"Look Up"

 “Look Up”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Hebrews 12:1-3

October 30, 2022

I once visited Edinburgh, Scotland and was astounded that the locals walking through the streets weren’t staring up at the enormous castle on the hill all day long. They were just walking around, mostly looking down at the ground, while I was walking around like this (looking up). How could you live with that huge castle looming over you, day in and day out and not look up all the time?

I suppose it’s like anything else. If it’s a part of your daily backdrop, you stop noticing it. 

When people come to visit Kansas they sometimes look up, amazed that we’re all walking around with our heads down most of the time. The sky here is so….big! The sunrises and sunsets are astounding. What we lack in trees and skyscrapers we make up for in an ever-changing tapestry of moisture and light overhead. Even the youngest Kansan can look at the clouds and tell you a bit about what the weather today. The clouds become our castle on the hill. We stop noticing them. 

But clouds are truly magical, aren’t they? I mean, is there anything better than laying on your back and having nothing else on your agenda than staring up at the clouds as they move across the sky? And what about the miraculous experience of flying through the clouds when you’re in an airplane? Amazing. 

The author of the book of Hebrews speaks of a cloud of witnesses surrounding us. Cheering us on in our human journey. For generations now, we Christ-followers have spoken of this cloud of witnesses as those who have gone before us. Those who have showed us how we want to live. The ones we believe are still with us in ways we can’t quite understand, encouraging us, hovering nearby in love. 

We think of those in the great cloud especially on All Saints Day, which comes every year on November 1st. On All Saints’ we remember how God’s love unites us with those who have already moved into the cloud. We may not see and hear and touch them in the same way we once did, but they are still with us. If we look up, we’ll see them. 

All Saints’ Day is about looking up. Remembering those who have gone before us and showed us how we want to live our lives. The ones who taught us about what really matters. Those who are now in the great cloud of witnesses that we’ll all be a part of one day. In remembering them, we also find ourselves thinking about how we want to be remembered one day. How can we use the time we have in this life to share a little bit of the goodness that was once shared with us? How can we be saints, too?

For the next several minutes, you’re invited to spend some time looking up, remembering the saints. You might want to close your eyes or jot down your thoughts. There are two questions to reflect on and we’ll show them on the screens here in a moment. 

As you reflect, I’m going to come around in the sanctuary with cotton balls - little clouds. Once you’re done reflecting, you can come over to one of the hanging clouds and put your cloud into the top. If you’re on Zoom, please share something like “done” in the chat when you’re finished and I’ll place your cotton ball for you here in the sanctuary. 

Let’s move into a time of reflection now as we look up together. 

A saint is anyone who has showed or taught us how to live. 

Who has been a saint in your life?

How can you be a saint to others?

May Christ open our spirits as we come before God in prayer. 

“Getting it right. Getting it wrong.”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Joshua 24:1-3a, 13-15 and Acts 2:42-47

October 17, 2022

Is God’s word perfect? 

Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean by God’s word for starters. 

Like many of you, I grew up being told that the Bible was God’s word. Or maybe, more accurately, words. God’s perfect words.

By the time I went to seminary I was pretty sure this couldn’t hold because, well, you know, there are a lot of contradictions in the Bible. And some other stuff that’s flat out horrifying. So how could it be perfect?

The Bible is, in my mind, clearly a book written by humans seeking to understand God, just like we do. In these sacred stories we see that sometimes our faith ancestors got it right….and sometimes they got it wrong. There’s no perfection here, just humans being human.

Today’s two texts from Joshua and Acts really showcase the ups and downs of humaning. In the book of Acts we have this utopian vision of Jesus’s early followers getting it right. They shared all their possessions. They took care of everyone who had acneed. They made space for everyone at an ever-widening table. There they are, doing what we say we’re trying to do: “love one another - every single other.” 

It’s a powerful story. A vision of what humans can do when we take seriously the call to shape our lives in the ways of Jesus and try to “be the church” together. To share what we have - generously and with gratitude. To care for one another, bearing each other's burdens and sharing each other's joy. To nurture a community that provides a warm and welcoming home base for asking questions, serving, working for justice, and building God’s Beloved Community. 

It’s a powerful story of what it looks like for faithful people to “get it right.” 

Of course, if you keep going you’ll find that this little utopian moment didn’t last forever. Unity gave way to questioning who’s really in and out. And by chapter 5 we’ve got stories of people holding back “just a little” from the common purse for themselves and being struck dead because they lied about it. So much for sharing everything with glad and generous hearts, huh?

The Bible is full of these stories of getting it right and getting it wrong. And sometimes it seems to be all jumbled up together in one breath. The passage from Joshua is a bit like that. We only heard an excerpt of the 24th chapter today but if you look at the whole thing you’ll find a condensed history of the people of Israel up to this point. The book of Joshua is the story of the Israelites’ conquest and settlement of the lands they believe God gave to them.

If you know a verse from Joshua it’s probably the one we heard today, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” It’s a sweet little nugget. But the stuff that comes before it in Joshua? Hoo boy. 

I can’t help but hear this text in conversation with the double-pronged holidays we just observed earlier this week: Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples Day. Two observances that tell very different stories about the history of the land we call home. 

There is no getting around the fact that the cultural and physical genocide of indigenous people in the West was not in spite of Christianity but, in large part, because of it. It’s not that Christians didn’t do enough to stop the atrocities, it’s that Christians were leading the way.

Passages like Joshua 24 provided the framework that allowed sinful theologies like the Doctrine of Discovery to flourish. The Doctrine of Discovery was created by papal bull in the 15th century to justify European powers stealing land from indigenous people in what is now North America. The teaching provided theological justification for colonizers by claiming that Christians had not just the right but holy responsibility to either convert or conquer all non-Christian people. Lord, have mercy.

We look at these statements now with horror but it’s easy to see how you get there from the Book of Joshua. The theology of the Book of Joshua is essentially that the Israelites are God’s chosen people and that God promises to give them two things in exchange for their faithfulness - many descendents and land. In Joshua God ensures that the Israelites conquer the land by force the people conquer the land by force - time and time again giving them military victories. Until we eventually arrive at the place we heard in today’s reading where the people are celebrating that they are able to live on land that they didn’t labor on, eat from trees and fields they didn’t plant, live in homes they didn’t build, and generally reap all these magnificent benefits because they stole them directly from the people who had lived there before. 

Ick. 

Nowhere in Joshua does it say that we’re supposed to somehow extrapolate that God wanted Europeans in the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th centuries to do the same thing. This was written solely as the history of one group of people and their (flawed, I would argue) understanding of how God was operating in their lives. It was never meant to give license for other colonizers to do the same thing, but again and again we have done just that. 

Those of us who participated in Indigenous Peoples Day at K-State this past week heard first-hand about how these theological fallacies have directly impacted the place we call home. Our own Tanya González welcomed guests to the university in her role as Interim Associate Provost and spoke with wisdom about the history of the university. 

Tanya said

This university, like all universities, has a complicated past, one that is embedded in colonialism and its legacies of racialization and inequity, but that also claims a commitment to educational access and public good. Today, Kansas State University continues to uncover our stories and truths through land and people

acknowledgments; through scholarship, creative activity, and discovery; through teaching and learning; and through connecting to our partners in education, to our communities in Kansas and beyond. We know, after all, that it is only by recognizing the truth that we can find healing and transformation.

Kansas State is an institution like our own congregation, with a complex history. It’s an institution whose history features people sometimes getting it right and sometimes getting it wrong. We often talk about the complexities of our own congregation’s history - founded by white Congregationalist settlers from back East who came to Kansas Territory with the noble goal of making Kansas a Free State. While they succeeded in that endeavor, they also succeeded in stealing land from people who already lived here. 

Institutions have a way of concealing when humans get it really, really wrong. But we are called, as followers of the Light, to look closely at who we have been, who we are, and who we want to be. It is only through careful reflection on the past that we can chart a different future together. 

Kaw language scholar Storm Brave spoke on Monday about the history of her people, the Kansa, and their relationship to this place that we now call Kansas. She talked about broken treaties, broken promises, and what it’s like to know that the dominant culture worked very, very hard to completely eradicate your culture for generations. Ms. Brave said, “I’m not sharing this to offend anyone, but if it does offend, you have learned something and that’s what history is for.” 

Learning is what history is for. And so we struggle with the history of our institutions, our local communities, and our faith ancestors. People getting it right and people getting it wrong. All mixed up together.

I asked at the beginning of this sermon if God’s word is perfect. The Bible seems far from perfect to me, and I’m okay with that.

But I want to close by noting that “God’s word” doesn’t always mean the Bible. Sometimes when we say God’s Word we mean The Word spoken of in John 1, “In the beginning was the Word.” The Christ force that infuses all creation, light shining brightly, never overcome. 

Christ invites us not to perfection but honest reflection in the light. A willingness to shine a light, even on the hard stories that we’d rather forget. The ability to step into the light and let our own stories be heard. The light illumines, warms, softens, clarifies. 

May we be strong enough and brave enough to keep stepping into the light and seeing with new eyes. Sometimes we’ll get it right and often we’ll get it wrong. 

May we remember that perfection is never the goal and that Christ accompanies us as we practice being faithful humans together. 

“From Bread and Cup to Faith and Giving”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Matthew 26:26-29

October 2, 2022

Every year in October we put a special focus on the Christian practice of stewardship, which I define as remembering that everything we have belongs to God and we are called to examine how to best share our resources to help build the God’s Realm of Justice and Peace here on earth. You know, just a light topic. 

Each year, our stewardship committee provides opportunities for us to reflect on how our own generosity sustains this particular community, First Congregational UCC. We hear testimonies in worship and we’re invited to make financial pledges of support for the coming year. This helps our church leadership create a budget that funds all our ministries. 

We often use a theme from the UCC and this year’s theme, “From Bread and Cup to Faith and Giving” wins the award for the longest title I’ve ever seen. I tried to think of a way to shorten it, acronym-ize it, something. But there it is in all its glory. 

But it’s a good one. Because our sacred texts are overflowing with stories about gathering around the Table, being fed and nourished, and then sharing the goodness we’ve found there. We’ve been discussing them for the past several weeks in our adult Sunday School class and the conversation has been rich. The “table” theme means we’re also going to get to have some fun fellowship hours in October - next Sunday you’re invited to bring a special bread to share that reflects your heritage and the Sunday after that the Deacons and Ministry of the Decorative Scissors have a crafty project for us. 

The Table is at the center of our faith. No wonder Jesus chose to use it as he prepared to leave his disciples. The story of the Passover meal, which we heard earlier, is all about freedom. The story of manna in the desert reminds us to trust God. And who can forget how Elijah was saved from his despair when the Spirit offered a nap and a snack?  Who can forget the loaves and fishes, which are all about abundance and caring for one another? We are a people of the Table. 

As we’ve talked about the Table in classl, we’ve reflected on how we first learned what Communion is and what we’ve learned by practicing it in various faith communities over the years. One of the things I’ve always loved about World Communion Sunday is how it helps us remember that although we follow Christ in this little corner of the world, we are truly a part of a global movement for healing. At the last church I served we had a table that was about 16 feet long and I often liked to ask the congregation to visualize it stretching out, out, out all the way around the globe and forwards and backwards in time. 

I don’t know what Communion means to you, but, one of the things I’ve noticed is that I tend to connect more with HOW it’s done rather than the words said about what it means. I mean, I guess we could all go read a treatise on the intricate theology of Communion, but it seems to me that this embodied practice is meant to be experienced. And it is through that experience that we come to understand - on a gut-level - what it’s all about. 

In our tradition, of course, the Table is open to all. No exceptions. A few years ago I was talking with a colleague from another tradition about having a shared worship service. We pondered having Communion but I said I wasn’t sure if that would work since, in his tradition, they don’t keep an open table. He was surprised and said, “Oh, but we DO keep an open table. The table is open to all baptized Christians.” I said, “Hmm. Well ours is ALL the way open. Like, I’ve served self-professed atheists, unbaptized folks, and Muslims who came forward.” It turns out we meant different things by all. 

We say the words that all are welcome at Christ’s Table every time we gather, but we also SHOW it in several ways. First, we do our best to offer bread in the sanctuary that everyone can eat. Ours is gluten-free since we know that’s a restriction for some people. And rather than offering a separate option for the gluten-free folks we ALL eat from the same loaf together. So no one set aside as separate. 

Second, we remind our folks who are Zooming that they can use whatever food or drink they have on hand. Jesus used the common foods of his day, so if you have coffee and a cinnamon roll, I think Jesus would approve. And while we invite people in the sanctuary to come up to receive the elements, we always send servers out to serve those who aren’t able to come forward for any reason. 

Third, we not only welcome people of all ages at the Table but we regularly invite and encourage children to serve Communion. I don’t know about you, but I find it extra-meaningful when a child serves me Communion because I am reminded of how much Jesus loved children and, well, kids, I kind of feel the same way. I think you’re pretty awesome. I know others around here do, too. 

As I’ve been thinking this week about how the HOW of our Communion speaks to the WHY of what we’re doing, I had something come into my mind that I wanted to share with you. Years ago, David and I were members of a Disciples of Christ congregation. They had a big metal bucket at Communion and people were invited to throw their loose change into it as they came forward so it could make a “joyful noise unto the Lord.” I loved watching kids throw their change in gleefully because I’ve often found Communion to be too stuffy and formal. After all, Jesus and his friends probably shared jokes and spilled wine and laughed at the table, right? 

But what troubled me about this joyful tradition was the way it conflated a financial offering with receiving Communion. It felt a little bit like paying an admission fee to get to the Table. 

I’ve thought about that church sometimes when I see our “Fill the Breadbasket” container here on Communion Sundays. I love that we’re reminding ourselves of the way coming to the Table, in turn, strengthens us to go out and feed others in a tangible way. We are fed so we can feed others. “From Bread and Cup to Faith and Giving,” right? 

But I wonder if we should consider moving the baskets to the side aisles. So that we get it in the right order. We don’t GIVE so that we can RECEIVE Christ’s presence. We RECEIVE Christ’s presence to overflowing and then we go out and GIVE to others. It’s a small thing that feels important. 

Jesus knew that small things were often the big things. Jesus knew that showing was almost always better than telling. Jesus knew that bodies matter, so he gave us a ritual where we literally take the Christ-force into our bodies to remind us that everything is holy. Jesus knew that gathering at the table with friends and enemies is what human-ing is all about. Jesus knew that we are prone to forget important things so he gave us this concrete thing to do to help us remember. Jesus knew that we are all hungry in so many ways, so he helped us remember to stay in touch with our need. 

Christians ever since have been gathering around tables together to be fed, nourished, sustained. And although many of us have missed the point by spending wayyyy too much time arguing about intricacies like who is welcome, what exactly happens to the elements, who is qualified to serve, and on and on - the Table remains. 

And the Table is always about what comes after. It’s about returning here again and again to remember who we are and who God is. It’s about being fed so we can feed others. It’s about moving from Bread and Cup to Faith and Giving. 

Thanks be to God.