“That They May All Be One”

John 17:1-5, 17-26

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

June 29, 2025

I won’t ask you to raise your hands - you can just raise them silently in your heart - but how many of us have been somewhere like a Thanksgiving meal or a potluck dinner or whatever and someone says, “Let’s bow our heads and say grace,” and then they start in on a prayer that goes on for about four hours while your stomach grumbles? That’s a little like what Jesus does in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John. What we heard this morning is just a short excerpt from a much longer prayer that Jesus prays shortly before his death. 

And so we are privileged to listen in on a conversation between Jesus and God at a critical moment in Jesus’s ministry. In fact, I don’t think it’s overstating to say that we are listening in on the hopes and dreams Jesus utters from his deathbed.  

Faced with his imminent execution, what does Jesus want to talk to God about? His friends, that’s what. And, by extension, us. 

His prayer is for his followers, who would eventually become the Early Church and are our faith ancestors. He is worried about them because he already sees the divisions among them. He already sees how they will argue over tiny things after he is gone. He already knows that they will fight about little things that seem big and they will wage wars over bigger things that seem all-encompassing. 

Jesus has been around humans enough to realize that we don’t all agree and that sometimes it gets ugly. My guess is, he wouldn’t even be too surprised by the divisions in our world today. People have been arguing since the dawn of time. The topics change, but the underlying fears that drive our animosity never seem to die. 

And so, into a world every bit as fractured as ours, with leaders just as terrifying as some of ours, Jesus spoke these radical words of hope: “God, may they all be one.” 

Even in the midst of great conflict, Jesus had an audacious hope that we, his followers, might find a way to be one. Talk about a radical prayer. 

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It’s interesting how, during the times of greatest division we humans often decide to make a concentrated effort to come together. 

For example, the worldwide ecumenical movement really had a moment in the early part of the 20th century. Inspired by the events of the two major World Wars that swept the globe during the first half of the 20th century, Christians all over the world took seriously Jesus’s call to come together across their differences. 

It was in 1940, just after the initial occupation of France, that a 25 year old pastor’s son who came to be known as Brother Roger rode a bicycle from his home in Geneva to a tiny town in central France called Taize, just south of the line of German occupation. Roger and his sister, Genevieve, housed and hid Jewish and Chrsitian refugees in this small home for two years before it was occupied. As soon as Allied Forces liberated France in 1944, Roger returned to France and founded an ecumenical monastic community in Taize. 

Brother Roger fiercely pursued the seemingly-impossible ideal of Christian unity. Although he was Protestant, he took communion at a Catholic Mass every morning and even took communion from two Popes during his lifetime. The community he founded continues today and draws thousands of pilgrims from all over the world from every conceivable Christian denomination and from other faiths. The influence of Taize has spread all over the world, even to places like Manhattan, Kansas where churches like ours continue to sing music from Taize.[1]

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We are connected to this wider story of the ecumenical movement in even more explicit ways, of course. As a part of the United Church of Christ, ecumenism is in our DNA. The seal of our denomination, our official logo, includes words from John 17: “That they may all be one.”

It was this particular snippet from the 17th chapter of John that so captured the imaginations of our UCC faith ancestors that they decided to form a new denomination from several different streams. In the 1930s, the Congregational and Christian Churches merged to make a new denomination. Around the same time, two other denominations, the Evangelical Synod of North America and the Reformed Church in the United States came together to create the Evangelical and Reformed Church. After the war, in 1950 the Afro-Christian Convention and Black Congregational churches merged to create the Convention of the South. Finally, in 1957 all these streams merged to create the United Church of Christ. 

Our denomination was created with the goal being a united and uniting church. Rather than a top-down approach where we all pledge to believe certain things and do things a particular way, we agree to put relationships first – remembering the love God has for each of us and committing to the hard work of loving even through significant disagreements. 

One of my favorite stories about the founding of the UCC is told by a black and white photograph. In the photo, Fred Hoskins from the Congregational Christian side and James Wagner from the E&R side are shaking hands at the merger of the UCC in 1957. They were our first co-presidents. What the photo doesn’t show is this: other than this handshake, the new denomination had very little holding it together. The UCC was formed in 1957 but had no rules or doctrine established. Our Statement of Faith wasn’t even created until 1959. And we didn’t have a constitution or bylaws for the first four years of our existence. 

It was a bold move to say, “Let’s just shake on it and trust that we’ll figure out the details later.” And, of course, it wasn’t easy. I’ve heard stories from people who remember tension in their own congregations during this period. Groups of people and even whole congregations left rather than joining the new denomination. It wasn’t as easy as the photo makes it look.

And in recent years we’ve learned more about the parts of our history that didn’t make it into the photograph at all. Back when I was in seminary we were taught about the four streams that fed into the United Church of Christ. We weren’t taught about an important fifth stream: the Afro-Christian Convention. Those congregations and their leaders were mostly subsumed by the predominantly-white churches. It wasn’t until 2022 that the UCC’s Historical Council voted to officially recognize the Afro-Christian Convention as a fifth, co-equal stream of the UCC. The Rev. Dr. Yvonne Delk helps us understand how the wider church could have buried this part of our own history for so long. She explains that the UCC has primarily seen our Afro-Christian churches as “an object of the UCC’s mission rather than a subject that could inform its mission.” [2] In June of 2023, just two years ago, the Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer, who was then our General Minister and President, publicly apologized for this “white supremacist rewriting of our history.” [3] 

It turns out that trying to hold together a large group of people with diverse backgrounds, theologies, political viewpoints, and lived experiences is pretty hard work. Figuring out how to hold together a denomination that confesses Christ as our head and doesn’t have an earthly ruler or group of rulers to tell us the exact rules to live by is messy. And yet, the UCC is still here all these years later, doing our best to make it work. 

In just a couple weeks some of us will travel to Kansas City to attend the UCC General Synod. We’ll hear spirited debates between people from all over the world who don’t agree on every topic being discussed. We’ll participate in worship services that feel very different than what we’re used to. We’ll connect with people who are members of congregations that don’t look or act or sound like ours. And we’ll do all of this mindful of the covenant we share with one another as members of this big, messy UCC family. We covenant to walk alongside one another - even in all our differences - as we try to follow in the ways of Jesus together. We’re not together because we all believe the same things or have everything in common. We’re together because we continue to choose, on a daily basis, to accompany one another on this journey of faithful living. It’s as simple and as hard as that. 

In a world that is so deeply divided - and in a world where we often find it difficult to feel connected to many people and groups that say they’re Christian - it’s no small thing to sit in these pews week after week and try to follow Jesus together. And it’s no small thing to say we are a part of larger ecumenical and interfaith communities and movements. Every time we open our hearts and try to understand people who seem so very different than us, we are doing the very thing that Jesus prayed for on his deathbed: trying to find a way to be one. 

It’s not easy work. It’s hard. And so we give thanks that when Jesus was at the end of his life, he prayed for our unity. His followers needed it then. God knows we still need it now. 

Come, Holy Spirit, make us one. Amen. 

NOTES

[1] Information about Brother Roger and Taize from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taizé_Community, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Roger and the Taize website. 

[2] https://www.ucc.org/afro-christian-traditions-status-as-distinct-ucc-stream-gets-historical-council-support/ 

[3] https://www.ucc.org/from-synod-stage-dorhauer-apologizes-to-afro-christian-convention-for-rewriting-of-our-history/ 

"Faith-full Five: Touch"

 “Faith-full Five: Touch”

John 20: 19-31

June 22, 2025

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Earlier this spring, we put out a short survey about summer worship plans. One question asked people to indicate things they’d like to experience this summer: more music, art, conversations with other people in the congregation, that kind of thing. Several people asked me what I meant by “embodied worship.” Like, what the heck does that mean? Not surprisingly, it didn’t get too many votes. 

By embodied worship, I mean: actively engaging our bodies in the act of communal worship. Might involve something tactile - like squishing play doh or weaving fabric together. Or something musical like drumming or dancing. Embodied worship might include using our sense of smell, or creating art, or cooking together. Some of you may remember a couple summers ago we had a worship service where some of us made “seed paper” by mushing together pulp and plant seeds. That was certainly embodied (and squishy). 

I’ve always been a bit jealous of our Muslim friends who have a default worship style that is more kinesthetic than ours. The lining up shoulder to shoulder, the kneeling, the forehead resting on the floor - this is deeply embodied worship. Of course our Catholic friends are also more focused on bodies than we are - sitting, standing, kneeling at various points during worship. And the invitation to share the Eucharist at every Mass. There are, of course, lots of Protestants who also get their bodies more involved in worship than we usually do - clapping, swaying, raising hands. And we have a lot to learn from the youngest people in our congregation - children are hard-wired to use their bodies as they experience life, including worship. They move around the sanctuary to get a different vantage point, play with toys in the pray ground in the back of the church, and often use their hands to color or fidget as they worship alongside their families in the pews. 

Why am I thinking so much about how our bodies relate to the act of worship? Well, Christianity, along with many other religions, is a fully embodied faith. Through rituals like baptism, communion, anointing, foot washing, palm waving, candle lighting, laying on of hands and more, we experience our faith in our bodies. Our bodies are, after all, the only way we have to experience the spiritual. It’s all connected. 

Bodies mattered to the early followers of Jesus. Bodies mattered to Jesus himself – why else would he have spent so much time around those who had such conflicted and painful relationships with their own bodies? He could have just been a great teacher who stood up on a mountain, speaking eloquently about the nature of God and other existential truths. 

But he didn’t. Instead, he spent his time placing his body squarely in the middle of the messy humanity he encountered. He spit in a blind man’s eyes and healed him. He touched those with leprosy and who were hemorrhaging that others refused to touch. He broke bread and passed around fish and fed those who were hungry. He sat down at the well with the woman and asked her for a drink of water – a basic need we all have because we are all living in bodies. When he encountered another woman who was about to be stoned by an angry mob, he didn’t preach a long sermon. Instead, he simply put his body right in between the woman and the crowd, saying very little. 

Jesus ate and drank and slept and ran and laughed and danced and sang and cried and turned over tables…and felt the warm oil caressing his face when a friend anointed his head…and shook the dust off of his feet when things weren’t going well…and gently bathed the feet of his followers…and rode a smelly beast into Jerusalem for his final victory lap.

I think sometimes we have a tendency to want to compartmentalize our faith. To pretend like it’s only about words on a page, or prayers that we say aloud, or the great intellectual calisthenics we like to do when we’re debating a theological concept or an intriguing passage of scripture.

We don’t have to look any further than this morning’s text from John’s Gospel to see that our faith ancestors call us beyond a compartmentalized faith. They call us to a faith that is fleshy. Carnal. Corporeal. A faith that encompasses our entire bodies, not just our brains and hearts.

Every account of the Resurrection in John’s Gospel is about bodies. Mary comes to the tomb early in the morning to care for Jesus’s body. Peter and the Beloved Disciple strain their muscles, running to the tomb to see for themselves. Mary stands, weeping outside the tomb, thinking her friend’s body has been stolen. And when Mary comes to understand that Jesus has been raised she proclaims, “I have seen the Lord.” With her own two eyes. Seen. Experienced. Felt. An embodied knowing. 

Later that evening, the Resurrected Jesus appeared to all of his friends and brought greetings of peace. Again, this is an embodied faith experience. “We have seen the Lord,” his friends say, echoing Mary. Seen. With their own two eyes. Experienced. Felt. An embodied knowing. 

Except for one friend. Thomas. Thomas wasn’t there that evening. And when the friends told him later, “We have seen the Lord!” Thomas is incredulous, just as you would expect. And he says, I have to see for myself. With my own two eyes. Only Thomas goes one step further. “Unless I put my finger in the mark of the nail and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

Thomas needs to not only see but touch.

A week later, Thomas gets his wish. Again, Jesus appears to the disciples, only this time Thomas is there, too. Jesus knows exactly what Thomas needs and invites him to see and touch. Thomas responds with a faith statement stronger than any other made in this gospel, “My Lord and my God!”

“My Lord and my God,” says Thomas. Seeing, touching, knowing, experiencing fully a newfound embodied faith. It’s not just a head thing. It’s not just a heart thing. It’s an everything thing. A full bodily-kinesthetic-intellectual-emotional experience of the Divine. 

Like Thomas, our faith is intimately intertwined with our bodies. Matter matters. 

It matters to us. It matters to God. We aren’t just spirits floating around in this world - we are embodied. God breathes her Spirit, her ruach into creation and it comes alive. Jesus breathes onto his followers and bestows the Holy Spirit upon them. God comes to us as an infant child, rushing headlong into the world in a mess of bodily fluids. God loves all of creation, including all physical matter. God loves your body and my body and the body of the person sitting next to you. 

We are not spirits floating around without bodies. We are not bodies devoid of spirit. Instead, we are holy messes of skin, bone, flesh, and the divine. We are infused with the very breath of God. Our faith is meant to be embodied because matter matters to God.

Polar bears and chickadees. River streams and falling rain. Molecules and quarks and black holes and things we don’t even have names for yet. God loves it all.

Our bodies are known fully and loved fully by the God who is the very source of our being. We are – all of us – created in God’s image….and our bodies, of every structure, size, age, and ability; bodies of every gender and ethnicity….our bodies are holy. 

This is why Jesus weeps with the people of Iran and Israel and Palestine and everywhere else in the world where bombs fall and children starve. This is why Jesus weeps when trans children and adults are bullied by lawmakers - unable to fully honor their own bodies and unable to make their own healthcare decisions. Jesus’s heart breaks that there are so many among us who are dying for lack of access to clean water, nourishing food, and all the modern miracles that can be found in doctor’s offices. And surely Jesus’s guts are moved with deep compassion by the sight of people putting their own bodies on the line between ICE and their neighbors. And Jesus knows what it’s like to be mistakenly labeled a thug or terrorist, shut up in a jail cell, feared by those in power. 

Our bodies of every structure, size, age, and ability; bodies of every gender and ethnicity; bodies in every nation all over the world are holy. The bodies of our friends and neighbors matter to God. The bodies of strangers and our enemies matter to God. 

We are called to live an embodied faith. A faith that cares for bodies, cares about bodies.

A faith that calls us to steward our bodies and the Earth as best we can. A faith that calls us to remember that God is present in each and every particle of creation and that we called to treat all people and our Earth with dignity and respect. 

When we take the bread and the cup, we taste and see that Christ is still with us. “This is my body, this is my blood,” Christ says, inviting us to take it into our bodies, uniting ourselves with Christ’s ongoing presence in the world. 

Christ compels us to see the beauty and terror of this world with our own two eyes. To offer a hug or gentle touch to those who despair. To breathe deeply and with intention, remembering our connection to every other living being on the planet. To hear the joyful sound of children laughing and to raise our voices as we pray and advocate for peace and justice. 

We are invited to do all of this in the name of the one who came and embodied faith to its fullest, so that all people and all creation might have life and have it abundantly. Amen. 

“Sustainer”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Acts 2:1-12

June 8, 2025 - Pentecost

Confession: if one is allowed to have a favorite person of the Trinity, mine in the Holy Spirit. It’s the representation of God that’s the least person-like and that’s always felt like it made sense to me. The Spirit feels mysterious, mystical, always-present, even though I can’t necessarily see it. A little quirky, surprising, and hard to make sense of. Feels right to me. 

And so, I’ve always loved Pentecost – the day when the Holy Spirit makes her grant debut. I love the wild and wonderful story of the early followers of Jesus speaking in tongues. And I almost always giggle at that line in the story about the folks not being drunk because it was too early in the morning. 

Like any holiday, some years it comes and you feel like partying. Other years, not so much. These past six months, I’ve listened to so many people confess that they don’t feel much like partying these days. People are experiencing such grief and disillusionment in the current political (and actual) climate. It can be hard to let loose and celebrate when you’re worried sick. And then I’ve also talked to people who have somewhat-sheepishly told me they are experiencing moments of great joy in the midst of all the chaos and destruction. And they feel guilty about that. To which I say: never feel guilty about joy. It is one of the great gifts of being human. Joy in a time of despair is defiant resistance. There’s nothing wrong with feeling joy even in the midst of horror. It means you’re still human, and that’s a very good thing. 

One of the most challenging things about preaching is knowing that every single time we preachers step into a pulpit, it’s not possible for us to speak a word that will meet everyone’s needs. Because some folks are coming in on a high – they feel good! They want to laugh and party and have a great time! And sitting right next to them in the pew is someone else who is in the depths of despair and needs silence, or a place to cry. This is why I’ve always said that if there’s something in worship that falls flat with you or that you don’t like – music, a prayer, the whole sermon – that’s a good thing. Because that probably means someone else in the congregation is getting their needs met in that moment. Worship is like any other communal act – parts of it will resonate for you and parts of it won’t. That’s the nature of living in community. 

In general, the dominant U.S. culture is more affirming of celebration than mourning. We love a good party. We’re not quite as sure how to handle grief. The Church has an important role to play in holding space for pain, for tears, for hopelessness, for exhaustion. And the Spirit can help us as we acknowledge the brokenness present in our world and, instead of trying to immediately jump up and fix it, just sit with it and name it. 

The Church has to be a place for both, I think. A place to sing and party and have fun AND a place to grieve and worry and feel down. Like many of our holy days, this day – Pentecost – has room for all of it. 

Let’s look at the actual text for a minute. Despite the party-like atmosphere of Pentecost in many contemporary churches, it’s not as if all the followers of Jesus were gathered for a party. So far in the book of Acts, two things have happened. First, Jesus has left the building. After popping in and out for forty days after his execution and resurrection, he has finally ascended into heaven, leaving the disciples with the heavy lifting in his absence. When they take a moment to gaze up at the sky, likely feeling shocked, bereft, and shaky, two heavenly beings command them to stop lollygagging around. Second, the disciples have taken care of a piece of administrative business. Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus, has died in a freak accident and the disciples need to elect someone to replace him.

Immediately after Matthias is selected to join the group, we learn that the day of Pentecost has come and that they were all together in one place in Jerusalem. Out of nowhere, a rush of a violent wind comes and fills the home where they are sitting. The Greek gets pretty funky here and it seems to be impossible for the author of Acts to convey what exactly took place, but somehow everyone present is filled with the Holy Spirit and begins to speak in various languages. As the roar of their voices grows louder and louder, their neighbors notice. Jews from all over the world gather at the house because they are surprised to hear their own languages being spoken. They are astounded and scoff at the followers of Jesus, supposing them to be filled with new wine.

But they aren’t filled with new wine at all. This isn’t a party atmosphere. What we have here is a group of grieving, lost people. They have lost their friend and leader. They are left behind, quite literally, and trying to figure out what to do next. You could describe them as empty, despairing, bewildered. 

And then, suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, the Holy Spirit shows up. And just like that, they are filled. The house is filled with a rush of wind. The disciples are filled with the Spirit. They are filled to overflowing and, finally, Peter can no longer contain himself. He raises his voice and speaks out, asserting that this gift of the Spirit has been poured out upon them so that they can see visions, dream dreams, and prophesy. Peter believed that this is a sign that the Lord’s great and glorious day is coming soon and that all who have need will be made whole.

In spite of their emptiness, fear, uncertainty, and grief the disciples are visited by the Holy Spirit. In fact, I think it may be because of their fear, uncertainty, and grief that they are especially good candidates for being filled with the Spirit and called forth into a new way of being.

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes that the fruits of the Spirit are love, peace, forbearance, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These things may all be true, but the Holy Spirit is a multifaceted old girl and I tend to think that in this particular passage she shows up as the Sustainer.

When we’ve hit rock bottom and we’re not sure how to get back up, the Holy Spirit is there propping us up so we can continue to stand. When the phone call comes and the voice on the other end has bad news, the Holy Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. When depression sets in; when the argument with someone we love feels too big to heal; when we have no idea where this world is headed; when violence and hatred is so loud….the Holy Spirit is there, quietly and mightily sustaining us.

Pentecost is the advent of the Spirit in our midst. And Pentecost is not a one-time event. It happens several times in the Book of Acts alone. Just remember Philip’s baptism of the man from Ethiopia; or Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus; or Peter’s encounter with Cornelius that we read a few weeks ago, when he discovered God had much wider plans for the followers of Christ than anyone had previously imagined.

In each of these stories, the Spirit comes to places of great emptiness and longing and fear and rushes in like a mighty wind. The Spirit is a not a “fixer” – wielding her power to deftly wipe away all problems. The Spirit’s method is, at once, wild and gentle, somehow managing to fill up our empty places while still honoring our pain. Spirit says to us, “I can see how hard this is for you right now. I won’t leave you. I’m right here with you, and together we will find a way to move forward.” 

In the Pentecost story in Acts 2 the Holy Spirit does an astounding thing. It comes to this despairing group of people, who are totally caught up in their own grief and loss. And instead of ignoring their grief or throwing a party, the Spirit moves within them and opens them up to the wide world around them. The Spirit gives them words that the world needs to hear. The Spirit brings a new community to them and enables them to converse freely with people who had previously been strangers. In short, the Holy Spirit enables them to meet their neighbors right where they are and speak a word of Good News to them.

This is astounding! These people, who have lost so much, are the ones called upon and equipped to share the Gospel with strangers. They are called out of themselves into a place of deep unity with the world around them. 

And this is what the Church still needs. If the Church is to continue to do what Jesus charged us with in the beginning of Acts – to be his witnesses to the ends of the Earth – then we need the Holy Spirit to sustain us, fill us, equip us, and embolden us to be bearers of Love to our neighbors. Not in spite of our grief and fear but because of it. 

In times of joy and – perhaps most especially – in times of deepest despair, the Spirit comes to sustain us. This is the Gospel of Pentecost. Thanks be to God. 

“See Again”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Acts 9:1-20

May 25, 2025

For many years I had a brightly colored piece of paper hanging on the wall of my office with two words on it: “See again.” It came from an activity during a class I led on Marcus Borg’s book The Heart of Christianity. The leader’s notes from the curriculum asked me to print out pieces of paper with different phrases from one of Borg’s chapters and hang them around the room. Each of them represented something about what it’s like to be “born again,” which was, as you can imagine, a challenging topic in a room full of progressive Christians. We all probably carried some baggage with the label of “born again” so those phrases hung all over helped us explore the concept without shutting down. 

I liked the one that said “see again” so much that I couldn’t bear to throw it away. It hung on my wall for several years and it kept falling off, over and over again. So I had to keep hanging it up over and over again…I have a sneaking suspicion that the not-sticky-enough tape was probably the Spirit’s way of reminding me I needed to see that piece of paper again.

Choosing to follow Jesus is all about seeing again…and again...and again. Once we get so sure of something that we stop seeing it is when I think we’re in danger of losing our way. Instead, we have to keep picking up the messy pieces of our faith that fall off the walls around us, looking at them anew, and deciding whether they should go back on the wall or not. 

This morning, I want to invite us to see this story about Saul again. If you look in the Bible, it probably has a header on it that says something like “The Conversion of Saul” (quick reminder that those headings were not in the original text, but added by modern publishers). Most people would tell you that this is a story about Saul’s conversion from Judaism to Christianity, but that’s not quite right. After all, Christianity didn’t exist yet. The Church didn’t exist yet. Jesus lived and died as a faithful Jew. Some Jews saw him as an important teacher and wanted to follow him. And some Jews, like Saul, didn’t know Jesus. Some of those Jews probably could have cared less about Jesus. Some were probably completely unaware he existed. And a small number, like Saul, were angry at the Jesus-followers. 

Regardless, this story is less about a conversion from one religion to another and more a story about a conversion from violence and anger to openness and peace. 

It makes perfect sense to me that Saul would have to give up his love of persecution and violence in order to follow the Way. How can one follow the Prince of Peace without loving peace?

Of course, there have been countless people who have said they follow Jesus but don’t love peace. There have, sadly, always been Christians who fall into the trap of worshiping violence rather than peace. The siren call of violence is so strong. Not just for Christians, of course, but for all humans. When we are angry and feel like we need to defend….when we are afraid and feel like we need to protect….we so often choose violence, just like Saul did. 

This past week I binged a very violent show on Netflix, American Primeval. Please note that I’m not necessarily recommending it because, hoo boy, was it horrifically difficult to watch. I spent a lot of time with my hands over my face. The setting is the Utah War of 1857 and it’s all about various groups of people mixing and mingling in the place that we now call Utah. So many groups and characters to keep track of - men from the U.S. Army and federal government; men, women, and children from several native nations including the Paiutes and Shoshones; the leaders of the Latter Day Saints and the Mormon Militia doing their bidding; “mountain men” who have come from the East to settle because they’re seeking prosperity or running away from something; everyday women, men, and children from the LDS church who are coming West to seek their Zion. 

Everyone is either fighting for dominance over this land or just trying to keep their head down and disappear. The show has a lot of historical inaccuracies but the truths that the creators were trying to tell about the overarching history of the American West ring true. 

Over and over and over again, these groups act out of fear. Over and over and over again, violence begets violence as they seek retribution for sins committed against them. A few wise women can see where this is all headed - the mother of one of the Shoshone warriors gets it. One of the wives traveling West with a band of Mormons understands. But most don’t really see. They don’t fully understand how hate and fear layered on top of more hate and fear can only lead to death. 

As I watched all these horrors unfold, indiscriminately, across every single group, I found myself thinking again and again, “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Those who worship at the altar of violence reap what they sew. So it has always been and so it will always be, I suppose. 

And perhaps this is what happened to Saul on the road to Damascus that day. Rather than being blinded by the light that shone around him as the voice of the Lord boomed, perhaps he was blinded, instead, by his love of violence. “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” - including this persecutor and purveyor of violence, Saul. 

Whether he was truly blinded by the light or because he worshiped at the false altar of violence, Saul does eventually regain his sight. In Damascus, he encounters Ananias, who has been told in a vision to seek out this Saul and help restore his sight. Ananias is understandably nervous about intentionally seeking out Saul, who has a reputation for killing people like Ananias. But the message from God is clear. Ananias has a job to do. 

And so, he goes and looks for Saul so he can help restore his sight. The message he carries with him is not a message of victory. God doesn’t tell Ananias that everything will be okay for Saul and that he’s become a big winner. Instead, the voice of God says that Saul will become an instrument to point people toward the Way of Jesus. The voice says to Ananias, “Go, for Saul is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

When Saul opens his eyes and is baptized, he chooses to see EVERYTHING again. And as he seeks to walk in the Way of Jesus, the call from God is very clear. He is not called to win. He is called to suffer. 

Following Jesus almost always looks like being a loser. Not being a winner. 

Earlier this week I was talking with someone about what Jesus represents. Like, if you had to really boil it down to just one value, one idea, one word - could you? We both felt that the essence of what Christ came to represent might be compassion. 

Not winning, not persecuting, not protecting, not defending. Compassion. 

Jesus did not come to point to himself and proclaim that he’s the best and only way to find God. 

Jesus did not come as a magic trick -  making it oh-so-easy for us to do whatever we want and then say a simple prayer and have all our sins wiped away. 

Jesus did not come so that we could divide and divide and divide again into a million little groups, intent on destroying one another. 

Jesus didn’t come to reinforce our own beliefs or make us all the more certain that our way is the right way. 

Jesus came to urge us to see again. And again. And again. To keep being born anew into the ways of compassion and grace. 

Jesus came as the Prince of Peace. And this story reminds us that following Jesus is never about “breathing threats and murder.” It’s always about compassionately seeking nonviolent paths as we create a more just world. 

The siren call of violence is still so very strong. And you don’t have to look too hard to find people who are pretending to follow Jesus but are actually bowing down at the altar of hate instead. And none of us are immune to the temptation to believe that violence might be an easy solution to complex problems. 

In a world where we’re told that winning is everything, we are mostly called to be losers. In a world where people and groups continue to puff themselves up to make themselves feel bigger and better than everyone else around them, we are called to empty ourselves for the sake of love. We are called to be instruments of peace and compassion. Again and again and again. 

May the scales of violence, fear, and hatred fall from our eyes, O God. May we keep seeking ways to “see again.” To pause, to recenter, to fix eyes once more on Christ’s ways of compassion and peace. May it be so. Amen. 

“Faith-full Five: Scent”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Acts 10:1-7

May 18, 2025

This week we’re continuing our exploration of how we experience the Holy through our five senses. We started this series by pondering taste and heard that lovely story about Jesus making breakfast on the beach for his disciples after the Resurrection. Last week we were in the park and we heard the story of Elijah listening for the presence of God in the sound of slience.

Today we’re moving from our tastebuds to our ears to our noses. Our sense of smell can bring us a lot of pleasure. As I’ve been riding my bike around town this spring I am often surprised by a sudden burst of fragrance when I zoom past a lilac bush. Ahhhhhh. And there are so many other smells in nature that we love - the smell of fresh-cut grass, the scent of rain, the salty air by the beach, that somewhat-indescribable crisp smell of snow, or - one of my very favorites - the smell when you lay down on a bed with sheets that have been dried outside. Ahhhhhh. 

Our sense of smell is also very practical. Without it, food can lose its taste completely, which can be a real bummer. It turns out we rely on smell not only to enjoy our food, but also for our well-being and safety. We humans have evolved with a keen sense of smell to help alert us when food has spoiled or is otherwise unsafe to eat. Just think about what you do when you’re not sure if the milk has gone bad. You sniff it, right? 

And our noses also help us stay safe in other ways - the smell of smoke alerts us that we need to be on the lookout for a fire. In our modern world, we add an odor to natural gas so we’ll know if this invisible danger is present. And those of us who grew up in the Midwest probably all know the smell of a storm coming in. 

Our sense of smell can help human enjoy life and stay safe. But sometimes it can also get people in trouble. I’m thinking of the scents that we carry unknowingly in and on our bodies. People don’t often notice their own smells - like their own laundry detergent or shampoo - because they’re used to them. But when they’re around someone from a different place or culture they may suddenly think, “that’s different than what I’m used to,” and sometimes even feel a bit of fear. 

Humans notice these differences because we’re hardwired to be skeptical of things that seem foreign to us. Hold onto your seats because I’m about to tell you something that might blow your mind. Did you know that babies are racist? It’s kind of hard to say that out loud but study after study has shown it to be true. Babies as young as 6-9 months old associate people who are the same race as them with positive emotions and people who are a different race than them with negative emotions. [1] 

The theory is that we evolved to have a natural skepticism of people from out-groups - people who don’t look, sound, or smell like us. And so, it turns out that even though lots of people like to say that you have to learn racism, it turns out we actually have to UNLEARN racism. We have to be carefully taught to welcome those who don’t look like us, who come from other places, who speak other languages, who cook with different ingredients. 

This means the color-blind approach that so many adults have used around children turns out to not be helpful. Instead, multiple studies show that what children need is adults who will explicitly speak to them about differences - giving them the vocabulary to name and confront racism, naming social and historical contexts that perpetuate white supremacy. When children have this knowledge, they are much more likely to see, name, and hopefully even confront discrimination. [2] 

Fortunately for us, our Bible is full of stories about seeing, naming, and ending discrimination. And today’s story from the Book of Acts is one of those stories. 

The Book of Acts is a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. After Jesus’s resurrection, the story continues, only now the disciples are left alone to try and figure out how to continue living like Jesus in his absence. The author of Acts tells us right up front what is going to unfold. In chapter 1, the Resurrected Christ departs for the final time - we’ll hear that story in just a few weeks on Ascension Sunday. As he’s leaving, he tells the disciples ”You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

And that’s exactly what happens. The Holy Spirit arrives on the scene in wind and flame in Acts 2 with the story of Pentecost. Faithful Jews from all over are gathered in Jerusalem and they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The disciples witness to them about the things that Jesus did while here on earth and on that day, about 3,000 Jews were baptized and became followers of The Way. 

A little later, the scene shifts beyond Jerusalem. In chapter 8 Philip goes to Samaria, witnessing to many there and even convincing a magician named Simon who had previously purported to be a prophet himself, to follow The Way. After leaving Samaria, Philip takes the wilderness road to Gaza and encounters an Ethiopian court official, witnesses to him, and baptizes him. 

In chapter 9 Saul has a vision of the Resurrected Christ while on the road to Damascus and is transformed from a persecutor of Jesus’s followers to a zealous follower of The Way. He takes a new name: Paul. And so we see that it’s unfolding just as Jesus said, ”You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

By the time we get to chapter 10 we’ve moved beyond even Samaria. We’re in Caesarea, further north. A port city on the Mediterranean Sea, it was far from Jerusalem not only in terms of distance, but also culture. It was a thoroughly Romanized city, functioning as the Roman capital in Judea. And so we meet Cornelius, who would have certainly been considered an outsider to Jesus’s followers. He’s a Roman soldier and he’s not Jewish. Note that at this point, all of the followers of The Way were faithful Jews. There was no such thing as Christianity yet. It was just Jews following the teachings of Jesus. Gentiles - non-Jews like Cornelius - were not yet a part of the fold. 

Cornelius may be an outsider but he sounds like a good guy. Despite being a soldier in the occupying army, Cornelius was “a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God.” Cornelius receives a vision of an angel, who tells him God has noticed his prayers and generosity. The angel tells him to send messengers to Joppa to find a man called Simon Peter. Despite having no idea who Peter was and despite the long walk to Joppa - about 40 miles - Cornelius did what he was told. He sent a group of three servants to look for Peter. 

Meanwhile, Peter is in Joppa and also has a vision. And it’s a doozy. While praying on the roof, his tummy starts grumbling because it’s lunchtime. And he sees a sheet being lowered to the earth, as if held on all four corners. The sheet is filled with all kinds of animals that look tasty. A voice tell Peter to go and eat. But Peter protests, saying, “No way. I know I’m not supposed to eat those animals because they are considered unclean.” And then the voice from heaven says, “What God has made clean, you must not call unclean.” 

This odd vision repeats itself three times and Peter is left scratching his head, unsure of what it all means. Suddenly, the three men from Caesarea arrive outside, looking for a man named Simon Peter. The voice tells Peter that God has sent them and that he should go greet them. He does and when they tell him he needs to come back with them to Caesarea - remember, 40 miles away! - he agrees. 

When they arrive, they discover Cornelius has gathered an audience. He’s brought his friends and family to await Peter’s arrival. That’s how sure he is that Peter is coming. The two men discover that they’ve both had visions - Cornelius was told he’s supposed to listen to this faithful Jew and Peter suddenly understands that the vision he received was about removing the imagined barriers between ethnic groups. He says he knows he’s not supposed to associate with people like Cornelius - Romans, Gentiles, outsiders - but that God showed him that he’s not supposed to call anyone unclean or profane anymore. And so this boundary that existed between these two groups becomes more porous. Both of these highly-esteemed men are shown that they have no reason to fear each other, that God loves them both, and that they are to cooperate and work together and welcome others to The Way of Jesus. 

What happens next is known as the “Gentile Pentecost.” Peter begins preaching to the Gentiles gathered, telling them all about how God’s love is for everyone and the things that Jesus did and taught. The Jews who had come along with Peter are very surprised when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Gentiles - and the Gentiles begin praising God and speaking in tongues - just as they had seen happen with the Jews back in Jerusalem. But seeing is believing and the Jews come to understand that the Gentiles also belong. Peter says, “Who could withhold the gift of baptism from people who have clearly received the Holy Spirit just like us?” And so the Gentiles are also baptized in the name of Jesus, just as the Jews in Jerusalem had been.  

I can imagine them all gathering around a table together later that evening - the smells of foods from their two different cultures mixing and mingling. Maybe they introduced each other to favorite jokes from their own groups that the others had never heard before. Perhaps they discovered similar songs or stories that they all knew. 

It’s not a happily-ever-after ending. The Book of Acts goes on to describe a lot of fighting between leaders of The Way about this very issue. Can faithful Jews sit at tables with Gentles and share a meal? Is it really okay to welcome outsiders into the group? How do we combine different groups into one big group where everyone feels valued and respected?

The leaders in the early Church certainly didn’t unlearn their fear of outsiders perfectly or easily. And it is, unfortunately, very clear that this is a lesson we are still trying to learn in the Church today. But the expectation of the Holy Spirit is clear: God’s love is poured out on everyone. Absolutely everyone. And we are invited - no, commanded - to gather at tables with dishes that we’ve never eaten before, dishes that might even smell funny to us at first, with open hearts, ready to taste and see (and small) the presence of Christ in every person we meet. 

May it be so. 

NOTES:

[1] 

https://www.utoronto.ca/news/racial-bias-may-begin-babies-six-months-u-t-research-reveals

https://time.com/67092/baby-racists-survival-strategy/ 

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2020/if-babies-and-toddlers-can-detect-race-why-do-so-many-parents-avoid-talking-about-it/

[2] 

https://www.newsweek.com/even-babies-discriminate-nurtureshock-excerpt-79233 

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/in-blind-pursuit-of-racial-equality.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com 

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/how-raise-anti-racist-babies-according-psychology-ncna1232031