Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
October 27, 2024

Eyes Wide Open
Mark 10:46-52

When I was in about fourth grade, the world was taken with a new visual phenomenon: Magic Eye images.

You may have seen your first one in a poster frame at the mall, with a soft pretzel or a fresh squeezed lemonade in your hand, a group of strangers crowded around close, squinting.  Or, if you’re like me, maybe it was at a scholastic book fair, a group of classmates leaning over the desk, saying things like: look through the picture!  Let your eyes unfocus!  With someone periodically exclaiming: ohhhh!  I see it!  A sailboat!

Magic Eye posters were a fad that swept the country in the early 90’s – a popular version of a “random dot stereogram, a visual trick that shows how humans can achieve the sensation” of seeing something in 3-D, “by looking at a pair of 2D images filled with randomized, black-and-white dots…”. By shifting where an image is placed relative to its background, the inventor of these images figured out how to “trick the brain into seeing depth and create the illusion” of seeing a flat image as 3-D.[1]

Developed by a couple of graphic designers, Magic Eye images hide a 3-D image behind repeating columns of brightly colored static.  When your eyes unfocus, the hidden image suddenly appears.  Many of you can remember that “aha” moment of suddenly seeing the car or the airplane behind the static.  In a design article about the Magic Eye craze, one journalist wrote, there is “something entrancing about staring at the hypercolored static, searching for something you can’t see but know is there. As satisfying as it is to best a trick, there’s a perverse pleasure in trying, and failing, to bring something hidden into view.”[2]

I have a confession: I could never see the hidden image.  Try as I might, my brain could not unscramble the static, and the 3-D image never appeared. Magic eyes left me cross eyed and headachey, frustrated that I couldn’t see the cool picture that everyone else saw.

It was an early lesson in the truth that sometimes, we can’t see the world the way others see it.  Our brains operate differently; what is obvious and evident to you may not be so clear to me, and vice-versa.  We need each other to help us see what our eyes, our brains overlook, or that which social location or experience hides from us.  The story of Bartimaeus is a good example of this.

We’ve been journeying with Jesus through Mark’s gospel over the past six weeks or so.  Along the way, Jesus has been teaching his disciples what discipleship looks like: humility, service, healing, and care.  As he travels through the Galilean countryside to Jerusalem, Jesus challenges social norms that prioritize some while shutting others out.  Women, children, people who are sick, those who are poor – the people the world forgets are the ones Jesus brings into the center.  “The first shall be last in the kingdom of God,” he says.  Three times, he predicts that his counter-cultural message will provoke the authorities, that he will be killed and in three days, rise again.

But his disciples don’t understand what he’s trying to tell them.  Try as they might, they just can’t see it.  James and John think discipleship will lead to political power if Jesus is the messiah, and they ask him to sit at his left and his right.  The rich man thinks adherence to the 10 commandments will be his ticket to the kingdom.  But Christ challenges all of them to embrace humility instead.  To walk the way of the cross.

So Mark shows us one more time what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.  Mark wants us to notice the irony, that the blind man can see Jesus clearly, can see who he is – calling out, Jesus, son of David! – naming Christ the Messiah, when those closest to Jesus don’t understand what that means.  Bartimaeus believes Jesus will heal him, so he persists in crying out, even though the crowds shush him, and try to silence him.

In Biblical times, a blind man would have had no means of livelihood, no place in polite society.  He would have been destitute, an outsider among outsiders.  His cloak would have been spread in front of him to catch the coins tossed by pilgrims on their way out of Jericho, heading towards Jerusalem as Jesus was.

Remember the story of the rich man, who was challenged by Jesus to sell everything, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow him?  The man wouldn’t, or couldn’t do it – he went away grieving, the story goes, because he had many possessions.  When Jesus calls out to Bartimaeus, the blind beggar is willing to jump up, leaving his cloak – likely the only garment he owns – behind in the dust of the road, to follow Jesus on the way.

For Mark, followers of Jesus must be bold, persistent, courageous, and humble.  We must be able to see the world around us clearly, even when others refuse to open their eyes to reality.  We must be like Bartimaeus — willing to leave everything behind in our haste to follow where Christ is leading.

My first year here, Kate Foster and McKenna Lewellen took me on a tour of the city, a tour that they often led for groups visiting the Center.  We went down to the inner harbor, over to East Baltimore near Hopkins hospital – which I now know is where the old Faith church building is.  We went to West Baltimore, and saw the old entertainment district along Pennsylvania Avenue, and the rows of vacant rowhouses of that showed the painful impact of disinvestment.  As we crossed neighborhoods, they pointed out how roads changed names as we moved from one part of town to another.  How affluence gave way to poverty in the span of just a few blocks.  And I began to see how red lines drawn on a map years ago persist in the life of the city today, dividing neighborhoods, sequestering wealth, abandoning neighborhood schools, and creating what Lawrence Brown named the Black butterfly.

It was as if the static of chance, the static that says this is just the way it is, the way the city grew, the way we who have choice continue to choose where and how we live and work – faded away, and the image of the racist policies that led to such disparity came into sharp relief.

I wonder if once you see those magic eye images, you can always see them – or if you have to go through the process every time to be able to grasp the image.  If it still takes some time, to be reminded of what’s there.

I wonder for how long Bartimaeus treasured his newfound sight – if every morning he awoke, blinking in the first light of dawn, praising God for opening his eyes to see the beauty and the bright truth of the world around him – the precious faces of his family, the smiles and crinkling eyes of his closest friends.

Our task as people of faith is to look past the static that blinds us to the truth of the world as it is.  And to follow Jesus as Bartimaeus did – once our eyes are opened – by seeking to challenge the forces of exclusion and oppression.  By building communities of care.  By holding on to the bright, shimmering truth when we glimpse it – a world suffused with the grace and goodness of God is to be treasured.

I know that watching or reading the news over the next few weeks is going to be challenging.  The last few weeks of this divisive, difficult election cycle are not going to be pretty.

Parker Palmer observes that “it takes no special talent to see what’s ugly, numbing, depressing, and death dealing in our world.  Staying aware of what’s good, true, and beautiful demands that we open our eyes, minds, and hearts, and keep them open.  …With eyes wide open, we can begin to see beauty in the most surprising places, not only in nature, but in human nature.  That’s what will give us the inspiration, strength, and courage to resist all that’s wrong and work for what’s right… Keep your eyes open, and keep hope alive.”[3]

May it be so.

[1] Stinson, Liz, “The Hidden History of Magic Eye, the Optical Illusion that Briefly Took Over the World,” July 1, 2022, Aiga Eye on Design, https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/the-hidden-history-of-magic-eye-the-optical-illusion-that-briefly-took-over-the-world/

[2] Ibid.

[3] Palmer, Parker J. Facebook post reflecting on Mary Oliver’s poem “Mindful.” January 29, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/share/p/emBosMPmatsKdTi4/

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
October 13, 2024

Faith is an Action Verb
Mark 10:17-31

Black Mountain Presbyterian Church is a thriving congregation that sits right outside of the town center of Black Mountain – a vibrant main drag, with local galleries, shops, and restaurants, that was once home to the radical Black Mountain School.  The church sits far enough away from the Swannanoa River and its tributary, Flat Rock Creek, that it escaped the worst of the flooding two weeks ago.  But along with the rest of the town, they lost power and water, had no cell service, and were suddenly cast into tragedy and uncertainty when Helene swept in.

As the floodwaters receded and it became clear that many neighbors had lost their homes, and many,

many more were stranded by broken roads and failed infrastructure, the church sprang into action.  It emptied its fridges and began cooking hot meals outside under tents, feeding the folks who were camped out in cars along the road in Black Mountain.  As soon as supplies began to be trucked in, the church became a distribution point, setting up a triage area to receive and share food and other essential items.

Today, two weeks later, they are overflowing with donations.  The spacious narthex has become a food pantry, stacked to the ceiling with canned goods, lined with shelves brimming with soups and instant meals.  Hallways are piled high with cleaning supplies, gloves and buckets and bleach – all you’d need to clear the muck and mud out of a flooded house.  Their open fellowship hall has tables filled with diapers, medicine, and more.  Volunteers from as far away as Louisiana are helping sort, organize, and distribute things to the people who need them.  They’ve received so many contributions, they’re using a big hall in nearby Montreat as overflow storage.  And still, a team is outside – cooking and serving hot meals to their waterlogged neighbors.  The congregation has turned into a hub for community needs.

When Jesus says, all who follow me will have plenty of brothers and sisters and mothers in this life and in the life to come, I can’t help but think about that church, and the story of how they have sprung into action to care for their community in the wake of this tragedy.  Because what does family do if it doesn’t feed you, help shelter you, make sure you have what you need to get through?  Pastor Mary Katherine Robinson observed – “It’s bringing strangers together and making them friends, and that’s beautiful to watch.”[1]

“Good teacher,” the man asks: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Many of us have pondered this question at one point or another.  How can we be sure we are saved?  How do we get to heaven is a question commonly asked in our culture, or as I’m more likely to phrase it – how can we find our way into the reign of God?

These aren’t everyday, lighthearted questions.  These are questions that might weigh heavy on our souls, the ones that keep us up in the middle of the night.  The worry over getting it right drove the rich man to fall on his knees at Jesus’s feet, so concerned was he about salvation.  Still, they aren’t questions that we as Presbyterians spend a lot of time talking about.  And here’s why: as my friend and colleague Shannon Webster liked to say – quoting, I think, his old theology professor, “we believe God loves us not because we are good, but because God is good.”

And we remember this each week as we confess our faults and failures together in our prayer of confession.  We name collective shortcomings big and small, and have time to reflect in silence on our personal ones.  And each week, with a splash of baptismal waters, we are assured – there is nothing we can do and nothing we can fail to do that will separate us from God’s love.  Salvation is to be found not in anything that we do, but rather by the grace and love of God made known in Christ and community.

Still: Jesus tells the man: Sell what you have, give the money to the poor, and follow me, Jesus’s response to this man is typical.  Enigmatic.  Challenging.  It’s so upsetting the man leaves, upset, grieving.  The only time in the gospel stories when Christ invites someone to follow and is turned down!

Jesus turns the man’s concern about himself – what must I do to inherit eternal life – outwards, into concern for others.  Jesus shifts the focus – from personal piety to community service and generosity.  And shifts the time frame – from what might happen one day, in a far off eternity to how the man responds to immediate needs, here and now.  Maybe the teacher is teaching us that service is an outward expression of inner convictions – care for others and concern for people who are poor is a demonstration of discipleship.  What if it is our generosity and care for one another that saves us?

The core of Jesus’ teaching to this rich man is that wealth is an impediment to grace.  Our stuff gets in the way of our ability to be disciples.  It insulates us from reliance on God and one another.

I wonder how we hear this truth as American Christians.  Evangelical scholar Ron Sider calls us Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger.  Plenty of interpreters have tried to explain this story away, but I believe we need to hear it now more than ever.  Because of our social location.  Because of our shared wealth.  Because we have enough, and when we have enough, God calls us to generosity.

There is a Japanese theologian named Kosuke Koyama who says that though we live in a fast-paced world, God is a slow God.  God moves, Koyama says, at three miles per hour – the speed that Jesus moved as he walked and talked through Galilee.   He writes: “The work of God goes on in the depth of our life, whether we notice or not, whether we are currently hit by storm or not, at three miles an hour. It is the speed we walk and therefore it is the speed the love of God walks.”[2]  The work of God in the world is unlikely to be at a pace of our own choosing.  IT seldom happens quickly.  But the Spirit is still at work.

We come together in this place week after week to hear and be reminded of the love of God, and the call of our loving God to give and care generously.  To look beyond ourselves and see the needs around us, and to discern together what good we can do.  Not because our salvation depends on it – God’s got that covered already – but because Faith is an action verb.  It is something that we do together.  Because we trust God is at work, albeit slowly, we lend our hands and hearts to the task of loving our neighbors, of advocating for change.  We give generously, trusting that God will use what we offer.  And trusting that our community, this community, will support us when needs arise.

I’m grateful for the wisdom of the deacons in creating the DEAR fund – a resource available to members and friends of this church who have emergency needs.  Medical bills, car repairs, rental assistance, help recovering after a fire – the DEAR fund has helped bridge the gap for folks in need in our Faith family.

Yesterday, our kitchen and fellowship hall were filled with folks chopping, sauteeing, prepping casseroles and gift bags for folks who are in homebound, or otherwise in need of a little help and care.

I am grateful for the care and example of Black Mountain Presbyterian Church.  But you know what?  I am also grateful for the care and example of this family of Faith.

[1] Robinson, Mary Katherine, qtd. By Carter, Darla in “Black Mountain Presbyterian Church and Volunteers bringing ‘beautiful spirit’ to feeding and supporting the community,” Presbyterian News Service, 10/8/24, https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/black-mountain-presbyterian-church-and-volunteers-bringing-beautiful-spirit-to-feeding-and-supporting-the-community/?utm_content=311293034&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&hss_channel=fbp-22627435207

[2] Kosuke Koyama, “Three Mile an Hour God,” in Three Mile an Hour God: Biblical Reflections (Orbis, 1979), 6-7. Found on External Word blog, Nicholas Lash, Theological quotes, 9/20/13, https://externalword.blog/2013/09/20/kosuke-koyama-on-the-speed-of-god/

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
March 24, 2024

People Power!
Mark 11:1-11

In September of 2003, the Dalai Lama visited Washington, DC, and offered an address at the National Cathedral.  It was the second anniversary of the September 11 attacks, and, as I was living in DC at the time, I knew I needed to be there to hear him.  The sun was shining brilliantly, the sky was sparkling blue as I got off the metro. Walking toward the cathedral, the sidewalks began to be crowded with people – all heading the same direction, walking to hear the Dalai Lama.  When we reached the entrance to the grounds, I realized that the line to get into the cathedral stretched down the driveway, through the gate, and out to the street – then curved down the sidewalk and around the corner!  So, we kept going, walking another two blocks to join the end of the line.  Then, we waited, slowly winding our way along the tree-lined streets, standing in the dappled shade as we inched toward the sanctuary.  It took more than an hour to get onto the grounds of the cathedral, and by that time the nave was filled to capacity.  So as the organizers set up loudspeakers outside, we found a spot on the lawn, and sat down crisscross applesauce on the grass amidst the crowds of others to listen.  If I’m honest, I don’t remember much about what he said.  I had to strain to hear, to sort through his accent and the echo of the loudspeaker.  An article in the Post afterwards said that there were more than 3000 people sitting outside in overflow – what I remember is the hush that fell over the crowd that day –  it was as if together we held our breath and leaned in, just hungry for words of hope from this wise teacher.

At that time, the horror of the war on terror was just beginning to unfold.  The Bush administration was spinning the tale about yellowcake uranium that would become their justification, their fabricated justification for invading Iraq.  They’d just outed Valerie Plame.  I was 22 years old, simultaneously brimming with idealism and furious about the drumbeat for war that was reverberating in Washington at the time.  So I leaned in, we all did, listening so carefully, for a world leader to guide us on a path to peace.  We needed it.  I needed it.

Who have you joined a large crowd to see?  Who have you waited in a ridiculous line to hear, or stretched on tiptoes by the side of the road just to catch a glimpse of, to draw near to?  Politicians draw a crowd.  Some musicians do.  4.35 million people saw the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, that’s almost the entire population of Los Angeles.  They say you can hear the roar of the crowd by a red carpet from blocks away.  Fans flock to see the Ravens and the Orioles and the athletes who play professional and collegiate sports… all people and events that may require a bit of patience to witness.  The biggest crowds I’ve been in lately have been political demonstrations, the street theatre of protests and pride parades.

If you’ve been in a crowd like that, you know the tenor changes based on the message of its leadership.  The Dalai Lama, three thousand people sit quietly in the grass.  The Rally to Save America led some 2000 people to storm the US Capitol, wreak havoc and interrupt the certification of electoral votes.

I can’t help but wonder what the tenor of the crowd was that day in Jerusalem.  The city would have been 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; 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 wait for hours – no dappled shade here, they stand in the sun by the rocky road.  They wait, and 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.

When he finally comes into view… what must they have thought?  This?  This is our savior?  A man riding a donkey?  No saddle to sit on, just the draped fabric of a cloak?

We’re too far removed to realize this, we don’t have a good frame of reference, but people of that time would have known that Jesus is engaging in carefully calculated political theatre here.  This is a protest, one that pits the power of the people against the power of Rome.  When Roman generals returned from war, they would ride their chariots through the city gates with throngs of people cheering their return.  Prancing white horses led the marching army straight to the temple of their war god, where the general would make a sacrifice.  Ched Meyers points out that Jesus is entering Jerusalem as a conquering hero, a general returning from war.  Instead of a chariot, Jesus rides a donkey – evoking the promise of the prophet Zechariah, who predicts the savior of Israel will come on a colt.  Jesus has 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 brings is different than that.  His is the way of peace, and solidarity.  The way of love – the only power that is stronger than hate, able to survive anything – even death.

Though they understand him to be their messiah, it’s clear that the crowds don’t fully understand who Christ is and what he came to do.  His ministry has offered healing, and wisdom, calling people to life abundant.  But we are schooled in the ways of death.  We believe in fire power, not people power; we bow to the rule of violence.  And so that is what many expected, and hoped he would bring: a violent uprising to overthrow their oppressors.  But Jesus and the drama of holy week teach us that God won’t swoop in to smite our enemies.  God will not singlehandedly undo wrongs wrought on the world, God needs our hands for that.  The divine is not a conquering hero.  God works in humble ways, sitting us down, criss-cross applesauce in the grass to break bread together, to share abundance, to hear words of peace even when we have to listen hard, even when we have to strain to hear them.

There are churches that call this day “palm and passion Sunday” – the idea being that we read all of the holy week texts today, so we don’t jump from the joy of the palm parade into the joy of the resurrection and miss all of the pain of Holy Week in between.  But we aren’t going to do that.  One, because I hope you’ll find a way to be part of our observation in the days ahead, gathering for a meal on Thursday, coming here to remember and hear again the story of the crucifixion on Friday, making space for prayer and reflection on Saturday, before we gather again in hope on Sunday.  But we’re not rehearsing the passion story today because we live in a good Friday world.  We don’t need to be reminded of the suffering around us, we feel it in our very bones.  130 dead at a concert on the other side of the world, in the nation of our sworn enemy, and still our hearts ache for those families, their community.  What we need to hold onto this holy week is God’s promise in Christ not to abandon us here, in the midst of our grief, stuck in the jaws of disillusionment and war.  But to face the reality of evil and sin and death with quiet courage, committed to walk the way of peace.  No matter what.

Thanks be to God.

 

 

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore
March 3, 2024

A House of Prayer for All People
John 2:13-22

The room is large, with a dusty white tile floor, and dim – with fluorescent lighting that is often turned off, at least in my memory.  The lights are off to help keep the room cool, which mostly works along with a contraption called a swamp cooler, that uses fans blowing over a pan of water keep buildings moderately cooler than they would be otherwise – using the desert heat to cool through evaporation.  There is a thin film of dust on the white plastic chairs that are stacked and unstacked, arranged and rearranged for different events throughout the week.  It seems like an ordinary place, but it is a sanctuary.  The Lily of the Valley church in Agua Prieta, Mexico.

The sanctuary of my childhood was cavernous, at least in my memory, Air Conditioned to keep the Lousiana heat and humidity at bay.  Thick maroon velvet pew cushions three shades darker than the plush carpet softened the room, beautiful with wooden pews, simple stained glass.  Across the front of the sanctuary, sixty something organ pipes stand proudly over the choir – I counted them so many times as a child it’s embarrassing, I can’t recall precisely how many there were.  67?

Another sanctuary dear to my heart and firm in my memory stands on a hillside, with rough hewn rock benches stairstepping down to a fish-shaped chancel.  A big wooden cross stands high above a breathtaking view of the green Guadalupe river – the chapel on the hill at Mo-Ranch.

Some have high ceilings, others are ceiling tiles.  Some are lined with ornate stained glass windows, others have clear views out into the neighborhood around them.  Almost always there are candles.  A table, a font.  Walls that hold the echo of prayers whispered and songs sung over years, decades, sometimes even centuries.  What sanctuaries do you hold in your memory?  Where have you found sanctuary?  Are they the same places?  Different?

I have found sanctuary in a circle of friends, around a salvaged kitchen table.  On a rocky beach, wind whipping my hair and waves crashing nearby.  On a forest trail with nothing but the shush of pine needles underfoot and the birdsong in the air.  Surprising, unexpected places have been my sanctuaries, too: a sticky table at a women’s shelter; sun-baked parking lot; a bedside at a hospital.

See, we know that sacred space isn’t just relegated to in here.  Churches don’t hold a monopoly on what’s holy.  We’ve created sanctuaries, of course, they’re central to who we are: safe, often beautiful spaces for community to gather for work and worship – places to rest in the mystery and wonder of God.  But remember that the first churches were house churches.  And Jesus led a movement, of people sharing the good news from ear to ear, table to table, house to house.  So God isn’t stuck in here.  Or hidden somewhere out there.  Up there.  In here.

When he began his ministry, faithful Jews had to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to sacrifice at the temple once a year, often on Passover, to be in right relationship with God.  That’s when our story takes place.

When this passage occurs in other gospels, it’s near the end of the story. Right after the triumphant entry into Jerusalem, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus goes to the temple to worship, and is furious about what he finds there: a marketplace, a capitalist frenzy.  Jesus is angry about economic exploitation – the temple-sanctioned squeezing of the poorest people, those weary, road-worn peasants, through a temple tax and unfair exchange rates. So he throws out the money lenders and the vendors, turns over their tables and drives out the animals brought for sacrifice.  This outburst in the temple is what galvanizes the religious leaders into convicting Jesus, it’s the last straw, the one that makes them say – that’s it, this guy has got to go.

But here we are at the beginning of John’s story, a story thick with theology and symbolic meaning. Scholars say he’s trying to say something different than the other three guys.  His story is the last of the gospels to be written; In John’s world, the temple has already been destroyed.  So it seems like John reinterprets this story to be a sign, a foreshadowing that God doesn’t reside only in the temple; God isn’t stuck inside.  And, as the prophets before have declared, God doesn’t require sacrifices to be pleased with us.  Yes, Jesus is angry at the economic injustice at the heart of temple worship, but that’s not all that’s happening here.  in John’s view, Jesus is the presence of God amongst the people.  Christ’s body becomes the new temple, the place where God is made manifest.  Destroy this place and in three days, I’ll raise it up.

There is an ancient ecclesial understanding that church itself is Christ’s body in the world; our hands, Christ’s hands.  As Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?

Our very bodies are a place where God resides in the world!  And not just ours, but every body!   Tiny babies, and precious teenagers filled with sass and the thrill of life’s possibilities, and the very old, frail but filled with wisdom.  A squeegee kid, and a broken Palestinian woman grieving her husband shot dead in a bread line.  All sanctuaries of the presence and power of God!  Does it change us to view bodies as sacred?  Not individual cells, mind you, but whole bodies, our living, breathing bodies, these bodies?

We might need to have some tables overturned to see ourselves and others in that way.  Tables of indifference to the suffering of others, tables of self-loathing or shame about the ways our bodies look or feel or move.  Turn them over, throw all of that away.  Drive it out of your subconscious and stop all of that negative self-talk.  A challenge for the week ahead: See yourself as a place where God’s spirit dwells, and see what difference that makes.  See if it helps you be a little more kind to yourself.  More gentle.  To see yourself as blessed and beautiful, as indeed God sees you.  Carve out time and space to breathe, and rest in the presence of God.  I can’t help but wonder if we might eat more healthfully, move more intentionally if we really understood our very bodies to be sanctuaries of the spirit.  If we saw one another that way, too …. we might devote ourselves more completely to the work of caregiving, peacebuilding, and systems change.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this sanctuary and the building that houses it, our church.  The first half of the 20^th century was a time of great property acquisition for the church; we bought land, we built buildings – sanctuaries where God could dwell amongst the people.  But the landscape around us has changed.  Neighborhoods change, culture has shifted, and what it means to belong to a faith community has changed, too.  This building was built for a church of 1200 people!  And it has been lovingly maintained and cared for by our congregation – a team of volunteers who gather each Thursday to paint and garden, to arrange and rearrange, to fix leaks and change lightbulbs and otherwise tend to our temple.

The front of the bulletin is a photo of an architectural drawing of our church that hangs in the Woodbourne Room.  I would guess it was created in the mid 1940’s, when our church was still located down in a big stone building at the corner of Gay and Biddle Streets.  And if you look closely, you’ll see that this rendering wasn’t actually completely built – there’s a whole section of the building that never came to life.  Our building was built in stages – first the sanctuary in 1950-51, then the middle Jackson wing about 5-6 years later, then the office wing, kitchen and fellowship hall about 15 years after that.  Almost as soon as that project was completed, the congregation had already shifted, no longer needing the space on the third floor for Sunday school classrooms, such that the Presbytery offices moved in by 1974.

All of this to say, is that our building was built for a different congregation.  It is an incredible gift, an inheritance, a resource that enables so much lifegiving and transformational ministry.  And we pray that it will be even more of a blessing to our neighborhood and community in the years to come.  As I’ve told you before, a task force is at work to envision exactly how it might do that – to create a rendering of what our church of the future might look like.  We’re talking with partners and neighboring institutions to see what they’ve assessed as the greatest needs in this part of the city might be.  And I hope all of you will join me in praying for our ongoing discernment about how this body might continue to be a blessing – a place where God’s spirit is present and alive amongst the people – for many, many, many more years to come.  What will it look like?  How might it need to change?  I can’t wait to find out.

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
February 25, 2024

Who is He to Us?
Mark 8:27-38

In Hendersonville, NC, not far from where my parents live, there is a small aquarium.  They have some 300 aquatic animals and are staffed by a team of volunteers and interns.  And it is there, in the Aquarium and Shark Lab in Buncombe County, North Carolina – that a miracle has occurred, a miracle involving a small stingray named Charlotte.  Charlotte has lived in a tank with no males of her species for the past 8 years.  Yet somehow, Charlotte is pregnant!  Her round, serving platter sized body has a large hump, and any day now she could give birth to as many as four pups.  Did she mate with a shark?  Was it immaculate conception?  Scientists say probably not – instead, a rare but not unheard-of occurrence called parthenogenesis, in which a creature impregnates itself.[1]  Hear Jeff Goldblum saying, “Life, ah, finds a way.”  Left in a shark tank by herself for longer than Gillian has been alive, Charlotte found a way.  What a strange world we live in, where people across the internet are anxiously awaiting the birth of stingray Jesus.

It makes sense, because other news the past few weeks has been bleak.

I have been particularly heartbroken by the death of a teenager in Oklahoma I read about this week.  Their name was Nex.  They were 16 years old.  They should be studying, and planning for summer, and laughing with friends, or lounging at home, but no.  Those of you who follow the news know that Nex died two weeks ago, after a fight in the girls’ bathroom at school.  See, Nex lives in Oklahoma, in a town called Owasso.  I went to college with a girl from Owasso, she grew up in the Presbyterian church there, her childhood pastor wrote one of my favorite Presbyterian primers (called Being Presbyterian in the Bible Belt[2]) – all of which to say that Owasso has some strong, faithful, progressive Presbyterians but still, it is not a safe place for trans and nonbinary kids.  In Oklahoma, kids may not use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity; neither may they be called by their chosen name in school, only by the name and gender on their birth certificate.  And so Nex was bullied at school, and never talked with the school administration about it because, they said, what difference would it make?  February 7 was no different.  Three older girls made fun of what Nex and their friends were wearing, so Nex stood up for themselves, and got thrown to the floor, knocking their head on the ground, and blacking out.  Kicked out of school, and sent home.  Nex seemed to be okay, but complained of a headache.  Their grandma rushed them to the ER the next day, but it was too late.[3]

Now there isn’t an authoritative report yet about what happened.  We can’t know.  The police made a statement, saying that trauma didn’t cause that child’s death.  Maybe it would be more accurate to say that trauma didn’t immediately cause that child’s death.  Instead it was caused by having to exist in a world that insisted on a false binary, refusing to see the beautiful spectrum, the rainbow of identities that encompass all of us.  Death by a thousand cuts.

This was a preventable tragedy.  Schools should be safe, and adults – teachers, administrators, parents, community members – must do what we can to make them so.  Kids should be able to be who they are, to identify however they believe best expresses their evolving identities.  When someone tells you who they are, believe them.

In our passage this morning, Peter professes the truth about Jesus: you are the Christ, the anointed one.  It’s the first time one of Jesus’s disciples names this truth about him.  First, Jesus tells Peter not to tell anyone, and then Jesus tells Peter what it means to be God’s anointed one… what kind of Messiah he will be.  But Peter didn’t believe him.  Jesus told him who he was, but Peter didn’t understand.  Peter was stuck on an old belief; he thought a messiah would be a conquering hero, overthrowing Rome to put a king like David back on the throne.  But Jesus didn’t come seeking political power. He isn’t building military power and might.  Instead, Jesus came to show a new way, the way of peace.  He came to confront the reality of evil in the world, to vanquish the power of empire and lead us in the way to justice, healing, and peace.

Jesus knew the path ahead would be dangerous – not just for him, but for all those who walked with him.  People who challenged Rome were crucified, publicly, to dissuade others from making the same mistake.  Some scholars think “take up your cross” may have been a rallying cry for revolutionaries at that time, so certain was Rome’s response to resistance.  By telling his disciples to pick up their crosses and follow him, Jesus is naming the risk of discipleship: they risk their very lives.  Jesus knows that his work to uplift the poor, to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, to help the suffering will provoke those who benefit from the world as it is.  Jesus challenges the death-dealing powers of the world, inviting people to life and life abundant.

For we who hear Jesus when he says, pick up your cross, and follow me – for all of us who are called to be disciples, the road ahead is difficult.  We are called to work that asks us to give everything we can, all that we are, to build peace.  To cultivate compassion.  To create communities and support schools where kids like Nex are free to be themselves.  Where children can grow up, and live to old age without fear, whether they are Palestinian or Israeli, Ukrainian or Russian, from Park Heights or Pimlico.

Reading this text is something we must do carefully.  Because we’ve all heard it used a different way – used to keep people stuck in impossible situations.  Stay put, don’t leave your abusive spouse or challenge your terrible boss, suffering is just your cross to bear.

But Christ came to bring life, and to bring it abundantly; he offered sight to the blind, and set captives free.  Suffering in and of itself is not holy – it’s not God’s will for us to suffer.  But, still- When someone tells you who they are, believe them – Jesus told us, and showed us, that the way of discipleship is not easy.  We who wish to follow Jesus must be brave.  We must be willing to risk speaking up and showing up for people and causes we believe in.  We must be willing to sacrifice time, invest our resources, and dedicate ourselves to the messy, beautiful, ongoing work of building and being beloved community.  Trusting the truth that somehow, life will find a way… after all, we live in a world where a stingray named Charlotte can conceive on her own!

We don’t have to be beholden to false binaries, or old beliefs.  With God, anything is possible, even going a new way, a way of peace.  May we all find the courage to speak up, to create safe and brave spaces, so that all might thrive in the days ahead.  May it be so.

[1] Watercutter, Angela, “Why TikTok is so Obsessed with a Mysteriously Pregnant Stingray” Wired, 2/23/24, https://www.wired.com/story/charlotte-pregnant-virgin-stingray-jesus/

[2] Foote, Ted and P. Alex Thornburg, Being Presbyterian in the Bible Belt: A Theological Survival Guide for Youth, Parents, and other Confused Presbyterians, Geneva Press:Louisville, KY, 2000.

[3] Goodman, J David, “In Video, Nonbinary Student Describes Fight in Oklahoma School Bathroom,” The New York Times, 2/24/24, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/24/us/oklahoma-bathroom-video-nex-benedict.html

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
October 21, 2023

What’s Mine is Yours?
Matthew 22:15-22

Gillian, Cocoa and I took a walk yesterday, down our street lined with towering sycamore trees.  The sycamore leaves all turn brown and drop in dry heaps covering the curb, but interspersed through the neighborhood are oaks and maples, sweetgums and dogwoods, chestnuts and black walnuts, trees whose leaves turn the most incredible shades of orange, gold, and crimson, so that the sidewalks become a red carpet.  Some are so beautiful, I can’t walk by without stooping to pick them up.

I’m ashamed to say the magic of fall was a mystery that would pass by almost unnoticed until I had children.  But now, my children ask me – why do leaves change color in fall?  How does it happen?  And I know now that leaves produce chlorophyll through spring and summer, a chemical which tints them a basic green color and allows them to turn sunlight into sugar through photosynthesis.  The sugar feeds the tree.  The chemicals which appear to tint a leaf yellow or gold is called carotenoids, and they’re there, in the leaf, all year – but the chlorophyll covers it up, so the yellow can’t be seen.  As the weather cools, especially if we get bright sunny autumn days and crisp fall nights, and a few rainy days, the leaves have a lot of sugar stored up to feed the tree.  That’s when the chemical that turns leaves bright red and orange begins to be produced; it’s called Anthocyanin.  As the nights grow longer and days shorter, chlorophyll production tapers off – revealing the brilliant yellow and red that have been there all along, and just weren’t visible.[1]  The tender leaves of a tree would freeze if they tried to survive the winter, so they seal up the veins that carry liquid to and from the branch, and eventually, they let go – falling to the ground, carpeting the sidewalks.

The words of Psalm 19 come to mind…”The heavens are telling the glory of God, the earth proclaims Gods handiwork.”  Yes. It’s true.  Look around. Breathe it in. With eyes to see, we people of faith can’t help but recognize the hand of the creator present in the world around us.  How can this be if God is not?  Chlorophyll, carotenoids, and anthocyanin coexisting within a single leaf, each sustaining the tree in its own small way, one stepping forward as another falls back.   And more than that, the wisdom underlying the cycle of our seasons testifies to the wisdom of the creator: this autumn time of letting go, creation hunkering down through the cold winter to rest and build strength, the cycle starting again with the fresh green growth of spring.

We often hear that God created the universe out of nothing.  Earth was a formless void into which God spoke.  But: Celtic Christians believed that God created not out of nothing but out of God’s own being. Imagine the big bang as a birthing, creation born in a flash from the divine body.  Everything is therefore infused with the sacred, because God’s body is the ground of our being.  God’s breath, our breath. Think of the respiration of leaves, as co2 is absorbed and oxygen emitted.  Then their majestic turning, green fading to reveal brilliant flaming colors of fall, readying the tree for winter.  This incredible balance, this beautiful world. This stunning cosmos.  All of it. Of God. From God. Holy.  This means that instead of being far off, out there, or up there, detached from the machinations of our world, God is right here.  MaryAnn McKibben Dana quotes John O’Donohue: “If we believe that the body is in the soul and the soul is divine ground, then the presence of the divine is completely here, close with us.[2] All we need to do is slow down and tune in: to notice the holy at work in the ordinary.[3]  God, not far off, but right here.

And so this question that the Pharisees and the Herodians ask… do we pay taxes to Caesar?  Is it lawful?  This is a sneaky, trick question. It’s a political, partisan question, a question designed to make someone angry no matter what Jesus says: if he says, no, don’t pay it, the Herodians will have reason to arrest him.  But if he says, “Yes, Pay the tax,” both the Pharisees and Jesus’ followers will be furious.  See, the tax was a denarius, about a day’s wages, paid once a year to support the emperor.  So this tax didn’t pay for firefighters or police, it didn’t fund trash collection or pave streets.  It went into the emperor’s coffers, it funded his sacrilegious ostentatious odious occupation of Israel.   And it had to be paid with a coin that had Caesar’s face on it, a graven image they were forbidden by Jewish law to possess.  Sure, Jesus says, give to Caesar what is Caesar.  Let him have his coin.

But then Jesus says, “give to God what is God’s.” If God created the world out of Gods own being.  If the heavens are singing the glory of God, the earth reveals God’s handiwork… then everything – all of creation belongs to God. So all of it is sacred.  Even the coin with Caesar’s face on it.  Everything should be devoted not to Caesar.  Not to our faulty government with its partisan politics and deadlock and decrees.  But to God.

Now many will tell us that this is not true. That religion has its place over here. In here. In here.  That commerce, and governance, and leisure, and business, and learning…. They all exist out there. Keep religion in here.  But out there, pay your taxes.  Look out for yourself, your family, your comfort.  That’s all that matters.  Forget the mystery of the leaves.  The majesty of fall.  The sacramental shimmer that infuses everyday life.

They want us to think that Gods domain is here. Here.  Not out there. Out there, there is technology to demand our devotion, and drugs to numb our aching hearts, and money to be made from fear and hate. Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are churning out bombs and planes, and aircraft carriers. There’s money to be made out there, especially if God stays in here. And here.

But this week I saw a video of a child, a little boy, rescued from the rubble after an airstrike in Gaza.  He was maybe 5 years old, covered in dust.  Hair matted with blood. He was looking around with wide eyes, asking, “am I alive? Am I alive?”[4]

And I read an op-Ed written by an Israeli-American woman, whose child, her son, was kidnapped by Hamas militants two weeks ago.[5]  Taken while fleeing a terrorist attack on a music festival, and she does not know if he is alive or dead.  And she is terrified.  Terrified of what will happen to her son. Her beautiful boy, who loved music.

And on my way here, this morning, I passed by a boy, hood up, hands shoved in his pockets, in the cold. Sitting on a step. Backpack nearby. Waiting for a car to pull up so he could make his next deal.  Just a few blocks from here.

They will tell us there is nothing we can do. These boys are not our problem.  Just let it go.  But how can we?  These children. These boys. They are our children.  How can we allow this to happen? The bombs to fall, the terrorists to terrorize, the hopelessness to spiral into the abyss?

Because in their faces, if we look closely, we will see God’s face. Their bodies: the tear-streaked cheeks, the eyes wide with shock, the shoulders hunched against the cold, they are precious.  Sacred.  Beloved.  The creator’s handiwork.

I don’t have to tell you that our world, God’s creation, is a bit of a mess right now. But I can’t help but wonder what might happen if we stopped to notice, to acknowledge the divine signature all around us.  If we realized that we ourselves, you, and me – each of us owes our being to God.  And our endless bickering, our pointless posturing, our political maneuvering – all of the blood spilled and the children killed to control one tiny corner of our planet for however long … is just a diversion.  Hubris.  Human fault and frailty.

And I wonder what might be possible if we could open our eyes and tune our hearts to see the holy handprint within us, shimmering golden like the carotenoids… right here within us all along.  Just waiting for the green greed of the world to recede, for the cold night to creep in, to inspire us to find a way shine.

Maybe, just maybe when we look to see the face of God in others… when we remember whose image and likeness we bear within our own hearts – maybe we will have the courage to offer to God every possible thing that we can.  Our whole lives.  Our whole selves.  For peace.  For justice.  For those boys.  May it be so.

[1] “The Science of Fall Colors,” USDA Forest Service website, https://www.fs.usda.gov/visit/fall-colors/science-of-fall-colors#:~:text=As%20night%20length%20increases%20in,unmasked%20and%20show%20their%20colors.

[2] John O’Donohue, Aman Cara: A book of Celtic Wisdom qtd by MaryAnn McKibben Dana in her Blue Room newsletter, “The Divine is Close With Us,” 8/25/23

[3] Ibid.

[4] I could not find this video in the writing of this sermon.  I believe it was shared in an Instagram story by Rev. Ashlee Weist-Laird.

[5] Goldberg, Rachel, “I hope someone somewhere is being kind to my boy,” guest essay, The New York Times, 10/12/23, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/opinion/israel-hamas-hostage.html

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
September 30, 2023

A Question of Power… and the Power of Questions
Matthew 21:23-32

Senator Dianne Feinstein died on Friday, a lion of California politics and in the Democratic party.  She was 90 years old and had served in the US. Senate for more than thirty years, the first woman to serve as senator from California.  In her tenure through four Presidents (Biden was the fifth), Feinstein was a champion of gun control and green energy and women’s rights.  As chairperson of the intelligence committee, she oversaw the report that revealed the brutal interrogation techniques CIA operatives used on detainees at Guantanamo Bay in the early years of the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.  She called that oversight and censure of the CIA and the public release of the torture report (as it came to be known) the most important work of her career.[1]

In recent years, though, the Senator was in declining health, and she appeared to be relying more and more on her staff.  People began to question whether or not she was up to the job.  In the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Feinstein appeared detached and her questions meandered; she repeated herself more than once – not for emphasis, but because she apparently had forgotten she’d just asked the same question.

Feinstein leaves three octogenarians in the Senate, and 16 who are 75 or older.  I’m sure that these long-serving politicians are very good at their jobs.  But I also have to guess they find it difficult to part with power.  And so they refuse to relinquish it.

In this tense exchange between Jesus and the temple leaders, the leaders are finding it difficult to relinquish their power, too.  Jesus has just paraded into town (literally) and stormed into the temple, tossing tables and throwing out those who would profit from the piety of poor people – the money lenders and venders.  The religious leaders need to get him out of the temple – really, they need him out of the way completely.  Because they are in power, and they want to stay that way.  His antics are threatening.  He attracts the attention of Rome.  And he attracts the attention of the people – the crowds are growing by the day.  Now, if those crowds were all faithful, law abiding Jews, that might be okay, even a good thing.  The problem is that they aren’t upstanding, religious folk – they’re Gentiles and tax collectors, Roman soldiers and prostitutes.  Seriously problematic for the guys in charge to have all of this rabble, these unclean people in their holy space.

So they try to trap Jesus… by asking him a question.  But: Jesus refuses to answer.

Now, the religious leaders should have known better.  They should have known that Jesus was clever, a tricky person to deal with.  After all, he is asked 183 direct questions in the gospels, but he directly answers only 3 of them.  This isn’t one of them.  But he asks more than three hundred questions in his teaching.  In the only story we have of Jesus’s childhood, he has run off to the temple when his parents find him there, he is questioning the rabbis – and the text tells us, all who heard him were amazed.

Anyone who has spent time with a child recently can tell you that kids ask a lot of questions.  Why is the sky blue?  What is the sun made of?  How do birds fly?  What is gravity?  We are born open eyed with wonder, curious about the world around us, intensely interested in understanding how things work and why.  But over time, we stop asking so many questions.  We start to believe we’re supposed to have answers – that asking questions reveals weakness, because it means admitting we don’t know something.  But here is our lord and savior Jesus Christ asking hundreds of questions, and answering only three.

Some people believe that faith means certainty.  I’m not so sure.  Faith can bring knowledge of self, can bring us closer to God, can impart wisdom for living.  But it also brings a whole lot more questions.

Episcopal priest Rev. Paul Kingsley served a church in Towson for decades.  He was remembered for saying, “We go to church to have our questions answered.  Instead, we have our answers questioned.  That clears the decks for having our questions questioned!”

Religion professor Jonathan Malesic has taught college students for more than 20 years.  He wrote an op-ed in the NYTimes earlier this year describing an oft-overlooked quality that leads to academic success in higher education.[2]  Simply put, successful students are willing to learn.  That is, they are open to new ideas and knowledge. They ask questions, and pursue their curiosity.  They do this despite the social and cultural forces that expect us to present ourselves as competent and capable, “always already informed.” Malesic quotes philosopher Jonathan Lear, who calls this attitude knowingness: “a sickness that stands in the way of gaining genuine knowledge… as if there’s too much anxiety involved in simply asking a question and waiting for the world to answer.”[3]

I can’t help but think of Rainer Maria Rilke, who wrote in his Letters to a Young Poet the advice, “have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”[4]

Live the questions now, because that is how you live your way into answers.  That is, in part, what Jesus is doing in this story.  He throws out the money lenders to challenge to the status quo within the temple, where only the wealthy were allowed to worship properly – some were allowed in, but many others were kept out.  He questions the questions of the leaders because they can’t, they refuse to see God’s power – God’s power to heal and reconcile – at work in him and in the world!  Jesus doesn’t teach by sharing clear answers, he teaches by doing! He doesn’t just talk about the kingdom. He enacts it.  By questioning the leaders, by teaching and storytelling, Christ demonstrates his power, holy healing power.  Boundary breaking power.  When the people see Christ’s power, when they realize he’s acting by God’s authority, they are amazed. They’re also afraid.

Afraid, because holy power means that the world as it is is not how it will always be. God is at work, and change is coming -and change is hard. It can be scary. It means that the powers that be, won’t be forever. And people who have power don’t give it up easily.

Before Dianne Feinstein was elected to the Senate, she spent ten years as Mayor of San Francisco, having been appointed to office in the chaotic hours after the assassination of Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk.  She proved herself to be a brilliant, driven leader, determined to get results to improve the city she loved.  I read that one mark of her leadership was that she cared about details, and spent time each day questioning the department heads about their work – following up on projects, tracking the nuts and bolts minutia of running a city.  Her questions made her a stronger leader.

Questions deepen and strengthen our faith.  It’s why we just spent an hour in the Forum exploring two of our congregation core values: curiosity and doubt.  And so I wonder: What questions do you have?  How can we live them together?

[1] I drew from the New York Times’ coverage of Sen. Feinstein’s life, her obituary, and political career.  Knight, Heather, “As Mayor, Feinstein Made San Francisco ‘Vibrant,’ City Leaders Say,” 9/29/23, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/us/dianne-feinstein-career.html?name=styln-dianne-feinstein&region=TOP_BANNER&block=storyline_menu_recirc&action=click&pgtype=Article&variant=undefined

[2] Malesic, Jonathan, “The Key to Success in College is So Simple, It’s Almost Never Mentioned,” The New York Times, January 3, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/opinion/college-learning-students-success.html?searchResultPosition=2

[3] Ibid.

[4] Rilke, Rainer Maria, Letters to a Young Poet, excerpt accessed on https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=747

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
September 24, 2024

What is Fair?
Matthew 20:1-16

It was night when we arrived at the factory gates, and the only light was from the headlights of our car, and those of a truck parked on the road nearby. I remember a crowd of maybe 20-25 people – some older, many younger in their late teens or early 20’s.  They had folding chairs and ice chests, a radio, and some signs – they’d been out there for a while, camped out at the gate of the factory where they worked.  Or, where they had worked until a week before, when the factory owners had closed up shop, shutting down production and closing the plant with no warning, paying no severance.  The workers were there, camped at the gates, to protect the only resource they had left: the sewing machines and other textile equipment in the factory itself, to keep the factory owners from removing them, with the hope of leveraging the machines to negotiate severance.

The United Auto Workers expanded their strike on Friday at two of the big three automakers, in the hope of bringing more serious offers to the negotiation table.  This means that more than 18,000 workers are now on strike seeking higher wages and better benefits, a shorter window for advancement, and assurances of job security as plants shift to making electric vehicles.  They are negotiating in an effort to resist the threat of automation/AI to their jobs and livelihood.

The Writer’s Guild of America has been on strike since spring, negotiating a three-year contract with studio execs that will ensure better benefits and fair pay in a market that has totally been upended by streaming services.  Tens of thousands of people are out of work because of the strike, and production of many TV shows and movies has been halted, too.

Everyone from copy editors to auto workers to Starbucks baristas has gone on strike this year, a movement fueled by rising income inequality, and the end of pandemic protections, among other things.  People are fed up, and they’re fighting back – banding together to seek living wages, reasonable benefits, workplace protections, sick leave and family leave.  Sometimes, it’s clear cut – those workers at the gates of their factory deserved fair notice of the closure and fair severance.  But often, it’s complicated.  What is fair compensation for hard work?  Why do we value some workers more than others?  Why does a public school teacher make less than a UPS driver?

Our parable this morning is confounding, as they often are.  The kingdom of heaven sounds like a pretty unfair place, from this description.  The vineyard owner seems like he’s trying to put one over on his hardest workers.  He pays the same amount to the guys who showed up at the end of the day as the ones who’d been breaking their backs since early morning.  Does that seem fair to you?

I can’t help but wonder if Jesus told this story today, in this year of strikes, would he have told it the same way?  Would the workers who worked all day band together and bring the owner to the negotiation table, demanding just compensation for hours worked, pay based on seniority – definitely more than those guys who showed up at the end of the day?

In our capitalist world, we are conditioned to expect work to be a value exchange.  An hour of work gets an hourly wage.  People are valuable only as much as they are able to produce.  If you can’t work, then you’d better hope for disability, or unemployment, or social security benefits.  But we know that these programs are inadequate, and leave some to fall through the holes in the social safety net.  What about returning citizens who can’t find work because of their criminal record?  What about undocumented people or those awaiting legal status who can’t work because they don’t have the right papers?  Too many people these days say – not my problem.

But.  This story shows us that this is not how God operates.  God is not a capitalist.  The reign of God operates under an economy of grace.  An economy where people have enough to live on, no matter how long or how well they’ve worked.  Where workers are paid a living wage, no matter what.

Are you envious because I am generous? The owner asks. Well, in a word – yeah.

Many cities around the country have experimented over the past few years with universal basic income, including Baltimore.  Last year, Mayor Brandon Scott implemented the Young Families Success Fund, making monthly payments of $1000 to extremely low-income young parents.  The program has allowed participants to afford basics like diapers, child care, and transportation – which means they can actually find and keep a job.  Removing the stress of unpaid bills and the threat of eviction, allows participants to breathe, maybe even save money.

Dary and I were able to buy a house in part because I was given stock as a child by my dad’s parents.  I didn’t do anything to deserve it, or earn it.  I was just lucky to be born into my family of origin, and the fluke of my birth has enabled Dary and me to breathe, and to build wealth, when we sold that house and bought the one we currently live in.  It’s not fair.  It’s just the way things are.  But it doesn’t have to be.  Programs like universal basic income are one way to counteract income inequality wrought by generational wealth.

Now, you may be thinking – I’m being too literal.  Many read this parable as an allegory, seeing God as the vineyard owner and ourselves as the workers, with salvation as the payment that is given.  In this reading, God’s saving grace is lavished on everyone who shows up for it, no matter how late in the game they seek it.  We faithful few who steward the church year in and year out, putting in countless hours of service and giving of our time and resources to keep the lights on and the doors open receive the same measure of grace as those who squeak in the door at the last minute.

When we experience grace – unconditional, boundless love and belonging no matter what – when God meets us in the road and falls at our feet and says welcome home, even when we have squandered our inheritance with our own selfish and foolish ways – when God brushes the tears of shame from our cheeks and sets a place at the table for us, we feel overwhelming gratitude.  Even disbelief.  It’s why we confess our common brokenness, remember, and give thanks God’s grace poured out for us week after week here at our font.  Why tonight and tomorrow as our Jewish siblings celebrate Yom Kippur, they will name their faults and failings and remember and reclaim God’s grace.  The experience of grace is good news!

But when we watch from afar, it can be a different story.  When we with our hands to the plow look up to see God fall at the feet of someone who never showed up for work at all… when God sets the table for someone whose behavior has been shameful – it’s easy to feel resentful.    It’s why I’m grateful that this reading is paired with the story of God providing manna in the wilderness.  This helps me see that to focus on the equal payment of the workers is to miss the point.  The provision of manna redirects our attention, away from payment, toward God’s commitment to provide… in this parable, to provide work for everyone who seeks it.  The good news for us is that when God is in charge, there is enough for everyone – no matter what.

Maybe I’m overly literal.  Maybe our salvation is found in generosity – the abundant grace of God, poured out for all of us, that allows and enables us to be generous and kind with one another – to value people for who they are, not just for how long they’ve been around, or for what they contribute.  To provide a place at the table and enough for absolutely everyone.  No matter what time they show up.

 

 

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
June 25, 2023

Out of the Frying Pan
Daniel 3:14-27

This past week, many in the world watched, transfixed, as the US Coast Guard led a search for a missing submersible called the Titan: a small, deep diving craft that had taken five people on a tour of the wreckage of the Titanic.  Three of the men had each paid ¼ million dollars for the adventure, despite safety concerns about the vessel – the others were the captain and the 19-year-old young man who was accompanying his father, a Pakistani businessman, on the venture.  The submersible lost contact with the surface a few hours after it began its descent into the ocean – the first indication that something had gone wrong.  The search was carried out over five days, covering an area about twice the size of Connecticut.  Boats, airplanes, helicopters, and drones were deployed to seek to find and save the lost explorers.

It was hard to miss coverage of this tragedy: profiles of the five men were published in newspapers; news channels showed photos and interviewed family members.  A collective gasp could be heard around the world when the Coast Guard announced that debris had been found on the ocean floor, some 1600 yards off the bow of the Titanic.  Experts surmised that the vessel had experienced a catastrophic implosion, killing everyone on board.

The week before last, some 4,000 miles away in the Mediterranean Sea, a fishing boat named the Adriana stalled in the ocean. The boat was making its way from the coast of Libya to the European mainland, and it was perilously overcrowded, with more than 750 Pakistanis, Egyptians, Afghans, and Syrians on board.  The Greek coast guard saw the boat and were monitoring it, but they did not offer assistance – not even when the boat’s engine stalled, and, seven hours later, when it started to sink.  A plane from Frontex, the EU’s border agency, also saw the boat, and offered assistance to Greek authorities, but their offer was ignored.  Eventually, the boat capsized, and officials believe around 700 people drowned.

Now, I have seen no profiles of the people who went down with that boat.  No personal stories of the desperation, poverty, violence, and war that drove them to leave their homes, and to pay their life’s savings to cram onto a boat with no life jackets, risking their lives in search of freedom and safety, a chance to thrive.  There was no breathless, round-the-clock coverage of this disaster, no collective gasp when the boat sank, and 700 people drowned.  Some reports believe that there were as many as one hundred children stuck in the hold of that boat.

Our campfire story this morning is the tale of Shadrach, Mesach, and Abednego – three men who risk their lives to maintain faithfulness to God.  When they refuse to bow down to a statue built by the Babylonian king, he orders them to be thrown into a fiery furnace.  If you grew up going to church, do you remember this story from your childhood Sunday school class?  It’s a story that captured the imagination of many and lodged in our memories …though for the life of me I’m not sure why.  It’s not an uplifting tale, not really.  It’s the story of a self-centered tyrant, foolish and brash, bent on forcing his subjects to worship him.  Maybe we find the names melodic and unusual, that’s why we remember them, re-tell this story.  Somebody renamed the guys Shack, Rack, and Bennie and made it into a Veggie Tale cartoon.  Whatever the reason, I remember this story being told as a cautionary tale, the message being: be faithful to God or risk being burned in a fiery furnace! And even worse: the message – If you fail to be faithful, God will not protect you.

Reading this now, as an adult, I don’t think that’s my take-away anymore.  I’ve seen the damage that fear-based theology to placate a vindictive, jealous God has done to my friends, many of whom have left the church altogether.  Instead, reading this today, I hear the question: What do we worship?  To whom do we give our allegiance, and why does that matter – to us, and to God?

On the surface, that’s an easy question to answer here in our sanctuary.  We worship God, who has created and is creating, who came to us in Jesus, who works in us and others by the Spirit.  But we are here an hour and a half a week.  What do we worship the rest of the time?  Where do we put our energy, in what do we invest our most precious resource – our time, and attention?

The news stories this week – the story of the OceanGate submersible that captured the attention of the world and the Adriana fishing boat that slipped beneath the surface of the Mediterranean and was but a blip on our national radar – tell us a bit about what society worships.  The men in the submersible were newsworthy because they were wealthy.  Thrill seekers painted as heroic explorers.  An adventure kayaker interviewed by the New York Times put it clearly: “…the Titan’s passengers: … ‘Their lives are worth saving.’”[1]  Their deaths are tragic, absolutely, as any person’s is.  But the contrast between the attention paid by the news media to the two stories, and the vast difference between the resources expended to seek to find and rescue the Titan and its five passengers and the blind eye the Greek authorities turned to the crisis off its coast is inexcusable.

I read a story by a journalist who sought to explain that the contrast between the responses is more nuanced than just society’s disregard for poor people.  Our imaginations are captured by stories of unlikely rescues, we are better able to grasp smaller numbers instead of larger ones.  James Cameron surely is already writing the script for the movie about the search for the Titan.  But the truth is that we do value some lives more than others, and as a society we worship wealth.

So how do we resist bowing down to golden idols?  As a refugee advocate said to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now: “Everyone who’s at risk at sea, no matter where they come from, no matter which language they speak, their income, the societies they come from, we have to mobilize all our resources to help them, with no reservations, no “but” or “if”s, and put human life on the very, very top of our priorities, not only words but also with actions. We need solidarity. We need search and rescue. We need safe and legal routes for everyone. And everyone has to be able to look in the eyes of the survivors and see we did what we could do, and this is not going to happen again.”[2]

We must advocate for safe and legal channels for people to escape war and poverty and violence, around the world and at our own borders.  Yes.

Here at home, when we leave here each week, we can pay attention to how we spend our time and energy.  When do we speak up, and for what?  What kind of community are we building for ourselves, for our neighbors, for our children?  As a congregation, we’ve named our core values as compassion and justice, hope and perseverance, creativity and generosity, curiosity and doubt, and diversity, equity, and belonging.  And I hope if you haven’t found a place to connect, to be part of one of our teams and committees discerning how we live these out together, that you’ll find a way to engage, because this is how we live our faith.

The other takeaway is a promise.  Like it or not, each of us will find ourselves in the furnace at some point.  The fire will be hot, and it will threaten to consume us.  I don’t know if your fire will be grief, or addiction, or illness, or loneliness, or depression.  I cannot see our future, I do not know what it will be.  But I do know that you will not be alone.  When you walk through the fire, I will be with you – God promised the people of Israel through this story of Shadrach, Mesach, and Abednego.  And through the voice of the prophet Isaiah.  And that promise is true for us, too.  Let us not be afraid.  Thanks be to God.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/us/titanic-submersible-search-rescue-costs.html

[2] Kosmopoulos, Georgios, to Amy goodman on Democracy Now, “As Media Spotlights Titanic Sub, Hundreds of Migrants Who Died in Greek Shipwreck Get Scant Coverage,” 6/23/23, https://www.democracynow.org/2023/6/23/greece_migrant_shipwreck_media_coverage

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
May 14, 2023

The Unknown God
Acts 17:22-31

If you attended public school as a child, you probably remember taking a standardized test. For kids of my era, state testing was done using long scantron sheets with a hundred rows of bubbles marked ABCD with a number two pencil – multiple choice questions to make it possible for a machine to grade the tests instead of a teacher; standardized assessments to be able to track student progress each year, and compare across schools, cities, and even the country.

Maddie took the MCAP last week – Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program – the second of two weeks of testing. Instead of a scantron sheet, she took her test on a computer: a sturdy little Chromebook furnished by the Baltimore City Schools. End of year tests for ELA and Math will also be given on her laptop, using apps that tailor the questions to her answers, supposedly giving an accurate assessment of her progress. Technology has changed the way we learn.

If testing has changed over the past few decades, what has happened this year is extraordinary. Professors I know have totally shifted their testing strategies – moving from take home, open book exams to in-class presentations and moving back to blue book tests written out longhand in the classroom. Who can guess why? The rise of AI! Chatbots like ChatGPT mean students have a world of knowledge not just readily accessible – complete essay answers can be generated with one click, essays that may be hard to identify as plagiarized. And sometimes, as with many articles on the internet – the answers sound correct, but they’re riddled with misinformation, slanted with bias, or even just completely wrong. Teachers are wrestling with a core question – how do we know what we know?

As tech companies race to outpace each other in the AI game, scientists and engineers who developed the technology are speaking out, cautioning us to consider the potential misuse and danger of AI, and its implications for job security, misinformation, and … you know, the complete destruction of humanity.

I don’t necessarily understand all of those implications – how different a random language generator is from previous iterations. But I know that colleagues have used the technology to create passable sermons that point toward God and make me wonder if my role, too, might become obsolete. Now, ChatGPT won’t visit you in the hospital, won’t be able to break bread at the table. But call any airline, any customer service department, and it’s hard to find a human to speak with. The change is already here, and part of the ongoing concern is that the technology is evolving and changing so quickly, it’s gone beyond our control and ability to predict and anticipate. It’s troubling.

When Paul arrived in Athens, he travels around the city and observes its people.  Athens was the city of Aristotle and Socrates; the academic, cultural and artistic center of the Roman empire! It was where scholars came to debate the latest ideas; the text tells us that all who lived or visited there spent their time in nothing except the telling or hearing of something new. And everywhere Paul goes, he sees idols – people worshipping a plethora of pagan gods. And to Paul, a man devoted to the One True God, this is troubling. So lacking the tools of TikTok and Substack, he goes down to the town market and begins to engage in friendly debate with passersby, sharing the gospel of Jesus. His arguments intrigue the Athenians, and they want to hear more – so he’s invited to speak to their council at Mars Hill.

Now the mark of a true intellectual in ancient Greece is their keen powers of observation and debate. So Paul plays to his audience. He begins by naming what he has observed in their city – the prevalence of idols. He uplifts the altar to an Unknown God – Then, using their own rhetoric and quotes from their own philosophers, Paul purports to reveal who God is- “what you worship as unknown, I proclaim to you” – then he lays out the case for Jesus. Essentially, Paul asks: “How do we know what we know about God?” – We know, Paul says, because when we seek God, we find them: in creation, in community, in our very selves. And – We know God because of the life and work of the resurrected Christ.

Tertullian, a father of the early church, famously asked “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”  What do science and philosophy have to do with God’s revelation?  What does the academic pursuit of knowledge have to do with the mystery of faith?  And until Paul shows up in Athens, the answer was – NOTHING.  Willie James Jennings writes that to Athenians, Jerusalem was a closed door.  Pagan Gentiles, with their idol worship and idle philosophizing could never know or be in relationship with the God of Abraham and Sarah.  But Paul arrives and opens the door.  The good news of Jesus Christ is for Jews and Greeks, enslaved and free, male and female – for you and for me, it’s for everyone.

In an op-ed about the new AI technology, a Columbia University professor asks “What would Plato say about ChatGPT?”[1]  Apparently, Plato was suspicious of written language because it would supplant students’ reliance on memory.  Our trepidation about new technologies is as old as time, apparently.  My college chaplain, John Williams, liked to remind us: “God gave us brains and expects us to use them.”  It’s a good rule of thumb.  I think it’s what Paul is reminding the Athenians, and it’s a way to approach new AI technology as well.  Our curiosity about the universe, our ability to learn and assimilate information – is a gift!  The more we know about the world that we live in, the more we appreciate the mystery and complexity of its creator.  The more we understand about the social and political contexts of the early church, the better we can translate the life and teachings of Jesus to our own time.  The more space we make for doubt and questions, to learn and grow, the stronger and more durable our faith becomes.  It is God’s will for us to be seeking and searching – and that is why God makes Godself available for us to find.  The pursuit of knowledge; our capacity to uncover the mysteries of the natural world and the complexities of history and politics; the beauty of poetry and art – the gift of self-expression – are gifts of a loving God, whose revelation is made clear in and through our learning.

The problems that we face in a rapidly changing world are complex.  As people of faith, we can’t shut the door on Athens.  We must follow Paul’s lead and open the door – observe what is happening around us with curiosity and look for how and where God is at work – and using all of the tools at our disposal to join in.  As AI eliminates jobs, that might look like advocating for the right to work and basic human income.  And trusting that God is present and will be found in and through our seeking.  Thanks be to God.

[1] Tufekci, Zeynep, “What Would Plato Say About ChatGPT?” Opinion piece in the New York Times, December 15, 2022.