"Safety Nets"

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Luke 12:13-21

July 31, 2022

Nik Wallenda is an expert on fear. 

He’s a seventh-generation professional tightrope walker. He holds 11 Guinness world records and is best-known for walking over Niagara Falls and an active volcano on a tightrope. 

Nik and his family have been circus performers since the 1700s. If you’ve ever seen them perform, you’ll remember it because they do so without a safety net.

That’s right. I said NO SAFETY NET. 

You might think that if your family had been doing this for over 200 years you’d have a high degree of confidence that it’s safe. And you might not be too afraid. 

But…the thing is…it’s not safe. 

Over the centuries, several people from the Wallenda family have died while performing and others have been seriously injured or had close calls. Back in the 60s the Wallenda family had a signature trick called “the seven.” A mind-dizzying walk across a wire involving seven people. Four who form the base, walking on the wire with poles held between them. Then two more on top of those horizontal poles that the base four are carrying. Those two are also carrying a horizontal pole. And perched atop it all, the seventh person balanced on that pole, sitting on a chair. 

Although they had successfully completed this feat many, many times before, in 1962, they had a tragic accident in Detroit. One of the performers lost their stability and the pyramid collapsed. Two of the Wallendas died and three more were seriously injured. [1] 

This is just one story of tragedy in the Wallenda family. And, yet, to this day, there are Wallendas who continue to carry on this dangerous family tradition. How do you get up and do something like this day after day? How do you choose to put your very life out there with no safety net? 

I have a sneaking suspicion that every Wallenda who steps onto the wire must have a safety net - an invisible one. Every one of them must have some story that they tell themselves, something they believe in deeply, an invisible net that gives them the ability to keep showing up like this. 

I don’t know what that invisible safety net is for each of them, but for Nik Wallenda, the safety  net is his faith in God. Having read several interviews where he speaks about his faith, you can tell that it’s the thing that enables him to keep going, despite all the fear. He says that hopes his life is a testament to learning that there’s a difference between healthy fear and unhealthy fear. [2] He has a healthy fear for his work that makes him very careful, very intentional about his training. And he doesn’t believe God is somehow magically holding his feet to the wire. It seems he has a very real understanding that he is not safe. And yet he keeps going anyway. 

How?

To be honest, I don’t totally understand. 

But Nik Wallenda is on my mind this week because Jesus’s parable of the Rich Fool is also about invisible safety nets. It’s a story about how humans seek security.

The story begins when a man comes up to Jesus and asks for help with a family squabble. As happens in many families after a death, there is conflict about money. This man says to Jesus, “Tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”

Jesus refuses to be the judge, saying, “Friend, why would you think I’m supposed to judge or arbitrate in this way?” Instead, Jesus offers advice, “Be careful, friend. Be on guard against greed of any kind. Life isn’t about having security in our material possessions. Let me tell you a story….” 

(Side note: please notice that when people have to make difficult moral decisions, Jesus doesn’t swoop in and tell them what to do. Instead, he entrusts them to take all the information available to them and make the right choice for themselves.)

And then Jesus tells this parable about the one we’ve come to know as the “Rich Fool.” Now, on the surface, the Rich Fool isn’t doing anything terribly wrong with his money. He’s a landowner who has a good year. He’s surprised by his good fortune and wonders what to do with his abundant harvest. “What should I do with all of this,” he wonders, “I don’t have enough space for all this grain!” And so says, “I know what I’ll do. I’ll build myself some new barns. Bigger than the ones I had before. There will be plenty of room to store all it all. And I’ll say to my soul, ‘Soul, you’re set for years to come! Eat, drink, and be merry. You’ve got no worries.’”

Easy peasy, right? Except…Jesus continues, “Seeing this, God said to the man, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is being demanded of you! So now what? What happens to all this stuff you’ve stored up? You can’t take it with you, you know.”

Oh. Oops. 

The man’s problem isn’t that he’s rich. Having wealth isn’t in-and-of-itself the problem here. But having money can make it harder to get our souls centered in the right place, can’t it? Biblical scholar David Lose says that the Rich Fool’s errors are two-fold. First, he says, “The farmer has fallen prey to worshiping the most popular of gods: the Unholy Trinity of ‘me, myself, and I.’” [3] When he discovers he has an abundance, he only thinks about his own needs. He seems to exist in complete isolation from everyone else, doesn’t he?

Artist Jim Janknegt has created a piece called the Rich Fool that I can’t share here due to copyright, but I hope you’ll Google so you can see it on his website. [4] He’s reimagined the Rich Fool as our contemporary. In bright colors he depicts two houses that we are able to peer inside. On the right, a family of eight gathers around a table together in a modest home. On the left, the Rich Fool dines alone except for a hooded grim reaper-like figure pointing at him menacingly. The only other figure in the home is what seems to be a small statue in the front room. A statue of a small person with a hole where their heart should be.

The feeling of isolation in the piece is palpable. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with living alone, of course. It’s possible to live alone and deeply connected to others. But Janknegt’s piece is a visual reminder of one of the things Jesus seems to be telling us in this parable - that those who have the privilege of financial independence must be on-guard against the temptation of isolation from the wider community. When we fool ourselves into thinking we don’t need anyone else - when we begin to believe that we are self-sustaining - we may find ourselves like the Rich Fool - entirely focused on my, myself, and I. 

The second problem, says Lose, is that God is nowhere to be seen. [3] The Rich Fool doesn’t reach out to community and he doesn’t reach out to the Spirit, either. He makes his decisions in isolation. His wealth allows him to curve in upon himself. Perhaps his privilege has even lulled him into believing he is entirely self-sufficient and doesn’t need a connection with that life-force of goodness, that breath of creativity, that heartbeat of justice that we call God. 

If the Wallendas are operating with invisible safety nets, the Rich Fool’s safety net is locked away tight in his big barns. 

The problem, of course, is that those big barns don't actually provide security. They don’t solve what ails us. They don’t fix the inherent risks that come with being human. 

At the end of the day, we are mortal. And being mortal carries risk. Period. 

We often talk about living in an anxious age and there’s no doubt that we are. There are so many risks that we could choose to be aware of each and every day, should we choose to get honest with ourselves and ponder them. 

There’s no risk-free way to be human. There are only ways to learn what Nik Wallenda is talking about, how to tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy fear. Ways to do what Joan Didion counseled when she noticed that we humans “tell ourselves stories to stay alive.”

The stories we lean into are the stories found in these ancient texts. And the stories that are still unfolding here and now as God continues to speak forth new life into a world that is brimming with creativity and confusion, anxiety and beauty, new life and painful endings. These are the stories that help us sort through healthy and unhealthy fear. 

These stories - this faith - can be our invisible safety net. The thing that enables us to get up each day and keep going in a world that can sometimes feel scary. 

Jesus offers this story as a reminder that whatever we cast below us as that invisible safety net takes on sacred status in our lives. If we’re not careful, our big barns can become our gods. In fact, that’s the default for us humans, it seems - in ancient times and today. 

But this cautionary tale is also a story of hope. A reminder that there are invisible safety nets below us as we walk the tightrope act of being human: webs of love and care, justice and strength that stand ready to catch us when we falter. 

The parable invites us to consider our safety nets. To name them and make them visible. To be honest with each other about whether we are wise or foolish as we weave our nets. To share them as instruments of healing with the world around us. To weave them with great care for our neighbors and hold them tightly as we complete the great acrobatic feat of being human. Together. 

NOTES:

[1] https://historydaily.org/flying-wallendas-deadly-tightrope-accident/3 

[2] https://thechristophersblog.org/2020/09/29/daredevil-nik-wallenda-on-dealing-with-trauma-and-facing-fear-with-gods-help/ 

[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-18-3/commentary-on-luke-1213-21 

[4] https://www.bcartfarm.com/wfs15.html 

“Hosea, we have a problem.”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Hosea 1:2-10 and Colossians 2:6-12

July 24, 2022

What I’m about to say may shock you:

Sometimes religious leaders get it wrong. 

Very, very wrong. 

Chances are good you may have let that little gem of a text from the prophet Hosea whoosh right past your years. For starters, it’s absolutely bizarre and hard to understand what’s going on. For seconders, it’s not a passage you hear very often. For thirders, once you do get a sense of what’s going on it gets even weirder. 

And more troubling. 

I don’t think I’ve ever preached on this text before, actually. Because it’s so deeply problematic that it’s hard to do justice in one conversation. But we’re going to try today. So buckle up, this might be a very strange ride. 

In seminary, we learned that when interrogating the Biblical text for the sermon, at some point the preacher has to decide if we’re preaching with the text, for the text, or against the text. Most sermons I preach are with the text. The text generally doesn’t offend our sensibilities, and we’re just coming alongside it, seeing what this ancient word has to offer us today. Sometimes the text makes us very uncomfortable but it contains deep, challenging truths we need to hear with open hearts. When that happens, the preacher’s job is to preach for the text. 

But SOMETIMES the text is simply so problematic that it feels unfaithful to our understanding of God. What are these texts doing in the Bible? Well, if we understand the Bible as the collective ponderings of ancient people who struggled, just like us, to understand something un-understandable, then it makes sense that there will be contradictions and troublesome texts. Imperfect humans also canonized these texts into our holy scriptures. Through prayer and discernment, they selected scriptures useful for our learning and growth. But useful for learning doesn’t mean we’ll always read them and affirm them. Sometimes it means we have to struggle with them and scratch our heads. 

Back when I was a Methodist, I was deeply grateful for something called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. Albert Outler studied John Wesley’s writings and found that he had four sources undergirding his theology: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Now, in Wesley’s understanding scripture was absolutely primary and the other three had to fall into line with it. 

But I’ve also heard people describe these four sources as more like four legs holding up a table. When tradition teaches something, we hold it up against scripture, reason, and experience to see if it rings true. When scripture teaches, we hold it up against the other three to see if it is consistent. And so on. 

Engaging every tool at our disposal seems like a wise choice for wading into Hosea. First of all, what on earth is even going on here? Hosea was an 8th century BCE prophet, particularly concerned by Israel getting too chummy with neighboring nations and worshiping other gods. In a bizarre-even-for-the-Bible turn of events, Hosea’s very life became a teachable moment. The story goes that he married a woman named Gomer who is described by a Hebrew word variously translated as adulterous, prostitute, unfaithful, and some other words I won’t say here now. Their marriage is meant to be a symbol for God’s relationship with Israel. Gomer is described as unfaithful because Hosea is trying to tell the people that they’ve been unfaithful to God. I told you this was weird.

It gets weirder. Hosea and Gomer give birth to several children, each given a name that further symbolizes God’s distaste for Israel’s behaviors. The children are meant to serve as a visible warning to Israel to get their act together or God will turn away from them completely and disown them. 

Now there’s plenty of God-smiting language throughout the Bible but I think the thing that bothers me the most about the Book of Hosea is the up-and-down, back-and-forth, gaslighting version of God depicted here. Because side-by-side with this angry, vengeful God we have beautiful passages like Hosea 11 where God is described as a tender, loving parent, caring for and protecting the people as a gentle parent cares for a baby. 

It’s enough to give you whiplash. Reading the whole book at once, I’m left with an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach because God here reminds me of an abusive spouse. Threatening and violating and then making you feel like you should be grateful because he’s decided to spare your life and not kill you after all. Bringing flowers after blowing up. It’s impossible to take the flowers in chapter 11 at face-value when there’s still a hole punched in the wall from chapters 1 and 2, you know?

To say nothing of the deeply problematic nature of comparing idolatry to marital infidelity. And painting Gomer as a terrible sinner because of her sexual activity. And then using her body as an incubator for children that are props meant to teach everyone a lesson. And then threatening to strip her naked and kill her because of her unfaithfulness. 

It’s just absolutely horrific. And in my mind there’s no preaching with it or preaching for it. I can only sit here and say, “This is not the God I know, Hosea. It’s just not.”

It’s possible to read Hosea and come away with a focus on the beauty of God’s unfailing love as described in Chapter 11. Which is, by the way, absolutely poetic. So perhaps the author’s overall point is that God is merciful and gracious and loving. But I just can’t stomach it with all the violence that comes earlier. It doesn’t square with the God I’ve come to know through our shared tradition, the gift of reasoning, or our experience of God. 

In Colossians we are urged to seek Christ as our ultimate plumb line. The author of that letter says that we are to “continue to live our lives in [Christ], rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition.” 

When we hear testimony about God that doesn’t sit with us, we’re not supposed to just accept it at face value. We’re supposed to hold it up into the light of Christ to see if it holds true. Far too often, Christians have made claims they say are backed by religious authority when, in reality, it’s just our own human traditions getting in the way. 

You can see this so clearly with today’s arguments about abortion. The Bible is almost silent on the topic. We know that abortion was practiced regularly in ancient times but our scriptures don’t prohibit it. Jesus spoke out about all kinds of behaviors - cheating the poor, judging others harshly, being inhospitable to strangers - but he said nothing about abortion at all. Instead, he lived his whole life pointing towards God’s love - especially God's love and care for the marginalized. Jesus, again and again, trusted the women he encountered. He looked at those who had been stomped on by the elites of his day and affirmed them. I have to imagine that if he had met Hosea’s wife, Gomer, he would have sheltered her, listened to her, loved her. 

Please note that this is NOT to say that Jesus somehow got it right while the First Testament scriptures got it wrong. I could go on and on about places in the First Testament that point to a loving God, full of grace and care. It’s not an “Old Testament vs New Testament” thing. 

Hosea is a cautionary tale for me. It’s a reminder of why we aren’t meant to read the Bible alone. It’s a book that was written in community and meant to be read in community. Whether that’s consulting commentaries and teachers, listening to podcasts, or just talking with friends around the Bible study table - the Bible is a social book. It’s meant to be chewed on, turned over and over in the light, interrogated. Over and over we are invited to look at these ancient stories seeking truth. Not because the words themselves are inerrant but because we believe there’s truth to be found here by gathering ‘round these stories and mining for the Holy. Together. 

Now how do we know we’re right about this and the Biblical literalists are wrong? I guess we don’t, not really. Faith means that we stay humble. Always open to learning, growing. Always a bit unsure about all the particulars, even as we cling to the one or two things that feel like our non-negotiables. For me, the overarching story of God’s love for all people and creation and the absolute commitment to those who are oppressed means that Hosea misses the mark. I may feel differently the next time I preach on this text. Or I might not. 

It’s good to worship a God who is big enough for our uncertainties. 

It’s good to have texts sturdy enough to handle all our interrogations. 

It’s good to explore faith alongside a community that values our questions. 

It’s good to be held within the love of our Stillspeaking God. 

Amen. 

“When Summer Fruit Hits the Fan”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Amos 8:4-12

July 17, 2022

Amos is not known as a good-time guy. 

If you were with us last week, you had a chance to hear Pastor Sue share all about Amos and his prophetic message in her excellent sermon. But if you missed it, here’s what you need to know for today: Amos was a nobody from nowhere who preached a message nobody wanted to hear. He lived in a time of relative peace and prosperity (at least for the people at the top) and the word that God asked him to bring to the privileged was direct, firm, and uncompromising. Over and over he told the rich and powerful that God was displeased with them because they trampled the poor. Over and over he warned them that continuing down this path would lead to their sure demise. 

Amos was big on visions - he spoke of locusts, burning fires, a basket of overripe fruit perhaps teeming with flies, and, of course, the vision of the plumb line measuring the elite against God’s ways of justice. 

And so I submit to you a vision that I have of Amos and his ministry. Picture him: this nobody from nowhere, strapped into a big rollercoaster, climbing, climbing up the hill. And the whole way he’s yelling, “Hey, anybody! Somebody! God? Anyone! Stop this thing. I want to get off!!!”

Who among us doesn’t know that feeling? Especially these days? It sometimes feels like the whole world is at a breaking point. And yet here we are, firmly strapped into this coaster together, climbing towards the future. 

The word “crisis” is ubiquitous these days.  The climate crisis. The crisis in Ukraine. Epidemics of viruses, white supremacy, LGBTQ hatred, mass shootings, disenfranchisement, stripping away people’s rights to bodily autonomy. Political crises and the crisis of democracy. Economic crises, here and abroad. The mental health crisis. And on and on. 

We seem to throw around the word crisis today as if it’s synonymous with “dumpster fire.” Just anything that’s generally awful. 

But the original meaning of crisis is a little different.  It was first used in the 15th century to mean the turning point of a disease. [1] That point at which things either get better or worse. It’s not a hopeless, helpless time. It’s a time of anticipation, action, and wonder. If dumpster-fire-crisis looks like this (big, sad sigh), turning-point-crisis looks like this (sharp inhale of expectation and awareness).

Amos was prophesying in a time of crisis. The rich folks around him didn’t see it, but God had given him eyes to see that the economic systems of his time were doing just what they were designed to do - make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Things were so bad, in fact, that the swindlers weren’t even trying to hide their deceit. They were saying all the quiet parts out loud -
“When will the new moon and the sabbath be over so we can get back to cheating people? When can we get together and rig the scales to steal money from the poor? How high can we jack the interest rates on this payday loan to maximize our profits? What loopholes can we find so that our giant corporation never pays any taxes?” 

The system was so far gone that everyday folks could see it was absolutely corrupt. But no one could figure out how to fix it. 

Good thing THAT never happens anymore!

Biblical scholar Matt Skinner says that while it’s tempting to just say, “Oh, this is about how one-percenters are corrupt,” we are also invited to think about how these systems creep into and shape our everyday living and values. When this is the water we’re swimming in, there’s no way to avoid it. He invites us to ponder: “What does it look like when our very means of measurement are distorted? When our means of assessing the value of something are distorted?” [2]

When things go this sideways - when our very means of measurement are distorted, that’s when the Spirit invites us to take a deep breath (inhale-exhale) and go back to the basics. 

In an attempt to go back to the basics of following in the ways of Jesus, I want to tell you a story about a flashlight. It wasn’t even a big flashlight. Just a small one. Red. Sitting on a bedside table. 

I had just checked into my room at the Sophia Center in Atchison for a retreat a few weeks ago.. I was in an unfamiliar and very old, very large building. As I familiarized myself with the space I noticed it was a long way down the hall with several turns to get to the bathroom. And I thought, “Huh. That will be fun in the middle of the night.”

And then I looked at the bedside table and saw this small red flashlight. And I knew exactly why it had been placed there.

It was a small thing. Not earth-shattering. But I felt so very cared for and welcomed. I felt known and seen. The Benedictines take hospitality VERY seriously. In fact, when you enter the Sophia Center the sign on the doorway says, “We welcome all guests as Christ.”

“We welcome all guests as Christ.”

That’s going back to the basics. 

We come from a long line of faith ancestors who took hospitality seriously.  

Sometimes it’s a small thing like that red flashlight. Other times it’s bigger stuff llike Abraham and Sarah welcoming strangers and offering them a cool drink and homemade food. Sometimes it’s saying “Sure, no problem,” when you’re invited to open your home to a stranger visiting your church from Germany. Sometimes it’s standing outside and offering lemonade or popsicles at Second Helping when it’s 95 degrees outside. Or dropping a card in the mail or a casserole on the porch when someone is going through a rough time. Sometimes hospitality is making a point to greet a child by name at Fellowship Hour. Sometimes it’s making sure you look around the room as you settle into worship and going out of your way to greet someone new.

Always, always it’s trying our darndest to remember every person we encounter is a beloved human being made in God’s image. And that means, of course, that we do what we can to divest from economic systems that oppress, call our elected officials, march, write postcards, and engage in difficult conversations to make the world a safer place for everyone. And it also can mean intentional acts of radical hospitality in all the spaces we occupy on a daily basis, whether those spaces are digital, public, private, or all of the above. 

When everything is so messed up that our very systems of measurement are distorted - when we’re on that rollercoaster with Amos screaming, “STOP! I WANNA GET OFF!” - these are the times when leaning into basic practices like hospitality are critical. 

I know that when we say “hospitality” we often think about preparing a delicious meal for a guest or perhaps even working in the hospitality industry. And that’s all good, of course. But what I’m talking about today is hospitality that is deeply rooted in the way of Christ. And I want to name at least three characteristics of that Christlike hospitality that we all need to cling to in a world where dumpster fires abound, crisis moments are too plentiful, and the rollercoaster ride has ceased to bring joy:

First, Christlike hospitality is being aware - paying attention to the world around us and the people we encounter. Anticipating needs. Seeing through another’s eyes. This may sound simple, but I think we’d all be surprised to discover how often we’re on autopilot and paying no attention at all to the people around us. Being aware looks like Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman in John 4. He saw her completely, engaged with her completely, was fully present with her in that moment. This kind of awareness is a gift we can give one another. 

Second, Christlike hospitality is open to growth and transformation. It’s not a one-way, charity model where we give to someone else. It’s a willingness to enter into relationship and risk transformation. This kind of openness looks like Jesus with the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15. Jesus is certainly not the poster-child for hospitality in the beginning of this story. In fact, he flat-out tries to ignore this woman who is following him around.He feels she is outside of their mission. But, finally, when she confronts him, he is open to being transformed. He is changed by their encounter. Not because he had something to give, but because there was something he needed to receive. 

Third, Christlike hospitality is risky and vulnerable. This one is, I think, how we know we’re talking about more than just offering a cold beer to one of our besties when they come over for dinner. Risky and vulnerable hospitality looks like Jesus’s parable in Luke 10: the Good Samaritan who went above and beyond to help someone beat up and left for dead on the side of the road. It looks like Jesus weeping when he finds that his friend Lazarus has died because we all know that to love is to risk pain. It looks like Jesus on the cross ministering to the condemned man hanging next to him - offering words of comfort and care. It looks like Christ appearing to his friends after his death and meeting Thomas right where he’s at - exposing his own vulnerable body and inviting Thomas to touch his wounded side.

Christlike hospitality is rooted in love. And love always carries risk. 

When crises abound, what can we cling to so we can stay present on the rollercoaster and ride the waves of uncertainty and fear? When the world is spinning out of control, how do we hold onto the still point in the turning world to quiet the noise? How can we find the strength to continue to resist systems of oppression and recalibrate our measurement systems?

Hospitality is certainly not the ONLY answer, but it’s not a bad place to start. 

I have two concrete suggestions for you as you go forth from this place today. Choose your own adventure. One or both. 

1. Place a flashlight somewhere that you’ll see it every day for the next month. Perhaps your own bedside table. Consider it an invitation to lean into Christlike hospitality AND to remember that God’s light shines on and in and through you. You do not have to rely on your own strength to do this work. 

2. Sometime in the next month or two, commit to going to a worship service somewhere else. That’s right. Your pastor just told you to go somewhere else for worship. Sometimes we forget what it’s like to be a stranger. Experiencing the hospitality (or lack of it) from others can help us rekindle our own desire to welcome all guests as Christ. 

Crises are turning points, not death-sentences. May the light of Love - the light of justice for all people and creation shine forth from our deeds, our spirits, our lives. Please God, may it be so. 

NOTES:

[1] https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=crisis 

[2] https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/853-6th-sunday-after-pentecost-ord-16c-july-17-2022-2