Cat Goodrich
October 23,2022
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD

It Takes a Village
Joel 2:23-32

I have a friend who, when her kids were little and still a bit squirmy and rambunctious, remembers one Sunday when she and her family just barely made it to church.  They were just a little bit late, and once they got settled in the pew there were a lot of shuffled papers and dropped toys.  She says she and her husband cringed through much of the service, hoping that they weren’t being too disruptive.  Every parent knows this feeling, right?  Wondering if your child is going to be too much for this place – will you make it to the end of this, or are you going to have to pick the child up like a football and just get out of there?  Miraculously, they were able to stay until the end of the service.  As they gathered their belongings, picking up legos and toy cars from the floor, a matriarch of the church made her way “purposefully over to them.”  My friend braced herself, ready for some passive aggressive barb about children in church.  She was surprised when the woman smiled and said, “I’m so glad you made it today!”  When my friend apologized for being so unruly, the woman laughed and surprised her again by tearing up.  She said, “Honey, I can remember a time when it was too quiet in here. You keep coming back, and don’t you worry. Y’all can bother me anytime.”[1]

They did keep coming back.  It made all the difference to know they were truly welcome.

We don’t often get to be part of communities that are truly welcoming, where we can really show up with our whole selves – mess, noise, baggage, and all.  And we don’t often get to be part of authentic communities that are truly intergenerational.  Some of us are lucky enough to be part of families who span multiple generations. Some jobs – teaching, or work in a university, or parts of health care – allow us to interact regularly with people who are much younger or much older than we are.  But for the most part, we engage with and build community with our peers: in work, in our social lives.  This makes sense: we’re often thrown together with those in our same stage of life; it’s easy to connect with those who are going through the same joy, the same stress, whether it’s parenting young children, or caring for an aging parent, or grieving the death of a spouse, or enjoying retirement.

But for me, one of the gifts of church is the chance to be part of a truly intergenerational community.  Where we can learn from and support one another in all the different stages of life we might be in.  Where my children can know and be known by amazing people like Marilyn, who makes 90 look young.  Where we can learn with and appreciate the giftedness of someone like Samuel, who has lived and taught and played music all over the world.  This is a place where our old ones can dream dreams and our young ones can see visions together.  The real magic happens when the wisdom of the past connects with clear-eyed vision in the present, to give rise to a common hope for the future.  This is part of the vision of salvation shared by the prophet Joel, isn’t it?

I can remember convening a parent circle in my church in Atlanta, where parents of college students and twenty-somethings shared their experience parenting young children and kids in elementary school.  We crowded into a Sunday school room, the room filled with people clutching paper cups of coffee and overflowing with questions: How did they prioritize church in the midst of so many competing demands for their time?  How did they make a home for Faith?  It was so reassuring, to share and learn from one another.

We have a wealth of knowledge and experience here, right?  You people have been through a lot – this congregation has been through a lot.  You know the pain of grief, the shock of sudden loss, the difficulty of long-term illness.  You know what it’s like to lose a job, to be stalked by depression, to learn to thrive despite mental illness, or to have someone you love struggle with the demon of addiction.  Many of you have made it through the early days of parenthood, you’ve survived divorce, and most know what it means to retire, or to change jobs, or move houses, or send a child off to school.  How do we sustain faith through all of these changes?  How have we made it through political crises, how do we support each other as we fight the dehumanizing forces of white supremacy and racism?  What can we learn from each other?

God calls us into community because God shows up in and through our relationships with one another.  In our hands and feet.  In our listening, in our sharing, in our learning.  In our presence with and for each other.

The prophet Joel knows this.  It’s why, in the midst of the devastation wrought by a locust plague, he paints a picture of intergenerational community, and casts a vision of abundance, of hope for the future.

You may not be very familiar with Joel, and to be honest, I’m not either.  This is one of the only times in the three-year lectionary that we hear anything from him, and we don’t actually know a lot about him.  We don’t know when he was writing, and his location is lost to the winds of time.  But his words are meant to reassure, to give hope to people who are devastated after three years of locust plague.  Vegetation and crops have been stripped bare, threatening the lives of humans and livestock.  The people don’t know if they would survive.  Desperation looms large in Joel’s world. And he has a scary apocalyptic worldview, we hear that too in this passage, believing that the end of time is near.

Cast your memory back to the summer before last, to the great cicada emergence of 2021 and you’ll have a small idea of what his people were experiencing.  The noise of the mating calls filling the hot summer air, the deafening drone rising and falling in waves.  Cicadas covering every leaf, their bodies crunching under foot.  The way the trees drooped later in fall, sickened and weak from the leaves the bugs stripped bare and the nymphs nesting under their bark, and burrowing down in their roots.  Ugh.

Here in 2022, we know something about plagues and pestilence, more than we ever imagined we might need to, far more than we ever wanted to.  Think back to the scary early days of the pandemic, to the fear, confusion, and worry of March and April 2020: the world changing in an instant, shifting to weeks of lockdown and uncertainty.  Not knowing how to stay safe, not knowing when it would end, too many people getting sick and dying too quickly.  Disinfecting groceries, isolating from friends, and family, and church.  We didn’t know if we would survive, and many did not.

Yes, we can imagine something of what Joe’s community is going through: their fear, their stress, their worry.

We know, of course, our brains feel stressed and worried by uncertainty and scarcity all the time for lessor threats.  Will we make it to the end of this interminably long lecture, or worship service?  Will we survive?  Will there be enough money to do what we want to do, or to accomplish what we feel called to do?  Will there be enough people to show up to get the work done?  Will there be enough?  Try as we might to hold on to the truth of abundance, we have a tendency to believe the myth of scarcity – and suffer the anxiety and stress that go along with it.

So in times that are challenging and in the ordinary, everyday times, it’s important to remember Joel’s vision of God’s promise: The threshing floor piled high with grain, the wine jars and the oil press overflowing.  The whole community, old and young, enslaved and free, sharing their dreams and visions for the world that is coming to be.  What hope!  This promise of enough for everyone.  This radically inclusive promise that God’s spirit will be poured out on all flesh, that everyone who calls on God will know salvation.

We are beginning a visioning process here at Faith, with a small group of leaders taking a close look at our mission, vision, and values over the next few months.  We are pretty confident we know who we are as a congregation, but our world has changed through plague and pandemic and fractured politics, and we want to listen closely to how God is calling us to respond in the years ahead.  What is our vision of abundance, the threshing floor filled with grain, the wine vats brimming, the oil overflowing, here in North Baltimore?  How do we listen to the wisdom of each generation here, to respond to the needs both within and outside our congregation?  How will we strengthen our common witness to the God of hope, and deepen and expand our experience of beloved community?  All of these questions are worth exploring.

If the prophet Joel’s words are familiar at all to us, it’s because Peter quotes him at Pentecost, saying that Joel’s prophesy is fulfilled with the presence of the Spirit like tongues of fire, bringing dreams and visions to young and old, giving rise to the community of the church.  My hope and prayer for us in the months ahead, is that we, too, young and old and in between, will dream dreams together, and begin to share a common vision: of a congregation where all find welcome, meaning, and wholeness; where together we work to make our dreams reality of a city where each person can flourish.  Of a country free from the shackles of racism, a world where all know peace.  May it be so.

[1] Goodrich, Elizabeth, “Please, Bother Me,” Macedonia Ministry, https://mministry.org/please-bother-me/

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
October 9, 2022

Why Does It Have to be Hard?
2 Kings 5:1-15c, Luke 17:11-19

In November of last year, Disney released a film that swept the nation…at least, every household with a child between the ages of 3 and 13 – the movie is called Encanto. A musical with incredible, fast-paced lyrics that could only come from the brilliant Lin-Manuel Miranda, Encanto is set in a remote village hidden in the mountains of Colombia. It tells the story of the magical Madrigal family: matriarch abuela Alma Madrigal, her triplets Julieta, Pepa, and Bruno, and their families – each one gifted with magical ability by the miracle that protects their family and village. All, that is, except one: Mirabel, the 15-year-old at the center of the show. As the movie unfolds, we realize that the Madrigals are faced with an identity crisis: who are they apart from their powers? What will become of them if they lose their magical gifts? What trauma, what rifts must be healed in order to restore the enchantment and save their beloved little home?

If you ask my girls what the movie is about, they might tell you it’s about a family with magical powers – and if you’re lucky, they’ll sing you a swinging rendition of “we don’t talk about Bruno.” But thinking about it this week, I realized it’s also a healing story, not unlike the two healing stories we heard this morning. All three stories involve miracles. All three stories involve social isolation and stigma. And all three stories involve crossing borders that divide us in order to find healing. Amazing!

Granted, there is no leprosy in Encanto. But the character of Bruno is ostracized, demonized, and run off because of his magical gift – Bruno is a prophet who can see the future…and he runs into trouble when people do not like what he sees, or misunderstand his predictions.[1] When the movie begins, Bruno hasn’t been seen in 10 years, and the family refuses to say his name or mention his disappearance.

People afflicted with leprosy in Biblical times were considered ritually unclean – stigmatized and socially isolated because of their disease. They were not able to worship in the temple. And they were not allowed to be part of the wider community. That is why Jesus is met by the 10 men with leprosy on the outskirts of town, why they shout to him from far off. Perhaps, even, why they are healed from a distance, too.

Namaan, however, is a bit of a different story. Namaan is wealthy, powerful – a general in the Syrian army. We can presume that his skin condition was problematic for him, why else would he go to such great lengths to seek healing? But he seems like he is not as socially isolated as a poor person with the disease might be – he retains access to power, gains an audience with the King, and still has family and servants around him. Today, we know that wealth and privilege do not inoculate a person against illness, injury, or death. But money does open doors in our privatized healthcare system. Good insurance ensures access to lifesaving preventative care, and means that problems can often be caught earlier, leading to better outcomes. Healthy food is expensive. Research and common sense have shown that people living in distressed neighborhoods have higher instances of asthma and heart disease, the impact of stress on our bodies and the reality of food deserts in urban America lead to shorter lifespans and higher instances of disease.

All of that to say, Namaan is a bit of an exceptional case – he’s powerful enough to appeal to the king for help, and wealthy enough to be able to travel across borders to seek healing. A member of Bible study observed – even in Biblical times, you had to go to great lengths to get a referral to see a specialist! But really, this raises a question. Surely there were people in Israel with leprosy. Why doesn’t Elisha heal them? The question could be asked a million times a million times over, from hospital beds in every city, in every country, on every continent – why do some people find healing, while others suffer?

The short answer is – we don’t- I don’t- know. I do know that our bodies are beautiful, and fragile, and imperfect. That life is short, and precious, so we must love and care for one another as best we can in the limited time that we have. That the world can be an unfair place. As for Namaan – this story is functioning in a couple of different ways in the larger story. It’s a healing story, yes. But it’s also a story of God’s universal power. It testifies to the truth that God’s love knows no bounds – so much so that this man, Namaan, a general in an army that until recently had been attacking Israel, is able to be healed – not on his terms but on God’s terms. When he is healed, Namaan is overcome with gratitude – so much so that he humbles himself, transformed both outside and in. He acknowledges the ultimate power and sovereignty of God, and returns to thank the prophet Elisha.

Namaan has crossed from the land he knew into unknown territory to seek healing, and he returns a changed man. The gospel story testifies to the boundary-crossing power of God, too. Jesus is in dangerous territory, somewhere in the borderlands between Galilee and Samaria, when he is approached by the men who seek healing. Jesus must be in a hurry, taking a shortcut, because there’s no other reason why he would be in this region known to be unsafe for travelers. Still, he allows his journey to be interrupted, stopping to listen to the lepers when they cry out to him. And even though they are ostracized, sick and suffering in the street, or maybe because they are…he heals them with the instruction – go and show yourselves to the priest.

It is not a coincidence that the tenth leper – the one who realizes what has happened and turns back to say “thank you” – is a Samaritan. Like Namaan, he is an unsympathetic character – feared and reviled by Jesus’ community. The one you’d least expect to be the hero of the story.  Like Mirabel Madrigal, the one without power is the one who saves the day. The Samaritan is the one who realizes that he is in the presence of the living God, the one who stops, and falls in the road in gratitude. Demonstrating to all of us the outer and inner transformation that comes when we encounter the healing power of God.

Martin Luther called worship “the 10^th leper turning back,” to offer his thanks and praise to Jesus for being healed.[2] And so we gather here, too – Each one of you has made a choice to be here, interrupting a culture that has no time for church by gathering together in this space to give thanks to God for the blessing of this life, and I am so very grateful for that!

I don’t want to completely ruin the story for you who haven’t yet seen it, but in Encanto, it isn’t a person but relationships that are healed: the rift between Bruno and the rest of the family, and the divide between Mirabel and her sister, Mirabel and her formidable grandmother. And I think this relational healing is more often the kind of healing that we all have access to, the kind of healing that God promises us, healing that leads to flourishing and fullness of life.

I think I’m a little like Namaan, I expect it to be hard. There must be some mumbo jumbo, hocus pocus that will resolve the differences between us, soften the hardness of our hearts, help us speak to those on the other side of the aisle, the other side of the city, the other end of the spectrum, or even across the dinner table.  But how else can we heal the fractures that divide us? Does not God call us to cross the borders that exist to keep us apart?

Wash in the Jordan seven times and you will be made well.

Go, and show yourselves to the priest, and you will be made well.

It’s not difficult. It just takes a willingness to be changed. To listen, to humble ourselves, to admit when we need help! My prayer for us is we might find the humility of Namaan. The gratitude of the 10^th leper. The courage and wisdom of Mirabel Madrigal to talk about Bruno, to ask hard questions, to seek healing for the trauma that we carry. Because God’s will for us healing, and wholeness, and fullness of life. May it be so!

[1] as cousin Delores sings – grew to live in fear of Bruno stuttering and stumbling, always left abuela and the family fumbling, grappling with prophesies they couldn’t understand.

[2] Lose, David, “Commentary on Luke 17:11-19,” Preaching this Week on Working Preacher.com from Luther Seminary, 10/10/10, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=783.

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
October 2, 2022

You Gotta Have Faith
Luke 17:5-10

Our passage this morning needs a bit of context, because it begins in the middle of a conversation between Jesus and his disciples – and also because the text could possibly go into a narrow little file I have labeled “things I wish Jesus had not said.”

He’s teaching, expanding the idea of discipleship. What does someone need to do to be a disciple? First, they must be on guard against sin, and make sure they don’t cause anyone else to stumble. Then, they’ve got to forgive others. Not just once, but countless times. Okay…then our passage begins. Listen:

Right away, a question: How do we respond when we hear the language of enslavement in the mouth of Jesus? As far as insults go, calling someone a ‘worthless slave’ is not one I want to hear coming from my Lord and savior. I don’t know about you. And what is he doing here, putting the disciples in the role of enslavers? What?

We know that the Bible is both a living word and a culturally enmeshed document. That means, we can find new meaning and understanding in it, but we need to remember that it is a book that’s bound in part by the culture and time in which it was written, and slavery was common in the ancient world. Jesus is using a reference and example that people would understand – one he uses several times at other points in the story. Some translations soften the Greek and use the word servant – this translation, I think appropriately, uses the word slave. What do we do with it?

We must read scripture with both curiosity and a critical eye, constantly sifting through the stories to find what is relevant, meaningful, and true for us today. I don’t know about you, but I want Christ to write it on a tablet, to make it plain for all to see that slavery was wrong, and human beings deserve a fair wage for their labor. But he doesn’t. So we hold passages in tension with one another, remembering that more than anything else Christ was motivated by the call to love God and love neighbor. We can reject the example of enslavement here, even while we dig beneath it, asking what we think Christ was trying to say. The whole passage is expounding on the nature of discipleship. What does it take to be a disciple? With the examples Jesus gives here, we see that discipleship can be difficult. God calls us to lives of loving service, service that can be unglamorous and exhausting, that can feel more like a duty than a joy. Remember that the road Jesus is on leads to Jerusalem, into conflict with the authorities, and then right to Calvary, to the cross. Maybe he wants the disciples to realize that he is asking a lot of them when he calls them to pick up their cross and follow him. He’s asking for everything, their whole lives.

I don’t know about you, but the disciples hear his call to service, his commandment to forgive others relentlessly and ask – how can we do that? How do we have enough faith to follow him?

The disciples seem to be of the opinion that more is better. If a little faith is good, more must be better. But is that how faith works? I can think of plenty of examples where more isn’t better, it’s just more. A little ice cream is good, but more quickly becomes too much. Exercise is good in reasonable amounts, but we’ve probably all overdone it before, strained a muscle or ended up with an injury that put us out of commission for a while. How about time with our extended family? A little of it is wonderful. A lot of time…well, let’s just say that probably depends on the family!

Faith is like love – it’s impossible to quantify! If you have it, even a little bit, even faith just the size of a mustard seed, Jesus says – that’s enough. Enough to do something utterly unbelievable – enough to uproot a tree and throw it into the sea.

Is faith power? Is it like the force, the ability to move people and objects where we want them to go?

I heard someone pray, asking for more faith: “I don’t need faith to move mountains, God, I just need enough to move myself.” I just need enough to move myself. I like that.

We’re all familiar with a sense of inertia when starting a new project or embarking on something new. We feel anxiety that the project might fail or the work will be too hard; we fear we won’t be up for the challenge. Faith is what inspires and enables us to take the first step, and then the next and the next. Faith is trusting the future God has promised us, even when we can’t see it yet. Faith is trusting ourselves enough…trusting GOD enough…to risk trying something new. It’s the midwife of creativity and courage. It is the antidote to fear.

The images coming out of Florida this week, from Ft. Meyers and Sanibel Island and Cape Coral, are just heartbreaking. Whole communities wiped off the map, homes and businesses destroyed, neighborhoods flooded, livelihoods demolished, and human lives lost. There’s one county that has seen more deaths than others, in part because officials delayed issuing a mandatory evacuation order until it was, for some, too late. The state and local municipalities are in the process of assessing the damage and rescuing those in distress, and I’m amazed by remarkable local firefighters, police, emergency responders, public works, and the people from FEMA and the electric company who are doing that good, hard work. There’s even a ragtag group of folks that have come from Louisiana, and Mississippi, who call themselves the Cajun Navy. Have you heard of these guys?

They are not professionals. They are volunteers with boats. Their politics are probably a little different than yours and mine. But they go in after a hurricane has caused catastrophic flooding and use their boats to ferry people to safety. The first Cajun Navy was formed after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Louisiana coast and flooded New Orleans and a zillion other little towns in the region. The work started with a group of about 30 people with 23 boats. Now there are almost 50 different groups calling themselves a Cajun navy, comprised of hundreds, thousands of volunteers who rush in when disaster strikes. To save lives. To use what little resources they have to help others. They saw a need, and realized that they had a way to help. That’s faith.

There’s a philosopher named Blaise Pascal who famously made a case for the existence of God – pascal’s wager – basically, in a universe of infinite possibility, you are better off believing there is a God, because you lose nothing if you’re wrong. He said, even if you don’t have faith, act as if you do. Do the things a faithful person would. Serve others. Forgive others. Be a part of a community of faithful people. You may find, he says, “your actions leading your heart and mind in faithful directions.”[1] And one day, you might surprise yourself, discovering just a tiny seed where there wasn’t any before.  Pascal says, “Don’t worry about what you believe! Focus on your actions and convictions will follow!”[2]

By acting as if we have faith, we just might find we have enough – maybe not enough to move mountains, but enough to move ourselves toward where God is calling us to be. Faith, then, is not a thought exercise, it’s not an ascription of belief, saying or reciting the right words to please God. Faith is an action, it’s what we do! It’s how we respond to the gift of grace, and the experience of love. We extend forgiveness to others! We show compassion to others! We build communities like this one, where we are reminded of the love God has for us, of the grace God offers us, and share those gifts with our neighbors. This, Faith, is faith.

David Lose says, “Faith is a muscle that gets stronger the more you use it.”[3] The joy and challenge of everyday life in the Anthropocene gives us plenty of opportunities to practice our faith – I’m so grateful we get to do this work of discipleship together.

[1] Pascal, Blaise, quoted in the Theologian’s Almanac for the Week of June 19, 2022, The Salt Project, https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2022/6/13/theologians-almanac-for-week-of-june-19-2022.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Lose, David, “Everyday Faith,” Dear Working Preacher column, September 30, 2013, https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/everyday-faith

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
September 11, 2022

Remember and Rejoice!
Luke 15:1-10

In 1944, a cartographer named Harold Fiske set out to map the Mississippi River.  Now, the Mississippi is the longest river in the continental US, 2,300 miles long and a mile wide in some places.  So this was no small task.  But Fiske made his work imminently harder, because he made what’s called a meander map – drawing not just the current route of the river, but also the various paths the river has taken over many thousands of years. Instead of showing the river as a single line, Fiske’s map shows a tangle of red, blue, and green squiggles, connoting the path of the river over time.  See, we think of rivers as having a set course, always flowing in a single direction, and predictably stable, when in fact – over time, rivers change course!  They are living, moving creatures that flood, overflow their banks, shift from one place to another, moving their silty selves over miles and years, seeking the most direct route out to sea.

Since the very beginning of a colonial presence in this country, French and then American engineers have sought to restrict the river to a particular course, building levees and locks to prevent flooding and keep the water flowing within set boundaries.  But nature, of course, has other ideas.  As you can see, the maps are beautiful… as one graphic designer put it, “[they] represent the memory of a mighty river, with thousands of years of course changes compressed into a single image by a clever mapmaker with an artistic eye.”[1]

When Jesus tells this story of the lost objects, he’s talking to Pharisees who have criticized his choice of dinner companions.  “He welcomes sinners and eats with them,” they say, grumbling.  In response, Jesus talks about a shepherd who leaves behind his flock of 99 to search for the one who has wandered off.  The woman with 10 silver coins, who sweeps the house until she finds the one that has been dropped into a dusty corner.  These are beloved parables, because who doesn’t know the frantic feeling of having lost something?  Who hasn’t turned the house upside down to find glasses, keys, or cell phone?  We once were delayed leaving my parents’ house after a holiday because I couldn’t for the life of me find my car keys.  After searching through every pocket and drawer, I discovered them half an hour later on a side table, hidden beneath a magazine.  Dary, bless him, has helped me developed strategies to keep track of my essential items – always put keys by the front door, keep wallet and phone in consistent pockets, check for all three before you leave the house.  He’ll be the first to admit that his strategies aren’t foolproof, but they help.

We can relate to these parables, because all of us know the heart pounding befuddlement of being lost – taking a wrong turn, retracing steps, trying to find our way back to the right path, back to what is known and familiar.  And while GoogleMaps and Waze have made it easier to find our way to new places, there have been times over the past few years when I’ve felt more lost than ever.  The before times, pre-2020, feel lost to me, never to be recovered again.  We can’t find our way back there, not as a culture, not as a country, not as a church – no matter how hard we try.  The pandemic feels like lost time, years in which many of us lost relationships, and lost our bearings. Some even lost our sense of obligation to one another.  In a way, it’s been a summer of loss: understaffed and overstretched airlines lost more lost luggage than ever before.  Women in almost half our fifty states lost the right to choose.

Thinking about loss on this day, September the 11th, reminds me of the horrible loss of life brought by terror and war.  Remembering 9/11 also evokes a loss of innocence – a clear demarcation of before and after, irrevocable changes in national identity, foreign policy, transportation security, world order that have come to pass in the decades since.

Yes, we know the feeling of being lost, of losing something or someone precious to us. So often life does not go as planned, things do not turn out as we hope they will.  We make mistakes, we lose our way. And so I notice a few things about this story that I want to point out.  The shepherd and the woman both search tirelessly, relentlessly, until the lost items have been found.  And when the sheep and the coin found, they rejoice.  The shepherd does not give up; the woman does not get distracted, or say, “oh, it’s just one coin, just let it go.”  No.  They search until that which was lost is found again.

It’s as if Christ is saying to his critics, you’ve written off these people as lost, these tax collectors and sinners, but every life has value to God!  These people are worth seeking, worth knowing, worth celebrating with!  These sheep outside the fold, I came for them as much as for anyone!

Also, the coin and the sheep don’t do anything to be found.  They don’t apologize, they don’t admit guilt or confess faith – they are simply sought after and found, and when they’re found, there is celebration.  These two parables are followed by a third, the story of the lost son, the prodigal.  There is a line that stays with me from that story – after he has left home and squandered his inheritance with loose women and dissolute living, when the prodigal son is so hungry he considers eating the slop he’s supposed to throw to the pigs – he comes to himself, and decides to go home.

He comes to himself.  Remembering who he is and to whom he belongs.  And returns home, and is welcomed with joy and celebration.

The author Elizabeth Guilbert says looking at a meander map is like seeing a map of the journeys of her heart.  She writes, remembering, “All the rules and boundaries that I have set for myself over the years, and how often they have failed. I think about the vows I’ve made to myself and others about where I’m going to be next year, or who I am going to be next year. Endless, expensive, stress-inducing efforts to civilize the river of my being.”

She goes on, “I often say that, after a certain age, every woman in the world could write a memoir called: NOT WHAT I PLANNED. We change. Life changes. We often feel shame, confusion and anger about about those shifts and pivots. But what if we just trusted the river? She seems to know where she wants to go…”

If you were to draw a meander map of your life, what would it looks like?  I imagine few of us would be able to draw a straight line from point A to point B, leading up to today.  Likely we all would have a tangle of lines, times when we backtracked and got turned around, and didn’t know which way to go.  Maybe some of those paths cause us confusion or even shame.  But those are the paths that have made us who we are, that lead us back to ourselves!  Think of all we’ve seen and learned along the way!  Think of all we are still becoming.

If we were to draw a meander map of our congregation, the different paths we’ve taken, all the turns and detours and adventures that have led us to this place, what would it look like?  There is much that we’ve lost along the way, it’s true.  We’re smaller than we used to be, in a building that is more than we need.  But I wonder if such a map would help us to trace and celebrate the paths that led to our beautiful diversity, and gave birth to our fierce commitment to justice. I know the map would reveal the ways and times we’ve shown up for each other, and show the many times we’ve answered the call to love and serve our neighbors; wouldn’t this map lead to our vision of an urban forest, and a property in service to our community in new and needed ways?

In our opening hymn this morning, we sang the words, come and remember who you are here.  Come and remember who God is.  Come, and remember you belong here.  All belong here.  To re-member is to put ourselves back together after being scattered, broken, scared and lost.  So today, I hope as we gather at the table we will take a minute to remember.  To look back at the many paths we’ve taken, the times we’ve felt lost, the times we’ve found our way.  And to help us remember this day as one in our journey, when you have a moment in the service – either as we sing a hymn, or when you come forward for communion – or before you leave the sanctuary – come, write your name on the tablecloth.  Because there is a place for you here.  Thanks be to God!

[1] Kottke, Jason, “The Marvelous Mississippi River Meander Maps,” written on his website, https://kottke.org/19/06/the-marvelous-mississippi-river-meander-maps, June 20, 2019

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

Faith Values: Social Justice
Amos 5:12-15, 18-24, Mark 12:13-17

The email came out of the blue one morning, from my husband, Dary: Did I know an immigration lawyer in Atlanta?  His colleague Julia’s friend had been detained, and needed representation.  Flipping through my mental rolodex, I realized that though I didn’t know anyone who did immigration law in Atlanta, I did know an attorney in Birmingham who might, so I made the connection.  Thus began many months of work and waiting, as the young man’s case wound its way through the immigration system, as it existed under the previous administration.  He was held with countless other men in a detention facility outside of Atlanta.  while his wife, who was pregnant, was released on her own recognizance to stay with an aunt in New York.

He was still detained when his daughter was born, hearing the news of her birth on a payphone, the line scratchy, handset cradled against his shoulder as he stood in a florescent lit hallway, surrounded by other detainees.  Like so many other migrants from Central America, he was seeking refugee status, awaiting the trial that would determine his fate.  It was a trial he was likely to lose, despite having fled Honduras in fear for his life after a gang threatened his family should he refuse to pay for their protection.

My lawyer friend would update me from time to time about the case – but I admit, the heartwrenching suffering of detention and family separation were not at the forefront of my mind as I went about my daily life in ministry, or day-to-day with my family.  We compartmentalize to get by, we have to.  Otherwise, we become paralyzed, overcome by the enormity of the disasters unfolding all around us.

I did not know Jose, the man who was detained.  I’d spoken to his wife Catalina only once, to introduce her to the lawyer – but still, however tenuously, our lives were connected.  As a taxpaying citizen of these United States, I was complicit in his detention, complicit in upholding the system that determined he was at risk of failing to appear for court proceedings if he were released, and so locked him away in rural Georgia for more than a year, eventually deporting him to El Salvador.

And so it is that this story from the gospel of Mark and the question it poses, from so many centuries ago, comes alive for us today.  Jesus, teaching in the temple, is approached by an unlikely alliance of religious and civic leaders – who ask: Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?  They’re really asking: Is it faithful?  To whom do we pledge our allegiance?  To Caesar, or to God?  And it’s not a fair question, because there’s no right answer, no safe answer.  Not in Israel, an occupied land, held in the tight fist of Roman rule for almost 100 years at that point.

The tax in question was a head tax, one everybody had to pay – it covered the cost of the occupation.  Nobody wanted to pay it, the community resented it, and of that there is no doubt.  But the question posed to Jesus is a double-edged sword.  See, many Zealots who resisted Roman rule refused to pay it.  If Jesus says, “pay the tax,” he will anger his supporters; if he says, “refuse to pay,” he risks outing himself as a revolutionary, giving his opponents reason to report him to the authorities and therefore risking arrest, and crucifixion.

It’s a trick question, meant to trap Jesus into saying the wrong thing, but it’s also a question worth asking ourselves even today.  Now, don’t get me wrong: I pay taxes. I believe in public schools and fire departments, garbage collection, and well-maintained roads, critical infrastructure and public safety, international diplomacy, and any number of other crucial services provided by our government.  But as people of faith, we owe our ultimate allegiance not to the state or our country but to God.  And our taxes pay for all sorts of other things, not just the glue that holds our government together but also bombs and bailouts, drones and detention centers.  This should give us pause, and why it’s worthwhile to consider this tricky exchange between the Pharisees and Jesus.  Why I’m grateful for his strategic response.  How do we faithfully navigate conflicting demands for our time, talents, and resources?  To whom do we pledge our allegiance?

This Sunday we are considering the Faith Value of Justice – a big umbrella that covers social, racial, economic, environmental, gender and LGBTQ justice, all causes dear to our heart as a congregation.  What is justice?  If we believe Cornell West, justice is what love looks like in public.  Richard Rohr describes justice and compassion ministries as the movement of the holy spirit within us for the sake of others.  He talks about three ways faithful communities respond to the needs around us by telling the story of a river that overflows its banks.  You may have heard this described in other ways – ambulances on a mountain highway, or pulling babies out of a river.  Rohr says, one way our ministries respond with love to the needs right in front of us is through charity.  We pull the people out of the water when the river floods, help them get to dry land, provide clothes, food, and shelter.  Another way we respond is through ministries of education and healing: training people to be lifeguards, paramedics, doctors and nurses, better equipped to respond when the river overruns its banks, teaching skills and helping them to make a life for themselves out of the floodplain completely.  But justice looks upstream, and says – why is this river flooding in the first place?  The work of justice then advocates and builds power through campaigns and coalitions to strengthen the levees, or build a dam, and hold the engineers and politicians accountable for keeping their people safe.   All of these are necessary for thriving and healthy communities.

We can’t do everything, but we can do some things.  It’s why some of us are called to serve as deacons, serving and caring for our community with compassion by providing meals and groceries for the guys at Harford House; visiting our sick and homebound members; praying for our congregation; supporting the CARES pantry; and building affordable housing through Habitat.  And others are called to serve on the SEJC, our social and environmental justice council, inviting our congregation to advocate for an assault weapons ban, electric vehicles for the USPS, full staffing and better service on the mobility bus for elderly and vulnerable people in our city, and an independent immigration court in Maryland to name a few issues we’ve acted on this year.

We do this work out of our conviction that God needs our hearts and our hands, our bodies and resources to share mercy, build peace, and pursue justice in the world.  And it’s a world that is organized by systems of government which we must navigate as faithfully as we can.  While Jesus’s response to the question about paying taxes was a bit oblique, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s, his ministry and teaching is clear: he heals the sick, serves the poor, and feeds the hungry.  He challenges the rule that oppresses his people and the boundaries that shut people out.  He enacts God’s grace and liberation, and heralds the arrival of God’s reign.

The coin that Jesus asks for was a denarius, which had a picture of the emperor Tiberius and the phrase, “son of the Divine Augustus.”  It was a graven image, and a claim of divinity – two things forbidden by the 10 commandments.  Ostensibly, the coin belongs to Caesar.  But doesn’t all of creation belong to God?  Are we humans not reflections of the divine image?  How can we give to Caesar what is Caesar’s when everything belongs to God?  And so it is that the wise teacher calls us to strategic nonviolent resistance of affirming God’s image in every person that we meet.  Because when we see that, we cannot tolerate their suffering.  We must devote ourselves to their flourishing, putting ourselves on the line for the sake of the world that is becoming.

We cannot do everything.  But we must do something.  I don’t know what it is for you.  Who it is for you.  What issue breaks open your heart and keeps you up at night, what you’ve written about to your legislators and to the President and talked about with those who will listen.  Maybe you don’t know what it is yet.  But we are called into communities of care and accountability so that together we can testify to the truth that God’s will for us is to be whole, to be loved, to flourish.  And calls us to work together until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.  May it be so.

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
June 23, 2022

Faith Values: Stewardship
Romans 12:1-13

 

I follow Corey Booker on Instagram, because of course I do. In addition to being a US Senator from New Jersey, Booker is on a run streak – up with the dawn every morning to run at least a mile, this is a thing that people do. I’ve never done it – but some people do. After his early run, Booker often will post a reel with an inspirational quote or thought for the day. The other morning, he observed that often, when his alarm goes off at 4:45 in the morning, all he wants to do is roll over and go back to sleep. Then he remembers a question that dogs him. Do you want to do what you want right now? Or do you want to do what you want MOST? And he gets up. And runs another day.

It’s impressive. And a good question, one that might help us make better choices about what we do with our time and how we work towards the goals we set for ourselves.

This past Monday evening, members of your session and diaconate met together. We shared lasagna and ate ice cream sandwiches at long tables under the trees out on the South lawn. We laughed and reconnected, and then we came upstairs and thought and talked about our congregation. We asked a question connected to Cory Booker’s question: what do we value? What is most important to who we are and how does that inform what we are called to do in the world?

I believe it’s important to return to these questions regularly – in part because we’re Presbyterians, which means we’re a confessional church: in times of upheaval and change, we reflect and reaffirm who we are and what we believe about God and the world. That’s reflected in our book of Confessions.

These are questions to consider also because it’s fun to envision future possibilities and make space for the Spirit to shape our collective imagination about what might we might do and be together.

And finally, it’s important to consider our core values because the world around us has changed – is changing rapidly.  Politics and pandemic continue to convulse our country.  We are bombarded with devastating news of war in Ukraine, drought in the west, an earthquake in Afghanistan, and the threat of famine; higher than ever CO2 levels in our atmosphere.  Now almost half the states in our union are not safe for women, or for people who want fewer concealed guns on our streets like police officers and Presbyterians.  The ways we form and build community are evolving – patterns of attendance and participation are shifting, too; as are the needs of the neighborhood around us.  It is a lot to hold, to carry, to try to find our way through.

In yoga, in strength training, and even in running – the teacher or coach will often tell athletes to connect to their core, or to brace their core: the muscles that wrap around our trunks to support our lower back and abs, and stabilize our pelvis.  Connecting to your core in a yoga pose helps with balance, in running it prevents injury.  And when attempting a heavy lift, your core can be a powerhouse of strength.  Breathe out, right now – and connect to your core.  Feel those muscles that protect your back and inner organs!  Brace yourself – and now relax.

Reconnecting to what is core, foundational to who we are: as Christians, and as a community of faith – is a way to maintain balance in a turbulent world, to protect ourselves against the unraveling of our sense of connectedness, efficacy and purpose as individuals and a congregation.  Shoring up and bracing our core helps us tap into our strength as God’s people.

And it’s not hard to do!  We just need to look around, and look inward – what brings us here, week after week?  What do our building and grounds say about us as a congregation?  What does our public witness say about who we are, and the world we want to be part of creating?  How do we spend our time?  What does that tell us about what matters to us?

Our Faith Value theme for this morning is stewardship.  The term stewardship conjures up pledge cards and pleas for money. But that’s not exactly what I mean – at least, that’s not all I mean when I name stewardship as a core value.  This past Monday night, after the lasagna and the ice cream sandwiches, around the tables in the Woodmont Room, we named and prioritized some of our church’s core values.  In part of our discussion, we explored what exactly it meant to name stewardship as a core value.  We landed on the definition that stewardship is how we tend to what we have: our faith, our congregation, the practices and property that we’ve inherited as a church.  Stewardship is also how we use the gifts we’ve been given: time, talents, and resources.  It’s investing ourselves in God’s work through Faith Church.

Good stewardship means showing up to support one another: by marching in Pride, like a group of us did yesterday; visiting one another in the hospital and sharing meals in hard times; standing together to proclaim that Black Lives Matter and to advocate for love and justice in the world. Good stewardship also means stepping up to lead and serve, to teach and sing, and more, because we need the gifts you, and sometimes only you, can offer.  And, good stewardship means making use of our building and the surrounding property – to support our ministry as we’re doing now in worship, to serve our neighbors, to host our partners, and to reflect our values.

I’m hard pressed to find a passage of scripture that speaks more clearly to good stewardship than this section of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome.  He writes to a church he intends to visit, but has not yet met in person; a church wrestling with conflict and working out how best to live together in community.  And he offers instructions to guide their common life, as they attempt to be church together.

Consider yourselves living sacrifices – that your whole lives might be a testament to the goodness and glory of God.  All that we have and all that we are belongs to God – so we are called to live and give accordingly.

If together we are the body of Christ in the world, and individually we are members of it – each with different gifts to bring and offer – good stewardship is knowing what we have to offer, what gifts we’ve been given, and finding a way to give back… or to receive when that is needed.  We don’t have to do everything, because we have each other: for encouragement and support, different parts with a variety of gifts to carry out God’s work in the world.

As we move forward, the session and I need your help and input to shape and inform our understanding of who we are as Faith Church: what are our core values?  How do we live them out?

Here are each of our 10 core values as discerned this past Monday.  Come forward, get one of the values that speaks to you.  And write on it one way you’ve seen it lived out in community, or a way you’d like to see it come to life.  And in the spirit of stewardship: you can also make a commitment to help carry out one of these values in the months ahead.

There’s also blank paper if you want to add another value that’s not listed here.

As the music plays, come, help us strengthen our core!

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.