“Un / settled”

2 Samuel 7:1-17

October 25, 2020

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood 

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

The king was sitting in his house – exhausted. His body was physically spent from all the battles he had fought. His soul was spent from dancing with abandon as the Ark of the Covenant was brought to its new home in Jerusalem. And he was emotionally spent from the argument with his wife the night before. 

And now he settled into his house. Exhausted, proud, and planning. 

Always planning. 

Even in his worn-out state, King David was never one to sit still for long. As he gazed around his home, he was filled with pride. He – who had once been a lowly shepherd boy tending stinky sheep in a field – now lived in a house made of cedar. He was the king of a nation that was on the rise. They had even reclaimed the Ark of the Covenant – God’s house! – and brought it to the new capital city of Jerusalem.

David’s pride turned to gratitude as he thought of the Ark. He blushed and felt embarrassed that he had allowed himself to get so puffed up, thinking about his fancy house. Of course, none of this would have happened without YHWH. He would not be where he was – in this fine house made of cedar. Jerusalem would not be secure. The people of Israel would not be filled with pride and joy.

The people - his people - had been through so much to get to this place. This “being settled” was new for them. They came from a long line of wanderers. Once upon a time they had been not-a-people at all. But then YHWH had named and claimed them. A covenant was sealed with their ancestor Abraham and they were promised a land of their own. 

But getting to this point had taken a long time. They had been sold into slavery, displaced from their homes. In time, YHWH heard their cries and sent Moses to deliver them from Egypt, but, even then, they were not settled. Instead they wandered in the wilderness for more than a generation - decidedly UNsettled.

But now things were different. The king looked around his house and felt a sense of peace. He felt settled. It felt good. 

With a sigh of contentment, a new thought hit him like a crash of thunder. Here he was living in this fancy house, but the presence of the Holy One was stuck in a dinky little tent. 

How could he have missed this?!? The balance was all wrong. 

YHWH needed a new home. A place much nicer than the king’s palace. And now that David was firmly established in the land - settled - he would be the one to make a permanent house for the Lord.

He called for one of his advisors, the prophet Nathan. Excited – King David shared his idea. Nathan was on board. He saw no reason why YHWH wouldn’t want a nice house, too. He gave King David the green light and the king fell asleep dreaming up floor plans for the temple that he would build.

Nathan went home and drifted off...but slept fitfully. 

Tossing and turning, he had difficult dreams. As he awoke and began his morning prayers, he pondered the words he had heard in the night from YHWH. He knew he had to go back to the king and deliver an unwelcome message. 

When Nathan arrived at David’s house cedar, he explained to David that he had spoken too soon. YHWH insisted that there was no need for a temple at this time. Instead, God had a different plan: God would continue to build David’s house out of PEOPLE. God would create a dynasty that would last for all time and everyone in David’s lineage would be blessed. 

But the task of building a house for YHWH? That task wasn’t for this king, but for one to come in the future. 

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

How often do we think we’ve got it figured out like King David? We plan and work and strive and, if we’re lucky, we find ourselves feeling settled. We look around at what we believe we’ve accomplished and we give thanks. We are filled with gratitude for what we have and maybe we even want to give back, like King David does. 

And so we share our plans with God in excitement. And we assume that things will stay the same, predictable, settled. 

But then a year like 2020 comes along and laughs at all our plans. There’s not much settled these days, is there? Our plans have unraveled. The future is murky. There seem to be more uncertainties than certainies these days. Even things we thought were foundational and unshakable have been altered in this past year. 

It is perhaps in the heaving and tossing, the shaking and quaking of a year like this one that we come to realize that our ideas of “being settled” are not the same as God’s. David looked at his beautiful home of cedar - he looked at his people who had finally arrived as a nation….and he wanted to share some of that with God...to honor God. 

But God - God, the great unsettler of hearts - reminded the great king that so many of our human ideas about what it means to be settled are impermanent, fleeting. Buildings come and go. Political systems wax and wane. The prophet Isaiah reminds us that humans are like grass - the grass withers and flowers fade. We ebb and flow. And no matter how settled we might feel….our great buildings, our bank accounts, our institutions are all temporary. 

What remains when the winds of change come and blow everything settled to dust? 

God tells King David that what God wants isn’t a home. What God wants - what God offers - what God dreams of is US. 

When God establishes this covenant with King David, it isn’t about buildings, or gold, or institutions, even. It’s about relationship. 

God reminds David that he was chosen when he was just a poor shepherd kid. David was loved by God before he was king and God desires to keep that relationship no matter what comes in the future. It’s a covenant that is promised to David’s children and his children’s children and his children’s children’s children.

When the rug is ripped out from under us - when we despair because we look all around and can’t take any more change - when we can’t even remember what it feels like to feel settled…..God’s steadfast love remains. 

The love that was poured out onto our ancestors - to Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah and Hagar, Joseph, Moses, Miriam, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah….the list goes on and on.

That love - that love promised to David - shines brightly in the form of a tiny human child born in Bethlehem. Like David, this child was not someone anyone would have expected to become a king.

Emmanuel - God’s love with us. Born in the lineage of King David - promised to us from long ago. 

And I know, I know, it’s not Christmas yet….we haven’t even made it to All Saints Day. But God’s love is shouting to us so loudly from these ancient stories, it just won’t keep quiet. 

In a time of great unrest...A time when nothing feels settled at all….A time when it feels like so much of what we thought was firm, unshakable has been blown apart…God is calling to us to be settled. Not because our lives are predictable, or our institutions are sturdy, or the future is clear. It’s not about peaceful kingdoms or fine, cedar homes. That’s not it. 

God is inviting us to be settled more fully into God. To crawl up into that Spirit and seek shelter and rest. Because God’s love has not left us, will not leave us. No matter how unsettled we are - no matter how topsy-turvey this world becomes. We are held within that love. 

When you feel unsettled these days (I can’t be the only one who feels unsettled these days, right?) I have a simple prayer practice I would encourage you to try. It uses the words of Psalm 46: Be Still and Know that I am God. 

I want to try it together now….and I promise you it’s simple enough that you’ll be able to do it on your own anytime you need to find your spirit settled within God’s Spirit. 

This sphere will show how we will use our breath. When it gets bigger, we fill up our lungs and inhale. When it gets smaller, we exhale together. We’re going to start by breathing together a few times and then when I begin to speak, you will repeat after me. 

Breathe x 3

Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. 

Be still and know that I am. Be still and know that I am. 

Be still and know. Be still and know. 

Be still. Be still.
Be. Be. 

Amen. 

“Teach Us How to Pray”

1 Samuel 1:9-11, 19-20; 2:1-10

October 18, 2020

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood 

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

I had my prayer life broken at church camp. 

We were gathered in a basement, parlor-type room in a Methodist church in Baldwin City, Kansas. The camp I attended every summer divided us up into Care Groups - five or six youth along with a caring adult. I cannot remember the name of my Care Group leader that year, but I remember his face. He was affable, open. At the time he seemed oldish to me, but I bet he was under fifty. And he was caring. I remember learning a lot from him and enjoyed the time we all spent together. 

One day as we talked about prayer I shared how important my prayer life was to me. See, what you need to know is that I was also in a very close-knit high school Sunday School class back home. Every Sunday for four years we gathered in the basement of my own Methodist church with a different set of caring adults. We ate convenience store powdered donuts and drank Sunny Delight. And we prayed. Hard. 

We spent almost an hour every single week for four years sharing our joys and concerns with one another and then we closed our eyes, folded out hands, bowed our heads and prayed out loud for one another. It was a powerful experience. So powerful, in fact, that we did it during the week, too. Before school and during passing periods we would meet up in the hallways of our high school to quickly pray for a 3rd period math test, an unfinished English paper, a nerve-wracking audition. 

We prayed and we fully believed that God heard our prayers and could answer them. It felt good.  

And then, one summer, my Care Group leader ruined my prayer life with one question. As I told the group about how faithfully my friends and I prayed for and with one another he said, “I don’t actually think God works that way. I mean, what if there’s a tornado barreling down on your street and you are in your basement praying for it to miss your house and your neighbor is in the basement of their house praying for the same thing? Do you really believe God somehow decides to move the tornado and miss one of you and destroy the other person’s house? How would God decide who to choose?”

Okay, so it was more than one question he asked. But it broke my prayer life real good. And into the cracks of my broken prayer life rushed in a million other questions. Why would God choose to save this person from cancer but not that one? Why would God allow a war to happen in this country but not that one? Why didn’t God help some people who begged for better jobs, food on their tables, roofs over their heads, safety and health for their children?

I stopped praying for a long, long time. I’d say it took me over a decade to come back around to a place where I could pray differently. Where I wanted to pray again. Where I found a new way to understand the power of prayer. Where I got comfortable with having more questions than answers. 

And I never would have started praying again if not for companions on the journey. Companions like Hannah, who teaches us to pray in these ancient words from the book of First Samuel. 

Hannah, like many who pray, is a desperate woman. She longs for a child but no child comes. So many people have been in Hannah’s situation. To want something so desperately and to be disappointed again and again and again. It’s excruciating. 

And we know that Hannah, of course, struggled in a context different than ours. Because in the ancient world, Hannah’s worth as a woman was pretty much predicated on her ability to produce children - especially male children. Because women existed for the entirety of their lives under the cover of male possession and protection - first their fathers, then their husbands, and, finally, if they outlived their husbands, their sons. A woman without a male family member to care for her was incredibly vulnerable. 

I want you to pause for a moment and tap into Hannah’s desperation. Because her story is not just about wanting a child. It’s about wanting. And even if you’ve never wanted a baby like Hannah does, I’m almost certain you know what it feels like to want something desperately….and find yourself disappointed again and again. 

I invite you to complete this sentence: I felt desperate desire when _______________.  

You can comment on facebook or text me your answer at 785-380-7772 and we’ll share it without your name in the comments. 

(Pause)

Feel free to keep those stories coming. 

Hannah is desperate and she takes her desperation to the only place she knows of that’s big enough to handle it: God. 

God. That space vast enough to encompass all our concerns. 

God. That warm fire that sends tingles back into the frozen places of our lives. 

God. That sharp inhalation of surprise and awe. 

God. The one who has heard every cuss word humans have ever invented. 

Who isn’t afraid of our tears.

Who sits with us when we no longer have words. 

Who understands how prayer works even when we surely do not.

She leaves it all there in the temple. She prays so fervently that the priest thinks she’s drunk and admonishes her. Now that’s some serious praying, y’all, when the priest thinks you’re a bit extra. 

Kathryn Shifferdecker says that Hannah’s ‘bold prayer, like the psalms of lament, is based on the assumption that God hears, that God cares, and that God will respond.” [1]

God hears. God cares. God will respond. 

She leaves that day with a measure of healing. Nothing has really changed in her life. Not yet. She does not know if her prayers will be answered in the way she hopes. But she goes forth with the assurance that God has heard her prayer. And for Hannah, for now, that’s enough. 

I still don’t really understand how prayer works. If you’ve been praying in desperation for a long, long time and you’re not as fortunate as Hannah was, I want you to know that you are not alone. I don’t personally think God is a gumball machine God where we put a quarter in and get a toy. I’ve known too many people who did not have an outcome like Hannah’s. And I bet you do, too. 

But when people come to me and they feel desperate, I still encourage them to pray. And I still offer to pray with them. Because I still believe that prayer helps and heals. 

Earlier this week I gathered with one of you to pray. No longer huddled by the lockers between periods, my prayers for each of you usually happen when I’m walking my dog, or laying down to sleep, or firing off a text-message prayer in the kitchen while waiting for my tea to brew. The prayer I’m about to share with you was one of those prayers: a text-message prayer for one who was feeling exhausted after KSUnite was disrupted by hate speech this past week. 

And so I close this sermon on prayer with a prayer. Maybe it’s a prayer you need. If so, I hope you allow it to wash over you and sink into your weary places. And maybe it’s not where you are right now. If that’s the case, I hope you’ll fervently pray with me for those who DO need this prayer. 

God of justice, God of the long-game, God of comfort, God of strength:

We pray today for your beloved children who are working to end the sin of white supremacy and other injustices in your world. The work is so important, God, and we are so very tired. It’s scary to see the hate and fear out there. Sometimes we feel downright hopeless. Often we feel exhausted. It’s hard to know the path forward. What can we do to really make a difference? We feel like we are a drop in a vast ocean of hate and we wonder if this evil will ever end. 

And then we remember, O God, that we are not alone. We may only be a drop but when we join with others we become a vast sea of justice and peace and love. 

Help us to SEE all the other drops out there alongside us. Help us to rest when we need to (after all, you taught us that Sabbath is a command, not a suggestion…and even Jesus practiced Sabbath). Help us to conserve our energy and use it when it matters the most. Help us to curse and cuss with friends who really “get it” and never let us lose sight of joy. Keep our feet to the fire, God….both to keep us focused and warm. 

Most of all, God, give us hope. We confess that we have to have it to keep going. When we lose sight of it, please send helpers to remind us it’s still there. 

May your justice flow down like waters, O God. May the voices and actions of those who hate be drowned out by a mighty torrent of your truth and justice. May your righteousness wash over us all like an ever-flowing stream. 

Amen. 

NOTES: 

[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3857 

"River of Hope"

Ezekiel 47: 1-12

October 4, 2020

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood 

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

If you drive up to Tuttle Creek and look at the area where water was released during the flood of 1993 you’ll see how the rushing water cut away the land beneath it, exposing rocks and fossils that hadn’t seen the light of day for, what? Millions of years? 

Water is an incredibly powerful force. A drop of water alone is small, insignificant. But a whole rushing river? Now that’s power. 

A few years ago now I read a book by John Barry called Rising Tide, all about the 1927 flooding along the Mississippi River. One of the things I learned from this book was how some of our methods of attempting to control powerful waterways can backfire. For example, when levee systems are built we inadvertently create a bigger and deeper river channel. When we increase the amount of water a river can hold it becomes more powerful and carves out an even deeper channel.

The bigger a body of water is, the harder it is to control. The deeper a river runs, the more powerful it becomes. 

This week marks the beginning of our annual stewardship campaign. A time when we are asked to prayerfully consider the ways we can each add our own drop or splash of water to the river of faith that is First Congregational UCC. In pre-pandemic times, when we would pass the offering plates during worship I would invite everyone to touch the plates as they go past as a physical act of remembering that we are all in this together. What we can do together is so much greater than what we can do alone. And whether it’s giving our time, energy, money, or skills….we are all like a river that runs deeper and stronger over time. When we commit ourselves to being a part of this community of faith we amplify our individual offerings, exponentially increasing our impact. [1]

I talked with the kids today about how we are like a mighty river because we are stronger together than we ever could be alone. And whether it’s giving our time, energy, money, or skills….we are all like a river that runs deeper and stronger over time. When we commit ourselves to being a part of this community of faith we amplify our individual offerings, exponentially increasing our impact. 

This past year, many of us have come to rely on our faith and this community of faith in new and profound ways. As we do our best to get out of bed each day in the midst of the pandemic, political unrest, systems of oppression and violence….it can be tempting to fall into a state of hopelessness and panic. Our faith in God can be a liferaft in the sea of despair. Desperately we cling to ancient words like the ones we heard from the Psalmist today: “Be still and know that I am God.” We pray with tears, with silence, with sighs too deep for words and, for a moment, we find peace and know that we are enveloped in God’s embrace. 

Or….we don’t find peace. And our faith can feel far away or small. We wonder, “Is God with us still? Where is God in this midst of all of this?” And we give thanks for a church  where it’s okay to ask those questions. We feel our hearts soothed when we connect with someone from church over the phone, or an outdoor visit, or in a Zoom small group. We share our fears, our doubts, our highs, our lows. Day by day we “bear each other’s burdens and share each other’s joys.” We continue to “pray for each other and serve in the name of Christ.” We continue to “give to this church and its mission and take our stand for justice and peace, confident God’s concern embraces the whole world.”

Thanks be to God for a community of faith that sustains us even when faith feels stagnant. Thanks be to God for rituals that steady us even when we’re full of questions. Thanks be to God for the living water that flows from this congregation. 

The prophet Ezekiel knew about the power of water. Now, I’m guessing most of us gathered here today don’t know a whole lot about Ezekiel. If you were to dig really deep into your Bible knowledge you might recall that he’s the guy who has the vision of the valley of dry bones. 

Ezekiel lived in the time of the Exile, the 6th century BCE. Israel was conquered in a series of battles and the people were taken away to Babylon. The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Several generations of people lived through this terrible national trauma. Many of the Biblical prophets wrote during this time - Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Obadiah, parts of Isaiah. Most of them were left behind in Judah during the Exile, but Ezekiel was taken to Babylon. When he spoke about the pain and anxiety and grief of Exile, he spoke about it as a person with firsthand knowledge. 

After 25 long years in Exile….25 years away from his homeland….25 years of living in an in-between time...25 years of worrying and wondering if this would ever end...25 years of feeling unmoored, adrift at sea….after 25 years of this Ezekiel spoke the words Tanya shared today. 

Ezekiel shares a vision of hope for the future. He casts a vision of a river flowing from the mount of the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. He shares that after 25 years of exile, God spoke to him and lifted him up, carrying him to Jerusalem where he encountered a man whose appearance shone like bronze. This man of bronze showed him the new temple and, from it, a river that flowed for miles and miles. 

As Ezekiel and the man traveled down the river, Ezekiel noticed it was becoming deeper and deeper, more powerful with every twist and turn. The river flowed to and through the Arabah, a dry-river-valley that extends from the Sea of Galilee in the north to the Dead Sea in the South. It’s a arid region, not a place you’d expect to find a river overflowing with living water. 

Ezekiel’s mighty river flows directly into the Dead Sea, which he describes as having “stagnant waters.” The Dead Sea is an incredibly salty body of water. So salty, in fact that many plants and animals you would normally find in a large body of water can’t live there. But in Ezekiel’s vision, this changes. The massive quantity of fresh water cascading into it shifts the balance. A place that was once unable to sustain life is suddenly teeming with new life. The water becomes fresh, Ezekiel says. Fish are abundant and all kinds of trees grow on the banks and bear good fruit. People come from near and far to cast their nets and give thanks for the sustenance found in this place. “Where the river goes,” Ezekiel says, “everything will live.” 

This river that begins as a trickle at the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem….this river that slowly builds in power and might as it flows into the Arabah….this river that brings freshness and living water to the dry and stagnant places....this river transforms the world in ways that seem impossible. This river, which flows from the throne of God, is a river that uses its power for good. It brings healing, hope, new life everywhere it flows. 

Ezekiel shared this powerful vision of hope with people who had been living in Exile for 25 years. 25 years. 

25 years was not long enough to cause Ezekiel to collapse into despair. 

And I have a suspicion that the reason he was still able to find hope is because he was not exiled alone. His community was with him. Writer Ashley Fairbanks recently shared on Facebook that hope and optimism often feel, to her, like carrying a bucket of water. [1] She wrote that water walkers often carry buckets of water for impossibly long distances - and they do this because they don’t work alone. They carry the bucket until it becomes too heavy and then they pass it to the next woman who does the same.Together, they are able accomplish what would be impossible alone. . 

Fairbanks says we all have to support and cheer for whoever is carrying the bucket today. When hope feels out of reach we need to look around us for the person who IS tapped into the wellspring of hope that’s always running just beneath us. We can thank them for carrying the bucket of hope today and promise them that we will take our turn once we’re able. 

Ezekiel made it through 25 years in exile because he didn’t carry the bucket of hope alone. 

And, my friends, we don’t carry our buckets alone either. God is with us and we are in it together. 

Thank you, Ezekiel, for carrying the bucket of God’s hope to us here and now in 2020. Thank you for this vision of living water which still brings new life today. 

Amen. 

NOTES: 

[1] The first part of this sermon was shared as a children's sermon and the rest as the sermon.

[2] https://www.facebook.com/ziibiing/posts/10103756381684782