Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
May 15, 2022

Something, Something… Holy Spirit?
Acts 11:1-18; John 13:31-35

When I was preparing to leave town last Sunday, I was copying pages from Biblical commentaries to read on my travels – by the way, a good way to be sure your seatmate doesn’t strike up a conversation with you is to carry a stack of New Testament commentaries – and I couldn’t quite remember the chapter and verses from Acts for this Sunday.  I knew it was a story about Cornelius, with a vision of a blanket holding all kinds of animals – just wait, it’s going to be good – and I ended up copying all of chapters 10 AND 11!  Because the story we’re about to hear is told twice! In a book that follows the movement of the Holy Spirit as it races around the Mediterranean setting hearts on fire and planting seeds of faith and starting churches hither and yon – This story is so important it’s told twice!  First it’s narrated as it happens, then it’s told again by Peter in the section I’m about to read – Peter’s telling early church leaders something amazing that has happened to him, defending his decision to baptize Gentiles.  Listen for a word from God…

(read Acts 11:1-18)

When I was in college, a friend invited me to worship at their Pentecostal church and, out of curiosity and a little bit of FOMO I went, along with a couple of other friends from Model United Nations.  The sanctuary was familiar, not unlike the one I’d grown up in – curved wooden pews and soft turquoise cushions, pretty windows and a pulpit.  The content of the service I’ve long since forgotten.  What has stayed with me is a moment about ¾ of the way through the service, when the entire congregation started speaking in tongues.  Like the preacher flipped a switch, and people began to rise from their pews around me, hands in the air, alight with the Holy Spirit.  Everyone, that is, but me, and another friend who came with us.  We sat in a mixture of awe and incredulity, hearing the waves of prayer rise and fall around us as the ecstatic worshippers called out in a language no human ear could understand.  After a few minutes, it faded away; people fell back to their seats, wiping sweat from their brows, and the room was quiet again.

It was a strange experience, one utterly unlike the orderly, predictable worship I’d grown up with.  The Spirit fell, apparently, on everyone but me, raised by God’s frozen chosen, and my friend Jose.  Looking back, the rational part of my brain wants to say – God doesn’t work like that.  But this story from Acts makes me think twice.  Who am I to say to limit the work of the Holy Spirit?

In Bible Study on Wednesday mornings, after checking in with each other and reading the text, we always begin by asking – what part of this story stands out to you?  Without fail, there is a word or phrase that catches our ear or captures our eye.  In the story Peter tells about his encounter with Cornelius, what was it for you?  For me, a phrase flashes as if lit in neon lights – It comes after the Judean leaders criticize Peter for sharing the good news with Gentiles, and he tells the story of what happened that led him to baptize Cornelius.  As he describes how he saw the Spirit poured out in front of him, how he felt inspired to share the waters of baptism so that Cornelius and his family stood dripping with grace in their living room, Peter asks: “Who am I that I could hinder God?”  Who am I to limit God?

At this time, the early church was trying to decide who was in and who was out, forming its criteria for belonging.  Who could be a Christian?  What makes a person a follower of Christ?  Did you have to be Jewish, and follow Jewish customs and law?  Or could you be a pagan Greek, a Gentile?  The disciples and Jesus’ first followers were all Jewish, and their communities were intentionally separate from the Roman world.  But clearly, the Spirit had other plans – because the good news is meant to be shared with everyone!

Here’s how it happens: Peter has a vision that tells him to eat whatever he wants –a sheet falls from heaven filled with non-kosher foods – just as Cornelius is instructed by an angel to call for Peter and listen to him.  When he arrives, Peter can tell something is up – Jews like him and Gentiles should not be speaking, much less chatting in each other’s living rooms – but Peter knows enough to realize that the vision of animals in a blanket means the Spirit is at work here.  He tells Cornelius about Jesus, and when Cornelius begins praising God.  And there, in the living room, Jews and Gentiles together, as he is preaching, Peter can see that Cornelius has received the gift of the Spirit, and so Peter baptizes him.  Because who are we to limit God?

Richard Rohr has said, “God is always bigger than the boxes we make for God, so we shouldn’t waste too much time protecting the boxes.”[1]  In a conversation with Brene Brown recently, he said – God is infinite love!  But we humans have a very hard time comprehending infinity – so instead of leaving space for the infinite mystery, we bring God to our level and anthropomorphize so that God loves like we do, which is conditionally – with threats and punishments.  We mistake certainty for faith.  But that’s not how God is!

There are a lot of people in our world who claim to know the mind of God.  Who is blessed and who is not.  Who is right and who is wrong.  In Texas, in Florida, in Alabama, and elsewhere, the legislatures are seeking to prevent children who identify as trans from getting age-appropriate gender-affirming medical care, competing in sports, or even using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.  But laws like this further dehumanize and harm people who are already made vulnerable by having to spend their lives challenging false binaries the world tries to divide us with.  If we truly believe that each person is created in the image and likeness of God, and we are called to love one another… we will work for communities where all can flourish and safely live as the people God created them to be.  We will find a different way.

In her book God Gets Everything God Wants Katie Hays tells the story of her congregation of spiritual refugees, the Galileo Church.[2]  They are a community of folks who thought they were done with church, who have created a place of love and belonging in which they worship, learn, and serve.  She says when something happens they can’t explain in their community, when they stumble on a solution to a particularly vexing problem – and the solution redirects them in a way they never expected, or comes from a surprising place or person, they describe it as “something something … Holy Spirit.”  She says, “…God has been inviting people into new understandings of God – where God is, what God does, who God loves – for as long as people have been telling stories about God, and … the Bible… invites us to look for God everywhere, recognize God wherever we can, even if we find God in places (people) that are guaranteed to disrupt what we already think we know for sure…”[3]  Like Peter sees the Spirit poured out on Cornelius, and realizes he’s gotta baptize him, right then and there in his living room.

Because who are we to limit God?

So today I wonder: what are the “something, something… Holy Spirit” moments here at Faith?  In our own life and work and ministry?  The way I felt when Dary and I came to meet the PNC and see the church and neighborhood here in North Baltimore certainly felt like something bigger than us was at work, something something… Holy Spirit.  The way the little free library came to be here with the help of neighbors in Rodger’s Forge, and now the Story Walk with its many supporters who want to share a love of books with kids in this area was something, something… Holy Spirit.  The way that Christa’s care and the leadership of the session were able to help our congregation heal after pastor Robin’s departure, and the way we came to more intentional ministry of welcome as wide and inclusive as God’s love out of that painful experience – that, too, was something, something Holy Spirit too, wasn’t it?  And now, our vision of an urban forest instead of an expanse of concrete, the willing partnership of Blue Water Baltimore and interfaith partners for the Chesapeake to plant trees to help us and our neighbors breathe easier feels like the Spirit just blowing through this place.  Something, something, Holy Spirit.

My prayer for us this week is that we will open our hearts and minds to the work of the Spirit in and among us.  In our church, in our living rooms, in our learning and growing.  That we will follow the leading of the spirit in our advocacy, in our outreach, in our service, as we plant trees and share books and live life together.  And in all these things, we will act out of love: our love for one another, and our love for God.  May it be so!

[1] Rohr, Richard, in conversation with Brene Brown on Unlocking Us, “On Spirituality, Certitude, and Infinite Love,” part 1 of 2, April 20, 2022, https://brenebrown.com/podcast/spirituality-certitude-and-infinite-love-part-1-of-2/#transcript.  This paragraph and the following connection with dehumanizing legislation grew out of their conversation. I commend it to you!

[2] Hays, Katie, God Gets Everything God Wants, Eerdmans Publishing Co: Grand Rapids, MI, 2021, pp. 71-78

[3] Ibid. p. 78.

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
April 17, 2022

Dare We Believe It?
Luke 24:1-12

Mr. and Mrs. Watson live at 54 Deckawoo Drive with an enormous pink pig named Mercy.  Their neighbors are Eugenia Lincoln, and her sister Baby Lincoln, and down the street live two children, Stella Endicott and her brother Franklin.  Mr. Watson drives a pink convertible and the whole Watson family loves to eat toast with a great deal of butter on it… especially Mercy.  These quirky characters sprang from the mind of author Kate DiCamillo, who writes children’s books with almost universal appeal to the inner child in all of us.  Because of Winn-Dixie, about a girl and the dog who helps her through a tough year, was my niece’s favorite book, and Maddie’s favorite breakfast to this day is… toast, with a great deal of butter on it, thanks to the Mercy Watson series.

Di Camillo’s books are loved by many, including another children’s author, Matt de la Peña.  He won a Newberry award for The Last Stop on Market Street, and also wrote Milo Imagines the World, and other wonderful picture books that are in our Prayground.  In his book Love, there is a page that suggests a violent family argument, a picture his publisher pushed back on, wanted to soften or edit out of the book.  As he grappled with what to do, he wrote an essay online in which he posed the question, rhetorically, to DiCamillo: what is the job of children’s book authors?[1]  Is it to shield children from the world, to protect their innocence?  Or to tell the truth?[2]

I’ve been holding that question, and Kate’s response to it, in my heart the past few weeks of Lent.  Because we might ask the same question of our faith, and of this story – the story many of us have drawn close to again this past week, the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  Does it shield us from the world?  Or does it tell the truth?  Because it’s a difficult story.  A brutal one, really.  A story of deception and betrayal.  Fear and courage.  A story that shows the deadly violence of empire against one who dared to challenge it.  A story of suffering and death, silence and abandonment.

It’s a story that shows up again and again in our newsfeeds and papers – we find it everywhere… from a subway car in Brooklyn, to a shopping mall in South Carolina where broken glass glitters on the ground, yellow caution tape flutters in the wind.  We hear it in the shouts of protesters and a mother’s grief piercing the cold air in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as they say his name: Patrick Lyoya, son, friend, refugee fleeing war in Congo, another black man dead with a knee in his back.  It’s there, this story, the anguish, the senseless suffering in the ashes of a maternity ward in Kyiv, where a man with blistered hands digs graves for his neighbors, fellow Ukrainians, killed by Russian soldiers.

Deception and betrayal, fear and courage.  The deadly violence of empire.

Happy Easter!  We started this service with brass fanfare, with trumpets and triumph because that’s not the end of this story. The story we’ve entered into again this morning tells us also of hope, and love – love that withstands and outlasts even death.  It ends with good news: new life in community.  Resilience.  Redemption.  Resurrection.

I cannot help but wonder what it must have been like for the women that day, as they made their way to the tomb in the early morning darkness, spices clutched close to their chests.  Their breathing was shallow because they were afraid, I’m sure of it.  He was dead, but it was still dangerous to associate themselves with Jesus, the rabble rouser, the revolutionary so recently crucified.  The soldiers who killed him might harm them, too.

They must have walked quickly, quietly, footsteps softly crunching across the rocky ground, as the dawn sky brightened around them.  I’ll bet they didn’t hear the birds beginning to sing their morning songs, their hearts were so heavy with grief, their bodies bent down from the weight of it.

When they noticed the stone was gone, rolled away, the grave open for the world to see – they surely froze, fearful, wondering: Who could’ve done this?  had it been robbed?  It’s amazing to me that they didn’t run away right then, but steeled their nerves and entered the tomb, feeling their way through the dark, looking for the body – but they found none.  The tomb was empty.

The text tells us what happens next: suddenly, out of nowhere, two men appeared beside them in dazzling clothes – surely they were angels – and the women fell to the ground right there, in the mouth of the tomb, terrified. The dazzling ones spoke to them, saying: Why do you seek the living amongst the dead?  He is not here.  He is risen.  Remember, he told you this would happen.  And hearts pounding inside their chests, the women remembered.  They remembered, and something unfurled inside them, hope began to bloom…so they got up, and ran to tell the others.

You’ll notice, there is no resurrected Jesus in this part of Luke’s story.  They do not see him, or speak with him, or touch his wounded hands.  That part comes later, at a table in Emmaus, behind locked doors in Jerusalem.  But still, here, in the mouth of the empty tomb, the women remember and believe, and it doesn’t matter that they came looking for a body, expecting death, because now they understand that what he said was true, and somehow, he is not dead, but alive again.

The disciples don’t believe them – it seems to them an idle tale… women’s hysteria, so cruel a dismissal of women’s proclamation of the gospel that it stings even now.  Peter, at least, is curious enough to go and see for himself, so he finds the linen wrappings lying in the empty tomb, and is amazed.  What about us?  Do we dare believe it?  Could it possibly be true?  Is that why we tell this story again and again, why we remember and reclaim its power year after year?  What difference does it make in this Good Friday world, where violence and suffering are still so real?

When Matt de la Peña asked whether authors should protect childhood innocence or tell the truth, Kate di Camillo responded.  She wrote about her best friend in childhood, who loved the book Charlotte’s Web so much she would read it over and over.  She would get to the last page, and then turn back to the first and begin again.  Di Camillo remembers asking her friend why she would read and re-read it.  Did she hope each time it will turn out differently, better?   That Charlotte wouldn’t die?  Her friend said, no, “It wasn’t that. I kept reading it not because I wanted it to turn out differently or thought that it would turn out differently, but because I knew for a fact that it wasn’t going to turn out differently. I knew that a terrible thing was going to happen, and I also knew that it was going to be okay somehow. I thought that I couldn’t bear it, but then when I read it again, it was all so beautiful. And I found out that I could bear it. That was what the story told me. That was what I needed to hear. That I could bear it somehow.”[3]

I believe we return to this story, the story of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, this mystery of life out of death year after year, because it tells us the truth.  Terrible things will happen to us, and do happen each day in every corner of the globe, from Baltimore to Brooklyn to Bucha.  One day, we, too, will die.  We know for a fact that this is true, but this story tells us that it is all going to be okay somehow.  God is present even in the terror, and the suffering… even when we feel most alone in the tombs that we make for ourselves, God finds us even when we are so weighed down by grief we think that we cannot bear it.  God’s love for us is so strong, it withstands even the worst thing that can happen to us.  It makes new life possible, and when we remember that truth, and we claim it together, when hope unfurls within us and begins to bloom, my prayer and why we gather this day is that we find that we can bear it.

DiCamillo says she thought and thought about why this was so, and what she came to was love.  “E. B. White loved the world,” she writes. “And in loving the world, he told the truth about it — its sorrow, its heartbreak, its devastating beauty. He trusted his readers enough to tell them the truth, and with that truth came comfort and a feeling that we were not alone.”[4]

We are NOT alone.  We are held by this community which God has called us into, a community which, in turn, is upheld by the love and wonder-working power of God, who pulls life out of death, and makes each new day possible.  And so we return again and again to this story of Easter.

One of the gifts of parenthood has been reading books that I loved as a child with my girls, and discovering new ones, nestling down together at the end of each day, side by side, to share stories.  The stories we tell shape us into who we are.  They help build our understanding of the world, they impart a love of places and people, and sometimes of hot buttered toast.  And so I hope we will tell this one – this very good news of the time when death did not win.  When the violence of empire was undone by the tenacity of love.  When the darkness of the tomb was actually a womb that brought forth new life.  This story of the resilience and courage of the women and men who heard and believed and shared the truth of resurrection.  And in their stories, I hope we find the courage to live it, again and again with the dawn of each new day…. May it be so.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] I learned of this exchange through the On Being podcast, an interview Krista Tippett did with Kate DiCamillo in which she referenced and read from Kate’s response to de la Peña.  On Being Podcast, 3/17/22, https://onbeing.org/programs/kate-dicamillo-for-the-eight-year-old-in-you/

[2] De la Peña, Matt, “Why we shouldn’t shield children from darkness,” Time Magazine, 1/9/18, https://time.com/5093669/why-we-shouldnt-shield-children-from-darkness/

[3] Di Camillo, Kate, “Why kids books should be a little sad,” 1/12/18, Time Magazine, https://time.com/5099463/kate-dicamillo-kids-books-sad/

[4] Ibid.

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
April 10, 2022

To the Streets!
Luke 19 – Palm Sunday

Holy Week in Guatemala is an experience not to be missed. The whole country takes vacation to celebrate.  People pour into the cities and towns for the occasion, to commemorate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Much like in other parts of Latin America, the festivities revolve around processions: people dress up and carry huge icons depicting saints and the Stations of the Cross through narrow, cobblestone streets. Young men in hooded purple albs carry censures before the processions, burning incense that hangs in the air, a fragrant fog hovering over the festivities. Tinny brass bands play hymns and mariachi music between the platforms. And a crush of people lines the streets to observe the processions as they shuffle along. With food vendors and games in town squares, Holy Week is a carnival of epic proportions.

But the most striking part of the celebrations isn’t the food or the icons. It’s not the number of people who come to witness and participate in the parades. The most striking part of Semana Santa in Guatemala are the carpets!

In the day or two leading up to the parades, artisans work until late at night to cover the streets in beautifully ornate sawdust carpets. They remind me of Tibetan mandalas – detailed works of art, painstakingly prepared, but temporary. But instead of sand, these carpets are made of vibrantly colored sawdust, flower petals, pine needles, even fruits and vegetables laid out in intricate designs. Men accustomed to working in the field repurpose their pesticide/fertilizer sprayers to spray the carpets in a fine mist of water, to keep them from blowing away. After the parades pass by, the cobblestone streets are a wash of color, the designs scattered to the wind and petals crushed underfoot, the bright stones offering a silent testimony to what has passed over them.

The carpets are special – I’ve never seen anything else like them. Their beauty enhances the festivities, and honors the memory of Jesus in this week which commemorates his life and death. They also evoke the palm fronds, the branches his followers waved and the cloaks they threw in the road, to show him honor as he made his way into Jerusalem…the road strewn with palms led him into the city, into conflict with the authorities…and into death.

I remember Palm Sunday as a celebration – a break from the norm with palms waving in worship, a processional, and shouts of Hosannah! And it is. But it’s a multivalent event, provocative when you have eyes to see it. One could call it street theatre, a public demonstration that challenges Roman rule by calling Christ the King.

This particular week, Jerusalem was overflowing with people, peasants who poured in from the countryside to celebrate Passover, to make their sacrifices in the temple. Remember that Israel was an occupied land, so there would’ve been a lot of Roman military presence for the festival, to keep order, to prevent a revolt.

But that doesn’t stop Jesus from continuing with his plan. Christ’s followers line the street down from the Mount of Olives, they shout and stand on tiptoes in the dust just to catch a glimpse of him. Their hope nearly crackles in the air – Hope that Jesus would save the people from Rome, end their suffering, and rule as King over Israel. So strong was their longing for salvation, it rose like the smoke of incense and cast its own shadow over the crowd, intoxicating to all who breathed it.

Jesus’ parade wasn’t just festive, it was downright dangerous. It mimicked the victory marches of generals who would ride their chariots into Rome with throngs of people cheering their return. He was entering Jerusalem as a conquering hero  But Christ was different than others who vied for power in Jerusalem. Instead of riding a chariot pulled by prancing white horses, he rides a humble donkey. There is no crown of laurel on his head, but he will soon wear a crown of thorns. Rome ruled through military power, oppressing the people through taxation and the threat of violence. The kingdom Christ heralds is altogether different than that.

The power he wields is the power of love, of solidarity. He works through nonviolent resistance, submitting to the violence of empire to reveal its futility, and to show us God’s power to transform death into life.

The people thought he was their messiah, the one to lead an uprising to overthrow their oppressors and reign as King in Israel. But Christ’s kindom, the family and reign of God is much bigger than that. It knows no boundaries because it exists within our hearts and that’s why it has the power to change the whole world.

I don’t know about you, but some days I find this difficult to believe. Two years of pandemic have made us weary and wary, aggrieved yet determined to rebuild our communities more equitably in this new normal. The devastation wrought by Trump revealed fault lines and divisions that I fear may never be overcome in this country. Putin’s war in Ukraine has caused massive suffering, as Afghanistan starves and Ethiopia remains in the grip of civil war. Here in Baltimore, more than 300 people were killed by gun violence in the past year – three of them safe streets workers commissioned as violence interrupters. If Christ reigns, why does the suffering continue?

The truth, of course, is that sin and evil still exist. The work begun in Christ continues in and through us – his body, at work in the world.  I heard a political scientist interviewed on the Hidden Brain podcast recently, and what she said gave me hope.[1] Erica Chenoweth has studied the power of nonviolent resistance to create change. She said she’d been taught that violence was often a necessary evil, the blunt instruments of war were the most effective in challenging despots and bringing stability. This compelled her to research nonviolent resistance over the past 200 years – when has peace come not from guns and tanks, but through concerted noncooperation, demonstrations, and peaceful resistance? She discovered that nonviolent resistance movements were twice as likely to have succeeded in their efforts to create change than violent ones. And they only had to mobilize a fraction of the population, 3.5%. Writing recently in the Washington Post, she lauds the efforts of Ukrainian citizens to resist the onslaught of the Russian army.[2] Ordinary people have been removing road signs, blocking streets, marching and demonstrating. The Odessa Opera held outdoor performances, defiantly singing Verdi and waving a Ukrainian flag in the cold March air.[3] Russians, too, have showed tremendous bravery in publicly standing in opposition to the war, risking arrest, kidnapping, and even death. And even here in Baltimore, people are demonstrating for peace – raising money, standing together again in Patterson Park at one this afternoon with the Ukrainian Orthodox church there. These demonstrations do work she says – to slow and sometimes even to stop the violence. To demand action from politicians. To preserve the spirit of the people, enliven our collective defiance, to protect our common humanity.

When they objected to the ruckus of his procession, Jesus told the Pharisees that if his disciples were silenced, even the stones would shout aloud. I wonder…if the stones in our streets could talk…well, wait, let’s just say the concrete – if the concrete could talk, what would it say? What would it say about God at work in Baltimore? What would the stones in these walls, the bricks say about us, about our witness and work, about Christ whom we love and serve? Would they shout aloud that God’s kingdom has come near?

You know what? I believe these stones DO shout – they tell the story of a family of people seeking to be the beloved community here and now. A congregation with a welcome as broad and expansive as God’s love. A congregation not afraid to speak truth to power, and to tell the truth about who we are and to whom we belong. I think if we look closely, we can glimpse the kindom right here: in the love we share as a church family. In our advocacy, in our common witness for peace and justice in our city. In our work to care for the little piece of Baltimore with which we have been entrusted, to pull weeds and plant trees and cultivate beauty. In our support for the students, teachers, and families at Walter P. Carter, and our investment to build decent housing in Woodbourne McCabe.

Gillian, Maddie and I had a habit at the beginning of the pandemic of making kindness rocks – painting stones and leaving them places for others to find. A bright spot in an otherwise anxious time. We’ll paint some more at the Easter egg hunt this coming Saturday, hoping to leave them as a reminder of love and sparks of joy for whoever finds them, or as small testimonies to carry in your pocket.

To continue our prayer project, you’re invited to find the origami paper in your pew, to write one way you commit to prepare for the week ahead. Will you lay a carpet in preparation, some beautiful symbol to honor Christ’s sacrifice this week? Will you commit to pray, to participate in our worship, to serve? Write down your commitment, or the name of a person or place for which you pray so that on Easter, our prayers can bloom into a beautiful garden!

[1] Vedantam, Shankar and Erica Chenoweth, “How to Change the World,” Hidden Brain podcast, April 2022, https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/how-to-change-the-world/

[2] Chenoweth, Erica, “People around the world are protesting the Russian invasion.  Will their protests work?”  The Washington Post, 3/14/22.

[3] Cited by Erica Chenoweth, ibid, viewed at https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/mondo/2022/03/12/ucraina-franceschini-posta-video-lopera-di-odessa-canta-verdi_58a79ef3-6755-4158-baa9-a2251c3511c5.html

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
March 13, 2022

The Wings of God
Luke 13: 31-35

As we sit here in the calm, quiet of this sanctuary, it is hard to forget that across the Atlantic, on the other side of Europe, throughout Ukraine, there are churches that have been reduced to rubble by Russian bombs; still others have disassembled their sacred objects and hidden them away in bomb shelters, shaken by the rockets that have pummeled their cities and towns for the past two weeks, with still more to come. The tragic horror of Russia’s invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine has brought the terror of war again to the forefront of our psyche; thousands have been killed, millions uprooted, countless families torn apart. NATO and the West have united in a way many thought impossible just a month ago. A turning point for the West’s support for Ukraine was President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s heroic response when his nation was invaded. When America offered to airlift him to safety, he retorted: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”

Zelensky’s determination to stay and defend his nation, despite the clear risk to his own safety and his family’s security – is heroic. He inspired his European allies to go much farther in their military support for Ukraine than they’d previously indicated they were willing to go. A staff writer for the Atlantic wrote, “it is hard to think of another recent instance in which one human being has defied the collective expectations for his behavior and provided such an inspiring moment of service to the people, clarifying the terms of the conflict through his example.”[1]

I cannot help but think of Zelenskyy when I read this passage from Luke. The Pharisees warn Jesus of Herod’s murderous intent, but Christ will not be dissuaded from his ministry. Given the socio-political realities of war, and the widely divergent historical contexts, there isn’t a direct parallel, of course.  The Ukrainian President is responding to the violence of Russian forces with Molotov cocktails, and a defiant willingness to, apparently, fight to the death to defend democracy.

Jesus is responding to the violence of Herod, the threat of Rome, and he responds quite differently. He, too, is willing to die for his cause. Similar defiance, different strategies. After all, Christ came to proclaim good news, to bring sight to the blind, to uplift the downtrodden, to let the oppressed go free. To teach and to heal. To stand against evil. Not to fight fire with fire, but to turn the other cheek. Not to seek retribution, but to work for restoration.

Christ’s defiant determination to subvert violence in the face of deadly opposition takes shape in this image of the mother hen protecting her chicks.

One day at rest time, before our hens came to live with us, Gillian called out excitedly from her room: a fox! There’s a fox! In the backyard! We crowded around her window to look down and sure enough, there was – a dusty red fox, curled in a patch of sunlight, napping on the grass. Needless to say the first order of business when Rosita, Lola, and Goldie came was to patch holes in our fence, so that the fox couldn’t find its way into the henhouse. You have to appreciate the brilliant wordplay of Jesus the mother hen protecting her brood from Herod the fox.

Writing on this passage, NT scholar NT Wright observes every parent’s instinct to protect their children from harm.[2] To risk everything to get their child to safety. Picture the trains filled to overflowing with Ukrainian mothers and grandmothers, children on their laps – leaving everything they’d known behind to escape the terror of war. Stories of the children sent overseas in the Holocaust, families migrating north to escape gang violence in Central America.

When a hawk flies overhead, a hen will shelter her chicks under her wings, saving them while risking her own life. By offering the image of himself as a mother hen with wings outstretched, sheltering her chicks from danger, I believe he’s inviting us to expand our idea of who God is and how God works. This is a beautiful feminine image for God: nurturing, powerfully protective, but vulnerable. and it matters that we are able to conceive and embrace images like this of the sacred feminine. It matters because representation matters. It changes how we see ourselves, the world, and our place in it.

In the memoir The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, Sue Monk Kidd chronicles her journey from patriarchal Christianity to the embrace of the sacred feminine. She writes, “The core symbols we use for God represent what we take to be the highest good…These symbols or images shape our worldview, our ethical system, and our social practice.” When we only imagine and utilize male images for God, God as King and all-powerful ruler, God as Father and covenant maker – we have an incomplete picture that resigns us to the same old patterns of patriarchy. We can draw a direct connection between “repression of the feminine in our deity and the repression of women.” “…Including divine female symbols and images not only challenges the dominance of male images but also calls into question the structure of patriarchy itself.” [3]

God, is of course, both male and female, and neither male or female – these are limited, human examples we use to try to explain the inexplicable. Words are simply tools to help point us toward truth. Our evolving human understanding of gender identity and expression as existing along a spectrum instead of between a false binary frees us to imagine new possibilities for who and how God is. Expansive imagery of God – the Hebrew concept of el Shaddai – the mountains that give life; Jesus as the narrow gate, the living water, the bread of life. Or the good shepherd; the prince of peace; the living Word of God to us; the first Word spoken; Spirit as wind or breath – the animating life force. What do you picture when I say God? What do you envision or imagine? Does it matter to you? Does it matter to the world? Who has helped expand your image of God? What women have gone before to help challenge and transform your worldview?

You each should have gotten a piece of origami paper when you came in, or there is one in your pew or in a pew in front or behind you. Find your paper – In a little while, while the choir sings, I invite you to write the name of a woman who has helped expand your vision of God; an image of the sacred feminine that resonates with you; or the name a person or place for which you pray this day. Leave these papers in a basket at each door when you leave today, and they’ll be folded into origami flowers to adorn the cross on Easter. And if you’d like to help fold, come to Jackson Lounge after worship and we’ll work on it together for a few minutes.

Christ longed to shelter and save the people of Israel from the violent oppression and destruction threatened by Roman imperial power – and he would continue his work to save and to heal, to reconcile and make new – despite rejection, despite doubt, despite death. May we all seek to emulate this kind of loving defiance today, and trust that his wings are open to enfold and embrace us, to shelter us and keep us safe.

[1] Foer, Franklin, “A Prayer for Volodymyr Zelenskyy” The Atlantic, February 26, 2022, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/volodymyr-zelensky-ukraine-president/622938/

[2] Wright, N.T., Lent for Everyone: Luke, Year C, Westminster/John Knox Press: Louisville, KY, 2009, p. 23.

[3] Kidd, Sue Monk, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter A Woman’s Journey from Christian Tradition to Sacred Feminine, HarperOne, 1996.

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
February 27, 2022

Encountering Radiance
Exodus 34:29-35

When I moved to Boston for seminary, a whole world of possibilities opened up to me. Not just new and challenging academic frontiers, a new city and culture to explore – but also a wide expanse of new outdoor adventures, thanks in part to Dary: the White Mountains and Presidential range in New Hampshire; the foothills of the Catskills out in Western Mass, and of course – endless wilderness in Maine to paddle, camp, and hike through. I was used to well marked, well trodden trails in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge, with clear blazes, relatively safe ascents and gradual descents. So I was surprised to find myself clinging to metal rungs on the side of a mountain, ducking through caves, balancing on a knife’s edge, trying not to look down. New England introduced me to a different kind of hiking. I’m still shocked by how cold and windy it can be above the treeline, on top of a mountain– Dary always packs a fleece, sometimes even a hat and gloves for the summit, even in summer. I remember huddling next to him, buffeted by wind and freezing in shorts on Doubletop mountain in Baxter State Park, looking over at Katahdin, and thinking, without the right gear, this could be dangerous.

As, of course, it is. Any search and rescue team can tell you that – you all probably have a few tales of your own to tell about being caught out in the elements.

I can remember gazing out at the landscape with awe – torn between not wanting the moment to end, but feeling eager to dash back down the mountain to warm up, or at least to the safety of tree cover.

The mountaintop is often a beautiful place, with stunning views – but it is never a fully safe place to be. There’s always a risk up there – you might fall, get lost, or suffer from hypothermia, windburn, sunburn, exposure. Psychological risks, too: it changes you to actually see yourself in proper proportion to the rest of the world – tiny, and maybe even meaningless in the grand scheme of things. It’s magnificent, yes- but it isn’t safe.

Moses certainly discovered this to be true. Peter, John, and James did, too. The mountaintop proved to be a revealing place for all of them. Transformational. A little frightening. Moses met God up there, as he was pleading for guidance and mercy for his wayward people. This wasn’t Moses’ first mountaintop encounter with the deity – and this time, Moses was so changed by his time in God’s presence, he came down glowing. His face was shining with the splendor of the divine, and as you might imagine, it was terrifying. His own brother couldn’t even look at him – maybe because it was so strange, maybe because to look at Moses was to be reminded of their own betrayal, worshipping the idol of the golden calf which is what sent Moses back up to the top of Sinai to bargain with God in the first place.

On the front of the bulletin is Michelangelo’s sculpture of Moses – can you see he has horns? There are several classical images of Moses with horns, and the tradition comes from a fourth century mistranslation of this passage! The word for shining could also mean horn – and so we find these images of a truly terrifying leader. Some scholars wonder if there wasn’t some intention to this wordplay – drawing a parallel to the golden calf, such that to look at Moses was to be reminded of your own disobedience.

So Moses wore a veil, the text tells us, covering his face when he was out and about doing his day-to-day tasks, removing it only when he was praying, or speaking God’s word to the people. Strange, isn’t it. To be able to continue with his daily life, he had to hide his light…for those who were just in the Forum conversation – he had to assimilate.

Radiance is one of the most common descriptions of God – so bright, it’s like looking at the sun. Surely we’ve all seen someone we describe as radiant – people filled with joy, unself-conscious, beaming. A mother holding her newborn baby. A teacher teaching a topic they’re particularly passionate about. A child filled with pride upon learning a new skill, coming alive in a new way. Old friends, laughing out loud together.

Dorothy Day wrote about riding a city bus: a mundane, necessary task but rarely pleasant experience. She remembers suddenly noticing that all of the other riders were shimmering with the light of transcendence, beautiful, precious and beloved children of God. She was filled with love for them, in their ordinary-ness, the mother with the squalling baby, the rowdy teenagers in their awkwardness, the weary workers heading home. Radiance can find us anywhere, if we have eyes to see it.

Today is transfiguration Sunday, the end of the season of Epiphany and turn toward the season of Lent. Today is when we remember the revelation of Christ on the mountaintop, the transformation of Moses, too, and ask – What are we to make of these strange scenes? What do they tell us about God? What do they reveal about us?

One truth these stories show us that the life of faith moves between the mountaintop and the valley. We are always moving between encounters with the radiance and transcendence of God and the hard work to which God calls us, between the broad perspective we get from being high up and the day-to-day work down in the weeds. Between the clarity of vision we have at 9000 feet and the veiled memory of that vision that carries us through each day. Between the certainty of faith and the reality of doubt. It’s a cycle – up, then down, again and again.

In some ways, and maybe for some of us more than others, weekly worship reflects this cycle – we come, seeking God’s presence. Some weeks, in prayer and silence and scripture and song, we find it. Then, we step outside, back to the street…hopefully fortified, refreshed, and ready for the week ahead, confident of who and whose we are, clear about what God is calling us to do. We come back again, to be reminded.

We learn something of God in these passages – Moses’s second trip up Sinai finds God frustrated with the people for their disobedience, but willing to forgive…it’s where we find the language, God is patient and kind, slow to anger and abounding with steadfast love. Through Moses, God gives the Israelites law to live by, to guide them through the wilderness, to govern daily life. And it changes Moses to encounter God’s love and forgiveness, and to then share that with his people.

And so it is for us – when we encounter and experience the love and forgiveness and goodness of God, our hearts, our lives, are transformed, too.

Last night, as I tucked my girls into bed, I couldn’t help but think of Ukrainians huddled in subways and other shelters to sleep, seeking shelter from the Russian missiles that are bombarding their cities. The reality of war has gripped their country, as Putin grasps for power like a madman. I heard a story last week where mothers were stitching labels into their children’s clothing before sending them to school, labels with their child’s name and blood type in case they were to be injured in an attack. Unfathomable. And for what? Control of a piece of land? Access to natural resources? Bragging rights?

I’m reminded of the image of earth taken by the Voyager spacecraft before it left radio contact with us. Before it hurtled out to parts unknown, father than any other man-made object ever, it turned around to take a picture. Earth is just like a speck of dust in a sunbeam, suspended in space. Carl Sagan, the astrophysicist who worked on the project, says, look at that dot:

That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. … Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.  …To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known. (Carl Sagan, The Blue Dot, 1990)

My prayer for us this week is that we remember the perspective granted to us from our mountaintop experiences. That we are called to be peacemakers, to love one another as God has loved us, to resist the powers of evil and violence that threaten to undo us. It begins with us, with the transformation of our hearts, such that we shine with love, and can notice the shimmer of transcendence wherever we go.

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
February 20, 2022

Radical Reciprocity
Luke 6:27-38

On Friday, February 11, there was a women’s lacrosse game in Clinton, South Carolina. The Howard University Bison were up against the Blue Hose of Presbyterian College – that’s H-o-s-e, for the blue stockings their sportsmen used to wear, a nod to PC’s Scottish heritage. This was the first game of Howard’s season and the women were excited – it was their first time to play under the leadership of their new coach.

Now you might not follow women’s collegiate lacrosse, but if you’re connected to Howard or to PC, you may have heard about this particular game – because in the hours before the teams took to the field…before the players put on their safety glasses and helmets, before the girls from Howard, butterflies in their stomachs, nervously slipped on their gloves, grabbed their sticks, and ran out onto the field hoping to impress their new coach…Before all that, as the young women from Howard got off their bus, loaded down with gear, bundled against the brisk February air, and walked across the short green turf, some other young people, presumably students at Presbyterian College, heckled them, shouting hateful, misogynistic, and racist slurs at them – taunting and provoking the athletes, young women they’d never even met.

Howard Athletic Director Kery Davis said, “I am deeply troubled that some of our student-athletes were subjected to slurs and abusive language before the women’s lacrosse match on Friday.” [1]  Yeah, me too.

The school is investigating the incident – which, hopefully, will lead to consequences for the perpetrators, and will include an examination of the campus culture that gave rise to this incident, a culture in which some students thought that such behavior was acceptable in the first place.

But this morning I keep thinking about those young women who had to take the field with racist taunts ringing in their ears. I’m sure they were angry. Did they feel unsafe? Vulnerable? Insulted? Like something precious had been violated, robbing them of the excitement and energy of the first game of the season? Maybe they took the field as an act of defiance – forget those hateful people, we’re going to play anyway.

I’m going to show you a few pictures and I want you to pay attention to how you feel when you see them. How does your body react?  \What do the images evoke in you, or remind you of?

These guys are the Greenville 4: Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil. They started the lunch counter sit-in protests at Woolworths lunch counter in Greenville, South Carolina in February of 1960. The day they began their protest, they tried to buy lunch, but the staff refused to serve them. The police were called, but didn’t take action because the students were just sitting there. As you know, the movement grew from there – here’s a picture of another sit in, that grew a bit more heated.

Here is one that’s more recent – and a little confusing, if you remember the story that swirled around this viral video – a teenager from Kentucky in a MAGA hat grins at a Native American elder at a protest in Washington, DC.

Here is Dr. William Barber, and Jesse Jackson being arrested during a poor people’s campaign protest in DC.

This is from the Dakota Access Pipeline protest at Standing Rock.

Here’s Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman on January 6.

And here is an image of a Black Lives Matter protestor in Baton Rouge, Louisiana – in 2018.

Many (but not all) of these photos show civil disobedience, nonviolent direct action that seeks to create change by drawing attention to a problem, or to protest something that is wrong. These actions often bring people into conflict with others who oppose them, or with police who have been charged with to keep peace or protect property. These images are often what comes to mind for me when I hear Jesus call us to love and turn the other cheek.

The power of nonviolent resistance has transformed our world. It brought the British colonial empire to its knees in India. It ended Jim Crow segregation in the South. It stopped the pipeline. It’s drawn attention to police brutality and systemic racism.

Its power comes from collective action to form a movement – from many people acting as one to say together – there is a better way. But even movements come down to individual choices – one person committing to love instead of hate. One person and then another, and another choosing to work for restoration instead of seeking retribution. One person, in the face of violence, in the grip of fear or the red flash of anger, standing firm, sitting calmly, breathing peace, and turning the other cheek.

Our passage this morning may be Jesus’ most famous teaching. It may be one of his hardest teachings, too. So hard, many find it impossible. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…turn the other cheek…Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

This passage is the continuation of the blessings and woes we heard last week, the sermon on the plain from the Gospel of Luke. Christ is teaching his disciples, and many more who would like to be – a big crowd of folks who’ve gathered seeking healing, and power.

The path of discipleship is not an easy one. Discipleship led Christ into conflict with the authorities, to Jerusalem and Golgotha, to crucifixion and death. With this teaching, I believe Jesus is preparing his followers to navigate the difficult road ahead, where they will encounter conflict, opposition, even hatred. But not only that. He’s helping us find our way into heaven, here and now – the reign of God present in the world around us. He’s teaching us how to liberate ourselves from the burdens of hate, bile and bitterness. Let it go, he says. Give freely to others without expecting anything in return. Forgive, as you have been forgiven. Love, as you have been loved – as God has given to you, forgiven you, and loved you without expecting anything in return. This is radical reciprocity, rooted in and stemming not from other people but from the goodness and mercy and love of God.

You know, the Golden Rule is found in every major world religion, in some form or another. And so there is wisdom we can draw from other religions to help us put Christ’s call to love and forgiveness into action. Buddhist scholars Robert Thurman and Sharon Salzburg wrote a book called Love your Enemy. In conversation with Krista Tippett of NPR’s On Being, they explain that loving your enemy isn’t the weak choice. It’s not choosing to be a doormat or pushover. Loving your enemies is a way to show powerful compassion for yourself. In Krista’s words, loving your enemies “is actually the most rational and pragmatic move, an antidote to a consuming culture of anger that is not a way most of us want to live.”[2] It takes so much energy, so much negative energy to be angry! It makes us feel terrible. Sure, anger, and hatred can motivate us, they can drive us to take action. But at what cost? Anger and hatred allow others to control how we feel – they can eat us up inside, send our thoughts racing in the same harmful loops, recounting the same litany of failures over and over again. That’s no way to live.

In living with the text this week, I realized that so often I think of this call in a big picture way, envisioning THE ENEMY out there – a Big “E” enemy, the looming faceless other: Russia amassing troops on the border of Ukraine, or the white supremacist nationalists who stormed the US Capitol last year. But the enemy we confront far more often is smaller, closer, more intimate than that. A small “e” enemy – the neighbor that annoys, the sibling who disappoints, the friend who borrows and doesn’t repay. This enemy is sometimes even within us – my own shortcomings, my impatience and anger with my children, my husband, those I know and love best. Finding a way to show compassion – for ourselves, and for others despite our many faults – is a pathway to healing, wholeness, and reconciliation. If Christ is to be believed, it’s how we find our way back to God.

In that conversation with Krista Tippett, Thurman observes that Jesus only had four years to teach before he was killed, whereas the Buddha had 46 years after his enlightenment, which means he had a lot more time to help his students find methodologies to adopt and practice his teachings! Buddhism offers two ways to practice this. One way we can cultivate love of our enemies big and small is through mindfulness – a Buddhist would do this through meditation practice – to build an awareness and presence of mind to disrupt patterns of thinking and waves of emotion. To be aware of our bodies, how we are feeling and to recognize that our emotions pass. Just because our hearts beat faster, our faces flush, and our bodies tense with the heat of anger doesn’t mean we have to let it dictate our actions. We can notice it, and change the channel, let it go.

Another way we can cultivate love of our enemies is through a specific kind of meditation called Loving-kindness practice. I actually did this as part of a psychological study when I was in seminary at Boston University. It’s a practice where you take a few minutes each day to think of someone who irks you. Notice how thinking of that person makes you feel. And then actively try to disrupt that feeling, and to not jump to loving them immediately, but at least to feel neutrally toward them. Then, as time goes on, move toward loving them – which is to say, to wish for them to be happy. And notice how that makes you feel, what comes up in you when you try to do that. Over time, your ability to re-route your anger, and your capacity for love will grow. And that is the path to healing. The path to forgiveness, the path to wholeness. The path, ultimately, that will save us all.

I charge you to try one of these practices this week. Maybe just commit to being a bit more present. Or maybe you can try to cultivate love toward yourself, toward a small-e enemy. Maybe you can practice loving-kindness toward someone who is a big-E Enemy; someone who has harmed you or threatened you in some way. See if it loosens something inside of you, opens up a space for love. I believe Christ knew that the only way to change everything was to first transform ourselves. So that when it comes time to hit the field, we can step out with courage, and compassion, and play with joy no matter what they throw at us. May it be so.

[1] Bonesteel, Matt, “Howard Women’s Lacrosse Team Subject to Racist Incident Before Game at Presbyterian,” The Washington Post, 2/14/22, https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/02/14/howard-womens-lacrosse-presbyterian/

[2] Tippett, Krista, with Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman, “Love Your Enemies?  (Really)” On Being with Krista Tippett, NPR, 10/31/13, aired again 2/17/22, https://onbeing.org/programs/sharon-salzberg-robert-thurman-love-your-enemies-really/#transcript

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
February 13, 2022

Blessed?
Luke 6:17-26

In my house, we love to read.

Reading has always been one of my hobbies – I can remember sitting sideways in a wingback chair in my living room as a child, curled in the sun like a cat, getting lost for hours in a book. I have less time for deep reading like that these days, and I miss it. It was a great relief and delight to see Maddie become a proficient reader over the past couple of years – for her to begin to carry books to the breakfast table, unable to tear herself away.

Books transport us; they ignite our imaginations, enable us to see the world and our place in it differently. During the pandemic, books provided the perfect escape – allowing us to encounter and explore other cultures and travel to far-off places from the comfort of our living rooms. Reading has taken me to Nigeria and South Africa and Italy, to 16^th century England, even to Mars! Through books, we understand first-hand what it might be like to live through plague, poverty, war, a zombie apocalypse. Books helped open my eyes to the experiences of first and second generation immigrants, the struggles and triumphs of people whose lives are very different than my own.

And reading isn’t just an enjoyable pastime. Research has proven that reading makes us better people – more compassionate, more empathetic, and altruistic. Readers are better able to put themselves in someone else’s shoes, to imagine how other people might be feeling, what others are thinking, and act accordingly. Readers understand others and themselves better – reading builds emotional intelligence and intuition.

And this truth about reading makes me think about how we read scripture, and how it changes us for the better. Are you an observer, on the outside looking in, or do you try to find yourself in the story? I wonder where you found yourself in this passage from Luke, as Jesus shares these blessings.

It’s a bit of a puzzling passage, isn’t it? Troubling, even. Because it doesn’t sound so good for folks who are comfortable, who are content and pleased with their lives and in good standing with their communities. I don’t know about you, but more often than not, that’s where I find myself. With the ones he says “woe” to. Not whoa… woe, as in woe is you. Woe you who are rich, who are full, who laugh.

In this passage, Jesus turns our understanding of blessing upside down.

Because the people he says God blesses, well, they’re not the ones we expect! Blessed are the poor, the hungry, grieving, the reviled.

This is particularly challenging for us as North American Christians, because we probably hear people talk about blessing with some frequency. People claim to be blessed all the time. But a quick search on social media of the #Blessed will show you that our culture does not see blessings the way that Christ does. #blessed reveals photos of smiling families, beautiful homes, designer sneakers, exotic beaches. #blessed reveals the extent to which a lot of American Christian have bought into the prosperity gospel – the idea that abundance, good health, wealth, and power are a sign of God’s favor and blessing.

Kate Bowler is a Professor at Duke Divinity School, who studies the prosperity gospel and is living with cancer. Shortly after she learned she has stage four colon cancer, she wrote an op-ed in the NYTimes connecting her research to her life, grappling with her diagnosis in light of the prosperity gospel. She writes: “The prosperity gospel popularized a Christian explanation for why some people make it and some do not. They revolutionized prayer as an instrument for getting God always to say ‘yes.’ It offers people a guarantee: Follow these rules, and God will reward you, heal you, restore you.”[1]

But we know this is not how God operates. Good people, faithful people get sick. Faith does not prevent suffering. It doesn’t guarantee long life. Bowler says friends, family, and colleagues struggled to make sense of her devastating diagnosis. “There has to be a reason,” she writes, “because without one we are left as helpless and possibly as unlucky as everyone else…The most I can say about why I have cancer, medically speaking, is that bodies are delicate and prone to error. As a Christian, I can say that the Kingdom of God is not yet fully here, and so we get sick and die…”[2]

In our reading this morning, we hear Jesus preaching to a crowd of people, and a lot of them were sick. Scripture tells us the crowds that followed him were people seeking healing, trying to touch him to receive the power that emanated from his being. In the midst of this crowd of hurting people, he offers a promise of blessing. Blessing to the poor, the hungry, grieving, the reviled. I take this to mean that precisely when we feel most isolated, troubled, and alone; when grief sucks the color from life or pain threatens to split us in two, God is most present to, and most concerned for us…in and through the care of our community.

Rick Ufford-Chase, peace activist and former co-moderator of the PCUSA, says he struggled with this passage until he realized that “blessed” can also be translated as “greatly honored.”[3]  God honors those who suffer, are poor, and marginalized, and we who seek to follow Christ must do the same.

We see this in the life and work of Jesus, who came to serve and teach and heal the poor people of Galilee, far from the halls of power. He walked with peasants and prostitutes, people struggling to get by in an occupied land. And everywhere he went, crowds of sick and suffering people followed him, seeking his presence and power. With these blessings and woes, Rick says, “Jesus was making it clear that his notion of community was a total re-orientation – a conscious move to bring those on the margins into the center of community life.”

In our Bible study this week, and in trying to find ourselves in this passage, we realized that the states of being Jesus describes aren’t permanent. We could be blessed one day and woe-begone the next! Grief gives way to joy, and then reemerges. Our hearts are big enough to hold both hope and pain at once. Wealth can be lost, and with inflation these days it feels like is quickly eroded by rising prices. So he might also be helping us see the impermanence and fragility of our existence, even as he calls us to center those who are most in need in our communities of faith and practice. With these blessings and woes, Jesus is building our empathy, our compassion for one another.

Yesterday morning, a group of us gathered in the fellowship hall. Jack Nesbitt has been hard at work, building cedar stands for a story walk that will be installed on our property. A Story Walk is a path that displays a book, page by page, for people to read as they walk. You can find one at the Ivy Bookshop, and at Lake Roland, and many other places if you’re not sure what I’m talking about. For our work day yesterday, Jack and Pat set up wood stain and sealant, paintbrushes and dropcloths. And folks came to pitch in: to sand, stain, and seal the posts and stands. Bill Curtis, Maddie, and I mapped out the walk, driving stakes into the ground where we hope the kiosks will go. It’s exciting, because it feels like our dream is so much closer to becoming reality.

The idea grew out of our concern for learning loss during the pandemic, kids falling behind in reading and literacy during the year of virtual school. One-on-one tutoring through our partner school wasn’t possible last year, but we felt if we could provide an engaging way for students and their families to read – by donating books, offering a little free library, and soon a story walk – with seasonal and other beloved books displayed page by page around the property – it would be a good thing. Good for Faith, and good for our neighbors – after all, reading’s not just an essential skill for academic success. We know it builds compassion, empathy, and altruism. It makes us better humans. And if that isn’t a blessing, I don’t know what is. Thanks be to God.

[1] Bowler, Kate, “Death, the Prosperity Gospel, and Me,” The New York Times, 2/13/16, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/death-the-prosperity-gospel-and-me.html

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ufford-Chase, Rick, qtd. In a facebook post from the Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice, 2/8/21,

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
February 6, 2022

All the Fish in the Sea
Luke 5:1-11; Isaiah 6:1-6

He was exhausted, and his back ached as he crouched on the sandy lakeshore. The nets were a mess, filled with grit and reeds to be picked through, washed out, and cleaned. Another hour’s work at least. The fact that they had not caught any fish that night had one upside – at least they could go straight home to sleep instead of heading to market once the nets were clean.

His calloused hands worked quickly to tie and tighten the knots, mending holes in the nets that were his livelihood. Bending over the ropes, he strained to hear his friend’s voice ring out over the crowd that had gathered to hear him teach on the water’s edge.

It never ceased to amaze him how quickly word spread when Jesus showed up – people would appear out of nowhere, just to catch a glimpse of him, or would bring their old ones or their sick ones, hopeful for a healing. Children flocked to him, too. Luckily, his patience was endless. Peter looked up and shook his head – the villagers were crowding so close, it looked like they might push him into the lake! Another step back and he’d be in the water.

Jesus raised his arm and waved to him – and pointed to the boat. Could he teach from there? Inwardly groaning, Peter stood and shaded his eyes from the morning sun with his hand – hm. The boat might actually work – it would put some distance between him and the crowd, at least, practically the whole village was there. It was worth a try anyway – Simon shrugged and trudged over, whistling to his hired men to come help push the boat back into the water.

They’d already been fishing all night, so what was another couple of hours? The day was fair, and they’d be able to hear Jesus better this way – a front row seat. Simon had heard it before, of course, over dinner the night before, and in the synagogue before that. He’d seen demons cast out, and his own mother-in-law healed of a fever, and the crowds grew more and more each day. He understood their eagerness to hear him, because Simon never tired of hearing him either. Jesus shared good news, talking about the kingdom of God here and now, and promising liberation for the poor, for fishermen and farmers and their families. Simon couldn’t quite explain it, but the teaching filled him up, made his heart swell with something like hope, helped him forget the taxes he had to pay, and that he hadn’t made a good catch in a while.

When Jesus grew tired, he bid goodbye to the crowd and asked Peter to take the boat farther out, into the deep water. When they were far from shore, the men rested on their oars. “Cast your nets here,” he said. Peter laughed, ‘Did you forget you’re a carpenter, man? We fished all night and caught nothing.” Jesus pointed to the water, dark and deep, and again – here, he said. Peter and his men wearily gathered the net, and together heaved it out over the water, watching it splash and slowly sink beneath the waves. As they began to crank it back into the boat, the shining mass of fish startled them, practically leaping out of the water and into their boat, flashing silver, flopping against the wet wood, more than they’d ever seen in one place before. The men were dumbfounded, How could this be? Was it a trick? Their nets were breaking from the sheer weight of them!

They stood and turned back to shore, waving their arms. They cried out to their partners, James and John and their crew, waving, shouting, come, help us!

And when the other boat finally came, and they too were loaded with more fish than they should safely carry, when the wet nets were slung, dripping at the edge of the boat, and rough hands picked up the oars once more to return to shore. The work gave way to wariness. Simon looked at his friend Jesus and not for the first time, felt afraid – fearful for Jesus, for what would the authorities do to him when they knew what he could do? Afraid for himself, too, because surely this man was touched by God, and Simon was unclean – not fit for his presence. Simon couldn’t even remember the last time he’d made the trek to Jerusalem to sacrifice at the temple. Filled with fear, Simon flopped down on the bottom of the boat and cried – leave me be, Lord, I am a sinful man! I do not deserve this miracle! I never asked for it!

I’ve never witnessed a miracle like this, but I certainly know how he was feeling. It’s the feeling of inadequacy, of not being good enough, or skilled enough for the job at hand. It’s being asked to complete a task you’ve only just heard about, with not enough time, experience and resources to get it done. Or, it’s meeting the person you’ve looked up to your whole life, and feeling completely unworthy to be in their presence.

The prophet Isaiah, when called by Almighty God to speak truth to power, is overwhelmed by his own inadequacy. In the presence of God, Isaiah says, oh no, woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips! Choose somebody else!

Richard Rohr says that one of the earliest insights in the Christian tradition is the truth that we are saved by grace. There is nothing we do to earn God’s love. Rohr writes, “Not because you are so bright and light and have purged out all the darkness does God accept you, but as you are. Not by doing something, not by your works…”. There is nothing we can do or fail to do. God simply loves us, and embraces us completely – with all our imperfections, shortcomings, mistakes, and misgivings. By grace, we are good enough, just as we are.[1]

And here we see it, in the bottom of a sinking, stinking fishing boat, in the middle of the sea of Galilee, when Jesus smiles and stretches out his hand to his friend and says, don’t be afraid. Come with me, and we’ll fish for people.

Peter has every reason to feel inadequate. I imagine we all would feel unworthy to be in the presence of the one true God. His religion required regular sacrifices, visits to the temple in Jerusalem that would have been four day’s journey on foot, difficult and expensive for a poor fisherman to make to worship properly. He wasn’t lying, he was ritually unclean – and after fishing all night and hauling in more fish than two boats could hold, I’m guessing he was literally unclean, too. But Christ still chooses him.

I had a colleague in Atlanta who liked to remind elders and deacons that God promises us grace sufficient for our calling[2] – which means, I think, that whenever God calls us to a task, God also equips us to do it. Sometimes the work is overwhelming. It may feel as if our nets are breaking! Sometimes, the boat begins to sink. That is when, like Peter, we must look to shore, to find partners to come meet us and help. Because the silver flash of a miracle compels us to push onward, to push back against the inner voices that say we aren’t good enough, and the powers beyond us that would keep us in our place…God calls us to share good news with the poor, to practice forgiveness, and to work together for liberation. And God gives us to one another, to help make it happen.

I don’t know what it is for you. But I am sure that you all can think of a time when you felt inadequate for the task at hand. Exhausted, overwhelmed. Probably too many times to count over the past few years, we’ve faced fear, illness, and uncertainty. Our way of life has been completely upended. The future is still a bit foggy. But of this I am certain: God is calling us to share the good news of love and liberation with a world in desperate need of it. And God’s grace is sufficient for our calling. I wonder: will we have the wisdom to ask for help when we need it? And when we make it back to shore, will we have the courage to leave our nets behind? I pray that we will. Because when we do, God will surprise us with life abundant over and over again.

[1] Richard Rohr’s daily email, 6/16/21 “Shadow in Christianity”

[2] Rev. Sallie Ann McKenzie-Sisk