“Prayer: Waking Up to God”

James 5:13-20

First Congregational United Church of Christ of Manhattan, KS

Sunday, September 27, 2015

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

How do you feel when someone tells you they’ll pray for you? Do you feel warm and fuzzy and loved? Do you spiral into an existential and theological crisis wondering just what exactly prayer can do and the nature of God and whether prayer makes a bit of difference? Maybe you don’t notice much at all. After all, here in Kansas, even in 2015 it’s not an uncommon thing to hear.

The author of the Book of James certainly seems to be a big fan of prayer. It’s kind of a cure-all for him. Are you sad? The answer is prayer. Anybody sick? Pray. Feeling good? You should pray. I can imagine James getting into an argument with John and Paul, “Okay. I hear you saying that all we need is LOVE, but I’d really like you to consider changing those lyrics to ‘All you need is PRAYER.’ It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

Big fan of prayer. How I wish it were that simple for me. My relationship with this core spiritual practice has been pretty complex over the course of my life. I hope I’m won’t shatter any of your deeply-held-and-inaccurate views that pastors are perfect Christians by telling you that I really struggle with prayer sometimes.

I struggle quite a bit when I hear the words from James’s letter: “The prayer of the faithful will save the sick.” Because I’ve done a lot of praying over the years for sick people that I love. And I have seen some of those people die and some recover. And I’ve sat next to brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters who have prayed fervently and without ceasing for the salvation of their loved ones.

I’m not entirely sure what James means when he says “save the sick.” If he’s talking about something akin to being eternally with God, maybe I can get on board. But often, when people we love are very sick, we are more like, “God, SAVE THIS PERSON! Heal them. Don’t let them die!” There is often weeping and gnashing of teeth and, depending on the person praying, no small amount of cursing. And sometimes people get better. And sometimes they don’t.

So, yeah. I find praying for people who are sick to be fairly problematic. I don’t fully understand what good it does. And yet – when really terrible things are happening to people I love or to me, I have been known to frantically beg God for help. Even though I don’t think that makes sense.

Like I said, it’s complicated.

And beyond all the complex questions about the nature and efficacy of prayer, there’s the basic “how to” of prayer that can feel confounding.

When I was a child, I remember lots of adults telling me that prayer was just “talking with God” or, sometimes, “listening to God.” Like most children, I learned to pray with my eyes closed, head bowed, and there were always words that were said. Sometimes they were memorized words – like the Prayer of Jesus or “now I lay me down to sleep.” Sometimes I listened to someone else pray. Sometimes I made up the words myself. Sometimes I said the words in my head, other times aloud, but there were always words.

Over time, I started to feel like this was a rather one-sided conversation and a little pointless. I thought I might try listening to God for a change, instead of talking all the time. This was nice. From time to time I would feel a deep connection with the Holy. From time to time I would sense that God was present and reaching out to me. It can be a really nice feeling, listening to God.

Problem was, I am notoriously terrible at making time to do this. It is always so hard to find a quiet moment. And often when I do find a quiet moment, I drift off to sleep. I have no doubt that God continues to reach out to me in these times of rest, but I’m not sure if my state of unconsciousness really counts as listening to God.

Over the years, I continued my quest to find something that would really resonate with me and bring me closer to the Ultimate. Just a sampling of the things I’ve tried in my attempts to find a prayer routine that works for me:

I’ve had prayer journals – some typed, some handwritten, some just a list of all the people and places I lifted up to God in prayer. These worked well, for a time, but none of them ever lasted more than a few weeks.

I’ve tried body prayer and silent meditation. I’ve tried prayer outside, inside, in bed, in the shower, in the car, in the church, in the kitchen, on my bike, and at the gym. I’ve read inspirational books on prayer. I’ve been in prayer with lots of other people, both in big groups and small settings.

None of these efforts have been a failure. But I feel like I’m still on a quest for something more when it comes to my prayer life.

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Sometimes I feel a little sheepish that I’m not “better” at prayer. Whatever that would look like. I found comfort when I read that Barbara Brown Taylor, one of my favorite preachers and theologians, also has a complicated relationship with prayer. Like me….and maybe like some of you….Taylor’s never quite been able to settle into a prayer routine and has been in search of one for years.

In her search, Taylor encountered the work of Brother David Steindl-Rast, an Austrian Benedictine monk living in New York. Brother David was the first person to tell Taylor that “prayer is not the same thing as prayers.”[1]  It’s not that he advocates throwing out prayers altogether, it’s just that the practice of prayer is so much more than our prayers.

Brother David says that prayer is “waking up to the presence of God.”[2]  It’s not calling God to come and sit with us. It’s not allowing our souls to fly away to some distant place in the sky where we imagine God sits. Prayer is waking up to the reality that God is already present all around us. 

Compared to finding the time to sit down, quietly, and say an official, “Dear God…” kind of prayer, this seems like a piece of cake. All we have to do is wake up, right?

Only we tend to find that it’s not really that easy once we really get started. If God is present in the laundry that I’m folding, maybe I should pay more attention. If God is present in the warm dirt under my feet as I walk along the trail for some afternoon exercise, maybe I should slow down a bit and feel the sunshine radiating through the bottom of my sneakers. If God is present in the hands of the cashier at Target, maybe I ought to make eye contact as she hands me my change and thank her sincerely for her help. If God is present in the voice of the friend who calls me to complain about a bad day while I’m in the middle of making dinner, maybe I could at least sit down and listen.

If God is present everywhere and we are supposed to be awaked to God’s presence…this is really an overwhelming thing. Because, quite honestly, sometimes I don’t want to be bothered by God.

Sometimes I’m on a mission and I’ve got things I need to get done and noticing God just slows me down. Sometimes I’m feeling cranky and I don’t want to let God into my heart. I’d rather wallow in my own bad mood. Or sometimes I’m feeling really good – enjoying life and the gift of being in this world – and I’m not in the mood to be weighed down with thoughts of the Holy.

The only way I’ve been able to reconcile myself to the reality that prayer is waking up to God’s presence is to remember what it means to live and work and cry and play and breathe and grow in the presence of the Holy.

It means that we are not alone.  

It means that there is always some force of goodness and love that is with us – holding us, laughing with us, cheering us on, urging us to be better versions of ourselves. More than anything else, it means that we are always in the presence of the One who calls us Beloved and claims us as Blessed Children.

So just when I start to beat myself up about how impossible this whole “waking up to God’s presence” bit is, I realize that opening myself to God is all I need to do to make it a little easier. The very thing I need and want to do is made easier by just doing it.

I don’t exactly understand how this works. I just know that it does. I can only say what my own experience is and I fully recognize that it might not be yours. But, for me, at least, I am starting to realize that maybe prayer is mostly just about being open.

Openness is profoundly difficult and simple and monotonous and life-altering and joy-giving and frustrating all at the same time. When I am open, I approach the world in a different way. I am more likely to see God when I seek God. And I find that most of my days go better with God.

Prayer is beginning to feel less like something I actively choose to do with my time and more like a way of orienting my life. Sure, I still sit down and pray in a “Dear God, hands folded, eyes closed” kind of way from time-to-time. And I still fall asleep when I’m trying to listen for God’s voice. I still pray when I’m on my bike or on the trail. And you can be assured that many of your names have been on various scraps of paper as I’ve reminded myself to sit down and pray for you.

James says a lot in today’s passage about the power we humans have to save one another through prayer. When I think about prayer very broadly – beyond the folded-hands-Dear-God prayers the most immediately come to mind – his words begin to ring true for me. Because when we humans are trying to live a life of prayer – open to the presence of the Holiness that Comes in Love, fully awake to the presence of The More in each and every moment – when we live like that, salvation is possible.

It doesn’t necessarily look like physical healing from illness. More often salvation looks like a little kid sitting next to the class outcast at lunch, or a friend picking up the phone and listening to a deep, dark, shameful confession and offering absolution, or a person quietly and anonymously “working the program” day after day to find freedom from addiction, or people coming together to dismantle systems of oppression while simultaneously providing for the basic needs of those who are being oppressed.

Sometimes salvation is a small as a kind word or embrace at the end of a very long day or as big as a group of Germans cheering and holding up signs of welcome for refugees seeing asylum.

Maybe this is what James meant when he said prayer has the power to save. When we wake up to God, we sometimes find ourselves doing amazing, awe-some things. When we wake up to God through prayer, the very world is changed. 

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[1] Taylor 178.

[2] Ibid.

"What Matters"

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Mark 9: 30-37

First Congregational United Church of Christ – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

Jesus is trying to help his friends pay attention to What Matters. He goes up on a high mountain with some of his best friends and is transfigured into a shiny, bright creature. His friends immediately build a little shelter so they can stay together forever, but it’s not meant to be. Jesus didn’t come to stay forever. In fact, he keeps trying to tell them, “I’m leaving soon. Don’t you see?”

A little while later, the group is walking through Galilee. Jesus is trying to fly under the radar. He doesn’t want anyone to notice him and tries to explain to his friends, “I’m going to be betrayed soon. They’re going to kill me. But a few days later, I will rise.”

But the disciples? They don’t see. They don’t hear. They are too busy arguing amongst themselves: “Who do you think Jesus likes the best? Which one of us is the greatest? Who do you think is next in line to do important things?”

And Jesus catches them in the act. In my mind’s eye, I can see him shaking his head slowly. “Don’t you see? Whoever wants to be first has to be last and servant of all.” And then he finds a little child nearby and picks the child up. He walks into the center of the crowd holding the child close and says, “Whoever welcomes a child like this? Well, they’re welcoming me. And anyone who welcomes me is really welcoming the one who sent me.”

He’s trying to show them What Matters. Do they see? Do we see?

Earlier this year when I went to the Festival of Homiletics, I heard a powerful sermon by the Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber on this passage. Nadia cautioned us about the image we might have in our minds when we think of Jesus picking up a child as a prop. She says, “Lest, when we hear this story, we picture a cute little well dressed kid from an ad for the Gap – we should consider how differently children were treated and perceived back in Jesus’ day. Because sometimes it’s difficult to remember that the sentimentality we as Westerners attach to childhood is a fairly recent thing.”[1]

We need to readjust the illustration in our head when we think of Jesus. Nadia says,  “These children didn’t exactly take bubble baths every night before being tucked into their Sesame Street bed sheets and read Goodnight Moon. There was no sentimentality about childhood because childhood was actually a time of terror.  Children in those days only really had value as replacement adults but until then they were more like mongrel dogs than they were beloved members of a family…Children were dirty and useless and often unwanted and to teach his disciples about greatness and hospitality, Jesus puts not a chubby-faced angel, but THIS kind of child in the center, folds THIS kind of child into his arms and says when you welcome the likes of THIS child you welcome me.”

And so Nadia’s sermon has me thinking this week about children. The ones in our midst today. When we close my eyes and envision Jesus picking up a child today, what do we see?

For starters, we might see Ahmed Mohamed, the 14 year old who lives in Irving, Texas and was arrested this week because his teacher thought his homemade clock that he was pretty proud of was a bomb. Now, granted, Ahmed is a little big for Jesus to pick up, so maybe we’ll envision Jesus giving him a big bear hug instead. Or maybe we could envision standing there next to him in the principal’s office as he was handcuffed and led out of the school.

I’m certain Jesus was there when he was booked, whispering, “It’s okay, Ahmed. I have no idea why this is happening to you and I’m so incredibly sorry. I’ll be right here with you until it’s over. I promise.” I do think I caught a glimpse of Jesus at Ahmed’s press conference on Thursday, nudging him gently towards the microphone because surely the kid was a little nervous. I mean, he woke up Wednesday morning excited to take a project to school and by Wednesday afternoon he was a hashtag.

I see Christ in the story and in the face of Ahmed Mohamed. I hear Christ saying, “Look. Watch. Listen. This matters.”

Part of the outcry over Ahmed’s situation, of course, was that he is a brown-skinned child. Many were quick to note that if he had looked more like my children and if his name had been, oh, almost anything other than Ahmed Mohomed, he would not have been as likely to have been arrested. We hope and pray that we do not subject children to the dire consequences of living in a racist society….but we also know that we do. Every day, it seems, there’s another story of how racism hurts children.

This past week it was a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics that caught my eye. A study of children suffering from appendicitis ran from 2003 to 2010. They found that white children were more likely to receive pain killers in the E.R. when being treated for appendicitis. And even when black children received pain killers, they received lower doses. They were not able to figure out why, just that it’s happening.

And so I can imagine Jesus sitting there in the E.R. with a young black child and her father. Holding her hand and speaking words of comfort as she works through the pain. Counseling the father on how to best advocate for his child. It’s hard being a parent. It’s even harder when the deck frequently seems to be stacked against your beloved child.

I see Christ in the pages of a medical journal. I hear Christ saying, “Look. Watch. Listen. This matters.”

Aylan Kurdi and his brother, Galip. Family photo. 

And how could we forget the horrific image from just a few weeks ago of Aylan Kurdi? How I wish I could unsee that image of his sweet three-year-old body washed ashore in Turkey. He and his family were fleeing their homeland of Syria, as so many other tens of thousands have done this year. Aylan perished at sea along with his older brother and his mother.

Surely Jesus was there with them in the boat – Jesus knows a few things about storms at sea, you know. I just know that Jesus was there holding Aylan and his brother and speaking words of comfort and love. I have no idea how you would comfort a child in the midst of that terror, but I trust that Jesus knows.

I see Christ on the beach there with Aylan. I hear Christ saying, “Look. Watch. Listen. This matters.”

We want to believe, of course, that we here in the United States would handle the steady stream of refugees better. But then I think about the refugees who have been coming into this country from Central America. Migrants? Refugees? It’s semantics, right? How about humans? How about beloved children of God?

Right now in our own nation, there are apparently for-profit companies that incarcerate mothers, toddlers, preschoolers, children from Central America.[2] There is a newly-constructed Family Residential Center (“residential center” sounds so much nicer than “prison,” doesn’t it?) in Dilley, TX that can hold up to 2,400 human beings, mostly women and children who are seeking asylum in the U.S. and have come here illegally while our government figures out how to deport them back to their home countries. Accusations of mistreatment are plentiful. Bryan Johnson, an immigration attorney working near Dilley says this, “In [the past] year, these investment companies have profited millions off of the illegal detention of children and babies fleeing unthinkable harm in Central America. Because these companies wanted a bigger quarterly dividend, dozens of children, including some of my clients, were denied medical treatment to such a shocking degree that their lives were put at imminent risk of death or serious bodily harm.”[3]

God, please let Jesus be there in that detention center. I hope and pray that Jesus is there with those children. Covering them with a warm blanket at night. Singing lullabies to drown out the sounds of prison life. And providing strength and care for their mothers who have to figure out how to care for these children in the midst of chaos.

I see Christ there at that prison in Dilley, Texas. I hear Christ saying, “Look. Watch. Listen. This matters.”

Jesus holds before us images of children…Ahmed  handcuffed for building a clock, black and brown children trusting doctors and nurses to ease their pain in the E.R., Aylan washed ashore, Maria and Diego and Jessica and Carlos locked up in South Texas…fleeing one horror only to find another.

I don’t really want to see these images. I’d rather think instead of my own children – safe and warm and well-fed and playing without a care in the world. But Jesus has other plans.

The disciples went for a walk with Jesus. They argued about petty things – who’s the most popular? Which one of us will get to be in charge if Jesus goes on vacation next week?

And Jesus picked up a child and redirected their attention. “Look. Watch. Listen. This matters.” The prophet Micah speaks words of instruction: “God has shown you, O Mortals, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Jesus shows us, O Mortals, What Matters.

We might not always want to see it. After all, as Nadia Bolz-Weber said in her sermon, children back in Jesus’s day were perceived as “useless and often unwanted.” The disciples probably weren’t planning on paying attention to any children that day.

But Jesus had other plans. Jesus asked them to refocus their attention on What Matters. And What Mattered to Jesus in that moment was a child. I think if Jesus was in the room today, he’d probably do the very same thing. He’d pick up someone who society has labeled as last, least, lost and say to us, “This person right here? They are What Matters.”

And you know what? Thanks be to God for that. Because I don’t know about you, but I really NEED someone to keep me focused on What Matters. Even when it’s unpleasant. Gosh, who are we kidding. ESPECIALLY when it’s unpleasant. That’s a big reason that I come to church and read the Bible and try to keep my eyes on Jesus…because we can count of him to show us What Matters.

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[1] http://www.nadiabolzweber.com/latest-sermons/page/3 

[2] http://endfamilydetention.com/university-of-texas-faculty-call-on-president-powers-to-urge-red-mccombs-to-end-dilley-detention-camp-deal/

[3] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/08/america-s-most-lucrative-preschooler-prison.html

“Expansive God, Expansive Gender, Expansive Love”

Sunday, September 6, 2015

Luke 22: 14-20

First Congregational United Church of Christ – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

You may have noticed that we don’t solely refer to God as male around here. One of the reasons we use masculine, feminine, and non-gendered language for God is so we can more fully affirm the humanity of women, who, for waaaay too long have not been able to see themselves in God or God in themselves because the Church has only used male pronouns for God.

But there’s another reason to refer to God as a being without gender or as both male and female. And that reason is rooted right here in Genesis, at the very beginning of our Holy Text. In the beginning, we were given the gift of two stories that introduce God to us. And in both stories, God’s gender is….complicated.

First, the passage we heard this morning, “So God created humanity in God’s own image. Male and female, God created them.” Now, in Hebrew, the pronouns used for God are exclusively male – “he created them.” But isn’t it fascinating that God created humanity in God’s own image – male and female? The image of God, whatever God looks like, is big enough to be both male and female. And, I would argue, people who are beyond the male-female binary, too.

Here at First Congregational, we affirm the full humanity of people who are male, female, neither, both, transgender, transsexual, intersex, genderqueer, cisgender, and more. One part of being welcoming is making sure we are aware of some basic terminology when it comes to gender identity…and that we’re always open to learning more because our understanding of gender identity is always evolving.[1]

Transgender is an umbrella term that refers to humans whose gender identity doesn’t match up with the biological sex the doctor assigned to them at their birth. Gender identity is an internal sense of one’s own gender. Biological sex is typically determined at birth by a quick visual assessment. Another part of gender identity is gender expression – the way we choose to present ourselves in the world and the way we are “read” by other people. For me, all three of those are female – my gender identity, expression, and biological sex are all female. And so, I am cisgender.

People who do not have consistency across all three of those may identity as transgender. One thing that I’ve really learned in the past few years is that there are a whole lotta folks out there who may or may not identity as transgender, but definitely identify as somewhere outside the male-female binary. They have a sense of being neither male nor female. Sometimes they prefer the term genderqueer – and they may or may not also identity as trans.

I bring up genderqueer-ness specifically because of what happens in Genesis 2. The way you’ll likely remember the story is this: God makes Adam and then God feels bad for Adam and wants to give him friends. So eventually, God makes Eve. Man comes first, then woman.

Except. Except it’s not quite that simple. Back in 1973, Biblical scholar Phyllis Trible wrote an article on Genesis 2 and 3[2]. In it, she delves into the Hebrew and notes that the word used consistently for Adam is (wait for it) “adam.” It’s a word that could be translated man, but could just as easily be translated as humankind, humanity, not specifically male – kind of how people used to use “mankind” as a term that meant “everyone.” It’s only after the woman is created that the author begins to use different terms to describe the two humans – “ish” – man – and “ishash” – woman. Trible’s argument is that that first human was without gender or was both genders – genderqueer, outside the binary of male and female. And that the creation of the second human was the point at which male and female came on the scene.

I’ve always thought this was a really cool reading of the text. And the implications are huge. Because not only does this text affirm those who exist outside the binary, but it says something about God. If the first human was genderqueer and created in God’s image, then maybe God is genderqueer, too. How’s that for affirming?

For the past few weeks, we’ve been working through what the Bible says about people who are gay, lesbian, and bisexual. It would be cool to do the same for people who are trans, but there’s really not much to go on. Our sacred texts don’t explicitly talk about people who are trans. The gender-bending in Genesis 1 and 2 are about as close as we come.

And so…I turned to my friends and colleagues who identify as transgender as I prepared this week’s sermon. I asked them, “What passages in the Bible speak to you and affirm your worth?” Several people mentioned the story of Jacob wrestling with God in the desert and being given a new name after that encounter. Our friend Stephanie Mott shared with me that she loves the passage we heard from Jeremiah – about God knowing us fully for all eternity. And many folks talked about the passage from Galatians – that promise that God sees us all outside the boxes humanity imposes upon us. We are more than just male or female, enslaved or free, American or Syrian, Christian or Muslim…we are all one in God’s eyes.

In talking with my friends and colleagues, I was turned on to the work of Father Shannon T. L. Kearns, a priest and theologian who is transgender, and has written a beautiful series called the “Trans Passion Narrative.”[3] Father Shannon goes through the entire passion narrative, scene by scene, and interprets it from his location as someone who is trans.

One of the beautiful things about being open and affirming to people of every gender identity is that the Church is enhanced, enriched, and enlivened by voices that were previously silenced. My soul was moved and my ears heard in a new ways when I read Father Shannon’s Trans Passion Narrative. The passage I wanted to highlight for you today is his reading of the Last Supper.[4]

Father Shannon says that he wasn’t originally planning on writing about it. The language of the broken body and blood being poured out for others didn’t appeal to him. After all, he says, “So much of the way I have told my own story has been the complete opposite. I needed to reiterate over and over that I transitioned for myself….In some ways transitioning was a selfish act; I needed to be seen as who I really am. I needed to be in a body that was the right body. It wasn’t for other people…So how could I possibly say that this was my body broken for other people? That I shed my blood for other people?”

But then, Shannon got an email from his little sister who was almost 11 at the time he wrote this. I’ll let him tell you the story:

My mom sent me an email saying that my little sister’s class was writing an “operetta” on heroes and she chose me as her hero. Now, my mom hasn’t told my sister about my transition, but my sister has seen me since I started transition, we talk on the phone. In a lot of ways I know that she gets it even without being told…And I am still her sibling and she claims me as her hero. And I realized that in some ways I transitioned for her.

As her older sibling, I want my sister to be happy in the world. To be at peace in her own skin. I want her to wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and love who she sees….How could I possibly inspire her to be herself if I wasn’t being myself? If every time I looked in the mirror I hated the person I saw staring back at me? If I continued to walk with my shoulders rounded in order to hide my chest? If, once I started transition, I avoided coming home to see my family because I didn’t want them to know about me? How could I possibly be an example to her if I hated myself and was ashamed of my life?

This is my body, broken for you, so that you understand that sometimes you have to do hard things that no one else understands in order to be true to yourself. Sometimes people will hate your body or judge your body; whether because of how it looks, what color your skin is, or who you love with it. But that doesn’t matter. What really matters is that you can look in the mirror and love who you are. This is my body, broken for you so that we can both learn to hold our heads up high. So we can learn to look in the mirror and love what we see.

This is my blood, shed for you, so that you know that even if you have to bleed you know you will be okay in the end. So that you know that we are family and that the same blood runs through both our veins even if you are grafted into the family by adoption or marriage or whatever. We are family. This is my blood shed for you so that you understand that doing the things you know are right, even when people don’t agree, isn’t enough to make the people who matter stop loving you.

Jesus knew that even after he died that he would be remembered and carried on in the lives of the people who loved him. And he knew that by living the life he was called to, even if it meant death, was a better example for the people he loved than playing it safe and living unscathed.

That is the legacy I want my siblings to have. To know that a life lived truly, authentically, bodily is a life well lived. That to follow your heart, to follow your gut, even if it leads you to scary places is worth it. I want them to know that no matter who they are they will be held in my embrace and loved. So I broke my body for them, so that I could show them that even with scars you can be okay. To be wholly yourself, living wholly in your body is a holy endeavor.

This is my body. This is my blood. For you.

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[1] A great place to do some learning: http://www.glaad.org/reference/transgender.

[2] http://academic.udayton.edu/michaelbarnes/E-Rel103/RG4-Trible.htm

[3] http://www.shannontlkearns.com/trans-passion-narrative/

[4] http://www.shannontlkearns.com/the-last-supper/