Month: April 2018

Beyond Frightened, Terrified, Disbelieving, and Wondering

by Bill Lyons

This sermon was preached at First Congregational UCC in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Year B Easter 3, Sunday April 15, 2018. The text is Luke 24:36b-49

Oh, to have listened to the conversation in the upper room that afternoon.

The morning before our story took place the stone from the tomb in which Jesus had been buried was found rolled back and the tomb empty, the body gone. The women who made the discovery claimed that when they went to anoint the body two men in dazzling clothes announce that Jesus was raised from the dead. The women told their story to the other followers of Jesus who were hiding in the house where they’d eaten Passover with him, “But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.”[1] On the chance that the women had gone to the correct tomb and that it had in fact been violated, Peter ran to the grave and indeed, found the site just as the women had described it.

Later that same Sunday, two of Jesus’ followers were walking to Emmaus when they met a fellow traveler. The conversation turned to the events of the last few days about “Jesus of Nazareth, who [they believed] was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how [their] chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21 [how they] had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”[2] The traveler explained how everything that happened was necessary according to Scripture, and in they invited Jesus to spend the night with them. During the evening meal, when the traveler blessed and broke the bread they suddenly realized this was no stranger but Jesus himself! But just as quickly as they realized the truth, Jesus vanished.

The next morning they rushed back to Jerusalem to tell the others in the Passover room their experience. When they got their they learned that Jesus had also appeared to Peter. 36 While they were talking about [all of] this, Jesus himself stood among them and said…, “Peace be with you.”[3]

As you can imagine, 37…the whole group was startled and frightened, [beyond frightened – terrified] thinking they were seeing a ghost! [4]

So Jesus invited them to apply the ancient world’s test for ghosts.

  • He invited them to look at him carefully – Not just for their eyes to register him, but for their whole beings to perceive him with understanding. (v. 39)
  • He invited them to touch him, to check extremities (most easily, hands and feet) for bones, make sure that a person’s feet were touching the ground. (40-43)
  • He showed them his teeth were able to consume food. Eating with them meant he was really human! (vv. 41-42)
  • He explained the sacred writing to them in ways that opened their minds to possibilities about him and about themselves they had not considered or even imagined before. (vv. 44-47)
  • He declared them to be witnesses of what they’d seen and heard with him

When we try to find ourselves in the story we immediately relate to the disciples.  We are ourselves followers of Jesus. In this story the followers of Jesus are described with words like frightened, terrified, disbelieving, and astonished or wondering. It’s easy to find ourselves in those descriptors.

Brennan Walker, 14, woke up late Thursday morning and missed his bus to Rochester High School. The teen, without a phone after his mother took it away, decided to knock on a person’s door in Rochester Hills for help, FOX 2 Detroit reported.

“I got to the house, and I knocked on the lady’s door. Then she started yelling at me and she was like, ‘Why are you trying to break into my house?’ I was trying to explain to her that I was trying to get directions to Rochester High. And she kept yelling at me. Then the guy came downstairs, and he grabbed the gun, I saw it and started to run. And that’s when I heard the gunshot,”

Brennan’s mom, Lisa Wright, said, “We should not have to live in a society where we have to fend for ourselves. If I have a question, I should be able to turn to my village and knock on a door and ask a question. I shouldn’t be fearful of a child, let alone a skin tone.”

Lisa Wright said she was at work when received the call about her son. Her husband is currently deployed in Syria.[5]

There is plenty of terror to go around in Syria. If not from the atrocities committed by the Asad regime then by the illegal acts of war committed by the Trump administration. Open Doors, a non-profit that for 60 years has worked in the world’s most oppressive countries empowering Christians who are being persecuted for their beliefs tells us that in Syria 22% of the 899,000 Christians have experienced violence and 86% have experienced pressure in their church, national, community, family and private lives over their religious beliefs. In areas controlled by Islamist militant groups the numbers are higher. But the main perpetrators of persecution of Christians are extended family members.

My own fear escalated with the news of US attacks on Friday. My son-in-law is deployed with the Air Force in the middle east.

And if we are honest, we still wrestle with bodily resurrection of Jesus. After thousands of years of Christian witness and in spite of the witness of our sacred texts, some of us wonder. Some of us, like the disciples in that upper room, are disbelieving.

And like them, our joy in Christ is not grounded in human experience, but in our faith. That’s the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is rooted in our circumstances. Joy is grounded in what lies beyond our circumstances.

It was joy that flooded over me in Washington, D.C. on Palm Sunday weekend as I watched 800,000 people – the largest convergence on our nation’s capitol in history – most of them young people, commit themselves to creating a different future for our land. And tears of joy welled up in my eyes as I listened to Maya and Cecil from this congregation, and 11 other teens from around the Southwest Conference share what they experienced and learned and were going to do when they got home about the national sin of gun violence. It was truly joy watching and listening to them. The circumstances in which they walk into school everyday stole any happiness from the moment. The positive emotions I felt were held in tension with the possibility that any one of those teens could find herself or himself or themself in the midst of America’s next school shooting on the next day they walked into class.

It’s easy to find ourselves identifying with the disciples as they are described in our text: frightened, terrified, disbelieving, and astonished or wondering. But as post-Pentecost Christians looking back at these resurrection narratives, we are more than disciples of Jesus.

We are Jesus in this story. Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians: Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.[6] We are the living body of Christ in our world. Together – the you in this verse is plural – we are the resurrected Christ in our world.

That means our joy in the Living Jesus pushes us beyond the fright, terror, disbelief, astonishment and wonder of our circumstances to do the things a back-from-the-dead Jesus does in the world. Our text invites us to 5 activities in our world as the Living Body of Christ. Over and over again we read about the earliest church doing these 5 things as the Living Body of Christ in their world. And we need to be about these same 5 things in our world if we are going to fulfill our calling to be the Living Jesus for our world.

  • Invite the world to LOOK at us.

LOOK at the life-giving Power of God at work in and through us. Look at how the life-giving power of God is leading us into the glorious new life of God’s continuing testament – God is Still Speaking – into the glorious new life of extravagant welcome, into the glorious new life of changing the world by changing lives.

The living Jesus wants to show himself to our world, and the world needs to clearly see the Living Jesus when they look at the Body of Christ.

  • Invite the world to TOUCH us to let them know we are real.

They need to touch be touched by a living Body of Christ, to know that we have substance and that we are for real, to touch our bones if you will, our spine of justice and our hands of love, our feet that are solidly planted on the goodness and health of our earth.

  • Invite the world to eat with us.

We need to let the world experience our humanity. Not just that we eat the same food they eat, but that we share our food with them. Let our voice be the voice that calls people to their place at the table – the table of privilege, the table of power, the table of equity.

  • Invite the world to a deeper understanding of the Scriptures.

Progressive Christians aren’t just political liberals with a religious vocabulary. We are the moral voice of the prophets rekindled. Continuing testament, extravagant welcome, and changed lives is what our sacred texts tell us God has been up to from in the beginning. The Bible is concerned with more than human beings going to heaven. As Jesus did that day after his resurrection, let us open the world’s minds to possibilities about God and about themselves they had not considered or even imagined before.

  • Invite the world to be witnesses to the Living Jesus in their midst.

The witness of the world to the Church in their world has not always been flattering or what our God would hope people would be saying about us. We need to acknowledge that, repent, and let the world bear witness to our dying to our old selves and our rising to walk in newness of life (Rom 6). Tell your transformation story. Invite your neighbor into a transformational relationship with Christ and his Church. And celebrate the transformational stories of people changed by the Good news of Jesus. Let the w of terror and fear the Living Body of Christ showed up among them and brought them joy.

Beloved, the living Jesus wants to show himself to our world, and the world needs to clearly see the Living Jesus when they look at the Body of Christ. Our world desperately needs a moment when a living Jesus enters the room with an invitation to wholeness and an offer of peace! As the body of Christ we are that Jesus and this is our moment if we will take it. You may have come here as a disciple of Jesus. Let us leave here as the Living Body of Christ in the world. Amen.

 

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Lk 24:11). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Lk 24:19–21). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[3] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Lk 24:36). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[4] Tyndale House Publishers. (2013). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Lk 24:37). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.

[5] http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/04/14/michigan-teen-misses-bus-gets-shot-at-after-asking-for-directions.html

[6] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (1 Co 12:27). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

I Think You Are Lovable (Most of the Time)

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

I am a loving and caring man.
I look for the good in people.
I love it when others succeed.
I celebrate the successes of other folks.
I desperately want all people to have the best emotional, spiritual and physical life possible.
I want people to laugh.
I want people to have a sense of security in their living.
I am a pretty decent and kind guy.
Then I have to go outside.

At least a solid 85% of the time I totally dig others and am thoughtful and loving. Ok, maybe like 80% of the time. (“76% of the time”, my conscience whispers…
To which I say “No one likes a know it all, Conscience!”)

If there was technology that would map the route my brain takes when traveling from loving-kindness and compassion to baffled frustration and judgment, it would be a surprisingly quick trip.

Start at loving kindness and compassion.
Take three steps.
Step in dog poop.
You have arrived at “Everyone Is Stupid and Annoying And Dumb, Except Me”.

My deep kindness and loving ways fall apart when other actual living and breathing humans are around. I am so good at caring for all people, until people show up. People ruin my unconditional love for people.

I had a tremendous reprieve from this pattern recently. The reprieve lasted a full two weeks. The path I often take was re-routed. The route was full of wonder and love the whole way through.

The world became far more vibrant.
It all felt new and novel.
The journey was the entire focus.
I had people around me and not once did I get to that place of exasperation and harsh, judgment.
I was with people and I still operated in loving kindness and compassion.

The two weeks happened when my wife and I had the honor of hosting my youngest brother and his family.

My brother is nine years younger than me. I have called him Bear since the day he was born. I brought him in for show and tell in my fourth grade class. I have long been smitten. And remain that way still.

The trip afforded the opportunity to have my baby brother, sister-in-law and our soon-to-be three-years-old nephew in the sanctuary of our home and in our daily lives.

They met a few of the people we adore.
They watched shows with us that we love.
They ate with us, cooked with us, and lived with us.
It was the single best two weeks we have had since our living became riddled with loss and illness.

The difference that made this trip so special was rather basic, yet very powerful:

We wanted them here and they wanted to be here.
That’s the first step that led us to authentic connection.
Choice to be present. Choice to be loving. Choice for authenticity.

We removed the appearance of being perfect that we so readily hide behind in living. We ate outside whenever possible.
We enjoyed each other.
We laughed.
We played.
We shared deeply.
We even sang together, our joined voices gloriously out of key.
Nan and I rested a lot. I slept better than I had in two years.

This two week period was full of wonderful, loving moments.
Those moments, though, would not have led to the experience of love we all had. Love emerged when we chose to be open.
It beamed when we chose the risk of vulnerability.
It flourished when we chose to see each other.

Then they had to go. We said our goodbyes and my heart started to ache.

What will I do with the silence that has replaced the sounds of my sweet nephew‘s voice and movements?
What will I do with the ache that has replaced the joy of shared laughter?
What will I do with the feeling of fear that attempts to overshadow the feeling of love I joyously basked in?

That familiar route started creeping back in. The world started feeling less great. I started feeling a bit more cynical, a bit more easily frustrated, a bit less loving.

I want to live a loving life. It’s my aim, my core value. It informs so much of my everyday. I think about love a lot.

I have learned some things that I don’t always remember in times of ache. I do, though, remember it fully when I return to my practices that cultivate a loving heart. From that place I can see so much more clearly.

I tend to confuse the presence of Love with the feeling-of-love. When I confuse this, I end up in a place of pain and loneliness because states of being change.
My access to the feeling of love sometimes teeters.
My awareness of love as it relates to my worth often shifts.

Circumstances do not change the reality of love.

Love remains.
Steady.
Sturdy.
Stable.

My capacity to give love is in direct correlation with the love I am capable of cultivating within. I do not feel loving toward others if I have not created space for love.

The reality then is this: At least a solid 80% of the time I am willing to do the work within that allows me to see you and hear you and love you. The other 20% of me distorts.

I had such an easy access to Love over those two weeks that the feeling of love was constant and was easy to come by. It made the world seem alive in a way that I didn’t have access to in such a concentrated way.

Then the lens of fear arrived again. That lens distorts life. It changes what I see in the mirror. I become ugly and worthless. It changes how I see others. It changes how I see you.

The lens of loving-kindness and compassion allows me to see you far more clearly.

You are beautiful.
You are seeking.
You are adjusting.
You are healing.
You are breaking.
You are grieving.
You are aging.
You are trying.
You are fearful.
You are hopeful.
You are resting.
You are exhausted.
You are forgetting.
You are remembering.
You are being.

I can see you again.
I see your light and I see your struggle.
I can see how much we look alike.
I can see it so very clearly now.
You, my dear one, are loveable.

100% of the time.

What a trip Love turns out to be.

Opened Minds – Hearts on Fire: Exploring the Easter Stories

by Karen Richter

I don’t know about you, but if I were writing the story of Easter… I would make it Extra. Extra miracles, extra teaching, extra healings, maybe a Big Finish.

I wouldn’t write the stories that we have. Someone told me this past week that the Easter stories just don’t seem that impressive. I concur. Well there are angels and fainting guards and earthquake (Matthew 28!). But walking anonymously down the road, breathing weirdly on people, cooking breakfast… I’ll take a pass.

The other day I made a super-nerdy Easter story matrix. Here’s what I learned:

  • As the gospel tradition moves forward through history (from Mark written about 70 CE to John written just after 100 CE), the Easter appearance stories get bigger: more complex and more weird. Mark’s Gospel originally has only the empty tomb tradition, with some risen vision stories tacked on later like a Holy Post-It note. John’s gospel has six different stories.
  • They’re all different from one another across the 4 Gospels, unlike other Jesus stories of our tradition such as the feeding miracles.
  • In each story, Jesus is somehow different and somehow the same. He’s not easily recognized even by friends, but he retains his Crucifixion wounds. Embodied, but transformed, maybe.
  • All 3 synoptic Gospels have angels at the tomb. This is interesting, since we associate angels with Christmas so much more than with Easter.
  • Jesus doesn’t do any last minute teaching in the Risen Vision stories. There are no “Remember the Beatitudes!” reminders or one last parable to share. For me, this speaks to trust. The disciples will be on their own soon. Easter is graduation day, or maybe confirmation, for them.
  • Jesus doesn’t spend his post-Resurrection time on miracles. The time for loaves and fishes and healing on the Sabbath seems to have passed. John does recount an extra large catch of fish and an extra strong net, but as miracles go, it’s pretty low key.

So if, as time passes, Resurrection stories and experiences expand, becoming more complex and more weird, what are our Easter stories? Maybe – just maybe – the most impressive and exciting Easter stories are yet to come. In Luke 24, the disciples have their hearts burning and their minds opened by their encounters with Jesus. What is our tale of Easter? How will we share our burning hearts and opened minds with the world?

Opened Minds – Hearts on Fire: Exploring the Easter Stories by Karen Richter, Southwest Conference Blog, United Church of Christ

One more Easter observation… Jesus seems to really like fish.

Eastertide Peace to you all.

Why We Need a Spiritual Guide

by Teresa Blythe

While going it alone can be peaceful, even then there are times we need a spiritual guide.

Last week I intended to use the sacred spiral at the Steele Indian School Park in Phoenix as a labyrinth. I entered and began to walk the spiral clockwise because a native friend of mine convinced me that clockwise was the way of nature. My goal was to shed worries and fears moving into the depths of the spiral and feel empowered as I walked out. I didn’t want to offend nature so I veered to the left to work the spiral.

I began in good faith, but instead of deepening along the path to the center, I kept returning to the same starting point, which was frustrating. Surely this was a metaphor for my life. I seem to keep circling around to my same old worries and fears and staying on the surface instead of finding that deeper core where my spirit communes with God’s spirit.

How does this thing work?

Unsure whether I was “doing it wrong” or whether I had entered a spiritual twilight zone, I paused to ask a Native American family at the center of the spiral for directions.

“How many miles have you been walking?” asked the elder. “I don’t know, but I’m puzzled because I’m trying to circle down into the center but I keep returning to the same spot.” They just looked at me and smiled.

“What am I doing wrong? A friend of mine told me always to walk clockwise, as it’s the way of nature.”

A younger member of the family decided to let me in on the secret.

“Well, clockwise may be the way of nature, but this path winds counterclockwise.”

And that, my friends, is why we need guides along the path.

A guide sees what you have not yet seen or are too stubborn to see. (I was sure that spiral would be curling clockwise — big assumption.)

Good guides do not point your faults out until you ask them to. (I’m sure they figured out what was happening long before I asked.)

Listening to your guides and correcting your course rather than beating yourself up for not paying attention or being stubborn is how we grow in awareness. (After all I did round that spiral clockwise at least 3 times before I asked for help.)

Thank you, gracious family at the sacred spiral last week. Whether you realize it or not, you offered me a wonderful spiritual lesson.

Intelligent People Can Take the Bible Seriously

by Ryan Gear

Can I share something with you?

Sometimes I’m embarrassed to tell people I’m a pastor.

There, I said it.

When I meet someone for the first time, I dread the inevitable, “So what do you do for a living?” It’s just awkward. I actually feel bad for them.

You probably understand why. The reason I’m embarrassed is the reputation so many American Christians have earned. If a person doesn’t already know me, my assumption is that they will instantly project their generalized experience of Christians onto me and wonder if I’m “one of those.” In what should be a devastating realization for U.S. Christians, that often means a Bible-thumping, politically partisan, backward person.

Along with that expectation of what Christians are like, there is usually an accompanying assumption that the Bible is an irrelevant, backward book that is most often used as a weapon to hurt other people. That too should be devastating to Christians like me who love the Bible and find so much meaning in it.

It saddens me because I know how fascinating and mind-expanding the Bible and Jesus-inspired spirituality can be. I understand that this is a cultural challenge to some, but the truth is that people who drink lattes, use iPhones, and watch TED Talks can take the Bible seriously. Even some Christians I know hold the view, perhaps unconsciously, that the Bible is passé. Their church involvement is motivated by their friendships or an affinity for their congregation’s stance on political issues, and the Bible figures quite small in their lives, even if they claim it plays a larger role.

Once you decide to move past your own preconceived notions and what other people have claimed about the Bible, you can approach with an open mind and for what it is. No, the Bible is not one cohesive book. It was not dictated by God. It is not objective, scientific history that demands Christian kids argue with their high school biology teacher.

It’s far more interesting than that.

The Bible is a collection books (originally scrolls) written by different authors, in different languages, living in different cultures, in different geographic regions, over a period of over 1,000 years. The books were clearly written by human authors (although, yes, I personally do believe they were inspired in some way by the divine). While the books of the Bible are not objective history, they are a fascinating and meaning-filled record of ancient people’s spiritual and cultural journeys that can change your life and mine.

Reading the Bible is like stepping into another world, one that opens your eyes to your current experience of the world in a new way, challenges your assumptions, moves you, and generally forces you to rethink your view of life and the world around you.

Some parts are inspiring. Learn from those things (ex. love your neighbor).

Some parts are horrifying. Learn from those mistakes (ex. don’t drive tent spikes into people’s heads.)

If you’ve never read the Bible, a good place to begin is at the beginning. I would suggest reading the first three chapters of Genesis. Again, remember that it was never intended to be a science textbook. Genesis 1-3 appears to be a mash up of two creation accounts. The first one ends at chapter 2, verse 3. It was likely written or compiled 2,600 years ago by Jewish priests after their land had been conquered and they were taken captive and exiled in Babylon.

You could Google some cultural context to help you understand the backdrop of what you’re reading. Wikipedia is better than nothing. What did the Babylonians believe about the origin of earth, the purpose of the sun, gods, and relationship of human beings to the gods? Try to avoid assuming you know what a word or statement means. While you read, ask yourself:

  • What do these two origin stories communicate about God (especially contrasted with a Babylonian view of God and creation)?
  • About human beings?
  • About our relationship to God?
  • About our relationship to other human beings? (ex. what does it mean that Eve is created from Adam’s side, “side” is a better translation than “rib,” and not from his head or his feet?)
  • About our relationship to the natural world? (to be created in the image of God is like being a king or queen that cares for creation on God’s behalf)
  • About growing up, learning about life, and facing temptation?

Genesis chapters 1-3 are meant to facilitate the experience of looking into a mirror and learning about ourselves. Read it a few times and ask if you can relate to anything in the two creation stories.

If you can do this, you just took the Bible seriously and let it speak to your spiritual life…

Even though you might be embarrassed to tell anyone.