“Agape in Action”

Jan. 29, 2017

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

By the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

“Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.” Oh, Paul. What would you think if you were watching us today? No divisions among us? Oh, my. We’ve got so many divisions we’ve got divisions within division. We are no longer Liberal nor Conservative, Christian or Muslim, USAmerican or Syrian …..we are two million divisions within each of those identities.

In a week that has seen people from predominantly Muslim nations detained at airports, because the President of the United States signed an order saying they are no longer welcome here “no divisions” seems laughable.

Those of us who seek to follow Jesus must take seriously the Bible’s call the welcome people from other nations. You could argue that, while the Bible is famously inconsistent, it is totally consistent about the command to welcome immigrants and refugees. This one sample passage from Leviticus is consistent with other passages in both testaments: “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were once aliens in the land of Egypt.” And in case we were doubting who said it, the author finishes with “I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19: 33-34)

It seems unbelievable to me that we are living in a time when it is counter-cultural to be both Christian AND a person who believes we should welcome immigrants and refugees and treat them the way we would want to be treated. Christmas is barely over and many Christians in this nation seems to have already forgotten that Jesus was once a Middle Eastern refugee who depended on the hospitality of people outside his ethnic group.

Earlier this week, I had the honor of speaking to a large crowd gathered at K-State for the annual MLK Fellowship Luncheon. For the invocation, I chose to share some of Dr. King’s words from his collection of writings, Strength to Love. In the passage I shared, King wrote of how the world needs “transformed nonconformists.” People who are willing to go against the grain, and be transformed through their experience of the Holy into new beings. He wrote:

This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists.  Our planet teeters on the brink of atomic annihilation; dangerous passions of pride, hatred, and selfishness are enthroned in our lives; truth lies prostrate on the rugged hills of nameless calvaries; and men do reverence before false gods of nationalism and materialism.  The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority. (Strength to Love, p. 18)

Who else wants to be creatively maladjusted? I know I do! I think anyone who seeks to follow Jesus must be willing to be a transformed nonconformist. After all, our Teacher is one who said bizarrely counter-cultural stuff like “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Talk about nonconforming!

It seems to me that we are currently living in a time where love is counter-cultural. Everywhere you look, there are people calling each other names, shouting at each other, disparaging one another. It sometimes seems as if many people in our culture have forgotten to see the very basic humanity in one another. When I gathered with neighbors at the Islamic Center for an event last night, several people told me they would feel safer and more welcome here in Manhattan if people would simply look up and smile at them. See them. Notice their humanity. Greet them.

But recognizing one another seems to be counter-cultural these days. How else can we explain some people’s ability to close their eyes and heart to a Syrian family of six who have been living in a Turkish refugee camp since 2014? The New York Times reported just yesterday that at least one Syrian family that was supposed to arrive in Cleveland yesterday to begin a new life here with the help of a local nonprofit, was not allowed to come into the U.S. (Source: The New York Times and The Cleveland Plain Dealer).

I cannot even begin to imagine the horror and pain of being a parent who is simply trying to care for your four children. You’ve been basically homeless for two years, living in a refugee camp, and you begin to have hope because you learn there is an apartment waiting for you in Ohio. But then, suddenly, it’s not to be. With the stroke of a pen, a stranger has declared that Syrians will be unable to come to the US for an undefined period of time.

How can people hear that story and not have their hearts moved? Why is there such a failure to love? When did loving become counter-cultural….especially for Christians?

And how am I supposed to find a way to keep loving these the people who seem to be so filled with hate, fear, and indifference...especially the ones who call themselves Christians?

In a world where loving is counter-cultural, I want to rely on Dr. King to help us unpack love a bit. Because when Dr. King speaks of love, he is not speaking of some warm fuzzy attraction. He’s not speaking of liking each other. He’s speaking of something else entirely.

In his 1958 essay “An Experiment in Love” King writes in great detail about nonviolent resistance, which he found his way to through the bus boycott in Montgomery. (Note: all the King references….direct quotations and summaries in this sermon are from this particular essay)

King says that when the boycott began, no one in his circle was really talking about nonviolent resistance. Instead, they were speaking of “Christian love.” He says it was the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus of Nazareth that initially stirred the people in Montgomery to protest with the creative weapon of love.

Over time, they came to learn more and more about Gandhi’s tactics in India. They came to understand nonviolence as their most-likely-to-succeed technique. In this way, King says, “Christ furnishes the spirit and motivation, while Gandhi furnished the method.”

King gives six characteristics of nonviolent resistance in this essay:

First, nonviolent resistances is “not a method for cowards.” It is active, difficult, dangerous resistance. It is costly.

Second, King says that “nonviolence does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win [the opponent’s] friendship and understanding.” The goal is always social change AND reconciliation.

Third, King challenges us to always make a distinction between the evils that are being committed and the people committing them. Remember how, every month, I stand up here at the communion table and say that saints and sinners are all welcome because we’re all a little bit of both? King’s ultimate regard for all humans - even those who committed great acts of evil - allowed him to see even his enemies as complex beings. Beings who were sometimes in the grips of Evil with a capital “E.” But once you think a person is Evil and, therefore, somehow irredeemable….well, you’ve lost the ability to try and seek a victory that will be good for everyone.

Fourth, (and these are getting progressively harder, aren’t they? Shew.) the Rev. Dr. King said that those who are willing to resist nonviolently must be willing to accept suffering without retaliation. This is probably the hardest for most people, I would guess. Most of us don’t really want to be hurt - emotionally or physically. But King believed, as did the Apostle Paul, in the creative, redemptive power of suffering.

Fifth, King points out that nonviolence is not just about refraining from throwing stones or punches. It goes further. It’s also about guarding against what he calls “internal violence of the spirit.” He says, “The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent, but he also refuse to hate him.”

Now, I don’t recall hearing King really define HATE as carefully as he defined LOVE, but based on my knowledge of him, I think he would have defined hate as action. So I don’t think he believed we should never be angry or frustrated or even have thoughts of violence. I mean, when someone is literally standing over you, beating the daylights out of you, it’s probably going to be completely impossible to not feel anger, scorn, and to even feel hatred towards that person. But feeling hate is not the same as DOING hateful actions.

King is very clear that love is active. He wrote time and time again about the Greek word used for love in the Second Testament: agape. In Greek, there are several different kinds of love: Eros is romantic or sexual love, philia is brotherly love, friendship.

King tells us agape is not based on familiarity or affection. Instead, it is overflowing, understanding, redemptive love for all humanity. It is “disinterested.” It is a love that loves for the sake of loving. It’s not bound by a shared bond, shared interests. In fact, it is possible to have agape for another person even if you dislike them. Because agape is about seeing other people through God’s eyes.

It is about connecting deeply with the Holy in us and allowing ourselves to see another the way God sees them - as a beautiful, flawed, valuable person of worth - even when they are really making us mad. Even when we want to hit them.

Dr. King says that agape is always looking out for the basic needs of other human beings. For example, even though many did not know it, white people living under Jim Crow, needed to be freed from the Evils of segregation. King says that “the white man’s personality [was] greatly distorted by segregation, and his soul greatly scarred.” Because of this, King believed white supremacists needed agape to help save them from their “tensions, insecurities, and fears.”

Agape is communal. It is not weak or passive. It is always acting. King said “agape is love seeking to preserve and create community.” When the temptations are to isolate, draw in, cut off, close borders, build walls, agape is always telling us to open up, reach out, and attempt to build bridges. Always.

We talk about God reaching out to humans again and again and again and again. We remember that “love came down at Christmas” as God put on human form and walked among us. That continual reaching out, that continual creation of community is a part of agape.

This love stuff is a tall order. Especially when Dr. King and Jesus are telling us we have to try and be loving even towards people we don’t like. Even towards people who are not behaving in a loving way. I don’t think we can actually make it happen every single day. Well, maybe YOU can, but I fail most days. But I keep trying. I keep trying. It seems to be a life’s work.

I look at the way King was able to maintain this active love for others even in the midst of persecution and I wonder how he did it. Contrary to what we might think, he wasn’t actually superhuman. He was imperfect. He made mistakes. I am certain he probably occasionally got intensely angry and wanted to lash out. And heavens knows he wasn’t a pushover. Have you read the letter he wrote from the Birmingham Jail? Scathing.

But through it all, he kept a sense of the inherent basic human dignity of those he encountered. And he chose to act in ways that he believed were loving and that were helping bring about good for all of creation.

How did he do this? How did he keep living into the transformed, non-conforming power of agape? I believe a part of the answer lies at the very end of this essay about an “experiment in love.” His sixth and final point about nonviolent resistance is this:

Nonviolent resistance … is based on the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice. Consequently, the believer in nonviolence has deep faith in the future. This faith is another reason why the nonviolent resister can accept suffering without retaliation. For he knows that in his struggle for justice he has cosmic companionship. It is true that there are devout believers in nonviolence who find it difficult to believe in a personal God. But even these persons believe in the existence of some creative force that works for universal wholeness. Whether we call it an unconscious process, an impersonal Brahman, or a Personal Being of matchless power of infinite love, there is a creative force in this universe that works to bring the disconnected aspects of reality into a harmonious whole.

Amen. And, please, God, may it be so.

The Hot Potato of Leadership

Note: We were supposed to kick off a four-week sermon series on MLK's Most Durable Power (Love) but an ice storm caused us to cancel worship. So we worshiped via Facebook live. You can watch the entire service here. I rewrote the sermon at the last minute since I wanted to save the original one I had prepared for when we could be together in person. So here are some off-the-cuff reflections on John 1, leading through "the swamp," and MLK's Beloved Community. 

Reflections by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
John 1:29-42
First Congregational UCC of Manahttan, KS
January 15, 2017

This time last week I was in sunny Arizona, wrapping up a week with the UCC's Next Generation Leadership Initiative, a program that seeks to mold young UCC clergy into transformational leaders. We spent the week with Sharon Daloz Parks, who worked with us on the topic of adaptive leadership. One of our core texts was Heifetz's Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading.

Let me just say it again "staying alive through the dangers of leading."

One of the activities we had to do was lining up based on "how comfortable we are with authority." Some in our group were very comfortable and seemed to enjoy being in authority positions. Others....not so much. They were willing to lead when called upon, but rarely comfortable in that position.

Dr. Parks talked with us a lot about one of her favorite images for adaptive leadership....the swamp. The idea is that during normal times, technical fixes are enough. As a leader, all you have to do is have the right skills and apply them and everything will be fine. Dr. Parks spoke of it as running a horse along high-hard ground. There is skill required, sure, but as long as you are competent, you can lead people across the high-hard ground and onto the next destination.

But during what she calls "hinge times" - when the whole world seems to be just kind of swinging on a hinge like a flimsy door in a big gust of wind - well, things are different. Leadership is more like trying to get a big group of people across a swamp.

No matter how good your skills are, it's going to be a challenge. Hinge times require adaptation. Even if we've been through this exact swamp before, it will be different now. We have to use our skills, sure, but we also have to be open to new possibilities, strange obstacles, unwelcome changes. It's not enough to just "know your stuff" as a leader, you also have to be willing to learn totally new skill sets. Sometimes again and again and again.

Now I don't know if you think of yourself as a leader. Maybe you're like some of the people in my class who love this stuff. Or maybe you feel uncomfortable even pondering the idea. Comfortable or not, it seems we are all called upon at various points in our lives to take up the mantle of leadership. It might be in a boardroom or among friends, in the classroom or at home with our closest family. At some point, others will look to us for leadership.

That's what's happening in today’s passage. It seems that folks in Jesus’s time were also living in a hinge time - they were also wandering through the swamp and trying to figure out how to get body and soul to the other side. And they were looking for leaders. We’re still in the first chapter of John, here. So we’ve had that beautiful prologue “in the beginning was the Word, and the word was God…” Then John the Baptizer comes onto the stage. And people are wanting him to be a leader.

But John passes the mantle of leadership like a hot potato. Can you blame him? Remember that book I had to read for class? “Staying alive through the dangers of leading”? Who wants that? John is quick to explain that HE is not the Messiah - the Anointed One. Instead, his job is to point to the “one to come.”

Soon enough, we meet Jesus. And he is willing to claim the mantle of leadership. Thank GOD for good leaders, right? For people who are willing to stand up and put their own bodies and souls on the line in order to try to get the rest of us across the swamps of life. Jesus was one of those. And like Dr. King, who we celebrate this weekend, Jesus was even willing to hold on to that mantle of leadership unto death and beyond. It’s mind-boggling to me, really, that willingness to make that kind of sacrifice.

When the people who were to become the first disciples met Jesus, they called him “teacher.” They seem to know, right away, that he had come to show them how to live. How to cross the swamp. How to adapt in the midst of the hinge time and make their way through to newness on the other side. They asked him a simple enough question, “where are you staying?” And Jesus didn’t give them a simple answer. Instead, he gave an invitation. “Come and see,” he said.

Come and see. An invitation.

The Messiah’s first act of leadership was to surround himself with others. Because it seems Jesus was wise enough to know that he couldn’t do what he had come to do alone. And he was infused with God enough to know that getting across the swamp only matters if we all get across it together. Jesus embodied what has come to be known as the Beloved Community. That place where people from all walks of life - even those that we’ve tried mightily to leave out - are welcomed, affirmed, and valued.

In our class last week, we also learned about what Dr. Parks calls “the Commons.” Those places in our world where we come together across all the lines we’ve created...people of all genders, gender identities, sexual orientations, socio-economic groups, races, ethnicities, ages, abilities. Democrats and Republicans. Christians and Muslims. Those who love cold brew coffee in Mason jars and those who find it pretentious.

The Commons is a place where all these various types of people come together for the good of the whole. Where they can be humans together, learn together, laugh together, love together, and try to do what’s best for everyone.

The Commons seems to be endangered in our current world. How else can we explain our Congress entertaining the idea of repealing the Affordable Care Act without a replacement ready? A former colleague of mine had a tweet go viral earlier this week on this topic. She said something like, “I look at these people who want to repeal the ACA and the thing is, I just don’t know how I’m supposed to explain to people that they are supposed to care about one another.”

When we have to remind our elected officials that they are supposed to care about the good of the whole, something is seriously wrong. We are living in swamp times. The old technical fixes won’t work. Bold leadership is required….leadership that is grounded, measured, compassionate, experimental, and concerned with the good of the whole.

That’s the kind of leader Dr. King was. He was only 26 years old when he found himself in charge of what would become the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I think it’s safe to say he really had no idea what he was getting into. And he was chosen because of the hot potato of leadership. No one else wanted to be in charge. So they nominated the new young guy. And he was willing to take on the mantle. He was willing to try and lead the people across the swamp.

Like Jesus, King knew better than to try and do it alone. He surrounded himself with friends, advisors, strategists. He didn’t try to lead alone. That’s never wise. And as he led, he rooted himself deeply in his identity as a disciple of Jesus. He never faltered from trying to do what Jesus called on him to do...even when it made him unpopular, even when it put him in danger.

I watched a video of Coretta Scott King yesterday. It was filmed just eight months after her husband’s assassination. She was asked what she thought would happen to the movement since her husband had died - whether it was now leader-less, rudder-less. She replied that she did not believe that was so. She said, “If you’re looking for another Martin, I think he only comes along every hundred or maybe every thousand years.” But Coretta said there were other leaders who were capable and would continue to lead.

We can’t all be Martin. We certainly can’t be Jesus. We can seek to be their students, to learn from them. More than anything, I think we can be brave. We can remember that just because we’re not Martin, not Jesus, that doesn’t mean we get a free pass to sit back and keep passing the leadership hot potato.

No, we are all called to put on the mantle of leadership from time to time. Whether we like it or not.

We are all called to surround ourselves with others and work together, doing our part to bring about the Beloved Community. We must all get ourselves to The Commons - that place where people from all walks of life come together for the mutual benefit of all - and if we can’t find The Commons in this messed up world, well, then, we have to start building it from scratch.

And when that seems totally overwhelming (as it often does) remember this: we do not do this work alone. Remember how Jesus said, “Come and see?” He says that to us still. Come and see what God is dreaming. Come and see a new vision. Come and see how we can get through the swamp together. Come and see what the Beloved Community can be.

For the next four weeks in worship we’re going to be listening to that call to “come and see” as we explore what Dr. King called “the most durable power”: Love.

It seems to be in short supply right now in our world. Hate crimes. The threat of walls being built, arsenals being stocked, basic human rights being taken away.

But I believe Dr. King was right. I believe Jesus was right. Love still matters. Love is still the answer. And I believe that if we are to be leaders through the swamp, we have to surround ourselves with people here in flesh and blood...but we also have to surround ourselves with spiritual practices that nurture, words and ideas that inspire, teachers that guide and lead.

A little later today I’ll start a thread here on the Facebook page with books and art I’ve been absorbing lately that feel like a community of support and challenge lifting my weary soul these days. I hope you can also add recommendations so we can all sit at the feet of teachers and artists and be sustained. Thanks be to God for teachers, for leaders. And God help us all when we are looked to for leadership. May we rise to the occasion and do our part to bring about your realm of justice and peace. Amen.

"Tend to the Night"

“Tend to the Night”
Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS
Matthew 2 and Isaiah 60:-1-6
January 1, 2017


When I was a teenager, Jesus showed up in my room in the middle of the night and sat at the foot of my bed. I know, I know...it sounds a little...um….mystical. And it was. It was totally dark in my room but when I woke in the middle of the night I saw this figure sitting on the edge of my bed, down by my feet. And I didn’t just see it, I could also feel the pressure on my bed from the person sitting there. Not moving. Not talking. Just sitting.


To this day, I can’t really describe it, but I can still conjure up the exact feeling I had when it happened. This incredibly warm feeling like all was right in the world. I wasn’t surprised or scared. I just sort of thought, “Oh, hey. It’s Jesus. Of course he would be sitting here in the middle of the night.” And I went right back to sleep.


Was it a dream? Was it real? Who knows? Does it matter?


Dreams exist in this troubling in-between space. Not quite made up, not quite real. They come from within and without.


Our brain creates them, but those who, like me, tend to view the world through a more spiritual lens also see them as being linked to God in some way. To this day, I don’t know whether it was my brain playing tricks on me or God sending me a message that caused me to see Jesus at the foot of my bed. I think it was probably a little of both because I have an understanding of God as here with us now and within us. So God, like dreams, is always within and without.


What I do know is that the vision of Jesus I had as a teenager stuck with me in real ways. As I’ve grown older, the things I believe about God have become a shorter and shorter list. But the one thing that has never wavered for me is that God exists and is with us at all times. I think, perhaps, that’s why I was unsurprised and undisturbed to find Jesus watching over me at night.


I wonder if Joseph was surprised and disturbed when the Spirit of God came to him in a dream?


Not just one dream, but four. The Gospel of Matthew if full of dreams from God. In fact, dreams drive the plot in the early chapters of this gospel. An angel appears to Joseph in a dream telling him to take Mary as his wife...and he does. An angel appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him to flee to Egypt with his wife and young son...and he does. An angel appears to Joseph in a dream telling him it’s safe to return to Israel….so he goes. And then a little later, an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and says, “Well, maybe I need to be more specific, you should go to Galilee”...so they change course.


And it’s not just Joseph who is the recipient of these dreams. Remember the Magi? After following the star to the place where the baby lay, they also received a message from God in a dream. “Having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they returned by another way…”


Dreams come at night. They come in the quiet stillness of the dark. And they require our mindfulness. How many nights do you sleep soundly and then wake and jump right into your daily tasks without even pondering your dreams? I know I do. All too often.


But dreams are a gift to us. A gift that comes in the night. A gift that arrives when we are resting. If we are too afraid to be present in the night, we will not receive the gift of dreaming. If we are too busy to rest, dreams will not come. Some dreams may be a gift from God, but they also require our active participation and awareness.


Joseph’s dreams and the dreams of the Magi reminds me that we must tend to the night.


If we shy away from the darkness, we miss out on the fullness of life. It always strikes me as strangely comforting when our attention is yanked so quickly from the peaceful, sleeping babe in the manger to the chaotic flight of the Holy Family to Egypt. While the world lies in solemn stillness, the powers of Empire are still conniving, still warring, still fearing the power of Love.


King Herod is afraid. And because he is afraid, he allows Evil to control his actions. The story of the Massacre of the Innocents is horrific. So afraid of Jesus’s rising star, the King orders all babies under the age of two killed. It’s an act that seems inconceivable. And yet similar stories play out on the nightly news in our own time. Tyrants fear and tremble...and the people who pay the price are always the most vulnerable.


How could this story bring comfort? As horrific as it is, it brings me comfort because it reminds me that our God is big enough to be present in the fullness of our lives. Our God does not shy away from the night. Our God does not leave us to contemplate the horrors humans inflict on one another alone. Our God arrives again and again - in the midst of idyllic manger scenes, yes, but also in the horrors of war and violence. When the bombs fall, God is there. When tyrants fear and tremble, God is there. When parents weep, God is there. God is always tending to the night.


The stories of pain that are present in the birth narratives remind me that we, too, are to live as children of the night. Though we humans may naturally find ourselves afraid of the unknown, there are gifts to be found in the dark. Our culture has a way of trying to elevate “light” to be “good” and darkness to be “bad.” This is problematic not just because of the culture of white supremacy we live in, but also because it reinforces an either-or worldview….as if we need to somehow choose light or dark.


But the light only matters because of the dark. Light without darkness becomes meaningless. The Star in the East was there all day long...but the observers only saw it at night. Because light inside of more light becomes meaningless. It is overlooked.


What we need as humans is the fullness of both light and dark - the gifts and promises of both - to take root more fully in our spirits.


When we honor the light and the dark...when we allow ourselves to seek God’s presence in both, then we become like the wise Magi. The ones who notified the star at its rising and were curious enough to follow it. You know, I assume everyone could see the star, but not everyone was willing to travel at night and follow it to the place where Jesus lay. The Magi were willing to tend to the night and they were rewarded by worshiping at the feet of Jesus.


The prophet Isaiah said, “The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light….” Please notice that he did not say the darkness disappeared. No, the light came in the midst of the darkness and they co-existed. For this is what it means to be human. To honor both the bright sun of the day and the deep blue of the midnight sky. To rejoice when the moon begins its dance of waxing once again and to marvel when the New Moon means there is utter darkness in the land.


To remember that there are gifts to be found when we allow ourselves to tend to the night.


To know in our hearts that our God is not afraid of the dark. Our God lives and moves and has her being in the night as well as in the day.


I am reminded of that sense of utter peace and rootedness I had when I awoke and found Jesus sitting at the foot of my bed. I knew in every fiber of my being that there was no place I could be that God would not go.


And so, in confidence, with the dreamers and wanderers, I proclaim….


Where parents worry and fret….God is with us, we are not alone.


Where sages wonder and wander...God is with us, we are not alone.


Where people hope for the Prince of Peace...God is with us, we are not alone.


Where the bombs fall and beautiful lives are extinguished...God is with us, we are not alone.


Where refugees flee under the cover of night...God is with us, we are not alone.


Where tyrants fear and tremble….God is with us, we are not alone.


In the night...God is with us, we are not alone.


In the day...God is with us, we are not alone.


Thanks be to God. Amen.