Just Shine: January 2018

Question Authority

Question authority. A lot of people don’t want you to hear that, especially people in authority. Do we raise our children and grandchildren to question authority? I taught my son to question authority. And that wasn’t always easy on me. I would have been a stunning hypocrite if I hadn’t. If we expect of our children unquestioning obedience, we set them up for abuse. They must be taught to question, and their questions must be taken seriously. And no authority should be above question. Yes, I’m thinking about Larry Nassar here, and all the people who enabled him. The right to question authority makes leadership more challenging, but it makes us all a lot safer.

*****

Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

January 28, 2018

Question Authority

Mark 1:21 They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. 22 They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23 Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24 and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” 25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” 28 At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

Almost sixty years ago, Brea Congregational Church joined the newly formed United Church of Christ. This church did not want to give up the name “Congregational,” and that is why we now have the awkwardly long name of Brea Congregational United Church of Christ.

What is so special about being Congregational? It means the local congregation, you who are members of the church, have the authority and the responsibility for the running of the church; you do not answer to a regional authority like a bishop or a presbytery. We will see this in action today right after our worship. Members will be asked to vote for a slate of officers who do much of the work of running the church. You also vote on a budget in June, and you occasionally vote on other weighty matters. I believe you voted as a congregation to become “Open and Affirming,” and to approve that powerful mission statement that’s on the back of our bulletin. Before too long you may be approving the Pastor Search Committee’s choice for your next settled minister.

I’m told congregational meetings have been pretty peaceful here. That’s a good thing. In a healthy Congregational church, the authority of leaders is mostly trusted, and the leaders have acted responsibly by doing the footwork before the congregational meeting to address any obvious concerns. The congregational meeting serves as a check and balance, and a chance to inform the congregation of what their leaders are doing.

At several of the churches I have served, there have been one or two people who question the leaders’ recommendations at congregational meetings, and sometimes they vote against the proposals. I call them “the loyal opposition.” They don’t need to control the outcome, but they do like their voices to be heard. The “loyal opposition” help remind us that it’s OK to question authority. We can respect authority, and still test it a little. That’s the Congregational way.

Who is the ultimate authority at a Congregational church? I hope God is. No one person has a special line to sacred wisdom. Any of us has the freedom to speak to the church about how we believe God is calling our church to act. And all of us have the responsibility to set aside our personal agendas, to think and pray and discuss how we in this church can best serve God and our neighbors. That's a lot of freedom. That's a lot of responsibility. When I get that kind of responsibility, I do my best to listen for the guidance of God before I act. I ask you to do the same.

In our reading today, everyone was surprised that Jesus taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. That astounded them. And here we are over two thousand years later, still learning from Jesus and honoring his authority. That is pretty astounding.

We can guess what Mark means by authority in verse 22. Jesus doesn’t pick and choose and proof-text from his community’s scriptures to justify his own teaching. He doesn’t debate fine points of interpretation. Jesus just comes out and says, “ I’m telling you something new. Here’s what God gives you. Here’s how faith works. And here’s what God asks of you.” Nobody else claimed that kind of authority.

But there’s more. Mark reports that Jesus drove out an “unclean spirit”– and they were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.

Let’s just set aside for a minute what we think of unclean spirits. Driving out a spirit, exorcism: how is that “a new teaching with authority?” The authority is to heal people who are possessed by unclean spirits; we would call it mental illness. But what is the teaching?

Maybe Jesus is teaching that healing is even possible, that what people have regarded as a hopeless condition is not. Maybe he is teaching that the ill person is worthy of being helped, despite this “uncleanness”– this transgression that seems to threaten their moral order. Maybe Jesus is standing up to a force that has filled this community with fear and loathing, teaching them that they need not dread or shun people with mental illness.

I’m not really sure what Jesus was teaching. But I do know this. Jesus was teaching by example. He was not just talking about ethics or morality or healing and telling other people what to do. He was putting the Good News of God’s love and liberation into practice. He was walking the talk.

Walking the talk… a tall order for any follower of Jesus, especially for those of us who would claim authority from God to help guide a Congregational church. So remember what I said last week: let’s agree we can and will follow Jesus badly. And let’s be teachable. And if you are not happy with your efforts to walk the talk of the Good News of Jesus Christ, please remember it goes two directions. We are invited to love and to serve and celebrate. We are are also invited to receive the love and healing and forgiveness and transforming power that God has for us, so that we can be of service to others. And if we all pitch in, we will do well enough.

But what about these unclean spirits? Superstition from bygone days and we’re over it now? I wondered, until I read the works of Walter Wink, a biblical theologian and peace activist who opened my eyes to the language of spiritual power in the bible. And I witnessed the authority of spiritual power in action, exercised by a man named George McClain.

Rev. George McClain was for many years the director of the Methodist Federation for Social Action, a social justice group within the United Methodist church. I met him in the early 1990’s when I too was a Methodist. We were both working for gay rights in that church. It is easier for us in the UCC to address gay rights than for Methodists. The General Synod of the UCC, the national decision-making body, speaks to the churches, but not for the churches. It cannot force local congregations to do much of anything, since we are congregational. Over 1400 UCC churches have become Open and Affirming, but many still are not. The United Methodist Church can force local congregations to take certain actions for or against, and those churches that don’t like how the national votes come out can threaten to leave. That’s not fun. Twenty-two years after I joined the UCC, United Methodists are still fighting over the issue of gay clergy; those clergy can still be brought to a church trial and have their credentials removed; though this doesn’t happen in California. It’s our gain; some of the UCC’s most talented clergy are refugees from the United Methodist Church. But what a loss for the gospel: endless committee meetings, church trials for God’s sake, all that dissention instead of walking the talk.

Anyway, Rev. George McClain taught me how to do a proper progressive Christian exorcism, and I have found that tool remarkably useful. Here is what he did. He would go to the room where a church trial was going to being held the next day to possibly strip a person of their clergy credentials for marrying a gay couple, or loving someone of the same gender. George would don his stole, and say his prayers, and then stride from corner to corner of the room on his long legs, proclaiming in a loud voice something like this:

In the name of Jesus Christ, who has authority over all Powers, we declare:
Spirit of bigotry, be gone from us, from this place, and from all who will enter here.
Spirit of fear, be gone from this place.
Spirit of domination, be gone from this place.
Spirit of legalism, be gone from this place.
and so on. Then:

Spirit of love, fill us, fill this place, and fill all who will enter here.
Spirit of understanding, fill this place.
Spirit of reconciliation, fill this place.
Spirit of transformation, fill this place.
Spirit of Jesus Christ, we claim this place in your name. Let your power and your love prevail here, for the sake of your Gospel and the coming of your kingdom. And make us your servants in this work of love and justice. Amen.

Did that ritual change the outcome of any church trials? I don’t know. But it changed me. It gave me courage, and hope. It helped me remember that narrow-minded people were not the problem. Their thinking was problem. Their thinking was riddled with these “unclean spirits” of fear, bigotry, legalism… and lacking in the spirits of love, reconciliation, and transformation. And so was was my own, much of the time. When I do not call out my own fear, it controls me. When I go through such a ritual, I remember who I am, and whose I am, and who I want to be. My fear fades, and I am ready to face those malicious spirits, trusting that the power of God will sustain me.

Any unclean spirits bothering you or someone you care about? Can you think of some exorcisms you’d like to try? I am not mapping “unclean spirits” just to the unhelpful thinking of individuals. These spirits are contagious. They work so much more effectively when they can infect a whole organization or group. When one person stands up loud and proud and demeans a whole group of people, bigotry grows in other hearts; it has permission to rule with impunity. Alternatively, when one person is filled with a spirit of courage to act for justice at great personal risk, as some Dreamers did this past Tuesday at the rally up the street, the witnesses catch that courage. It’s contagious. That is why political activists must question authority others, and their own; must choose their methods carefully, or their spirits will be hardly distinguishable from those they struggle against.

These are some of the powers and principalities that Mark saw Jesus wrestling with. People get swept up in them; enslaved by them. And Mark tells us that Jesus has a new teaching, with authority: authority over these powers. Interesting.

What would it mean if we took Jesus’ authority seriously in our own lives? Mental illness is real. It has a neurological and biochemical basis. Yet depression and anxiety are made worse by some nasty spirits that are so endemic to our culture that we give them authority without even realizing it: the spirit of materialism that equates identity with income and status, and so makes unemployment or poverty soul-crushing; the spirit of tribalism, that makes my leader right and yours wrong regardless of the facts; the spirit of individualism that tricks us into seeking freedom from the relationships and support that we need to sustain us.

Tragedies happen, but that spirit that whispers that if you were good enough, smart enough, faithful enough, hard working enough, they wouldn’t happen to you, that spirit is lying. What if we could see these lying spirits for what they were, and not be bound by them? What if we were truly immersed in the spirit of the gospel, filled to overflowing with love and hope and courage and wisdom, no matter what the external circumstances? That could dispel a few nasty spirits. Jesus saves, says traditional Christianity. What Mark wants to show us is in this passage is that Jesus saves us here and now, from suffering under the oppression of destructive spirits. His authority gives us life and hope.

Painful emotions like fear and anxiety come and go. That’s normal. When they don’t go, they become destructive. Resentment and hatred and despair are always destructive. We all will get swept up into destructive spirits at times. Mark is telling us that following Jesus means we can claim the authority to dispel these life-denying spirits. We may be successful or not, but just by naming them, they lose some of their control over us. We can challenge one another to grasp the spirit and power of Jesus. We can ask the questions that help us see destructive spirits for what they are, and we can choose the Way that leads to abundant life.

This is not an easy time to be the church, especially a church that has the inclusive message we have. We cannot get away with being a social club or a community center. And that’s OK. We have to claim the authority to be something more: an experiment in putting Jesus’ spirit into practice in our time and place, the Way that overcomes destructive thinking and destructive ideologies, the Way that leads to life no matter what we face. We have the authority, if we choose to claim it. What an adventure! Amen.

Your Calling

How do you know your calling, versus your wishful thinking? Practice. Make your best guess and see how it goes. Be sure to consult a wise person before you do something too weird. You’ll learn. Remember: no suffering for suffering’s sake. Your calling is not going to torture you. It’s going to feel right. Maybe not easy, but right.

****

Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

January 21, 2018

Follow Me

Mark 1:14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

The beginning of Jesus’ ministry is told in the gospel of Mark in the sparest way. Two sets of brothers, simple fishermen in a small village by a lake, are invited by Jesus to follow him, and be “fishers of people.” It sounds like the beginning of a pyramid scheme. And it would be, if Jesus was selling something. But he wasn’t. He was giving something away. Jesus was giving the most precious gift I can imagine: the invitation to claim our identity as children of God. Our sacred worth that nothing and nobody can take away. It is the work of a lifetime to figure out how to receive that gift, and enjoy it, and live into it.

“Follow me.” Such simple words. To Mark, this is the whole point of his gospel. He wrote it so that we, his readers, could follow Jesus, hear his teachings, watch his acts of power, and witness the Kingdom of God springing up like mustard blooming on the Chino Hills. Mark wrote this Gospel so we could be transformed. The translation we heard said “The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.” Repent, but the Greek verb metanoeo might be better translated, “change”, or “transform.” I bet the process theologians among us already knew that. Transform, and trust the Good News. That each of us really is a child of God: precious, loved, valued beyond measure. That Jesus really does lead us into right relationship with God and humans, if we will follow.

That call, “Follow me,” in Mark’s gospel is not asking us to say or believe the right things. I’m sure Mark would like you to believe as he did. Which was, incidentally, not orthodox Christianity. That came several centuries later. Mark was trusting that following Jesus would help you believe whatever it is you need to believe.

What we believe does matter. But what we say we believe and what actually shapes our actions are often two different things, aren’t they? Beliefs can just be statements we debate, puzzles we solve; they can be all up in our heads. Trust is more deeply rooted in the heart. And that is not just a metaphor. Scientists tell us the heart has thick neural bundles connecting it to the midbrain, the seat of our emotions and our motivation. Trust is what helps us get up in the morning and face the world. We heard “believe the Good News.” But the Greek verb pisteuo can just as well be translated, “trust.” Trust the Good News. Trust your identity and worth as a child of God. Lean into it. Let it comfort you, and let it challenge you. Let this Good News reassure you that you matter; you have a purpose, and you are loved. Let this Good News challenge you to live fully out of that trust, and to share it with others.

That call to “Follow me,” could be pretty intimidating if you skip over Jesus’ outrageous debates and his dinner parties and his wandering with his friends all over Palestine, and if all you focus on is his suffering and death. Pretty intimidating. Why would people focus on his suffering and death? I don’t know, but that’s what I heard in church when I was a child. Suffering is a part of all our journeys. Sometimes following Jesus means stepping into harm’s way, into avoidable suffering. But not for its own sake; rather, to be in solidarity with others who are suffering. And one follower does not get to tell another follower how and when to suffer. Suffering is not the goal. You know this. Nor is guilt at the suffering you don’t sign up for.

“Follow me.” Here’s something not everyone knows. You might not have to be a Christian to follow Jesus. You don’t even have to know what you believe. Just start down the road and see where it takes you. It’s probably a good idea to actually pay attention to what he did and what he taught. It amazes me how many people who claim to be Christians seem to be ignoring his teachings and following the teachings of someone much more divisive and mean-spirited. I suspect that my Unitarian Wiccan friend is following Jesus better than that.

“Follow me.” Note that Mark doesn’t talk about following Jesus to earn a reward or avoid punishment. That hell stuff is mostly in Matthew’s gospel. With one notable exception in chapter 9, Mark does not scare us with hell. Surely lack of a proper hell is part of the cause of lax attendance in open-minded churches. “If you don’t believe in hell, why go to church?” I actually heard that from a fellow student at Claremont School of Theology.

Why go to church indeed? Maybe because we seek the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. Right relationship with God and the world and each other. How are we going learn to follow Jesus and be open to God’s leading if we followers don’t stick together and learn with each other, learn from each other? If we don’t show up on a regular basis and try? Jesus’ talk of the Kingdom of God is hard to pin down. It is near, it is among us, we can receive it, we can enter it. It seems like a way of being, not a place. A way of being that’s almost in our grasp. We need each other to help track it down, to help God create it among us, and to help each other on Jesus’ Way.

I’ve been doing these listening interviews with church members. I’m almost done. That means if I haven’t interviewed you, it’s time! A very powerful and beautiful thing came out of a number of the listening interviews. These people said that in this church are some individuals who are so inspiring in what they do, you just want to watch them, and spend time with them, and aspire to be like them.

That call, “Follow me,” is the beginning of a grand adventure, a deep challenge, and a deep joy. Mark wants us, the readers of his gospel, to accept the invitation. And he does everything he can to make the entry bar low. Don’t worry if you get confused on the details or if you mess up. I heard someone say recently that he couldn’t imagine how to follow Jesus, because Jesus was perfect. Well, according to Mark’s gospel Jesus isn’t perfect; that Syro-Phoenician woman in chapter seven had to teach him a thing or two about inclusive love. Something about even the dogs under the master’s table deserving some scraps. And it isn’t hard to be better followers than Jesus’ first twelve: Mark shows them bumbling and misunderstanding and making fools of themselves regularly.

Can we all give ourselves permission to follow Jesus badly? Just get that out of the way up front? We may be inconsistent, or confused, or timid, or distracted. We may not have the skills or the knowledge to follow Jesus very well. We may be selfish, or self-righteous, or mired in bitterness and resentment. We may think we are supposed to do far more than we are doing. If you don’t think you’re very good at following Jesus, the last thing you need is to give up. That would be like refusing to do the laundry because the clothes are too dirty! We don’t have to be good at following Jesus, just willing to try and willing to learn. What a relief. It allows us to be honest about our struggles and our flaws. And it allows us to be truly welcoming of other people who are not perfect either. (And somehow their flaws are easier to see than our own, funny how that works.)

So there is the calling, and the challenge, and have I covered all the excuses not to answer the call yet? You don’t have to believe the right things, you don’t have to sign up for suffering, you don’t have to be good enough… Wait, there’s one more excuse. “I’m too busy.” With what, life? Feeling overwhelmed? Maybe you need some support, some wisdom, inspiration, comfort, hope? What better way to get those things than to answer a call to be loved and led by the force that created the universe? Stick one toe in the water, and see what happens.

“Follow me.” Because you’re at this church, I suspect that you know how to think for yourself, and you know that following Jesus does not mean blindly following any human leader. You are free to disregard anything I say, right? Good. Various religious leaders over the years have set themselves up to tell people exactly what to do to follow Jesus, for better, or for worse. We don’t do that here. It’s your life, and it’s your walk with the sacred that we’re talking about. Other people can give you guidance and support, but you are the one who gets to figure out how Jesus is calling you, in your family, your day job, your play, your relationships, your use of money and time… How are you going to love your neighbors and love yourself?

So say you answer that call to follow Jesus, where does it lead? Can it really be personal and individually tailored to you? Can it be that the force that sets the stars in motion goes to this level of detail to concern itself with our individual gifts and talents and struggles and creates personal invitations for each of us, different at different phases of our life, possibly even different every day? That is hard for our human brains to believe, because we see relationships in human terms. Humans can’t multitask seven billion ways. Yet I watch it happen, for those who follow and pay attention. Perhaps you would like to think of this phenomenon as inspired intuition. Of course it is. Inspired by… that Holy Spirit that we saw last week landing on Jesus. She’s still in the back of the sanctuary.

That inspiration may have led you to a vocation, a job that is a calling. Something big and life-changing. Or it may have led you to drive your friend to her doctor’s appointment. Something small that helps weave the web of love that sustains us all. Or it may have led you to dance a dance, plant a plant, sing a song, cook a meal. We are called to acts of creation, of celebration, of love and respect and care and integrity, of learning, of transformation and of renewal. We are called to lift our lives up to the light and power of the sacred and find the patterns that are hidden there, ready to be revealed, and the ones we will help create. We are called to an adventure of living in the Power of God’s spirit.

Churches, too, have calls. You might think we are called to pray and sing and party and care for each other. That’s good stuff. But according to Paul, the purpose of the church is “to equip the saints for ministry.” That is, to help you get clear on your calling and give you the tools and support to do it. And churches are unique, as people are unique. One church really puts energy into one mission; another is really good at something else.

One of the questions I have been asking in the listening interviews is, “What might God be calling this church to be?” And many of you had some pretty clear ideas. To be a teaching church. Which means a number of you might be called to have a passion for learning, and maybe even teaching. To be an alternative voice and a force in the community for radical welcome of LGBTQ people, and of homeless people, and no doubt, of people we haven’t even met yet. A voice for saving Mother Earth. This church has a unique and wonderful way of following Jesus, of responding to that call.

Everybody needs a purpose. Don’t settle for those purposes our society tries to give you; they will fail you. When we are following Jesus, we have a worthy purpose. If you think you don’t have a purpose, your purpose is to find your purpose, your calling and then go do it. I’d love to chat about it, and so would many people here.

“Follow me!” Who is going to accept that call? Don’t worry, there will not be an altar call now. But if you do intend to follow Jesus, make it real. Write it down. Or tell somebody. Or put a sign on your mirror. Or pledge to show up here every Sunday you can.

“The Kingdom of God has come near.” Despite all the chaos and hatred and fear around us, when we are living our calling, we will participate in the Kingdom of God. We live the Good News, and it transforms us. And we help others to know the wonder and the love that is our personal, cosmic, ever-creating God. Amen.

Love Your Enemies

It’s easy to hate those haters right back, as the psalmist does. After all, they deserve it, right? But Jesus teaches something very different. Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. For that teaching we can safely quote G. K. Chesterton: Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found hard, and not tried.

Martin Luther King did love his enemies. He really, literally, did that every day. People attacked him, bombed his house, jailed him, spat upon him, and he never returned anything other than love and respect. He learned nonviolent direct action from Gandhi, who learned it from Tolstoy, who learned it from Jesus. I can’t imagine what his prayer life was like. King was a great preacher; I invite you to go online and read some of his sermons. Now I’m just going to quote him a little.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension... We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion, before it can be cured.

Here is one that convicts me.

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

And finally… Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

*****

Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

January 14, 2018

Known and Loved

Psa. 139 1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.

2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.

3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.

5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

7 Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

9 If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,”

12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written all the days that were formed for me,

when none of them as yet existed.

17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand;

I come to the end—I am still with you.

19 O that you would kill the wicked, O God,

and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—

20 those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil!

21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?

And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?

22 I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.

24 See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

When I started reading the Psalms, Psalm 139 resonated for me. I had been looking for God for so long, and I had felt so alone, and there was Psalm 139 promising me that I could never lose God again, no matter how far I wandered. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in the underworld, you are there. Words can’t describe the feeling of reassurance that psalm gave me.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that many people heard a very different message in this psalm: God is watching you. You can run, but you cannot hide. And why would you want to? But as I hit this psalm a few more times in my devotional reading, I realized that sometimes I did try to hide from God. Usually not intentionally. It just kind of creeps up on me. And then this psalm is a good wake-up call. Because trying to hide from God makes us look like the ostrich trying to hide from danger by burying its head in the sand: blind, helpless, and looking really stupid.

I’ve hidden from God enough now to recognize the symptoms. Something feels out of kilter. I become anxious, or glum, and I don’t want to pray or meditate. I know the cure, painful as it is. It is to face myself, not myself from a week ago or a month ago that I already kind of understand, but the confusion that has sprung up in the meantime, and underneath that, the fear or pain or grief that I don’t want to feel. When God seems far away, God is not the problem. I am. God already knows us through and through, and God can deal with us no matter what we do. It’s me that sometimes has trouble dealing with me.

Lots of us, lots of the time, are hiding from God, and from ourselves. Some people do it in spectacular ways, through alcohol abuse, or other addictions. Most of us do it in safer ways, like staying so busy or distracted we don’t have to think about our lives.

God knows all of it, though God usually doesn’t force that knowledge on us. But if we are not honest, what do we have to say to God? Nothing useful. How can God guide us if we have our heads in the sand? Our honesty about our own lives, even if it’s painful or shameful, allows God to begin the work of healing and restoring us, of guiding us into the abundant life that we are promised.

And that is where the Good News comes in. God doesn’t know us through and through in order to shame us or judge us or punish us, but rather to heal and guide us. If we bring our whole selves to God, not just the pretty parts, God can transform us. When we begin to admit our own hurts and faults, we can become more compassionate to others. Sometimes we even discover that that character flaw, that persistent failing that caused us so much grief, can be used by God for a good purpose, that not just anybody could accomplish, and need not be a flaw at all. Stubbornness can become persistence. People pleasing can become thoughtfulness. A big mouth can learn to speak the truth in love. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. If your personality is off the bell curve and you have trouble fitting in, or if your sexuality or your gender identity is not typical, fear may precede wonder. Still you are made by God, and loved just how you are. Trusting this, we will not become perfect people, but more honest people, who have compassion for others because we have faced our own fear and shame and guilt, and experienced God’s forgiveness and love and transformation.

Psalm 139 and Martin Luther King Day. It fits, really. Watch. King was a deeply faithful Christian, whose courageous personal piety brought him to the political arena. That was the best way he knew to strive for God’s Kingdom. He called it the Beloved Community.

Over fifty years ago, King invited us as a country to face some hard truths about ourselves. With a wide and deep network of fellow workers for justice, he spoke and acted prophetically about the need to change laws that demean people. At the time he was active, the United Church of Christ was newly formed, and many UCC clergy proudly marched for Civil Rights.

King went to jail not so often for breaking segregation laws, but for marching to protest them, which we would like to think is protected by the first amendment. Not always. It’s important to remember that some people saw the marches and civil disobedience actions of the Civil Rights movement as lawlessness and anarchy. They feared for the fate of our country. Some people still think that. Some feared for the fate of our country if black people had the same rights they had. That’s certainly true of immigrants today, isn’t it? It’s so convenient to have an enemy to blame all your problems on. They even managed to connect Civil Rights to communism, the big scare of the day. Ours is terrorism. FBI memos from the 1960’s document this kind of thinking in our government. Today we watch the evening news. But because of King’s powerful preaching, a different story took hold. That all people are valued by God. All people deserve equal rights under the law. That is a Christian message, and it still needs telling.

The Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church voted in 1957 to merge and become the UCC. Being Congregational means letting the congregation decide, so each local Congregational Christian church had to vote separately to join the UCC. Several prominent Congregational churches in Southern California did not join the UCC. The leaders of those churches were stalwart members of the John Birch Society, a political organization whose stated purpose was to fight communism. But among other beliefs, the Birchers equated “American” with “white.” The church in Newport Beach where I did my internship actually split at that time. The main church became UCC and a minority of the church left to start a “Continuing Congregational” church that did not survive long. I was told the stated cause of the split was that the new UCC Sunday School curriculum had a picture on the cover of Jesus wearing a short robe with his knees showing. I’ve never seen that Sunday School cover, but I suspect that Jesus’ knees in that picture were brown, and those Birchers could not abide an organization that portrayed Jesus as a dark-skinned hippie. Our own Orange County has quite a history of systematic racism: the KKK, the John Birch Society, sundowning, restrictive home sales and rentals, that we are only just figuring out how to address. The psalm says: don’t hide from the ugly truth.

Over fifty years after King and our UCC forebears marched for Civil Rights, systematic and institutional racism seem to be no the upswing. Or maybe they’re just out in the open. We can face this tragic situation and prayerfully act to try to change it, or we can put our heads in the sand and hide. Search us O God, and know our thoughts. I don’t have easy answers for you. But I know that as followers of Jesus the least we can do is speak the truth in love when we see scapegoating and injustice. And I know how hard that is.

Let me tell you a story of racism in our time that hit me close to home. My home is in UC Irvine faculty housing. In September of 2015, five short blocks from my house, a young man my son’s age opened the door of his home and was met by five UC Irvine police officers pointing five guns at him. He had already been talking to them on the phone from inside the house, trying to convince them it was his own home. Only after a neighbor witnessing this nightmare intervened to vouch for this young man did they step down. The police had been called by another neighbor who thought the man was breaking into his own home.[1] This young man is my son’s age. The only way he was different from my son was the color of his skin.

I do not have to worry about my son’s encounters with police, but some of my friends do. I do not have to introduce him to all my neighbors to assure that nobody makes assumptions when he enters his parents’ house. I never had to have “the talk” with him; my friends have. Do you know about “the talk?” Where you coach your child that, when stopped by police, no matter what the reason (or no reason) and no matter how he is treated, he must stay still and calm and behave in a way that is least likely to get him arrested, beaten or killed. And that he is a person of worth, no matter how badly people in treat him.

If you do not know someone personally who has gone through an ordeal like this, you need to befriend a wider set of people. These things happen all the time, right here and in every community in our country.

Acknowledging the systemic and institutional racism all around us is only a first painful step toward the Beloved Community, the Kingdom of God. But hiding, denying it exists, assures we will never get there.

What is the next step? Probably not the one the speaker of the psalm starts in line 19: O that you would kill the wicked, O God…. Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies. As have said adversaries on both sides of every war and every heated political struggle.

I thought hatred was going out of fashion; instead it seems to be back in fashion. It’s so handy to have a scapegoat, a group of people to blame, who are responsible for all your economic problems and relationship problems and self-esteem problems. Immigrants, people of color, queer people, bigots, or liberals. It’s much harder to target the cultural and societal forces, the powers and principalities, that glamorize greed and unfaithfulness and meanness, and faceless corporations that mechanize jobs, and export them overseas, and break unions, and enrich executives while impoverishing workers.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Here is one that convicts me.

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

And finally… Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

Right now I am facing my unwillingness to engage with people who are far on the other side of the political divide from me. God knows it, and is apparently using King’s words to coax me out of my comfort zone. We’ll see what happens.

I still find reassurance in this psalm, even when I find myself running from God. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. Whether the darkness is the current quagmire of hatred we’re in, or my own personal drama, it is the same pain and fear. And it persists until I give it over to God. The God of infinite love, who can turn darkness into light. The God who is just waiting for us to stop hiding and walk into the light. And who can empower us to forgive, and to love, and to seek the Beloved Community. Amen.

[1] A Google search of “newuniversity.org university hills community” will produce the story in detail.

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