Caela's Sermon Blog: May 2022

Sunday, May 29, 2022

"Here We Are Again"

Philippians 2:1-13

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

May 29, 2022

This is one of those weeks where every single preacher I know is feeling inadequate. How do we make sense of the evil in our world? Is that even possible?

Every parent I know is also feeling inadequate. How do we talk with our kids about the news? How do we keep them safe?

Actually, most humans I’ve talked to this week are feeling pretty inadequate across the board.

How do we keep coping when we haven’t even had time to process one heinous act of violence and hatred and another one follows on its heels? What do we do with our anxiety? Our anger? Our helplessness?

Those are the emotions that keep echoing around the tables I’ve been at this week: anxiety, anger, helplessness. And those are the emotions that keep coming up over and over again every time we have to replay this whole sick scene.

What do we do with our anger? What do we do when it feels like we’re screaming into the void?

We’re enraged because it’s ridiculous to live in a country that wants to “protect” schoolchildren from “scary books” and “CRT” but refuses to enact common-sense gun legislation.. We yell because some say this is just a “mental health problem” but refuse to fund access to ANY kind of health care in this country, let alone mental health care. We’re outraged because politicians and pundits try to convince us that we’re inexplicably supposed to be scared of transgender kids. And those of us with uteruses tend to get especially hot when we realize that the government wants to tell us what we can and can’t do with our bodies but won’t limit access to lethal weapons one iota.

I could go on and on. And I have. Because it’s okay to be angry about all of this. It really is.

Most of us weren’t taught to welcome our anger. And to let it teach us. I’ve been learning to envision anger like the little dude in the movie Inside Out.

When he arrives, I listen to Anger yell for a while and watch the flames burst out of his head. And then, when the time feels right, I ask him, “What are you here to teach me?” And I try to listen.

Sometimes Anger says, “It’s time to DO something, friend.”. Anger can fuel us into positive action. We can join a group that’s organizing for change. We can donate our time or money. We can call our elected officials again. We can write a note of encouragement to someone who is struggling. We can spend time with a child. We can connect with other humans and share a laugh or a good cry. We can DO something rather than just yell into an echo-chamber.

When I’m listening to Anger, I try to also invite Valerie Kaur into that space, too. Remember her from our sermon series on Revolutionary Love? She reminds us that “Divine rage is fierce, disciplined, and visionary….The aim of divine rage is not vengeance but to reorder the world.” Kaur says that anger is “...a rhythm: Step away to rage, return to listen, and reimagine the solutions together. It becomes a kind of dance – to release raw rage in a safe container, in order to send divine rage into the world, like focused fury. The way of the warrior-sage is not only loving-kindness but loving-revolution, or revolutionary love.” [1]

It is my prayer for all of us that we can find ways to harness the power of anger in the ways that Kaur so eloquently explains and Jesus so beautifully lived. That we possess our anger as just one part of us - a useful part of us - rather than allow it to possess us.

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What do we do with our anxiety? What do we do when the worst-case-scenarios we’ve been running through in our heads actually start to seem like they aren’t that impossible?

Many of us turn to prayer to help us through our anxieties and fears. We offer them to God and find relief in knowing that we don’t carry these burdens alone.

We carry around songs and Bible verses and favorite prayers in our head, relying on them like mantras, saying them over and over again when the fears won’t subside.

One of the most helpful things anyone has ever told me about anxiety came through the ministry of my therapist, who has put up with my anxious shenanigans for years now and is absolutely God at work in my life. She taught me that ruminating actually isn’t helpful.

Now if you don’t have an anxiety disorder you might be thinking, “DUH.” But if you’re like me, you might find yourself saying, “HUH?”

I’ve been a ruminator for my entire life, so it’s a real struggle to kick the habit. But she taught me to try this: ask yourself, “Is this a problem or a worry?”

Problems are something we can DO something about. So we look at the issue and see if there’s some action we can take. Then we take that action or work towards taking that action. And….that’s it. If the anxiety about it comes up again, we remind ourselves we’ve already done what we can do and we try to put it aside.

If we’ve already done what we can do or if there’s nothing we can do, then it’s a worry. And turning it over and over (and over and over and over) isn’t actually helpful.

Side note: I realize I am making this sound easier than it is. I know it’s not easy. I’m still working on it every day. Thank God we aren’t working through it alone. If you need help finding a therapist, please let me know.

**************

What do we do with our helplessness? When we’ve listened to our anger and channeled it into action….but everything’s still messed up? When we’ve sorted through our problems vs. worries and done what we can do…but it never seems to be enough? What do we do when we start to feel like we’re losing hope?

Paul spent a lot of his life in prison, and he was in prison when he wrote this letter. We can hardly imagine a place where a person feels more helpless and hopeless than in prison, right? And yet, these are not the words of a man who feels helpless or hopeless:

“If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete.”

And he goes on to offer words of hope to his friends, “Be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind….Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

Paul never stopped seeking the mind of Christ. Paul never stopped desiring to become more and more like the Spirit of God living and breathing and moving among us.

Paul reminded us that we all have the incredible gift of opening ourselves to be of one mind, one spirit, one love with Christ. And he goes on to remind us that Christ is the one who came to us, not to abuse his power, but to be a servant to God just as we are. Jesus gave up his privilege and power - emptying himself to remind us that God knows what it’s like to feel imprisoned, trapped, afraid, angry, hurt.

Paul speaks frankly about the evil in the world. He doesn’t sugar coat the sickening violence that Jesus endured. And yet, even in this midst of all of that, and even while in prison, he dares to speak of joy.

Reading these ancient words of joy from a prison cell reminded me of a sermon a dear friend of mine preached the Sunday immediately after Sandy Hook. Two days after that most horrific of days when we were all still reeling. It was the third Sunday in Advent: the Sunday with the pink candle.

The Sunday for joy.

The text that day was from the book of Zephaniah. The Rev. Jennifer Mills-Knutsen explained to her congregation that most of the book is all about the pain of the world, the horror, the terror - and how God is present with us in the midst of it, grieving and lamenting along side us.

Jennifer said that it’s only in the last few verses of the book that Zephaniah “slowly, gently…dares invoke joy.” Like Paul, he’s just feeling his way towards it.

She said:

The turning point comes when, again speaking for God, he says, “Wait for me. Wait for the day when I rise up.” Not now. Not yet. Not joy realized, but joy promised. Not joy fulfilled, but joy awaiting. Zephaniah does not declare that everything is alright, or even that it will be alright again soon. Nothing about dead children is ever alright, whether two days or 2600 years ago, whether caused by a mass shooting or an abusive king, or war, or famine, or bullying, or addiction, or suicide, or cancer, or anything else. He does not tell us to get over it, move on, or be happy. The prophet speaks of joy because he wants us to know that in spite of it all, God still reigns.

How dare he speak of joy in the face of such tragedy? How dare he not.

How dare any preacher or prophet let us think for one moment that God’s promised joy risks being snuffed out by any evil this world could ever display. How dare anyone think that any barrier this world could construct, any horror that evil might imagine could ever, ever stop God coming to us, embracing our children in their time of terror, comforting our broken hearts, and leading us forward into healing and, yes, even again, someday, to joy. [2]

And so, beloveds, as we sit with our anger and our fear - as we resolve to act and keep acting - let us also be bold to join in praying alongside Paul and Zephaniah and Jennifer that our joy might be made complete.

Not now. Not yet.

But we need the promise of joy, God. We need your hope to be born among us, still.

Embrace all your children in this time of terror. Comfort broken hearts. Lead us forward into healing.

And don’t let us lose sight of your promised joy.

Amen.

NOTES:

[1] Kaur, Valarie. See No Stranger, chapter 4: Rage.

[2] Sermon by the Rev. Jennifer Mills-Knutsen, unpublished. Dec 16, 2012.

Sunday, May 22, 2022

“Better Together”

Philippians 1:1-18a

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

May 22, 2022

I spent last weekend in Wichita at a quarterly meeting of the Kansas-Oklahoma Conference of the United Church of Christ. As is so often the case in those big board meetings, we reached a point in the meeting where I was frantically taking notes and watching my to-do list get longer and starting to feel a little overwhelmed by the number of big ministry things we need to do. I’m sure I’m the ONLY one who feels this way in meetings, right?

But as I chatted with others after the meeting, we all reflected on how grateful we are to be in ministry together. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a church meeting - with the conference or with our congregation - where there wasn’t laughter. There’s almost always a moment when someone says something wise and my heart tingles a bit and I think, “Yes, that’s it. That’s the Spirit moving among us.” Sometimes we feel overwhelmed by trying to figure out how to best steward our resources of energy and time and money or prioritize what needs to be tackled first, but I always leave meetings feeling gratitude that I get to work alongside people who are seeking to follow in the ways of Jesus, listening to one another, and doing their level best to love God and love their neighbors as themselves.

This past week, I had several opportunities to give thanks for all of you. On Tuesday morning, I was down in the basement with TJ from the water restoration company we’re working with on our basement woes. We were talking about him getting together a bid for us and I reminded him that once we had it, it would take us a bit to sort through it because we’re a volunteer-led organization and, well, you know, churches aren’t known for making the speediest decisions. And then I said, “But, you know, there are upsides and downsides to making decisions and living life together like this. Downside is it can take a lot of time to make decisions. Upside is we make better decisions together than we would apart. Plus, when you end up with water in your basement, you put out an all-call for help and TONS of people show up to get it handled.”

Dealing with problems together isn’t necessarily easy, but it’s worth it. We’re better together.

Later in the week I went for a walk with someone who was interested in learning more about the UCC. We talked about some of the things that make our denomination unique. One of the things I shared is how important the idea of covenant is to us. We’re together not because we all believe the same things or agree but because we’ve made a commitment to living in covenant together. And we trust that God will give us the open hearts that we need to make that a reality. Even if we don’t all agree. Even if we don’t love every hymn we sing. Even if someone disappoints us because they forgot to do an important task they agreed to do. Even if the preacher sometimes preaches a dud.. Even if someone understands Jesus differently than we do.

I told this person a story about a time, several years ago now, when the church Cabinet had to make a decision about how involved we would be in a justice-oriented campaign. We weren’t all in agreement about how we felt on the issue. And one very wise and mature person on the Cabinet said, “You know, I don’t personally agree with this, but my job as Cabinet member isn’t to do whatever I think is best as an individual. And when I look at the values of our congregation, I can see that this IS in line with who we are as a community. So I think we should support this work as a congregation.”

Your church leaders are thoughtful, wise, mature, dedicated, good-humored, loving, brave, Spirit-led folks. Consistently. Working together to seek the mind of Christ and be open to the new light and truth God has for us.

Covenant isn’t easy but it’s worth it. We’re better together.

One of the great joys I have as your pastor is that I get to hear people give thanks for all of you. I get to see people’s eyes well up with tears as they give thanks for the ways you’ve showed up for them when they were struggling. I get to receive thank you notes like the one I got earlier this week from a person who was only a part of our congregation for just a brief period of time, but so very grateful for the ways they experienced the Spirit moving here. I read messages from people on Facebook who don’t even live here but follow our ministry, writing to ask me where they can find a church near them like ours. I’m the one who gets the phone call from a young couple getting ready to move away from Manhattan. Though I haven’t seen them in a couple years, they want to make sure and thank me in person for the ways this congregation helped them see Christ, even though they only attended sporadically and never became members. I get the thank you emails from people who live far away from here but are grateful they can still attend on Zoom. And I hear from people who are grateful to see your smiling faces at the Pride parade, and want to volunteer with our feeding ministries, and want to get married here because they’ve heard we are respectful of all religious traditions, and are grateful for our COVID memorial out front and on and on and on.

These thank yous remind us that we’re better together.

Now you might be wondering, what does all of this have to do with Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Well, this particular letter is all about being better together. Despite being in prison, Paul is filled with gratitude for his friends in Philippi. He writes this beautifully encouraging and uplifting letter, giving thanks that they haven’t forgotten him, that they are living in covenant together, and praying for their strength and courage in their shared ministry.

Taking the time to sit down and write letters like this is something most of us don’t do often enough. But it’s so lovely to read these intentional words of gratitude. You know, I often start my emails with “Hey, there.” But Paul takes the time to say, “Grace to you and peace from God….” His intentionality reminds me of an email I received several months ago, when we first started partnering with KDHE to offer COVID tests. The coordinator for that program. Racheal, began her first email to me with these words, “I hope this email finds you enjoying the fruits of your ministry.”

Isn’t that lovely?

Living in covenant means being intentional with each other. Taking the time to give thanks, in specific ways. Offering words of encouragement and care. This is what it looks like to walk in the ways of Jesus. This is how we are better together.

Now, don’t misunderstand me to say that this is the ONLY work. Clearly, there is more to following Jesus than just being kind to the people in your inner circle. Jesus doesn’t tell us to simply love our friends, but our enemies, too. And we know that love isn’t just expressed through words or thoughts and prayers, but also through action.

This work of loving those near us is foundational, though, because it’s the work that enables us to keep persevering in all the other work we do as humans. The laboring parent can push their way through to birth because the midwife is there saying, “You can do this. I believe in you.” Those words of hope create a new reality. The toddler can slide down the big slide at the playground even though they’re scared because the parent is there saying, “You can do this. You’re brave and strong!” Those words of hope create a new reality.

Similarly, we keep encouraging one another in the fight for peace and justice. We look at the horrific things that happen, like the shooting in Buffalo, and we don’t allow each other to give up hope. Instead, we condemn white supremacist violence and resolve to stay with it. Just as Paul is imprisoned, we are bound by the evils of racism, sexism, and so many other hateful ideologies, but just as Paul turns to his community for hope, we, too, turn to our community for encouragement. We continue to seek creative ways to show up for justice and dismantle oppressive systems and build a better world. Together.

Together, we can rejoice even when things seem dire, remembering that we follow the God who is always dreaming a new world into being. As we hold onto this Easter hope, we give thanks, not only for communities of support, but also for a faith that sustains us in difficult times.

And we recognize that the purpose of all this covenantal love, of course, is NOT simply to love our friends. We give thanks for the familiar faces at church that we know intimately AND we go out of our way to look for the newest face in the crowd, welcoming them as Christ welcomes. We can never let our love for one another become insular, only showing love to some. Instead, it is our prayer that Christ’s love - that love that is always building a bigger table - overflows in us, calling us outside of ourselves to draw the circle wider still as we invite others to be a part of our community. This doesn't happen organically, y’all. I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at the maps in the back of your Bible that show what Paul was up to, but he was EVERYWHERE, traveling near and far, reminding people that we’re better together and inviting people to be a part of the movement.

We may not all be called to travel to Macedonia, but each and every one of us can be on the lookout for a coworker or neighbor who might benefit from being drawn into a community of love like First Congregational. Each and every one of us can choose our words out in the world with intention, sharing grace and peace with strangers we encounter each day. Each and every one of us can offer a spirit of hope and encouragement as we creatively figure out how to fight the evils of hatred. Each and every one of us can live our lives in such a way that other people will look at us and say, “See how they love? I want some of that.” And we can keep inviting and nurturing and sharing the goodness of Christ’s love that we’ve found, so that others can experience it, too.

Paul says it like this, “Dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear.” And he prays for his friends, “That your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight.” That is my prayer for you, to. That your love may overflow.

May it be so.

Sunday, May 15, 2022

"Freedom Stories"

Acts 16:25-34

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

May 15, 2022

The scripture lesson from Acts today is part of a larger story that’s filled to the brim with plot. If you take out your Bible and look just before where we started today, you’ll get the backstory on why Paul and Silas are in prison.

They’re in Philippi and a girl who is enslaved because she is possessed with a spirit of prophecy is following them around town, shouting out that Paul and Silas are “slaves of the most high.” After several days of this, Paul gets annoyed and casts the spirit out of her. We’re not told what this means for her future - what will her enslavers do with her now that her money-making skill is gone? Will she be freed or further exploited in even more heinous ways? We don’t know.

We do get introduced to an angry crowd and magistrates who make no secret of their disgust for Paul and Silas – calling them outside agitators and sneering at their religion. It seems their main crime is their identity as Jews. Without any kind of trial, they are beaten severely, locked in jail, and shackled.

Once the scene moves to the jail, we are introduced to more characters.

There are other prisoners – we don’t learn much about them; there is the jailer who becomes suicidal upon learning that the prison has been broken open by the earthquake; and finally, you have the jailer’s family members who are all baptized alongside him at the end of the story.

I mean, really – how many sermons could we find in this one story? It is absolutely rich with characters, images, plot, and plenty of ideas about what it means to be a follower of Christ.

One of the things that comes up over and over again is the issue of what is means to be free and what it means to be enslaved.

The story opens with an enslaved girl who calls Paul and Silas slaves. After freeing her from her possession by a spirit, Paul and Silas become captives themselves – shut up in prison they are Jews.

And it’s not just the obvious places that this theme trickles through the story, either. We also see that even the jailer – the one who holds the keys – is not free himself. He is bound up by his fear that he will be killed if his prisoners escape. Even the jailer asks for freedom in the end, asking Paul and Silas, “what must I do to be saved?”

It seems that everyone in this story is seeking freedom. Freedom from demons and captors, freedom from anti-Semitism, freedom from a brick and mortar jal, freedom from expectations, freedom from fear and oppression.

Paul and Silas may have been the only ones praying and singing hymns to God at midnight, but it’s easy to imagine any character in this story longingly singing freedom songs.

***************

And in this story, there is one character that breaks in time and time again, working towards greater freedom.

The author of Acts makes it clear to us that God is the source of freedom for everyone in this story. God breaks into their world in weird and wonderful ways to keep urging humans towards liberation.

It turns out that the enslaved girl had it right all along, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” God desires salvation – freedom from captivity – for all - those who are in jail and those who put people in jail.

Stories like this one remind us that our God is always drawing us towards liberation for all people - the people who look like us and the ones who don’t, the people who make all the big decisions in our society and those on the margins, the people we like and the people we can’t stand.

This story is, of course, not a one-off. The overarching theme of our entire Bible is freedom. Jewish Biblical scholar Amy Robertson highlights the similarities between this story and the Exodus: (1)

In both stories freedom and enslavement loom large. In the Exodus story, the people aren’t set free so they can simply do whatever they want. They are set free so they can become servants of God. We hear echoes of that in the enslaved girl’s proclamation that Paul and Silas are “slaves of the most high God.” No longer enslaved to empire or exploitative systems that see humans as cogs in a money-making machine, but servants to a God of love and justice for all.

In both stories, of course, people are enslaved because of their identities. The Israelites are in bondage because of their religious and ethnic identity just like Paul and Silas.

In both stories we see the importance of worship. The Israelites sing songs and play tambourines and dance at the edge of the Red Sea. Paul and Silas pray and sing hymns to God in the jail.

In both stories, freedom comes through miraculous acts of nature. The Red Sea parts for the Israelites. And in Philippi it’s an earthquake that throws open the prison doors and breaks open the prisoners’ chains.

And, of course, both stories end with rejoicing and freedom. The Israelites sing and dance with joy after crossing the Red Sea. And Paul and Silas receive the care of the jailer, sharing their witness for Christ with him, and baptizing him and his entire family.

In both stories, God is able to work through imperfect humans. Who can forget Moses saying, “Who, me? You want me to be the one to lead your people to freedom?” It’s not always smooth sailing for Moses. He doesn’t get it all right.

And Paul is….well, Paul. He sets this whole thing in motion with a rash decision made out of frustration. He doesn’t seem to have any kind of noble goal when he casts out the spirit from the enslaved girl. Instead, he’s just annoyed that she’s been following them around for days on end.

I wonder and worry about the girl. The ramifications of Paul’s impulsivity impact her deeply. What happened to her? Was she pressed into a different, perhaps more dangerous, kind of slavery? We’re not told. The very human, imperfect authors didn’t think to follow her story. But we trust that God did. And that God continued to be present with her, knew her name, and continued to seek her freedom and well-being.

Where are the places where people are crying out for freedom today? It might be obvious - people behind literal bars. Or more subtle - people trapped by unjust laws and bigotry. There are people who are stuck in the shackles of an economic system that oppresses and harms. People who are trapped by violence. People struggling with health issues of all kinds, including mental health and addiction.

There are people all over the world seeking freedom, of course. But also people in our community. And people in our congregation. So many of us are held in the grips of one thing or another and you can’t necessarily see all of that just by looking at a person, right?

To those who are stuck, trapped, locked up, locked down, unfree - hear these words of good news: our God is a God of liberation. Our God is always seeking freedom for all people. Not just in big, sweeping stories like Exodus and Acts, but in quiet moments that may be private, undocumented.

Thanks be to our God of liberation.

May we be on the lookout for the forces that are moving towards freedom in our midst.

May we be a part of creating a world where all can seek liberation.

May we rejoice, in gratitude, as we received the freedom God offers us all.

Come with tambourines and hymns at midnight, God.

Come with gushing waters and shake our foundations.

Come and build a world of peace and justice for all.

And make our hands useful as your servants.

Amen.

NOTES:

[1] This week’s Bible Worm podcast.

Sunday, May 8, 2022

“Foundation”

Genesis 1:1-5

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

May 8, 2022

Hold your hands out with me. I need some help holding on to some things this morning:

When we worship in the park, it’s always so good to just enjoy being in nature together.
And, of course, we’re blessing our animals today. We give thanks for our pets - the joy they bring, the way they walk with us as partners through the ups and downs.
All of this calls to mind our deep connection to the natural world. And the deep groans of confession that we need to utter when we contemplate the ways we humans have grossly mistreated our planet. We need to lift up creation care and recommit ourselves to sustainability and advocacy for our Earth.
Speaking of sustainability, Amelia is here from ECM! Our campus ministry partners are leaders in creation care and we are delighted to celebrate with them as they mark 101 years of ministry at K-State.

And then, of course, it’s Mother’s Day. A day of joy for some and grief, anger, ambivalence, annoyance for others. A complicated day.

(How are your hands doing? Are you holding all of this so far? I know it’s a lot.)

We sit with the incomprehensible reality that the U.S. has now had over one million deaths from COVID. You know some of those million people.

And to top it all off there was a bit of SCOTUS news this week, sending so many reeling as we contemplate the reality that those with uteruses may very soon be further restricted in their own bodily autonomy. We hold onto grief and fear as we strengthen resolve to listen harder, love louder, and find ways to keep fashioning a world where everyone truly is able to make their own decisions, access healthcare, and where children are welcomed into a world where families can earn a living wage, can access contraception, early childhood education and on and on.

Okay, did your hands collapse yet? If so, it’s okay. Because, my friends, we gather as a faith community and we don’t hold these things alone. The Spirit of Fierce Love comes alongside us with hands larger than we could imagine and scoops it all up. The joy, the pain, the hope, the fear, the anger, the beauty. Scoops us up, too. And holds it all together.

Thanks be to God.

So on a day like today, it seems appropriate to lean into one of our most foundational faith stories. The first story of creation from our sacred texts. The very first story in the Bible.

This is, of course, not a scientific text. I’ve always appreciated that we have TWO Creation stories in the Bible, this one and then the one in Genesis 2 about Adam and Eve, because having two stories reminds us that our faith ancestors living thousands of years ago had a different mindset than we do. They weren’t troubled by having multiple stories about the same thing. It’s a reminder that we cannot turn to this text to seek details about evolution, atoms, particles. Instead, these creation stories strive to illuminate the truest things about humanity, God, and the relationship between us.

Father Richard Rohr says that the created world that we inhabit is actually the first incarnation of Christ. When we think about God taking on flesh and dwelling among us, the creation stories are the first place that happens - when God blows over the deep and imbues creation with the Spirit. And when God creates humans in their own image.

Rohr also says that Creation is our first scripture. For millennia before the Bible was written down, we found God in the created world. The Word made flesh among us, teaching us what we need to know: that we are sacred beings, created in God’s image, made to love and care. You don’t have to look much further than a tree budding out in May to see that Creation teaches us deep and sacred truths about God, humanity, and the relationship between us. Spring trees speak to us of resurrection. And the birds sing an ancient song of Easter truths as they call out before dawn as surely as the women went to the tomb.

And so, on this morning when we are holding so many things together with God’s help, we turn to an old, old story to seek illumination. And we’ll do so with a simple ritual of lighting a candle as I share a few truths from Genesis 1 that light our pathway as we carry so much together. I could easily light 30 or 40 candles with all the wisdom to be gleaned from this story but, don’t worry, I only brought four candles with me today.

THE FIRST CANDLE -

In this story, God is creating order out of chaos. In the beginning, when God created, the earth was a big ol’ formless mess of who knows what and things were so murky you couldn’t even see up from down…and the spirit of God, the ruach, blew over it all and started to create order. The first order of business was light. So that Creation could be illuminated. Jewish tradition teaches that this first light actually wasn’t the sun or moon or stars (those come later) but a primordial light that infuses all creation. A light that exists even in the darkest night of the new moon. A light that cannot be extinguished.

And God created a dome to separate water from water. The water beneath became the sea and the water above - the rains - held back from destroying everything. And the land began to form as God separated and named and called things into place.

Our God is one who carefully, lovingly, painstakingly is seeking to create order even when chaos threatens to overwhelm.

THE SECOND CANDLE -

Now if you’ve heard the rest of this story, you might have noticed that God has a lot of help along the way. The dry land isn’t created from nothing. Instead, the dry land seems to be lurking underneath all that water. And God calls upon the water to organize itself. And the waters partner with God and the land comes forth. In the same way, God calls upon the Earth to create vegetation and the Earth says, “Why, yes, that sounds lovely, let’s do it!” And God invites the waters to, once again, be a part of creating, bringing forth creatures. And the earth brings forth animals who are called upon to be fruitful and multiply. And even humans are invited into this dance of creation as God gives us our marching orders and tells us to care for creation.

Partnership. Co-creation with God. And, of course, many Christians have, for far too long, interpreted our call to have “dominion” over the natural world as permission to misuse the Earth. But if we are created in God’s image and God rules in partnership, not as a bossy monarch but as a benevolent protector, aren’t we called to do the same?

Our God invites us to be co-creators and protectors of our home, the Earth.

THE THIRD CANDLE

Through it all, it’s very clear that God cares about the physical world. God is not some floating-off-in-the-ether God who only cares about ideas and spirits. God is in the mess with us. Not just in this story, of course, but in all of our sacred stories. And so we are invited to be about the work of caring about bodies. All kinds of bodies. We are called to wrestle with difficult stories of violence against bodies. And celebrate all the amazing things bodies can do. And seek embodied joy and pleasure. And respect each person’s sacred right to bodily autonomy. And grieve when our bodies get sick and people die. And make sure bellies are fed and touch is safe and healthcare is available and on and on….

We are called to dig our toes into the dirt and walk as embodied people, in all the complexity of that. With ears and hearts open. Because God cares about the entirety of the created world. Including our bodies.

THE FOURTH CANDLE

Speaking of bodies - bodies need rest and bodies need meaningful work. You may recall that this story builds towards day seven. And on day seven, do you remember what God does? REST. That’s right, the Sabbath.

Now what you might NOT know is something I learned from one of my favorite podcasts, BibleWorm, this week. (Silly name, great podcast.) I learned that lots of other ancient creation stories also build towards something at the end. Order is created from chaos and the culmination is often a temple or some other structure that keeps chaos at bay. But the temple that’s created at the end of our creation story in Genesis 1 is the Sabbath.

Rest is not only permissible, it’s essential. Even for God, y’all.

Which means we who are created in God’s image as co-creators with Love, are also made to rest. Now we’re not made to rest all the time, mind. Please note that on the other six days, God is doing a whole lotta work. But we are created to be in this sacred rhythm of doing the work and resting, doing the work and resting, doing the work and resting.

And so - hands out again - remembering that we’re holding all of this with God’s help - we are reminded that we worship a God who calls us into important work AND a God who models for us that no one can or should work every moment of every day.

The work of creation is sacred.

The work of rest is sacred.

God is embodied in all of it, seeking to create order from chaos.

Even here. Even now. Thanks be to God.

Caela's Sermon Blog

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