“Emmanuel: In the Boat”

Mark 4:35-41

Sunday, June 24, 2018
First Congregational United Church of Christ of Manhattan, KS

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

To live in Kansas is to know a few things about storms. We know what it means when the temperature suddenly drops on a hot summer day. We can tell by looking at clouds whether we’re in for rain, lightning, or hail. We know which way the weather usually comes from and how to quickly scan the radar and figure out when it’s time to head for shelter. We know that different shades of gray in the sky mean different things...and that a green sky means something else altogether.

When I was little girl, my dad used to pull my leg by telling me this about watching for storms. He said, “If you’re watching out the window and a big storm is coming, just look at the leaves on the tree. When the leaves start to point up, that means it’s time to go to the basement.”

“Why, Daddy?” I’d ask.

“Because,” he’d say, laughing, “When the leaves are pointed straight up, it means that tree is coming out of the ground and you’d better run and hide!”

But all joking aside...storms are serious. We 21st century folks may have basements and interior closets and access to advanced forecasting technology, but we aren’t so unlike the ancient people that jump off the pages of scripture. Storms are a mighty reminder that we humans are fragile and vulnerable. Storms remind us that things can change in an instant. Storms are a reminder that there are so many things that are completely outside of our control.

And storms on the sea? Well, that’s a whole other level of scary. Because when you’re in the middle of a massive body of water, you’re vulnerable in new and frightening ways. When a storm comes at sea, there’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Storms can come up quickly, leaving you unable to get to a safe shore. Storm clouds make it difficult or impossible to use the sky to navigate in any meaningful way. It’s just you and a tiny boat against all the forces of nature. And a small boat is no match for a violently swirling sea. A small boat turns out to be a mere illusion of safety once the water is coming up over the sides. It’s no wonder that the ancients embodied chaos in their stories as Leviathan - a sea monster. Because the sea is a terrifying, chaotic place in the midst of a storm.

The Rev. Karoline Lewis says, of this morning’s passage from Mark:

There is no end to sermons on this story that allegorize the boat, and, for that matter, everything else in this sea passage tale.

You know how these sermons tend to go -- Jesus is in the boat with you.” “How many times does it feel like you are in a storm and Jesus is asleep?” “What boats are you in at this point in your life?” “What are the storms that are tossing your life around?” None of this is necessarily bad. It’s just that the boat becomes a metaphor for all kinds of things rather than simply what it is -- a traveling vessel. A means by which to get from one place to another. Maybe the boat is simply a boat. Maybe the point is that Jesus is just trying to get us to the other side. [1]

At the risk of allegorizing too much for Rev. Lewis’s tastes, I would add, “Maybe the boat represents all manner of traveling vessels. All the ways we humans try to get safely from one place to another.”

Maybe the boat isn’t just a boat but is also a Greyhound bus where regular everyday people like you and me are traveling from one town to another. Lulled to sleep by the sounds of the tires on the pavement below them, they are safe and secure inside their small vessel. But the illusion of safety is shattered as ICE agents board their vessel and demand to see citizenship paperwork. [2]

Maybe the boat is also an airplane with a group of very young children on it. They have been taken from their parents and are traveling to God-knows-where….Michigan, New York, Topeka. The children are far from home. Far from shore. [3]

Maybe the boat is also a tiny raft floating on the Rio Grande river. A mother holds her five-year-old son tight, tight, tight. They have traveled thousands of miles to run from an abusive husband and father who has threatened to kill them. The are seeking another shore, but they aren’t there just yet. They had hoped to cross a bridge and declare themselves at a sanctioned port of entry, but the gate is closed, so they take their chances on the river and with this tiny raft. [4]

In all of these fragile vessels there are humans crying out alongside the disciples with those ancient words, “Jesus, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Do you not care that we are perishing?

This story from Mark’s gospel is usually categorized as a “miracle story.” Jesus is the one who turns water into wine, casts out the demons, revives the sick, feeds the masses, stills the storm. Can Jesus control the weather? Do we follow the One who can literally stop the winds from blowing and the waves from crashing?

If we read this story as a literal tale of a historic event, then it would seem so. But if we asked those who have begged and pleaded for Jesus to stop storms in their own lives, we might get a different answer. Sometimes the storm keeps coming. Sometimes the wind keeps wailing. Sometimes the children keep crying. Sometimes parents are begging to know where their children are and when they will see them again….and no answers come.

But there is a second miracle in this story. And maybe it seems so small that we miss it because of the larger, more dramatic elements. The second miracle in this story is that Jesus is in the boat. When the story begins, the people are on a journey across the water to the other shore. And Jesus doesn’t say, “Come, it’s time for you to take this long journey on your own.” Jesus says, “Come, let US go across to the other side.”

Jesus is IN the boat. Jesus is on the Greyhound bus. Jesus is on the flight at 30,000 feet. Jesus is on the small raft floating down the Rio Grande.

Jesus is in the converted old Walmart. Jesus is in the tent city. Jesus is in the group home. Jesus is in the courtrooms.

And Jesus will not leave. Not ever.

When we humans cry out in fear, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Jesus arises, and says to the chaos, “Peace, be still.”

Jesus is in the boat. The one we call Emmanuel because his presence reminds us that God is with us.

And God hears the cries of her children, calling out in desperation from Guatemala and Honduras and Tornillo and Topeka and New York and in every other place. God is on each and every vessel, no matter how small or large, no matter whether it is seen or hidden. God is present in each breath, in each heartbeat, in each cry, in each and every place where his beloved children are in pain. God specializes in seeing those that no one else wants to see. God sees. God acknowledges. God loves. God will never leave.

The presence of Christ reminds us that God is fully present. I have a colleague, Gayle Engel, who closes his prayers by saying “we pray in the name of Jesus, who is the still point of the turning world.” Jesus - the one who rests peacefully on a storm-tossed ship. Jesus - the one we cry out to when we are perishing. Jesus - the Word who speaks and changes the world.

When we pray, we re-orient ourselves away from the chaos and towards the One who is our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.

When we pray, we turn towards our Teacher and we hear the words “Peace, be still” and realize Jesus is not only talking to the eternal elements….Jesus is also addressing the chaos that seeps into our hearts.

When we quiet ourselves and turn to God in prayer, we remember who. we. ARE.

And we remember who God is. And we remember our connection to every other part of creation - including the children who cry out in agony, the parents who are stunned into silence, and the regular everyday people who are committing these acts of violence because they’re just following orders.

Prayer is a place to find stillness and to ask the deeper questions. To nurture our understanding of our place in creation. To find unity with other human beings. To remember that we are always at home in God and God is always at home in us.

In a daily devotion earlier this week, Father Richard Rohr contemplated what it might look like if every person of faith had as their “set-point, baseline, and fundamental assumption about every single person” in the world that each and every person is sacred, holy, beloved by God. [5]

Friends, there is evil present in our world that is attempting to tell us one of the greatest lies that can be told - the lie that only some people matter. Jesus stood against this lie. The entirety of our scripture tells another story. We have to be on guard against this lie. We have to return, again and again, each and every day to the truth, which Father Rohr expresses like this, "Something infinite, immortal, mysterious, loving, and alive abides in me and it is from this light that I bow toward that which is infinite, immortal, mysterious, loving, and alive in you.” [6]

I invite you to join me as we orient ourselves towards that infinite, mysterious, loving, living force that abides in each and every part of creation. You may find it helpful to visualize a child who is alone and frightened. Or a parent who is waiting to learn where their child is and figure out how to be reunited. Or a person who is at work right now being asked to hurt other humans. As you visualize these people, you may want to find that small light inside of you and send it to connect with the light of God that you see within them.  

In this time of prayer, you may choose to keep silence, you may cry, you may sing (and if we know the song, we may join you), or you may find that you want to put words to your prayer.

Let us pray together….

(time for prayers)

….we pray in the name of Jesus, the still-point of the turning world. Emmanuel. The one in the boat with us all. Amen.

NOTES:

[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3645

[2] Illustration inspired by this story from Vox: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/9/16974510/border-patrol-greyhound-bus-amtrak-train

[3] Illustration inspired by this story from the Houston Chronicle: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/Flight-attendant-I-won-t-work-flights-that-13008372.php

[4] Illustration inspired by this photo from CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/border-children-immigrant-families-in-crisis/3/

[5] Read Fr. Rohr’s full devotion here.

[6] Ibid.

“Earthly Tents and Everlasting Homes”

1 Samuel 8: 4-20

Sunday, June 10, 2018
First Congregational United Church of Christ of Manhattan, KS

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

Earlier this week, I had a rather terrifying phone conversation. I was sitting in my car in Aggieville at 8:45 in the morning waiting to my yoga class to start, making phone calls to my legislators offices in D.C. I like to call them first thing in the morning to share my views so I can cross it off my list for the day. Also, it’s convenient to call them right before I go to yoga, because sometimes I need help calming down after I get off the phone.

So I was calling all of my legislators because I felt so helpless and enraged about stories of young children being separated from their parents at our borders. As best as I can understand from consulting numerous news outlets, we are attempting to discourage asylum seekers and other immigrants from coming to our country by threatening them with terror at their point of entry.

Parents with young children, beware. If you try to flee your own war-torn country to come here and you have a child with you, we will take that child from you, force you to buckle them into a car seat, refuse to let you say goodbye, make you watch as a stranger drives them off while they are sobbing uncontrollably, tell you you’ll probably be reunited with them later, and then put you both in separate detention facilities - most likely very far apart from each other. Your child may end up sleeping on the floor in a large cage in a warehouse-type situation while you struggle each day to figure out where they are and if they’re okay.

This is a parent’s worst nightmare. I can hardly read these stories without feeling my body being taken over by a total and complete rage. The type of rage that makes me want to throw things and scream expletives.

So I took some deep breaths before calling my legislators’ offices and stayed calm and collected while on the phone with their staffers. I did my best to convey my extreme dismay without raising my voice or crying. I began by asking them what their bosses were doing about these human rights violations at our borders. When I discovered none of them were doing anything, except maybe waiting around for some legislation that might be introduced later this month, I pressed further. “This is a humanitarian crisis,” I said calmly. “Isn’t there some way Congress can take emergency action to do something and keep these families intact?”

One of the staff members told me this: “Well, it’s really the President’s policy. He’s the only one who can change it.”

I said, “Are we living in an authoritarian regime now? Are you telling me we no longer have any checks and balances in our democracy? I was under the impression that Congress played an important role in governing our country. Is it just one man making all the decisions now for all of us in the United States?”

Friends, I confess. I may have used a very stern voice at this point. But I also promise you that before I got off the phone, I thanked this staff member for his time and told him that I knew none of this was his fault.

I sometimes have a hard time staying calm when I observe the way our government behaves. I often feel powerless, which seems strange since we are supposed to live in a democracy. I keep calling my representatives even though I usually feel like it makes no difference at all. And I’ll keep voting even though I have serious doubts about whether elections in our country are truly free and fair.

I carry a lot of anxiety about who we are as a nation and where we’re headed next. And I know I’m not alone. Anxiety about the political landscape is nothing new, of course. It’s just that I’ve been feeling it more acutely lately. So I’ve come up with coping mechanisms. I keep my legislators on speed dial. I nurture my most helpful spiritual practices like yoga - which helps me suspend judgment and stay present in the moment - and long walks, which gives me time to pause and enjoy the world around me.

I’ve been putting in extra effort to effect change within three feet of myself - smiling at strangers, looking around when I’m in public to see if anyone needs extra encouragement or a kind word. My husband would also tell you I’ve been coping by reading a lot about 20th century authoritarian regimes in Latin America, Russia, and Europe. The jury’s still out on whether or not that’s a helpful coping mechanism.

Reading today’s text from 1 Samuel felt a bit like a balm for my weary soul. The people of Israel are frustrated and fed up with their government. Samuel, who has been functioning as a priest, prophet, ruler for many years, is growing old. He’s attempting to pass the reins to his sons, but they don’t walk in the ways of their father. They are corrupt and the people of Israel aren’t having it.

So they come to Samuel and say, “Look. This whole thing with priests and prophets and judges has been fine for a while. But now we’re looking around and seeing the way other nations handle themselves. They all have kings. We want a king.”

Samuel responds with a mini-lecture about the pitfalls inherent in monarchical government. “Kings are pretty much good for this:” he says, “Taking your sons and daughters. Getting them killed in wars and using them in grotesque ways. Taking your property - mostly your best stuff. Making you into slaves. That’s what kings are good for.”

“Great!” respond the people. “Sign us up!”

I imagine Samuel heaving a deep and heavy sigh as he retires to his study to have a little talk with Yahweh. “God, what am I supposed to do?” he wonders aloud. “They won’t listen to me.”

God tells Samuel, “Give them what they’ve asked for. Give them a king.”

The entire history of Israel’s leadership in the Bible goes like this….leaders come and leaders go. They go by different names - priests, prophets, judges, kings. Some of them do okay for a while but, in the end, nothing works for long. The people do what humans do best - mess up. They ignore God. They worship idols. They kill each other. Things fall apart. So they find a new leader or even a new form of government. And maybe it works….for a time. But never for long.

This story from 1 Samuel feels like a bit of a comfort to me, swimming in all my own anxieties about the state of the world in 2018, for two reasons. First, it reminds us that God cares about politics. God cares about the ways we govern ourselves. God knows that the ways we humans choose to organize ourselves, the rules we make and enforce, and the ways we decide to come together and get things done mattes deeply. God never says “follow this six-point plan and you’ll have a perfect government” (now that would be nice!) and God certainly isn’t partisan. God allegiance lies only with God, not with any earthly ruler or political group.

But God cares deeply about the way we humans govern ourselves and our political systems. We are told again and again in our sacred texts that we are to be active and involved in the world around us. We are made for living in community with one another - to bear one another’s burdens share each other’s joys. And people never live in community for long without rules - both formal and informal. Rules for being together turn into culture and are solidified into systems of government. God cares deeply about these systems that govern us.

The second thing I am reminded of by this story is this: our governments do not rule us completely. God is our ruler. God is the one constant force that is present whether kingdoms rise or fall, democracies live or die, regimes flourish or crumble. To say that God cares about governments and God cares about politics is never to attempt make the Holy into a puppet of earthly powers.

As we ponder the world around us, we are to read the actions of governments through the lens of God, not the other way around. Our decisions about how to relate to one another must be ultimately anchored in our understanding of how God calls us to act, not party affiliation or allegiance to any charismatic leader.

Please note: looking at the world through God-lenses isn’t as simple as reading the Bible. The Bible is one very important way that we come to understand the Holy but the Bible is not actually God. Decisions about how to act have to be made within the context of a trusted community that is rooted deeply in it’s relationship with God. The community must be sustained by rich spiritual practices like worship, prayer, sharing sacred stories and art, and serving the world together. When a faith community - whether it’s a small family or a formal congregation - is strong in its foundations, people within that community will be able to prayerfully make decisions together and speak hard truths to one another in love.

This is a lot more work than opening up the Bible as if it were a Magic 8 ball and hoping it will tell us what to do. But if we stay faithful to one another and take seriously our responsibility to seek God together, we can ponder what’s going on in the world through God’s eyes. And when we start to veer off course - when, for example, Christians start to do things like claim God wants them to discriminate against gay people, then the community can say, “You know what? I don’t think that’s right. Let’s ponder this more together. Let’s remember that the whole scope of the Bible tends toward love. Let’s see how God is present in people of every sexual orientation. Let’s choose love over fear.”

This story from 1 Samuel reminds us that God cares deeply about the ways we choose to govern ourselves. God is always standing nearby, beckoning us to choose love, encouraging us to walk in the ways of justice and peace. When earthly powers vie for our allegiance and demand that we bow down to human-made idols, God whispers into our hearts that our only true North Star is the Holy One whose name is Love.

Kings come and go. Nations rise and fall. Humans get it right for a time and then get it, oh, so wrong. With the psalmist, we cry out to God from the depths of our anxieties.

And with Paul we remember that though the earthly tents we inhabit may be destroyed, we are always at home in God, abiding in that Holy house that was not made my human hands, but exists now and then and forever and ever. Amen.

“Vulnerable and Strong”

2 Corinthians 4:5-12

Sunday, June 3, 2018

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

Sometimes praying looks like this: you close your door, draw the blinds, kneel at the foot of your bed, fold your hands together and talk to God. 

Sometimes praying looks like this: we gather together in this space and sing and laugh and move our bodies together and feel the Spirit among us. 

Sometimes praying looks like this: It’s 3:30 in the afternoon on a hot day in late May. Donna Keyser and I, along with many others, are laying on our backs on cement that is so hot that we can’t let bare skin touch any part of it. I’m listening to two of my beloved colleagues chant the names of people who have been killed in war or by police in the United States. We’re participating in a die-in as a part of the Poor People’s Campaign in Topeka. We’re not in a sanctuary, but this place feels holy. We don’t have our hands folded, but  it surely feels like we’re communing with God. 

Sometimes praying looks like this: It’s 4:30 in the afternoon on that same day. We’re now sitting in the middle of a crosswalk in downtown Topeka. We’ve been watching police cars and officers gather for almost an hour. In front of us are about 4 or 5 police cars and behind us another two. It seems there are about 30 officers gathered now, more than twice the number of those of us blocking the street in an act of nonviolent protest. I don’t know these officers or their names or anything much about them. But I keep looking at them as we are singing, singing, singing and feeling the human connections between each of us. 

I am thinking about how I want this world to be a place where they can feel safe when they go to work. I am thinking about my children and their children and how I want them all to feel safe when they go to school and the park. I am praying with my body as a part of the Poor People’s Campaign. We are trying to finish the work that Martin Luther King, Jr. and so many others began 50 years ago….trying to create a world with peace and justice for all of God’s creation. 

You might be wondering, why did I choose to pray in this odd way? Getting arrested? On purpose? Why would anyone do that? 

It is something I felt called to do. (Incidentally, this doesn't mean it’s something everyone is called to do. I’m just speaking for me.)

When Rev. Dr. William Barber spoke to a packed house at the UCC General Synod almost a year ago in Baltimore, he started with these words, “I’ve come recruiting.” The vision that he cast - a vision of a synchronized, large-scale movement across the U.S. A vision of people from every conceivable background coming together as one band with one voice to say that we want to make this nation a place where all people are treated with dignity and respect….well, that vision moved me. And when I learned more about the movement that was being planned and the vast scope of it, I came to believe that I had a role to play. 

It quickly became apparent to me that engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience was the task I was called to. As a cisgender white woman who looks like a cross between an Earth Mother and a soccer mom wearing a clergy collar, I can easily put myself out there and know that I’ll likely be safe. This is certainly not true for everyone. So I wanted to answer the call in this particular way, knowing it’s certainly much easier for me than it would be for many other people. 

I prayed a lot in preparation for this day - the kind of prayer where you’re actually on your knees talking to God. But even with all my praying ahead of time, I didn’t realize that ACTING would feel so much like prayer once we got into it. 

As the day went on, we heard powerful stories from Kansans who spoke about their personal connection to the theme of the day: militarism and the proliferation of gun violence. We heard from a woman whose parents immigrated to this country from Guatemala - fleeing state-sponsored violence that killed her aunt and young cousin. We heard from veterans of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam. We listened as a man who spent his career building nuclear weapons spoke of the grief he felt. We heard anguish in the voice of Dominique White’s sister-in-law. Mr. White was killed by Topeka Police last year and the family has been struggling for almost a year to find some kind of resolution to their questions. 

As we began to move together into the planned action for the day, I focused on completing the tasks at hand. Standing in the right places, staying hydrated, finding shade, checking on other people nearby as temperatures hovered in the upper 90s. And as I did all these things, my mind started to flow in what felt like a meditation on vulnerability and strength. 

So much vulnerability was present that day. I’ll tell you, even if you know it’s coming and you’ve chosen it and you are all the privileges that I do, when you surrounded by two people who are much larger than you and have guns and they are tightening zip ties on your wrists and you’re not quite sure how tight they’re going to go…..well, I felt vulnerable. 

And I thought a lot about how vulnerable the police officers seemed to feel. It fascinated me that they needed 30 armed officers to arrest 14 civilians, but I’m sure that’s just their protocol. I wondered what it would do to a person if you had to feel that vulnerable, that on-guard, that afraid of everyone all the time. 

And in the midst of all this vulnerability was also great strength. The strength of our leaders who kept passing singing, keeping our spirits up as the day wore on. All of these people have regular full-time jobs and families and everything else. And yet, here they were, week after week, praying with their bodies. 

I pondered the strength of Dominique White’s mother who was sitting near me in the middle of the road. The strength of a mother who is still grieving the loss of her son but standing up for other people’s children even in the midst of her own pain. 

I felt the strength of the movement that extended far beyond Topeka. I thought about other people in other state capitols, singing the same songs as us. I thought about our ancestors who struggled in similar ways 50 years ago and 500 years ago and 2000 years ago. And I thought about the ones who will come after us….all of us bound together in a long chain of people seeking justice and liberation and peace. 

And when the day was done and I went home to my family and I picked up the Bible and I read the words from Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth, I noticed this phrase, “We have this treasure in clay jars.” 

And I thought, “That’s it, exactly. Clay jars. Vulnerability and strength together.” 

A clay jar is a useful tool for holding valuables. It’s sturdy…ish. If it’s been refined through fire, it’s much stronger. And that’s a whole sermon for another day. A clay jar is stronger than many other things. But it is also vulnerable. If you drop it on the ground or nick it on the side of a table - it will break easily. 

It’s vulnerable - and strong. 

Archaeologists have found hundreds of clay jars in the Middle East that they call “coin hoards.” Jars holding massive quantities of coins - literally treasure in clay jars. They believe that people often hoarded coins and buried them in the ground during times of crisis, war, and violence. Strength and vulnerability all mixed up together in the scary times. [1] 

Paul says that human treasure is in those vulnerable-strong clay jars because we are pointing the way to the true source of our strength: the Holy One who says to the Psalmist “open your mouth and I will fill it.”

Paul says we are so filled with the Holy that everyone who looks at us will see a light shining through the darkness. He lifts up our human vulnerability and strength when he says, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.”

We are vessels of the Holy. 

Clay jars who have opened our mouths and allowed God to fill us completely. 

We are vulnerable and we are strong. 

We carry great treasure, even though it may sometimes be buried in times of crisis. 

We pray with our hearts and hands, words and bodies. 

We do all of these things through Christ, who gives us strength. 

What a joy. What a mystery. 

May it be so. 

Notes: 

[1] On coin hoards. https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/artifacts-and-the-bible/treasures-in-clay-jars/