Cat Goodrich
September 6, 2020
Faith Presbyterian Church

The Labor of Love
Matthew 18:15-20

126 years ago, there was a strike in Chicago.  Workers who built Pullman rail cars had grown weary 16-hour days and low pay, so they refused to work.  As the strike wore on, tensions rose.  After a month, the workers were joined by the powerful American Railway Union, who refused to handle Pullman cars out of solidarity.  When more than 100,000 railway workers wouldn’t connect the cars from one train to another, they essentially stopped rail travel across much of the country. 

Annual workers’ marches had been gaining popularity for more than a decade by that point, as a way to give working people a day off.  By 1894, about half of US states were observing a Labor Day, and there was pressure on Congress to make it a national holiday.  In the midst of the Pullman strike, Congress did – perhaps as a conciliatory gesture to the workers – and President Grover Cleveland signed it into law in late June of that year.  But a few days later, he sent federal troops to Chicago to quash the strike.  The workers were outraged, and after days of violent clashes, with thousands of angry people in the street, destroying hundreds of rail cars, a national guardsman opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators, killing as many as thirty people.[1] 

Labor Day has been, to me, a fun long weekend – the last hurrah of summer before school starts and fall sets in.  A chance to throw one more thing on the grill, and to eat as many ripe tomatoes as I can before they’re gone. 

But this year, I’ve been thinking about the origins of Labor Day and it’s changed how I feel about this weekend.  I’ve been thinking about the workers, many of whose names are lost to history, whose courage and commitment and collective action helped bring us things like an 8-hour work day, overtime pay, weekends, and anti-child labor laws.  Those regulations seem so basic, don’t they?  It’s hard to believe it took so much conflict and community organizing to ensure that kids weren’t allowed to work in coal mines, and that people deserved not just 8 hours to work, but also 8 hours to rest, and 8 hours for everything else.  That we had to come to blows in the street to protect people over profits.  Of course, we know this is still happening.  Everything old is new again.

The pandemic has brought to the forefront of our awareness the people who keep our economy and society running – those deemed essential workers.  Doctors and nurses, yes.  Police and EMTs and Fire fighters, of course.  But also the grocery store clerks and bus drivers, janitors and home health aides and teachers – people who often don’t make a lot of money, who may not have health insurance, whose jobs bring heightened risk of exposure.  Around 85 public school teachers and other employees of the NYC public school system died in the first wave of the virus.  More than 100 police across the country have died, making Covid the leading cause of death for officers this year.  And the United Food and Commercial Workers Union said in June that at 82 of their members, grocery store employees, had died after contracting the virus, with some 11,000 others affected.[2]

There are signs all over town thanking essential workers – I’m sure you’ve seen them, “heroes work here!”  The signs in people’s front yards thanking delivery drivers and postal workers and the garbage guys for their work to keep the economy moving.  In midtown Atlanta in April and May, and elsewhere too, people who lived around the Midtown hospital would break into applause at every shift change, cheering the exhausted nurses and technicians and cleaning staff as they left the hospital, their encouragement echoing between the tall buildings.  I don’t think they’re doing that anymore.  As the pandemic wears on, how are we continuing to show our appreciation and concern for those on the front lines?  The signs are nice, but they don’t seem like enough, with the risk involved.  I can’t help but wonder – How can we do better to love one another, to love our neighbors – especially in the time of Covid?

Reading these texts about conflict resolution, and hearing again the call to love one another this Labor Day weekend, it’s clear that these are not new questions.  Matthew’s community must have struggled with interpersonal conflict – hence this advice for how to navigate it within the church.  And they certainly came up against political and religious conflict as people living in an occupied land, and as Christ-believers in a largely Jewish religious landscape.  Jesus calls his followers to have courage in facing conflict – to engage with one another directly, speaking up when they feel they have been wronged, or if they see someone going astray.  And he describes an expansive, extensive process of engagement and open conversation to hold people accountable for their actions, and, if necessary, to invite repentance and change.  If we love one another, we must be willing to talk with each other and tell the truth.  Easier said than done, I know.

It reminds me of Paul’s words to the church in Corinth, so often read at weddings: “love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.”

At a wedding, I’ve got to be honest, I often hear these words as domesticated and saccharine, but they aren’t.  And I think we could we go on to say, sometimes, love hurts…  We who are feeling the loss of loved ones, Jay and Carol and Maceo this past week, know this to be true.  Anyone who has had children or been part of a family can tell you that sometimes, love is hard.  Anyone who has walked alongside a beloved partner or friend through the pain of cancer treatment, or the fog of memory loss can testify that love can be very, very hard.  Loving one another takes effort, it takes time and energy.  It takes a willingness to be in hard times and places together, to confront one another and tell the truth. 

I have a pastor friend who talks about this when people join his church.  He tells them, don’t join if you think we’re going to be perfect.  We are not.  There will be conflict.  At some point, we will probably disappoint you.  But if you are willing to be a part of this church family – to show up and be engaged, to love one another despite our faults and shortcomings, to hold each other accountable and seek reconciliation when things have gone wrong, and to help make sure we get it right next time, then come.  Be part of this!  We will welcome you and love you!  We will support each other and hold each other accountable for what we profess to believe!  We will be the church together!

We live in such divided times, with our communities and even our families fractured along political fault lines.  The echo chamber of the internet has led us to such a painfully polarized place.  In the leadup to the last Presidential election, in 2015 and 2016, I remember hearing more and more of my parishioners struggle with how to handle political disagreements with friends and family members, particularly on social media.  After a close friend picked a fight with a family member on her facebook wall, one woman said, “I just don’t know what to do!  Should I confront her?  Unfriend her?  Or just let it go?  What she said really hurt me.”  I wish I knew to how to make navigating these painful disagreements easier.  If we take Jesus’ advice, we will speak the truth in love directly – offline—with those with whom we disagree.  We will do it one-on-one, and we will do it as church leaders, and if needed we will take it to the streets. 

If that person refuses to listen, “Let that person be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector” Jesus says – which doesn’t mean someone we ignore or ostracize.  Jesus spent part of his ministry reaching out to and engaging and eating with Gentiles and tax collectors!  I think this means that we are called into the fray, as individuals and as a community of faith, to love our neighbors by seeking to mend and repair, reconcile and heal the fractures that divide us.

And the testimony of scripture is that when we seek reconciliation, God’s power will be at work in and through us, making the impossible possible. 

Love takes courage, and it takes hard work.  I thank God it is work we get to do, together.

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[1] McKeever, Amy, “Labor Day’s surprisingly radical origins” National Geographic, 9/4/20, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/reference/holidays/history-labor-day/#close

[2] Redman, Russell, “UFCW: Over 11,500 grocery workers affected in first 100 days of pandemic,” Supermarket News, 6/26/20, supermarketnews.com.

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church
August 23, 2020

Keys to the Kin-dom[1]
Matthew 16:13-20

The last church I served had a sexton named Kandi.  She was often the first person to greet you if you came in the back door, and she loved to ham it up for visitors.  “Welcome to First Presbyterian Church,” she’d say, “a home in the heart of the city.”  She was the longest serving member of staff by a long shot, having worked there for almost 20 years.  Kandi knew the building inside and out, like the back of her hand – and if you needed to find something, you only had to ask.  She wore black Chuck Taylor All-Stars and usually some kind of Alabama paraphernalia, and you could always hear her coming – because of her keys!  Kandi had every key to every door in the church on a big round keychain she kept attached to her belt, and every step would jangle.  Somehow, whenever a door needed to be opened, she would be able to find the right key … most of the time.  Still, there were plenty of unmarked, unclaimed, anonymous mystery keys – cups of them on her desk, a handful in mine, a box in our administrator’s office.  Keychains full.

It wasn’t a surprise, then, when I arrived at Faith and Diane handed me an enormous set of keys.  It felt right!  Churches have a lot of doors, a lot of locks!  We need a lot of keys!  But even then, I was not prepared for all of these, or these.  “We have a labelled keybox,” Mike Shirey said… oh my.  My favorite part is the layer of unlabeled keys on the bottom.  There’s a handful of unmarked keys in my new desk, and a large number of mystery keys on the keychain – big keys and tiny ones, brass and silver, some shiny, others worn, some labelled, others… I separated the few I thought I’d need and stashed the others, not ready to jingle down the hallway trying all the keys in each lock I come to.  I’ll figure them all out eventually!

These keys tell a story.  They tell of a church that is deeply loved, and cared for by people who want to protect it, keep the sacred space safe for we who gather here.  They also tell us a little something about those who’ve gone before…and the different iterations of community that have worshipped together in Faith.

But to me, these keys also remind me about how empty the building feels this morning, when it should be bustling with all of you lovely people.  Smelling like coffee and fresh flowers and candlewax!  These keys remind me how much we have invested in our physical space: how much time, energy, and resources we put into our church buildings – and how unusual this time is that we cannot safely gather here.  It’s a place you all have worked so hard to make beautiful, and keep secure.  It’s church.  And yet, it’s locked up tight.  The pandemic has shifted our understanding of so much – how and where we work, how we learn, how we connect with friends and family, how we grieve, and also how we worship.  It’s enough to make me wonder, who are we, as individuals and as a church, when we cannot gather?

The gospels often deal with the question of identity – who was Jesus?  Who were those who followed him?  How was he the anointed one, and who came before him to make him so?  What difference does it make for us, for we who want to follow him now?  Our passage this morning is a prime example:

When Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They say, a prophet, reincarnated – John the Baptist. Elijah, Jeremiah.  They get part of it, part of who he is… he did come to teach and to transform and to call for justice.  But that isn’t all.  “who do you say that I am?”  he asks.  And only Peter gets it right.  Peter!  We should all take some comfort in this.  Peter was far from perfect.  The last time we saw him, he was so burdened by doubt, he sank into the sea.  And we know where Peter’s story leads, to denial, and fear, and abandonment.  Yet somehow, Peter gets this right!  There’s hope for us yet.  Peter calls Jesus the Messiah, the son of the Living God, and Jesus rewards him by saying, Peter, You are a Rock and on you I will build my church.

This is the first of only two references to church in all of the gospels.  The word is ekklesia, and may be more accurately translated as “assembly” – those who have been assembled or called by God into community.  And it is always a good reminder for me, as a professional Christian, to note that Jesus does not say – on you, Peter, I will build my church and worship will be on Sunday mornings around 11 o’clock, and the sermon will be no more than 20 minutes, and the pews will be wooden, and the music will be played on an organ and it will be spectacular.  None of that.  Jesus was an itinerant preacher; he built a movement of people who literally followed him from place to place.  Church, of course, came after.  And before it was parapets and pews and pianos, it was people.

The pandemic has truly hit home what we probably knew all along, what we affirmed with our wise young ones this morning – That church is not the building.  Church is the people, it’s you and me, Mike and Mercy and Melvin and Maddie and Marilyn and everyone else here too.  The community of the faithful, we who walk together, seeking to follow Christ and love one another.  Seeking justice.  Building peace.  Honoring God.

Jesus says to Peter, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”  I know Jesus didn’t hand Peter a keyring like this one when he promised him the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  (don’t you wish he had, though?). It’s an apt metaphor: keys do lead to freedom… the freedom to come and go as you please, to open any door and close it again.  Keys can make you safe and secure… the feeling of checking to make sure the front door is locked before heading to bed for the night.  Keys can also liberate.  The feeling of your parents’ car keys in your hand as you head out the door, to meet friends, or even just to drive, windows open, wind in your hair, music blaring.  Freedom!  The keys to your very own apartment.  The feeling of turning the key in the lock of a business you built, and opening the door for the very first time.  Such possibility!

Of course, sometimes keys mean freedom, sometimes they don’t.  As easily as keys can set us free, and they can also shut us in.  Anyone who has been locked up or visited a prison can remember the sound the soul crushing clang and buzz of a gate being open or shut – the scrape of a metal key in a lock.

Keys aren’t so liberating if you’re the one who is locked in or out.  And the keys to my first apartment felt different than the keys to the first home I owned… since the housekeys came with a list of payments going out thirty years into the future.  Freedom, but with a cost.

The keys to the kingdom?  What did he mean?

Eric Barreto points out that when Jesus asks, “who do you say that I am?” he not only looking for a confession of faith.[2]  He’s also seeking to shape the community that will follow in particular ways.  Who Christ is forms who they are, and hopefully will inform what they do.  So when he offers the keys to the kingdom and the power to bind and to free, he is calling those who will follow him to continue his work: to heal and to cast out demons, and to share the gracious and liberating love of God.  The assembly of God’s people will bind up the world’s death dealing powers by the power of love in Christ, forgiving and freeing people from the burdens they bear.

And again and again, it happens!  Words of forgiveness and grace at the font unlock the burden of guilt and free us to live as whole, loved, forgiven people week after week.  Across the country, the church is at work to liberate and set free: In a presbytery in Idaho last year, churches pooled their resources to buy and forgive more than $1 million of crushing medical debt in their state.[3]  In St. Louis, those who attended GA two years ago gave almost $50,000 to pay bail and release folks from the local jail.  Through addiction and recovery programs, by advocating for refugees and asylum seekers, by proclaiming God’s life-giving love for all and embodying that love around an ever-expanding table – the people of God are working for liberation.

Everywhere we look, there is another person bound up by the death-dealing powers of the world.  Mass incarceration.  Grief.  Debt.  Fear.  Poverty.  Shame.  Addiction.  So much that needs unlocking.  It’s a good thing we have a lot of keys.

[1] Ada-Maria Isasi-Diaz is a Cuban-American theologian who coined the term, “the kin-dom of God.”  As a feminist and Latina, she rejected the oppressive hierarchy of a kingdom, and instead painted a vision of the family of God – the kin-dom – where we witness and are agents of God’s liberating work in and through our love for one another.

[2] Barreto, Eric, “Commentary on Matthew 16:13-20,” Preach this Week 8/24/14, from workingpreacher.org, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2162

[3] Ferguson, Mike, “With a nod to John Oliver, churches are wiping the slate clean statewide,” Presbyterian News Service, 11/4/19,  https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/church-presbytery-raise-money-to-wipe-out-medical-debt/

Rev. Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church
August 16, 2020

Canaanite Lives Matter
Matthew 15: 21-28

When I was pregnant with Maddie, I read everything I could find about what was happening to my body. It was hard to comprehend the changes both inside and out As my belly swelled and my bones shifted and it became a bit difficult to breathe I felt like a stranger in my own body some days. As the baby grew, books would inexplicably compare her size to progressively larger pieces of fruit…first a blueberry then a grape, then a grapefruit and a cantaloupe. I prepared for childbirth like I was studying for an exam. I took classes.  I did yoga.  Read books.  Hired a doula.  Talked to friends, my mother, my sister. As if having as much information as possible about what might happen would give me some control over the situation, which was, of course, impossible. But I read and I stretched and I practiced breathing and visualization trying to trust that my body knew what needed to happen and hoping that all would be well.

Something my sister told me, something that ended up being a guidepost for me through many, many hours of labor, was to expect there to be a point where I didn’t think I could go on. A time when I would be sick, and tired, and feel like the pain was too much, like I couldn’t do it anymore. That’s called transition, she said.  And that’s when you know you’re close. Just breathe. And then push.

I’ve been thinking about labor, about the work it takes to bring new life into the world, Because in this passage, this unbelievable exchange between Jesus and the Canaanite woman, Where she runs after him, screaming in the street, and he ignores her and then insults her and then… heals her daughter that word, the one translated “shouting” can also mean crying out, shrieking – and the one other time it’s used in the Bible, it means groaning with labor pains.

This Canaanite woman, she is crying out for help for her beloved child, but I have to wonder – is she also birthing something new as she challenges Jesus?

Can you see her?  The sweat on her brow, the pain etched in her face, hair wild with worry, chest heaving as she tries to catch her breath and cry out.  Jesus and the disciples, they don’t know what to do with her, so they don’t want anything to do with her.  They are Jewish men, they shouldn’t be speaking with a Gentile woman in the street anyway, so they ignore her.  Hope maybe she’ll just go away.

But you can’t ignore contractions.  When the time comes, it comes.  And suddenly there she is, kneeling in front of him.  Sparring with him.  Pushing him to care.  To expand his sense of compassion.  To extend the table to include everyone.  To include her family.  To include her.

I’ve got to be honest.  This exchange is on a short list of things I wish Jesus had never said.  Their interaction rankles me, it provokes me.  It makes me want to say, “O no he didn’t…” The dogs, Jesus?  Really?!

Biblical scholars have tied themselves in knots trying to explain or justify why Jesus may have said this.  Was he testing her?  Was he being playful?  If he was testing or teasing, I don’t have much patience for it.  “Gentile dogs” was a pretty common slur in Jesus’ day.  And I’m guessing the woman didn’t appreciate being called that.  But her daughter was sick.  And what parent wouldn’t do whatever it took to seek healing for their child?  Risk humiliation?  It’s worth it, if the girl is healed.  But why does Jesus respond to her like this?!

I think Jesus was just being human.  He was tired!  He was travelling, in an unfamiliar place, toward the Greek cities of Tyre and Sidon.  These were coastal cities, just south of modern-day Beirut, in case you’re wondering, where that horrible explosion happened two weeks ago.  Remember Jesus had been up all night praying a few days prior, then instead of resting in the boat as his disciples crossed the Sea of Galilee, he was out walking on the water. Then they walked, northwest, with crowds following him, trying to touch his cloak, desperate for healing. Jesus was tired and worn out and had a moment that was all too human – the woman screamed out to him, and he snapped.

Have you ever said something and instantly regretted it?  Maybe that’s what happened.  But whatever the reason for his rudeness, he’s not off the hook.  Recent reckonings on racism and sexual harassment have taught us that regardless of your good intentions, what you actually do or say is what matters. And comparing this woman to a dog is a hurtful, harmful statement.  Jesus’ bias is showing, big time.

This is an interesting moment to be reading this text.  The outcry in the streets over the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others, is building power to create real change – in some unexpected places. News outlets and nonprofits, colleges and universities, are being to be called to account for systemic biases that devalue and make life and work more difficult for BIPOC: from Bon Appetit magazine[1] to Jim Wallis and Sojourners[2] and my own alma mater, Austin College.

The sands are shifting – Organizations are being reorganized, recreated, maybe even reborn.  I wonder, where is the church in this?  Where is the company you work for, your family?  Are we listening to the multitude who are crying out?  And like the Canaanite woman, are we lending our voices to fight for healing for those whom we love?  Do we have the courage to demand change for a more equitable, just, and loving world?  Do we have the persistence to push for it?

When the Canaanite woman challenges Jesus, he doesn’t walk away.  He doesn’t double down and insult her again, or again say he came to save only Jewish people.  He finally hears her.  He is convicted by her.  And he changes his mind.  He heals her daughter.

The capacity to change is a gift from God.  The ability to learn from our mistakes, to change our minds, to admit when we are wrong, and to try to do better – these are part of being human.  One of the qualities historically ascribed to God is immutability – God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  The theory goes that if God is perfect, then why would God ever need to change?  But maybe one of the gifts of the incarnation is that God does change – God is changed, in relationship with us, just as we are changed in relationship with one another and with God.  Maybe that’s exactly what happens here – Jesus, fully human, fully God, realizes the extent of God’s love for the world –love that includes all people, no matter where they’re from, no matter who they love, no matter what they look like or the language they speak or what they believe or doubt.  God’s love that extends even to a Canaanite woman who is brave enough to challenge him, persistent enough to point out his biases, and demand that he change.

Maybe you can identify with Jesus in this story – either you have unexamined biases, or you are held back in some way by your sense of propriety or even fear.   Maybe you are just worn out and have said something you shouldn’t have.  It’s easy enough to do in this stressful pandemic time, people are so very tense, worried, stretched to the breaking point, ready to snap.

Maybe you are like the woman, so desperate for healing that you are willing to confront God herself to beg for a miracle.  Maybe you are so sick and tired of the lines that have been drawn around who is in and who is out that you dream of a place where everyone is welcome.  A world where there is enough for all, more than enough for children and especially for dogs.

Maybe you can identify with the disciples who don’t want to hear any of it.

The good news for all of us is that wherever we find ourselves in this story, there’s hope for us yet.  No matter how we might try to box it in, God’s power will not be contained.  God’s power would not be constrained by Jesus’ cultural bias.  It wasn’t held back by his sense of propriety; it wasn’t stopped by his exhaustion or even by his short temper or hurtful words. Despite all of this, God’s power healed the girl and changed Jesus’s understanding of who was welcome in God’s kingdom.  So we, too, can have hope that through us — sometimes despite us – despite our short tempers, or hidden bias, or hurtful words, God is at work – to heal and to mend, to reconcile and make new.

It can be hard to trust that this is true.  When your daughter, your son, your family and friends are the ones suffering.  When another unarmed black man was killed at a routine traffic stop in Georgia last week,[3] when the fires of racism continue to be fanned by people in power, when the pandemic still rages on, and even US Postal workers become key players in ensuring people have a right to vote… it is no wonder if we feel exhausted by it all, like the pain is too much, like we can’t do it anymore.  We can’t go on.  Everything feels so heavy, so dark.

That’s called transition, my sister said.  And that’s when you know you’re close.  Just breathe.  And then push.

Valerie Kaur is a Sikh activist who founded the Revolutionary Love Project.  She’s a human rights lawyer, a documentary filmmaker, an activist, and a mother who has been working to challenge injustice and build compassion in response to the unprecedented rise in hate crimes motivated by race and religion in our country since 9/11.  Kaur wonders what “if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb? What if our future is not dead, but still waiting to be born? What if this is our great transition? Remember the wisdom of the midwife. [Breathe and push].”[4]

The good news of the gospel is this… something new is waiting to be born in and through each one of us.  A table that is big and long enough for all of us.  A circle that is wide and unbroken.  A home where all are welcomed and valued.

So let’s breathe deep.  Trust that our bodies know what to do.  And then let’s keep pushing, together.

[1] Pashman, Dan, “A Reckoning at Bon Appetit,” on the Sporkful podcast, June 13, 2020, http://www.sporkful.com/a-reckoning-at-bon-appetit/

[2] Khan, Aysha, “Jim Wallace replaced as Sojourners editor after controversy over article on Catholic racism,” Religion News Service, 8/14/20, https://religionnews.com/2020/08/14/sojourners-jim-wallis-editor-sandi-villarreal-catholic-white-racist-editorial-independence-policy/

[3] Waller, Allyson, “Georgia Trooper is Charged in Fatal Shooting of Black Driver,” 8/15/20, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/15/us/georgia-state-trooper-charged-murder.html?auth=login-email&login=email

[4] Kaur, Valerie, “3 Lessons of Revolutionary Love in a Time of Rage,” talk given at TEDWomen 2017, https://www.ted.com/talks/valarie_kaur_3_lessons_of_revolutionary_love_in_a_time_of_rage/transcript

Rev. Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore
August 9, 2020

Deep Water
Matthew 14:22-33

On our trip to Maine a few weeks ago, we spent a blustery morning at Reid State Park – a gorgeous spit of land with miles of sandy beaches, along with rocky coastline for climbing and scrambling over, and tidal pools to splash through.  It was grey and windy, with threatening clouds overhead.  As we walked along the beach, bundled against the wind and rain, I watched a big catamaran with three sails make its way across the horizon.  It was moving swiftly, sails flapping, completely tossed about by the waves.  “Goodness,” I said, “I feel sorry for them!  I hope they make it back to shore safely!”  Dary shook his head and waved at the sea – “This?” he said, “This is nothing!  They’ve probably seen much, much worse.  Boats sail through rough seas all the time.”

 

I didn’t grow up around boats.  In North Louisiana where I grew up, boats were a novelty to me – canoes at summer camp, or swimming off a friend’s party barge in Cross Lake or Lake Bisteneau, the water as warm and dark as coffee thanks to the cypress trees.  Not Dary.  To him, boats were a way of life – his grandfather was a naval engineer, a ship builder, so Dary grew up visiting his grandpa at the shipyard at Bath Iron Works and sailing around Casco Bay with his family.  Growing up around boats, he knew – sailors, lobstermen, fisherfolk – they’re used to storms.  Getting tossed about by waves and wind is just part of life on the water.  They need to take weather seriously, be prepared for it, but they wouldn’t let it stop them.

 

Which brings me to this strange story about a boat of windswept disciples and Jesus walking on water.  The disciples were fishermen!  They should’ve been fine in a storm – being tossed about by waves and buffeted by wind – that was all in a day’s work!  No big deal.  And wind storms are common on the Sea of Galilee – they’re part of the normal weather pattern for that region.[1]  So why does Jesus come to them?

 

Are they in danger?  Does he come to calm the storm?  If the disciples are seasoned fisherfolk, accustomed to the dangers of a windy night on the water, what is Jesus doing?  He has fed the crowds with just five loaves and two fish.  He sends the disciples onto the boat, to cross the Sea of Galilee while he goes up the mountain to pray.  After a windy night, straining at the oars, the weary crew sees something out on the water – the figure of a man, walking.  But that’s impossible!  “is it a ghost?” they wonder.

 

In Mark’s version of this story, it looks as if Jesus is going to pass by the disciples completely – until the disciples call out to him.  In this way, it evokes the Old Testament passage that Ted read, one of my favorites, with Elijah in the mouth of the cave, waiting for God to pass by.  The prophet finds that God comes not in the storm, not in the wind, not in the fire, but in the silence.  As a still small voice.

 

Not so here.  Jesus comes to the disciples right in the thick of the storm.  I wonder if it’s because he knew that more storms were coming.  He knew the disciples wouldn’t have the luxury of waiting for silence to encounter God.  They didn’t have time to wait for the wind to die down, for the waves to stop crashing over the side of the boat.  There was work to be done! They needed to cross over the sea, to get to Gennesseret and the people who needed healing there. He knew they would have to face relentless waves of rejection and suffering, the jeers of the crowd and the condemnation of the priests, the scorn of Herod and Pilate.  And maybe even more than that, he knew the winds would keep blowing, the storms would keep coming – the winds of poverty and oppression, all the storms that beset faithful people living in an occupied land, all the fears that drive us apart.

 

See, the life of faith doesn’t stay safe on the shore.  Often, it leads us to crowds of hungry people, and into the deep, stormy waters of the struggle for justice, and into the long night watch of working for peace. All of it can feel like rough, uncharted sea.

 

One of the early Christian symbols was a boat – and it makes sense!  The first Christ-believing communities saw themselves as pockets of safety surrounded by threatening forces beyond their control.  The work of their house churches was to spread the good news and transport souls to salvation.  You may know that the formal term for the part of the sanctuary where the congregation sits is the nave – a word which has its roots in the Latin word navis, or ship.  Many beautiful old cathedrals and basilicas even have vaulted ceilings over the nave, that look like an overturned boat.  It’s an apt description!

 

So the waves are crashing against the side of the boat, the wind is blowing, the disciples are terrified, and Christ calls out, “Take heart!  It’s me! Don’t be afraid!” Every time an angel or an agent of God shows up in the Bible, they say, don’t be afraid… which makes me think being in the presence of God must be terrifying.  Makes sense to me that the rest of the disciples seem to hunker down in the boat with their life jackets on.  But Peter – Peter, Petros, the rock, risks stepping out of the boat!  He tries to join Jesus out on the water.

 

As soon as he’s out there, he realizes it’s not a good idea.  The wind is too strong, the waves too high.  What do rocks do?  They sink!

 

As Peter’s faith wavers, he cries out, and Christ reaches out to save him.  Somehow, together, they get into the boat.  Terror gives way to awe and amazement, and the disciples fall down to worship.  “Truly, you are the Son of God,” they say.

 

This year has felt like being tossed in a stormy sea, hasn’t it?  The waves have battered our boats relentlessly: waves of sickness and despair, uncertainty and anxiety, waves of anger and frustration.  I keep thinking about the poem by Stevie Smith, called “not waving but drowning” – there are a lot of folks who are in over their heads, who have grown weary fighting the waves and are overwhelmed.  Some are overwhelmed by loneliness, especially those who are made vulnerable by age or pre-existing conditions and must stay separated from friends and family.  Those who have lost jobs are weary, beset with worry about how to make ends meet, while congress is mired in debate. Those who have children are wondering how they’ll make it through another semester of working full-time without childcare or school.  Too many people are out way too far, not waving but drowning.  So what are we to do?

 

Everything points to staying in the boat.  It’s safer there, sure.  We know the boat.  There’s something to cling to.  But storms are a part of life. They can be dangerous but they also clear the air, refresh the earth, and if this story tells us anything, it’s that Christ meets us in the midst of them, saying Do not be afraid!

 

I’m still getting to know you all, but I *think* you are a little like Peter.  You seem to me like the kind of folks who are willing to step out of the boat, to take risks even when it’s scary.  To go beyond and outside the safety of your building, to wade into the deep water of listening to each other, of engaging your neighbors and trying to build bridges in a fractured community.  To stand together to face the winds of poverty and racism and sexism and discrimination with confidence that you do not stand alone.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  We aren’t called to be reckless, ignoring the weather report and leaping from the boat without first bolstering our faith and learning how to swim.  We need to take weather seriously, be prepared for it, and not let the storms stop us.  Because storms will come.  But when the waves are high, and our spirits are low, and our faith wavers – that is when he finds us, saying “Take heart!  I am here!  Do not be afraid!”

 

Seamus Heaney’s epitaph reads, Walk on air, against your better judgment.  It’s good advice!  I promise you that I cannot walk on water.  But I trust in the one who calls us to step out of the boat.  And I wonder what amazing things might happen when we find the faith to take that step together!  Thanks be to God.

 

 

 

[1] Karoline Lewis, “When We Can’t Walk on Water,” Preaching This Week, www.workingpreacher.com, 8/3/2014.

Rev. Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore
August 2, 2020

Enough for Everyone
Matthew 14:13-21

The first meal I had in Mexico … the first meal that I remember anyway… was pozole, a hot chicken soup with hominy, bright with lime juice, spiced with chile and cilantro, and topped with creamy avocado.

I ate it, steaming, out of a bright blue plastic bowl, on a folding table, with a stack of tortillas kept warm in a dish towel nearby.  All around me, church folk were chattering – laughing and talking, greeting everyone who came through the door.  At the time, I didn’t understand much of what they were saying, but the sentiment – warm hugs and handshakes of welcome, the women scurrying about making sure everyone had enough to eat, kids running between tables making a ruckus, people passing bowls of soup and stacks of tortillas, laughing and joking and talking together… it was church.  Hospitality and welcome shared through food passed around the table.  Even though I was a stranger, who didn’t yet speak the language, I knew that somehow, I was home.

My first meal with my husband was a plate of mediocre pasta at Kramerbooks in DC… if you don’t count the pitcher of Guinness we shared a few days prior.  The meal didn’t matter.  The company was perfect.  My first meal with my church in Birmingham was a classic church potluck, complete with fried chicken, a few unidentifiable casseroles, three bean salad, deviled eggs, and homemade brownies.   With the PNC, our first meal started with an appetizer of onion rings, carefully fried by Peter Burger, eaten hot and crispy while standing in the kitchen together at Paula’s house.  I’m sure if you think about it, you can recall a few memorable first meals of your own.

Eating is what we do together.  Sharing food around a table, or a picnic spread out on the grass, is a central way that humans form and strengthen relationships, build community, and nourish our bodies and our spirits.  Feeding each other is one way we show we care.

So it is exceptionally strange that as we begin this adventure of being church together, we won’t be sharing a meal anytime soon.  I wish that things were different, that we all had made our way to church this morning with casseroles and cakes tightly wrapped, ready to be shared around tables downstairs after worship.

See, I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.  Breakfast was a while ago, but not just that.

I’m hungry for community, for this community.  To get to know you all, to spend time with you around a table.  To know who prefers sweet tea, and who makes the best biscuits, using their mama’s recipe and a cast iron pan.  I want to brush elbows as we pass plates from hand to hand, to laugh and joke and talk together while kids run between the tables.

Are you hungry, too?  The news has been so achingly bad, so painfully sad, heartbreaking and rage-making for so long: case numbers surging across the country,
Sickness spreading like wildfire through retirement homes and summer camps, prisons and detention centers…
black and brown fox affected and dying from the virus at higher rates, not to mention at the hands of police and racist vigilantes,
federal agents snatching activists off the streets in unmarked vans, throwing tear gas to disperse peaceful protests,
in the past two weeks, the deaths of civil rights leaders Rev. C.T. Vivian and congressman John Lewis, and on Friday, the Rev. Steve Montgomery – a recently retired Presbyterian pastor in Memphis who was a champion of interfaith community building and social justice.

It’s too much.  Overwhelming doesn’t begin to cover it.  And some days it may feel like there’s not much we can do about any of it.

Some days we may feel like the disciples … there are too many hungry people!  We don’t have anything to give them, send them away, so they can go into the villages and buy something to eat.

But Jesus still says – You give them something to eat.  You give them something to eat.

Something you may already know about me is that I’m a mom. Dary and I have two daughters, Madeline, who goes by Maddie, and Gillian.  They’re 6 and 3.  Being a mom means that I can never leave the house empty handed.  We always bring a bag with us for parenting emergencies – a blue backpack with a change of clothes for both girls, a first aid kit, wipes, hand sanitizer, masks, water, and snacks – lots of snacks.  I like to travel heavily snacked.  My children expect this of me now so that at this point, it’s almost Pavlovian – as soon as we get in the car, they ask: can I have a snack?  Even when I’m on my own, I seldom leave the house without a bottle of water and a bag of almonds, or an apple, or a granola bar, because you never know…

So it is astonishing to me that a crowd of people, more than 5000 strong, would find themselves in the wilderness with nothing to eat.  More than 5000 people, grumbling, restless, excited to see Jesus but probably getting a little bit hangry.  How could this happen?  Was Jesus such an incredible teacher and healer, they stayed with him far longer than they intended when they left home that morning?  Did they get lost, or just lose track of time?

We will never know what miracle transpired that day.  Whatever happened, it was important enough for each of the gospel writers to include this story in their account of the life of Jesus — Matthew and Mark include it more than once.  This story was an essential part of the early church’s identity.  See, it shows us what the kingdom of God is like, especially in contrast to the rule of Rome.  This becomes obvious when we look at the story in context – in Matthew’s gospel, the story of the beheading of John the Baptist comes right before this one.  In case you don’t remember, King Herod has a birthday party and promises his daughter whatever she wants because she danced so well for him.  She requests the head of John the Baptist on a platter, and he gives it to her.  The senseless violence of the empire is on full display.

Contrast that with the feast in our story this morning: a simple meal of bread and fish spread out on the grass.  A meal where Jesus hosts, everyone is welcome, and there is more than enough food for all who are hungry.  In this meal, we glimpse the kingdom, where God’s power can make something out of nothing.  By juxtaposing these two stories, Matthew tells us: the world may be ruled by death-dealing powers, but God’s power gives life: healing, nourishment, and community.

For most of those hungry people out in the wilderness, it was probably their first meal with Jesus.  Can you imagine what it must have been like?  As people begin to grumble and become restless, Jesus tells the disciples, “You give them something to eat.”  “But we have nothing!  Nothing but five loaves and two fish,” they say.  “Nothing?” Jesus says, “I can work with that!”

This is my favorite part of this story.  Jesus doesn’t perform the miracle while the disciples watch.  He works with them and through them, charging and challenging them to find food and distribute it – YOU give them something to eat.

So, moving through the crowd, the disciples draw people into circles and seat them on the grass.  Suddenly, the hangry crowd becomes community:  Looking at each other, talking together, getting to know one another as they sit and watch the sunset.  As Jesus takes bread, gives thanks for it, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them, maybe those who did bring some snacks for the road are inspired to share with their neighbors.  Maybe as the baskets are passed hand-to-hand around the circle, someone takes less than they otherwise would have, so that there would be enough to feed the kids running around, making a ruckus.  As one commentator observed, maybe the miracle of this story has less to do with Jesus multiplying loaves and fish, and more to do with what happens to us in his presence: we’re inspired to love and care for one another.[1]  To share what we have.  To wear a mask and stay socially distanced.  And when we love and care for one another – we find the reign of God, the kin-dom of God among us!

At the beginning of July, the city of Prague in the Czech Republic ended months of lockdown.  To celebrate, the city had a feast.[2]  They made one extremely long table out in the streets, stretching far out in either direction, set with tablecloths and candles and bottles of wine.  Everyone brought something to share, and friends and neighbors and strangers all sat down together.  As the sun set, they shared a meal and toasted their city’s recovery.

I don’t know how wise it was for them to have a feast together so soon after lockdown – someone can check Johns Hopkins’ numbers and report back.  But it sounds incredible doesn’t it?  A community feast!

Friends, we are all hungry.  Hungry for community, for family we haven’t been able to see in months, hungry for real, live, in-person church.  I know we are.  There are hungry people all around.  People are hungry for food, they’re hungry for meaning, they’re hungry for work, hungry for healing, for an end to this pandemic, hungry for care, for justice, for an encounter with the mystery and wonder of God.

Yes, it can be overwhelming.  It may feel like we aren’t cut out for this.  But remember: God has no hands but our own.  And if we offer what we can, even if it feels inadequate, God will do great things through us.

We are about to celebrate communion.  I hate that we are not all together here in the sanctuary, coming forward one by one to share the bread and the cup and feast together at this table for the first time.  But if you look closely, you’ll see that this table stretches out in all directions, from here to wherever you are, right there in your living room, your front porch, your kitchen.  And the Spirit is here, blowing through this place, working through the miracle of technology to knit us together as one body, one community, one church, no matter how far apart we are.  Thanks be to God.

[1] Salmon, Marilyn, “Commentary on Matthew 14:13-21” Preach this Week, August 3, 2008,  http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=118

[2] Picheta, Rob, “Prague celebrates end of coronavirus lockdown with mass dinner party at 1,600 ft table,” CNN travel, 7/1/20, https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/czech-public-dinner-lockdown-scli-intl/index.html

Who’s Missing?
Rev. Doris Cowan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks be to God! Amen!

Truth…Or Consequences
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The String Around Your Finger
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Sheep of Your Own Fold
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
Psalm 23 – April 22, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Breaking and Entering
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

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

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

But for the time being, here we all are,

Back in the Aristotelian city

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

And Newton’s mechanics would account for our experience,

And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.

It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets

Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weems concludes one of those psalms this way:

Consider my weeping,

O Holy One,

be tenderhearted

when you speak to me.

Handle my bruised heart

with gentleness,

for without you,

I am nothing.

O God, you speak

and the sky is alive

with music!

Your hand reaches out

and colors the world

with a touch!

My soul is a rainbow!

My sobbing bursts

into song!

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

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