Scary Cupcakes
-December 6th, 2018

“Scary Cupcakes” is a sermon I have preached in three different contexts, in my homiletics class, at Wallingford UMC, and at my meeting with the Committee on Preparation for Ministry (CPM) when I was Certified to receive a call. The following is the sermon preached to CPM. Regretfully this sermon was not recorded any of the times I preached it.
The Sermon text was Matthew 19:13-14 and Ephesians 6:10-17.

I was in second grade Sunday school class when my teachers decided we were asking questions that were a bit too big, so they invited our associate pastor to come answer them for us. In many churches the associate pastor is usually a fairly young person, relatively fresh out of seminary and tasked with “family and children’s ministries”. The Rev. Dr. Gerrit VanBrandwijk was not such a fresh-faced young minister. He came out of retirement to fill our associate pastor position, having previously been a senior pastor. His role was to minister to the large retiree demographic in our church. So it was a special blessing to have a Pastor who was used to dealing with senior folks take time out of his day to take questions from a bunch of first and second graders.

My question for Pastor Gerrit was “If Jesus is God, then what happened when Jesus came down to earth? How could God be in heaven and on earth as Jesus at the same time, was heaven just empty then?”  Blundering into the sort of heresy that has led to schism and even bloodshed in the early church. So much for the simple, blind faith of children. This gospel passage is often interpreted that way. I would propose that maybe instead it is the faith of adults that is “simple” and more likely just un-curious.  We accept concepts like the trinity or the simultaneous humanity and divinity of Christ without question, when if we really stop to think about them for a moment the questions might never stop. Which is, more or less, what Pastor Gerrit told me that day.  He didn’t go into an in-depth explanation of perichoresis or the hypostatic union but rather encouraged my curiosity and sense of wonder, encouraging me to live into and explore the mysteries of the triune God. I’d like to think I have Gerrit to blame for my presence here today, and my student loan debt.

My friend recently told me about her son’s favorite question: “When is the last day?” not the last day of pre-school, of the week or the year. Little Jack, who just turned five, has spent most his of ability to form words asking his mother questions about the end of the world. He is certainly unique but this range of deep questioning from children is not.

The deep questioning by children, contrasted with adults who are afraid to ask because they believe they are supposed to know hits at the heart of Jesus’ frustration in this passage. By the time we get to this passage Jesus has already told the disciples to embrace children twice. first in Mark 9:35-37, then a few verses later in 9:42. He specifically tells them that to welcome a child is to welcome Him and thus Godself, and says that to hinder “one of these little ones” it would be better to have a millstone hung around their neck and be flung into the sea. That is, Jesus is suggesting a giant cement necklace rather than the cement shoes treatment. So here we are a few verses later and the disciples are trying to stop children from approaching Jesus, because they think they know the order of things around here and children are not part of it. So once again Jesus has to remind them that what they assume to be true is wrong.

Now perhaps it is that children are so trusting of their parents that they feel safe enough to ask these huge questions. Part of what is reflected when children ask questions is their belief that the adult they are asking will obviously know the answer. That adult may sometimes fear disappointing them by answering “I don’t know.” Yet doing so may help the child and the adult to embrace a greater sense of wonder. Saying “I don’t know” helps adults and children to remain curious, to continue to ask questions, rather than make assumptions. In so doing we, together, enter the kingdom of God as children, embracing the other by remaining curious.

So what then of  “Scary Cupcakes?” When we speak of this passage we often also think of the innocence of children. Because of that association this passage reminds me of one night while I was babysitting a little girl and we were watching cupcake wars. They were just introducing all the bakers. Two white women, and a black man. The camera panned over each introducing them. Each contestant was all smiles and dressed professionally. As the camera zoomed in on the man the little girl next to me turned and said “he looks scary.” So I thought to myself, I know her parents, I know her church, I know her school. I know all the folks in her life who want her to love her neighbor as herself. So when all we know about this man is what he looks like, and that he bakes cupcakes, that seems like very little reason to be scared. So I very gently asked “Hmmm… why is that?” in as non-judgemental and curious of a tone as I could muster. She thought for a while and eventually got distracted so I never got an answer.

I have to think about the innocence of our children, but also the powers and principalities at play that reach them so early. That moment immediately brought to mind Ephesians 6:12 for me “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” I have many friends or acquaintances who have had spiritual experiences that may well fit into that “powers and principalities” category, but there are also very powerful forces that we all know exist that I would also lump in there that also feel intangible. Media, culture, upbringing, and family systems, have programmed us all to react in certain ways.

Robin DiAngelo, a sociologist who studies and speaks on white privilege, says that children receive messages about race as young as three and four years old. So it’s important to keep in mind what messages and images our children are receiving. Trying to stop certain messages from getting to them may be like trying to stop a firehose with your hand, especially now that we have the internet to contend with.

However, we ARE capable of providing the tools and teaching the skills needed for our children to carefully evaluate the messages they are receiving as well as offering better narratives. We cannot protect our children by excluding them from the tough conversations. Age appropriate curriculum is important, but we should be attentive to making sure they see adults offering positive counter narratives to what they hear and see in the world. If we do not welcome children into the room on topics such as race and privilege, for better or worse they will learn about them elsewhere.

Welcoming children as an integral part of the current church, not just “the future” of the church also gives us a mirror. If I were to have immediately seen this man and some part of my brain said “he looks scary” I have matured enough in our culture to know that such a statement is not “ok.” I wouldn’t have uttered it aloud and no one would have asked me to think about why. We may be concerned about a lack of innocence in what seems like an immediately prejudicial statement, however there may also be an innocence in her comfort to speak it. Her openness in just blurting out a thought that adults have been socialized to keep to themselves allowed for a moment of introspection for both of us.

So how might we welcome the children in our churches and engage their sense of wonder and innocence in ways that are mutually beneficial? Church is one of the rare places in our society where all ages show up. Much of our lives are otherwise segregated with school, work, and retirement communities. There is often temptation to do similar during worship. While the congregation prefers to have children’s Sunday School during the service, Pastor Ann and I at Wallingford are taking steps to try to both attend to their spiritual formation age appropriately while ensuring they are not excluded from the worship service.

Part of what this has meant at Wallingford is that when the congregation is talking about race I asked them to commit to taking responsibility to talk about race with our children. We can do this by making sure the books we read our children are representative of the faces of our world. When I lived in Miami I worked at Sweet Home Missionary Baptist Church, it was a predominantly black congregation. My first day my supervisor asked me “How many people like us are there where you come from? Two?” I was stunned for a second because I didn’t understand what she meant by “people like us” I was stuck in a colorblind ideology where I might have noticed difference but I didn’t feel it was socially acceptable to acknowledge it. After a moment I caught up and played along with her joke saying “No, it’s more like 5.” Later when I returned from visiting home in Walla Walla I brought back a copy of the children’s book “Double Trouble in Walla Walla.” The first thing my supervisor did, that I didn’t even think about was to check the book to see if there were any people of color in it. I was so embarrassed that it hadn’t even occurred to me. To my relief not only are there people of color in the book, but one of them is the school principal. The next thing to do is to go beyond just having books that have diverse representation and point out that people are different and that you think that’s good and that you like seeing these faces.

Another way to engage our children is to consider that “I don’t know” is a sincere answer, so long as you follow up and maybe bring them with you on the journey to find the answer. This would be a good time to show them, when they’re looking something up on google, how to evaluate their sources. Teach them that just because there is a source that agrees with them doesn’t make it true or good.

Admit when you’re wrong and continue to examine your biases, ask yourself why you react to a certain person in a certain way and challenge your spheres. I’ve made an effort to make sure that I follow more people of color on social media. This work has to make us uncomfortable and if we think we’re doing the work while remaining perfectly comfortable, then something is missing.

Finally, be willing to learn from your children. If we are doing the work well, then our children will be growing to be more open and aware people at a younger age than we were able to. This means that they may soon be better at this than we are, and so we will need to learn to step aside and make room.

May we be fearless to admit that we don’t know something, when we think we should. May we be willing to examine ourselves and to hear challenging words from those different from us. May we all, on our journey to follow Jesus stay curious and embrace wonder like little children.

Amen

Lament Before Reconciliation

            When Pastor Ann asked if there was a Sunday coming up that I’d like to preach I picked St Patrick’s day because of a very clear obsession I have with all things green and Irish. I figured that while this is a busy season in my life, if there was going to be one Sunday in which the sermon was easier to write it would be today. While completing my undergraduate degree in history one of my major areas of interest was in the history of conflict and reconciliation in Ireland. Last week my full intent was specifically to speak to how we go about reconciliation. Then I spent 3 days at a conference in which I realized that in so many contexts in which we may want reconciliation, we’re not there yet. By that I mean we’re not even to the point where we can think about reconciliation. We have not properly lamented the sins committed against us much less the impact of our own sins. Lament must come before reconciliation.

            I first want to recognize that the two major influences of this sermon are two black women, the Rev. Dr. Angela Parker who was my Greek and New Testament professor, and Rev. Kelle Brown, our opening liturgy was taken straight from the words of a sermon she preached just this past Tuesday, at the NEXT church conference here in Seattle.

·      Galatians exegesis

o   Discussion of the law

§  Pedagog

Not a teacher but a disciplinarian.

o   Not dichotomies

§  Jew or Greek

§  Slave or free

§  Male and female

The word used for “Greek” IS Greek, not gentile. It is not a generic word for “non-jew” as if they are opposites. Free is only the opposite of the state of slavery, but a master is the opposer or the oppressor to a slave. Then lets highlight that for the other pairs Paul says Jew OR Greek, slave OR free that word “or” in the Greek is oo-day in rare circumstances one might translate it as “and” but Greek actually has another word for “and” which is kai, and that is what Paul uses for “Male and Female” so in this use Paul is very clearly using oo-day as “or”  and kai as “and.” So while Jew or Greek are not opposites in Gaul who is being written to, there is a rift between them, the same with slave or free. But then when we get to Male and Female Paul isn’t saying ‘there’s no dichotomy” Paul may well be saying there is no Gender as followers of Christ. In fact I would say “gender” may well be the unnamed 3rd concept of that pairing. Each of these pairs has an unnamed 3rd factor that is the oppressor. When Paul says there is no longer Jew or Greek, the unnamed 3rd is Rome. When we say slave or free, the master is not named. Paul is calling all these pairs to recognize their common need and rather than be opposed to one another to join together against their oppressors.

            Galatians means the people of Gaul, and the Gauls were horrifically crushed by Rome, the images of which were immortalized in a structure that is now in a museum in Berlin called the Pergamon Altar. The artwork shows Roman gods triumphing over Greek figures and this is what these Gauls saw every day in the public square to remind them who was in charge. This also explains their resistance to Jewish Christians asking them to change their culture and abide by Jewish law. It is important to be clear that when Paul is speaking about the law no longer being necessary he is not telling the Jewish Christians of Gaul not to keep their practices, he is simply asking them to leave Greek Christians alone. These are two grieving and lamenting people and Paul is asking them to recognize that in one another.

            So with that in mind, I want to read you a poem by Sarah Kay.

            POEM – Hand me downs – Sarah Kay or watch a video of Sarah performing the poem here

            The first time I heard this poem it spoke to me of the Northern Irish conflict. That may well be specifically what it is about, however Sarah Kay herself is Jewish and Japanese, but could be writing about many cultural contexts, where heels have been dug in. One such context in Jesus time’ was between Canaanites and the Hebrew people. I want to read this Gospel text for you from the New Revised Standard Version, I am intentionally leaving the instances of the world “Lord” in where the Canaanite woman uses the word and I hope the purpose of doing so is evident in the reading.

Matt. 15:21   Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26 He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

            Between the last time Jesus calls her a dog and the moment he says her faith is great. What must he have been thinking? The woman is not surprised, that’s why she keeps pushing. This is not an abnormal response from a Jewish man. She has heard some stories of this man, certainly. That’s why she’s here, but unlike us this kind of exclusion and discrimination hasn’t been called out in her culture as wrong or sinful, Jesus has not been built up in the same way for her as being above all of this… racism. So she is having the interaction she expected. Jesus on the other hand is first of all likely shocked by this woman’s boldness to address him in the first place, as well as her persistence, but that doesn’t explain the change. One could argue that he was just testing her, knowing all along that he was going to heal her daughter. But how is that better? To cruelly test a woman who is clearly in distress? And why would Jesus, being God, need to test her anyway? A minister I knew sometimes referred to what he called “Cat claw theology” in which sometimes in these stories Jesus is going about life as a normal human when something happens and the divine claws come out. Perhaps that’s it, perhaps Jesus suddenly remembered who he was because this woman’s persistence reminded him. Maybe we’re just missing a line or two of the story in which Jesus stops and ponders this for a moment rather than immediately responding. Though, whether there was a pause or it was instant, I think a prefer a reading of this text in which Jesus learned something new. This is a turning point in the Gospels, from here on out Jesus isn’t Just here for the Jews he’s here for everyone. The story that immediately precedes this one both in Matthew and Mark is that of Jesus lecturing the Pharisees that it is not what goes into or out of the abdomen that defiles, what actually defiles one is what comes out of the heart. Here the Canaanite woman feeds his words back to him in the learned politeness of a woman of color she asks him “Are you really going to call me a DOG. TODAY?!” This story in Mark actually calls her the Syrophoenecian woman, that is a Greek woman. There is no Jew or Greek in Christ Jesus because this woman yelled at him on the side of the road and got called a dog.

            And so she went home and her daughter was instantly healed. Jesus left forever changed by what this woman taught him, what this woman shouldn’t have had to teach him. Nonetheless, because of an unnamed Canaanite woman you and I come to this building every week. I am certain she arrived home and wept with joy that her daughter lived and was whole. I wonder if she also sometimes wept and lamented the cost of daily life in such a society. That if she should be acknowledged as existing at all, she should have to accept status as a stray dog begging for scraps. She was not reconciled that day, that would take much more of her tears and much more work from others.

            So here we are a reconciling congregation in the United Methodist Church in March 2019. We have stood up and shouted “God is for our people too!” In my denomination the Presbyterian Church (USA) we call such congregations “More Light” congregations. There are many differences in our political structures that I know made this an easier vote to pass for Presbyterians. What I can tell you however is that we are not at reconciliation either. Shouting on the side of the rode “More Light” churches were first ignored, then called names, then their great faith was suddenly acknowledged. Yet are the wounds healed? The first General Assembly after votes for full inclusion passed there was a vote to issue a full apology to LGBTQIA+ folks in the church. This did not pass. I remember plenty of older straight allies being frustrated with this, thinking that this immediate apology was justice. My LGBTQIA+ friends in the denomination however felt differently. Not enough time has passed, not to mention they were not interested in voting to apologize to themselves. Allies of every stripe need to do some soul searching before such an apology, we need to truly understand what we’re apologizing for and properly lament the consequences of our actions. As Rev. Brown says “Why is reconciliation in our mouths if we cannot tell the truth?”

            My major research project relating to reconciliation in Northern Ireland was called “Not Just a Black and White Issue: Integrating the Green and Orange of Northern Ireland’s Schools” there is a tiny integrated education movement in Northern Ireland that educates only about 6% of the school-age population. It began because one day a woman named Cecil Linehan in 1972 wrote a letter to the editor asking if there might be other parents out there who needed to find a better way forward for their children. She partnered with other Catholic parents and they began to teach religious education to their children themselves so that they could send their children to the state run schools rather than the Catholic schools. They quickly learned this was not enough. The government insisted that their schools WERE integrated, anyone could attend there. What the parents learned however is that their children were essentially hanging up their Irish Catholic identities at the door, pretending to be unionist protestants at school. Their friends in the Catholic schools were learning the Irish language but they wouldn’t dare speak that in a state school. These parents eventually opened the first integrated school in 1981 that was required to maintain ratios of all the populations evident in the region, so not just Catholic and Protestant but whoever else may be there. They were required to learn about one-another’s religions and the Irish language was offered as an elective. I last visited Belfast at the very end of 2012, there were major protests about when and were it was okay to display the union flag, a car bomb detonated just barely after I left the city. It is suspected that some of the continuing violence are teenagers who have romanticized the troubles. There are Communities like Corrymeela that are shared spaces where youth now come to speak of their trauma and family stories on both sides of the conflict. They learn to hear one another. The Irish, both Catholic and Protestant, know how to lament, these spaces become places where they learn to lament together, where they hear the stories of the other and stop romanticizing the violence of their own side. What we might consider the troubles that used to dominate the news have ended, but there is not yet a generation in Northern Ireland that has not been affected by them.

            I hope this twofold sense of lament has been heard. We need to properly feel the consequences of the hurt we have caused. In a racial context I need us to understand that this does not amount to white guilt. Guilt over race and privilege stalls us, prevents us from moving to action. If we are stalled in guilt then we will seek to rid ourselves of discomfort, rather than taking it on. When we sit in guilt we make the story about ourselves, how bad WE feel for what has been done to “the other”. When we lament we seek to truly understand the consequences of our actions and those of our ancestors and move toward change. That’s one form of lament. On the other side we must lament those ways in which we have been harmed and not seek resolution either in revenge or premature reconciliation taking the short cut to the high road. The healing is in the journey, if we jump to Easter without sitting in the lament of lent we will arrive with all our wounds still open, still hurting, and we’ll miss the point. May we seek and find God’s presence in the wilderness this lent. Amen.

Evangelism for the Rest of Us

In July of this year, just a couple weeks after the General Assembly of my denomination, the Presbyterian Church USA our “Stated Clerk” J. Herbert Nelson wrote the following on twitter:
[hashtags were read aloud, for instance “Hashtag Jesus”]“Our … statistical report released in May revealed that we … are not telling people about #Jesus. Making disciples, #baptizing and teaching are basic to the calling to serve #Jesus. Who have you told about the difference that Jesus is making in your life? #testimony” Before being elected to the office of Stated Clerk J. Herbert Nelson was our director of the office of public witness in Washington D.C. this helps to keep our denomination aware of peace and justice issues as well as mobilize us to take action in areas of immigration, healthcare, women’s rights, LGBT rights, race and Rev. Nelson is himself is an African American man in a predominantly white denomination.   I give you that information to underscore his question “Who have you told about the difference that Jesus is making in your life?” not as a distraction from social justice but to suggest that perhaps they need to be more connected.

To unpack this question and delve into the text first I want to dig into this term and the practice of evangelism, consider the harm it has caused and try to reframe it. Then we’re going to discuss the impact of our stories, the good and the bad, that is to say following Jesus has thrown me into a lot of adventures, it has also led me into a whole lot of student loan debt. All of that is what #testimony is. We’ll also consider the stories of those within the biblical narrative and wonder how they answer this question. Finally, we’re going to talk about what it really means to “make disciples” especially with our reframing of what evangelism really means.

Those of us in Progressive churches can sometimes be caught like a deer in the headlights on this question. We operate within a pluralistic society and unlike some of our brothers and sisters within the faith we don’t consider that a bad thing, in fact it’s beautiful and healthy. Further, to speak of baptism and making disciples means conversion and conversion is a very loaded term. As a text for the powerful the Bible has meant abuse, but when read by the oppressed it has meant liberation. So maybe the problem of asking “Who have you told about the difference Jesus is making in your life?” of a predominantly white, privileged and only recently progressive denomination is shame. We hold a growing awareness of how we have impacted the world, how we have harmed the world, and we have done it in Jesus’ name. The Christian church has done this all wielding the words of this passage we read this morning as our personal right to do so.

The Christian writer and freelance progressive evangelical theologian Shane Claiborne a white man from East Tennessee says that he is still recovering from his conversion. There are certainly plenty of people who will tell you lovely stories about how their lives were messed up, they struggled with addictions and had broken relationships and then they found Jesus and their lives turned around. For Shane however, he was homecoming king, he had plans to go to a good school and become an anesthesiologist, buy a big house, have a pretty wife, and he was just going to live the American dream but then he met Jesus, and Jesus wrecked his life. He has lived on the streets and squatted in buildings with his houseless neighbors, protecting them from being evicted from the only places they had to lay their heads, and he was in Iraq while our own country, his country, was bombing them so he could stand in solidarity with their people.

Yet it is important to also pay attention to what Claiborne is NOT doing here. This isn’t paternalism as a form evangelism. Which is both an overreaction to realizing the harm we have caused, while still maintaining a sinful supremacy. Claiborne is not reacting out of his shame in choosing to “help” the poor. As he says, you don’t get crucified for helping the poor, you get crucified for joining them. Crucifixion certainly makes this lifestyle sound more appealing, doesn’t it? But the point then, if we ARE to all take up our crosses and follow, is not oppression nor is it going out and “helping” -the point- is solidarity. This evangelism is not pushing our own way, forcing conformity, nor is there a paternalism that preserves the same hierarchy. A paternalism in which one may help others as “less fortunate” but never treats them as equal nor asks the hard questions about why we are “more fortunate.”

I was taught about two forms of evangelism growing up, Roman and Celtic. The Roman form was the basic (count on fingers) feel convicted, pray the sinner’s prayer, and accept Jesus sort of method, but it was very cold and clinical, formulaic. These are the folks who might come up to you with a gospel tract in the mall containing 4 spiritual truths, pray the prayer with you, ask you to visit a nearby church and then never see you again. Even my fairly conservative church in which I was raised balked at that idea, my pastor would preach passionately about the Celtic way of evangelism that was all about relationship, getting involved in your community, living by example, and so much as it does not conflict with one’s faith assimilating to the culture and articulating the faith in language and ways that are relevant to that culture, not our own. In its purest sense there is nothing inherently wrong with the Celtic way of evangelism. It is not pushy and it leaves those not interested alone. It however ignores the divisions that pre-exist in the cultures in which one enters. A person of privilege employing Celtic evangelism may not have the awareness to catch themselves perpetuating paternalistic behaviors.

So I am proposing three new forms. Oppressive evangelism, Paternalistic Evangelism, and Solidarity Evangelism. First it is important to remember that word evangelism comes from the Greek word euangellion meaning gospel or good news. To evangelize is to bring good news. Certainly it is hard to know, when we hear this word and it’s forms: evangelism, evangelical, etc where the good news actually is. Oppressive evangelism berates a person for being in a hole, paternalistic evangelism digs the hole pushes a person in and then pulls them out again only to push them into another hole, so they can pull them out again. Solidarity evangelism jumps into the hole and says “Now, I’m highly motivated to find a way out together. And if it happens again or to someone else we’ll both be equipped.” When we properly define our words the term oppressive evangelism begins to sound like an oxymoron and paternalistic evangelism sounds at best misguided. I would hope then, that solidarity evangelism could sound redundant. That people will hear that we are with them side by side and call that good news.

It is then in those moments in the hole working side by side on equal footing that we can share our stories, and be impacted by the stories of the people we encounter. No longer do we tell stories of judgement that say “Jesus fixes people and I think you need to be fixed.” But rather, offer our own stories and while remaining curious and open to the stories of others. “Jesus and my church community were there when I was afraid to be at home alone with my mother. Where have you found safe space in the midst of difficult relationships?” Our telling about the impact of Jesus in our lives does not need to be a big production, it doesn’t need to be a statement of absolutes that says ‘this worked for me so you have to do it too,’ but it absolutely will have to be vulnerable. Telling of your personal faith is vulnerable to begin with, but telling why and how Jesus is important to your life, especially when we try not to think too hard about it most the time, can be really tough. I know that there is a spectrum of faith present in this room. Some here aren’t that sure about God but you like the community. Nonetheless this community gathers as one part of a worldwide body that has organized itself around the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So all our lives have been and are continuing to be impacted by Jesus anyway.

The poet Padraig O Tuama tells stories of the people he has encountered through leading retreats, and weaves them with Biblical narrative. He tells the story of one religious retreat group in which they were practicing touch through offering each other hand massages. After the exercise a woman vulnerably tells the group that this is the first time her hand has been touched since her gender transition. This story is wound with O Tuama’s retelling of the story of the woman who touches the hem of Jesus’ garment and is healed. The woman has been living with shame, unable to connect with others, but she pushes her way through the crowd unseen and believes that all she needs to do is touch the hem of Jesus garment. He won’t notice, she won’t have to bother anyone, and she’ll just slide back into obscurity. But Jesus asked who touched him and knew it was important to acknowledge her presence and existence. He lets her know he felt her touch and makes certain that she has the opportunity to be seen. Having read this passage many times I’ve begun to wonder if O Tuama meant to cast the woman from the retreat in both the role of Jesus and the role of the hemorrhaging woman as she both touched and wanted to make it known that she felt the touch and it was significant.

O Tuama also tells the story of Philipp and the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch. He argues that Philipp may have experienced more of a conversion. All manner of scripture might have convinced Philipp that this man, as a eunuch, should be excluded. But the man happened to be reading out of Isaiah and Philipp began to tell him about Jesus. But as O Tuama also points out, in Isaiah 56 there is a very direct inclusion of eunuchs even going so far as saying that their name, despite their inability to have children, will continue and will be blessed. So here on the road this man asks Philipp to include him and to baptize him, so Philipp does. As O Tuama says “Hello to privilege. Hello to examining your privilege. Hello to conversion.” He argues that Philipp underwent a conversion also because as he spoke of who the person of Jesus Christ is he realized that the good news includes. The good news was bigger than Phillip was previously taught. I have tried not to just read word for word to you from these stories but he is a poet and so much more eloquent “I wonder what the good news was. I hope it was, ‘I just met a man from Ethiopia who, even though he was excluded, included himself.’ I read this story understanding that the main beneficiary of the exchange was Philip who, in the presence of someone whose body had been mutilated at another’s behest, found himself moved towards the generous and inclusive rather than the turgid and tense.” Sometimes the purpose of our “evangelism” of telling our stories is for our own conversion, not someone else’s.

So then if joining others in solidarity, and vulnerably telling our stories is evangelism, what is discipleship? In our passage this morning Jesus commands us to baptize and to make disciples. First of all I have always loved the thought of baptism as its own ordination. That when we ask to be baptized or bring our children for baptism it is not just including them into the family and body of Christ but it is saying, now that you’re one of us, you have work to do too… but – you are not alone. The work of discipleship can also be misunderstood. When Jesus called us to make disciples he was not telling us to make disciples for ourselves so that we can create a huge worldwide pyramid scheme. When we are making disciples they join us as siblings not as our own children but as fellow children of God. Those that we join in solidarity with can then choose to join in solidarity with others.

As a final story to bring this all together. Tattooed on my right shoulder is a portrait of Josephine Butler, I like to call her Josey. Josey was social reformer beginning in the mid 1800s and she passed away in 1906. After the death of her daughter she says she sought to join with women and to find a deeper sorrow than her own. She eventually learned of the plight of vulnerable women in her area and a set of laws called the contagious diseases acts which forced women to undergo inspection for venereal disease.  Police could merely say that they suspected a woman of being a prostitute and she would be forced through the procedure. After it was completed she would be added to a list of known prostitutes whether she was previously or not. This then limited her prospects only to that life. Josey decried the clear double standard, and fought for the rights of these women. In the early days of her campaigns she took many of these women into her own home, especially those who were ill. Eventually she opened a home especially for them. A woman named Mary had been living with them for a few weeks. They made it a practice never to talk negatively about their past lives and chose not to focus on “sin”. Her husband George was an Anglican minister and based on their love letters would be considered a feminist even by today’s standards. He decided that Mary had been there for a while and maybe it was a good time, now that she was comfortable if he went to read to her from the Bible. He returned very bewildered. Having asked her permission to speak to her of Jesus Christ she told Rev. Butler that she’d seen Jesus.  He was confused. He hadn’t preached, they hadn’t said anything. She began to explain, that from the very beginning she was treated as worthy of love and acceptance. She was treated as family, being brought into their own home. She told him they didn’t need to name Jesus for her to meet Jesus.

So go and share your stories, and your lives, bring the gospel in ways that others can receive and say “this is good news,” encourage those around you to share their good news. And as St. Francis says, if necessary (and it may be necessary more often than we’d like) but if necessary. Use words.

Peace - December 8th, 2024

Malachi 3:1-4 (CEB)

Look, I am sending my messenger who will clear the path before me;

suddenly the Lord whom you are seeking will come to his temple.

The messenger of the covenant in whom you take delight is coming, says the Lord of heavenly forces.

Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can withstand his appearance?

He is like the refiner’s fire or the cleaner’s soap.

He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver.

He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.

They will belong to the Lord, presenting a righteous offering.

The offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord

as in ancient days and in former years.

Luke 3:1-6 (CEB)

In the fifteenth year of the rule of the emperor Tiberius—when Pontius Pilate was governor over Judea and Herod was ruler over Galilee, his brother Philip was ruler over Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was ruler over Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas—God’s word came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

John went throughout the region of the Jordan River, calling for people to be baptized to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins. This is just as it was written in the scroll of the words of Isaiah the prophet:

A voice crying out in the wilderness:

“Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight.

Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be leveled.

The crooked will be made straight, and the rough places made smooth.

All humanity will see God’s salvation.”

Narrative

It was dark. No streetlights. No sidewalks. Just the glow of headlights as people parked along the side of the street. Quietly, they got out of their cars — one, then two, then twenty, until about forty-five people gathered, holding bundles of purple tulips and one large wooden cross.

They walked together, slowly, to the site of an unspeakable tragedy — the home where a mother had taken the lives of her children and herself. The house loomed in the shadows. The air felt heavier there. The ground itself seemed burdened. It was hard to breathe.

And then came the dogs.

You couldn’t see them, but you could hear them. Snarling, barking, straining against chain-link fences. Their barking wasn’t steady; it was frantic, like something wild had been disturbed. The people held their tulips a little tighter, glanced at each other nervously, and kept walking.

When they reached the spot where blood had been spilled and hope had been lost, they formed a loose circle. Alex, one of the parishioners, lifted up the large cross, arms straining to keep it steady. The people held their tulips. They prayed. They sang. Their voices trembled as they sang, “Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal, have mercy upon us.”

One by one, they placed tulips on the ground. One by one, they named the suffering. One by one, they honored the lives lost.

And then something strange happened.

The dogs stopped barking.

As if the dogs, too, were exhausted by the sorrow. As if their howls were a kind of prayer, and the people had come to finish what the dogs had started. It was quiet. It was still. It was holy.

When the prayers ended, they walked away. No speeches. No applause. They left behind the cross and the tulips.

It wasn’t until a week later that they learned that people in the neighborhood had been watching. Someone called to say, “We saw you. We saw what you did. And it meant something.”

And that’s when they realized: “It was so dark. We had no idea anyone was watching.”*

[*The focal narrative of the sermon is a story from Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber’s book Accidental Saints Chapter 14: The Dogs of Good Friday]

Connection to Scripture: Malachi 3:1-4 and Luke 3:1-6

That story from Denver calls to mind the words of Malachi 3:1-4 and Luke 3:1-6. Both passages talk about the unseen, hard work of preparation. Both call us to trust that something holy is happening, even when we can’t see it.

Malachi 3:1-4 says, “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me.” But notice how this preparation happens. It’s not gentle. It’s not calm. It’s not even visible. It’s a refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap. Refining silver involves heat so intense that impurities are burned away. Fuller’s soap isn’t for gentle hand-washing — it’s for scouring fabric clean. Both images involve hidden transformation. You don’t see the change while it’s happening, but afterward, the difference is clear.

Then, in Luke 3:1-6, we hear John the Baptist calling people to “prepare the way of the Lord.” But he’s not in the city where people can see him. He’s in the wilderness. He’s calling for valleys to be lifted, mountains to be made low, and rough places to be smoothed. It’s construction work. It’s loud, messy, and ongoing. It’s also unseen by the people it benefits. The valley doesn’t know it’s being lifted. The mountain doesn’t know it’s being leveled. But God is at work.

Both passages remind us that sometimes, the most powerful work of peace happens in places where no one sees it. It happens in the wilderness, in the fire, in the darkness.

Expansion

When the people of House for All Sinners and Saints walked through that Denver neighborhood carrying a cross, they bore witness to one form of violence — the kind of violence that makes headlines, the kind that leaves blood on the ground.

But that’s not the only kind of violence.

There are other forms of violence that don’t make the news. The kind that doesn’t leave blood on the ground but leaves it in hospital rooms and hospice beds. The kind that comes with contracts, policies, and bottom lines. The kind that tells a person, ‘Your life isn’t worth saving unless you can afford it.’

It’s quieter, but it’s often far deadlier, because it looks acceptable.

And here’s where it gets uncomfortable.

We live in a world that teaches us to be self-righteous about violence. We’re really good at pointing to the violence of the gunman, the shooter, the person who “snaps.” We know how to condemn that violence.

But we’re not as quick to condemn the other kind. We’re not as quick to call it violence when a child dies because their parents couldn’t afford their medication. We’re not as quick to call it violence when people ration insulin until it kills them. We’re not as quick to call it violence when a CEO makes decisions that maximize profit at the cost of human lives.

When people say “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” I am always quick to say “Yes, but the gun helped.” Yet, it’s important to remember that violence rarely *starts* with the gun. When we say violence begets violence, we often mean the violent act of this moment will lead to future violence. We rarely ask what previous act of violence led to this one. Perhaps because we don’t see it as violent, when it is cloaked in legality.

But it is. It is violence. It is always violence. 

It’s just harder to see because it hides behind respectability. It hides behind financial reports, corporate strategies, and public statements that say, ‘We’re just following the policy.’ It hides behind the myth that if something is legal, it must be moral.

But here’s the truth: Legality has never been a good measure of morality.

The world says, 'This kind of violence is justified, but this kind is evil.' But that’s not the way of Jesus. Jesus doesn’t let us divide violence into "good" and "bad." Jesus doesn’t let us believe that the only real violence happens in dark alleys or on street corners. He calls it all out.

Jesus said, “You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43-44). He doesn’t say it’s easy. He doesn’t say it’s fair. But he does say it’s necessary. Because the kingdom of God doesn’t have room for the violence of guns or greed. It doesn’t have room for vengeance or indifference. It only has room for shalom — wholeness for everyone.

So, what do we do with all of this?

I think we start by being honest. Honest about the way we like to feel righteous when we’re "against violence" — but only certain kinds of it. Honest about the systems we participate in that tell us some lives are worth saving and some aren’t. But that’s not the gospel.

The gospel is this: No life is expendable. Not the poor. Not the powerful. Not the person on the corner. Not the CEO in a penthouse.

The world will tell you that some people deserve to die. But Jesus says, 'I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly' (John 10:10). And that’s for everyone. The righteous and the unrighteous. The just and the unjust. The innocent and the guilty.

If that sounds unfair, it’s because it is.

But shalom isn’t fair. It’s just.

And justice doesn’t rank people by worthiness. It sees all of them as worthy.

We’re called to walk in that kind of shalom. To walk into places of suffering and leave behind tulips. To refuse to justify any kind of violence — not the violence of bullets, not the violence of policies, and not the violence of indifference. Because in God’s world, no violence is acceptable. None of it.

So, I’m asking you to do something hard this week. I’m asking you to sit with that. Sit with the part of you that feels righteous because you know you’re "against violence." Sit with it, and ask God to show you the quieter forms of violence you might be overlooking. Sit with the part of you that trusts the legality of something as proof of its morality, and ask God to break it down.

And then, when you’re done sitting, get up and walk. Walk into the world and practice shalom. Even in the places where it’s hard. Even when the dogs are barking. Even when you think no one’s watching. Because someone is.

Conclusion

Let’s go back to that Good Friday walk. They didn’t know people were watching. They thought the only witnesses were the dogs. But a week later, they learned that the whole neighborhood had seen them. And somehow, that small act of faithfulness — the cross, the tulips, the singing — had brought healing.

This is how God works. God works in the wilderness. God works in the fire. God works in the darkness. And God works in you, even when you can’t see it.

You might be carrying a cross right now. You might feel like no one sees you. But here’s the truth: it was so dark, but someone is watching. Someone sees you carrying that cross. Someone sees you showing up when you don’t have to. Someone sees you placing tulips on the ground of a broken world.

And even if no one else sees you, God sees you. And in the end, that’s enough.

So keep walking. Keep singing. Keep carrying the cross. Someone is watching. And you are not alone.