"Stay Woke"

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

November 22, 2015

Sermon Text: Mark 13: 1-8

Jesus and his friends were in Jerusalem. They had just spent time at the temple there – the most holy of all holy places in their faith. Jesus had been teaching there during the day and after he finished up, the entourage walked out into the bright sunlight.

Shielding their eyes. Refocusing. His disciples looked up at the big city around them and said, “Teacher, look at how big these buildings are! Look how enormous the stones are!”

And Jesus, who may have been given the nickname “killjoy” behind his back, also notices how sturdily constructed the buildings are and how enormous the stones are. And he says, “Do you see all these great buildings? Not one stone will be left standing. All will be thrown down.”

To understand why Jesus is so cranky about these big, beautiful buildings, we have to rewind a little bit. Go back in time to the moment just before the disciples emerged into the bright Jerusalem sun.

Jesus had spent the day teaching in the temple. After he finished his teaching, he sat down next to the treasury – the place where people deposited their gifts for the temple. A lot of rich people came up and put some money in. And then Jesus noticed a widow – a woman who had no financial resources – the widow came up and put in two small coins, worth only a penny. And this is the part where you probably remember Jesus praising her for her generosity. Pulling her aside and saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

Only that’s not what happened. Jesus does no such thing. Lots and lots of preachers have praised this woman for giving her all, but Jesus did nothing of the sort. Instead, he simply observed to his disciples that the woman had given everything she had. He doesn’t say whether this is good or bad.

But I have some theories about the judgment Jesus passed on this act. And to guess about how he felt, watching this marginalized person give the only thing she had left to the temple authorities, well….we have to rewind again. Back to the part right before the scene with the widow.

Jesus is teaching in the temple and as he taught, he cautioned everyone to “Beware of the scribes, the religious scholars, who walk around in fancy robes and set themselves apart from everyone else, and keep for themselves the best seat in the house when they go out on the town. They say long prayers…..but just because they like to have an audience. And they devour widow’s houses. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

They devour widow’s houses. They take away marginalized people’s homes just so they can keep their fancy robes and nice, big buildings. They turn away the refugee so they can keep their carefully-curated illusion of safety.

I don’t think Jesus was praising the woman who gave everything she had. I think he was sadly shaking his head, maybe with a bit of anger, as he noticed the systems that were carefully maintained to keep down. It’s likely that this unnamed woman was not freely giving her offering, like we do each week when we pass the plates. Instead, she was probably paying a portion of the tax levied on her by the religious authorities. A required payment.

So when they came out of the temple into the sun and saw the big, beautiful, awe-inducing buildings all around them, the disciples ooohed and ahhhhhed. But Jesus saw something different. He saw beyond the façade and the grandeur to the systems of his day that enabled the construction of these buildings. He thought about the widow, giving her last two coins to pay her temple tax.

And then he began to preach to his disciples about the end times. He spins a tale of desolation and destruction and terror and stars falling from heaven and a dark sun and earthquakes. Biblical scholars refer to chapter 13 as Mark’s “Little Apocalypse” and the reason the lectionary committee sneaks it in at this time of year is because we are on the eve of the Christian new year. The Christian calendar begins again with Advent each year, so it makes sense to talk about end times at the end of the year.

These texts about the “end times” are usually not very comforting to those who live or work in big, beautiful buildings – to those who have power. Because these texts weren’t written for people like me – with a roof over my head and money in my bank account. They were written for people like the widow. People sleeping on makeshift pillows in refugee camps. These words were written to give comfort to those being oppressed or living on the margins  – to say, “I know things are bad for you right now, but God is going to do a new thing. God is going to tear down these big buildings, these systems that keep you down – and God is going to make a new world with justice.”

Even though I know these apocalyptic passages mostly weren’t written for people like me – with a warm coat waiting to shelter me on the way to my warm car -  there are times when apocalyptic passages in the Bible do bring me comfort. Not because I would actually welcome earthquakes and darkened suns and stars falling from heaven, but because right about now I really REALLY need to be reminded that we humans aren’t alone on this spinning ball that’s hurtling through space.

Earlier this week, I mentioned to some friends of mine that my concern about what’s happening on the global stage right now is about as high as it ever gets. The whole world seems to be going straight to hell in a handbasket and there are no easy solutions in sight. The amount of pain that is zapped right into our living rooms, smartphones, and hearts on a daily basis is increasingly difficult to bear.

My friend suggested to me that I might need to go on a media fast – give myself a break from the pain of the world and take a few moments to notice and appreciate the goodness that still exists in this little handbasket called Earth. I do think that there are times when we have to take a moment and recollect ourselves so we can refocus before going back into the fray of humanity.

I also think that passages like this one – with cranky Jesus threatening to bring all the powers and oppressive systems of his day down in one big earth-shaking crash (and then rebuild it again, with his own hands – that part comes in the next chapter)…passages like this can give us some measure of comfort in the midst of very distressing times. Because I think the truth contained behind these words is comforting.

In Mark’s Little Apocalypse passages I hear:

“We are not alone. We live in God’s world.”

God will not forsake us or leave us….no matter how messy it gets here on Earth.

God still hears the cries of the weary, the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, the war-torn, the refugee.

God is still working for justice – God is still working to tear down systems that perpetuate poverty, racism, sexism, religious intolerance, fundamentalism that harms and blind nationalism on steroids.

“In life. In death. In life beyond death. God is with us. We are not alone.”[1]

Even all these thousands of years later, I believe God is breaking into our midst. And Jesus is here, reminding us to stay woke – stay awake! – because the good and the bad is always mixed up together and we need to pay attention or we just might miss the good news when it sneaks in right next to the bad.

In one month, we will celebrate – once again – the incarnation of Emmanuel, God-among-us. The Spirit of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love came into this world in the most unexpected of ways. And I believe we are still witnessing the in-breaking of God in our midst in 2015.

Where do we see God breaking in? When we keep our awareness about us and “stay woke,” where do we still Christ in our midst? On this Sunday when the world seems to be tilting just a little too steeply on its axis and Jesus comes to us speaking of the end times and we prepare to sit down to a Thanksgiving feast, can we express our thanks for the places we see God in the midst of all this turmoil and strife?

There is an Aramaic word at the very end of 1 Corinthians: Maranatha. It can be translated as, “Come, Lord Jesus,” or “Jesus is coming,” or “Our Lord has come.” It’s ambiguous. I kind of love that it basically means Christ has come, Christ is still arriving yet today, and Christ will come again – I also love that it’s a way of begging Christ to be more tangible. “Come, Jesus! We need you!”

I’m going to list a few places I have seen God breaking into the midst of the mess in the past few weeks and as I list them, I would encourage you to respond with that one beautifully ambiguous word, “Maranatha!”

·     God is breaking into the mess of this world in the voice of a 20-something parishioner of a colleague of mine in New York City. She called her pastor earlier this week to say that while she doesn’t have a lot of money to spare, she does have a studio apartment she’d be willing to share with a refugee from Syria. Come, O Christ. Maranatha!

·  

God is breaking into the mess, packed lovingly into packages shipped across the United States and later flown to Greece with a small group of mothers from California who collected 3,000 baby carriers to give to parents fleeing war.[2] They saw photos of parents carrying babes in arms and began to collect baby carriers so these weary parents could have a better way to carry their young children on their backs. Come, O Christ. Maranatha!

·God is breaking into the mess in the actions of strong and savvy students of color at the University of Missouri and other universities as they speak truth to power and make themselves vulnerable with the hopes of helping those institutions better understand and dismantle racism. Come, O Christ. Maranatha!

·   

God is breaking into the mess in the voices of non-Muslims all over the United States who immediately said they would personally register as Muslims if anyone in this country attempted to make Muslims register themselves in a national database. Come, O Christ. Maranatha!

God is breaking into the mess in the sweet and firm words of a father interviewed outside the Bataclan after the attacks in Paris.[3] He was there with his very young son, who was quite worried that they would have to move away because the “bad guys” might harm them with guns. The father said to his son, “It’s okay. They have guns, but we have flowers.” Come, O Christ. Maranatha!

Christ has come, Christ lives among us, Christ is coming to us, still.

“O Come, Desire of Nations, bind all peoples in one heart and mind;

Make envy, strife, and quarrels cease; fill the whole world with heaven’s peace

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.”[4]

---

[1] Portions in quotations are from “A New Creed” from the United Church of Canada.

[2] http://www.today.com/kindness/groups-volunteers-donate-baby-slings-syrian-migrants-t56056

[3] http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3e8rah_paris-attacks-november-2015-le-petit-journal-du-16-11_tv

[4] From “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” lyrics to verse 7 translated by Henry Sloane Coffin, 1916 and altered by the New Century Hymnal committee.

“Following Jesus in the Midst of Violence”

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

November 15, 2015

Sermon Texts: Isaiah 2:1-4, Matthew 5:43-48

Just like the scripture passages were wrong in the bulletin, the sermon title is wrong, today, too. I wrote that sermon earlier this week, but it’s not the one I’m giving today. One of the risks of writing a sermon on Thursday each week is that sometimes the world changes between Thursday and Sunday.

Did the world change between Thursday and Sunday this week? I don’t actually think it did. What happened in Paris this weekend was tragic, horrific, unsettling, sickening….and, sadly, it’s nothing new. We who live at the beginning of the 21^st century are accustomed, by now, to living with terror. Our nation has been involved in a “war on terrorism” for 14 years now – longer than some of us in this room have been alive.

And so I have mixed feelings about the fact that I rewrote this sermon on Saturday afternoon. After all, I did not rewrite my sermon after Boko Haram killed 2000 people in Nigeria this past January. And I did not rewrite my sermon when 147 were killed at a Kenyan university in April. And I probably wouldn’t have rewritten my sermon after the attacks in Beirut, Lebanon on Thursday killed 40 people. Many of us might not have even heard about the attacks in Beirut - or if we had, might have just lumped them in as "all that violence in the Middle East" in our heads.

But Western Europe makes the news. And the fact that so many in the U.S. are reacting so strongly to the attacks in Paris speaks volumes about what garners our attention. It’s a sad, sad state of affairs that the deaths of 2000 people in Africa barely made the news, while the deaths of 11 journalists in Paris a few days later made us sit up and pay attention. There is no excuse for the shameful reality that some lives seem to matter more than others.

I strongly considered just going on ahead and preaching that other sermon I prepared, simply because I feel so very uncomfortable with the disparities in our responses to attacks in different parts of the world. I’m still not sure I made the right choice.

And yet - I've been carrying within me this weekend such a heaviness. Just such a sense of profound sadness when I ponder the brokenness of our world right now. I'm guessing I'm not alone in this feeling of sadness. I feel that one of my tasks, as a preacher, is to attempt to create a space where the Good News of Jesus Christ and the beauty and terror of the world can comingle. A place where we can set aside the noise of CNN and Fox News and our Facebook news feed and the impassioned anger of politicians.

Our job, as followers of Jesus, is to intentionally cultivate a space where we can put aside our national identities, our ethnic identities, our political identities and re-center ourselves in our first and most-important identity: Beloved Children of God.

To be human in this particular moment in time is to clumsily attempt to hold space for so very many conflicting emotions at once. The world that we live in seems particularly fragile and unmoored these days. It sometimes feels like there is a crisis lurking around every corner. But, then, five minutes later, we experience the bliss of a perfectly blue sky, or a small child’s laughter, or the aroma of freshly baked brownies, or the simple pleasure of a kiss or embrace…and all seems right with the world. Until we turn on the news again and discover the world is so very broken.

The 24-hour-news-cycle and immediate availability of so very much information is enough to, quite literally, make us lose our minds. Or perhaps our souls. Finding a balance often seems impossible. I know some have chosen to unplug completely and others wake up at 3:00am and reflexively reach out for their iPhones to see if they’ve missed anything important. I don’t know exactly where the balance is. My guess is that it lies somewhere between those two extremes.

What I do know is this: when the world is filled with chatter, we who are people of faith often dive more deeply into our sacred texts to find a way to re-center ourselves and restore our souls for the very difficult work of being human.

In the midst of politicians that speak stern words of retribution, promising and eye for an eye, we hear now the voice of Jesus: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Love our enemies.

But how? How can we do this when we are scared? How can we love people who hate us? How can we love those who commit unspeakable acts of evil against innocents?

My friends, I don’t know. I really don’t. And yet I believe that Jesus calls us to struggle mightily with his teaching. I don’t think he said it casually. I think he meant it and I think we’re called to do it and I think we need each other very much if we have any hope of succeeding.

Because it takes courage to love our enemies. We have to realize that others will call us names and say that we’re disloyal and call us cowards. We have to realize that our friends may tire of listening to our constant love-talk when it’s so very much easier and more socially acceptable to engage in hate-talk. But the biggest thing of all, I think is this: we have to realize that it’s not safe to love our enemies. Because there is absolutely no guarantee they’ll love us back. In fact, they might just kill us instead.

Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who wish we were dead. And there’s no if, and, or but after that statement.

Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares, a sculpture by Evgeniy Vuchetich in the United Nations Art Collection

The other text that has been resting on my soul this weekend is from the First Testament. It actually exists in several places – the prophets Isaiah, Joel, and Micah all have recorded some version of it. “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they study war any more.”

Some hopeless dreamer wrote these words. Did John Lennon somehow get translated into Hebrew? Or Marvin Gaye? A world without war? A world where humans use their creativity to create tools that nurture and sustain rather than destroy and kill? Where is this place? How do we get there?

A plow is an agricultural tool created by human ingenuity. The plowshare is the sharp metal part on the front that actually cuts into the ground, disturbing the earth. By carving out furrows, the farmer breaks up anything old that might stand in the way of new growth, brings needed nutrients to the surface, and creates a safe landing space for seeds. It is an act of hope. What appears to be cold, hard, dead ground is transformed – with a little ingenuity and a lot of sweat – into a supple place for new life to grow.

And so on this particular day, when – once again – the threat of violence seems closer than we would like and the world seems more broken that we even know how to begin to understand – I find myself clinging to that image of the farmer and her plow.

Where there appears to be no way, God, help us make a way.

When the work seems too difficult, God, help us use our creativity and shared wisdom to lighten the load.

When fear closes in and crowds out love, God, help us to create furrows where small seeds can be nurtured and sustained and provide much-needed nourishment for all of your children…..those we call our neighbors and those we call our enemies.

God of peace and justice, help us to never lose sight of you in the midst of the voices that clamor for our attention.

May we seek to love all, especially when it seems impossible.

May we remember to pray, especially for those who hate us.

Examine our hearts, God of Knowledge, and bring our attention to the weapons we each harbor. Together, may we give up the false sense of security we find in our swords and spears and guns and hate-filled-speech and drones and bombs.

Guide us, O Holy One, in the more peaceful way.

Use our creativity and brilliance for good; that we, your children, might begin to plant seeds of peace in the furrows of your Love.

Amen.

"The Redeemer"

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

November 8, 2015

Sermon Text: Ruth 3:1-9, 4:13-17

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away there was a woman named Naomi who had two sons. She and her husband, Elimelech had moved from Bethlehem, in Judah, to a foreign land, Moab, because there was a famine. After they moved to Moab, Naomi’s husband died. Her two sons were grown and they married Moabite women named Orpah and Ruth. After they had lived there about a decade, Naomi’s sons died, too, and she and her daughters-in-law found themselves in the midst of a nightmare situation. They were three women, living alone, far from family that would take care of them.

Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem in hopes of finding food because the famine was over. In the day and age which she lived, women were utterly dependent on men and so Naomi encouraged her daughters-in-law to stay in Moab, their home country, because she knew she had no way of providing for them.

Orpah listened to her mother-in-law and decided to stay in Moab. But Ruth – Ruth had other plans. She told her mother-in-law, “Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.”

I often encourage people I marry to write their own wedding vows, but, really, I can’t think of any vows better than these. Ruth, for whatever reason, was faithful to Naomi. Naomi, who had nothing to offer. Naomi, who was an outsider in the land of Moab. Naomi, who had lost everything. Naomi, who could not care for Ruth. Ruth chose her anyway and refused to leave her side.

Many people love the story of Ruth and Naomi. It’s a beautiful tale of fidelity and it’s one of the few Biblical stories about women. It is the story of two brilliant and self-sufficient women working the system of their day and place to their advantage. In their culture, widowed women had no one to provide them with the necessities and were cast out into the margins of society.

Being a widow was terrifying, but there was one hope for these women. Because the God of the Israelites cared for widows, the people of Judah were required to care for them, too. Over and over again in the Hebrew Scriptures we hear God’s call to care for the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner.

There were customs in place to provide a safety net for women like Ruth and Naomi. If a man died and left his wife behind, his next-of-kin was supposed to marry her and provide for her. Of course, Naomi’s sons were both dead, so there was no brother-in-law for Ruth to marry. But Naomi was a resilient and hopeful woman, so she set her sights on a man named Boaz who was a relative of her deceased husband. It was kind of a long shot – especially since Ruth was a foreigner – but Naomi knew it was their only chance, so she sent Ruth out day after day to pick up leftovers in Boaz’s field and to try to capture his attention.

And Ruth did capture his attention. Boaz was drawn to Ruth because of her fidelity. He watches out for her when she comes to his fields day after day. He tells her she can act like one of his own servants and drink all the water she wants. He even instructs his field hands to leave some extra food laying for her on the ground so she can find it easily. Ruth is surprised by his kindness and asks why he is kind to her when she is a foreigner. He says that he’s heard of her faithfulness to her Naomi. He is impressed that she has stayed with Naomi and that she was willing to come to a foreign land to care for her. He is impressed by Ruth’s character.

Ruth’s fidelity and steadfastness seems to inspire the same in Boaz. It’s amazing how we can be so influenced by the company we keep, isn’t it? When we surround ourselves with people who seek to be kind and true, we often find ourselves working harder to do the same.

So when Ruth comes to Boaz at night and slips under his blanket, I’m sure he is shocked.

Naomi has sent Ruth here in desperation. Naomi feels certain that if Ruth will simply offer herself to Boaz, he will surely want what is being offered. She can only hope that he will also be a decent man and offer her marriage after they spend the night together.

There is so very much at stake in this moment. To put herself out there and hope against hope that she’s guessed right and that this man is a good one – that’s what Ruth had to do. I think we can all imagine the horrible things that could have happened. At the very least, he could have shamed her. He could have seen to it that she and Naomi were kicked out of Bethlehem and left with no other options.

But Boaz did none of these things. Instead, he talked with her. He listened to her plans. He told her, once again, that he greatly admired her faithfulness and capabilities.

Ruth basically proposed to Boaz, saying, “Please? Won’t you take me in? You’re the closest relative I have.” And Boaz, rule-follower that he was, responded by saying that he thought there might be another, even-closer, relative. He promised to check on things the next day and work it out.

When I was re-reading Ruth this week, I just happened to pick up my copy of the Common English Bible. I love to read different translations of familiar texts because I often find an entire story can turn on a word or a phrase. And that’s what happened this week.

In the NRSV, Ruth asks Boaz to protect her because he is her “next-of-kin.” But in the CEB, she says, “you are my redeemer.”

Boaz is her redeemer. And yes, of course, of course, this smacks of patriarchy and it makes my 21^st century feminist ears bleed. But taken in its context, it opens up worlds and worlds to me about who God is and who we are called to be.

To be someone’s next of kin is to be their redeemer. To be family is to be faithful. In this way, Boaz isn’t the only redeemer in this story. Ruth is a redeemer, too. She could have easily left Naomi and found her own way. Instead, she stayed with Naomi, no matter what.

Boaz, inspired by Ruth’s faithfulness, does the same. He sees that he has the opportunity to help these women and he wants to. But first he has to check with the other guy. Because there is another kinsman who is technically more closely related than Boaz and according to their customs, he has the right to take Ruth if he wants her.

So Boaz, the redeemer, goes to this other nameless man and says, “I am thinking of buying the land that used to belong to Elimelech, Naomi’s deceased husband. But I need to check with you first – do you want it?”  And this nameless man jumps on the opportunity. He is more than happy to discover he can own some new land.

But then Boaz says to him, “Oh, by the way, the land also comes with Elimelech’s daughter-in-law, Ruth.” And the nameless man backpedals, saying he doesn’t want the land after all.

Given the opportunity to be the redeemer, this other man doesn’t take it. Given the opportunity to take in a person who has been dealt a bad hand, he refuses. Given the chance to engage in a new relationship with a person who needs him, he backpedals. He has the chance to be a redeemer, and he takes a pass.

We don’t know his name. He is not the redeemer in this story.

The redeemer in this story is Boaz. He is the one who willingly takes notice of a woman that no one else noticed. He sees her for the person she is and he praises her for her faithfulness. He recognizes her need and does what he can to keep her safe.

There is a wonderful quotation that I love from Clarissa Pinkola Estes, who is a psychologist and poet. She says: "Mend the part of the world that is within your reach."

I believe this is what it means to be a redeemer. We are to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. We are to keep our eyes and hearts open and look for those who may need help. And then we are to do whatever is within our power to love and care for them.

God gives us the power of redemption. Because we have been redeemed by God – rescued from self-loathing, loved as we are, caressed and fiercely loved by the One who knows all of our weaknesses – because we have been redeemed by God, we are freed to redeem others.

There are people all over this world who are in need of redemption. Our world is just overflowing with people in need of salvation. But before you get on your fancy horse and go looking for a princess to save, let me give you a word of caution: all of these people, no matter how disparaged, have within them the ability to redeem themselves.

All of these people have within them the ability to redeem themselves.

They do not need me to come swooping in on a fairytale horse and tell them how much easier their lives would be if they would just be like me. That’s not what Boaz the Redeemer does. Boaz watches Ruth from afar and he learns from her. He sees in her this fierce fidelity. He recognizes that which his Holy in her and, in turn, uses the power and privilege he has to shine a light on the Holy that lives inside this woman.

No one else was looking for God in the person of Ruth. No one else was expecting to learn from her. Boaz saw her. Boaz trusted in what she had to offer. And then he became her partner and together the two of them found redemption.

To be a redeemer is to recognize the Holy in another person. It is to humble yourself and recognize that all of us, no matter how privileged or poor we are, have something to offer and all of us, no matter how privileged or poor, have something to learn.

Today and every day, we are all given the chance to be a redeemer. It is my prayer that we will open ourselves to the possibility of walking in the footsteps of Boaz and Ruth.