Christmas Eve - Sermon for December 24, 2020

 

Luke 2: 1-14

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel stood before them, and the glory of God shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to all!”

Sermon

In the middle of the night on the longest night of the year, the time of deepest darkness, Jesus was born and brought light to the world. Whether you take that literally or metaphorically, it has deep meaning and it gives us great hope. The image of light and darkness is used in every religion. In Christianity and Judaism, the world began when God said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” In the book of Isaiah, the prophet most often quoted during Christmastime, Yahweh promises to bring the light back to the people by sending them a new king like David was. Chapter 9, verse 2 says, “The people who walk in darkness shall see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.” The writers of Matthew and Luke presented Jesus as that new king, and so continued the light in the darkness motif from Isaiah. In our reading from Luke, the angel projected the glory of God, which “shone like a light all around them.” In Matthew, there was the star that guided the magi to Jesus. And in John’s symbolic birth story, Jesus is the light that cannot be overcome by the darkness. The association of Jesus’ birth with the winter solstice, the longest night and with Hanukkah, the festival of lights deepens the metaphor. Throughout the world, in churches and homes and streets and town squares at Christmas, there are candles and electric bulbs to lighten the darkness. And many Christmas carols speak of that light. In Silent Night, Jesus is ‘love’s pure light.’ Jesus was born during a dark time for his people. They were occupied by Rome with it overwhelming military, economic, political, and ideological power over them. The majority of the population owned no land and worked as tenants of wealthy landowners or hired themselves out for day labor.  They lived in constant fear of starvation. Patriarchs ruled over their families. Women were property and shame in their honor and shame culture.  Nearly a third of all babies died before the age of one. The people were searching for some light, for some hope that things would get better. 2020 has been a dark year. There is sickness and death all around us. 77 million cases of Covid in the world. Almost 2 million deaths. We have over a million cases right here in Florida. And it is only getting worse. People that we know and love are dying from it. So many are ignoring the medical advice, refusing to stay home or wear masks. I remember back in March when there was 1 case reported in Nassau County. Now, there are over 4000.  Black and brown people in the US are dying at twice the rate of white people. Over 8 million Americans have dropped into poverty since the pandemic began. Hospitals are overwhelmed, depression and anxiety and domestic violence are on the rise, and food lines are miles long.  Racism and economic segregation surround us, as the wage gap grows ever wider. Jeff Bezos makes 13 million dollars an hour, while Amazon warehouse workers make 10 to 15 dollars an hour. In the rest of the world, the last few weeks, 50 thousand people in the Tigray region of Ethiopia,  a third of them children, have fled for their lives into Sudan and are in desperate need of food, clean water, shelter, and health care. Half a million people in Mozambique are on the run from attacks by armed groups. And more and more and on and on and on until it feels like there is too much darkness to bear. It is so overwhelming that we can barely see any light. But the light of love and hope and joy that Jesus brings into our world can be seen and heard if we look hard enough. In the eyes and squeals of children on Christmas morning. In Christmas carols. In all the folks standing in line in Georgia to vote. In food donated to food banks.  In the zoom calls with our families and friends. In 2 Covid vaccines and another on the way. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that we are the light of the world. Teresa of Avila said, “Christ has no body but ours now. We are the hands and the feet that Christ uses to bless the world.” We know from experience that the best way to relieve our own loneliness and depression and anxiety is to reach out and do something for someone else. And Jesus is here with us as our example and our inspiration. In that spirt, I want to close with one of my favorite Christmas poems, “Now the work of Christmas Begins” by Howard Thurmond. When the song of the Angel is stilled, When the Star in the sky is gone, When the kings and the princes are home, When the shepherds are back with their flock, The work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations, To bring peace among brothers and sisters, To make music in the heart. And to radiate the Light of Christ,
every day, in every way. The work of Christmas lies before us. Merry Christmas, I love you, and I will see you soon.
 
 

Love - Sermon for Week Ending December 19, 2020

Gospel Reading: 

Matthew 25: 31-40, the parable of the sheep and the goats (the Message translation)

When the king arrives and takes his place on the throne, all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, Enter, you who are blessed! Take what’s coming to you. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why: I was hungry and you fed me,     I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me. Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you? Then the King will say, I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.

Sermon: 

The theme for this 4^th Sunday of Advent is Love, and of course there is no better example of love than Jesus. For Jesus, Love was not something we feel but something we do. And Love as an action included justice. As author and activist Cornel West said, “Justice is what love looks like in public.” Our reading, the parable of the sheep and the goats, and the familiar parable of the Good Samaritan, reveal this kind of just love. In the parable of the Sheep and the Goats, Jesus says that whatever we do to those who are overlooked or ignored, those who are most impacted by injustice, we are doing to him. He is reminding us to see him in all people, especially those who are hungry, homeless, sick, and in prison. And to care for them as we would care for him. To do whatever is necessary to make their lives better. That, he says, is love. The parable of the Good Samaritan, shows us that the act of loving often comes at a cost. Sometimes it is dangerous.  It takes courage. And it has the power to change the world. Dr. King, in his sermon about the Good Samaritan, said that when we find ourselves in similar situations, “Don’t ask, ‘If I stop to help, what will happen to me?’ but, ‘If I don’t stop to help, what will happen to them?’”  And to me, the most important message of that sermon is this: “Loving your neighbor also means working to make the Jericho road safe for everyone.”  It’s not one act. It’s a lifetime of work. Jesus learned about this kind of love from his Jewish upbringing. In Judaism, love for God is expressed through loving others, feeding the poor, caring for the sick, and defending the oppressed. In Leviticus alone, there are dozens of examples about how to love:  Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Judge fairly. Pay your employees on time.  All the biblical prophets promoted just love, condemning corrupt systems that trample on the poor and admonishing the people to choose a different kind of worship, one that is defined by doing justice. We don’t have to look very far to see folks in our world loving their neighbor justly.

I’ve just finished reading a wonderful book by someone who has dedicated her life to it, who exemplifies Jesus’s words in the parable of the sheep and the goats, “I was in prison and you came to me.” Her name is Brittany Barnett, and the book is A Knock at Midnight (the title of one of Dr. King’s sermons): a story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom. And it’s about how racism in our criminal justice system shows just how little black lives matter to so many people. Her work is devoted to seeking justice for those who are serving life without parole sentences for drug offenses during America’s so-called War on Drugs. She tells several stories of black people whose lives and the lives of their families were ruined by unjust federal laws and inequity in sentencing,  including Sharanda Jones, a black woman who started 3 businesses while she  was in her 20’s, and when none was turning much of a profit,  made the bad decision to become a go-between for 2 drug dealers in Terrell, Texas, making a thousand dollars each time she drove the 4 hour trip to Houston and back, which she used to pay bills. When one of the dealers was arrested, she was offered a lighter sentence if she informed on the others involved. She wore a wire and got Sharanda to incriminate herself. As Sharanda said, the words “let me see what I can do ”meant the difference between freedom and a life in prison. Although there was no physical evidence against her, and she had a clean record, she was found guilty of conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine, like thousands of other black people who were convicted solely on the  word of “cooperating witnesses,” in this case, the actual dealer, who only got 8 years while Sharanda  got life. In the book, Barnett shares a mountain of information about injustice and inequality in the justice system, one of the most horrendous being the 100 to 1 policy of sentencing for crack cocaine, used primarily by black people, and powered cocaine, used primarily by white people. 1 kilogram of crack equaled 100 kilograms of powdered cocaine.  In Sharanda’s case, since there were no drugs found, the judge just determined that whatever powder she had carried would have been “rocked up” into crack because it was going to a black neighborhood. Even though many of these laws have since been changed, the changes are not retroactive. Brittany worked for 6 years trying to get justice for Sharanda, without success.

Finally, she appealed to president Obama for clemency, and in 2015, after serving almost 17 years in prison, Sharanda was granted clemency and freed. Since then, Brittany, Sharanda and another client Britany helped to free started the Buried Alive project, which “works to dismantle life without parole sentences handed down under outdated and inhuman federal drug laws through transformative litigation, legislation, and humanization.” This kind of love in action is changing the world. Bishop Michael Curry, in his book Love is the Way, invites us to imagine what just love would look like in the world, and then to get busy making it a reality. He says, “Imagine our homes and families, our neighborhoods and communities, our governments and nations when love is the way. When love is the way, no child will go to bed hungry ever again.

When love is the way, poverty will become history. When love is the way, the earth will be a sanctuary. When love is the way, in the words of the prophet Amos,  justice will roll down like a mighty stream, and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook. When love is the way, there will be plenty good room for all God’s children.” Let’s do all that we can to help make love the way.

Joy - A service of lessons and carols - for week ending December 12, 2020

Readings - in the order they appear in the service: 

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Luke 1: 47-55, Mary’s song.
       
My soul magnifies you, O God, and my spirit rejoices in you, my savior,
For you have looked with favor on the lowliness of your servant.
Surely, from now on, all generations will call me blessed,
For you have done great things for me, and holy is your name.
Your mercy is for those who love you from generation to generation.
You have shown strength in your arm and have
scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
You have brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly.
You have filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
You have helped your servant, Israel, in remembrance of your mercy,
According to the promise you made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.

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Amazing Peace:  A Christmas Poem   by Maya Angelou

Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes                  

And lightning rattles the eves of our houses.

Flood waters await us in our avenues.

Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche

Over unprotected villages.

The sky slips low and grey and threatening.

Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,

Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope

And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.

The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,

Come the way of friendship.

Hope is born again in the faces of our children.

It rides on the shoulders of our aged.

Hope spreads around the earth, brightening all things,

Even hate which crouches in dark corridors.

In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.

At first it is too soft.

We listen carefully as it gathers strength.

We hear a sweetness.

The word is peace.

It is loud now.  Louder than the explosion of bombs.

We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.
We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come
Peace.
Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you, to stay a while with us.
So we may learn by your shimmering light
How to look beyond complexion and see community.
It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.
On this platform of peace, we can create a language
to translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.
At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus
Into the great religions of the world.
We jubilate the precious advent of trust.
We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope.
All the earth's tribes loosen their voices
to celebrate the promise of Peace.
We, Angels and Mortals, Believers and Non-Believers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.
Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.

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From How the Grinch stole Christmas, by Dr. Seuss
 
He stared down at Who-ville. The Grinch popped his eyes.
Then he shook. What he saw was a shocking surprise!
Every Who down in Who-ville, the small and the tall,
Was singing! Without any presents at all!
He hadn’t stopped Christmas from coming! It Came!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!
And the Grinch, with his Grinch feet ice cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling, How could it be so?
It came without ribbons. It came without tags,
It came without packages, boxes, or bags.
And he puzzled three hours, til his puzzler was sore,
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before.
Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store.
Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.
And what happened then? Well, in Who-ville they say,
That the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day.

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“And the people stayed home,” by Kitty O’Meara

And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.
And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.
And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

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“Gifts of Christmas”   by Jim Burklo
For Christmas, may you receive the gift of time,
To enjoy and reflect in the moment, and
To savor the future—yours, your children’s, and your grandchildren’s.
The time that in our moments together
Transcends the time of clocks and calendars.
For Christmas, may you receive the gift of memory,
That does not dwell in the past, but rather
Adds flavor and sentiment to the present
And meaning and purpose to the future.
For Christmas, may you receive the gift of perspective,
That enables you to tell what is in front and what is behind,
That enables you to distinguish that which requires your attention
From that which will sort itself out on its own.
For Christmas, may you receive the gift of vision,
That is focused on seeing beauty that it finds everywhere.
For Christmas, may you receive the gift of God,
Who is Love, already delivered to the door of your heart,
Ready to pour in when you open it. 

Peace - Sermon for week ending December 5, 2020

Gospel Reading: 

from Luke, chapter 3.  John the Baptizer
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of God,
   make God’s paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
   and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
   and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

The crowds asked him, “What should we do?” He said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Tax collectors asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “What should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.” As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

Sermon: 

On the second Sunday of Advent,  the lectionary gospel text is always about one of my favorite biblical characters, the camel hair-wearing, bug- eating, John the Baptizer. As we heard in the reading, his description comes directly from the prophet Isaiah: “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of God and make God’s paths straight. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The crooked shall be made straight and the rough ways made smooth.  And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” In the gospels of Matthew and Luke, John the Baptizer is seen as continuing the vision and voice of the Old Testament prophets. The all decried empire, as their people had been occupied and oppressed for 500 years. Empire was Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, and now, Caesar. Israel only had one good king, David, and the prophets continually expressed hope for a new king who was like David. In these 2 gospels, Jesus is seen as the fulfillment of God’s promise for this new king,  who would bring peace and justice. In their book The First Christmas, Marcus Borg and Dom Crossan describe the kind of peace and justice this new king would bring, saying that the words of the prophet Micah that “Everyone will sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one will make them afraid,” mean that everyone will have their own land. Everyone will have enough of everything, and there will be no fear that anyone will take it away from them. John the Baptizer tells his followers how they can participate in this radical change from the way things are now: If you have two coats, share with someone who has none; the same with food. If you are a tax collector, don’t cheat people.  Just collect the amount you are supposed to.  If you are a soldier, don’t use your position to extort money from people. Priorities must be reordered so that the world is fair and just for everybody. It’s the same message we heard in Mary’s song. It’s the same message Jesus preached and lived.  In his book Prophetic Imagination, Old Testament Scholar Walter Brueggemann, says that the role of the prophet was to “energize the community with the promise of a New Vision, to offer an alternative narrative while critiquing and dismantling the dominant one.” That’s what John did. But that put the prophetic preacher in an exposed position. So it took courage. During John’s time, for example, Caesar was the only son of God and he alone was licensed to give news to his people, but John publicly contradicted that, which was dangerous. We have prophetic preachers in our midst,   who critique the dominant narrative of empire and lift up an alternative one of justice and equality, who call America back to faithfulness as the biblical prophets called Israel back to faithfulness, and, like the biblical prophets, they are often misunderstood. Dr. King was one, of course. Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who was pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for 36 years, was vilified in 2008 by white Americans who took out of context phrases from his sermon message that ‘God cannot be expected to bless America, as the anthem requests, unless it changes for the better.’ Rev. Otis Moss, who is the current pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, said,  “American policy disrupts the moral compass in favor of profit and political benefit over principled ethics and a moral center.” Which is true. And Rev. William Barber, chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, said just a few weeks ago, “Stealing a seat on the supreme court but refusing to pass a stimulus to save lives is a sin before God and the values of our constitution,” which sounds a lot like what the biblical prophet Jeremiah said about Israel’s leadership: “They have treated the wounds of my people like they were not serious, saying Peace, Peace, when there is no peace.” Prophetic preaching is not a scolding, as it might seem to people who aren’t familiar with it. It is, rather, a plain-spoken proclamation of the biblical mandate to love our neighbors and stand with the poor. And a reminder to turn away from any behavior that does not reflect that mandate, which is what John did here. And as verse 18 says, his proclamation was good news to the people. He was telling them that God was about to do a new thing, to create a way out of no way, to bring peace and justice to their world. When Carole was reading, she mentioned that the words from Isaiah were lyrics in Handel’s Messiah. They are also in the hymns “Comfort, Comfort O my People” And O Come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, which we heard Jane play. There’s a contemporary song we are about to hear that I love, “Turn Back” from the musical Godspell. It’s a burlesque number in the show. The lyrics aren’t exactly the same, but the message is: “Turn back O man, forswear thy foolish ways. Old now is earth, and none can count her days. Yet thou, her child, still will not hear what thou inner God proclaims. Age after age, your tragic empires rise. When earth shall be fair and all her people one, not until that hour shall God’s whole will be done.” The message is clear:  we humans tend to mess things up because we are selfish and ego-driven. But we don’t have to be. There is hope for us, and hope for a different kind of world from the one we are living in. God is about to do a new thing. And that is good news.

Hope - Sermon for Week Ending November 27, 2020

Readings:

Luke 1: 47-55, Mary’s song.
 
My soul magnifies you, O God, and my spirit rejoices in you, my savior,
For you have looked with favor on the lowliness of your servant.
Surely, from now on, all generations will call me blessed,
For you have done great things for me, and holy is your name.
Your mercy is for those who love you from generation to generation.
You have shown strength in your arm and have
scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
You have brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly.
You have filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
You have helped your servant, Israel, in remembrance of your mercy,
According to the promise you made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.
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from “Here’s why you can’t lose hope,” by pastor and author John Pavlovitz.
                                                                                             
I stay hopeful because people of every nationality, religious affiliation, and life circumstance who have preceded us, have experienced all manner of hell during their lifetimes: unspeakable suffering and unthinkable fear, would not relent.  They made the daily, sometimes hourly decision to speak and live and work and love when it proved difficult. We who inhabit this planet have inherited it from them:  people who would not allow themselves to become so despondent or so weary in their present circumstance that they stopped hoping. Now it’s our turn. This is our moment to spend our fragile and fleeting sliver of space and time here, and for the sake of our predecessors in humanity and for our descendants who will be here after we’re gone. We can’t allow our present troubles to overcome us. We cannot be overwhelmed by the pain in our path, to the point where we are no longer willing to feel it or respond to it. We can’t wilt in the face of hateful, fearful people who would make the world less diverse and less equitable. And we can’t become apathetic or stay silent or sidestep the turbulence, because the multitudes whose feet traversed this place previously refused to.

Sermon:  

The theme for this first Sunday of Advent is hope, and lord knows, we need it. We have had some dark days.  Covid is surging.  Political transition is lagging. Hate is multiplying. Hope is difficult. Despair is easier. It was even worse for Mary, mother of Jesus. She and her people were living under occupation, as they had so many times in their history. Priorities were upside down. The rich got richer and the poor stayed poor. Since she was a woman, Mary was property, owned by her father until he sold her to a husband. And as an unwed mother, she was an object of shame. But in spite of this, when she thought about the child she was carrying, It gave her hope, hope that tomorrow would be better than today. We see hope throughout the Bible, hope for a chance to start over, hope for the world to right itself.  As Miriam said in Exodus, hope that it would be their turn for a change. Hope is what got the Israelites through the wilderness. Hope is what, earlier, gave Abraham and Sarah  the courage to take that first step.  Hope in the midst of despair is what brought Jacob and his family to Egypt, where they were saved from starvation, and got a chance to start over. Hope is what got the exiles in Babylon through all those lonely years, hope that they would one day be able to go home, home to their people and their god. Hope for the future is what the prophet Isaiah envisioned, a time when the people would be able to choose their own ruler from among them, one who would have “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, who would judge the poor with righteousness and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.” Hope is what gave the Jews led by the Maccabees the strength to throw off their bonds, hope that is symbolized in the light of the menorah. They never gave up hope. And here is Mary, as we heard in the reading, singing the same song as the prophets, and Miriam, and Hannah, the song of her ancestors.  A song of hope for her people struggling through yet another season of despair. Mary’s hope is bold. She speaks with confidence, as if what she is hoping for has already happened. She says, “Holy one, you have scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, toppled the ruthless leaders from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.” You have turned the world right-side up again. And when she says to God, “My soul magnifies you,” she is declaring herself a partner in the creation of this future, because she knows that in God’s eyes, she is so much more than what society says she is. Mary pinned her hopes on Jesus, who spent his  life trying to upright the world, to bring attention to unjust laws and systems that preyed on the poor and gave tax breaks to the rich.  He did everything to lift up the lowly and call out the powerful for their actions.  Hope gave him courage and determination, and his actions gave those around him hope. And that hope remained even after he was no longer physically with them. His apostles in the book of Acts set up a new order in the communities they served, where everyone was equal. Mary’s hope, Jesus’ hope, was for justice. Ours is too. And we have reasons for hope even in these dark times. There are real signs of positive change in our world today. The protests this summer changed attitudes and laws and impacted the election. Vice President- elect Kamala Harris, is not only the first woman vice president, she is a black woman, of Indian and Jamaican descent. She brings hope to all of us, especially to women and girls of color. As one 14—year-old said, “It just feels like black girls like me can go for the big things in life like she did.” For the first time in America, the majority accepts that racism is real and a reckoning is due. Ideas that once seemed too radical, like universal health care and universal child care, are being discussed and considered. Our young people are leading us. And they are not afraid. They are determined and committed. There is a momentum that I haven’t seen in my lifetime. Even the church is changing, as progressive voices are demanding to be heard. And people are listening. I am not saying that everything is good, because it’s not. We still have far to go.  But these changes we are seeing bring hope for more change. There is even hope for a covid vaccine coming soon. So that we can hug and sing and eat together. So that we can begin to rebuild and restore our communities. As we heard in the reading from John Pavlovitz, we must look to those who came before us, like Mary, who remained hopeful despite her circumstances, who could have given in to despair but didn’t. They must be our examples, so that we are not overwhelmed by our circumstances, so that we don’t give up when hate and injustice and inequality surround us. They have passed the torch to us. It’s our turn now, our responsibility to carry their hope, to keep it alive and then to pass it on to those who will come after us.

Compassion & Gratitude - Sermon for Week ending November 20, 2020

Reading: 

Mark 5: 25-34 (The Message translation)

A woman who had suffered a condition of hemorrhaging for twelve years—a long succession of physicians had treated her, and treated her badly, taking all her money and leaving her worse off than before—had heard about Jesus. She came up from behind him in a crowd and touched his robe. She was thinking to herself, “If I can put a finger on his robe, I can get well.” The moment she did it, the flow of blood dried up. She could feel the change and knew her plague was over and done with.  At the same moment, he turned around to the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?”  His disciples said, “What are you talking about? With this crowd pushing and jostling you, you’re asking, ‘Who touched me?’ Dozens have touched you!” But he went on asking, looking around to see who had done it. The woman, knowing what had happened, knowing she was the one, stepped up in fear and trembling, knelt before him, and gave him the whole story. Jesus said to her, “Daughter, you took a risk of faith, and now you’re healed and whole. Live well, live blessed! Be healed of your plague.”

Sermon: 

Since Thanksgiving is almost here, this week, I’m continuing the theme of gratitude and adding her partner, compassion. Thanksgiving this year will most likely be different than it has been before. We won’t be traveling to our family home to gather at a table of abundance for food and fellowship and fun. It might be lonely, but by not gathering this year, our families are giving us the gifts of health and life. And that’s something to be thankful for. We actually have much to be thankful for. We might just have to try a little harder to find it. This year has been filled with so many disappointments, that it would be easy to sink into bitterness and cynicism, and some folks have. But we know from experience that negative mindsets are bad for us, psychologically and even physically. Gratitude though, gives us a positive mindset. Whenever we can find authentic reasons to give thanks, for something that is going right in our personal lives or our world, and put our attention there, scientific studies show us that we are healthier, happier, and more fulfilled. Knowing what we appreciate reminds us what matters most to us, what makes our days worthwhile. One thing I am very thankful for during this pandemic is the Nassau County Health Department, which does free drive-through Covid testing every Thursday and Saturday, making it possible for Cathy and I to occasionally expand our quarantine bubble to include our children and grandchildren, because they are what matter most to us. There was study conducted with adults who have neuromuscular disorders, like parkinsons. One group was instructed to jot down what they were thankful for each night, and the other group wasn’t.  The participants in gratitude group reported more hours of sleep, feeling more refreshed when they awakened, more satisfaction with their lives as a whole, and feeling more connected with others than those in the control group did. It made me think of my nightly prayers as a child, where I thanked God for everyone in my family by name. That might be a practice to get back to. Gratitude changes our perspective. Being grateful for what we have empowers compassion in us. It makes us feel less lonely and isolated, and more connected to and concerned for our neighbor. There’s a song that we will hear in a bit, “Thankful,” by Josh Groban performed by Jane, Clint Weinberg, and Natalie, Pegge, and Earnie Elam, which expresses the  interaction of gratitude and compassion. Here are some of the lyrics: “Sometimes, we forget to look around us. Some days we can’t see the joy that surrounds us So caught up inside ourselves, We take when we should give, So tonight we pray for what we know can be. It’s up to us to be the change. Even with our differences, there’s a place we are all connected. Each of us can find each other’s light. Even though the world needs so much more, there’s so much to be thankful for.” Compassionate acts, science tell us, make us healthier, more alive and alert, more joyful and optimistic. Of course, there is no one with a more grateful and compassionate heart than Jesus was. He healed people’s physical ailments, and he restored them to their rightful place in the community. He gave them their life back. The woman with the hemorrhage that Debbie read about lived at the very margins of society. Her physical and ritual uncleanness made her an untouchable. She risked her life to touch Jesus. She was that desperate. And she was healed and made whole through his compassion. There are so many stories of compassion during the pandemic. Just reading them is an exercise in gratitude. One of my favorites is about nurse practitioner Chandra Matteson, who tends to the homeless in Chicago. Every night since the pandemic began, She dons an N95 mask, safety goggles, and gloves, and travels the city in a medical outreach bus, stopping for an hour or two at a time. She hands out food, checks for coughs and fever, and cleans cuts and scrapes. She said, “These are my patients, and I will take care of them. I didn’t sign up to be part of a pandemic, but I did sign up to help people.” My other favorite is about Ellie Schoader, a traveling nurse from Lexington, who spent 5 weeks at a hospital in Toledo, treating Covid patients. One of them was Bob Green, age 95, who contracted Covid in his assisted living facility. Since contact with family was not allowed, his son David didn’t think he would ever see or speak to his father again. On what turned out to be Bob’s final night, Ellie noticed that he was awake and alert. So she called Bob and asked if he would like to Facetime with him. After they had talked, David asked Ellie if she could set up a Facetime call with his brothers, one in Minnesota, and one in Seattle. And although she was busy with other patients, she did. They all got to see and talk to their father before he died. David called Ellie an angel posing as an ICU nurse, saying, “We didn’t have any kind of agreement with her to call us. She just felt it was a good time to do so.” Gratitude and compassion are the remedy for all the negativity in our lives right now. Being truly grateful for all that we have naturally leads us to want to help, support, and alleviate the suffering of our neighbors. In these dark times, may our light be a light for others. May we do all we can to help change the world for the better. And may we realize that we have so much to be thankful for.

 

Transitions - Sermon for Week Ending November 13, 2020

Readings: 

The Gift of Years by Joan Chittister.

We are at a crossroads now. We are at the point in life where we must make the kind of decisions that will determine the quality of our remaining years. When we count age as nothing but a series of losses, fear invades our soul. It warns of the time when we will not be as lithe, as steady, as we have always known ourselves to be. It tells me that the self I was is changing, deteriorating. The questions never end: How much longer will I be able to take care of myself? Who will take care of me when I can’t do it anymore? And the major one: Is my life over now? Is there nothing left of the ‘me’ I have always been? Is life now only to be endured rather than lived? Instead of seeing a long life as a gateway to the flowering of the spirit and the growing of the soul, we are far more likely to see it as the coming of a wasteland.

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8   

To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:

 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

 a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

 a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Sermon: 

I want to thank my friend Ruth for suggesting the topic of today’s sermon, Transitions, as we are currently in the thralls of so many. It was the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, known for his paradoxical expressions, who said, “The only constant in life is change.” which is so true, but can be so hard on us. In the book of Exodus, the Israelites faced the greatest transition of their lives, when they were liberated from slavery in Egypt and began journeying away from there to what they had been told was a better place. While they were grateful to be free, life in Egypt was all they had ever known. They left everything behind, including their identity. They had no idea where they were going or how long it would take to get there, or how they would survive in the meantime. They were gripped by anxiety and fear, and many times, they wanted to turn back to what they knew. Almost immediately after the journey began, they started to panic, shouting to Moses, “Why didn’t God let us die in comfort in Egypt where we had lamb stew and all the bread we could eat? You’ve brought us out into this wilderness to starve us to death! Later, when Moses appeared to have abandoned them to climb a mountain to get instructions about how to worship a God that they knew nothing about,  they reverted to what they did know, to what brought them comfort. They built an altar to their Egyptian God, El, and started worshipping him. Even when they finally got to their destination, the land of Canaan, they were afraid to go in. There were already people living there.  Would they become slaves again? Would they have to fight for this land they were told was promised to them? It was too much.

They couldn’t do it. Almost all change is fraught with anxiety and fear, especially if we feel like  it was forced on us too quickly, that we weren’t given enough time to process it. The older we get, the more change we experience. divorce; the death of someone we love; a cancer diagnosis;  dementia;  moving to assisted living or a nursing home;  becoming disabled. It’s hard, as we heard in our reading from Sister Joan Chittister, about the transition to old age, where we can’t help but ask, How much longer will I be able to take care of myself? Then what? Is life now only to be endured rather than lived? Our most recent unexpected transition, courtesy of Covid, has been difficult to bear. So much of what we knew changed in an instant.

People lost their jobs, their businesses, their childcare, their homes. The most vulnerable among us live in isolation and die alone. There is almost no human contact, and we humans need contact. We are overwrought, wondering if our lives will ever be what they were before.

We’ve lost the sense of where we fit. What our role is. What the future holds. For some people, it was too much. They wanted so desperately to get back to the lives they had, to something that was familiar, that they risked their lives and other people’s lives and made the whole situation worse. Change is inevitable. Most of it we have no control over. But we can control how we respond. That is our choice. We can grieve for what we have lost until the day we die.

Or stomp through life filled with anger and resentment. Or we can choose to continue to live our lives. We can use our imagination and our creativity to make our days meaningful and joyous. We can explore interests we haven’t had time for before, figure out how to do things differently, rediscover what is most important to us. We can cultivate gratitude, which is easy to have when things are going as planned, but not so easy when they aren’t. But being grateful is a choice we can make. I don’t mean putting on a happy face and pretending that we aren’t suffering. But finding a way to see our experience through a lens of gratitude, to remind ourselves of al that we have been through, all that we have survived, and that we can survive this. The actor Michael J. Fox, who was stricken with Parkinson at age 29, has a new book coming out about the difficulty, physically and emotionally, of living with the disease for almost 30 years. Two years ago, he had surgery for a benign tumor on his spinal cord and had to learn to walk all over again. Four months later he fell, and fractured his arm so badly that it had to be stabilized with 19 pins and a plate. This book came out of those two grueling back to back recoveries. He doesn’t pretend that he is not suffering. At one point he writes, “Absent a chemical intervention, Parkinsons will render me frozen, immobile, stonefaced, and mute.” Yet he still expresses gratitude, for his life, his career, his wife and children and friends, saying that, no matter what happens to him, “with gratitude, his optimism becomes sustainable.” We are suffering, but we are alive. We have food and shelter and people who love us. There is kindness and goodness and Godness all around. As we heard in the verses from Ecclesiastes, change will come. The earth will turn. Day will be followed by night and then by day again.  Everything happens in its own time. May we face it with as much strength, and as much grace and as much gratitude as we can.