PALM UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

May 31. (Acts 2:1-21) “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing before you O Lord for you are our Rock and our Redeemer.”

I pray this prayer before I preach aloud, but I also pray it as I think, as I write. I invite God to let my words be the words God wants me to say.

And last week I had some thoughts for this sermon, I wanted to preach a good word about Pentecost, a moving sermon about the power of the Holy Spirit and knowing we want to lift up our graduates today also, I thought, well we sometimes think about Pentecost as the birthday of the church, and it is= but I wonder if I could talk about the commencement of the disciples- the new beginning God was giving to them, after their course of study with Jesus their rabbi, which means teacher. They had been students training in the ways of the God of life, they had been training in the situation of the Roman empire of death, of strict hierarchy, to reject those ways and live out the kingdom of God- and now they would become professors- for they would profess, with their mouths, the words they knew to be true, about God’s power to save. So it was kind of a commencement, complete with the centering speech of Peter, who everyone thought was the dullest student but turned out to be the valedictorian…

But something happened this week. And as I thought about this sermon and this amazing thing that happened at that Pentecost, the particular way the Holy Spirit came to them, God lay on my heart some things that I need to say. And so this is a Pentecost sermon, but it is not the one I imagined giving a week ago. Because the Holy Spirit does not wait for an invitation, the Holy Spirit shows up, and I have learned that it is best if I listen when she does.

What happened this week, my beloved brothers and sisters, you know. A white police officer kneeled on the neck of a large black man for around 8 minutes and killed him. It was caught on video .This happened just a couple of months after the story came out of another murder of a black man by white men as he went for a jog. They shot him from the vehicle as if he were an animal they were hunting. That also was caught on video. This in the context of COVID-19, a horrific virus that has killed more than 100,000 people, in just over 100 days in our nation- but a virus that has proven more dangerous for Black and Brown Americans, and for poor Americans who are “essential” workers, than for white Americans who are more likely to have financial security and flexible jobs that allow them to work from home. Additionally many Asian Americans have been discriminated against as somehow being more likely to be infected because of their appearance. COVID 19 is a horrific virus which has exposed some of the horrors of the virus of racism that we already lived under in a horrific way.

And then all of that injustice, all of that systemic racism, all of that needless suffering hit a boiling point and protests began, that happened this week and yes there has been looting and yes at least one more person lost their life in a struggle for protection of property.

Precious lives lost, needlessly. Some because of the coronavirus, some because of systemic racism, some because of the overlapping of the two.

We need to stop and say, lord have mercy. Lord have mercy for Ahmaud Lord have mercy for George, Lord have mercy on our nation. We need to lament together all of these needless deaths. But then we start to say, okay what can we change?

Jim Wallis, evangelical pastor and editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine has said that America’s original sin is racism. I think we can go farther and say humanity’s original sin is devaluing of a human life, assuming one life is worth more than another. Humanity’s original sin is one person saying to another, I have something you don’t- something is different between us, so I will have control over you, and all the systems that are built up to keep that imbalance of power existing. Humanity’s original sin is fearing difference instead of celebrating it as a gift. This sin manifests itself in many ways, one very clear way was the white officer with his knee on George Floyd’s neck.

What happened at Pentecost, was a huge wind and tongues of flame and people speaking in languages they shouldn’t have known how to speak. It was a huge day, it caught attention, yes the church as we know it was born that day.

But we sometimes don’t go deep enough in what was really going on.

The miracle was not just that these Galilean peasants, most of them as they were, could suddenly speak other languages, the miracle was that they were understood. They weren’t throwing out words that made no sense, they were getting the message through. If you have learned to speak a second language you know, How, in order to speak a language other than your mother tongue, you have to let go a little bit of yourself. You have to relearn some things. Because language is not just syntax and grammar, language carries history and culture. You think differently when you speak in another language. You have to be vulnerable, you let go of some of your power. You have to listen well so that when you speak, So that you can truly be understood.

The Holy Spirit does that, on Pentecost, had them relinquish their sense of control so they could be available to others who were different. The spirit makes the disciples vulnerable, so that some who are there, write them off as fools and drunks. And then, when Peter does get up to speak, he quotes from the prophet Joel, about how the spirit would –in the last days, which he interpreted to be beginning at that moment- be poured out on young and old, male and female, slave and free.

There in that verse we have some of the great differences, the power imbalances that humanity has institutionalized, codified, even worshiped. The spirit of God breaks all of that down. The spirit is not saved for the oldest, malest, most powerful- the spirit is poured out just as well on that powerful old man’s slave girl’s baby girl. Equal. Celebrating each one with all their particularities.

We are used to paying attention when powerful men speak. The spirit asks us to listen just as carefully to the enslaved, the oppressed, the young. In our country today those with less power are usually Black and the Brown persons.

The spirit redistributes the power of voice. The spirit makes us to speak the message of the gospel in a way that is understood, no matter what cultural or power imbalance differences there might be between us.

Here now are two stories that came to me on facebook this week. The first is a pastor colleague in Los Angeles, his name is Jonathan Hemphill. I don’t know Jonathan super well but from what I do know he is dedicated to his family and his church, and always ready with a smile. He is African American with long beautiful dreads and impressive girth. He posted this:

“I’m not going to lie. I don’t really ever get pulled over by the police, but I keep thinking these days, if I ever get stopped and ask to get out the car, because of my size they might kill me. Imagine them tying to get me to the ground. They are going to use excessive force, they are going to be rough with me, they are going to want to choke hold me. Not because I’m resisting, but because they think my size will overpower them. Wow, Im kind of sick of writing these types of things”…. He goes on about how this keeps happening and ends with an appeal to others to flood the world with a message of love.

He knows that his difference, skin color coupled with size, could be feared enough by others to cause him harm. His physical characteristics make some see him as dangerous, needs to be feared, this is humanity’s original sin playing out in the body of a good hearted servant of the Lord.

The second story is from a white cop, not anyone I know personally, but a police officer in Colombia Heights, a diverse city bordering Minneapolis. Justin Pletcher, had always wanted to be a police officer. May 25 was his 10 year anniversary on the force of Colombia Heights. I will paraphrase some of his comments- he was shaken by the murder of George Floyd, he has watched the video trying to be able to justify what his fellow officer did but he sees none, he calls it a murder. He joined the police to change the world and though he has changed moments he hasn’t been able to effect change like he has wanted to.

After seeing the video, when he had to go back to work he was dreading it, another officer told him he watched the video and it made him feel sick. As a shift they discussed and mourned together what had happened.

Then he goes on, saying “I got a phone call from a man named Calvin, a health inspector and that he would be inspecting some neighborhood homes today. Calvin said, “I’m a big black man with dreads,” and he wanted to make sure that police were aware in case we got a call about him walking around the neighborhood. Calvin asked that I come out there to verify his employment so I could squash any calls before they became something bigger. I obliged and I apologized to him for this even being necessary, but I told him I understood.” – Here is another large African American who needs to fear for his safety because of the pattern of how others perceive him. -When they met they quickly found out they had a friend in common, then they decided to walk the neighborhood together. “Calvin was about 15 years older than me, but we talked about how we both loved to travel and about our kids. We spoke about George Floyd and police brutality, and how it’s a different world for black men. We talked about the importance of getting to know people and how racism is borne of fear and ignorance. Calvin spoke and I listened.”

It was an encounter that helped both men that day, in their own way they both believed something bigger had brought them together, then they took a picture together.

Justin knows that that doesn’t make everything okay, he thinks Black and white people should be angry, and he is angry too= but he offers himself to listen, and to work together to find answers.

He finishes with= “We need to listen to each other. We need to support each other. I’m only as good of a police officer as my community says I am. If my community doesn’t trust me, I need to listen. If my community fears me, I need to listen. I met Calvin today and I listened, and because of this I gained an ally and a friend. I know enough about change to know that you can’t tell people what to do, you need to listen to them and build change together. I’m here. As both a police officer and as your friend. So speak. I’m listening.

Love, Justin”

Here is one police officer who has decided to share the power he has as a white cop. He does not hoard it but in this imperfect system we have, this sinful reality of hoarding power, trying to have control over, and weaponizing power, Justin tries to use the power he has as a white police officer for good. By trying to listen, by trying to understand.

That is what the Holy Spirit does. It helps us to listen to understand one another. So we can see that we never had to fear those differences in the first place. That the Spirit pours out on all, that all bear the image of God.

I want to tell you my testimony of one time the Holy Spirit worked in me. I have told this story before I know. I will tell the shortest version:

When I sat and prayed and was still long enough, God showed me my own racist biases. When I listened, the Holy Spirit spoke, and it was of how I needed to repent. How I had been taught to consider others as inferior, and the utter wrongness of it. My own version of this original sin.

The Holy Spirit does some amazing wonderful things- but often what the Spirit does is challenge us. The Spirit calls us to look deep and make a change. We call this repentance. It is often not comfortable. We need to repent, and I am speaking especially to white people here, we need to repent of how we let the original sin of fear of difference continue on. Because people are dying from that.

They are Black and brown people, at the hands of white people. So we have work to do, to undo messages of control over and superior/inferior that sometimes we are so used to we don’t even see are there.

The Holy Spirit can help us in this work, as the prophet Joel that Peter quotes has said, to start seeing the slave girl’s baby girl as, just as honorable and worthy and important as the rich old guy. The Holy Spirit gives us the boldness to get vulnerable so that we can listen and understand. The Holy Spirit makes the understanding possible that God wants this message of abundant life and equality to get around to everyone, so by being vulnerable to one other we all can see the great gift of our differences, not try to squash them, not fear each other.

The Holy Spirit arrived that day with a mighty wind and tongues of fire. May we sense what the Holy spirit is doing today. May today be for all of us A new commencement, a new beginning. God still does new things, God still does life -giving things, God still reconciles us and God still saves! God still gives out the visions and the dreams –if we can listen to the voice of the Spirit, still speaking today, and listen too, to one another.

May 17. ( John 14:15-21) Jesus asks for the impossible today. And then does it for us.

Remember we have returned in this season after Easter to the time before Jesus was arrested and taken to be crucified. He gives quite a long speech that kind of goes in circles as he lets his disciples know what life will be like when he’s gone. He is comforting them but then today we hear this if=then statement. If you love me, you will keep my command. What command is he talking about, but the one he gave just a bit earlier, after he washed their feet- to love one another. Love one another as he has loved them.

It seems so simple in a way, doesn’t it. But can we love with the love Jesus loved with, just because we try to? Continue reading →

May 3. (John 10:1-10) Have you ever lived through a complete upheaval, something that turned upside down all of your prior notions of what life is about? Something to completely reorient your values, goals, and ways of living?

Now we can all say yes, to this question.

We are living through a historic moment, a complete upheaval of life as we knew it, as we all try to get through this pandemic and come out on the other side. No one is simply going about life as before, even those working and keeping some pattern of their former life, have to adapt in some ways to shopping and so on, in this new reality we are living in.

But the presence of Jesus on earth was another time, when many people experienced a different kind of upheaval and reorientation. That is what is happening in the background of this passage from John.

You might remember from several weeks ago the story of the man who had been born blind from John chapter 9, and how Jesus cured him on the Sabbath, and it turned into a huge scandal. The Pharisees, a group of religious leaders, were already suspicious of Continue reading →

April 19. 2nd Sunday of Easter (John 20:19-31) 

You may know that I enjoy reading fiction novels. I got lucky in that I had gone to my local library a day or two before it closed, and I had also seen some friends’ recommendations for some good books and got some really good ones that are helping me relax at the end of the day in some good stories. And one novel I recently finished is Circe, and it is the story from the perspective of that Greek goddess, I guess technically a nymph. I really never learned in depth about those mythologies so I learned a little along the way. Please note just in case you don’t know I am not trying to tell you want kind of book to read or not read and I certainly don’t ascribe to Greek mythology myself, this is pure entertainment for me. Anyway one detail that popped up through the story was that the mortal men that Circe loved, all had scars. And she admired their scars, for they told a story. As a goddess and immortal, anything that happened to her physically eventually was repaired completely and left no mark. She was always left, unscathed, perfect, whole, no matter what happened. In the author’s imagination Circe was drawn to those mortal markings- scars, for they tell a story, a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Something happened, something left a wound- then with time the wound then healed, and now the person goes on, alive, to tell the story of how they got that scar, she found beauty in those scars.

I have a big scar on my left shin. I like telling the story because I saw my bone, I like seeing people’s faces when they are amazed or maybe grossed out. I was 12 or so and I fell. But the story is more interesting because that moment I fell my mom and I were about to go to an airport and go see family in Florida. We stopped by the emergency room, since you could see the bone she wanted to make sure nothing was broken, no it was just a bad scrape. So we caught our flight still and went to Florida, and since I got to be in a wheelchair when we went to Disneyworld we got to skip the line for some of the rides. So, silver lining. That’s the story behind the scar on my leg.

In this gospel story we hear about Jesus’ scars. How Thomas says that unless he sees the ones on Jesus’ hands, and touches his side, he will not believe. Now Thomas gets a bad rap, he gets labeled doubting Thomas. But first remember, what an unbelievable story this is. The one they all saw die, terribly and painfully die- no one survives a crucifixion- that he is alive again? Also remember that the other disciples didn’t believe Mary at first either. She told them she had seen the Lord, and what did they do, hide. They had also already seen what Thomas asked for, to see those scars on his hands and his side.

But then, when they are still a week later behind a locked door- Jesus comes again, and this time Thomas is there too- and Jesus shows him those scars. Yes I am the very same one they crucified, yes I am the very same one who told you that this was all going to happen to me yes I am the very same one, now I am alive again, now I am healed, these scars tell the story. All they did to me did not end me, there is life beyond all of that, God shows through me that I am the righteous one, the chosen one, here I am, alive.

And Thomas proclaims his faith, Thomas worships right then and there- my Lord and my God! It is true. It wasn’t wishful thinking on the part of his friends or a fairy tale or gossip. Jesus truly was alive, standing in front of him, scars and all. He had done it. He had taken the worst the world could give, had loved with a never-failing love that could absorb all of that evil, and had risen from the dead to be able to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end. Alive. With the scars to tell the story. These are beautiful scars for the story they tell is an amazing wonderful story- Jesus really was God in the flesh all along, and God has done this, God has shown this amazing love in such a strong way- what we do to harm, God transforms into life, into a Spirit that sends and Peace to overcome their fear and the power to forgive. These are Beautiful scars, faith-inspiring scars, that make Thomas proclaim with a shout his faith and his worship, his allegiance to Jesus.

Friends you know we are living through this pandemic, and it is hurting us all, wounding us all. Some as we know are physically dying or ill, we remember them before God and we think of all who are mourning at this time. For those of us not infected however, our wounds aren’t the physical kind. It’s missing people, missing normalcy. Hearing about the suffering of others all around us, hearing the stories of health care workers who aren’t provided with the equipment they need to feel safe, the ways in which peoples’ lives have been valued less than profit, of the long lines at food banks and so many people unemployed. The general anxiety of not knowing what is going to happen or even when the stay at home order will be lifted. These are the kinds of wounds that mostly don’t leave a physical mark. They do hurt but they won’t leave a visible scar. These are wounds that are emotional, psychological, and yes spiritual.

I want to tell you the story of another mark on my body. It is a mark I chose because of something that I went through that did not leave a scar, but did affect me. I had a miscarriage in 2013. I had a very short time to know I was pregnant, to get used to the idea and start to love the beginning of a new life inside of me, when all of a sudden that life was over. There was no way, looking at me, to even know I had been pregnant. I grieved that tiny, short- lived bud of a life. I wanted some way to remember her, to always carry her with me, and yes I knew she was a she even though there’s no medical way to know. So I got a tattoo, this tattoo here on my right forearm. So I could tell the story.

And yes that was a painful time for me. I felt guilty and I blamed myself and I went deeper into depression, I grieved. But I had my other children, I had my husband, later I would add another daughter, and yes this calling to ministry. I had many reasons to live and have joy. I went to therapy, I talked to my colleagues. And this wound of my soul has healed, but not like a Greek goddess’ where there is no mark, but with a change in me. I still do not forget that little short lived bud of a life. What I went through is part of who I am today.

I am telling you this as a way to talk about what we are going through now- it is a collective grief, it is a collective psychological wound, societal anxiety, pain and loss. In some ways that makes it easier to bear and in some ways it makes it harder, because when we want to turn to someone to help us that person might be suffering in a way at the same time and not able to listen the way we need.

But as people of faith we know something- when Jesus was crucified, he went through the physical pain but he went through the psychological ,emotional, spiritual pain as well- we hear him cry out on the cross as proof. And he came back physically healed but healed in those other ways too. There was pure life and love and joy in him. He comes to his disciples and does not start blaming them for their part or plotting vengeance on those who crucified him, he breathes on them a holy breath – even as from April 2020 we want to say, hey Jesus be careful where’s your facemask! But he didn’t have to worry about coronavirus remember this is 2000 years ago, he blows on them a holy spirit, he says peace be with you- so right this is one way we don’t want to literally imitate Jesus right now, blowing on people! But what he gave with the Holy Spirit was that peace, based in his Israelite understanding of shalom which is wellness in body mind spirit and relationships with each other and relationship with God- complete well-being- that kind of shalom, peace, be with you- He has it first, to be able to give it to them as they are cowering in fear behind their locked doors he says this-and it takes them awhile. in John it isn’t immediate but they do come out from their locked doors and they do start proclaiming this Son of God who has changed everything and brings life- for those who have seen and those who haven’t- and blessing besides. The end of this passage tells it to us, they kept telling these stories, because they know that these stories bring life, so they wrote them down for us, so- we can hear these things about what God can do, and have life in Jesus’ name.

I am telling you this because the healing we need today and over the next several months, is the healing that Christ has given to us, shown us, that God can do it. The power of God’s love can heal us, and sometimes even transforms our pain into blessing. There is a verse from Isaiah some Christians quote a lot saying by “his stripes we are healed,” and I don’t often quote it in the same way because I think it can be taken out of context and misunderstood. But as I reflected for today I thought I glimpsed a new level of truth there- by the beautiful scars that tell the story that there is a beginning, middle and end, that Christ has already gone through it all, we can be healed, we can have hope- even if now we are just at the beginning or maybe the middle of this pandemic , we can trust that there will be an end. And that God will bring us peace, even now when we are worrying and grieving, because Christ is risen and showed his beautiful scars we can trust that there will be a time beyond this time. That God’s way is to do this, is to love us right through all the hard parts, to take whatever is evil and harmful and transform it, we can trust that God can do that now, too. Yes we might all need some therapy, yes we might all need some group processing that is good and helpful, those things help. We might feel that the healing of the invisible wounds is a long way off. But in the meantime we can hold on to this story: Jesus went through it all and came out on the other side. The very same one they crucified came to be alive again, and then his followers collected these stories so that we might know, so that we might have life in his name- with all of our beautiful scars, the visible ones and the invisible ones, too. We will be changed from living through this time. But we can heal and bear the scars of how we have been changed, and tell the story of how God worked through it all, we know that because of what Thomas asked to see- those beautiful scars on Resurrected Jesus. Amen!

April 5. Palm/Passion Sunday (Matthew 21: 1-11, Matthew 27: 11-54, & Philippians 2: 5-11); We are now, what on our church calendar is the holiest of times, we call it holy week, a week to draw close in the story of a mystery of God: who God is, what God does.

We are now, turned upside down and inside out from life as we knew it. The way we usually participate in Holy Week is with extra gatherings, special music, more time together, special celebrations.

But what we usually do is not possible for us this time. But maybe, we can have a Holy Week that still draws us in close to the mystery of God, who God is, what God does. Because Holy week isn’t in the end about how many services we have or how great the coffee hour was– it’s an experience of God. Maybe just maybe, this can happen even in these strange times of distancing and staying home, maybe just maybe God will be known more than ever before. Continue reading →