Sermon: Again & Again: We Draw on Courage

 

Palm Sunday

March 28, 2021

John 12:1-19

Again & Again: We Draw on Courage

            Charles Albert Tindley was born in Berlin, MD in 1851. His father was enslaved; his mother was a free person. After the Civil War, he moved to Philadelphia where he and family attended what was then called Bainbridge Street Methodist Episcopal Church and he became the church janitor. From there he discerned a call to ordained ministry and as an itinerant Methodist pastor he served a number of churches in the Philadelphia area before being sent back to Bainbridge Street to pastor there. Starting around 1901, Rev. Tindley also began publishing hymns that he wrote, five of which are in our United Methodist hymnal. I learned these hymns, and this history, during the two years that I lived in Philadelphia and happened to find what is now called Tindley Temple United Methodist Church. I found them with a phone and a GPS; I was looking for a church home near my apartment. Tindley was the only church that answered the phone when I called, so that’s where I went and that’s where I stayed and worshiped for those two years. I had no idea when I first walked in the doors that it was a historic Black church. One of the Tindley hymns that I learned that is not in our hymnal is called “The Storm Is Passing Over”: 

“Courage, my soul, and let us journey on, 

Tho’ the night is dark it won’t be very long. 

Thanks be to God, the morning light appears, 

And the storm is passing over, Hallelujah! 

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The storm is passing over, Hallelujah!”

            Today is a Palm Sunday for courage. Even more so than previous Palm Sundays. We have been on a journey. The night has been dark and feels long. A year long, to be more precise. Lent has felt short this year, the past 40 days. I think, in part, because we have been in a season of Lent for over 365 days, going on 375 days. We have been in a storm. Verse 2 of the hymn says, 

“Billows rolling high, and thunder shakes the ground, 

Lightning's flash and tempest all around, 

Jesus walks the sea and calms the angry waves, 

And the storm is passing over, Hallelujah!” 

Jesus has been with us in the midst of this storm and knows about courage for journeying on. He did it when he walked on water in the middle of the storm and he did it on Palm Sunday, facing his journey to the cross. Jesus knew what was coming, and still went through with this parade, anyway. He knew the cross was coming and he had tried to prepare his disciples for it. John’s Gospel tells us, “His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.” The disciples understood in hindsight; they understood after the fact. Jesus, however, knew as it was happening. It takes courage to participate in the joy when you know that sadness is coming. It takes courage to hold both emotions at the same time, happy and sad, and to be okay with that.

            It always reminds me of a “Dr. Who” TV Christmas special from a few years ago.[1] In this particular episode, Dr. Who travels to World War II London and befriends a family whose dad is away fighting in the war.  The mom has just received notice that he was killed in the line of duty, but she does not want to tell her kids yet because she doesn’t want them to associate this memory with Christmas.  Dr. Who talks with her about her inner turmoil as to whether or not to tell the kids yet.  And he says, “…every time you see them happy, you remember how sad they’re going to be, and it breaks your heart.  Because what’s the point in them being happy now if they’re going to be sad later?  …The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later.” This is the same thing Jesus knows. Happy now. Sad later. Then happy again, because death does not have the last word. It takes courage to celebrate now and at the same time to grieve what’s coming.

            “Courage” derives from the Latin word “cor,” which means “heart.” When we consider the full Palm Sunday picture, these are frightful times. So much is happening that is both hopeful and terrifying. Tensions and tears are plentiful. And just as we’re talking about that first Palm Sunday, it feels like we could be talking about today: pandemics, mass shootings, vaccines, looking for hope wherever we can find it, looking for that morning light to appear that signals the end of the storm, the end of the night. Yet through it all, the Word reminds us to “take heart.” Again and again, we take heart amid the drama. The script is unsettling, because Holy Week is supposed to be unsettling, because we have not yet reached “The End.”[2] Because God has the last word, just as God had the first word. The third verse of Tindley’s hymn says, 

“The stars have disappeared, and distant lights are dim, 

My soul is filled with fears, the seas are breaking in. 

I hear the Master cry, "Be not afraid, ’tis I," 

And the storm will soon be over, Hallelujah!” 

If you haven’t heard Jesus say, “Be not afraid, ‘tis I,” or, in modern English, “Have courage. It’s me. I’m here. Don’t be afraid,” then my prayer for you this week is that you hear those words. Now, don’t be afraid. Jesus is with you. Usually, you hear those words in the middle of a storm. But take heart. Jesus has overcome the storm and it will be over soon. So, again and again, tell your soul “courage!” and let us journey on. Holy Week has only just begun.

 

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[1] “The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe,” aired December 25, 2011

[2] Much of the first half of this paragraph is from the Sermon Planning Guide for “Again & Again: A Lenten Refrain” by A Sanctified Art

Sermon: Again & Again: We Are Reformed

 

5^th Sunday in Lent

March 21, 2021

John 12:20-33

Again & Again: We Are Reformed[1]

I can’t hear this passage from the Gospel of John without thinking of now Oscar Romero, who became a saint in the Catholic Church in 2018.  Romero was a priest in El Salvador and appointed the new Archbishop of San Salvador in 1977.  He was considered a safe choice, one who would stick to his books and not rock the boat in the already rocky Salvadoran society.  Well, “rocky” is an understatement, if you remember that time in Central America.  Serious oppression, terror, and violence was going on, all sanctioned by the government and enforced by the military.  People were mysteriously disappearing. Elections were rigged. The press was censored. And you never knew if soldiers were about to start a massacre.  Archbishop Romero decided to start speaking out after his good friend, Rutilio Grande, was murdered. Padre Rutilio Grande was the first priest of many to be killed during this time, and while in the U.S. a pastor’s murder may not seem so dramatic, in a Catholic country, priests are sacrosanct.  Archbishop Romero himself was assassinated 41 years ago this week, while celebrating Mass, just as he finished preaching.  His final sermon was on this passage from John that we just read.  “I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it can only be a single seed.  But if it dies, it bears much fruit.  Those who love their life will lose it; those who hate their life in this world will keep it forever.”  One of the things he said about this passage was that “one must not love oneself so much as to avoid getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us, and that those who try to fend off the danger will lose their lives, while those who out of love for Christ give themselves to the service of others will live, like the grain of wheat that dies, but only apparently.  If it did not die, it would remain alone.  The harvest comes about only because it dies, allowing itself to be sacrificed in the earth and destroyed.  Only by undoing itself does it produce the harvest.”[2]

Now, this is something y’all know because we witness it every year in our community. The seeds get planted in the ground. Those seeds apparently die in order to become a plant: corn, soybeans, hay, flowers. Then, the crops are harvested. The seed dies, and is transformed into a plant. The plant grows and is harvested, dies and becomes food. The stalk, eventually, is plowed under to make way for new crops. And it all starts from that single seed. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it can only be a single seed.  But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” The seed has to be reformed in order to bear fruit. It can’t bear fruit as a seed. It has to change into a plant.

            Change is hard. Even when planned. Even when we’re in charge of it. Even when change is welcomed, it is still hard. You know why? Because it means death. Something has to die in order for change to happen. If your New Year’s resolution is to lose weight, then your old eating habits have to die so that you can change to new eating habits. The old way you used your time has to change in order to make time to exercise. Something has to die in order for us to change. And death means grief. It means sadness, it means anger, it may mean feelings of betrayal or denial, it may mean bargaining and all the different stages of grief, including acceptance. We can accept the change and still be sad about it. We can appreciate the weight loss and still be upset that we can’t binge on a bag of chips. This is why change is hard. There are strong feelings attached to it. Maybe it was your favorite seed, perfectly formed, beautiful coloring, but you know that if you hold on to it, then it will not fulfill the purpose for which it was created, which is to become a plant. Change is uncomfortable, and we Americans have made comfort our favorite pastime. But God calls us, invites us, expects us to continue growing, to continue changing, to continue in the process of sanctification.

            Sanctifying grace is one of the three types of grace that John Wesley talked about. The others are prevenient grace, the grace that is there before you even know God, before you’re even aware of God’s grace; and justifying grace, the grace that saves us, the graces that makes us right with God, that justifies us. This is the saving work that Christ did on the cross: saving grace. Sanctifying grace, then, is for those of us who are Christians, for those of us who have accepted God’s love, for those of us who are committed to following Jesus. This is the grace that sustains us, sanctifies us, makes us holy, perfects us, continues to work within us to make us ever more like Jesus. This is because even after we are saved, God is not done with us. The process of sanctification never ends because it’s a process of transformation. “Sanctifying grace is where we figure out that it’s not ‘all about me’ and we begin to participate in God’s redemption in the world.”[3]

            It’s not “all about me,” because it’s about my brother or sister who is hurting and in need of redemption and healing. It’s about the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, of whom we have some in our community, who were on the receiving end of acts of violence this past week. It’s about African-Americans and Blacks, who are also members of our community, who again felt like their lives are valued less than others when the Black Lives Matter sign at Glenwood Middle School, our local middle school, was vandalized last weekend. It’s about the LGBT community, again, some of whom are also members of our local community, who again felt ostracized when Pope Francis reiterated longstanding Catholic doctrine. As Christians, we serve a God who loves, includes, and wants justice for all people. Justice isn’t helping a drowning person get out of the river, that’s relief work; justice is going upriver to prevent so many people falling in the river in the first place.

A colleague and seminary classmate who serves in West Virginia shared a quote this past week from an author and poet in the Midwest, Lori Hetteen: “You keep pairing me with quiet,” Peace said, “but my true companion is the mighty clamor of chains being ripped clean from the wall.” That is a just peace. Peace is not the same as silence, because you can have silence filled with tension. But Jesus came to set the prisoners free. This is what he says in Luke 4, after he spends his 40 days in the wilderness. Then Jesus goes to his hometown, Nazareth, and goes to the synagogue like usual, and he’s invited to read the scripture. He’s given the scroll for the prophet Isaiah. Jesus unrolls the scroll and finds the place where it’s written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

            Here’s the good news: the Spirit of the Lord is upon you, too. You are anointed to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free. Jesus invites us to join him in releasing the chains that are keeping you and your brother and sister in captivity. Remember, good news to someone who is hungry is a loaf of bread. We do the relief work of providing the bread, and then the justice work of figuring out what systems need changing so that all have access to bread and we’re not gatekeepers of the bread. That changes the world. We are all part of God’s family, by virtue of our baptism, and the family business is working together in the process of transforming our world.

            Again and again, God invites us and calls us to continue in the journey of sanctification, to continually be refined and perfected and more like Jesus. Again and again, God calls us to be in relationship with our neighbor, because that’s how transformation happens. Again and again, God invites us to be uncomfortable so that others can see and feel and know the love of Jesus through us. Again and again, God invites us to continue on the journey of letting the old fall away for something new to emerge, of returning to God’s words over and over, of being drawn into the heart of God, of remembering that it’s not all about us. Again and again, God invites us to participate in his redemption and transformation of the world, for both your sake and your neighbor’s sake. Will you say yes?

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[1] From “Again & Again: A Lenten Refrain” by A Sanctified Art

[2] Oscar Romero, Voice of the Voiceless, p. 191-2

[3] James Harnish, A Disciple’s Path, Daily Workbook, p. 23

Reflection from May 2020: I Went Out in the World Today

Written Tuesday, May 12, 2020

I went out in the world today. It was scary. I was anxious. I didn't sleep well the previous two nights. Since shelter-at-home started 8 weeks ago, I rarely get in the car. I go pick up our take-out orders from local restaurants. I've been to the church building. I've been to my treasurer's house and to a church member's farm where my children can play outside. That's it. I've filled up my tank of gas once. It almost needs it again - because of today's outings. Today I went for my infusion in Olney. I had to wear a mask for two and a half hours straight! It was annoying. However, I did sleep for about one to one and a half of those hours. It was the first time I'd been inside another building. The receptionist had to pull up her mask when I walked in, as did the nurse when I entered the infusion room. It was weird and different and scary. We're all trying not to get each other sick. We're all praying we're not already infected. We're trying to do what needs to get done medically.

This afternoon I saw my eye specialist. I have ocular rosacea and am followed by a doctor who opened her own practice up in Hunt Valley. I noticed DOT has decided to re-pave parts of I-70 and I-695 while there are so many fewer cars on the road. At my eye specialist, they had screens up around the receptionist desk. The chairs in the reception area had been turned around to prevent anyone from sitting in them. I'd had to docu-sign that I wasn't symptomatic and promise to wear a mask and come alone. The receptionist wore a mask and a surgical head covering. My eye doctor, usually very fashionable, wore scrubs, glasses, surgical mask and head covering. She did touch my face while examining my eyes. We talked about life at home with our kids, although hers are older than mine. Oh - and she met me in reception and held the door for me on the way in and out of the exam room area. For my follow-up in four weeks (because my eyes are swollen and she's putting me on steroid drops for two weeks) we're doing tele-medicine on ZOOM or Facetime. Good grief.

It was stressful. Like eat the m&m's I'd been saving for a bad day stressful. I wasn't exhausted, probably because of that morning nap, but it was hard and I was glad to be home again.

Reflection: Operation Ordination

 I was raised in the Episcopal Church and I still miss the formal liturgy and weekly communion. However, as soon as I joined The United Methodist Church in college I began to be encouraged and nurtured toward ordained ministry, first by Rev. Roger Jespersen and later by Rev. Herb Coleman and others. I didn't listen to them, not for years. I didn't listen until I was on bed rest in Nicaragua with my first major flare-up of rheumatoid arthritis. Then I prayed and searched Scriptures and journaled and then I said yes. That was 15 years ago. In the meantime, I went to seminary and began pastoring churches and began overcoming obstacle after obstacle in the pursuit of full ordination. Last year I was eligible for the first time and at my oral exam I did not do well because I was so anxious. So, I was delayed. This year I participated again in the oral exam - AND PASSED!!!!

Operation Ordination Command Center (this year's oral exam was virtual)