Implicit Bias
On Martin Luther King weekend, we watched this video on implicit bias. We are all human, so we all have implicit bias. By making it implicit, we can choose to override it. The sound track is disturbing at first-- see what you think of the sound at the end. Click the brackets at bottom right to enlarge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76BboyrEl48
Choose Something
Do you believe that God calls us to certain actions? Do you want to believe but aren’t sure? How about making space in our lives for the Holy Spirit to land on us, to listen for God’s call? Even if you don’t believe in this kind of divine intervention, it’s still valuable to take the time to ponder… what is the right thing for you to do with your unique abilities and values, in your time and place? Then inspiration may land on you.
This idea of God’s call for everyone is part of Process Theology. The world rolls on, and we can go along with it mindlessly, like a ping-pong ball, bouncing this way and that as we bump into this person and that idea. But the lure of God invites each of us moment by moment to choose something good and beautiful and true. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is from God. That’s the process way of talking about God’s call.
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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
January 27, 2019
Claim Your Calling
Luke 4:14-21 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 “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,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Last year we walked through the Gospel of Mark. To Mark, faith in Jesus means seeking Jesus’ power in our lives to face and even to dispel those things he calls demons, things that warp us into illness and strife and cruelty. Mark didn’t tell us what to believe. Instead, With short stories and very few rules, he showed us how to follow Jesus. I like to talk about ‘following Jesus:’ that is my code for faith in– being faithful to– Jesus Christ. Mark showed us what following Jesus looked like in Galilee two thousand years ago. If we are faithful, we are regularly asking ourselves what following Jesus looks like in Brea in 2019.
Now we’re settling in to Luke’s Gospel. Luke was more sophisticated than Mark. He was upper-class and well educated. Yet in Luke’s Gospel Jesus lifts up the poor and challenges the rich. Luke was probably a Greek-speaking Jew, but he understood that following Jesus was for everybody.
As Luke tells his story, Jesus was born into poverty, with lots of signs from God and flowery speeches. He was the fulfillment of prophecy. Around the time of his Bar Mitzvah at 12 years old, Jesus amazed scholars at the Jerusalem temple, and gave his parents a terrible scare. As an adult, he was baptized by that wild preacher John in the river Jordan. There the Holy Spirit descended on him, and God called Jesus beloved son. Full of that Holy Spirit, led by the Holy Spirit, Jesus went into the wilderness for forty days to argue with the devil about how the Son of God should acting. We who don’t believe in the devil would say: he pondered all the ways he could mess up on being the messiah, so he could do it right the first time. Then Jesus began to preach all over Galilee, and people were impressed. When he gets to his hometown of Nazareth, he’s filled with the power of the Spirit, again. His relatives must have been so proud. They had no idea what they were in for. Of course he’s been chosen as liturgist that day in Nazareth. Or as preacher? It’s not clear.
Jesus reads a scripture from the prophet Isaiah, chapter 61. Good scholar that he is, Luke includes both the Greek and Hebrew verses where they differ:
“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.”
Jesus then preaches the shortest sermon ever, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” and he sits down. I suppose it is not really a sermon, rather a public announcement of his calling. Jesus is claiming to be messiah, Christ, both of those words mean, literally, anointed. Chosen by God. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ identity as messiah was a secret. In Luke, it’s not. Jesus claims he is God’s chosen, and he makes sure people know what he’s chosen to do.
To my ears the things he announces sound like social justice. What Jesus announces is a world where everybody matters and is treated right, the beloved community, the upside down Kingdom of God. Or you can spiritualize his speech and make it a call to personal spiritual rebirth, reconciliation with God, union with the ultimate. The two are not mutually exclusive. Love God, and love neighbor. Social justice means showing care to all our neighbors, not ignoring some. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus declares social justice on earth, and also offers forgiveness, reconciliation and the promise of heaven.
Back in Mark’s gospel, we were clearly supposed to follow Jesus. Do we have the courage to follow Jesus in the Gospel of Luke? It means seeking that upside down Kingdom, valuing the people that society considers expendable, and letting go of all the ego that makes us think we need to be better than, that keeps us from admitting what is broken and rejected in us.
Following Jesus in the Gospel of Luke also means something more particular. The Holy Spirit might land on you as it did on Jesus, and give you a bright idea about how to love God or neighbor in your own unique way. You might have a calling, as Jesus had a calling.
When I grew up Catholic, I believed that people got callings, but only special people: priests and nuns, missionaries, saints. Then I hung out with some United Methodists in my late 20’s. They were big into the Holy Spirit, and they challenged me to believe that anybody and everybody can listen and hear God calling them, one way or another, to do something for God or neighbor that is right for them in their place and time. It might be something big and life changing. It might be a small thing that is just the right thing for right now. Everybody can be filled with the Holy Spirit: inspired to love God or love neighbor in some way that’s right for them.
Do you believe that God calls us to certain actions? Do you want to believe but aren’t sure? How about making space in our lives for the Holy Spirit to land on us, to listen for God’s call? Even if you don’t believe in this kind of divine intervention, it’s still valuable to take the time to ponder… what is the right thing for you to do with your unique abilities and values, in your time and place? Then inspiration may land on you.
This idea of God’s call for everyone is part of Process Theology. The world rolls on, and we can go along with it mindlessly, like a ping-pong ball, bouncing this way and that as we bump into this person and that idea. But the lure of God invites each of us moment by moment to choose something good and beautiful and true. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is from God. That’s the process way of talking about God’s call.
This idea of God’s call for everyone is also Congregational. The Holy Spirit does not get dispensed by a bishop around here. Each of us can be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. The will of God is not dictated to us by human authorities. God is still speaking. Each of us is empowered to listen for the call of God in our lives. And if we are faithful, we will listen.
Some people are afraid to listen for God’s call, for fear of what they might hear. I can understand that. God might have a big challenge for you. But it will be your challenge, right for you, and you will be the richer for answering it. I fear not listening, and missing out on the gift of being in tune with God, not doing that thing that I am needed for, that will heal me, or that I will love. Imagine what we all would have missed if Mary Oliver hadn’t listened to her call.
Maybe you have been called to something big and life changing. Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Journey” talks of such a call.
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Or it could be a small thing you are called to do. A thing that doesn’t seem important at all, except you are called to do it. And we don’t always know what is important and what is not. A member of my retreat group in Virginia, named Chantal, lost her beloved riverside home in Ottawa to a flood in 2016. She didn’t know if she would be allowed to salvage it. Another member sent a little email of encouragement to her, complete with pictures of beautiful homes on stilts. Chantal read that little email every day for months as she waited and waited and finally got permission to repair her home. Maybe we don’t always know what is important and what is not.
Don’t let perfectionism get in the way of your call. So many gifts from God go unused because the recipient of the gift is waiting to be good enough, waiting for perfection. We learn to do better by practicing that thing we are called to learn and do. Leave perfection to God.
Maybe you are called to a morning ritual that feeds your spirit each morning in some way, so that the Holy Spirit will have room to land on you later in the day. I feed my spirit by visiting my garden, and I also enjoy reading the UCC daily devotional. Mary Oliver has some ideas about this too, in her poem, Why I Wake Early.
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
We are all called to remember that everything and everyone is sacred, and to voice our gratitude, each in our own way. When we can’t find the words, we can borrow from people like Mary Oliver.
You might be thinking: God’s call on my life! Oh no, one more thing to add to my to-do list! I am convinced that God does not call us to be overwhelmed, or to fix everything. God never asks us to do the impossible. I pray over my to do list, and discover I can let something go. I should pray before I get my next bright idea, and spread myself too thin. In between our ideas of saving the world and our despair at doing anything of value, God has something large or small and just right for each of us to create, to enjoy, to learn, to give, and then leave the results to God.
You might be thinking, who am I, to have a calling? A child of God, that’s who you are. You are a follower of Jesus. You are a seeker of justice and compassion. You are a little slice of the infinite, given breath, and a span of years, and imagination, and the power of the Holy Spirit. I can’t wait to see how you answer God’s call in your life. Amen.
Celebrate!
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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
January 20, 2019
Time to Celebrate
John 2:1-11 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. 9 When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
Today I am going to do a little midrash, a story about a story in the Bible. I’m pretty sure what I’m about to tell you didn’t happen this way. Nevertheless, it is true.
I love a party. I’m Miriam, widow of Eli, but everybody calls me the Party Lady. I live right outside of Capernaum by Lake Galilee, and I throw parties for a living. You see, ever since I was a girl, there was nothing I loved more than throwing a party. I took care of all my friends’ weddings. And then their younger brothers and sisters. And then their kids! Most people get flustered throwing big parties. They worry too much, making all the arrangements, trying to figure out how much food to order, keeping all the lists. I just love it! I really think God put me on this earth to help people have a good time. After my friends urged me, I put up a shingle over my front door, “Party Lady – for all your special occasions.” I’ve been running all over Galilee throwing parties ever since.
I do funerals, a few Bar Mitzvahs, but mostly weddings. I do weddings right. Now I don’t go in for those huge extravagant weddings like I’ve heard the Roman landlords do. I think spending a fortune on a wedding is cheating God’s poor, and God knows we have enough poverty around here. But even when you try to keep a wedding simple, you still want it to be special. A wedding only happens once (God willing.) And you want to have abundant food and drink. Abundance is not only good hospitality, it is a sign for the new couple, that their love will be abundant, and their life together will have abundant blessings. Providing abundance at a village wedding is a big job, because in a village wedding, the whole village expects to be invited! And there’s the six days of partying after the actual wedding day, the groom’s friends party with him every night, and the bride’s with her. That a lot of party! What, you don’t know why the six nights of partying? I’m not going to tell you about that law. Ask your rabbi![1]
Anyway, one wedding I remember really taught me about abundance. It was for Akiva. Akiva had lost his first wife in childbirth. What a tragedy. But now he was starting over with a new bride. You could see it on his face that he didn’t believe his luck was going to hold. Now you never know what will happen at a wedding. Like the time Ari’s camel got loose. I was not in charge of the parking! That camel walked right through the hall and knocked a bowl of hummus into the lap of the mother of the bride. Usually people are very understanding at weddings. But for Akiva, who had suffered so much and worried so much, I wanted to do it right, without a hitch.
Akiva lived in Kafr Kanna, about three miles east of Nazareth. Now Kanna is on the major road, but it’s a two cow town. So what did Akiva do? He invited all the neighboring towns! We went with the local bargain wine, really not bad stuff. You have something like it– two-buck Chuck. Do you know Mary from Nazareth, widow of Joseph? She was there helping. And her son Jesus was there, and his younger brothers too. Jesus had recently become a rabbi or something. He was always such a good Torah scholar. He brought a bunch of friends with him, his students I guess. Now Jesus was a good man, but those friends of his! They were fishermen from Lake Galilee, I heard. Well, I can tell you they swore like fishermen, and they drank like fish! But I plan for that kind of thing. At least I thought I did.
Now I must make a confession. At Akiva’s wedding, I messed up. You see, I ordered fifty jars of wine from Moishe the wineseller in Capernaum. But somehow, only fifteen were delivered. It was a simple misunderstanding, and I could have caught it when the wine was delivered. But I didn’t check, because Moishe was always so reliable. It could have been a nightmare for the newlyweds, running out of wine before the main toasts were made. Akiva would have been devastated. (Not to mention the blow to my reputation.) Instead, something strange and wonderful happened.
It was almost time to raise the cup of blessing and make those all-important toasts to the bride and groom, prayers for lots of children, that kind of thing. When I tasted what the servers were pouring, I couldn’t believe it! This wasn’t the inexpensive local wine I had ordered. It was divine! So smooth and rich, obviously well aged, full of all kinds of subtle flavors. I’m didn’t know old Moishe sold stuff that good! So I found Akiva and I whispered in his ear, “Where did you find this stuff? You’ve been holding out on me, old boy!” He tasted for himself and grinned from ear to ear, “It’s not my wine. It must be a gift from someone. God has smiled on us today.” And he looked over at his new bride with eyes of adoration. Ah. I was over the moon to see them so.
But then I started to wonder, had there been a mix-up in the order? Am I going to owe Moishe a fortune for this wine? I ran and found my headwaiter, and said, “Where did this wine come from?” He just grinned at me and pointed out the door, and grinned some more. I walked out into the yard and here are the servants pouring wine– not out of gallon flasks, but ladling it out of twenty-five gallon stone jars, the kind we use to hold water for cleaning.
“Where did this wine come from?” And they told me. Mary must have noticed, before any of them, that the wine was just about gone. There was some talk between her and Jesus. I won’t try to guess what that was about. Then Mary told the headwaiter, “Do whatever he tells you.” Do you know, that’s just what old Pharaoh of Egypt said long ago about our ancestor Joseph when the famine started. “Go to Joseph. Do whatever he tells you.” And everybody in Egypt had enough to eat, because of Joseph. (Genesis 41:55.) So Jesus told them to fill these six stone jars with water, and bring it to me to taste. And here it was, a hundred and fifty gallons of the best wine I had ever served.
For the rest of the party, I was in a daze. First the shock that Miriam the Party Lady had almost ruined the party by messing up an order. How could I live with myself, if I had let those newlyweds down? Instead everyone said it was the best party they could remember. At the end of the week, we still had a hundred gallons of this fine wine left over. So I split it with the family and I used my fifty gallons for the important toasts in three more weddings after that. (No charge, of course.)
You can imagine the talk that started about this transformation. The waiters were all babbling about miracles. My headwaiter and I even joked about inviting Jesus to join the party business. He clearly enjoys parties as much as I do. People kept asking me, do you believe this miracle really happened? Here’s what I told them. “I don’t understand what happened. I just think it was a sign that Jesus is more than just another Rabbi. Pay attention to him, not the wine,” that’s what I said!
For me, that day was a sign that God’s grace is abundant, and full of surprises. That grace not only covered my mistake, that could have hurt that new couple so in need of blessing, and ruined my reputation. It was so much more than we needed. It was stunning generosity. The memory of that day helps me to ask God’s generosity when I need it, and to be generous myself. If a couple can’t afford my services, I always send a few gallons of wine to their wedding anyway. Everyone should be able to raise the cup of blessing.
I listened to Jesus teach a few times myself. He was generous to let women be his students. Most rabbis don’t do that. He always challenged me to be more faithful, and more generous. I knew he would go on to do great things. But then I heard he had been crucified in Jerusalem, and I was horrified. Poor Mary, can you imagine what she went through? But the next time I saw her, she was smiling and humming. ‘What’s got you so happy?” I asked?
“You’ll think I’m crazy,” she replied.
“Go on, tell me. I’ve heard a few crazy things before.”
“Jesus is not dead. He is risen, and his Spirit is still with us, blessing us and guiding us.” Well, I didn’t know what to say to that. And then she told me that they celebrate every first day of the week. “Come to the party!” she said. A party! How could I refuse?
So I went, and I loved it. There was singing, and praying, and reading the scriptures. And then there was a wonderful meal, where everybody brought a little something. What do you people call that here? A Pot Luck? Generosity in action, I call it. And the people were all sitting together, people you wouldn’t think could eat together: rich and poor, tax collectors and religious scholars and grubby shepherds, Jews and Greeks and Samaritans, even this big Roman soldier named Leo. I was scared of him at first, but he turned out to be a really sweet guy. It was amazing that master and servant were breaking bread together, and caring about one another. It was so wonderful. It was better than a wedding banquet. It was like... like... the banquet feast in heaven! And they said they did this every First Day. Every week, a little taste of Paradise!
So now I help set up this feast, of course. I love a party. I set the table with our best woven cloths. On them I lay out the Bread of Life and the Cup of Blessing. As I do it, I pray with gratitude, for the abundant life that God has given me, and especially for the love and forgiveness Jesus showed me, at that wedding and now through his Spirit, living in his friends. And I always use the best wine I can find.
With thanks to Helen McNeil, for her play, Mr. Festival.
[1] In Jewish law, a woman who bleeds is unclean for seven days and may not have sex with her husband. So after the wedding night (where the bride was presumably a virgin), it is the custom for friends to entertain the bride and groom each night until they can be together again.
Claim the Spirit
God’s spirit is one of those things like love. The more you give it away, the more you have for yourself. The apostles insisted on passing the Spirit to new Christians by the laying on of hands. What if each touch, each hug, each handshake between us carried with it a little prayer for the Spirit, for its power to work in the one we touch? Especially when someone is trying to be faithful and they face a challenge– that is the time to offer a prayer and a warm hand, so the Spirit’s power and our faithful support will help them to meet that challenge. Claim the Spirit, and share it.
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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
January 13, 2019
Catch the Spirit
Acts 8:9-24 Now a certain man named Simon had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he was someone great. 10All of them, from the least to the greatest, listened to him eagerly, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.” 11And they listened eagerly to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. 12But when they believed Philip, who was proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13Even Simon himself believed. After being baptized, he stayed constantly with Philip and was amazed when he saw the signs and great miracles that took place.
14 Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. 15The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit 16(for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). 17Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. 18Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, 19saying, “Give me also this power so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” 20But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God’s gift with money! 21You have no part or share in this, for your heart is not right before God. 22Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. 23For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the chains of wickedness.” 24Simon answered, “Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may happen to me.”
The Acts of the Apostles is our main record of the earliest church. It is the sequel to Luke’s Gospel, written by the same author, about the wild adventures of the apostles, who were sent on road trips to share the Good news of Jesus. Apostle means ‘sent’. In Acts, the Holy Spirit is a vital force, almost the main character. It guides the first Christians. The Spirit gives them courage and power in their mission to spread the good news.
In our reading from Acts, the apostles Peter and John are cleaning up after an eager apostle named Philip. Philip had baptized a bunch of people from Samaria. The Spirit was in that already. What would a bunch of good Jews to be doing with Samarians, an ethnic group that they hated, and thought were “unclean?” God’s Spirit had been at work in the Jewish apostles, and also in the Samaritans, healing old hatreds and fears. This was news that Samaritans would even listen to the apostles, so Peter and John went to check it out for themselves. They discovered genuine loyalty to Jesus, but Philip had forgotten one little detail. He forgot to give them the Holy Spirit with their baptism. So Peter and John took care of it. They prayed for the gift of the Spirit and they laid their hands on those new Christians, and then they were good to go.
This passage raises all kinds of questions. Is the Holy Spirit really contagious from one person to another? Could people tell? Could they feel it when they received the Holy Spirit? What difference did it make for them? What difference does it make for us? What does the Holy Spirit do, anyway?
Some people feel that there is a huge gap between heaven and earth. God is far away, and the best we can hope for is to follow God’s rules and hope to be united with God after we die. That doesn’t leave much room for the Spirit to act. Not only skeptics but faithful people, who have not experienced the power of God in their lives, or more to the point, haven’t recognized it: these people do not expect the Spirit to show up around here and make a difference. And that’s a sad thing.
Some of you probably experience what I’m calling the Spirit, but you call it Jesus’ power, or God’s grace, or something like that. And that is perfectly fine. If God is going to give us three wonderful faces for us to know and love, we have every reason to choose the face that is most approachable to us. Still, if you haven’t tried relating to God as Spirit, you might be missing something wonderful. Spirit is the power of God that acts in us and through us. In this scientific age, it is hard for some people to picture a personal God. But maybe they can picture a Force, like Star Wars, or a connection like an electrical circuit that connects us to God’s power, and that can allow God’s power to flow in us, and through us to other people.
After Peter and John laid hands on the new Christians, a fellow named Simon the Magician tries to make the Holy Spirit into a franchise. He’ll pay the apostles, if they’ll give him the power to dispense the Spirit. Before we are too hard on Simon, you should know that the apostles messed up his last franchise in magic, by converting all his customers into Christians.
Simon the Magician is a caution for us. We too can try to work the Spirit on our terms, tame it and make it serve at our beck and call. That doesn’t work. John’s gospel says: The Spirit blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.(John 3:8) Your Bible probably says “wind” instead of “Spirit” but in Greek and Hebrew wind and Spirit are the same word. Also breath, life force—all these are spirit. So the Holy Spirit is free-ranging like the wind, as essential as breath, God’s own life-force. Try to tame that!
Some people think that the Holy Spirit came to people for the first time on Pentecost. Wrong. Of course it came to Jesus at his baptism. The Spirit had also already come to prophets and leaders in Israel hundreds of years before. And the Spirit is not a Jewish and Christian exclusive. In Genesis 1, Spirit blew over the waters at the dawn of creation. Spirit sustains all life; Genesis 6:3 says that when God’s Spirit leaves us we die.
So what did the Spirit do for Christians that was special? It brought an awareness of, and access to, God’s power– to all Christians, not just religious leaders and prophets. That power shows up in many different ways. According to our bible it comes as speaking in tongues, the most dramatic gift of the Spirit, and according, to Paul, the least useful. It comes as spontaneous joy and praise of God. Spirit prays for us when we don’t know how. It teaches us truth, and is our advocate, giving us hope and strength to do what God calls us to do. It gives a variety of gifts that build up this community. Some are obviously religious, like preaching and prophesying (prophesying just means saying the things God needs us to hear). Some gifts are practical like encouraging and administration. Spirit brings us the famous nine fruits that we need for right living: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. You’ll never prove the Spirit gave you gifts like all those. But it is a backwards kind of false humility when we don’t credit God for empowering the good things in our lives. What, we did it all ourselves? So…do you have any of these gifts? If you don’t think so, pray for the Spirit. If you do, claim the Spirit!
The Spirit brought God’s power to all Christians, not just to leaders. It brought the potential to lead, to speak with authority, to make wise decisions, to any of us. It is a great equalizer, a great empowerer. No wonder some of us love the Spirit, and others don’t know what to do with it. As time went on, the early church became more hierarchical, more controlling, like the culture around it. God’s power, blowing among the common people wherever it willed, made the leaders kind of nervous. The leaders would decide who was authorized to dispense the Spirit, and to exercise churchy Spirit gifts like preaching and prophecy. Some of that was necessary—there were plenty of self-proclaimed prophets who managed to warp the Good News pretty badly. But the control of the hierarchical church stifled the Spirit in many ways. I am very conscious of one of those ways. In many churches in this country, probably the majority, I could not be ordained clergy or preach because I am a woman.
We in the UCC are not a hierarchical church. We are a congregational church. Decisions by the larger church are not binding on our congregation. You as the congregation are the final authority of the church. That is a great gift, and a great responsibility. How could you do it without the Holy Spirit’s guidance and power? The responsibility is that if we do not stay empowered by the Spirit, we do not have the weight of a church hierarchy to keep us on track—our church will die. The gift is that we as a church can respond to the Spirit as we are called, in ways that more hierarchical and rule-bound institutions cannot. So we must be deliberate about seeking the Spirit, and sharing it. It is the life of our church.
I think it is wonderful that the way the apostles shared the Spirit through prayer and the touch of their hands. Something as free as the Spirit can never be taken for granted, never tamed and passed on by a ritual alone—so prayer is required, to make sure our hearts are tuned and open to the Spirit. Spirit is invisible, so we need concrete signs like human touch, to help make the Spirit real to us. And we need the guidance of flesh-and-blood people, who themselves know the Spirit, to bring that power into our own lives. To many people, the “power of the Spirit,” like “God’s love,” is an empty phrase. And it will remain that way until we, who know what it means, share it.
The Spirit is already in us if we’re breathing, but awareness and acceptance of its power waits for our invitation, and our sharing. When the Spirit came in power at Pentecost, it came only after weeks of prayer, and it came to all the people gathered together.
I see the Spirit moving in your lives in many ways. I could list them, but it would be better if youstarted naming and claiming the action of the Spirit in your lives, and in this church. Some of you already do, in your own way. But many of you are shy about claiming that God’s power is actually doing anything for you, for us, here in this little church in Brea. I know it can be hard to do that. You don’t want to name the Spirit’s action in your life unless you’re really sure. And we can never prove the Spirit’s action scientifically. Well, maybe your naming can be a leap of faith. You don’t want to be taken for a religious nut, or a snake-oil salesman like Simon the Magician. But maybe…better that than to deny the power of God! You don’t want to single yourself out as someone who gets special favors from God. Well then start naming the Spirit acting in your friends’ lives too! No false modesty, please: we are children of God. We have great gifts and a great destiny. Claim it, and share it.
God’s spirit is one of those things like love. The more you give it away, the more you have for yourself. The apostles insisted on passing the Spirit to new Christians by the laying on of hands. What if each touch, each hug, each handshake between us carried with it a little prayer for the Spirit, for its power to work in the one we touch? Especially when someone is trying to be faithful and they face a challenge– that is the time to offer a prayer and a warm hand, so the Spirit’s power and our faithful support will help them to meet that challenge. Claim the Spirit, and share it. Amen.
Bearing Gifts
When you are sheltered among people of your same religion and don’t get to know people on the outside, it’s easier to do and believe what you’re told. Whether you like it or not, it’s your identity. It’s your culture. But as soon as you let in the outside world in, it’s harder to maintain a religious culture generation to generation without a lot of coercion. Teenagers are often not interested in what their parents are doing if their friends are doing something different. So Kumail’s parents had long odds once he moved from Pakistan to the U.S. A similar thing happened to me when I stopped going to Catholic school in 9th grade. And what religious culture I tried to make for my son was probably being undermined in preschool; his two best friends were from atheist and Jewish families.
We do not need an exclusive Christian culture. We need to build a compelling culture of respect and care, peace-building and creation justice with people of all faiths and no faith, to counter our popular culture of greed and exploitation and name-calling. So we have little to lose and lots to gain by befriending people of other faiths who value sacred community, even if the details of how we do that are very different. We bring each other gifts: not gold and frankincense and myrrh, but the jewels of our faith that remind us who we are and what we value: sacred stories that guide us, rituals and sacraments that invite us into the mystery of the sacred, and everyday practices that help us live our values. Whenever I make a friend who is committed to honoring what is sacred, even if they frame it very differently than I do, my own faith is encouraged and strengthened.
****
Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
January 6, 2019
One Light
Matthew 2:1-12In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” 3When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
6 ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.’”
Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 9When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
The Magi add spice to the nativity scene. Foreign kings. Gold and frankincense and myrrh. Camels. (Camels aren’t actually in the original story we read.) The Magi only appear in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew is very concerned with the fulfillment of prophecy, and the Magi fulfill the prophecy in Isaiah chapter 60. Later Christians assigned them names and countries of origin, made them kings and gave them camels, using Isaiah chapter 60 as a guide. Matthew simply calls them magi from the East. Magi can be translated as magicians, or as priests of a foreign god. Those job descriptions, magician and priest, used to overlap. These men are clearly figures of wealth and power, stopping to visit King Herod. They have some wisdom as well, since they knew astronomy, how calculate the movement of the stars, and there was no app for that back in the day. They were not wise enough to keep from telling Herod about this newborn king. Herod, hearing the news from the Magi, sought to get rid this treat to his rule of in a general massacre of babies, making Jesus a refugee fleeing violence, and I talked about that a couple of weeks ago.
Taking the story of the Magi at face value, they saw a star, a sign from God that something special was happening. They were not Christian (no such thing existed at that time.) They were probably not Jewish like everyone else at the Nativity stories. Whatever religion they did practice, they were secure enough in it that they could take a long pilgrimage to honor the birth of a Jewish King.
The Magi invite us to explore interfaith meetings and interfaith learning. There is one ultimate reality, one sacred light, and none of us see it very clearly. We each experience the sacred differently like the facets of a prism, through our own religion and culture and personal history. When we get to know people of other religions, we experience different facets of that same light. Hopefully we get more light. That’s a good thing under any circumstances, but especially in this time when people of different religious traditions and none must find common ground to heal the human divisions and the ecological devastation we face.
Some people are downright afraid of other religions. Their faith is a closed system that can’t deal with other facets of the sacred. We know that some Americans fear all Muslims, as if there weren’t Christian terrorists as well. Remember that fear is what drives hate, and fear justifies hate and violence. Building relationships overcomes fear. What we may not realize is the number of people of other religions and no religion who fear Christians. Sad, isn’t it? They need to get to know us and our flavor of Christianity!
Our church just joined the Brea Ministerial Association. That organization is not interfaith, and we may be the only mainline church participating. Interfaith bridge building is not on their agenda. They do service activities and community building, but I think see their most important job as bringing everyone to the Christian faith, saving them from hell. With the best of intentions, that overriding goal feels to people of other religions like coercion and the threat of violence.
As you can imagine, I bring a different perspective to the Brea Ministerial Association, and I will speak up when the opportunity arises. That may or may not make a difference, but we here, Brea Congregational UCC, we do make a difference. We are tiny, but we have a big street sign. We have a voice. That voice is desperately needed.
Over the holidays I watched the movie “The Big Sick.” The main character Kumail is a young standup comic in Chicago, an Uber driver, and a Muslim, sort of. He is trying to keep the peace with his Muslim parents by pretending be to a proper Muslim. At one point he’s visiting his parents and they say, “Prayer time!” So he goes down to their basement, pulls out a rug, sets the timer on his phone, and waits. After five minutes of standing around doing nothing in particular, the phone beeps, he puts the rug away and he goes back upstairs to join his family. I have been that kid. I have also been those parents. We want our kids to be like us, to do what we do, to value what we value. But the culture around them gives them other ideas.
When you are sheltered among people of your same religion and don’t get to know people on the outside, it’s easier to do and believe what you’re told. Whether you like it or not, it’s your identity. It’s your culture. But as soon as you let in the outside world in, it’s harder to maintain a religious culture generation to generation without a lot of coercion. Teenagers are often not interested in what their parents are doing if their friends are doing something different. So Kumail’s parents had long odds once he moved from Pakistan to the U.S. A similar thing happened to me when I stopped going to Catholic school in 9th grade. And what religious culture I tried to make for my son was probably being undermined in preschool; his two best friends were from atheist and Jewish families.
We do not need an exclusive Christian culture. We need to build a compelling culture of respect and care, peace-building and creation justice with people of all faiths and no faith, to counter our popular culture of greed and exploitation and name-calling. So we have little to lose and lots to gain by befriending people of other faiths who value sacred community, even if the details of how we do that are very different. We bring each other gifts: not gold and frankincense and myrrh, but the jewels of our faith that remind us who we are and what we value: sacred stories that guide us, rituals and sacraments that invite us into the mystery of the sacred, and everyday practices that help us live our values. Whenever I make a friend who is committed to honoring what is sacred, even if they frame it very differently than I do, my own faith is encouraged and strengthened.
In the middle of a culture that doesn’t care much about what is sacred, we also have access to a kind of potluck of spiritual beliefs and practices from all over the world that we can use to enrich our lives. Tai chi. Yoga. I love it that my son Mark listens to a Buddhist mindfulness teacher Tara Brach on his insight meditation phone app; he’s way better at meditating than I am. He goes to Shabbat services with his Jewish friends in New York City. He likes the singing. That’s the amazing smorgasbord we have access to.
This little church is part of the feast. If people are looking for an age-graded Sunday School or a bunch of rules to follow, we can’t help them. Yet a lot of our friends and neighbors and sometime attenders treasure us… what are our gifts to them? A taste of Process-Relational Christianity. (How to explain that to your friends? Try this. “God doesn’t control, God invites and inspires. God doesn’t plan everything out in advance; God co-creates with us like a jazz musician. And God is never far away; God is in and through everything. Our job is to pay attention.”) Another gift we give: permission to believe as you choose, and respect other beliefs. To vote on important church decisions as a congregation. Welcome for all including gender and sexually diverse people and a conscious effort to welcome people of all races and ethnicities, care for the earth as part of our faith, a heart for more dimensions of justice than we have energy to keep up with, and some unique cultural practices like First Food Sundays. We are part of that rich religious smorgasbord. There are a lot of people who got one taste and are still raving about it. We do wish we would see them more often, though.
Because somebody’s got to do the cooking for that potluck. Somebody’s got to keep this church’s culture going, and build on it, and let it be known. So I am deeply grateful for those of you who take a role in making Brea Congregational UCC happen. I celebrate all of you who participate in worship, on Council, in our music program, with your financial support, in the kitchen and in facility maintenance. I am grateful for those of you who represent us in the community through your service and your political and social action. Please know that your service and your faithfulness, your showing up makes a difference. To people who have walked through our doors once, or who have only driven by, or met one of you at a community meeting, you are bearing precious gifts from our Christian faith and practice here at Brea Congregational UCC.
As for receiving gifts, some of us went to an interfaith Ramadan meal, and experienced great generosity. There is no interfaith group in Brea, and I never managed to get on the mailing list for the one that supposedly exists in Fullerton. Something to work on. Elsewhere in Orange County, Muslims and Mormons are often the backbone of interfaith groups: they have experienced religious persecution, and they work hard for religions tolerance; for their own safety.
Personally, the faith tradition that has given me the most gifts is Judaism. Like my son, I developed Jewish friends in grad school in New York. Sam Gellman was my best friend besides my husband, and I learned how to be friends with an observant Jew: what not to feed him, what not to do on Saturdays, but much more, the stories that formed him. In seminary, I was blessed to have a Jewish teacher for Hebrew Bible, Marvin Sweeney. Even at Claremont, quite a liberal seminary, Professor Sweeney put up with a lot of ignorantly offensive Christian students. I have received all kinds of treasures of Jewish bible scholarship that most Christians don’t even know exist. Then Rabbi Marc Rubenstein, whose congregation shared space with mine, did a bible study with me. He had more midrash than bible scholarship, oral tradition beyond what’s in the bible, and he had one little teaching that sustains me to this day. It goes like this.
When we die and go to God, God will ask us three questions. First: what have you learned? Second: what mitzvot have you done? (A mitzvah is a good deed, an act of service or devotion) And third, how have you enjoyed My world? These three questions have been inspiring me for years now. Thank you Rabbi Marc.
Wise people of other faiths, bringing gifts. We are blessed by them. May we, as part of a vital and faithful Brea Congregational UCC, bring gifts to those who cross our doors and cross our paths. And may we meet people of other faiths with our minds and hearts open, to receive their gifts, to experience more facets of the One Light that invites us into abundant life. Amen.
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