"Stories of Unraveling: Terror and Possibility"

Exodus 1:22, 2:1-20

August 23, 2020

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood 

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

My husband has sometimes joked that I became a pastor so I could have a good excuse to visit newborn babies and their families. Ahhhh...the feeling of holding a newborn child. They are often wrapped up tight like little gifts and when you have the honor of having a tiny baby placed in your arms….well….it’s a profoundly spiritual experience. 

Newborns somehow feel connected to ancient rhythms and truths even though they’re so new….like they’ve just arrived here on earth and aren’t bogged down yet with distractions and mistakes and history. Instead, their lives just stretch out before them. 

Okay, okay, I don’t want to totally romanticize this too much...especially for those of you who are currently caring for a baby around-the-clock. I know they also cry and eat constantly and need their diapers changed at all hours….and I know that even the most dedicated and head-over-heels-in-love caregiver will eventually get tired of holding a baby...because, you know, you also have to shower and eat and sleep and things like that. 

But even with the exhaustion that comes from caregiving….a newborn baby is a gift from God. If you imagine God carefully wrapping a beautiful package for us…beautiful ribbons, shiny paper...and then handing it to us….I can hardly think of a better gift than a fresh, new human. 

They are possibility and hope incarnate. Feeling the quiet, warm weight of a newborn in my arms has a way of grounding me, bringing me back to the essence of life, connecting me deeply to the Spirit of Life being born anew each day. 

And babies have the ability to awaken fierce urges in us bigger humans. We know, instinctively, that our job is to protect and care. We find reserves of strength we never knew we had as we rise to the task of nurturing, feeding, teaching, protecting the new lives that are entrusted to us. We lay awake at night worrying that we don’t have what it takes to care for these little ones….and we sometimes find ourselves filled with terror at the immensity of shepherding these gifts through a dangerous world. 

Possibility. Hope. Terror. 

These themes are what we hear from the pages of the Book of Exodus today.  Just like we feel them rush through us when we hold a newborn...they are all jumbled next to one another in this ancient story, too. An ancient story that is filled with gifts for us because it contains timeless truths that still feel so relevant for our lives. 

The story begins with terror. “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.” We have to back up a few verses to figure out why this is happening. We are told, “Now a new kind arose over Egypt, one who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, ‘Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we.’”

The new king - the Pharaoh - “does not know Joseph” which means he has forgotten that his kingdom and his people were, once-upon-a-time, saved from a terrible famine by an Hebrew man named Joseph. He has forgotten that these two groups of people are intimately connected. He has forgotten that they need each other to survive. And so he goes the way of every paranoid, fearful leader before and after him….dehumanizing, othering, drumming up fear and telling everyone they need to be worried that the Hebrews are going to take over.

Fear leads to othering leads to dehumanizing leads to...eventually….genocide. The whole process can take a long time, but we know that once you start down the pathway of othering...dehumanizing...there is a very real risk it may end in violence. This is why it’s so terribly important that we take care to recognize and speak up against dehumanizing language in our own time. This is an ancient story, but the truths in it still feel all-too-relevant, don’t they?

And so, if you’ll imagine with me God carefully wrapping a beautiful package for us… beautiful ribbons, shiny paper….and then handing it to us. The gift is this story and there are at least three timeless truths in it. 

And here we are at truth #1: tyrants will always cause terror. 

Jesus said, “the poor you will always have with you” and it seems to me he could have also said, “tyrants you will always have with you.” In every time...in every culture...there are always going to be cruel, oppressive leaders who inflict violence and harm. They will try to divide and conquer those they rule over...making groups suspicious of one another. They will do anything, and you know I mean ANYTHING, to consolidate their power. They make their decisions out of fear, they cheat and lie and steal, they are not to be trusted. And all too often they shamelessly use violence to ensure their own survival. 

Some of them are even cruel enough to kill babies. 

It’s enough to make you weep, just thinking about it. 

Let’s reach back in the box though. The beautiful gift wrapped by God….because there’s a second truth in this story, too. Tyrants will always be there with their terror...but resisters are always a part of the story, too. 

This story is chock-full of some of my favorite resisters in all of the Bible. Three of them we already heard about when Cassidy read the scripture - Moses’s mother, sister, and Pharoah’s daughter who found him in the river and brought him to safety. The courage and strength of these three! As a parent myself, I can scarcely imagine how terrified and out-of-options you would need to be to do what Moses’s mother found the strength to do. She hid her newborn son from the authorities for as long as she could - several months - and then she let him go, trusting he would find other arms to protect him from violence.

Imagine her, carefully wrapping him like the precious gift that he was, and placing him into the basket to float down the river. The Hebrew word there is actually “ark,” just like Noah’s ark. Ancient ears would have heard the connection between these two stories - both of them stories of radical trust as desperate humans put their most precious cargo into an ark and hoped and prayed God would make a way out of no way. 

The baby’s sister, Miriam, also played her part in the resistance. She followed her brother as he floated down the river, working to protect him in her own way. A child protecting another child. She resisted the evil around her by staying with her brother and carefully guarding her own life as she hid among the reeds and watched from afar. 

And then there’s Pharoah’s nameless daughter. What compelled her to draw a Hebrew baby from the water and take him in as her own? We aren’t told of her motivations. But perhaps she saw her father’s evil cunning and perhaps she wanted to push back against his reign of terror. Or perhaps she was simply filled with compassion for this helpless baby. Either way, her actions marked her, too, as one who resisted terror and turned toward possibility. 

There are two more resisters who play a major role in this story...we didn’t hear about them in today’s reading but you’ll find them in the first chapter of Exodus. Shiphrah and Puah. The two midwives who resisted. When Pharaoh tells them to kill all the male babies of the Hebrews, they refuse to do so. And when the king calls them in to inquire why the Hebrew baby boys are still living, they say, “Gosh, you wouldn’t believe it! The Hebrew women have babies so quickly that we can’t even get there before they give birth! So we aren’t able to help you, sorry!”

Resistance takes many forms, then as now. Sometimes it looks like doing the impossible….sending your baby into the world trusting someone else will care for and protect them. Resistance is seeing a child in need and reaching out in compassion to care for them, even when it’s not “your responsibility.” And this story helps us remember that children can resist, too! Without Moses’s sister, Miriam, Moses would not have been reunited with his mother to be nursed and cared for. What an incredible, miraculous twist in this story! And Shiphrah and Puah help us remember that sometimes resistance is a simple but bold lie. An absolute refusal to cooperate with tyranny, violence, and terror. 

All of these acts of resistance work together for the greater good. Even though the people resisting had no way of knowing what other resisters were doing, their individual acts of faith were woven together by God to form a tapestry of hope. A tapestry of possibility spread over the infant Moses like a protective tent...shielding him from the terror of tyrants, keeping him safe and secure as he grew in wisdom and maturity….and eventually became the leader who would come to free the people of Israel from tyranny's grip.

But no one could have known that when he was just a baby. 

Shiphrah, Puah, Moses’s mother, Miriam, Pharaoh's daughter….none of them could have known what their individual acts of resistance would lead to. And that brings us to the third timeless truth that is a gift for us in today’s passage: We never know how one small act of resistance can change the world. 

This story reminds us that we all have a role to play in resisting evil. And no matter how small our contribution, we can act with the faith that we do not act alone. When we resist violence, evil, tyranny we join in an unending line of those who have been pushing back in big and small ways since the beginning of time. 

And all of our acts of resistance are woven together by God into a tapestry of hope. A tapestry of possibility that spreads over all vulnerable people like a protective tent….protecting the world from terror...allowing the prophets and leaders of tomorrow to grow and flourish.

Terror we will always have with us, it seems. Thank God for these ancient stories of our faith….that remember us that possibility is always, always with us, too. Thank God for stories of hope. 

Stories of Unraveling: Living Water

John 4:1-15

August 16, 2020

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood 

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

I have an important question for you. 

Are you tired of cooking yet? 

Even those of us who cook pretty regularly have been cooking more than usual these past five months. If you’re still spending most of your time at home, you may be on day 5,358 of preparing three square meals a day. You’ve been through all your favorite recipes more than once and you can hardly believe it’s time to think about what’s for dinner….again. 

Or maybe it’s not cooking that’s wearing you down. Maybe it’s the laundry. Or the dishes. Or walking the dog. Or putting the baby down for a nap. Or mowing. Or weeding. 

There are just so many daily tasks that wear on us, aren’t there? It’s a lot of work being a human. 

And that’s before you add in the pandemic, the injustices, the worries, the election year, the economy, the going-back-to-school and everything else. 

August in a college town always has the air of change. A charge of excitement as we welcome students back and look forward to the energy they bring. This year, the change feels more significant...it feels like we’re all journeying into the unknown together. And so even as we continue these little routines each day - the cooking, the laundry, the dishes, the weeding - we also sense that we’re not sure what’s coming next. 

One thing feels pretty certain, though: no matter what changes this fall, things are not likely to get easier for anyone anytime soon. We will have to continue to dig deep and find strength and stamina for the foreseeable future. 

And THAT, my friends, is why I was so glad to see this week’s story from John’s gospel pop up this week. Because the nameless woman at the well was tired of fetching water. And yet she had to find some way to keep doing it each and every day. And in her weariness, she met Jesus, and he gave her a different kind of water. Living water. 

But I don’t want to get ahead of myself too much. First, this is one of those stories where we have to do some unpacking and maybe even some unlearning. Because many of us have heard this story interpreted as a story about a woman who is ashamed and sinful and is forgiven by Jesus. Maybe you learned that this woman was promiscuous and Jesus loved her anyway. Or that she repented of her ways and was loved by Jesus anyway. 

Jesus loves her, that’s true. But I don’t actually think it’s clear-cut at all that this nameless woman has anything to be ashamed about. She has had five husbands, true. But in a society where people often died young and men sometimes skipped out on their wives, this isn’t unheard of. Women in the time of Jesus were mostly at the mercy of the men in their lives….and sometimes they were lucky and had fathers, brothers, husbands who treated them well...and other times they did not. We simply don’t know much about this woman’s circumstances….and Jesus doesn’t seem to have a need to probe for more information. 

Instead, he wants to talk to her about weightier theological issues. He wants to talk to her about living water and where to find it. And she wants to know about where the proper place is to worship and how to get closer to God. 

They meet at the well in the noonday sun and there is an instant connection. This is a story about faith, intimacy, weariness, companionship, and community. Which surely makes it a story we need to hear in 2020.

What we know about Jesus in this story is that he is thirsty. And he sees no problem with seeking the help of a person from an “outsider group” to meet that need. The woman is surprised he would ask her - a Samaritan woman - for help, but anyone following Jesus’s ministry wouldn’t be shocked. Jesus is a connector….he meets people, loves people, engages with people everywhere he goes….all KINDS of people. He loves them. Whoever they are, wherever he meets them. They are seen and loved. What a gift to everyone he encounters. 

What we know about the woman is that she is weary. And who wouldn’t be if you had to walk to a well every single day to draw water and carry it home? Talk about a daily task that would get old. 

She’s intrigued by the idea of this “living water” that Jesus offers. Is there some way she could get out of this hard labor and never have to come back to the well again? Is there some way this stranger can help lighten her daily burdens a bit? Make the monotony of the day-to-day a bit more bearable?

We don’t see Jesus handing her an actual glass of water in this passage. In fact, I don’t think it’s even clear if anyone draws water from the well at all. At the very end of the story she even leaves her jug behind as she runs back to town to excitedly tell others about Jesus. 

What Jesus does offer the woman is his presence, his open heart, his listening ears, his loving eyes, his time...the fullness of himself. Can you think of a time in your own life when someone has offered you those gifts? 

When I ponder that question, I keep coming back to a nameless woman I met on a plane a few years ago. Like this story, the details are a bit disjointed in my mind now. I don’t remember where I was going, but I must have been traveling for work because I was alone. I know I was heading home, which means I was probably weary from being away and excited to be returning to my family. 

Now, I am NOT usually a person to chat it up with the person sitting next to me on the plane. In fact, I’m the type of person who takes a book with me to the salon so I won’t have to make small talk while getting my hair cut. I love people….but I have a lot of people I love who are already in my life. I don’t usually invest my energy talking with strangers I know I’ll never see again. 

But for some reason, this woman and I talked. And talked. And talked. I think we talked for the entire 2 or 3 hour flight. And we talked about things that mattered, not just small talk. It was an intimate conversation between strangers. And when I left, I felt better. I felt like some of my burdens had been shared. I felt like I was less alone in the world. I felt a deeper connection to every random person who stood next to me at the baggage carousel. And I felt grateful. 

Grateful for the gift of another human's time. Grateful for her presence, her open heart, her listening ears, her loving eyes, her time...the fullness of herself. That time spent with a stranger on the plane did not change my daily tasks that needed to be completed. And it did not make the work in front of me easier. But it changed me because our connection was a cool drink of living water. A refreshment that gave me strength to keep going and meet the challenges of each day. 

Friends, this is a season when things are hard. And they are not likely to get easier soon, I’m sorry to say. 

The good news that comes to us from theses ancient words today is a tall glass of cool, refreshing, living water...and it is this: Jesus meets us in the midst of our mundane, monotonous, everyday tasks. Jesus meets us in our panic attacks and our boredom. Jesus meets us in moments of quiet contemplation and in places we’d never expect him - like a crowded airplane. Jesus sits with us and offers us the gift of his presence. 

He sees us. He knows us. He weeps with us. He laughs with us (and maybe even sometimes at us...in a goodnatured way). He delights to spend time with us. He loves us. 

He loves us. Through all the beauty and terror of being human. Even now. Even us. Even in this hard season we are all in together.

May that love be a balm to our weary souls...a refreshing spring of living water that sustains us every day of our lives. Amen. 

“Stories of Unraveling: Damascus”

Acts 9:1-20

August 2, 2020

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood 

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

There’s a scene in the movie Hidden Figures that always blows my mind a bit. Katherine Johnson, one of the main characters, is talking with others who work at NASA about the calculations needed for the Friendship 7 space flight. In order to get John Glenn up into orbit they have to not only figure out how to launch him into space but ALSO how to get him back home again. 

And so it turns out there are some very complex mathematical computations that need to take place in order to figure out something called the “go/no-go” point: The point at which his craft has to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere in order to land at the designated place. I have to say that before watching the movie I had never given much thought to the mechanics of all of this. The precision that is needed in order to bring an astronaut back home safely. 

In the movie, Ms. Johnson does the calculations and says that Glenn will be able to land at the designated spot near the Bahamas...give or take 20 miles. It’s called the “go/no-go” point because if the window of opportunity is missed….well, I guess I’m not sure exactly what happens? Perhaps a fourth orbit around the earth and they try to hit it the next time around? 

What is clear is that it is precise and unwavering. Hit that re-entry point or everything falls apart. It’s a high-stakes situation with intense demands. The numbers are not up for negotiation. You either make it or you don’t. 

Today's story from the book of Acts is about a very different “go/no-go” point. This one on the dusty road to Damascus. There are, as far as I can tell, no precise mathematical computations...but the stakes are high. Saul, “still breathing threats and murders against the disciples of the Lord” is on his way to Damascus. His hope is to find some wayward followers of Jesus and arrest them...bringing them to Jerusalem for imprisonment or execution. 

Saul, who we will later come to know as the Apostle Paul, is unrelenting in his persecution of Jesus’s followers. 

He is a devoted, zealous, fundamentalist Jew. He has devoted his life to upholding a rigid understanding of his own faith. It is not enough for Saul to be devoted himself...he has also decided everyone else must feel the same way he does. And so he ruthlessly goes after those who are attempting to change the faith as he understands it. He sees it as his mission in life to correct and chastise those who are following Jesus. And he’s not above using violence to get his point across. 

And then...one day...while on his way to Damascus, everything changes. The Spirit speaks to him in a booming voice, he falls on his knees, he loses his sight for three days. At this precise location on the road to Damascus, Saul’s trajectory is irrevocably altered. 

No longer will he be Saul, the one who persecutes Christ’s followers. Instead, he will be Paul - a devoted follower of Christ. 

This is a story about changing trajectories. A story about being stopped in your path. A story about turning around in a 180. It’s a story about something Paul would have known in Hebrew as shuv: to turn around, to return, to repent. 

You see, in Hebrew, repentance is not about a change of heart but a change of direction. It’s not as simple as saying a prayer or admitting what you’ve done wrong. Real repentance is about changing our trajectory...often in a complete 180. A change of heart is often a part of it, of course, but it’s not repentance unless our actions are different. It’s not repentance until we go in a new direction.  

This story is often called the “the conversion of Paul”...but it’s about more than just Paul. He’s not alone on the road to Damascus. There are others with him who hear the voice and whose lives are changed. 

And then there’s Ananias. He also receives a vision. He is told to find Saul and be a part of his transformation. Ananias, a follower of Jesus, should be terrified to go anywhere near Saul. But he follows the voice and seeks Saul out. His hands are necessary to complete the work of repentance. Through his touch, Saul’s eyes are re-opened and his new life begins. 

Repentance, restoration, conversion, transformation...these are not things that typically happen in a vacuum. Even when they seem to only affect one individual, we know the movement of the Spirit sends ripples out into the wider world. 

On February 20, 1962 John Glenn splashed down just north of the Bahamas. Just like he was supposed to. The “go/no-go” had worked out just fine. In the midst of all the celebration and chaos and confusion of that moment, I doubt anyone paid much attention to the ripples that the Friendship 7 sent out into the ocean. But they must have been there. And somewhere deep in the sea, a school of fish swimming along must have noticed a slight shift in the water around them. 

One small fish at the front of the group felt it first, an almost imperceptible change in water temperature or movement. And as the fish turned to go a different direction, the entire school of fish...hundreds of them, turned around. If you were watching it it would look like they were moving as one. You wouldn’t even be able to tell which fish turned first. 

Somewhere overhead that day geese were winging their way to a new home. A slight change in the atmosphere, almost imperceptible, and one of the geese shifted her flight pattern just a bit. The others, moving as one, adjusted, too. And the great V changed course a bit, moved by the movement of the one bird who felt the change first. 

Repentance, restoration, conversion, transformation...these are not things that typically happen in a vacuum. Even when they seem to only affect one individual, we know the movement of the Spirit sends ripples out into the wider world. 

It can be so easy to forget that we each have the power to make a difference. The problems of the world can seem insurmountable. Most of us are not Pauls….most of us are not bound to be major players of the stage of human history. But each and every one of us can be the lead fish or the lead goose. 

Each and every one of us has the opportunity every single day to shuv, to turn towards God and return to healing and hope. It might be pausing to look someone in the eye or offering a kind word. It might be making the active choice to stop doomscrolling and savor a moment with God instead. It might be voting or writing a check or playing with a child or having a difficult conversation with someone that helps them move towards healing. Heck, it might even be as simple as NOT saying the unkind thing, NOT reposting the funny meme that’s actually a little cruel.

The choices we make to turn towards Love are not always big...but they always matter. And often we do not see the ripples we send out into the world. But just as the school of fish seems to turn at once, humans can change whole societies by dancing together towards justice and peace and kindness and health. 

One of the great questions about this story from Acts is, of course, why Saul? Why would God choose to use someone who was so vehemently against Jesus? Weren’t there other candidates who could have written most of the New Testament who weren’t murderers? 

I’m certain there were. But the story of Saul invites us to consider the ways our God’s grave is different from those precise mathematical computations necessary for NASA. 

There isn’t a go/no-go point in our lives. There isn’t a point of no return when it comes to God’s love. There isn’t a path we can put ourselves on that can’t be altered. 

In God’s eyes there is always room for resurrection...new life. In God’s eyes we are always just one step away from turning and making new choices, returning to the people God created us to be. In God’s eyes it’s not “go/no-go” it’s just an unending invitation…”go...go...go...go…” do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with me. 

Did you miss your chance yesterday? The invitation is still there…”go...go….go...go...turn and return to the ways of love.”