Sermon Text: Genesis 1: 1-24a
June 15, 2014
First Congregational UCC
– Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
My
eldest niece is fifteen years old. She was born on April 15, 1999. Two days
after she came home from the hospital with my sister and her husband, Columbine
happened. I was a freshman in college. My mom was still a public school
teacher. I remember feeling outraged, horrified, terrified. I didn’t want my
mom to go back to school the next day.
It
was certainly not the first incidence of violence in a school. But it was the
first to catch my attention in a major way. Many of you probably saw the map
being passed around this week of all the school shootings that have happened
since Sandy Hook, back in December 2012. A group called Everytown for Gun Safety came up with a statement that there have
been 76 school shootings since Sandy Hook. Immediately, naysayers jumped in,
noting that ONLY fifteen of those have been similar in nature to Sandy Hook –
meaning a shooter at large in or near a school attempting to harm people at
random. The other 61 were drug-related, gang-related, or accidents.
I’m
sure if you asked the mothers and fathers of the kids who were killed in those
“other” 61 shootings they would tell you they don’t count quite as much. Right?
Earlier
this week I googled, “number of school shootings since Columbine” and found a
Wikipedia article listing all of them. I tried to count them all. I came up
with 146. I may have missed a few as I was scrolling.
How
many is too many? Does it matter if it’s 15 or 76 in 18 months? Can we really
be okay with 146 in 15 years?
If
I seem angry, I am. I am outraged, frustrated, guilt-ridden, terrified.
My
sister-in-law Sheri is from a smallish town in New Brunswick called Moncton.
She lives in the States now with my brother and their two kids. You’ve probably
never heard of it. But you may have heard of it in the past week because on
June 4th the entire city was on lockdown for over 24 hours while the
police looked for an armed shooter. Three Royal Canadian Mounted Police
(affectionately called Mounties by those up north) were killed in the line of
duty. One of them, Douglas Larche, was the husband of Sheri’s friend Nadine. They
have three daughters ages 4, 6, and 8. The other two men who were killed were
named Fabrice Gevaudan and Dave Ross.
When
the funeral was held for the three fallen officers, Mounties from all over
Canada streamed into Moncton to honor those who died. In Canada, police
officers don’t often get shot. Here in the U.S. I counted 24 officers who have
died from gunfire in 2014.[1]
Oh, sure, we have a lot more officers in the U.S. I mean, you can split hairs
and do the math any number of ways. But…still….how many is too many? How much
is enough?
In
case you couldn’t tell already, this is a messy sermon. There are so many
directions we could go today…here we are in the park, celebrating the Earth and
our communion with animals. It’s also Trinity Sunday. It’s also Father’s Day. I
apologize that I’m not going to do those things justice today.
But
I couldn’t let go of those two images that I saw over and over this week….the
thousands of Mounties lined up, processing in to Moncton to honor those who
died. And the map of all the school shootings in the U.S. since Sandy Hook.
They wouldn’t let me go.
Many
of you may be getting nervous right about now. Is this going to be a sermon
about gun control? It’s not. I don’t pretend to have the answers when it comes
to guns and violence in our society. I’m not here to make policy
recommendations.
My
role is to preach the Gospel….and I don’t know about you but when I turn on the
news, I need the Gospel.
And
today the Gospel comes to us in one of our stories of creation. The creation
stories we have in our sacred texts are not mean to be science texts. If you
want to know the physical origins of humanity and the Earth, please don’t go
reading the Bible. The people who shaped and retold these stories didn’t even
have “science” the way we understand it as a concept.
Instead,
our ancestors, who told and retold these stories were trying to do something
else. They were trying to answer that
never-abating question of humanity, “Where did we come from?” But they weren’t
thinking of cells and blood types and genetic markers.
Instead,
they were struggling to figure out their place in this world. Aren’t we all?
One
of my favorite preachers, Barbara Brown Taylor, suggests that the creation
stories in Genesis are counter-cultural.[2]
They are the protests of the people of Israel who are being held captive by the
Babylonians. The Babylonians had their own stories of creation…stories that
were violent and bloody. But the Israelites told stories that were full of
naming, blessing, and connecting.
In
the beginning….God created. And then God named. “God called the Light ‘Day’ and
the Dark ‘Night’…. God called the Dome ‘Sky.’” And in our second creation story
– we didn’t read it today, but you may remember it…it’s the one with Adam and
Eve – we see that Adam, too, is called to be a Namer. Adam’s first task as a
human is to name the animals and enter into relationship with them.
There
is power is naming. When we name something we say, “I see you. I recognize that
you are there.” In a world where people often feel isolated and invisible, this
is no small thing. And we are in a long-line of Namers, going all the way back
to Adam and Eve and God at the dawn of time.
One
of the things I love about First Congregational is that we use names. People
wear nametags to make this easier – thank you! I was moved the first time I
went to Second Helping and saw that we have a volunteer position at that meal
that is called “host.” This is a person whose very job it is to know names, use
names, greet people, offer hospitality, say hello. Oh, I know this may seem
small to you, but it is not. There is almost nothing sweeter than being greeted
by name. It matters. God knows this. In the beginning…God named.
And
in the beginning…God blessed. Over and over again we heard the refrain: “and
God saw that it was good.”
One
of my colleagues, JT Hills, serves a church in Tell City, Indiana. When we were
talking about violence earlier this week, JT wisely said this:
“What if, instead of learning every detail of a shooting, we went
out to care for the people in our lives? What if church was the place where
people could come lay their burdens down and be accepted, welcomed, and loved
for who they are? What if we loved all the people we met? What if we were the
example to give other people about how to care for one another? What if we did
all of these things instead of just saying we did these things? What if we were
authentic in our action that springs forth from faith?
Maybe we don't agree on what to
do about guns and violence. But maybe we can instead get to the root of
violence and respond in love. Maybe we start with telling our youth that we are
here to listen, that we are here to help in those darkest of moments.”
JT’s focus is on the power the
Church has through blessing. And, in particular, JT was thinking of the youth
in his congregation. Which made me, of course, think of the youth in our
congregation.
I would say we are incredibly
lucky to have a core group of amazing youth here…but luck isn’t the right word for
it. We have a youth director, Tracey Weston, who has been actively blessing the
youth of our community for a decade. Tracey loves these kids. And the kids love
each other.
Many of the youth who are a part
of our youth group don’t belong to families that are an official part of our
church so their names may not be familiar to you. When I heard that, that was
my first clue that we are doing something hugely important with our youth
program. We are pulling in kids from outside of our church. They are coming
here to gather with Tracey and the other youth because they find First
Congregational is a place where they can be named and blessed. Kids, just like
the rest of us, need to be loved. I am so thankful that we are actively loving
our youth in this community.
Finally, in our creation stories
we see a God who connects. As God creates each part of the Earth, components
are linked together….the land, the sea, the plants, the animals, humanity…all
come together in a beautiful swirling mass and God looks on all of it and
pronounces it good. And when God creates Adam from the dust, God immediately
realizes it is not good for a person to be alone, so God creates the animals.
But even that is not enough, so Eve is created from Adam’s body. They are
inextricably linked, right there from the beginning.
And aren’t we all? Inextricably
linked, I mean. Not actually carved out from ribs.
We are. We are all deeply
connected, whether we choose to recognize it or not. And being connected is
hard. Especially when we so often deeply disagree with one another. I have seen
so many people I respect arguing and arguing over how to make this a more
peaceful world for our children….they want to get to the same place but are
deeply divided over how to get there. I say, keep arguing, because at least if
you’re arguing you are connected. And there are
positive, productive ways to argue. We in the Church need not be afraid of
arguing. We just need to do it with integrity and love, ever-mindful that the
person on the other side of the table is just that…a person. A beloved child of
God. A sinner and a saint. Messed up and forgiven. Just like us.
Connecting is another thing I see
happening here at First Congregational. Do you know about the Ministry of the
Decorative Scissors that happens in our building once a month? If you don’t,
you need to sit down with Sue Gerth and hear all about it. It is a connection
point for people in this community. People come to craft all day long…but the
crafting is really just the means to an end. The real goal is connection. It is
a place where people can come as they are and be welcomed, accepted, and
affirmed. It’s truly amazing.
Naming – Blessing – Connecting.
In the midst of a complicated world filled with violence, we are called to
follow in the footsteps of our Stillcreating God to do the same. We name those
we encounter. We bless creation and the people in it. And we walk, ever mindful
that we are never alone – we are always connected to the Earth and each other.
We don’t do it perfectly, but we wake up each day and try to do it again. It is
hard work. I am thankful that we are in it together and that God goes with us,
naming – blessing – connecting each day.
*** For the framework of naming –
blessing – connecting, I am indebted to my colleague and friend the Rev. Mike
Mather and the people of Broadway UMC in Indianapolis, IN. They have been
naming – blessing – connecting for a long time and it has been my privilege to
learn from them.***
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