Category: Sermons Year B

Being Great

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year BLeave a comment

Mark 9:30-37 NRSV

In Mark chapter 9, we read where the disciples are arguing with one another about which one of them was the greatest.

And who could blame them? For they had just tasted greatness on what we call the Mount of Transfiguration. In this same chapter, we read where Peter, James and John witness the appearance of Jesus, his face, even his clothes, shine!

So, of course the disciples are arguing about greatness. For they too wanted to shine!

And 2,000 years later, disciples are still arguing about what it means to be great, still arguing about how to make our country great, and to make our church great. And, here in the United States, the ones who seem to winning this argument, or at least are arguing the loudest, are all around us.

Do you want to be a great church?

Wed yourself to the empire. Unite with a political party. Do whatever it takes to attain power in order to legislate your own worldview and understanding of morality, and oppress all who do not fall in line.

Do you want to be a great church?

Then do whatever it takes to draw a large crowd. Because crowd size is what it is all about. To get people’s attention, make up some stories if you have to. They don’t have to be true stories. They just need to be sensational stories to get people riled up. Stoke fear if you have to, do whatever it takes to attract a big crowd. Tell them their whole world is going to end unless they join you. And if you’re loud enough, and say it often enough, you might be able to draw crowds like Elvis Presley used to draw, and you won’t even need a guitar. But speaking, of guitars…

Do you want to be a great church?

Then you have to make your services more entertaining. Do something to make the people smile, laugh, clap and tap their feet. And do you really need to have Communion every Sunday? That’s a lot of work. All that preparation and clean-up. And besides, no one wants to hear about sacrifice, self-expenditure, shed blood, and a broken body every Sunday! Just give the people what they want. Trade those tiny, dry crackers for some fresh, hot donuts, and trade that little sip of juice for a caramel macchiato or a vanilla latte.

Do you want to be a great church?

As the pastor, don’t ever be too real. Never admit your mistakes. Never apologize for anything. Don’t let people know that you need forgiveness. Never let it slip out that you have your doubts. Make them believe you never question your faith and you have all of the answers.

Do you want to be a great church?

Discourage all critical thinking. Encourage folks to check their brains at the door. Tell them exactly what you want them to believe. And them not to listen to anyone else and to even ignore what they may see with their very own eyes. Tell them that if they hear anything that is critical of you, it is fake news. Always keep it simple, black or white, good or evil, heaven or hell.

Do you want to be a great church?

Create an “us-verses-them” mentality, an “insider-verses-outsider” way-of-thinking. And remind the congregation every Sunday that we are “in,” and those who disagree with us are “out.” Make them feel righteous, holy, superior, knowing that while we are on their way to heaven, those who are unlike us are most certainly heading in the other direction.

Do you want to be a great church?

Look, it’s fine to say you welcome all people to church. But don’t say it every Sunday. Don’t over-emphasize it, and don’t advertise it. And avoid using words like “diversity,” equity, and inclusion” and never say “social justice.” And don’t talk so much about helping people who are poor, and standing up for the marginalized. Because, the truth is, people like to be with people who think like them, act like them, and look like them.

Do you want to be a great church?

Have more programs that are uplifting and edifying for the members. Give them what they want, especially those who have some money and some power in the community. Keep them filled, satisfied, happy and comfortable. Don’t ever pressure them to do things that are outside of their comfort zones. Always make the faith about winning; never losing anything, and certainly not losing themselves. Make it about being first; never about being last.

Do you want to be a great church?

Preach what is popular. Embrace the culture over the Word of God. Instead of preaching extravagant grace, preach “love the sinner and hate the sin.” Instead of preaching love your neighbor, preach “God only helps those who are willing to help themselves.”

Then Jesus comes, and he asks:

“What are you talking about?”

We are silent.

We are also embarrassed. Because deep down, we know that our arguments are antithetical to everything Jesus has been teaching us.

But Jesus heard us. Jesus always hears us.

It is then that Jesus goes into the nursery and brings out a little baby; and taking the child in his arms, he says:

Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.

In other words, Jesus said to those who were arguing about greatness:

Stop worrying about being great, and start worrying about the least. And when you do that, when you take care of those who cannot care for themselves, when you feed those who cannot feed themselves, when you clothe those who cannot clothe themselves, when you welcome those who often feel unwelcomed, those who are treated like outsiders and called “aliens,” then you welcome God. And like me standing on that mountain, you will shine!”

Holding that baby in his arms, it is as if Jesus is asking: “Do you want to be great? Do you want to shine like me standing there with the prophet Elijah and the law-giver Moses? Then listen to the voices from the law and the prophets.”

Listen to the voice of Moses who commanded:

If there are any poor…in the land…do not be hard-hearted or tightfisted toward them. Instead, be generous and lend them whatever they need. …Give generously to the poor, not grudgingly, for the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do. There will always be some in the land who are poor. That is why I am commanding you to share freely with the poor and with other Israelites in need (Deut 15:7-11).

Never take advantage of poor and destitute laborers, whether they are fellow Israelites or foreigners living in your towns. …True justice must be given to foreigners living among you… (Deut 24:14-16).

Jesus is saying to listen to the Proverbs, words that us who is great in the eyes of God:

…blessed are those who help the poor… Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but helping the poor honors him (Proverbs 14:21, 31).

If you help the poor, you are lending to the Lord— and he will repay you!”(Proverbs 19:17).

And listen to who are not so great in God’s eyes:

Those who shut their ears to the cries of the poor will be ignored in their own time of need (Proverbs 21:13).

A person who gets ahead by oppressing the poor or by showering gifts on the rich will end in poverty (Proverbs 22:16).

Whoever gives to the poor will lack nothing, but those who close their eyes to poverty will be cursed (Proverbs 28:27)

So,

Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy (Proverbs 31:8-9).

Jesus is saying to listen the voice of the Psalmist…

Give justice to the poor and the orphan; uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute. Rescue the poor and helpless; (Psalms 82:2).

Do you want to be great? Then listen to the voice of the prophet Isaiah:

Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows. “Come now, let’s settle this,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool (Isaiah 1:17-18).

In other words,  says the Lord,  when you help the least, when the mission and ministries of your church side with the poor and the marginalized, I will transform you. I will transfigure you!

Do you want to know how to be a great church?  Do you really want to shine? asks Jesus. Then listen some more to Isaiah:

Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains of injustice. Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help.

Then your salvation will come like the dawn, and your wounds will quickly heal. The Spirit of God will lead you forward, and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind. Then when you call, the Lord will answer. ‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply, ‘Remove the heavy yoke of oppression…Feed the hungry, and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon’ (Isaiah 58:6-10).

The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg taught law students how to be great lawyers with advice that I believe applies to each of us.  She said something like: if you really want to shine, if you really want to be great, (an now I quote)

…you will do something outside yourself, something to repair tears in your community, something to make life a little better for people less fortunate than you. That’s what I think a meaningful life is. One lives not just for one’s self but for one’s community.

Amen.

Watch Your Mouth

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year BLeave a comment

James 3:1-12 NRSV

By The Reverend Dr. Kitty Hahn-Campanella delivered to the congregation of First Christian Church of Lynchburg, VA on September 15, 2024

“Watch Your Mouth.” This was an expression that my parents used to say to us when I was growing up. It was a warning to stop talking before we said more and got ourselves into trouble. Usually, this was said when we were talking back to our parents, or to any adult, for that matter.

In a sense, the ever-so-practical writer of the book of James was saying the same thing: “watch your mouth!” Before you use it unwisely and say things that need not to be said, or which are incorrect.

This passage takes a slightly different turn, because watching the mouth, in this case, had less to do with being sassy and more to do with teaching falsely.

Therefore, the writer of James cautions his readers and audience about taking up the profession of teaching. He saw it as a huge and very important undertaking.

“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will face stricter judgment” -meaning we are to be held accountable for what we say.

Some of you might remember Jane Elliott. She is an American diversity educator. As a school teacher, she became known for her “blue eyes / brown eyes” exercise, which she first conducted with her third grade class on April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.

In rural Iowa in the late 1960;s, Jane Elliott knew she was taking a big risk teaching an all-white classroom about race and racism – her husband even warned her not to, she said.

In her classroom exercise, brown-eyed students were portrayed and told that they were superior to the other students, and they were sat at the front of the room. Students with blue eyes were presented as inferior, given collars to wear and were moved to the back of the room. Elliott said throughout the exercise, she witnessed her students turning on each other (responding to the false divide and distinction that she had made up with untrue suppositions about eye color).

Quickly, the dynamic of the room shifted. “I watched wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating third graders.” “Within five minutes,” she said, “I had changed that group of loving, kind, generous, thoughtful human beings into people who act the way people who are allowed to judge people unfairly on the basis of physical characteristics do every day in this country.”

Elliott said the exercise and her anti-racism teachings are not aimed at making people feel guilty about the past. She said:

I’m teaching them to feel responsible for what they do in the present to create the future. After all, there’s only one race: the human race.

Matthew Soerens wrote an article that was featured in the Religion News Service entitled, “Immigrants, pets and the sin of slander in an age of social media.” He wrote:

This week, outlandish allegations that, in a small city of Ohio, Haitian immigrants were hunting down and eating people’s cats, dogs and other pets spread across the internet, even making an appearance in the presidential debate. Though there’s no verifiable evidence of any case of a Haitian immigrant eating a pet – to say nothing of a trend that will soon threaten your pet – rumors spread quickly (and Haitian people became suspect of questionable behavior).

It was already an ‘old proverb’ in the 19th century when Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon quipped, ‘A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.’ In the internet era, falsehoods move at light speed, and the biblical commandment to ‘not bear false witness’ has become among the more socially acceptable sins.

That’s probably because it’s so easy: We can now disparage someone without personally articulating the charge, in either verbal or written form; we can reshare slanderous accusations with a tap of a finger or click of a mouse. Our human nature is apt to do so, dismissing any reluctance over an unverified charge if it seems credible to us, especially when the subject is an individual or group of people we’re predisposed to view as villainous.

I saw a meme this week which read, “I wonder how it feels to be a Haitian kid showing up to school in Springfield, Ohio. Rumors are not victimless.”

We are easily led to turn opinions into facts about people we don’t know and about things we’re uncomfortable with or don’t understand. Even the suggestion that casts doubt on another person’s character, or an innuendo, can be negatively influential and subsequently damaging.

But if we are to be faithful to the New Testament’s repeated instructions to put away slander of any kind, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard. We should refrain from propagating any disparaging charge that we cannot confirm to be factual, lest we, as the epistle of James puts it, “curse people who are made in the likeness of God.” That’s always true, but it’s all the more relevant in the midst of a polarized U.S. election season.

In the first and second chapter of the book of James, the author of it has made clear that certain outward characteristics – impartiality and faithful action versus favoritism and the mistreatment of vulnerable people – are not to be held.

In chapter three, another piece of external evidence of one’s interior person is brought to the forefront, namely speech. The tongue is identified as a part of our body which needs to be very carefully managed because if it isn’t controlled it can create harm. Three illustrations are given, one right after the other one, to show how vital it is to “watch your mouth.”

It takes just one small thing – a harness with a bit to control a large horse, a small rudder to steer a large boat. It takes very little, just a spark, to make a fire that consumes endless acres of forests.

“The tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a such small fire! And the tongue is a fire. Every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue – a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth comes a blessing and a curse and this ought not to be so.”

This passage calls us out for our inconsistencies. Speaking life and uplifting one another. Bestowing blessings. And, in the next minute, speaking hurtfully and hatefully and tearing one another down. Bestowing curses. This ought not to be so.
Scripture talks much about the tongue and teaches that “out of the abundance of the heart our mouth speaks.” We must guard our hearts and our tongues.

If we’re to take seriously the many biblical injunctions to refrain from slander, the Apostle James offers wise counsel: “be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” In our context, we might also add being “slow to retweet.”

Thanks be to God for practical instruction interspersed in scripture among chapters and verses of higher spiritual and theological teachings, thanks be to God for words that motivate us to know better and to do better, thanks be to God for insisting that we be careful and loving in what we say. Amen.

The Reverend Dr. Kitty Hahn-Campanella is the Chaplain at Sweet Briar College. She is an ordained Presbyterian Church (USA) pastor who as served churches in Texas, Virginia, New Jersey, Georgia, and Florida. Kitty has also been a Hospice Chaplain for 17 years. Kitty grew up in Lynchburg and has returned to be near family after 40 year away.

Along with a handful of her progressive clergy friends (including Jarrett), she is creating “good trouble” as they make their presence known with inclusivity, acceptance, and a wider community of shared faith that holds expansive viewpoints in fairly religiously conservation places.

A Prophetic Response to School Shootings

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year BLeave a comment

Isaiah 35:4-7 NRSV

It was around 600 BC when a dystopian 1930’s-like dictator named Nebuchadnezzar was on a mission to make Babylon great again by building and renovating tall buildings. His armies invaded and occupied Assyria, Egypt, and Palestine, destroying Jerusalem. Judah had three kings during Nebuchadnezzar’s reign who were either taken as hostages or killed. The entire territory was desolated, and the Jewish people were exiled.

I imagine it was difficult, if not impossible, for those in exile to see any light in the darkness. And it was easy for them to resign themselves to the belief that things could not and would not get any better, to acquiesce to despair.

It is in this fearful time and dark place that a prophet named Isaiah reminds people of faith that they are called to speak out proclaiming words of courage to those with fearful hearts (Isaiah 35:4).

The phrase “those with fearful hearts” only scratches the surface in describing the people’s despair. Anathea Portier-Young, Professor of Old Testament at Duke Divinity School, points out that a more literal reading the Hebrew language is: “ones whose hearts are racing.” Isaiah calls people to proclaim a word of hope to people “whose hearts are racing.”

Perhaps we have all experienced something of what this professor describes when she writes:

The heart races. A hormone we call adrenaline or epinephrine courses through the bloodstream. It stimulates muscles, directs blood-flow, and accelerates metabolism. At the same time, it causes the senses to close in — the field of vision narrows and the world becomes strangely quiet. It is a stress response. It might energize the body for battle, or to run away. Or it might mimic paralysis.[i]

The Jewish people who had been terrorized by Nebuchadnezzar and forced into exile certainly knew something about this.

And today, the students and faculty of Apalachee High School, along with their families and friends in Georgia, tragically know something about this, along with every child in our country who has experienced active shooter drills teaching them to first run, then to hide, and then to fight, when someone with a gun comes to the school.

Every parent who has a school-aged child and every person who has a heart, knows something about a racing heart every time we are alerted with breaking news of another senseless school shooting.

And, like the Jewish people in exile, it has become difficult, if not impossible, to see any light in the darkness. We acquiesce to the despair, calling it “the new normal.” Even people of faith have no faith that things in this life can be any better, thus many have placed all of their faith and hope in an afterlife.

The only reason many folks are in church this morning is to make preparations to leave this God-forsaken earth for heaven, not to be inspired to do something to bring heaven to earth.

So today, perhaps more than ever, we need to hear a prophetic word, at least as much as the Jews in exile needed such a word. We need to hear someone like Isaiah calling faithful people to stand up to proclaim some prophetic good news to those today whose hearts are racing.

To understand the prophetic word that people of faith are called to proclaim today, it might be helpful talk about what the prophet does not say we are to proclaim.

Isaiah does not say: “Tell those with racing hearts that you are sending them your thoughts and prayers.”

Isaiah does not say: “Tell those with racing hearts that you hate what happened, but such evil is just ‘a fact of life.’”

Isaiah does not say: “Tell those with racing hearts that we live in a dangerous world full of ‘sick and deranged monsters,’ and instead of making common-sense laws to prevent them from attaining weapons of war, we actually need to make such weapons more accessible, even to our children, to protect us from the danger.”

The prophet doesn’t say: “Tell them that this is just the way it is, and things are not going to get any better, so we just need to accept it. Gun violence will always be the number one cause of childhood death in our country. We had 1,708 mass shootings last year, and we can expect more next year. This is the new normal, and there’s really nothing we can do about it, except to arm ourselves, lock our doors, continue to put our children through active shooter drills, maybe get them some bullet-proof back-packs, and display the Ten Commandments in classrooms.”

And Isaiah doesn’t say anything close to: “Tell the people that the reason they live in so much fear is because they have taken God out of their schools.”

In fact, the prophet says the exact opposite.

The prophet says:

Have courage and take heart because God is here, right here. God is coming to put things right and redress all wrongs. (Isaiah 35:4 The Message).

What bothers me the most about the state of the church today is not that the church has a difficult time articulating the prophetic good-news. It is not that it has clouded or even lost the message. What troubles me the most is that the church often proclaims a message that is the exact opposite of the good news that we are called to share, the antithesis of everything that the prophets proclaimed and Jesus taught, modeled and embodied.

Instead of loving our neighbors, we preach take care of yourself.

Instead of welcoming the stranger, we preach building a wall.

Instead of healing the sick, we preach denying their healthcare.

Instead of forgiving the sinner, we preach throwing rocks.

Instead of treating the poor like they are blessed, we preach treating them like they are cursed.

Instead of standing up for the marginalized, we preach calling them abominations.

We choose to favor the rich over the poor, greed over generosity, judgment over forgiveness, selfishness over sacrifice. We choose to embrace a lie and reject the truth. We choose the arrogant, the proud, the condescending and the self-important, while rejecting anyone who comes close to embracing a way of service and humility.

And instead of protecting our children, we’d rather protect our second amendment right.

Instead of sharing hope in God’s restorative justice, we’d rather share gloom and doom, hell, fire, and brimstone.

The message we proclaim is the exact opposite of the message of the prophets and Jesus. And this is why I don’t hesitate to say that the message that is proclaimed by many churches today is “anti-Christ.”

Anne chose to read this prophetic passage this morning using The Message translation of the Hebrew, because the NRSV translation we usually read translates the Hebrew word naqam into the English word “vengeance.” Verse 4 reads in the NRSV: “God will come with vengeance.”

Like Anne, I have a difficult time linking “vengeance” with the good news of God’s presence. To be honest, I almost chose not to preach this passage this morning when I first read it in the NRSV, as I choose to believe that God’s dealings with creation is restorative, rather than retributive.

This is why it is always good to take a close look at the original language when studying scripture. Biblical scholar Hendrik Peels points out that the Hebrew word translated “vengeance” in the NRSV literally means “the restoration of justice.” Thus, the meaning of the word is closer to what we call “restorative justice.” It means setting things right.

Isaiah is calling faithful people to proclaim to those with racing hearts: “Have hope for God has not abandoned you. This world is not God-forsaken. God is here with you, and God’s restorative justice is on its way. God is here working in our world, creating and recreating. God is addressing and redressing everything that is wrong in the world making it right.

Isaiah is saying to tell the people with fearful, racing hearts: “Be greatly encouraged for violence is not the new normal. Resignation to despair is not a fact of life. It does not have to be this way! For God is here! Justice has arrived! Love is coming, and love will win!”

With rich poetic language, the prophet says to the people with racing hearts: “Eyes that have been blinded will be opened.”

I hear:

Eyes that have been blinded by selfishness and greed will be opened! because I know that some of God’s people, some faithful disciples, who are shining a light.

Deaf ears that are unable to hear voices of mercy and peace will be unstopped! because I know some of God’s people who are proclaiming the truth.”

People who are feel paralyzed and powerless to bring about change will leap like deer all the way to the ballot box! because I know some disciples who are out in the streets preaching hope.”

Tell the people with racing hearts that those whose voices have been silenced by the loudness of hate, fear and privilege will break into song! Because followers of Jesus are going to be louder. Voices will be raised demanding that legislators enact common sense laws to protect all people society, especially those who are most vulnerable.

Tell the people with racing hearts that justice is coming like springs of water bursting forth in a wilderness! Streams of justice will flow in the desert!” because people are answering the call to heed the message of the prophets and to follow the non-violent, peace-making way of Jesus. People are speaking out passionately and prophetically with beautiful words of hope and transformation.

We are prophetically proclaiming to the people that when the scriptures talk about being born again, it applies to the entire creation!

“Hot sands will become a cool oasis and thirsty ground a splashing fountain, and even the jackals, even creatures regarded as lowliest of creatures, will have fresh water to drink. Barren grasslands will even flourish richly!”

Because no matter how bad things seem, we will never give out while working as God’s prophetic agents of restorative justice in this world. We will never give in to the darkness that surrounds us, and we will never give up on love and the power that it has to transform the world!

[i] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-23-2/commentary-on-isaiah-354-7a-3

Terrible Traditional Tendency

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year BLeave a comment

Mark 7:1-15 NRSV

Well, I have made it as your pastor now through 13 months without anyone coming into my office suggesting that the pastor search team had made a horrible mistake. Which is pretty good, considering that I was told that in my first month serving one congregation!

I believe there are several reasons that you and I seem to be getting along so far. One reason is that we just are a pretty good fit. You are my kind of people. And what I mostly mean by that is that we value the same traditions.

I served one church that accused me of trying to convert them to Catholicism when I added a responsive reading for the Call to Worship in the worship bulletin for the first time. This church also had some serious issues with my clergy robe. After wearing my robe during an Advent service, one parishioner commented on my “dress” and asked me if he could kiss my ring. Oh, and I also got into big trouble in that same church for using the word “parishioner” instead of “congregant” to refer church members.

I greatly disturbed members of several congregations when I proposed that we allow people who were baptized as infants in other denominations to be members of the church without being rebaptized.

I got into big trouble after hosting a dinner for food-insecure people as a furious church member, whose small group used the church kitchen once a month, approached me on Sunday morning saying, “Pastor, those people you fed last week used our Sweet-n-Low!”

After hosting a bi-lingual worship service for Hispanics in the community, a member of one church came up to me, his face red with anger, almost shouting: “They need to learn English or move back to where they came from!”

And I caused all kinds of waves when I would make statements like: “Well, of course we should be an “open and affirming” congregation, because no group of people who seek to follow the inclusive and gracious way of love Jesus taught and embodied has any business being “closed and condemning!”

At a wedding reception, I really upset one church leader as he looked at the delicious beverage I was enjoying in my clear plastic cup, and said, “Preacher, that does not look like iced-tea!”

So, traditionally speaking, you and I are a pretty good match. And another reason that you and I are seem to be getting along is that I am now seasoned enough to know about the importance of traditions, and I am wise enough to know not to mess with them, at least during my first year. Thus, you may notice that our Order of Worship looks exactly like it did before you even heard of me.

Perhaps you have heard the joke: “How many people in the church does it take to change a light bulb?”

“Change! Whatcha talkin’ ‘bout ‘change?’ My grandfather donated that light bulb!”

Over the years, I have learned the art of making subtle changes, if any changes, when it comes to a church’s traditions. Over the years, I have also learned of the value and the importance of traditions.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with rituals and traditions. They can good for those who practice the tradition and good for the larger community.

For example: Those of us who are sitting in a sanctuary with a bottle of hand sanitizer on each pew have no qualms with the tradition or ritual of hand-washing, especially when COVID is still in the air.

Those who have ever enjoyed a spicy shrimp or crawfish boil can appreciate the signs were posted in 2020 in public restrooms in New Orleans which read: “Wash your hands like you ate crawfish and you need to take your contacts out.”

The purity laws of Leviticus encoded simple common-sense traditions for the common good, some that we still follow today, like good hygiene and sanitation. Ultimately, though, the purity traditions ritualized an exhortation from God: “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). When the Psalmist asks in our Call to Worship: “Lord, who may dwell in your tent?” the traditional understanding was that only people who were ritually clean and holy may approach a holy God (Psalm 15:1).

Scholars debate how much ordinary first-century Jews followed the ritual purity traditions in Leviticus, but the Pharisees about whom we read so much in the gospels certainly did. Throughout the gospels Jesus is continually criticized by the Pharisees for his flagrant disregard of such traditions. We read where Jesus is ridiculed for touching a leper in Mark 1, for not fasting with his disciples and ignoring sabbath laws in Mark 2, for touching a woman with a menstrual issue and for handling a corpse in Mark 5, and for healing two Gentiles in Mark 7. And here in our gospel lesson this morning we read that he is criticized because his disciples ate with “unclean hands.”

The Pharisees accused Jesus and his followers for being ritually unclean, unorthodox heretics who flaunted the time-honored traditions of faith. And, in a sense, they were right.

Because Jesus understood that although traditions are not inherently bad, because humans are flawed creatures, we have traditionally made them bad with our terrible tendency to justify ourselves while scapegoating others. And since purity traditions symbolized Israel’s unique identity differentiating its people from other nations, these traditions were easily used to exclude, otherize, and even demonize others.

Folks who are ritually clean are considered to be close to God, whereas those who are not are abominations to God. Instead of demonstrating the holiness of God, ritual purity traditions become a means of excluding people that we really don’t want to deal with.

Thus, Jesus disregarded and actively demolished these ritual purity distinctions as a measure of spiritual and social status.

The late American theologian Marcus Borg pointed out that Jesus turned the traditional purity system with its “sharp social boundaries” on its head. And in its place, he substituted a radically alternate social vision, a new community characterized “by love and compassion for everyone, not by compliance to a purity code [or tradition]”; “by egalitarian inclusivity rather than hierarchical exclusivity.” In place of the traditional call to “Be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 19:2), Jesus deliberately substituted the radical new call to “Be merciful, just as God is merciful” (Luke 6:36).

In his book What Jesus Meant, Garry Willis writes that “no outcasts were cast out far enough in Jesus’ world to make him shun them — not Roman collaborators, not lepers, not prostitutes, not the crazed, and not the possessed.”

Thus, some good and humbling questions for disciples who seek to follow the way of Jesus are: “Who do we sanctimoniously denigrate as impure, unclean, or ‘far from God’— People of other faiths? People with no faith? Christians who worship differently? What about Christian Nationalists or MAGA extremists?”

In what ways have we distorted the self-giving, egalitarian love of God into self-serving, exclusionary elitism? In what ways do we justify ourselves with faithful observance of traditions honoring Jesus and miss our call to faithfully follow Jesus?

And how can we together build what Borg calls a “community shaped not by the ethos and politics of purity, but by the ethos and politics of compassion?”[i]

In response to the Pharisees’ criticism about his disciples disregarding the tradition of handwashing, Jesus immediately points out their hypocrisy: “You want to talk about tradition, then let’s talk about tradition! Because you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God to honor your parents in order to keep your tradition!”

“What about the obligation to take care of them in their old age when they are most vulnerable? You’ve created this terrible tradition you call ‘Corban’ where you can exempt part of your 401-K as an offering to God, so you can avoid supporting poor ol’ Mama and Daddy when they need you the most!”

Jesus quotes Isaiah accusing them of “honoring God with their lips with hearts that are far from God, abandoning the commandment of God to hold on to tradition.”

I believe Jesus is essentially saying to the Pharisees and to the Christians behaving terribly today who seemed to have forgotten that the faith is more than saying some words but a way of living, serving, governing and voting:

Your hands may be traditionally pure from all kinds of filth, but your hearts are terribly impure with all kinds of greed. Your hands may be traditionally healthy, but your souls are terribly sick.

Your hands are clean, because you never get them dirty lending a hand to help someone in need.

Your hands are sanitized, because you never use them to care for someone who has been wounded.

Your hands may be thoroughly washed. You even sang, “Happy Birthday” to ensure that you scrubbed for a full 20 seconds. But you never use your hands to reach out to the poor, protect the vulnerable, feed the hungry, lift up the lowly, or shake a hand in solidarity with another who is being oppressed.

Your hands may be germ-free, but they’re not guilt-free, as you have made them into a fist, closing them to the needs of strangers and threatening anyone who is different.

Your hands may be beautifully manicured, but they are as unsightly as they can be, as you won’t risk breaking a nail doing anything for anyone other than yourself.

You lift your hands to praise God in the sanctuary, but you won’t lift a finger to love your neighbor as yourself out in the world.

After serving as your Senior minister for 13 months now, experiencing all of the traditional liturgical seasons, I have learned what traditions are important to you. Like every Disciple congregation I have served, our most important tradition is what is getting ready to take place around this open table. And like many beautiful traditions, Christians have had a terrible tendency to misuse Communion to exclude or alienate others.

Growing up, I remember the minister excusing everyone who was not a member of the church before serving Communion. I have heard ministers stress that one’s heart must be pure, before one can partake. And I have even heard ministers in our own denomination say that this meal is only reserved for baptized Christians.

That is why I choose my words very carefully when I walk behind this table…

Invitation to the Communion 

…proclaiming the good news that the invitation to this table is wide open to all, and all always means all, Believing the only people who should be excluded from the invitation to this table are those that Jesus excluded and that is no one.

Here, in this place, this meal is our most important tradition. We believe it is good for us and for the world– as long as it will always remind us of the beloved community of egalitarian inclusivity and self-giving love that we are called build  outside of these walls, as long as it reminds us, not to “be holy as God is holy,” but “to be merciful as God is merciful.”

[i] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3637-20090824JJ

Dress Code

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year BLeave a comment

Ephesians 6:10-20 NRSV

A few years ago, I had a conversation with my sister who was teaching in a public school in Winston-Salem. She shared with me how her school went through a radical transformation under the leadership of a new principal. She said that discipline problems decreased, attendance increased, and grades improved. he entire school was transformed.

“What happened? What did this new principal do?” I asked.

“I would have to say that it is the uniforms,” she answered.

“The uniforms?” I asked.

“Yes, it was amazing.  The students started acting like students. They actually started listening, behaving, learning. The kids love their uniforms!”

“Is that all there is to it?”  I thought to myself, “Dress like a student, and bam, you’ll be a good student!?”

On the surface, our scripture lesson’s admonition to get all dressed up for Jesus sounds rather superficial. Is that all it involves?

Do you want to be a police officer? Then go out, get a police uniform, put it on, and, bam, you will be one!

Want to be a doctor? Then go out and get a long white jacket and a stethoscope, put it on, and, bam, you’ll be one!

Want to be a Christian? Then get up on Sunday morning, and put on the right clothes, attend a Sunday School class, participate in worship—read the responsive reading, bow your head and close your eyes during the prayers, open your hymnals and sing with the organ, listen to the sermon, eat the bread, drink from the cup, pass the peace, and bam, one day you’re a Christian!

That can’t be right. Can it?

Surely being a Christian is more than simply putting on “the whole armor of God?”  But this is not the only place that Paul talks about getting dressed up for God. In Romans 13 we read Paul saying that we ought to “put on Christ.” In Galatians 3 we read Paul saying we should be “clothed with Christ.” Is that all there is to it?

John Wesley once said to his preachers, “Preach faith until you have it.” Wesley was inferring that maybe in order to have faith, we must first act like we have it.

Maybe we too make the mistake in thinking that the Christian faith is only something that is deep within, on the inside. But maybe faith is also something that is without, on the outside.

As a pastor, the excuse I hear the most from people who do not attend church is that church folks are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites. Many of them say that the reason they do not identify with organized religion, is because the Christians they know do not seem to be following the Jesus they know.

Then that is when I used to explain that the Christian faith is much more than external actions. It is also a matter of the heart, the mind, something that happens in the depths of the soul. Christians are not perfect. They are just forgiven, as the bumper sticker defends us.

But over the course of my ministry, I have learned that these critics have a good point. Maybe the Christian faith is more external than it is internal: a set of practices, a way of life, and even some predictable motions that we go through on Sunday mornings, regardless of our inner disposition. Maybe what we feel, and understand, and even believe on the inside is not as important as what we do on the outside. Perhaps we have to sometimes act our way into believing, before we can believe. Perhaps we have to do faith, before we can have faith.

Now, please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that we have to earn salvation or God’s love. I believe in grace. I believe salvation is a gift that comes from God and not from our good works. Thus, when I speak about doing faith to have faith, I am talking about our faith in God, our love for God, our service to God, not God’s faith in us or God’s love for us.

I think it needs to be pointed out that Jesus never says anywhere, anything remotely close to: “Close your eyes and think real deeply about me until you come to that self-awareness whereby you believe in me.”

As I mentioned last Sunday, at the end of his sermon on the mount, Jesus did not say, “hear these words, meditate on these words, study and believe in these words.” No, Jesus said, “Do these words.”

When the rich young ruler asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus tells a story about picking up a stranger who was beaten, robbed and left bleeding on the side of the road. He told a story about bandaging wounds and paying for healthcare. And then, what did Jesus say?  “Believe in this story.” Have faith in this story.” No Jesus said: Go and do this story.

Disciples, do you want to have faith?

Then Jesus says, “Follow me.” Put one foot in front of the other. They don’t have to be big steps. And they don’t have to be perfect steps. Stumble after me. They don’t even have to be steps. Crawl if you must. Do whatever you can to imitate me. Try to move and live as I move and live. Act like you are a disciple. Make believe that others, even strangers, are your siblings. Act like you love them more than yourself. Even if you don’t feel like it, always do unto others as you would have it done unto you. No matter how painful it may be, or how little sense it makes, give some of yourself away every day. Forgive as you have been forgiven. And eventually, by the grace of God, it will come to you.

The Apostle Paul never says, “Believe deep within your heart that Jesus is Lord and you will be saved.” Instead, he says, “Profess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.” “Go tell someone. Tell everyone. Show everyone. Act like you are a follower of Christ, and you will be saved.”

Therefore, when someone comes forward to profess Christ as Lord and to be baptized, perhaps I should have never asked questions like, “Do you believe deep within your heart and do you understand with your mind that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God, your Lord, your savior?

Maybe I should have always said: “You want to be a Christian?  Then go out and tell somebody that you are a Christian. Demonstrate to someone that the way of love that Jesus taught his disciples is the way you have to love. Invite at least one person to church next week. Give generously and sacrificially of your income through the church. Volunteer to serve on a ministry team. Join the choir. Make it a priority to attend a Sunday School class. Visit someone who is sick. Feed someone who is hungry.  Do something for someone who is poor. Defend someone who is marginalized. Stand up for someone being bullied. When you hear someone denigrating immigrants, do something, say something. Put on Christ. Wear the shoes of Jesus every day of the week, not until you get Christ, but until Christ gets in you.”

When someone in trouble comes to me and says, “I just don’t know how God is going to get me through this. Deep down, I know I really don’t have the faith I need to make it.”

Maybe I need to say: “Just act like you have it. Try to believe it. Even if your believing is weak, even if it is shallow, even if it is just pretend, pretend that you are going to make it. Crawl out of bed, get dressed, walk tall, keep your head up, act like you’re going to survive, and somehow, someway, you will. Because, before you know it, the Holy Spirit of God will be in you and living through you.

Coming out of seminary, nearly every pastor I know experiences what is called “imposter syndrome.” I know I had a terrible case of it. I just didn’t think I had what it took to be a preacher. I wasn’t smart enough. I wasn’t faithful enough, and I certainly wasn’t religious or even spiritual enough. I remember serving my first church feeling like I was mostly play-acting, playing the part of a preacher. I spent the first year just going through the motions leading worship, visiting the sick and the homebound, preaching funerals and officiating weddings. I must have been a pretty good actor, because at the end of the year, the church voted to raise my salary. That’s when it started occurring to me: “maybe I really am a preacher.” Perhaps it’s the same way with being a Christian.

Somebody criticizes the church by saying, “Oh, those folks are just playing church.” Have you ever heard that? But maybe to truly be the church, we must first play church. To be the body of Christ in this world, we must first act like his body. We must go to the places that Jesus went. See the people Jesus saw. Do the things that Jesus did. Forgive as Jesus forgave. Love as Jesus loved. Give ourselves away as Jesus gave himself away.

Thus, Paul tells the Christians in Ephesus: Don’t go out in this world poorly dressed. If you want to play football, put on a helmet and start practicing. If you are going to play softball, get a good glove and start practicing. And if you are going to be a disciple, put on Christ and start practicing. Put on faith. Put on grace. Put on mercy, and put on justice. Dress up in love. Wear compassion. Don yourself with forgiveness. Clothe yourselves with good purposes. Adorn yourself with selflessness. Wrap the promises of God around you and practice.

Worship, even if you are not in to it. Read the Bible, even if you don’t understand it. Sing the hymns, even when you don’t feel like it. Pray, even when you don’t believe in it. Give, even when you’d rather hold on to it. Listen to a sermon, even when you’d rather ignore it. Take communion, even if you don’t want it. Serve, even when you are tired of it. Make a commitment, even if you are afraid of it. Believe, even if you doubt it.

Then, having dressed for the faith, go out and share it, live it, do it, and be it. Put on the whole armor of God, and before you know it, by the grace of God, you will become that which you profess.[i]

[i] Thank you William Willimon for this sermon title, thoughts and interpretation of Ephesians 6:10-20.  Pulpit Resource, Logos Productions, 2006.

A Living Poem

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year BLeave a comment
“Love was Linda’s native language.” – Bryan Cox

John 6:51-58 NRSV

When I think about the state of Christianity in America today, what saddens me the most is the failure of Christians to follow Jesus, to actually do the things that he commanded us to do, to live the way of life and love that he modeled—

Loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. Giving generously to the poor. Showing hospitality to the stranger. Welcoming the foreigner. Accepting the outsider. Providing healthcare for all. Feeding the hungry. Liberating the oppressed. Forgiving debts. Worrying less about the speck in another’s eye and worrying more about log in our own eye.

Do you remember his harsh words of warning at the end of Jesus’ first sermon?

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall….  And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall! (Matthew 7:24-27)

Jesus is a teacher who teaches not only though ideas, stories, and metaphors, but also through a living, active example. He teaches us to not merely think about God, believe in God, and worship God, but to actively serve God by serving others—selflessly and sacrificially. Jesus teaches us to live God.

This morning’s scripture lesson is the closest account in John’s gospel of the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Through rich, metaphorical, and poetic language, I believe John drives this point home. A life of faith is an active life of selfless, sacrificial service. And this is true life—life that is full, meaningful and eternal.

There is perhaps no story in the Bible which underscores this high calling better than the beautiful story of the Good Samaritan.

Jesus encounters a lawyer who asks a very important question, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus responds:

A man traveling down a road encounters a band of thieves who rob and beat him and leave him half-dead on the side of the road.  After two religious leaders passed the man by on the other side, a Samaritan came by and was moved with pity.

He went over to the man.  He took very expensive oil and wine, poured it on the man’s wounds, and wrapped them up in bandages. Then he picked the man up. He placed the man on his own animal. He brought the man to an inn took good care of him throughout the entire night. The next day, he reached into his pocket and took out some money which equaled two days’ wages. He gave the money to the innkeeper and said, “Take care of him, and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.”

Then Jesus tells the lawyer: “If you want to inherit eternal life, if you want to experience life that is full, lasting and meaningful, “Go and do likewise.”

I love that the Greek word translated “do” here is poiei.  Jesus says to “go and poiei.”  I love it, because this word poiei is related to our English word, “poetry.”

Poetry is something that that has been fashioned, beautifully made, by human creativity. A poem is created with words. It is something “done” with words that has a deep, meaningful, and lasting meaning.

To experience life that is full, meaningful, and eternal, Jesus said, we “must go and poiei” like this Samaritan. Our lives must become poetry. We must fashion our lives in such a way that the way we live, love and work, all that we do is like poetry, a beautiful hymn of praise to God— a poem that lifts up the fallen, pours expensive oil on their wounds, bandages their hurts, gets them more help if needed, and forgives their debts. If we want to experience life that endures forever, then we must live a beautiful poem of selflessness and sacrifice.

One of the most beautiful poems of Jesus’ selfless love occurs later in John’s gospel as Jesus washes the feet of the disciples.

In what is perhaps best be described as poetry in motion, (go back and read it, paying attention each action) getting up from the table, taking off his outer robe, tying a towel a towel around himself, pouring water into a basin, washing the disciples’ feet, wiping them with the towel that was tied around him. And afterwards Jesus says:

“I have set you an example, that you should also “do” (I hear poiei) as I have poieied to you…If you know these things, you are blessed if you poiei them.

I believe Jesus calls us to become poetry in motion by figuratively and literally getting up, taking off our jackets, rolling up our sleeves, pouring ourselves out, bending ourselves to the ground to touch the places in people that most need cleansing.

Of course, we remember Jesus says something very similar after the last supper when he said: Do this in remembrance of me.” As he breaks the bread and pours the wine, Jesus says remember me by doing, again, I hear, poiei-ing. Remember me by being poetry. Remember me by being a beautiful hymn of praise to God.

An interesting aspect of communion is that the partaking of this meal is one of the most active things we do in worship.

In the worship services of some churches, you could sleep during the entire service if you wanted to. But you can’t do that here, not here in our services where we participate in the very active Lord’s Supper every Sunday. You might be able to take a nap during the sermon, but everybody’s gotta wake up to do communion!

To worship around this table every Sunday, we need to be active. And it is through our active participation around this table, I believe Jesus reminds us that that we have been called to a very active service.

Jesus is calling us to remember him, not by merely thinking about his body given for us, but to remember him by doing, poei-ing, giving our own bodies—by living selflessly for others. Jesus is calling us to remember him not by merely thinking about his life poured out, but to remember him by selflessly pouring ourselves out—by living sacrificially for others.

Contrast that with the way of life and leadership that many Christians support today—a self-interested, self-serving way which has brought to life the “distressing” portrait of the world described in Paul’s second letter to Timothy: a world where someone is idolized for being a…

…lover of himself, a lover of money, a boaster, arrogant, abusive…ungrateful, unholy, unfeeling, implacable, slanderer… a brute, a hater of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, a lover of pleasure rather than a lover of God, holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

Oh, how we are going to miss Linda Cox’s faithful leadership behind this table where she offered Communion prayers from her heart like none other. But it is not her service at the table that is going to be as missed as much as her selfless, sacrificial service out in this community. Her husband Bryan, a professional linguist, said, “love was Linda’s native language.” Isn’t that beautiful?  The Holy Communion she served from this table was but a rich, poetic metaphor for her life, as Linda’s life itself was poetry in motion, a beautiful hymn to God.

Through her career as a school teacher to underprivileged children in Washington DC, through her service as a public school teacher here in Lynchburg, through her volunteerism at Virginia Baptist Hospital, through the pastoral care Linda provided to this congregation, and to anyone in need, and through the way she made all of us feel loved and welcomed, whether this was our first time in this sanctuary or our thousandth time here, Linda was a reminder that through the meal shared at this table, Jesus says to us: Don’t just remember me, my love and my grace, everything that I have taught you in your thoughts and prayers. But poiei this.

Remember me by poiei-ing everything that I have taught you to poiei.

Remember me by being poetry in motion.

Remember me by loving and extending grace to others.

Remember me by serving God by serving others selflessly and sacrificially.

Remember me not just with the singing of hymns, but by becoming a beautiful hymn to God.

Remember me by loving others in ways that have a deep and lasting meaning.

Remember me with beautiful actions of mercy and kindness.

Remember me by offering the outcast community.

Remember me by never judging another.

Remember me by giving to the poor, healing the sick and feeding the hungry.

Remember me by creating a sanctuary where all are welcomed and no one is judged, a table where even those who betray me, deny me and abandon me are always welcomed to return to be enveloped by grace.

And then experience the fullness of life—life that is full, abundant, meaningful, lasting, and eternal.  Amen.

Hanging Between Heaven and Earth is

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year BLeave a comment

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33 NRSV

John 6:35, 41-51 NRSV

How many times have you been the object of misdirected grief and frustration? Maybe it came from a loved one, a close friend or perhaps a spouse. Out of nowhere they snap at you with this unprovoked ferocity to which you quizzically respond: “Why are you yelling at me?” “What on earth did I do?”  To which they respond: “I am not mad at you. You just happen to be the only one in the room.”

Perhaps we have all been the victim of such misdirected grief. And perhaps all of us have expressed such misdirected grief and frustration. We’ve given it to our spouses. We’ve given it to our children. We’ve given it to our friends. We may have even given it to total strangers.

And then there are those times when we are so filled with pain and grief that our screams of pain are completely undirected. There are some experiences in this broken world which are so painful and so dreadful they cause us to scream out whenever, wherever, to whomever or whatever. Sometimes our screams are loud reverberations. And sometimes our screams are silent aches. They are the unavoidable, gut-wrenching responses to the frequent tragedies of life.

Sometimes it happens after a bitter argument with a loved one. It may occur after receiving a grim diagnosis. It could happen after a serious injury or during a prolonged illness. It might happen after visiting a loved one in the nursing home, or in the doctor’s office, or an ICU waiting room.

It could happen while listening to the outrageous lies from a presidential candidate during a press conference. Or listening to bigotry, racism and misogyny that sounds more like is coming from 1924 than 2024. Or when a white supremacist compares himself to Martin Luther King Jr.

And sometimes it just happens out of nowhere. We scream out in grief, sometimes aloud, sometimes silently—a scream of shock and disbelief, a scream of anger and frustration, a scream of anxiety and fear, a scream of bitterness and hopelessness. We scream out whenever, wherever, to whomever and whatever.

So, perhaps we can empathetically relate to the undirected and undeveloped cries of King David. When David learned that his son Absalom had been found slain, his body in a tree (and I love the way this is worded on our text) “hanging between heaven and earth,” David painfully and relentlessly laments aloud to no one in particular. Later we read in verse 33: “The king was deeply moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept; and as he went, he said, ‘O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!’”

The cries of David are like our cries when we have been overwhelmed with profound grief. They are fearful cries oftentimes addressed to the wind. They are angry cries. And they are hopeless cries.  They are cries of utter despair. Walter Brueggemann calls the words of David “unformed, pathos-filled grief…addressed to no one in particular, surely not to the God of hope.”[1]

Like his son Absalom, David himself was hanging somewhere between heaven and earth.

David was not addressing God, as, at the time, he was probably questioning the very existence of God. He cried out like I suspect most parents would, whenever, wherever and to whomever.  His cries were undirected and undeveloped.

And yet, I do not believe his cries were unheard. One of the greatest lies I hear from some evangelicals that is that God only hears the prayers of Christians.

Let me call your attention to a wonderful passage of scripture found in the second chapter of Exodus. We read that the Israelites in Egypt groaned under their slavery. The scripture tells us that they groaned and cried out.  Much like King David, their cries of grief and frustration and despair were undirected and unformed. Yet, we read that “out of their slavery, their cry for help rose up to God. God heard their groaning. God looked upon them and God took notice of them” (Exodus 2:24).

The cries of the Israelites, the cries of David and the cries of you and the cries of me may be undirected but they are never unheard. Our cries may be undeveloped groanings, but they are always understood.

The good news is that although David’s “primal scream” addressed into the wind is initially one of desperate despair, it can be interpreted as the first step to hope. God hears our undirected and undeveloped cries.  God hears our loud reverberating cries and our silent aching cries. God sees us when we are hanging somewhere between heaven and earth. Although we may not address heaven, although we may doubt the very existence of heaven, heaven sees us and heaven hears us and heaven takes notice of us.

The wonderful truth is that God hears our pain. As Paul Duke has said, we can “pray our pain.”[2]  Isn’t that wonderful?  We can pray our pain.  In fact, I believe our pain might be our best prayers in that they are probably our most honest prayers. Our most disjointed and incoherent groans into the wind may be our most articulate and eloquent prayers to the God of hope. The good news is that some of our best communication to God, some of our best talks with our creator may be what Fred Craddock calls “praying through clenched teeth.”[3]

Dr. Ernie White, one of my seminary professors who was stricken with cancer while I was a student, shaped my theology when one day he told the class, that although he could not explain it, somehow, someway, the sicker he got, the more pain he experienced, the more hopeful he became. He said that it was in his weakest moments when he felt the closest to God.

The Psalmist proclaims: “When we cry out from the depths, the Lord hears our voices. Let us wait for the Lord, and hope in God’s word” (Psalm 130).

Hanging between heaven and earth, crying out from the depths whenever, wherever, and to whomever, God hears us. And if we will wait for the Lord, I believe we will hear wonderful words of life and hope. As the psalmist proclaims, we will know a steadfast love which has great power to redeem.

Hanging between heaven and earth, Jesus to say to us:

I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry…  I am the bread that came down from heaven.”  “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

God, the holy Creator of all that is, is even now lovingly emptying God’s self and pouring God’s self out for us. Revealing to us that God is here with us, not away from us; God is here for us and not against us.  God is here meeting us in the depths of our pain, offering us the very best gift God has to offer, the gift of God’s holy self.

God is working in this fragmented world recreating and resurrecting, working all things together for the good, doing all that God can do to “wring whatever good can be wrung out” of the tragedies of life.[4]  Although we can never go back before the injury, before the illness, before the diagnosis, before the argument, before our job was lost, before our relationship ended, although we cannot go back to the good old days, we can go forward with God into good new days.

Although our screams may be undirected, they are never unheard. Although our cries may be undeveloped, they are divinely and empathetically understood.  We can pray our pain.  And if we wait and hold on somewhere between heaven and earth, God, the bread of life, comes down to meet us in our pain and to envelope us with God’s steadfast love which has the power to redeem our deepest despair into our highest hope.

We will then be compelled to share this hope. For we each know someone who is even now hanging somewhere between heaven and earth—hanging and crying out aimlessly and hopelessly.

They may be a member of this congregation: awaiting test results that are a matter of life and death; dropping of their child off at a university far away from home, sitting alone grieving the loss of their loved one. They may be a family member, a neighbor or a co-worker, facing the most difficult days of their lives.

The cries come from parents of school children in Gaza crying out in the grief after losing their children to indiscriminate bombs. They come from parents in Israel who still have no word from their kidnapped loved ones. They come from our southern border, from asylum seekers, many who are LGBTQ, seeking a life free of violence and oppression. They come from hospitals in states where women are denied healthcare. They come from people right in here in Lynchburg who are denied a living wage by their employers. They come from parents of children going back to a school where their child bullied by students and the administration. They come from cities and communities who have experienced devastating flooding, gun violence, and polluted drinking water.

We need to demonstrate with our steadfast love, with our words and our deeds, with our voices and our votes that God hears them, and God loves them. Although at the time it may be difficult for them to believe that God even exists, God hears them and God understands. We are being called to wrap our arms around them and feed them bread—bread not to merely get them by until their next meal, but bread from heaven which has about it what New Testament Scholar Charles Cousar calls “the tang of eternity.”[5]  With all that we are and all that we have, we are called to empty ourselves, pour ourselves out to feed them the bread of hope which satisfies now and forevermore.

[1]Walter Brueggeman, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly Gaventa, James D. Newsome. Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year B. (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993) 460.

[2]Paul Duke, “First Prayer from the Ashes” Review and Expositor 4 (1992): 618.

[3]“Praying Through Clenched Teeth” is the title of a sermon by Fred B. Craddock included in The Twentieth Century Pulpit, Vol. 2, ed. James W. Cox (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1981) 47-52.

[4]This quotation is from sermons by John Claypool that I have been privileged to hear at various conferences.

[5]Brueggeman, Cousar, Gaventa, and Newsome. Texts for Preaching, 463.

The Bread of Eternal Life

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year BLeave a comment

John 6:24-35 NRSV

Today marks my one-year anniversary as the Senior Minister of this church, and I thank God for the honor and the privilege of serving alongside you.

There are many reasons for which I am grateful, but as someone who led a feeding ministry for three and half years in New Orleans before moving to Virginia, this morning I want to talk about the Christ-like way we have made addressing food insecurity. It was one year ago yesterday that I met some of you at the Park View Community Mission to feed our hungry neighbors with a beautiful spirit of grace and generosity.

I love that you understand that feeding people who are hungry is continuing the mission of Jesus in this world. And feeding hungry people, generously and graciously, with no conditions or strings attached, is following the particular way of Jesus.

It would take all afternoon to tell you stories from my ministry about how Christians have failed to grasp this great gospel truth—stories of people and organizations who have demonstrated a misinterpretation our gospel lesson this morning.

As I have shared with you before, as we fed people in the greater New Orleans area each week, we were continually criticized by other Christians. They would say something like: “Pastor, I love the way you feed people, but people need more than the bread that perishes. They need the bread that will give them eternal life. They need the living bread. They need Jesus.”

This is the theology behind many Christian service organizations today that I believe is doing great harm to others, that is causing religious trauma, all in the name of Christ.

“You need food? You need shelter? Well, we’ll give you a hot meal and a warm bed. But first, you need to attend a Bible study or listen to a sermon, or allow me to me pray with you.”

I know of one ministry to the homeless in another state that provides a program to help people back on their feet. They will work with you, feed you, clothe you, help you find a job, as long as you turn in a Sunday worship bulletin from a list of approved churches in town.

Because they say that feeding people only something to tie them over until their next meal is not enough. They say they must offer them something which has eternal consequences. They must offer them Jesus. They must do more than feed their stomachs. They must feed their souls.

However, when we look at the context of our gospel lesson, we see that Jesus had just fed the multitude with absolutely no strings attached.  And we have enough biblical acumen to know that Jesus never once said, “Feed the hungry, if…” or “Feed the hungry, but…” His command and his example was always: “Feed the hungry, period!”

And in addition to being antithetical to the way of love that Jesus taught and embodied and to being a gross misinterpretation of scripture, we have enough common sense, decency, and humanity to know that using food or any of the basic necessities of life to manipulate people to accept the Christian faith, or any faith, is just pain gross.

And we know that whenever Jesus encountered hunger, whether the hunger be for food, water, peace, safety, health care, wholeness, grace or love, Jesus was always moved by the hunger. His own stomach ached from the hunger. Bs heart burned, and he always did all he could do to alleviate the hunger. He always preached against the systems of injustice which created the hunger in the first place.

This is why I am so grateful for this church. Because as wonderful as it is showing up at Park View once a month or volunteering with Meals on Wheels, or purchasing food to stock a little food pantry, for this congregation, you also believe it is not enough. And by believing it is “not enough,” you are not talking about saving their souls so they can die and go to heaven. You are talking about doing something that prevents people from being hungry in the first place.

You have heard the words of Jesus: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life.”

And you come together each week as church, and ask God and one another: “What works of God must we that have eternal consequences, that have implications on this earth long after we are gone?”

And we hear Jesus’ response: “This is the work of God: that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

Jesus says we should believe in the One who taught and embodied a way of loving and living, a way of giving and advocating, a way of serving and organizing, that can nourish and sustain the world for decades after our lives on this earth end.

Jesus reminds his disciples that the way we live and sustain life means more than we know. Baking, serving. and sharing bread, when it is done in the inclusive, gracious, peace-making, justice-seeking way of Jesus, doesn’t just sustain us until our next meal, but has eternal significance. It is about life after our deaths, which means that it has ramifications for this world after we are no longer in it.

I cannot wait for Connor and Maria’s new baby girl Phyllis to join us here on Sunday mornings. And I long for the day—when Josh Brandi’s baby girl who is due to come into this world in December, and my granddaughter, who is due to arrive at the same time, will join Phyllis and all of the other girls who are a part of our congregation, girls like Addie Baugher, Frankie Brickhouse-Bryson, Leighton Lindmark, and Feyre Barricklow-Young. I long for the day that these girls will all join us here to remind all of us of the bread for which we must work for their sakes.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for the freedom and the opportunity for these girls to thrive in this world long after most of us are dead and gone.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world where these girls are free to be their authentic selves, precious beings who are created in the image of God, not confined the selves that others may want them to be.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world where these girls have access to the best education possible, have the best teachers, and are always taught the truth about our history, no matter how difficult that truth is, and never have to fear that their classroom might be a target of gun violence.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world where these girls are free to fall in love and marry the person they choose, or they are free to make the decision to never marry or have children, and know that they will still be equally valued with certain indelible rights.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world where these girls will always have a voice and vote, a world where they are free to make her own healthcare decisions without interference from any government, a world where they will enjoy the same freedom their grandmothers once enjoyed.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for world where these girls can choose a career which brings them joy and doesn’t pay or treat them differently because of their gender.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world where these girls never have to put up with any misogyny or discrimination in the workplace or the marketplace and certainly at church.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world where these girls are free to choose their own faith, and live out their faith, whether it is the Christian faith of their parents or it is another faith or spirituality which gives their lives meaning and purpose helping them to love their neighbors as they love themselves.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world for these girls where science is believed and the earth is respected, where people do all they can do, even if it means some sacrifice, to reverse climate change to prevent ecological devastation.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world where these girls will never doubt that they have the opportunities to live up to their fullest potential, which includes one day being president of these United States.

For this is bread of God that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

And, this morning, we have gathered here in this place, to say together: “Give us this bread always.”

Amen.

Hope Is in Our Gut

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year BLeave a comment

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

The disciples were sharing with Jesus all they have been doing while they were out on the road publicly being the church, proclaiming the way of love that Jesus taught and embodied. They were telling Jesus all they have been doing to make the world more peaceful, equitable, and just for all people, especially for the poor and those marginalized by sick religion and greedy politics, and for foreigners, including Samaritans. They were telling Jesus all they have been doing to make sure the hungry were fed, strangers were welcomed, and the sick received healthcare.

And, while they were sharing with Jesus, they must have looked like some of us are looking these days: exhausted, frustrated, and even afraid.

Because like in Jesus’ day, the times we live in are serious. The threats are critical. The dangers are real. The call for mass deportations of immigrants grows louder. Fascism grows more popular, while democracy loses favor. Sixty years of civil rights progress is being threatened. The rights women have enjoyed for fifty years have been taken away. The very identity of our nation is at risk. People today who claim to follow Jesus seem to be opposed to everything for which Jesus stood.  And we the people, we who are trying to follow Jesus, are tired and afraid.

Jesus looks at the weary disciples and says: “Come away to a deserted place and rest a while.” Then, they boarded a boat and went on a cruise.

Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? That we could all just go to some place to get away from it all. How nice would it take a cruise for the next six months!

I remember that’s exactly what I did after one presidential election. For three months, I disengaged and withdrew from everything happening in Washington. From November to February, I avoided all news. If Lori was watching MSNBC in the living room, I would ask her to turn the channel before I walked into the room.

Unlike the disciples, I didn’t own a boat, but I did have something they didn’t. I had cable TV and something magical called ESPN!  So, I put my head in the sand by focusing all of my attention on basketball and football. I did whatever I could do to pretend that nothing bad had happened world, that none of my friends felt threatened or lost. For three months, my best friend was denial.

But notice what happened to Jesus and the disciples when they tried to get away from it all. As soon as the people saw them board the boat, they spread the word and hurried to Jesus’ port of arrival ahead of them.

Jesus sees the great crowd, and (here’s the good news) he has “compassion for them.”

To truly understand this good news, we need to know something about this rich Greek word in this verse translated “compassion” It is σπλαγχνίζομαι (splanch-nizo-mai).

It is a visceral word which literally means to feel something deep in the gut. When Jesus sees the crowd that had gathered and that the people seemed lost and felt threatened, like sheep without a shepherd, his concern for them is gut-wrenching. The fear and needs of the people turns his stomach.

So, he and the disciples immediately go back to work, proclaiming good news to the poor, recovery of the sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed, while opening up a free clinic for everyone onsite!

As I said last month, we all need a Sabbath. We all need a little time away. But for the follower of Jesus, our time away will always be short-lived, because when we are following Jesus, when we are out on the road with Jesus in the public square, when heads are out of the sand, when our eyes are wide-open in the world, we will always see a great crowd in need: people who are hungry for food and for dignity, hungry for their lives to matter; people who are thirsting for water and for equality, thirsting to be seen as the image of God.

And when we really get to know them, when walk in their shoes, when we understand where they are coming from, their pain will be like punch in our own gut. Our stomachs will turn. And experiencing gut-wrenching pain, we will be stirred to love-inspired action.

I have heard and I have said that our nation has “an empathy crisis.” But I am beginning to believe that might not be the case. Because, I believe most all human beings were born with the capacity for empathy. Of course, there are few exceptions— those with dark, narcissistic tendencies, those whose hearts have been hardened by fear, greed and selfishness. But I do not believe they are not the majority.

And this, I believe, is the good news. This is our hope. The hope is in our guts. The hope is that most people have really do have the capacity for empathy which leads them to love.

For example, when most people read Lori and my story of losing our first child, when half-way into the pregnancy we discovered the baby did not have an abdominal cavity to protect their organs, leading us to make the difficult and painful decision to abort the pregnancy, most people demonstrate great empathy. Our personal story moves them. Reading our story, people have said they felt our pain. They shared our grief. Some told me that our story changed their position on abortion, or it confirmed their belief that the decision to terminate a pregnancy should be left up to the woman and not to a government that is unfamiliar with the situation.

However, there are a few people who continue to shock me with their cold-heartedness. Just last week on Facebook, someone I have not seen since high school, and to be honest, I don’t remember seeing her then, commenting on our story, called Lori “a murderer.” Can you believe that?

Which in my mind immediately raised the question about my high school classmate: “Is her heart really that cold? How can anyone’s heart, or gut, be so callous? To call Lori “a murderer?”

 But it occurred to me. The odds are that this woman is not a sociopath. Her problem is that she just doesn’t know Lori. And she certainly doesn’t know me very well. For everyone who truly knows us knows that if Lori was a murderer, I would have been dead a long time ago!

So, maybe our nation does not have so much of an empathy crisis as we have a proximity crisis. We have a too-many-people-living-in-a-bubble crisis. A too-many-people-tempted-to-keep-their-heads-in-the-sand crisis.

For too many have gone away to some deserted place with people who look like them and think like them in order to escape from anyone who is different or has lived a different experience.

Because if we truly knew one another, if we put ourselves in the proximity to understand one another, to know others as we know ourselves, personally, intimately, then our gut would prevent us from ever hurting another. We would feel it in our gut to truly love our neighbors as we love ourselves, which means to want for others the same protections, the same freedom, and the same justice that we want for ourselves.

Since I have been living in Lynchburg, I have been in awe of my colleague Rev. Dan Harrison’s great compassion for the Palestinian people. Dan seems to possess a passionate outspokenness for the Palestinians which is greater than mine. He seems to possess more of an urgency to loudly speak out for their humanity in Israel’s war with Hamas than I possess.

Could his heart be a bit softer than mine? Is he a more devout follower of Jesus than me? Perhaps. But I believe it is more likely because Dan has lived in that region of the world. It is because Dan has very close friends who are Palestinian. He knows their experience, because he has lived their experience. Dan has literally walked in their shoes. He knows them and understands them, personally and intimately. And when they are afraid, when they feel dehumanized, and otherized, Dan feels it in his gut. And he is stirred to action.

Dan would say that he is not more devout. He is just in more pain. And he is in that pain because of proximity.

I believe most of us have what we need in our guts to save us and to save democracy. We don’t need more capacity for empathy. What we need is to rediscover the power of proximity.

That is why, that no matter how dark things get, we must resist the temptation to withdraw completely from our world, to go off to some deserted place with people like us, to get away from all others, to completely disengage from the world and all of its problems, to turn off the news and immerse ourselves with ESPN, Hulu or Netflix, to stick our heads in the sand and ignore our neighbors who feel lost, keeping them out of sight, out of mind. For withdrawing only adds to our nation’s crisis of proximity.

Jesus didn’t feel like he was punched in the gut on that boat. Mark says he felt the gut-wrenching pain as soon as he “saw the crowds.”

After decades of supporting the Christian Right, ghostwriting autobiographies for Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, Rev. Dr. Mel White came out of the closet writing his own autobiography Stranger at the Gate in 1994 and then became a full-time minster to the LGBTQIA+ community. In his latest book, Religion Gone Bad, Mel White issues a warning of the dangers of Christian Nationalism and its critical threat it is to democracy.

I love the stories of Mel White attending worship services at Thomas Road Baptist Church. I am told whenever Rev. Falwell would disparage queer people in a sermon, Rev. White would stand up so the entire congregation, including Falwell, would see him. Avoiding seeing Rev. White, standing tall and proud confronting the hate, was not an option for anyone.

The world today is a scary place, but for the follower of Jesus, sitting down is not an option. Getting on a boat to go on a cruise for the next six months may sound tempting, but for the follower of Jesus, it’s not an option.

Retreating, withdrawing and disengaging— it’s not an option.

Denial is not an option.

Being quiet on social media is not an option.

Avoiding talking about religion and politics with our family and friends because making them uncomfortable will stir up some trouble is not an option.

The times are too serious. The threat is too critical. The dangers are too real. And if you are a follower of Jesus, now is the time to get into some trouble, some good trouble.

Avoidance, politeness, moderation, even tolerance— it’s not an option. Now is the time for all who believe that the best thing we can do as humans to love our neighbors as ourselves to rise up with Mel White and stand tall allowing others to see and experience our suffering in their guts, which will then hopefully stir them to love-inspired action.

         This is our hope. It’s in our gut. Amen.

Free to Follow Jesus

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year BLeave a comment

Mark 6:6-13 NRSV

What a surreal Fourth of July this has been following the Supreme Court’s decision that Presidents who break our laws are immune to prosecution, that a president with a flawed character can do whatever they want to do and get away with it, if it is deemed an official act.

As outrageous as it is, I am afraid that this is how many in our country have always defined the concept of freedom. It is a type of freedom that serves the privileged and the powerful, as it figuratively, and sometimes literally, places shackles on all others. It is a type of freedom that is for some of the people and never for all the of the people.

Freedom (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) is part of our identity as a nation, a sacred concept for which blood has been shed. Yet, as history proves, it is a concept that is far from perfect.

History reveals a national economy built on the genocide of native people, slavery, Jim Crow laws, a denial of voting rights for women, and LGBTQ oppression.

For some with privilege and power today, freedom means the right to deny workers a living wage and the right to refuse service to people they find objectionable. They use the iconic Revolutionary War motto “Don’t Tread on Me” to express their disdain for their taxes being used to feed impoverished children at school or to provide SNAP benefits to the parents of those children.

For some, religious liberty means the right to hurt their neighbors instead of the freedom to love them. It is all about self-interest with no regard for others, especially minorities. Although they claim to be Christian, their beliefs and actions are most accurately described as “anti-Christ.”

The good news is (and oh how we need some good news today) I know many people who have committed themselves to follow the way of love that Christ taught and embodied—a powerful, liberating way of love that lets freedom ring for all.

I am looking at a whole room of people who believe with the Apostle Paul that we are called to freedom, not to indulge in our selfish impulses, but to serve one another in love, people who believe they are free, not only to love themselves, but to love their neighbors as themselves.

I am looking at a room full of people who are concerned with freedom for others as much as they are concerned with freedom for themselves, who believe freedom brings both the opportunity and the responsibility to serve and to stand for others, not simply to amass personal rights and privileges at the expense of others.[i]

I see people who have chosen to use their freedom to follow Jesus as disciples, people who are fulfilling what it truly means to be the church in an oppressive world, unlike some in the church today who are doing the exact opposite, actually supporting systems of oppression.

When I think about the purpose of the church, how the church should serve in today’s world, I am constantly drawn to Mark 6 and this account of Jesus sending the disciples into the world for the very first time to be disciples. So much so, it was the source of inspiration for our new expression of church in New Orleans that Lori and I were a part of.

In verse 6 we read:

6aAnd he was amazed at their unbelief. 

I wonder if Jesus would be amazed at the unbelief of some in the church today. Having been a part of the church my entire life, I know I am often amazed when I consider how many in the church do not seem to believe that we are called to live, love and serve in the selfless, sacrificial way of Jesus. Instead, they have accepted an individualistic religion where they “accept Jesus,” “receive Jesus,” “study Jesus,” and “worship Jesus”; not actually “follow Jesus.”

I wonder if Jesus is amazed by the number of people who believe the Kingdom of God is just some place we go to after we die, instead of something we are supposed to work at, to give of ourselves to, to pour ourselves out for, to sacrifice to create right here on earth. I wonder if Jesus is amazed every time people pray: “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,” and then don’t do a thing to make it happen!

6bThen he went about among the villages teaching.

Jesus was among the people, all the people, because Jesus was for all the people. Jesus went village to village teaching everyone that the most important thing we can do in this world is to love our neighbors as ourselves, and here in this text, we read that he expects his disciples to do the very same thing.

7He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 

To me, one of the most disturbing political signs that I see in some yards today are the ones that say: “Jesus 2024 – Our Only Hope.” Not only do these signs support a dangerous Christian Nationalism making our Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu neighbors feel like second-class citizens, but they support an individualism that is opposed to the mission of Jesus as Jesus never intended to be on a mission to transform and save the world by himself. In what could be described as a call to democracy, Jesus called and gave authority and power to people to join him on that mission. He sent them out doing the very things that he did, some very big things like: challenging the unclean spirits: the spirits of war, selfishness, greed, poverty, all kinds of bigotry, and any type of oppression.

8He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. 

Freedom for many means the freedom to acquire and accumulate as much wealth as possible without any sense of responsibility to share any of that wealth. Jesus, however, calls people to live simply so they are able to give generously.

10He said to them, ‘Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.’ 

 Jesus warns that if we teach others the importance of using our freedom to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, we will not be received by everyone. There will always be those who will choose to live solely for themselves instead of for others. But we should never let that discourage or stop us. We should peacefully but persistently keep moving forward, keep working, and keep doing what we have been called to do.

12So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. 

Disciples go out and proclaim that all should repent of their selfish, self-centered, self-preserving ways and embrace a way of freedom that is far from individualistic, but a way of freedom that is profoundly connected with the well-being of everyone.

13They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

We are called to stand up and speak out against the evil forces in our world. We are called to restore and to heal. We are called to be a courageous, peace-making, justice-creating, evil-exorcising, hope-giving movement for wholeness in our fragmented world!

And today, perhaps more than ever, I am grateful that you with so many others are offering this world hope by answering this call, as we journey towards a more perfect union, realizing the truth that all people are created equal and freedom is for all.

In his Fourth of July email, prophetic preacher John Pavlovitz wrote the following:

It is highly probable that it will get much worse before it gets better. And yet, no matter how dire things become, we still have our hands and our voices and our gifts and resources and platforms and privilege and lives to leverage to make it less dire for someone.

I’m not writing to tell you how bad things are…I’m [writing] to remind you how good you are.

This is not about anyone else’s inhumanity. It’s about your humanity.

It’s not about one group of people’s cruelty. It’s about your empathy…

In some ways it doesn’t matter who is in the seats of power.

It doesn’t matter how horrible the legislation that gets passed.

It doesn’t matter how much the evangelical church rejects Jesus and his teachings.

It doesn’t matter how compromised the courts are.

It doesn’t matter how predatory the preachers or the politicians become.

That is almost irrelevant.

Their violence is not the point.

Your capacity for love is the point.

And that love is the only plan.

Pavlovitz continues:

So yes, we will grieve and lament the unthinkable news this week. We will feel the sickness on this holiday [celebrating] a freedom that feels as though it’s evaporating—and then, we will get on to the work of fighting like hell to make sure that it doesn’t. Be greatly encouraged.

Amen.

[i] Adapted from article by Rev. Dr. Brett Opalinski, Emory University Candler School of Theology