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Text: Romans 16:1-16

Last week we explored the nuts and bolts of what a house church was, how it functioned, and who was part of it.

One of the things I lifted up is that while occasionally they would have had traveling preachers and apostles come visit, for the most part, these communities spent time reading and listening to scripture together.
They read from what we now consider the Old Testament.
And they received and read aloud letters from those who had known and experienced the good news of Jesus Christ.

The Book of Romans is one such letter.
Before Paul ever has the opportunity to travel there, he sends along his instruction and his teaching.
He wanted to share God’s good news with them and help them navigate some of the struggles they were experiencing.
And so for Christians in Rome, the very first time they would have heard these words, would have been gathered together in their homes.
It would not have been something they sat down to read.
It would have been something they heard.

My colleague Carol Ferguson writes about what it must have been like:

Can you imagine you are alive in 56AD, in the greatest city in the world, the heart of the empire, a place teeming with people, a place teeming with religious faiths and shrines of every description, a place where the spoils of nations are paraded through the streets, where a few coins will buy you a spot to watch gladiators kill each other for fun, where emperors are worshipped as gods?
Can you imagine that you are gathered together with a motley crew of compatriots, some wealthy and some poor, soldiers and serving girls and socialites, some with Jewish roots and some Gentile, because you’ve heard a letter from Paul—the Paul, the one whose letters are prized across the empire—is on its way?

Close your eyes and picture yourself there…
Crowded together others in a home, some standing, some reclining, children running around…
You can smell the food cooking from the nearby kitchen and the sweat of the day’s work…
And then you hear a voice reading aloud the words of Paul…

A quick question… as you place yourself here… whose voice did you hear?
Was it a man’s voice?
It’s Paul’s letter of course, so maybe that feels natural.
But when we turn to the words of Romans chapter 16, what we find is the introduction of Phoebe.
Paul takes time here at the end to lift her up and introduce her, giving her authority and credibility.
He asks them to welcome her and take care of her.
This was a common practice, so that the community receiving the letter would know that this person has the authority to not only speak, but also interpret what was within.
Jann Aldredge-Clanton describes Phoebe as a coworker of Paul’s “and as a minister of the church in Cenchareae… [she] led the community and presided over worship. And independent woman of some wealth, Phoebe was also a benefactor of Paul and many others.” (The CEB Women’s Bible, p. 1432)
And so after she carried that letter from Paul onto the streets of Rome, she would have been welcomed likely by Prisca and Aquila and the “church that meets in their house.” (16:5 CEB).
They would have gathered to sing and pray.
And break bread.
And then Phoebe would have stood in their midst and spoken.

Lest we think this was some kind of fluke and Phoebe was just one woman with a particular exceptional gift, the introductions at the end of Romans continue.
Paul gives his greetings to the leaders of the house/churches throughout this region, to other ministers of Christ who have been traveling, to friends he has met along the way and those who are family.
There are twenty-nine names listed here…
And ten of them are women.
Phoebe… the minister who brought the letter
Prisca… who is mentioned before her husband as the leader of the house/church… someone who was known to help mentor visiting teachers like Apollos.
Mary, the twins Tryphaena and Tryphosis, Persis… all women who have labored in Christian ministry for God.
Junia, who along with her husband, was not one of the 12 apostles, but possibly part of the 72 sent two by two by Jesus in Luke 10.
Rufus’s mother, possibly the widow of Simon of Cyrene who carried the cross of Christ.
Julia, who likely hosted one of the house/churches in Rome with her spouse.
Nereus’s sister, who probably played the same role.

I think we have typically thought back to this time and considered the place of women to be subjugated to men.
We have imagined them as housewives who cared for the family and took care of the home.
We couldn’t picture women active in ministry and if we did, they were always eclipsed by the work of those famous male apostles.
It feels relatively new for us to consider female as clergy.
In the United Methodist tradition, while John Wesley licensed women to preach, and women were ordained in the 1800s, they were only granted full clergy rights in 1956.
In other traditions, leadership by women is still rejected.

But scripture, history, and archeology paint a really different picture.
We find women leading ministry not only in the early church, but also in Jewish and Roman cultic traditions as well. Gravestones identify women as leaders of synagogues, elders, priests, and more.
In addition, many women ran their own household’s without mention of a husband, like Lydia an independent businesswoman who hosted Paul in Philippi, or Nympha who led the house church in Laodicea.
The stories of these women and others throughout scripture, show that women were essential ministers of the gospel.
They not only established house/churches, but also carried the good news from place to place.
It wasn’t some egalitarian dream world – but there was a place for the leadership of women.

Yet, Carol Ferguson notes:

As Christianity became more structured, more institutionalized, rules forbidding women from preaching or teaching—which itself suggests that it was happening—begin to appear. And in time the church was able to forget, and argue that women couldn’t lead because women had never led—a circular argument that short-circuited thousands of years of gifted, called leaders from leaving their mark on the church.
Sometimes you can still see the eraser marks in our scripture.

Ferguson lifts up a few examples.
First, there is Phoebe, herself.
In the original Greek, she is called a diakonos. It is used in talking about commissioned ministers of the Gospel, ministers with significant status, and deacons who had official duties within the church. It can also mean someone who serves another.
I looked this passage up in my favorite bible this week and the CEB translations reads:
I’m introducing our sister Phoebe to you, who is a servant of the church in Cenchreae.
It feels more like someone who cares for the church, instead of leading it.
With that one choice of how to translate a word, Phoebe becomes a servant rather than an official minister of the gospel, even though the context reminds us that as a wealthy benefactor, Phoebe herself would have had many servants in the traditional sense.

Someone else who gets erased from this passage is Junia.
Paul tells us that she came to Christ before him.
She was imprisoned with him for the crime of being a Christian.
She, alongside her partner Andronicus are called not just apostles, but prominent among the apostles – those who are sent by Christ to share the good news.
But for centuries, the name Junia was translated as Junias.
Theologians argued it had to be a man’s name, because women couldn’t be apostles.
We imposed our understanding of the place of a woman upon the text, rather than let the text change how we thought about the ministry of women.

I recently have been studying the sisters, Mary and Martha, from Luke’s gospel.
There, too, we have an image of women who are busy doing housework, serving the male disciples… or at least Martha is doing the serving.
Mary is described as slacking off, listening to Jesus instead.

But the word used in this passage to talk about the work Martha is doing is diakanos.

Mary Stromer Hanson lifts up a compelling argument based on this text.
Earlier in this chapter, Jesus sent out thirty-six pairs of disciples in ministry, likely including women, maybe even Junia and Andronicus.
They are to go out into towns and spread the good news and to establish themselves in a home… the very first iterations of this house/church model.
Jesus then himself enters a village and is welcomed and received into a home by Martha.

Now… here is where Hanson’s argument gets really interesting…
While modern translations say that Martha had a sister, Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.
Grammatically, this could instead be translated:
Martha had a sister, Mary, who also sat at the foot of the Lord.
Meaning, they both were disciples of Jesus who listened to and followed his teaching.
Martha, it goes on to say, is distracted….
Distracted by what?
My bible says “getting things ready for their meal.”
The Message says, “by all the things she had to do in the kitchen.”
The King James Version reads, “Martha was cumbered about by much serving.”

But do you know what the word used here is?
Diakanos.
What if, Hanson argues, Martha, who has opened her home, is not preoccupied by the cleaning and the cooking… but by the ministry she is supporting in her own house/church.
In the community that she has been called to establish to spread the good news of Jesus.
Martha is suddenly transformed from a frantic housewife into a dedicated minister of the Lord.

We imagine Mary sitting there besides Jesus, refusing to help, but Hanson argues that grammatically, it doesn’t actually appear that Mary is there at all.
She has left.
Possibly, Mary was one of the seventy-two, sent out by Jesus in this act of ministry, while Martha supported that ministry from her own home.
Martha isn’t worried about Mary not drying dishes.
She claims to be overwhelmed by her work of ministry in the community, but Jesus sees past that concern to offer a word of comfort:
You are troubled about your sister being away. You are worried about what might happen to her out there in this risky ministry of evangelism. You want her to come home and serve in this way instead.
But she has chosen a good thing.

This long list of leaders at the end of Paul’s letter to the Romans are filled with servants of the Lord, ministers of the Gospel, leaders of the church.
Today, looking back, we might find the inclusion of so many women surprising.
But they simply were doing their part to bring folks together around the good news of Jesus.
Whether that meant traveling or opening their homes or preaching or leading.

And that’s what we all have done in these past six months.
We have opened our homes to God and led the people we love in the faith.
I love the way my colleague, Rev. Carole Ferguson describes this transition.
Whether or not we thought of our selves as leaders, we’ve all be worshipping in house/churches.
And you have made it happen.
You set up Zoom or Facebook so it would stream to your TV.
You brought your spouse a cup of coffee to sip during worship.
You yelled at your kids to come and watch.
You typed out prayer requests for friends and loved ones in the chat.
You lit a candle on your desk.
You sang along to the hymns.

Paul wrote a letter to the community of believers in Rome, but it was each of those twenty nine names listed at the close of this letter that did the hard work. They were the ministers.
They stepped up to lead and worship and support the ministry.
I can stand here and write and deliver a sermon, but you are the leaders of this church.
So, say hello to Karen.
Say hello to Dawn and Scott.
Say hello to Herb and his mother.
Say hello to the children in the Wright home who lead us in worship.
Say hello to Shirley and her sister-in-law, Sandy and Bob.
Say hello to the church that meets at the home of the Lockins and Osthus and Gordon families.
We have 255 households in our congregation, so this could take a very long while, so I will just say this:
Hello and greetings and love to all of you, faithful ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Keep up the good work.

 

Sermon adapted from: https://carolhferguson.com/2020/07/12/ladies-of-the-house-church/

Nuts and Bolts

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Text: 1 Corinthians 16:15-21

The first thing I want to say is a thank you to Maggie who read our scripture this morning. She had a really boring passage of scripture with a lot of hard names that we almost NEVER read.
And she did an awesome job.

You know, we almost never read the last chapter of 1st Corinthians.
The rest of the letter helps to encourage and teach and equip the community, but this is just like the p.s. at the end.
Paul shares his travel plans and tells them who else is along for the journey and gives greetings from other house church communities.
As my colleague, Carol Ferguson notes, he never explains what a house church is, because he doesn’t need to.
Worshipping together at home like we are now isn’t new… it was exactly how those early communities gathered to worship God and grow and live out their faith.

Last week, we were first introduced to this idea in the book of Acts, chapter two.
Those very first Pentecost Christians were devoted to a day by day faith.
They met in the temple and learned from the apostles.
They shared meals in homes.
They prayed.
And they shared their resources with one another.

As the story of this community continues in Acts, we see that these Jewish followers of Jesus initially saw being in the temple and gathering in homes as equally important.
But before too long, those shared meals where they broke bread in homes began to change them.
As Ferguson writes:

…they developed an identity too distinct from that of their Jewish neighbors. Eventually, worshipping in the temple didn’t make sense anymore – whether they came to that conclusion naturally or gradually, or whether they were forced out for their new ideas.

These house/churches were exemplified by three qualities that allowed them to thrive.

First, they embodied a spirit of hospitality.
You had leaders and teachers like Paul and Timothy and Apollos who were focused on sharing the good news of Jesus with the world.
But they didn’t have the time to build a sanctuary and leadership in every new place. They would have spread themselves far too thin.
Instead, early converts and wealthier Christians found ways to support the movement by providing spaces for these traveling evangelists.
When someone like Timothy would come into town, that house/church would be the home base for the movement. And when the apostles left, the leader of that household would maintain the community and help it to grow.
The devotion and sharing spirit of the house/church made sure that all in the community were cared for and their needs were met and they had a place to gather and break bread.
In some ways, this is kind of how our circuit ministry in the Methodist church of America operated. The traveling preacher went from location to location, but the local community kept the church alive between visits.
Today, I think about how it isn’t physically possible for me to come and be with all of you where you are. There aren’t enough hours in the day.
But because we are able to bring worship to you in your homes, we have created the ability for the good news of God to be shared in far more places than we would have thought possible.
And some of you have shown that hospitality and opened your homes to a friend to come and worship with you.
Or you have shared our service with others, creating space for their needs to be met in the midst of this difficult time.

Second, they were safe places for people to practice their faith.
We read about persecution in many of these communities throughout the book of Acts… including from by would-be apostle, Paul.
While he was still Saul, Acts 8 tells us about how he began to destroy the church, breathing murderous threats and dragging off people to prison.
One of the strategies was to go underground and hide your community. If you were worshipping at home, how can they tell what was a communion table and what was a dining room table?
So house/churches provided a way for the early community to gather in safety with other like-minded people.
Today, our reasons for seeking safety in our homes might be different, but it is still an important quality of our faith life right now.
We stay home so that the most vulnerable among us might be protected.
Our kitchen tables have become our communion tables.
Our couches have become our pews.
And together, we make sure that we can reduce the harm to our neighbors and keep one another safe.

Finally, house/churches allowed people to claim their faith.
As has been true of people of faith from the beginning, we have always been asked to declare our allegiance to God.
I’m reminded of that line from the book of Joshua.
When he was about to lead the people of Israel into the promised land he put before them a choice.
They could hang on to their traditions of the past and the other gods their ancestors worshipped…
Or, they could cling to the God who brought them up out of Egypt… the one who rescued them and protected them.
“Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…” he tells them. “But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24: 15)
In the same way, these house churches were one way that early Christians declared they were putting their time, their name, and their property in service of the teaching of Christ. And sometimes, even their lives.
That choice is as much before us today as it was in the days of Paul and Joshua.
As my colleague, Rev. Ferguson reminds us:

Being a worshipping Christian in the last four months has required incredible perseverance, innovation, and energy. Our routines and sanctuaries have been stripped from us by COVID-19, and we have had to dedicate ourselves to intentional worship in a way we rarely have had to before. I know it has not been easy. But I am so proud that, standing firm in the tradition of our ancestors in faith, we marked out holy space in our homes and through our technology to say that we are still Christians. Even when it is hard, we follow the teachings of Christ.

So we’ve talked a little bit about why these house/churches were important and how they embodied hospitality, safety, and faith.

But what were they like?
Well, let’s explore the nuts and bolts of how they worked.

The first thing to note is these house/churches were as different as our houses are now.
Whether you were wealthy or poor, the region you lived in and materials available all had an impact. Rural areas might have hand built mud huts, while Rome would have had structures more like apartments. And like today, the wealthy might have had larger, grander buildings.
Most of the house/churches that we have record of were hosted by households with at least modest means and included space for a number of people to gather, share a meal, and worship.
One such house is in Capernaum and is thought to be the household of Peter… you remember, the place where Jesus heals his mother in law?
This particular house had stone walls with a mud and straw roof and had a square room at the center for gathering.
We have a record of this location, because after Christianity was legalized in the fourth century and had power and financial support, this location was converted from a home to a church.
Later expansions eventually covered the original house, and eventually the basilica itself was destroyed.
More recently, the Catholic Church has preserved this site with a glass floor that allows you to see down into the ruins of the house church below.

Another example we have is from a more wealthy home in Dura Europas, or what is modern-day Syria. While in many ways it was a standard home of the time, it also had a large hall where Christians would have gathered to worship and a baptistery.
The walls are covered with frescoes the depict Jesus as the good shepherd, the Woman at the Well, the empty tomb and more.

We also have evidence of a house church started by Romans in southern Britain.
In what is now known as Lullingstone Roman Villa, you can see how owners plastered over a small household shrine to Roman gods with the Chi-Ro symbol.

Who was part of a house/church?
One thing that is very different from today is who was part of a household.
While we typically think about a home with room for a nuclear family, an ancient household was much larger.
Several generations would be included in a household, including married and unmarried children. Also included would have been any servants or slaves of the owner.
And unlike today, where faith is a more individual decision, households would convert all together. If the head of the household came to know and want to follow Jesus… everyone in the household became Christian.
Our scripture this morning tells us about how the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia. Once their house/church was established, Stephanas and others from the household traveled to Corinth to help encourage and strengthen the community there.
But a house/church included more than just one household of faith.
Anyone was welcome as part of a house/church once they were established in a community. Men and women, poor and rich, slaves and masters all gathered together.

What did they do?
Well, we know that communion and baptism were important rituals that were shared within these homes.
In fact, it was one of the markers that began to separate the Jews who followed Jesus from those who did not.
They also gathered to read scripture, both readings from what we now know as the Old Testament, but also letters from the early Christian apostles.
In this day, those letters, like the one we read today from 1 Corinthians would not have been considered scripture, per se, but they did provide instruction to these believers about how to practice their faith.
The letters were incredibly practical and show us some of the concerns that these communities had about what to eat, which Jewish practices to continue following, and who was welcome at their tables.
Sometimes, these house/churches would host visitors like Paul and Apollos.
They prayed.
They sang.
They had a weekly collection that they would take up to support the ministry of the apostles and those in need.
They argued about what they should do.
They were real churches.
They just met in people’s homes.

And today, we are a real church that is meeting in people’s homes.
Carol Ferguson shared with me the story of a pastor who was chatting with a child in her church on Zoom one Sunday.

The pastor noticed her dress, and said “I think I’ve seen you wear that dress to church.” The girl, maybe four years old, looked confused for a minute. Finally she said “I am wearing it to church. But sometimes I wear it to the other church, too. When we go in the car.”
I love that that little girl will grow up knowing that church isn’t just a place you go, but something you experience. That she will never doubt whether or not God is with her as she eats and plays and studies. That she knows worship matters to her family not just as part of a routine, but as something worth pursuing always—even if it means making a church out of her home.

Thanks be to God that we continue to be a real church, embodying hospitality, safety, and faith, whenever and wherever we gather.

Sermon adapted from: https://carolhferguson.com/2020/07/05/house-church/#more-1534

Day by Day

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Text: Acts 2:42-47

Friday night is game night at my house. 

For years it has been an event where friends and family gather, surrounded by food and laughter and love. 

Everyone brings something to the table… even if it is just a story or a giggle or themselves. 

One of the things that usually happens, however, is that before we are all ready to sit down and eat, one of the kiddos gets a little too eager and sneaks a bite from the food that is laid out. 

That has probably NEVER happened at your house. 

You know, the table is one of my favorite images of the Kingdom of God. 

That huge table where all are welcome, and all are loved.

And the amazing thing about the Christian community born out of the ministry of Jesus is that we are like those kiddos at the dinner table.

We get to sneak a bite…

We get to catch a foretaste of the glorious banquet. 

We get a preview of what awaits us.

That is what the early Christian community was doing in the book of Acts. 

You know, if after worship today, you sat down and spent some time reading just straight through Acts, you’d find it reads a lot like a journal. 

Luke felt called to write down what happens to the disciples after Jesus leaves them.

He carefully documents those early days of ministry, the birth of the church, the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God.

It is his personal witness to the Kingdom of God that was taking root in the world… a Kingdom that wasn’t totally and completely and fully there yet.

But all around there were these glimpses. 

These bites.

These foretastes of everything that God desired for God’s people. 

As Luke begins writing in Acts, he reminds us that he has already written about the ministry of Jesus… but in case we forgot, he gives us a quick recap.

Jesus suffered for us… and died for us… and then by God’s power he showed up again! 

For forty days he hung out with the apostles and taught them about the Kingdom.

It was a Kingdom they had experienced when the hungry were fed and the blind healed and the oppressed set free.

The kingdom was wherever Jesus went. 

Forty days pass after the resurrection and  Jesus takes them out of the city.

They all start to think – this is the moment.  This is it.

Down with Rome.

Down with oppression and disease and death. 

Down with anything that would destroy life.

One of them cries out – Master, is this time?  Are you going to restore the kingdom now?  

They are like those eager kids crowding around the dinner table…

Is it ready?

Is it now?

His answer? 

Not yet.

You’ll know it when it comes. 

And to drive home his point, Christ is lifted up and taken out of their sight.

He leaves us with promises.

The promise that Christ will always be with us.

The promise of the Holy Spirit.

And the promise that just as Jesus came to be with us once, in the new creation, God will come and be with us again.

As the church, we are sandwiched in between these realities. 

We know the truth of Christ’s life and teaching and death and resurrection. 

But at the same time, we wait for the fullness of the Kingdom.

In the meantime, we get these glimpses.

And we long for the time when everything will finally be ready. 

When God will make a home among us. 

When God will dwell with us.

When the heavenly banquet is set and everyone will have a place at the table. 

But how do we live and wait and worship and act during these in-between times?

What are you supposed to do right now as a person of faith?

What is your day by day responsibility?

Some of us thought we knew six months ago.

We had our day to day pattern figured out with worship here at the church on Sunday mornings and Wednesday night supper and various small groups meeting throughout the week.

Every other part of our life was crammed with work and school and kids and grandkids and sports.  But for a whole lot of you, church was important too. 

But then, all of that was thrown out the window.

Every pattern in our lives was disrupted. 

And everything we are doing today is being compared to what we did six months ago.

Including how we practice our faith during these “in-between” times.   

But if we look back through history, we will find that people of faith have answered that question in many different ways. 

And so maybe in these unique circumstances, instead of comparing ourselves to what was familiar, maybe we should look for other examples and figure out how to be the church in a way that is faithful to this moment. 

I keep finding myself going back to those early disciples.

Back to those first Christian communities and how they lived their faith day by day.

We find their experience all throughout the book of Acts and the New Testament epistles.

And what we discover is that church wasn’t a place they went on Sundays. 

Rather, being the church was how they lived their lives every day.

And most of it centered not on going to a place of worship, but creating space in their homes and in their relationships for God to dwell with them.

They clung to those promises of the Kingdom of God…

They took seriously that line of the Lord’s prayer and made room for God’s Kingdom to come on earth as it was in heaven. 

And they decided to live every single day as if they were already gathered at the heavenly banquet.

Faith for that very first community centered around the table.

Not the altar in the temple, but the kitchen table, the dining room table…   

That place where their family and their friends and their neighbors gathered. 

Luke describes their fellowship in Acts 2:42-47. 

Twice in this passage, they talk about the common meal.

About breaking bread.

About sharing food with gladness and simplicity. 

Church happened every day in their homes. 

And it wasn’t just those first three thousand converts. 

This is the primary way that the early Christian communities survived and expanded and grew for the first decades of our tradition.

Everything is happening in our homes right now.

If you are in one of our many senior-living communities, you aren’t allowed to leave home! 

You are working from home.

Many of our kiddos are going to school from home, at least part time.

We are eating at home.

And I have seen all of the photos being shared of how you have created space for these things.

You are utilizing technology to connect with people outside or chatting through windows and open doorways.   

The desk area set up so you can get work done.

The nook you created for your child to focus and learn.

The way the dining room table was cleared off because you finally have people at home at the same time to eat once again. 

Why not create space in our homes for church as well? 

In that place that we live and breathe and work and learn and play and love and laugh…

Why shouldn’t that also be a place where we make room for God to dwell?

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be taking a more in-depth look at these very first house/churches of the Christian tradition.

We’ll explore how they worked and what it meant for the people who hosted them.

Throughout it all, we’ll try to discover some lessons for how our faith can not just survive covid-times, but thrive. 

And each morning, we are going to send out and post a devotion with a very simple activity that will help you and your family create space in your home for the Kingdom of God to be made real. 

You know, faith was not complicated for these folks.

In fact it was very simple. 

They had experienced the Kingdom of God and they committed themselves to live in that reality until it was fully present. 

And to do so, that first community of three thousand people devoted themselves every day to four things.  We read about it in Acts 2:42-47:

  1. The teaching of the apostles
  2. Sharing life together
  3. Breaking bread around the table
  4. and prayer. 

You know…

If you put those in a slightly different order, it kind of sounds like the four parts of our discipleship pathway here at Immanuel.

We, too, believe that we should pray and praise and worship God… and we’ve been creating ways for you to make prayer a daily part of your life with our daily devotions. 

We, too, believe that we should gather together to connect and break bread and laugh… and the caring connections groups that were sent out and our virtual coffee time on Zoom all help us to do so.

We, too, believe that we should grow in our faith by learning and studying the scripture… and you can join in one of our weekly online bible studies or small groups that are starting up. 

We, too, believe that we should pool together our resources, going out in the world to serve and share what we have with those in need… and from the masks you create or the sandwiches you put together at home for CFUM or the time you spend with Joppa… these are all ways that we are pulling together to serve others. 

Our church is not just surviving this pandemic… we are thriving in the midst of it.

But I also know that some of us as individuals are struggling with it all. 

The Barna Institute has discovered that one in three practicing Christians – 32% – have stopped attending church virtually during the pandemic. 

The novelty of virtual worship and life has worn off. 

Some of the other demands on our time have picked back up. 

It maybe has felt easier to check out.

I think that is why looking back on these early Christian communities is so important.

Over these next few weeks we are going to remember that it has always been easier to check out. 

There have always been other demands on our lives.

But if we have the ability to taste and touch and experience the Kingdom of God right here and right now, shouldn’t we make every effort to do so? 

Shouldn’t we work to create space in our day by day lives for the presence of God to be known?

Shouldn’t we tap into the joy and the life and the blessings that we discover when we join with other people of faith to break bread and to learn and to share and to pray? 

In spite of the threat of persecution, these early Christians devoted themselves, every day, to grabbing a hold of that foretaste of the Kingdom. 

And in these times of division and conflict and stress and fear… I think that might be exactly what we need to keep going….

We need to pull up a seat at the table…

And taste and see and know that the promises of God are real…

And they are here…

Right where you are… wherever you are. 

Thanks be to God.  Amen. 

Laboring for God

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Well, friends, we made it. 

We made it to the final stop on our Summer Road Trip through the national parks and monuments.

And today, we actually aren’t too far from home in St. Louis, Missouri at the Gateway Arch National Park.

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Today on Labor Day Sunday, I chose this location because Gateway Arch National Park is the ONLY national park in the middle of a city and the ONLY national park centered on a human-made structure instead of a natural feature of the landscape.   Mount Rushmore and the Statue of Liberty and even Effigy Mounds are labeled as monuments, rather than having the designations of national parks. 

On this weekend in which we celebrate the labor of so many, it seemed appropriate to visit a national park that required the skills and talents and hard work of engineers and welders and workers.    

This site, this project, this feat of imagination and engineering, is an ode to western settlement and expansion and the key role that St. Louis played as the launching off point for so many.  It is a symbol of opportunity and the path to wide open spaces.

Our scripture for this morning speaks of another feat of human construction… the temple. 

Last week, we touched on how King David rescued the ark of the covenant and returned it to Jerusalem and he was determined to build the house of God. 

As he cries out in 2 Samuel 7:  “Look, I am living in a palace made of cedar wood, but the Ark of God is in a tent!”

Unfortunately, God really didn’t care about living in a tent. 

God moved among the people, tabernacled in their midst.

It was not God’s desire that we build a grand, permanent structure for the presence of the Lord to dwell. 

It was ours.

And God saw that yearning, that impulse to settle down and give glory and praise to God through a magnificent structure. 

God saw David’s desire to have a centralized place of worship and devotion.

And God relented. 

So like Eero Saarinen pulled together teams of welders and craftsmen and laborers to construct the Gateway Arch, David began to stockpile supplies and stonecutters and carpenters and weavers and craftsmen.  He carefully discerned by the Spirit all of the plans for the temple and the treasuries and the dedicated things and the people who would fill every task. 

There was only one problem. 

God didn’t want David to build the temple. 

There was too much blood on his hands. 

Too much violence and too many missteps.

David was still beloved in God’s eyes, but the temple was not his to build.

His son, Solomon, a man of peace and rest and prosperity… in Solomon’s time the temple would be built. 

I’ve been to the Gateway Arch multiple times.  I’ve seen it towering over the city as you drive in.  I’ve stood beneath it’s glimmering structure and laid on the grass to try to capture the whole thing.  I’ve take the ride up to the top in the carnival-like tram. 

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But before this summer and this series did I realize that this National Park also contains the old St. Louis Courthouse.  This is the historic location where the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford was heard twice. Dred and Harriet Scott were both born into slavery, later married, and eventually found themselves the property of John and Irene Emerson who moved them to Wisconsin and Iowa before returning to St. Louis. 

Because they had been taken to free territory, they legally had a case for their own emancipation. Yet the Missouri Supreme Court and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against them. 

In Scott v. Sanford, the highest court of our land declared that all people of African descent, free or enslaved, were NOT U.S. citizens.  According to the majority opinion, our Constitution demonstrated a “perpetual and impassible barrier was intended to be erected between the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery.”

The decision also nullified the Missouri Compromise, a congressional act which declared free all territories west and north of Missouri, because it violated the 5th Amendment – denying slaveowners their property.

In this National Park we have an incredible juxtaposition.

Where 100 years earlier, freedom was denied for our African American siblings, people came together and selected a design for a new monument… a gateway, celebrating the spirit of western pioneers and the opportunity and freedom and persistence of creating a new future.   

Though the past of this location, like King David’s own troubled past, was filled with missteps and harmful decisions that impacted the lives of people who were enslaved for decades to come… there was later a time of peace and rest, just like in the time of Solomon.

A time in which people could build different sort of reality for their community – one of revitalization and celebration of the spirit which leads us onward. 

Skilled builders and artisans and welders and more all came together to create something that would outlast them all. 

Something that would stand as a testament to who they were and where they had been and where they were headed.

On this Labor Day, the question that is at the back of my mind is: how are we using the gifts and the skills that we have been given today? 

Is this a moment in which our gifts are being used to harm or divide or separate? 

Will we look back upon this time and see the missteps and the failures? 

Did we spend our time and talents sowing conflict? 

Or is this a time we are invited to use everything we have been given in labor for the Lord?

Are we using God’s gifts to create hope and life and possibility? 

Is the Spirit preparing us, equipping us, to build something new?

I’m not talking about a monument. Or a temple. Or even a church building.

This is a beautiful building. 

Skilled artisans have crafted our gorgeous stained glass.

Teams of carpenters from the church built this chancel area.

Craftsmen created and installed these pews and chairs just last year. 

Over the course of the next week or two, some incredibly talented folks will come in and dismantle our organ, and send it off so that technicians can refurbish and refinish all sorts of little pieces and parts. 

This is a building that much of your… our… blood, sweat, and tears has gone into. 

But that isn’t the kind of building and craftsmanship I’m talking about.

You see, the future that God wants us to build, the church Jesus has in mind, has nothing to do with 2x4s or levels or hammers… or even pews or organs.

But it has everything to do with the people God has called together to build it.

If we go back to our scriptures and look at the word used for church in the original Greek – ecclesia – it literally means the “called out ones.”

Every one of us has been called out, called together, called into this place to BE the church Christ is building.

We are the 2x4s.

We are the nails.

We are the foundation.

We are the supporting structure and insulation and windows and doors.

We are the organ and we are the pews.

We are the church! 

Jesus began the work and drew up the blueprints and started laying the foundation for the Kingdom of God with Simon Peter.

He gives him the nickname Peter, or petra in Greek, which literally means rock. 

“On this rock, I will build my church.”

It’s as if he is telling his friend, YOU are going to be the foundation of this ecclesia, this called out community. 

YOUR ministry, Jesus proclaims, will lay the groundwork for the Kingdom.

And then I remember that Simon Peter made countless mistakes in the gospels.  He took missteps.  He denied Jesus three times and seemed to fail in every way possible. 

Kind of sounds like our carpenter was using shoddy materials and faulty labor, doesn’t it?

And yet, like King David, Simon Peter came to know God’s love and grace and forgiveness extend beyond our failures.

Peter Gomes, a professor at Harvard Divinity School, once said “the church will never be any better than we are.”

Let me say it again, because I think it’s important.

The church will never be any better than we are.

If we can’t offer up our failures to God, and let God transform them, then they will always be a part of us. 

If we can’t offer our mistakes up to God and let God forgive them, those mistakes will always be carried through. 

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If we can’t admit that we have had blood on our hands, like King David did, and create space for those who come behind us to lead in a different way, then that history will be embedded into the future we create. 

In the only National Park that is contained within a city there is a gleaming arch that is a testament to human creativity and ingenuity and the persistence that drove us westward. 

But there also sits a courthouse, that reminds us of the darker side of our past.

That history pushes us onward and we are invited to walk through it, transform it, redeem it, by how we build our future.   

In the same way, the church will never be any better than we are and it is our responsibility to clearly examine who we are and who we have been so that we can embrace who God wants us to become.

The future of the church God wants us to build.

You see, Christ is the one with the blueprints… and he has the ability to take all of our mistakes and shortcomings and put us together with one another and strengthen us by the Holy Spirit.

It’s God’s design… not our own.

Our job is simply to do our part.

To listen.

To confess.

To repent.

To embrace our gifts.

To labor for God’s glory.

Every day.

In every way.

God is using us to build the kingdom.  Amen.   

An Interview on Improvising Ministry

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Transcript from last Sunday’s Conversation in Worship

Text: 1 Chronicles 15:25-16:3

Katie: Well good morning to all of you! I have some special guests with me here today. They are familiar faces because they have been with you these past two weeks while I have been on vacation. Pastor Paul and Pastor Beth, both from Women at the Well.

Today we are making this trip to New Orleans for the Jazz National Monument and one of the things I kept thinking about was this idea of improvisation and how when things get difficult or get tricky sometimes we have to find a new way of doing things, a new way to make music, to change the pace and try something different. So I actually thought this was a great opportunity, talking with these two, about some of the things that have been different with Women at the Well.

So we are going to have a little conversation for our message today. I want to start by talking about this passage. David has gone off to rescue the Ark of the Covenant because it has been stolen away during the time of Saul and he is king now and he thinks his job as the king is to go and take it back and bring it to where it belongs. So he charges after it with his army. But this isn’t like a couch you can pick up and throw in the back of the truck! He charges in and they aren’t prepared, they aren’t quite sure what they are doing. This is a holy object and God’s presence is there. There is a man along the way, the ark starts to fall off of the wagon cart and this man named Uzzah, reaches out and touches it to pick it back up and God kills him right then and there. It is dangerous to touch!

So, David stops the caravan right there. He stops the caravan and for three months nobody moves. They leave it there, they go home, and they say – okay – we have got to try something different.

I’ve been thinking about how as pastors and leaders of communities we kind of pushed pause on everything because things were dangerous and things were unsafe. There are times when we hit those roadblocks in ministry and the things that we have been doing no longer work. And I know that has kind of been the case for Women at the Well. So I wonder if you can talk about how you have experienced that in your own ministry. The roadblocks and the times you have had to take a momentary pause because the things that you were doing couldn’t happen anymore. Do you want to tell me a little bit about that?

Paul: Sure. Well, I love the pause button. I actually like all of the buttons on the remote control. No big surprise there. And I use those inside the prison when we do a re-entry workshop. And the pause button in particular is a good tool. I try to remind the women of that. But really it’s for all of us, and I think the pandemic has been an enormous global pause button. And I think all of us have experienced that and we are like enough of the pause already

Katie: Yeah, we are so done with the pause.

Paul: Resume. Fast forward. Something. Skip. I think it is a very helpful tool for people in recovery, women going through re-entry and thinking about coming back home to pause and not do the first thing that comes to their mind. First thought, bad thought, is something that gets a lot of people in trouble.

And I think in ministry that is probably true, too. Sometimes we think, Oh, well the Holy Spirit told me to do it. Well, did you pause and are you sure it is the Holy Spirit. That’s not a bad question. Maybe it is the Holy Spirit. And David may have had a moment too where, you know, the Holy Spirit told us to get going and then – pause – maybe that wasn’t the Holy Spirit. Maybe that was our national pride or some other thing, some other agenda at work there.

And then, Pastor Beth comes on board here while we are in this pause. I don’t know what that has meant for you, to think about the pause, and even since. The ministry still continues even though we can’t be in the prison. We haven’t since March. But there are still opportunities to pause…

Beth: So when I came to Women at the Well it was just a unique experience for me because it was a different kind of ministry and I have not been able to see the people that I’m serving. But I think through the course of these last several months when I was receiving training for this ministry, it has occurred to me that this isn’t my ministry anyway, it is God’s ministry. Through these women.

I’m reminded of that scripture where Jesus is at Jacob’s well and this woman who is serving… she is having to undergo a new way of looking at the world and after she understands what Jesus has explained to her, she goes and tells the people in the village what they need to know. In the course of these events, you know, I was reminded reading those scriptures again that we are called to go out and share the good news. And that these women [in the prison] are not able to do that right now, but we can do it for them.

And so as we have gone through some strategic planning, we have had a transition team and as we have been going forward we have realized that we maybe need to expand the ministry for the women at the well.

Katie: Yeah, you know I think that is really helpful. Both of you have hit on the idea of the pause being a time of listening. And I think that is what happens with David. He takes these three months. The Ark is kind of parked in this guys barn, basically, and he spends some time with God and improvises a new game plan but really a lot of that time is spent listening to God and what God wants him to do. And not just charging in with what his plan had been.

So what has that been like for Women at the Well to spend some time in intentional listening? What are some things that you are hearing about how ministry is going to be different in your contexts?

Paul: Well, I’ll let Beth talk a little bit about our strategic plan, our ministry action plan, we’ve been through a lot of transitions, really since prior to when Beth came on board. We had a transition team that helped us to improvise a new plan and transition leadership. And then through conference leadership we had a second process and we improvised it a bit more, we finessed it a bit more, we rewrote and edited it.

But the one constant through that has been: a significant part of our plan involves spiritual practices. Which I think is a reminder that we know the importance of stopping, listening, reading scripture, having a daily practice, engaging and helping others to engage as well. So we have breath prayer and centering prayer and lectio divina. And just anything… The review: You know when I talked about the buttons on the remote control. There is a rewind! There is actually a spiritual practice, right, the daily examen, or looking back over your day. I think that is a wonderful way of sort of thinking about that. And so we have all of these and they are a wonderful part of our ministry action plan. For us as leadership, for the women, for the council, whenever we gather, whenever we have a meeting, lets make time to listen and make sure we are connected to the divine source, is how I would say it.

Beth: Yeah, I think just to dovetail on that. There are so many ways that we can practice our, I’m going to call it, emotional agility. Where we are improvising during our lives. We aren’t getting stuck in any one place, but we are able to move forward in new kinds of ways. You know, I think in the process of this creative time, listening to all of the different kinds of ways we can worship. So here is David. And he is practicing worship in a new way. And maybe it is an OLD way, where he was dancing around, well, he’s got an ephod on.. [ laughs ] … and so I can see that…

Katie: Which is kind of like undergarments

Beth: Yeah!

Katie: It’s not much!

Beth: Right! So for people to realize that there are other ways that we can move forward in our worship of God and in our celebration of that. It just draws us closer together and helps us to integrate our emotions and helps us to realize we are all going through this same thing and there are lots of different ways we can go about it.

Paul: It is important to say this, too, when I think about improvisation. I’m thinking about we are a church, inside a prison. So we are a church and all that goes along with that in terms of being spirit led and organized. We are a Methodist church, with all of the structure that we have to adhere to there. And then we have to operate within the framework of a prison system, the Department of Corrections.

And I was thinking about improvisation. You know I was trained as a classical pianist. I spent many years studying classical piano where you play every note that is written, as it is written. You can add your personality to it with sound and technique, but you don’t play what is not written!

Katie: Right!

Paul: And over the years, I’ve played with it, I’ve gotten a little better with improvisation. But the idea with jazz, in the New Orleans jazz scene, there is a structure within which you work. But then you have all of this freedom to rip and riff and jam… whatever word.. you can do a solo that stays within the key and the structure and the rhythm, but you have a lot of freedom.

I think our struggle continues to be where is the freedom? Are we just classical musicians here? Sometimes it feels like the Department of Corrections says, you can only play these notes…

Katie: This is the box…

Paul: Right this is the box, and you have to do this rhythm. I think one of the cool things about jazz is that there is sometimes one rhythm over here and there is another rhythm over there, right? It plays against itself. That’s what we have to figure out. Where is there freedom?

So one of the women in the prison sat down next to a visitor and the visitor asked her what she liked about this place. And she said, “Oh, I love the freedom.” This is a woman serving a life sentence and she loves the freedom.

Katie: Because she knows where her bounds are and so within that she has a lot of freedom. That’s very true!

I know we have had a long partnership with Women at the Well here at Immanuel and there have been a lot of things that we have been involved in – from re-entry teams to joining you at the prison for worship and I know some of those things are outside the box of what is allowed right now.

There is a little bit of grief with that, I know, as we have all experienced that. And I can kind of think about David experiencing some grief as well. He had some ways he thought he would be doing this. He went out the first time with his military garb on, ready to charge. And the second time he goes out, he goes basically in his undergarments, this linen cloth, and he is dancing and he is singing and he casts aside what he thought he was supposed to doing and listened to God. He just gets kind of carried away by the rhythm and the music. He starts leaping, there is dancing, there is all of this joy.

In fact, it is so great that his wife who is watching this procession come into town from home… she looks out and sees him and she is really embarrassed for him and of him. It is not becoming of a king, and you find that line in the scripture. You know we all have roles that we thought we might be playing and then we discover that it is not exactly like that. How has your improvisation with Women at the Well been like that? Where are some new things you are doing and where you finding the joy and the excitement and where are you kind of just being carried away?

Beth: Well, I think there have been lots of different directions that we have looked. I think that is one of the things when you are going through a time of change like this and you know the wind is blowing… new things! Sometimes it is nice to go down this road for a while, and then you go down that road for a while, and you somewhere you begin to see where it is a little brighter. There is a path that seems to be a little easier. And sometimes to be able to move forward down those roads, to help see that God is the one leading. You aren’t the one leading.

And so what we have discovered is that it is possible for us to maybe take some classes, educate our selves a bit more. Just like with Black Lives Matter. We, white folks, need more education. We have to realize that there is more to learn. So one of the subjects I have found myself rediscovering and checking in on is social justice, restorative justice, in particular. Paul and I have been going to visit with lots of people, in lots of different Zoom sites, to learn more about this subject. We’ve met this woman by the name of Norah Jacob, and she has helped us to discover some new curriculums that maybe we can share. In fact, I think we are ready to do that. And she has helped us to recognize there are a lot of connections between restorative justice and what’s going on with the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s not just a matter, it’s a movement, as was explained to us by Jackie Thompson. There are so many other things, relationships between trauma… Many of the people who are in prison have been traumatized. Most of them, by a long shot, have had to go through trauma. And so, recognizing that that is another area we need to discover about. And to see the connections between all of these. Between the war on drugs, between addition.

As we make these connections in our lives and realize that we need to discover more for ourselves, take a step back, sit for three months, like David did, and discover that we don’t have the answers. So instead of reacting, to sit back and learn more, to discover what God is trying to teach us and then we can be proactive in moving forward.

Katie: Paul, do you want to add to that?

Paul: I find joy… you know we’ve had to reinvent how we worship, since we can’t go into the prison. We’ve been doing it on facebook live. Come see us – Thursday Nights at 7 on the Women at the Well facebook page. And through that, unexpectedly, we are connecting with former offenders who are in Florida, and all over Iowa, and before we could not intentionally reach out and connect with these women. And we can now, just because they know about our facebook page, now they know we are doing worship. So we are still ministering to former offenders, returning citizens, and their families.

You know there is one guy, he is the husband of a person who is serving a long sentence, and he likes our Facebook page every week and I think he visits our worship. It is really nice to know that we are offering worship, hope, prayer, music, and inspiration to a whole community. That otherwise, like this husband, you know there is no way he could ever come in and worship with us on a Thursday night, and now here he is. Unfortunately, she is not worshipping with us, but we are working on that! That is another roadblock we hope to overcome. But maybe we can record these and get them inside the prison. Especially if this is going to continue, as it looks like it will, for however long. So some new connections, that wouldn’t otherwise have happened, is something that I celebrate.

Katie: Absolutely!

Well, I’m so glad that you guys were able to come and take this time to be with us, so we can hear this update on what is happening with Women at the Well and what ministry looks like. And I am also so grateful that you have been with us these last two weeks to lead worship while I have been gone. And I want you to know that our whole congregation is praying for both of you and for your ministry.

If you didn’t know, the offices for Women at the Well are now in our building, right below us, on our lower level, because of some of the reasons that you can’t be in the prison in the same way as before. We are so glad to be able to support your ministry in multiple ways and prayer is one of them.

Paul: And we thank you for your partnership and your support and hospitality

Beth: Hospitality indeed! Several months ago, when I moved in here, there was an internet issue. Can I share that this lady – she was crawling up into the ceiling, helping us to thread the wires to make it all work, and so thank you for your hospitality and your welcome.

Katie: Yes and I know some of our trustees folks have been working hard on that, too, so thanks to Wendell and others who have been so instrumental. As we close up this time of learning, let us now turn our hearts towards prayer.

Partially Rendered Heroes

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Text: John 13: 12-17

Today, with the images of four of our nation’s greatest presidents before us, we turn in the gospels to a story of a biblical model of leadership.

Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, gets down on his hands and knees and washes the feet of his disciples.

As the words of Tom Colvin’s hymn, “Jesu, Jesu” remind us:

“Kneels at the feet of his friends, silently washes their feet, Master who acts as a slave to them.”  (UMH #432)

Our Master humbles himself in service to others.

Our Master doesn’t demand praise and monuments and glory… but finds glory in loving and serving those who are lowly. 

And calls us to do the same.

But even more than that… this act of love and hospitality and service was not just meant for those who were righteous and perfect and had it all together.

Simon Peter, who would soon deny Jesus three times was there. 

Judas, who was about to betray Jesus was there.

Jesus knew them fully.  Completely. 

And Jesus loved them and asked them to do the same for the world.  

What does it mean for us to live in this world not seeking our own glory, but seeking to humbly serve others? 

What might it mean for us to know others fully, completely, and love them anyways?

Let’s pray:  Gracious God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts and minds be holy and pleasing to you, O Lord, our Strength and Redeemer.

At the end of this spring when I put Mount Rushmore on the list, the location evoked nothing but nostalgia for me.   Summer, vacations, grand vistas, and playing games in the car. 

Remember that photo from the start of summer where my brother and I were handcuffed together?  

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Well, that same trip also included a stop at Mount Rushmore.

As we arrived, we noticed that my hair was a strange shade of green. Our campground the night before had a pool and my light blonde hair had turned green from the chlorine. 

Then, when we got out of the car at the national monument, we were suddenly surprised to discover just a few cars away my childhood friend, Matt, and his family! 

I was so embarrassed.

But I got over it and we all enjoyed the grand majestic views of these spectacular presidents.

As the summer has gone on, I must admit that those iconic men carved into a mountainside have taken on a different tone in our national discourse. 

Our country is grappling in new ways with the systemic racism that underlies every institution.

We are questioning practices that currently exist and looking at our history with new lenses. 

And that has not only included the monuments of Confederate generals, but also the full legacy of great American heroes like Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Roosevelt and the land upon which this monument is built itself. 

I have to admit… when President Trump scheduled a big celebration there for the Fourth of July, I thought nothing of it. 

But all of a sudden there was controversy because someone from the DNC had tweeted that Mount Rushmore was connected with white supremacy.

What?! I thought.

That’s bonkers… it is divisive for the sake of being divisive…

It is a simple patriotic monument.

And then I took a breath.

I’ve made a commitment to myself that when I find myself outraged at something, I try to research instead of react. 

My first impulse is not to repost it, but to google it.

Sometimes, the information is flat out wrong.  Sometimes it is intentionally misleading.

But sometimes, there is truth to be discovered there. 

Sometimes, my anger or outrage is a defense mechanism because the way I had always thought about something is being challenged. 

Do you know what I learned early in July about Mount Rushmore? 

It is a sacred site for our Lakota siblings. 

This mountain is called Six Grandfathers, named for the Earth, Sky, and four directions that had been carved into the granite by the elements.

In 1868 this land was promised in a treaty to the Lakota people. 

Yet the discovery of precious minerals like gold and tin brought miners and prospectors to the area in a breach of that treaty. 

There was conflict and the U.S. sent in more calvary to defeat the Lakota and their allies. The Congressional Act of 1877 forced Native Americans onto reservations and our government took over the Black Hills. 

In July of 1980, nearly 100 years later, the Supreme Court ruled that these lands were illegally taken from the Lakota people, but the land has still not been returned. 

That rush of prospectors brought to the area a New York lawyer named Charles Rushmore.

In his own words, Mr. Rushmore explains how the land came to be named after him:

“I was deeply impressed with the Hills, and particularly with a mountain of granite rock that rose above the neighboring peaks.  On one occasion while looking from near its base, with almost awe, at this majestic pile, I asked of the men who were with me for its name.  They said it had no name, but one of them spoke up and said ‘We will name it now, and name it Rushmore Peak.’ That was the origin of the name it bears…” (https://www.nps.gov/moru/learn/historyculture/charles-e-rushmore.htm)

We ignored our treaties with indigenous people for the sake of our own prosperity.

We erased their legacy and names and stories from the land.

And then we gave this place our name and carved the faces of our leaders upon it.

It is a far cry from the humble service that Jesus calls us to embody with our neighbors.

But in the minds of those at the time, such acts could be justified because native people were seen as savages, less than, unequal to their white counterparts. 

The only way our ancestors could rationalize genocide, enslavement, and colonization wasto believe that there are innate differences between the races and that non-white people were inferior. 

That is white supremacy at its core.

The four men whose faces we now see carved upon this mountain were not perfect. 

They were heroes and champions and they made our country what it is today, but they had faults as well and they lived and breathed and upheld systems that supported a belief that white people were somehow different and more worthy of this land than people of color.

George Washington led us to freedom from Great Britain, but that freedom was not extended to his own slaves.  When his wife’s slave, Ona Judge escaped, Washington went to great effort to recover her, fearing she would inspire their other slaves to seek freedom as well. 

Thomas Jefferson literally wrote our independence into existence and doubled the size of our nation.  But, also, the sexual exploitation of his slaves is so well-known that there is an Ancestry.com spoof about it.

Abraham Lincoln helped to preserve our nation and abolished slavery.  However, that freedom was not extended to Native peoples and during his administration, land was stolen and native people were executed and massacred. 

Theodore Roosevelt was chosen for the monument to represent the growth and development of the United States through incredible social policies.  Yet he also say Native people as an obstacle towards settlement and once said, “the only good Indians are dead Indians.”

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You know, when Borglum began to carve the faces of these men into the face of the cliff, the design included the figures from head to waist. 

He intended for a fuller image of these great American heroes to be portrayed. Not the full story of their legacy, but at least a greater rendering of their persona.

Borglam died, the country was at war, and the project ran out of money so this full realization was never completed. 

Only their faces were ever finished.

I’ve been thinking a lot in the midst of the national debate about whether monuments or statues and the like should stand not about these figures… but about Jesus… kneeling at the feet of the disciples.

He knew them fully.

He knew them completely.

He knew their faults and their triumphs. 

And he loved and had compassion and offered forgiveness to them anyways.

Here is the thing about not only Jesus, but the entire biblical witness.

Our scriptures don’t shy away from telling the full story of our leaders. 

We know that Moses led the people out of Egypt, but we also know that he was a murderer and we know that his own grumbling with God prevented him from seeing the promised land.

We know that David was a man after God’s own heart and his line was chosen for the redemption of all of Israel, but we also know that David was a rapist and murderer and stood idly by while assault and division happened with his own family. 

We know that before he was Paul, Saul persecuted Christians and oversaw their executions and that even later in life in the midst of his ministry, there was a thorn in his side, a temptation that never quite eluded him. 

For so much of our national history, we have focused only on the parts of the story that we like.  The parts that hold us up in a good light. The parts that demonstrate our worth and our glory and invite others to follow in our footsteps. 

Just like Mount Rushmore remains unfinished… a partially completed rendering… the story we tell ourselves about our own history and these figures is incomplete.  It is not the full picture.

And it has ignored and diminished other voices and stories and hurts for too long.

What we are experiencing in our nation right now is a lot of pain, and conflict, and tension… but in the midst of that woundedness, perhaps there is for the first time in a really long time we also have the possibility for healing and new steps forward.

When Jesus knelt at the feet of the disciples, he knew they would harm him and washed their feet anyways.

I think about how a wound often has to be cleaned out and debrided before it can properly heal.

That is what we are experiencing right now.

Systemic racism and white supremacy have wounded our nation and our people and our relationships with one another. 

And there is a lot we have to clean away and bring to the surface, so that the wound can properly heal.

It is painful.

It is ugly.

But it is the only way healing can ever be possible.

Because you see, only when we allow God to see us fully – with all of our faults and all of our sins and all of our mistake and all of our faithful attempts to do the right thing – can we truly accept God’s grace and mercy into our lives and share it with others. 

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In 2004, Gerard Baker became the first Native American superintendent of Mount Rushmore and has worked to establish the Heritage Village there to share the history and customs of the land before Custer and Borglum left a mark on the area.  Baker said:

“it’s not just a teepee here.  We’re promoting all cultures of America.  That’s what this place is.  This is Mount Rushmore! It’s America! Everybody’s something different here; we’re all different.  And just maybe that gets us talking again as human beings, as Americans.” (https://blog.nativehope.org/six-grandfathers-before-it-was-known-as-mount-rushmore)

Mount Rushmore is the story of America. 

With all the things we have done right, and all the ways we have gotten it so wrong. 

As we think back upon our history, our story, if we find a way to tell it in all of its fullness, with all of its diversity and triumph and tribulation, maybe… just maybe we can remember that we are all human beings. 

That none of us are greater than our Master. 

And that God calls us all to another way, a better way, of being in this world. 

As we sang together in our opening hymn:

“Cure thy children’s warring madness, bend our pride to thy control; shame our wanton, selfish gladness, rich in things and poor in soul.  Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, lest we miss thy kingdom’s goal.” (Harry Emerson Fosdick, UMH #577)

As we engage in these tough national conversations, help us to be humble.  Remind us of your call to serve our neighbors rather than promote ourselves.  Give us wisdom and grace to speak the full story.  And bless us with courage to do the right thing.  

Aloha!

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Text: Isaiah 43:1-2, 18-19; Psalm 139:7-10

Friends, I’m so excited to travel with all of you, virtually, to Hawaii this morning.
As many of you know, these islands hold a special place in my heart because my family has been blessed with the opportunity to visit and spend time not only enjoying the sunshine… but also spending time with one another.
I was in first grade during my first trip to Oahu and have some incredible memories of playing cribbage, boogie boarding, luaus, building sandcastles, and dancing with my grandpa at the Chinese restaurant down the street…

It was always a long trek to get there, but it was always worth it and we never considered going anywhere else, because Hawaii is paradise… right?
It is always 78 degrees, the sun shines every day, and after every rainfall there is a rainbow.
You can hike in the mountains or lay on the beaches.
You can trek through rain forests and eat seafood until your belly is full.
It is full of abundant vegetation and life and culture.
Maybe not unlike the garden…

You know the one I’m talking about.
The paradise we find in the second chapter of Genesis, full of trees with edible fruit and flowing waters, and creatures of all kinds.
The paradise we got kicked out of.
Adam and Eve taste of the fruit from the forbidden tree and suddenly become aware of their nakedness and their shame.
And in the midst of that beautiful paradise, with everything they could ever need or want at their fingertips, they hide.
They hide from one another, by putting on clothing.
And, they hide from God…

Well, at least they try.
There in that place, where the Lord God walked in their very midst, they hoped the trees might conceal their bodies, their actions, their guilt.
But it couldn’t.
God was there.
And God knew them.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence? the psalmist asks.
If we run to the highest heavens and find ourselves in paradise, God is there.
If we escape to sheol, the depths of death, hell itself, God is there, too.

The God who formed us, shaped us, molded us, breathed life into us…
Well, as we talked about last week, that God is faithful.
That God is constant.
That God doesn’t leave our side.

When we are overwhelmed by the ocean depths, God is with us and keeps us from drowning.
When the fires of this world threaten, God is with us and we will not be destroyed.

You know, on the surface level of Isaiah’s words here, it sounds like nothing can touch us.
We could literally walk through fire and not be burned, because God is on our side.
But I have to admit, I don’t think that is what God intends here.
On the Big Island of Hawaii there are plenty of places where the lava has flowed over the roads and anyone or anything caught in its path has been destroyed.
This isn’t a promise of divine protection or an invitation to test God.
Bad things happen.
People we know and love have been impacted by flooding and wildfires and some have lost their lives to drowning and severe burns.
Illness and disease and economic downturns come our way, too.
It doesn’t mean God has abandoned us.

In fact, if we look at the overall message of Isaiah 43, what we actually see is a promise that no matter what kinds of consequences or tragedies or punishments or terrors befall us, God is with us and God can redeem it all.
From the Message translation:
“Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you… when you’re between a rock and a hard place, it won’t be a dead end – because I am God, your personal God…. I’d sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you.”
God loves us so much and promises to make a way through the destruction.
Even the destructive tendencies of our own sin and rebellion.
God will make a way for life, new life, abundant life to spring forth.
We get a glimpse of this
And if we ever start to doubt that… maybe Hawaii is precisely what we need.
Every inch of this paradise is possible only because fiery destruction has come before it.
As Lyons and Barkhauer describe it:

Here, along the Pacific coast, you can see earth just a few years young, or, when lava flows freely from Kilauea, only hours old. As molten ground meets the shore and slowly cools, you can watch the ‘Big Island’ grow. Creating new earth is a smelly and surprisingly loud process with all manner of hissing, popping, and low rumbling of bass shaking the earth, assaulting the nose with the smell of sulfer and hot metals… steam screaming to the surface is a toxic cocktail of noxious gases to be avoided for your own safety…
yet, in the midst of a lava field, a single green plant takes hold and defiantly clings to life. Look above the crater’s rim and see the verdant vegetation of the tropics. This brutal, inhospitable landscape is the prelude to paradise.

One of my favorite things to do on the island of Oahu is to hike up the outer rim of the long inactive Koko Head volcano.
The hike is possible because of an old lookout at the top which was used by the military in the early 20th century. Each step up the old supply line takes you closer to an incredible view.
At the top, you can look out and see Diamond Head, the remains of the crater that now forms Hanauma Bay, and into the lush green preserve and arboretum inside Koko Head itself.

And yet none of this lush paradise is possible without the volcanic eruption that came before.
There was a time when this vibrant landscape was nothing but a monochromatic hellscape.

From the flaming crucible of the earth’s core, life has formed and taken hold… the distance between heaven and hell may not be as great as we suppose. And here, the cycle of life begins in death where the power to create overcomes the power to destroy.

So what do we learn from this paradox?
There are times in our own lives when we will stand in barren, inhospitable, and difficult places.
We will experience loss and grief.
Illnesses and disease will come our way.
Relationships falter.
The economy is out of our control.
Systemic injustices like sexism and racism and homophobia and lack of access for people with disabilities are real.
Heck, this entire year has been described by some as a dumpster fire.
One thing after another, piling up on top of each other.

But here is the thing.
Adam and Eve couldn’t hide from God in paradise.
God was there.
Right by their side.
And God is right here with us in the midst of this, too.

But more than that…
God is calling us to pay attention.
“Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands.”

We are people of resurrection!
We are people who believe that the worst thing is never the last thing.
We are people who believe that the forces of life are stronger than the forces of death.
And there are signs of life and abundance springing forth from this mess.

Just this week, I read about how nearly half a million people have quit smoking in England as a direct result of the pandemic.
Doctors in Ireland and Denmark began to notice that premature births in their countries were falling dramatically… 75% decline in Ireland and 90% fewer preterm births in Denmark!
In both of these instances, more research is being done to learn more about the causal relationships and how what we are learning through this time could be used to save lives and improve our overall public health in the future.

We cannot flee from God and God has not abandoned us.
All around, the seeds of new life are blowing in and taking root.
We simply need to pay attention.

New Every Morning

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Text: Lamentations 3:19-33

When I was in high school, my youth group took a summer mission trip to the northwest part of our country.
I went to a larger church in Cedar Rapids, so we filled an entire bus with our students and chaperones.
Our ultimate destination was Seattle, but along the way we stopped and sang at churches in Wyoming and Idaho and we spent some time at Yellowstone National Park.
We took time to hike and walked through a part of the forest that had experienced a forest fire and saw the beginnings of the new forest already beginning to emerge with soft green baby trees.
We worshipped and remembered the indigenous people who once lived upon this land… like the Blackfeet, Crow, Sioux and Cheyenne.
We strolled along the pathways to see the hot springs and of course, visit Old Faithful.
And we rolled up our sleeves and got to work.
I remember one of the projects my group was assigned to was helping to secure rolls of grass seed to the side of a hill so that we could help prevent erosion along the road way.

But one of the things that has stuck with me the most from that particular trip was not the sights or the service… but a prayer.
A prayer that we said together every morning… often while we were rolling down the road on our bus.
A prayer that rose us up out of slumber and helped us to center ourselves before the day began.
A prayer that I still think of in the mornings.

We actually have this prayer in the back of all of our hymnals as part of the Orders for Daily Praise and Prayer:

New every morning is your love, great God of light,
And all day long you are working for good in the world.
Stir up in us desire to serve you,
To live peacefully with our neighbors,
And to devote each day to your Son,
Our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord.

New every morning is your love.
Every morning.
Every. Single. Day.
Over and over again.

To be faithful is to be constant… steadfast… reliable…
And those words could certainly be used to describe one of the most striking features of Yellowstone National Park – Old Faithful.

Just beneath those gorgeous mountains and rivers and forests is an active volcano somewhere between thirty and fifty miles across.
As it simmers and brews underground, water from above seeps in and begins to boil, creating these amazing geothermic features throughout the park.

Grand Prismatic Spring;
Jim Peaco;

From mud pots to hot springs, you find incredible colors and textures as various gasses and bacteria and algae that thrive at different temperatures come alive.
And then there are the geysers, superheated water rockets that burst unpredictably out of the ground.

Well… most of them are unpredictable.
Not Old Faithful.
Roughly every ninety minutes, this geyser erupts.
In every kind of weather, in any part of the year, at any time of day.
Over and over and over again.
Consistently.
Constantly.
Faithfully.

As the Mills family found out just this week on their own family road trip in Yellowstone… here is Scott’s video!

Something you can count on.
Something you depend on just as sure as the sun will rise in the east.

Now… we can’t always see the sun rise.
Sometimes the rain is pouring on our heads or the storm clouds are raging.
But the sun still rises.

And as the author of Lamentations reminds us, the faithful and compassionate love of God is renewed every morning, too.
Even if we can’t see it.
Even if it seems like God is far away.
Even if we are swimming in distress.

The eruption of Old Faithful happens not in spite of the simmering energy and destructive forces just beneath the surface… but because of them.
And so it is with God.
It is in the midst of our lament…
In the midst of our conflict…
In the midst of our grief…
In the midst of our suffering…
It is because of all of those powers that could destroy and overwhelm that we witness the faithfulness of God’s love.

Now, what is interesting about what is happening to the lamenter is that they are talking about their own punishment by the hand of the Lord.
They were experiencing the consequences of a life where they had rejected peace…
Where they had forgotten what is good…
Like so many of the prophets, he is writing about the direct result of turning away from God’s ways…
of failing to look out for our neighbors,
of taking advantage of rather than caring for creation…
It is chaos.
It is destruction.
And while we can point to God as the cause, the truth is, we are simply harvesting what we have sown.

There is a lot happening in the world today…
A lot of the turmoil we are experiencing…
That are simply the consequences of choices and decisions we have made in the past.
The anger that is erupting on the streets about racial injustice is not simply about the racist actions of a few individuals.
It is confronting the cultural, historic, and structural systems that we all participate in and have not challenged in the past.
The rise in Covid-19 cases across the country, but also right here in Iowa… they are directly related to choices that we are making about whether or not to wear a mask, where we go, and who we interact with.
And now we are facing the consequences of increasing the burdens upon our families and our teachers because we have not done our part to create a safer environment and reduce the spread.

What the Lamenter also wants to remind us, however, is that in spite of all of our failures.
In spite of all of the consequences we are experiencing.
God has not walked out on us.
God’s faithful love has not disappeared.
God’s compassion doesn’t dry up.

No, every morning, it is renewed.
Every morning we experience just how great is God’s faithfulness.
Every time the sun comes up, we have a chance to turn away from our selfishness and our destructive tendencies and instead turn towards God.

And so when we feel like we are standing on the edge of the volcano…
When we feel like everything is falling apart…
When we feel like the consequences of our failures have become too great to bear…
That’s when we need to stop.
And wait.
And sit.

Old Faithful Geyser; Jim Peaco;

You know, the forces that lead to the eruption of Old Faithful rely upon two things.
First, the ever simmering force of the volcano.
Like our sin and our selfishness and our tendency towards destruction, it is a constant reality.

But it also depends upon the renewing and refreshing waters above the ground.
The melting of the snow in the mountains.
The rain that falls from the sky.
The ground water that seeps deep into the earth.
Without them, the geyser simply wouldn’t gush.
In the same way, God’s faithfulness and mercy are constantly pouring into our lives,
constantly rushing over us,
new every morning,
new every day.
As the Message translation puts it – God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out.
God’s merciful love couldn’t have dried up…
It is ever-flowing.
It will not end.

And when life is heavy and too hard to take, the lamenter reminds us that God is still there.
Waiting for us.
Waiting for us to set down our load.
Waiting for us to turn around.
Waiting for us to stop harming one another.
Waiting for us to face the music and get real and honest about where we went wrong.

If we keep going a bit farther in the text, the lamenter tells us that we must search and examine our ways.
We should lift our hearts and our hands to God.
We were the ones who did wrong.
And when we call out for another way…
God comes to our side.
Always.
Consistently.
Faithfully.

New every morning is your love, great God of light,
And all day long you are working for good in the world.
Stir up in us desire to serve you,
To live peacefully with our neighbors,
And to devote each day to your Son,
Our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord.

Copyright © 2024 Rev. Katie Z. Dawson. All rights reserved.