demand change to our nation’s gun laws after the tragedy at their school.  And across the country, people young and old took to the streets.  In Birmingham, I remember a sea of bright blue filling the park, young, hopeful voices ringing out over the crowd, shouting “never again!” students and parents and teachers standing together to call for change.

That was three years ago.  In some ways, it feels like the world is totally different now.  The Trump tsunami has crashed and we’re picking up the pieces.  We live in an alternate universe created by pandemic protocols.  Everything has changed.  And yet nothing has changed.

Because in the last 10 days, shootings in Atlanta, and Boulder, and Virginia Beach and Baltimore have torn apart more families, more communities.  Women at work, kids at the grocery store, students on spring break, the threat of violence can lurk just about anywhere.

It must have felt that way in Jerusalem, too.  Rome was ruled by an iron fist, and Herod who oversaw Israel was notoriously brutal.  People lived close to the bone, eking out a living subsistence farming, or by plying their trade.  Life was hard, and death came early and often.  The people were waiting for, longing for, crying out for someone to come to their rescue – a messiah the prophets promised would overthrow Rome and re-establish the throne of David.  Someone who would rule with justice, mercy, and peace.

That’s why they were out in the streets that day, standing tiptoed in the dust, throwing branches in the road, trying to catch a glimpse of the man making his way into the city.  The air must have crackled with hope and excitement, the city filled with people gathered for Passover, ripe for an uprising.  The Roman army had been deployed there to keep the peace during the festival, in part because Passover commemorates the liberation of Israel from slavery in Egypt, and Rome didn’t want people to get any big ideas.  Tensions must have been high, even before Jesus entered the city like a general returning from war, with people waving branches and throwing their coats on the road in front of him.  Was he the messiah that had been promised, the one who would overthrow Rome once and for all and save them from oppression?

That’s why they shouted Hosannah, an old Aramaic word that means, SAVE US!  Or, Help us, we pray!

The crowds turned on Jesus pretty quickly when they realized he was not the kind of messiah they were hoping for.  He didn’t come to overthrow Rome or toss out the religious leaders.  His work was so much bigger than that.  He came to redeem all of creation.  He saves us not through military might or by political power – but by simply being with us, entering into our suffering, enduring the worst the world can offer right alongside us.  In the week ahead, we will remember how he confronts and unmasks the powers of sin and death, and shows us how to confront them courageously, with love.

Today, we remember and celebrate a march that looked pretty different from the March for Our Lives: on a dusty road leading down from the Mt. of Olives, a humble man on a donkey and a crowd of peasants make their way to Jerusalem.  It may not seem like it at first, but the student march and the joyful procession of Christ and his disciples have a lot in common.  Both represent a confrontation between the power of love and the powers that be; both demonstrate God’s work to subvert violence of this world through the work of peace.

Jesus had to know the conflict and terror that lay ahead for them, must have seen the threat of the cross in his future, but he doesn’t seem to be afraid.  He is the power of love walking, courageously undaunted by the power of Rome and the power of the religious leaders.

Some things have changed… some laws have been enacted to narrow eligibility for gun ownership; bump stocks that turn semi-automatic weapons even more deadly have been banned.  Background checks have been expanded, training required in a few places.  It’s still harder to buy Sudafed.  The March for Our Lives was the largest single-day demonstration to end gun violence in our nation’s history.  And the leaders took a road trip across the country registering young people to vote afterwards, registering over 50,000 new voters.

We live in interesting times.  Because I think we’ve seen something like this, too.  The power of love marching onward, standing up to the power of sin and domination. It could certainly be seen in the faces of the clergy and other activists in Charlottesville who stood up to the evil of white supremacy on that day.  We’ve seen it at protest marches.  At pride parades.  And every place people peacefully confront systems that dehumanize or dominate.  But the confrontation between powers is not always so overt.  We can glimpse it, just a glimmer, each time we choose peace instead of violence.  When we step back from an argument and choose instead to let it go.  When we choose to show grace and offer forgiveness.  When we respond with love to a person in need or in pain, who is confused or struggling.  When we stand up to the permeation of guns in our culture, and decide instead to be people who choose peace.

This week, I invite you to join us as we follow Jesus. We will see his love made real around a table with friends in the meal we will share on Thursday.  We will see his love even unto death, which we will remember on Friday.  The testimony of this holy week is that Jesus does whatever it takes to heal, to save, and to free us from the powers of sin and death.  Have courage, because even though the powers that be threaten to undo us, we have our faith.  We have our songs, and our love.  And we have each other.  Today we follow him into Jerusalem, celebrating the peace he offers and the hope we find in him, praying that his kingdom will come — a kingdom governed not by the sword but by love, not by violence but by peace.  A kingdom that transcends national boundaries because it resides within each one of us, and has the potential to transform all of creation.  May it be so.

 

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
March 21, 2021

Flour, Water, Yeast, Salt
John 12:20-33

A few years ago, I got to go to bread camp.  At the time, there was a baker with a tiny kitchen in a little town outside of Asheville, NC hosting workshops on sourdough breads, pizza, croissants, and pies – teaching the fundamentals of baking with natural leavening in a wood-fired oven[1].  It was an awesome experience, tucked in amongst the trees in the Blue Ridge mountains, with women from across the country learning the secrets and science of turning flour, water, yeast, and salt into lofty, airy loaves of bread.  The baker, Tara Jensen, taught me how to mix and shape the dough, using time and temperature like ingredients in the recipe, making a series of folds over several hours.  The folds transform flour and water from a slack, shaggy mess into a soft, elastic, pillowy mound.  We normally think about kneading bread, but this method is different.  Gentler, over a longer time.  Turning and stretching the dough, I learned, organizes the gluten strands into a framework strong enough to hold the air created when the bacteria in the leavening eat the starch and sugars in the flour… which causes the bread to rise – clearly I can geek out about this.

But bread is amazing!  Most loaves – round boules, long baguettes, batards, miches, country loaves, are all made with just four simple ingredients: flour, water, yeast, and salt.  Combine them in the right way, with time for water to hydrate the flour, the salt to dissolve, bacteria to grow and transform sugars to develop flavor and create rise, you get incredible results – something so different from the original ingredients you have to wonder if magic was involved.

Humans have been making bread for many thousands of years, it is central to many food cultures.  When our Jewish siblings observe Passover in a few weeks, they’ll break unleavened bread as a reminder of their ancestors’ flight from Egypt – who left in such haste they didn’t have time for the bread to rise.  It should not surprise us that two thousand years ago, Jesus chose bread -ubiquitous even then- to play a crucial role in our common table: a symbol for his body, broken out of love for us.  He tells us to eat and remember.  My favorite part of communion sometimes is what happens to the elements afterwards, when kids swarm the table at share pieces of the loaf to tide them over until lunch, laughing and scattering crumbs everywhere.

This isn’t a text about communion – Jesus is talking about transformation.  Still, I have to wonder if Jesus was thinking about bread when he described a grain of wheat falling to the ground and dying to bring forth a field of waving grains and, eventually, … a loaf.

Jesus surely was worried and wondering something all of us have wondered at some point, perhaps more of us than usual after the year we’ve had: what would happen to the disciples after he died?  Maybe he knew that after his crucifixion, his disciples would die a hundred other, smaller deaths – the death of their hopes, an end to their dreams of revolution, their ambition, and for a time, maybe even their vision for community and justice would die, too.  So he was seeding hope for what was to come, telling them the Christian story of living, dying, and rising again: a cycle of birth, death, and new life/renewal.  The disciples just didn’t understand it yet.  I wonder if we do, too.

The baker was really into varieties of fresh flour, and as we waited between folds, she taught us about different grains, showing us all the parts of a grain of wheat – a wheat berry.  The covering, the husk or the bran, is what’s stripped away to make white flour.  It’s also what has to be softened and broken down in order for the wheat berry to sprout and grow.  The central part, endosperm is the starchy powerhouse that fuels the seed as it sprouts, it’s what becomes flour as we think of it.  Then, the germ is what germinates the wheat sprouts.  Think of flour as fresh produce, she told us – it’s not a shelf-stable item, it’s alive, and best when freshly milled, and incredibly healthy for most people.

As one whole grain enthusiast said, “It can be easy to forget that the cereal grains we eat are actually dormant seeds, holding the potential for whole new plants within their walls. Just like the seeds you might plant for your garden, these grains are simply waiting for the right temperature and moisture to activate the growth process – waiting for the right conditions to sprout.”[2]

We have just survived the most challenging and difficult year in recent history.  A year in which we let go of one way of being and took up something different.  And we are poised right now on the threshold, as more and more people get vaccinated, looking toward a re-opening, re-connecting, in many ways a re-birth.  The past months have stripped away the rough protective husk, leaving us raw but possibly also ready for something new to grow, to sprout and bring forth new life.  It’s easy to see what is most important.

In our text this morning, some Greeks ask to see Jesus.  They ask Philip, who asks Andrew, then together they go to find Jesus.  The gospel of John is thick with symbolism to show that Jesus is the real presence of God among the people.  Layers of meaning mean almost everything points to something else.  Commentators say that by having Greeks come ask to see Jesus, John shows the future growth of the early church beyond the Jewish community.  Christ’s statement at the end of the passage – that when he is lifted up (ascends after the resurrection) he will draw all people to himself – foreshadows the growth of Christendom also.

This is the last time Jesus teaches publicly in the gospel of John before he is executed.  In these verses, he’s explaining what’s about to happen to him. It’s not clear if the Greeks ever do see Christ face to face.  They’ve heard he raised Lazarus from the dead, so they want to see him and see if they can believe him capable of such a feat.  But I don’t think they get to see him – the text makes it seem like Christ was talking with just Philip and Andrew.  The next time the Greeks might have a chance to see Jesus, it would be under very different circumstances – he’s not in public again in this gospel until his crucifixion.  If that’s all they see, I wonder what they believe about him.

While they may never get to see Jesus alive, they certainly see Philip and Andrew, and this is significant.  Philip and Andrew are among the first disciples Jesus calls – Jesus invites them to “come and see.”  Now, nearing the end of Christ’s life, others are asking if Philip and Andrew will help them see Jesus.  I think John is not just foreshadowing that the church will grow.  I think he’s telling us how the gospel will spread: disciples will help others see Jesus. How?  By being like him.  by following him.  By serving and loving others as he did.  By being like Christ, Philip and Andrew helped the Greeks — outsiders, newcomers– see Jesus.  And so can we.

I wonder, what is the alchemy that must happen within us, in our hearts, in our lives, to transform us into disciples?  What helps prepare us, and makes us ready to follow him through the agony of Gethsemene, to the pain of Calvary, into the silence of the tomb?  How do we help others see him, see God in us?  What is the bran, the hard outer coating, that must be stripped away or softened so that faith can sprout and take root within us?

The PCUSA is part of the reformed tradition – the branch of Christianity that grew from Martin Luther’s critique of Catholicism so long ago.  We talk about the church reformed, always being reformed: being and becoming the church is a process that has unfolded over centuries and is ongoing – as we adapt to changing circumstances, seeking to faithfully bear witness to the God of love and justice in every time and place.  In the same way, our discipleship is a lifelong process. In fact, maybe we are a little like bread: folded and re-folded, shaped and re-shaped over a long time, building up the inner structure so that we are able to uplift, to grow exponentially and resist collapsing in the heat of the oven.

And the oven is hot.  The fires of racism and white supremacy took more lives this week, eight people – six of whom were Asian American women – all with families, dreams, communities that relied on them.  How do we fold and re-fold, shape and re-shape our hearts and our communities so that they are upheld by structures strong enough to withstand the heat?  Strong enough to uplift instead of oppress, include rather than exclude, to protect and preserve life?

We want to see Jesus, the Greeks say.  The Jesus they see is one who meets hatred with love, who meets violence with peace, who meets brokenness with an embrace.  The Jesus they see is one who sees the sin of the world with compassion, and responds with grace.  One who reaches into the depths of death and again and again brings forth new life.  One who teaches us how to rise.

This work is hard.  This time has been difficult.  Sometimes it may feel like we are being stretched and folded far beyond our capacity, challenged to change more than we thought possible.  But the miracle of bread is that when the conditions are right, with time and patience, simple ingredients are transformed into something incredible.  So friends, like bread – let us rise!

[1] The baker is Tara Jensen; learn more about her, her workshops, and her cookbook (A Baker’s Year and another on sourdough soon to be published), at https://www.taraejensen.com or follow her on Instagram @bakerhands.

[2] https://wholegrainscouncil.org/whole-grains-101/whats-whole-grain-refined-grain/sprouted-whole-grains

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
March 7, 2021

Turning the Tables
John 2:13-25

 

Kelly Ingram Park covers two square city blocks in downtown Birmingham.  The park is crisscrossed with paved walkways, and there are various statues and fountains shaded by sprawling live oak trees.  It’s a pretty quiet place, without much foot traffic most days.  But when George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police in late May of last year, the community gathered there in Kelly Ingram to share our pain and anger.  Not because the park is the most centrally located, but because that’s where 16^th Street Baptist Church stands, where the 4 girls were killed in 1963 by a white supremacist bomb.  And that’s the place where, 57 years ago, Birmingham police used firehoses and dogs to terrorize children who dared stand up for their civil rights.  There is history there: history of courage, tenacity.  The memory of collective outrage hangs thick in the humid air.

 

That protest was the first time since the start of the pandemic that I had been around crowds of people, still awkward in my mask.  But it felt important to go, to stand with others, to bear witness together, to call for accountability and a change in the way policing happens in our country.  Lots of people spoke, young and old, faith leaders and activists, including T Marie who led our Adult Forum this fall.  One who stood out was a guy named Jermaine Johnson, a local comedian who calls himself Funnymaine.  He drew the crowd’s attention to the Confederate monument in front of the courthouse, in the next park over, Linn Park.  The previous mayor had covered it with plywood and was fined by the state for doing so, but it still stood, a sandstone obelisk 52 feet high, a stark reminder of the city’s racist history.  “There are some things I can’t say here,” Funnymaine told the crowd that day.  “I can’t tell you to go over to Linn Park after this rally… I can’t say that’s where I’ll be.  We’ve got to protect our city.  But it would be a shame for that monument to be torn down.  But I can’t tell you that,” he said.

 

The march that afternoon was peaceful.  People from all walks of life, every age and stage stood together in the shade.  But later that night at the monument a different crowd gathered, with chains and trucks and sledgehammers and spraypaint, determined to tear the obelisk down.  The Mayor went and asked them to stop before someone got hurt, let the city remove it safely.  Give me 48 hours, he said, and it will be gone.  The crowd backed off and disbursed, but some were still seething with anger.  So they ran through downtown, smashing windows, wreaking havoc.

 

You here in Baltimore are not strangers to that kind of anger, anger that smolders until a match gets lit and it turns into a conflagration.  Anger that destroys.  We don’t condone it, but we can understand it.  After all, there is a lot to be angry about these days.  So much.

 

Look around, talk to folks about what they’re struggling with, and you’ll find something to be mad about.  Calibrate your news and newsfeed correctly and you can be fed a steady diet of bitterness, endless fuel for fury.  I have tasted more anger than I want to admit since the world shut down a year ago.  Macro anger at federal government mismanagement and denial that worsened the crisis of the pandemic.  Anger at callous disregard for human life, at the racist systems that bind us.  But I’ve also felt micro anger: ordinary, everyday, run of the mill mad – My temper flaring at tiny infractions, the stress of parenting in a pandemic.  And I’ve become more familiar with the anger of my children.  I try so hard to do as I coach them, to breathe, to step away, to be mindful and kind.  But – it’s hard.

 

Does it help to know that Jesus got angry, too?  That he turned over tables, threw people out of the temple, pilgrims and merchants, driving them and their animals out with a whip?  In his fury, he disrupts preparations for the biggest festival of the year, the Passover, which would have been a huge source of income for the temple and the market.

 

I don’t know about you, but I take some comfort in this story.  God gets angry.  Christ came, in part, to experience the fullness of life, to be human – to feel all the joy and the grief, the fun and the struggle, the love and the suffering.  Through Christ, God feels the height and depth and breadth of the human experience. Whatever we’re going through, God gets it.

 

This incident, this stunt in the temple is recorded in all four gospels, which means we’re pretty sure it happened.  And it’s a story that humanizes the miraculous healer and teacher – adds the depth of righteous indignation to our picture of Jesus.  What was he so angry about?

 

Different versions of the story emphasize different sources, different reasons for his anger.  The house of God co-opted by the forces of the market.  A system of worship that needlessly involved animal sacrifice.  People with power making money by taking advantage of people who were in need.

 

See, here’s what was going on: people travelled to Jerusalem to worship for Passover.  Worship involved sacrificing an unblemished animal – which pretty much meant the animal had to be bought on arrival.  Out of towners had to change money to the temple currency — at an unfavorable rate — then buy an animal to sacrifice — at an inflated price.  It’s like buying a meal from Doordash or some other delivery service: you don’t have much choice in the matter so they can charge you and the restaurant whatever fees they want.  Jesus was angry because the temple moneylenders and merchants were trying to make a buck off the people who came to worship.  By disrupting the lending and driving out the animals, Jesus throws the whole system into chaos.  He challenges the temple’s corruption, and by proxy, Rome.  Rome appointed the chief priest after all, and received a portion of the tithes people offered there.

 

But that’s not all that’s going on here.  The gospel writer, John, wants to expand people’s thinking about where God could be found.  In ancient Israel, God’s presence among the people was located first in the ark of the covenant, then the tabernacle, then the temple in Jerusalem.  But in the year 70, the temple was destroyed.  Without the temple, how would people worship and encounter God?  That’s what John is trying to answer.  In these verses, we hear Jesus foreshadowing his death and resurrection.  But he also calls himself the temple: “Destroy this temple, he says, and in three days I will raise it up.” God’s presence is made real in the world in him.  In Christ, God is not hidden from the people in a secret sanctuary.  God is out with the people, let loose in the world, and angry about injustice- turning over tables in the marketplace and driving out the livestock and the lenders.

 

Some interpreters think Jesus planned this event.  They believe he didn’t lose his temper, but instead pulled the stunt strategically, to provoke and disrupt a system of oppression. Think about it: he turned the market into chaos to challenge the temple leaders and the Roman authorities during the busiest time of the year, the Passover, to disrupt their system of profiting off the poor.

 

There is a lot to be angry about these days.

 

We don’t have to look hard.  Vaccine distribution that leaves some behind, especially poor communities of color.  Lines of people out of work, waiting for boxes of food.  Students who still don’t have reliable internet and are falling farther behind their peers.  Hundreds of children still separated from their families by our government.  States ending mandatory mask ordinances and reopening restaurants with no capacity restrictions – decisions that will be deadly for far too many.

 

The father of community organizing, Saul Alinsky, said good organizers find the wounds of the people and rub salt in them – anger motivates.  Anger gets us out in the street, crying out for justice, organizing for change.

 

That’s what Jermaine “Funnymaine” Johnson was doing.  Less than 24 hours after the Black Lives Matter rally, Mayor Randall Woodfin had a crane and a truck remove the monument, risking a fine of $25,000 from the state.  But you know what?  The guys who actually did the work didn’t charge the city anything for their time.  And a group called white clergy for Black Lives Matter raised more than $60,000 in a day to help the city pay the fine and to cover the cost of removal.[1]

 

Across the country, nearly 100 Confederate monuments were removed in 2020, more than the previous four years combined.  That change is the result of the public outcry and sustained anger at police brutality and racism, and the recovery of historical memory around when and why those monuments were erected in the first place.  In some ways, it’s easier to take down a monument than it is to transform the entrenched culture and structural racism of our criminal justice system.  But it’s a step forward in the larger and longer journey toward our collective liberation, love, and justice.  The work continues.  And if the past year has taught me anything, it’s that anger, stress, and anxiety are exhausting.  They can deplete us.  Anger can’t be all we have.  And thank God, it isn’t.  That’s why God calls us into community, and gives us to each other.  We have this place.  We have each other.  We have faith in the one who Rome could crucify but could not kill, whose example inspires, whose performance art provokes, who brings us into relationship with the living God.  Relationship which sustains, and transforms, and continues to move us forward toward the promised land.  Thanks be to God.

 

 

[1] https://www.gofundme.com/f/take-down-birmingham039s-confederate-monument?fbclid=IwAR0QqoKHSj5xexnYoyAEnlWNoMLJ8pP6BqKXxFrNSBMmt2xXE67Bl0BLAhs