“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/