An Appeal to Womanhood

A sermon by the Rev. Jacqueline Cherry


The Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist, San Francisco

May 14, 2017 – Mother’s Day, Easter 5, Yr. A

I don’t like Donald Trump, I don’t like Kellyanne Conway, and I don’t like Mother’s Day.
For so many reasons, I don’t like Mother’s Day. And every year, Richard puts me on the rota to preach on Mother’s Day. Last night, I was looking over my previous Mother’s Day sermons, and I have to say they were pretty good. I suggested that all of us, male and female, have the capacity to mother in a sermon I called The Motherhood of all Believers. I’ve talked about The Mommy Hierarchy, the pervasive tendency by both individuals and systems to value biological parents above adoptive or foster parents – this is especially problematic for lesbian couples. I’ve woven in Dame Julian of Norwich who wrote such things as – Just as God is truly our Father, so also is God truly our Mother. And I always wrapped it up with Jesus. But, I’ve never been completely honest … I don’t like Mother’s Day, and I know I’m the only one.

My mom wanted desperately to have children, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t until after my dad died in 2012 that I learned it was he who was sterile, not my mom. An engineer specializing in underwater acoustics, my dad was on the Enewetak Atoll in the 1950’s – a chain of coral reefs and beautiful lagoons between Hawaii and Australia, the site our government chose to test nuclear weapons -- when he was exposed to untold amounts of radiation. I learned this by reading a letter I found in his safe box from the United States government offering medical help and compensation to veterans and civilians who participated in atomic research. I also found a commemorative Zippo lighter with an enamel seal of the US Defense Nuclear Agency on one side and an engraved map of the Marshall Islands on the other. Radiation from these experiments ravaged the ocean, the islands, the islanders, and my dad’s body; the government issued cigarette lighters.

In the Cold War era, nuclear testing was top-secret, therefore servicemen and women couldn’t get outside medical help because they were forbidden to tell doctors of their radiation exposure. I honestly don’t think my dad knew he was sterile. Researchers had just begun to study the effects of radiation exposure, and unlike today, sperm analysis wasn’t routinely done. For her entire life my mom bore the burden, and the guilt, of not being able to bear children.

Mother’s Day reminded me I was adopted. I wasn’t longing after my birth mother. Rather, I sensed my mom’s despair, and there was no card I could make, or gift I could buy that would alleviate the loss that had occupied the center of her being since the day she learned she would never have kids. Even with the usual presents and kind gestures, every year Mother’s Day was fraught. And every year the florists and candy makers, phone companies and cosmetic counters figured out new ways to exploit the idea of honoring mothers.

This morning, in one quick paragraph, we heard about the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr and, according to the Acts of the Apostles, the first deacon of the early church. A martyr is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate a belief that is required by an external party.  Stephen was skilled at speaking his truth, and even more skilled at irritating the authorities. Relentlessly he proclaimed that Jesus was the messiah; so relentlessly he was stoned to death.

I’ve had an eye-opening experience on the social media site OK Cupid. It’s essentially a dating site where you answer hundreds of questions on lifestyle, politics, ethics, and so on. For example: It’s Friday night, would you rather stay home and play scrabble, chill at a dive bar, or have dinner at a fancy restaurant? And, Would you consider having sex in a church? The mysterious OK Cupid algorithm crunches the answers then calculates compatibility. I scored a 99% match with an attractive woman. After a few fun emails, I mentioned something about church. She replied, You’re a Christian! Sorry, that’s a deal breaker!  Then she attempted to reassure me with Pascal's Wager that posits most rational people will bet that God exists because they stand to receive infinite gains – heaven, and avoid infinite loss – hell. However, she explained, his probability theory didn’t apply to her. (I have to admit I was impressed when she cited Blaise Pascal –
the genius mathematician/physicist turned theologian/philosopher.)

After two more highly compatible women cited my Christianity as the “deal breaker”, I developed Jac’s Wager:

Educated, progressive lesbians who believe they are open-minded will not want to appear
narrow-minded especially when interacting with someone they find attractive.

So right off the bat, in the first email, I say something like, “I’m okay having coffee with an atheist, are you okay having coffee with a Christian?” I am happy to report that I have a coffee date on May 24th.

I realize now that I must give credit where credit is due – I was a Christian when I met Beth in 2004, nevertheless, she was willing to go out with me.

Jesus said,

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.

Well, the disciples do in fact have every reason to be troubled. And for the record, so do we. Jesus is saying good bye, without telling them where he is going. Thomas is not satisfied, he needs more information, perhaps a map or GPS, to show him the way. Jesus doesn’t have anything that practical to offer, he responds, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. In my opinion, this attempt to give his disciples more information was a failure. This passage is routinely misinterpreted, or perhaps intentionally used, to argue that Christianity is the only one true path to God. What we should be focusing on instead, is what Jesus tells his disciples next -- if you don’t believe in me because of my words, believe in me because of my works.  That I can get behind. The truth is, it doesn’t matter what we believe, what matters are the things we do.

• It matters that you feed the hungry, it doesn’t matter that you’re Jewish;
• I care that you fight against our country’s heinous immigration and deportation laws, I don’t care that you’re an atheist;
• I respect you for standing in silent vigil in front of the police station to protest the abuse and killing of black and brown people by the SFPD whether or not you sit next to me in church.

In this vein, I could continue on and on.

Today we are witnessing an insecure, uninformed, mentally precarious president with the power to destroy humanity, and the natural world.  Of course I’m speaking of Trump, but this is also true of North Korea’s young president who doesn’t seem to know the difference between a bottle rocket and a warhead missile. Which brings us back to the nuclear weapons my dad helped refine in the Marshall Islands, the weapons that left the islands uninhabitable, and caused his sterility.

We have every reason for our hearts to be troubled. And this my friends, this propensity for war, this insecure posturing with military might, the unnecessary bloodshed, and the death of our children, these are the reasons we have Mother’s Day. Stephen, the first martyr and deacon of the church, set a bold example of standing firm in his belief that Jesus was the messiah – he spoke (his) truth to power. However, instead of relentlessly proclaiming our beliefs, I want to inspire you to boldly live out the values of your beliefs, following the example of Julia Ward Howe. You could say that Howe is the mother of Mother’s Day. In 1870, with power and grace, she gave life to her Christian values when she wrote, and please bear with me as I read her

APPEAL TO WOMANHOOD THROUGHOUT THE WORLD
Again, in the sight of the Christian world, have the skill and power of two great nations exhausted themselves in mutual murder. Again have the sacred questions of international justice been committed to the fatal mediation of military weapons. In this day of progress, in this century of light, the ambition of rulers has been allowed to barter the dear interests of domestic life for the bloody exchanges of the battle field. 

Thus men have done. Thus men will do. But women need no longer be made a party to proceedings which fill the globe with grief and horror. Despite the assumptions of physical force, the mother has a sacred and commanding word to say to the sons who owe their life to her suffering. That word should now be heard, and answered to as never before. 

Arise, then, Christian women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country, to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: Disarm, disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. 

Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence vindicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of council. 

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, man as the brother of man, each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Cæsar, but of God. 

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women, without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient, and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.
(Amen.)

JULIA WARD HOWE

Boston, September, 1870.

Appeal to womanhood throughout the world, ... Julia Ward Howe. Boston, September, 1870. https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.07400300/?st=text

The Tomb and the Womb

A sermon by the Rev. Jacqueline Cherry


The Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist, San Francisco

April 15, 2017 – The Great Vigil of Easter

Look down, O God, from your heavenly throne, and illumine this night with your celestial brightness; that by night as by day your people may glorify your whole Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Anyone who has worked with me on this service, tonight and on vigils past, knows that I am relentless beyond annoyance about the lighting. Well, this year, I’ve had the great pleasure of working with Daniel, Endersnight’s director, who either has the patience of at saint, or is equally neurotic. Either way, I have found a partner in precision of which you are all beneficiaries.

The Easter Vigil is the liturgical consummation of our Christian calendar. For a preacher, that’s especially challenging because words ring hollow against the aesthetics of this awesome ritual. And tonight the music has lifted the beauty of this liturgy to an even higher plane. And I stand here before you, humbled.

Look, follow these columns up to the clerestory, and out into the heavens; the very architecture of this church serves to transport us to a higher place. And that’s what we desire, isn’t it? No, tonight my job is to ground you; this is the night we come face-to- face with God, on earth. Tonight, like a preacher without words, the way to God is humility. So, don’t look up; look down, look deep. Feel what it is to be human.

Human - humus -- the Latin word for soil.

“And God formed man from the dust of the ground.” Our very being is of the earth, and so it is with Jesus.

We began this service with the Exsultet, rejoicing that darkness has been vanquished, and praying to God that the light of Christ may shine continually to drive away all darkness. Yes; yes, the light of Christ is glorious. But often we forget that there is holiness in the darkness, too. Jesus was born in a dark cave. We say stable, but that stable was in fact a cave. And from a cave, Jesus rose from the dead.

Before the great earthquake, 

Before the stone was rolled away at the tomb,

In this holy moment between Good Friday and Easter Sunday,

Right now, a divine alchemy is taking place.

And I can’t help but believe that what is happening tonight in the tomb, is like the Holy gestation that occurred in Mary’s womb, some 33 years earlier.

In the dark God mingles with Mary and humanity is infused with divinity. On this Holy Saturday, in the dark tomb, a sacred process of gestation and germination is occurring. Like the suspension of time between Daniel giving the choir a direction, and the choir responding to that direction with music, there is a moment when all of the elements necessary for creation, for resurrection, are there, but the creation has not yet been manifest.

That’s where we are tonight. And that’s where I want us to stay. Because the resurrection didn’t happen on a beautiful Sunday morning, flush with white lilies, fanfare, and bonnets. It happened in a cave. There was no light and it was silent. I imagine it was dank with a very earthy smell. There were no witnesses to see it.

Wendell Berry wrote:

To know the dark, go dark.
Go without sight, and find that the dark, too,
blooms and sings.

My friends, new life begins in the dark. Seedlings take root in dark soil. In fact, almost all vegetable growth takes place in the dark.

Tonight I ask you to open up and embrace this holy darkness. I ask you to remember that God is present even when we don’t feel the presence. I ask you to remember that God is present even when everything around us feels horrific.

When it seems that nothing could ever lift us from the darkness, all of us, including our fragile earth, are transforming now, just as Jesus is being transformed.

After listening to the long record of God’s saving deeds throughout history, I don’t think there’s much more for a preacher to say. Tonight while God and Jesus are still in the tomb making the mystery, I want us to stay in the mystery. I want us to hear with open ears the anthem that William

Byrd wrote, that Daniel will direct, and the choir will make manifest. Byrd’s words push us beyond the Pascal Mystery, the words assure us that we too shall be restored to new life. Let these words seep deep into your heart:

Christ rising again from the dead now dieth not.
Death from henceforth hath no power upon him.
Christ is risen again, the first fruits of them that sleep.

For as in Adam all men do die,
so by Christ shall all men be restored to life.

Amen.

Religion: Is It Good or Bad?

May 7, 2017

Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A

The Rev'd Richard Smith, Ph.D.

There are two sides to every story.

Today’s gospel comes just after Jesus heals a blind man on the Sabbath. Healing that blind man gets Jesus in trouble with the religious leaders. There are two sides to this story. 

The official story from the religious leaders is that the man would not have been born blind in the first place if he or his parents were not sinners. And, furthermore, Jesus is a sinner, too, for violating Jewish law that clearly forbade one from healing on the Sabbath. That’s one side of the story, the official version.

But the man Jesus cured tells a different story: “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

Two sides to the story. How do you sort this one out? Whose testimony should you accept here? Can you trust the official story from the religious leaders, the shepherds? Or should you run with the man who was cured? 

This is what Jesus is wrestling with in today’s gospel where he refers to himself as the gate to the sheepfold. He doesn’t refer to himself here as a shepherd--he uses that image for himself later in the gospel. But today, in this passage,he refers to himself as the gate to the sheepfold. 

It’s the gate to a large protected corral. Through that gate, each evening, all the shepherds from the region would lead their flocks, bringing all the sheep together where they’ll be safe through the night. Then in the morning, each shepherd would gather his own flock, by calling each sheep by name, then lead them out to the nearby pastures to graze.

“I am the gate to the sheepfold”, Jesus says. The gate symbolizes Jesus own path of compassion and justice, of care for the poor and the outcast, his hope and joy and sheer delight in the world. 

A shepherd who enters the sheepfold through this gate shares in Jesus’ own work of bringing life in abundance to his sheep. 

Any leader, religious or otherwise, who does not approach the sheep through this gate is no shepherd, but one who brings destruction and death. You should not trust such a leader.

It’s a matter of recognizing the difference between good religion and bad religion, between good religious leadership and bad.

Archbishop Tutu was once asked whether he thought religion was good or bad. He said the word “religion” itself is neutral. It’s like “politics” or “art”.

Politics can sometimes be good, leading to greater equality and freedom and peace. At other times it can be bad--enslaving people, dividing them against each other, plunging them into poverty. 

Art can sometimes be good, opening unexplored regions of your heart to beauty in the world and in people. At other times it can fuel violence, racial hatred, misogyny, homophobia.

As with politics and art, religion can be good or bad. It can serve either life or death, human flourishing or human and planetary destruction.

The trick is to recognize the difference between good religion and bad. It’s a matter for discernment.

The word religion comes from two Latin words: re meaning again, and ligare, meaning to connect. We get our English word ligament from that Latin word, ligare. So, religare means to reconnect. This is what religion is meant to do. 

The idea is that over the course of the week--going to work, feeding the dog, shopping for groceries, dealing with all the ups and downs of our relationships and of life, we can lose touch with something vital. We can lose our zest for life, our passion and purpose. We can lose touch with our own hearts’ deepest desires, lose our connection with other people and the larger universe. 

We look to good religion to reconnect us, help make us whole again. This is the purpose of our religious practices--our feasts and fasts, our seasons and holidays, the rituals and the prayers and the music and songs--all meant to reconnect us with ourselves, each other, the world. This is what good religion offers us--whether Jewsih, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu. 

This good religion is lived in the lives of Archbishop Tutu, Dorothy Day, the Dalai Lama, Dr. Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, the Sufi mystic Rumi, Pope Francis, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, Oscar Romero and the many priests and nuns that were killed serving the poor in El Salvador. There are many shining examples of good religion.

Then there is bad religion--religion that disconnects us, alienates us from ourselves and others. It includes preachers who condemn women and gay people for following the promptings of our own hearts and our bodies. Such preachers alienate us from ourselves; they preach bad religion. And bad religion includes religious leaders who condone or remain silent in the face of human cruelty, poverty, violence, war. It includes “Christian” prosperity gospel politicians who tell you, as some recently have implied, if you lead a good life, you will not need health insurance because you will never get sick or have an accident. If you’re good, they tell you, you will always prosper. 

Bad religion leads not to life in abundance, but rather is embedded in today’s violence against gay men in Chechnya; the exploitation of women; the enslavement of people of color; many Crusades and “holy” wars down the centuries; many people forced into in poverty; and many, many suicides. 

Good religion, bad religion. One that serves life, one that destroys and crushes. Important to recognize the difference. 

Oscar Romero described what being church and providing religious leadership looked like in his own context, and his words give us a clue about what they might look like--and not look like--in our own US reality today. Romero wrote:

It is very easy to be servants of the word without disturbing the world, a very spiritualized word, a word without any commitment to history, a word that can sound in any part of the world because it belongs to no part of the world. A word like that creates no problems, starts no conflicts.
What starts conflicts and persecutions, what marks the genuine church, is the word that, burning like the word of the prophets, proclaims and accuses; proclaims to the people God’s wonders to be believed and venerated, and accuses of sin those who oppose God’s reign, so that they may tear that sin out of their hearts, out of their societies, out of their laws – out of the structures that oppress, that imprison, that violate the rights of God and of humanity. This is the hard service of the word.
A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed, what gospel is that? Some want to keep a gospel so disembodied that it doesn’t get involved at all in the world it must save.
Christ is now in history. Christ is in the womb of the people. Christ is now bringing about the new heavens and the new earth.

This gospel passage speaks to official religious leaders, but also to each one of us. Because each of us is a shepherd in our own way--as parents, teachers, artists, activists, or as friend or in one of the many other roles we may play. Each of us called to enter--and invite others--through the gate of compassion and hope, the gate that leads to life in abundance. The gate we Christians call Jesus.

One minister, Victoria Safford, reflects on what this feels like to stand at that gate leading and inviting others in. I’ll close with her words.

Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope — not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges (people cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through); nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “Everything is gonna be all right.” But a different, sometimes lonely place, the place of truth-telling, about your own soul first of all and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle, but joy in the struggle. And we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we are seeing, asking people what they see.

Back to Galilee: Easter 2017

Easter 2017

Year A

Richard Smith

Did you like the special effects in today's gospel story? The two women arrive at the tomb looking for Jesus when, like a lightening bolt, an angel appears. The earth shudders beneath their feet. Single-handedly, the powerful angel rolls back the huge stone, then sits on top of it like it was his throne. 

The men standing guard at the tomb take one look at him and pass out.

And then, the angel turns his gaze on the two women and says "Don't be afraid".

Say what? 

“Do not be afraid!???” Isn’t that a bit counterintuitive? Everything about this messenger is meant to overwhelm, and we humans are programmed to fear what overwhelms us.

But in this case, things are different. Because what overwhelms is a love stronger than death. This thunderbolt messenger, far from being a threat, is at their service. 

“Do not be afraid”, the angel tells them, and then sends them off in a new direction, away from the tomb, this place of death--”He is not here”--sends them to Galilee. "There you will find him." From the tomb to Galilee.

What began in tears and defeat in the place of death now ends with a broken tomb, a garden teeming with life, and Jesus, with a smile on his lips and a sparkle in his eye, sending his disciples back to Galilee.

Galilee is where the story of Jesus began. It is where he first called the disciples, where he touched lepers, dined with whores and tax collectors, railed against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, shared bread with hungry crowds, spoke truth to power.

Galilee, that backwater town: Jesus knew well its dusty roads and fragrant fields.

And after all that has just happened to him in Jerusalem--after his trial and condemnation, the abandonment by his friends, his torture and crucifixion, his death and burial--now after all of that, in this moment of resurrection, what does he do? The Risen One goes back to Galilee. He’s starting the story all over again. 

Back to the beginning, but now with a new clarity about where it all leads. Despite what happened on Good Friday when all hell broke loose, the path of Jesus--of caring for the poor and the outcast…--has now been vindicated by God. Despite all appearances to the contrary, the path of violence and retaliation, of indifference to the poverty and racism and homophobia--these things will not have the last word. Today, the path of Jesus, that path of compassion, of service to the least of his sisters and brothers, today this path of Jesus gets revealed as the path to life. It is the triumph of love and laughter and life over all forms of death and oppression.

And if you want life, the angel tells the women, you will find it by joining Jesus there in Galilee--where he continues feeding hungry people, overcoming violence with love; welcoming outcasts, and wiping away tears. 

Do you want to draw close to God? Go to Galilee. "There you will find him."

What about our own Galilee? For we have our own, we know it well. It’s a world: 

• Where the bodies of young people of color and the mentally ill are too often incarcerated or riddled with police bullets
• Where homeless people huddle against the rain under freeway onramps and in tents alongside luxury condos, alongside our church
• Where immigrants and Muslims are vilified, and doors are slammed in the faces of terror-stricken, Syrian children and their impoverished families
• Where children of undocumented parents go to bed afraid of losing their parents to Trump’s deportation force
• Where people in this community have grieved the loss of Judy Eastwood, and other good friends and family members over this past year
• Where some of us struggle with our own health and all that comes with our own aging, broken hips, arthritis, the loss of control over our own lives
• And where, as our city changes so quickly around us, we wonder if we, like so many others, could lose our homes. 

Galilee. We know it very well.

If we would draw close to the Risen One, this is where we will find him, right here in our own Galilee--in this little parish, in this neighborhood with all its terrible beauty. It’s here that we’re invited to work alongside that Risen One, and in doing so, find life. 

We do this 

• in our handing out fresh veggies and bread in our food pantry each Saturday, 
• In providing a warm, dry place for homeless people to sleep each weekday morning
• in our Nightwalks to end the violence in our neighborhood,
• In our vigils at the Federal Building to end the wars, 
• In our offer of Sanctuary to young people fleeing the violence in Central America
• and in our efforts to stop the unjust deportations that tear apart immigrant families…

These are some of the things we do as a community, but there are so many other things, great and small, that we do as individuals among our friends and acquaintances, in our families and with our kids. 

Here, in our Galilee, the risen Christ invites us to join him more and more closely in his great work. 

In a moment, we will approach the font to renew our baptismal vows. Like the women in today’s gospel, we vow to join the work of Jesus right here in our own Galilee. This is how we draw close to him, by becoming his heart and hands and feet right here.

The poet Jan Richardson writes from the standpoint of the angel at the tomb speaking to the women that morning.

Easter Blessing

If you are looking

for a blessing,

do not linger

here.

Here

is only

emptiness,

a hollow,

a husk

where a blessing

used to be.

This blessing

was not content

in its confinement.

It could not abide

its isolation,

the unrelenting silence,

the pressing stench

of death.

So if it is

a blessing

that you seek,

open your own

mouth.

Fill your lungs

with the air

that this new

morning brings

and then

release it

with a cry.

Hear how the blessing

breaks forth

in your own voice

how your own lips

form every word

you never dreamed

to say.

See how the blessing

circles back again

wanting you to

repeat it

but louder

how it draws you

pulls you

sends you

to proclaim

its only word:

risen

risen

risen.

Raising Lazarus

Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A

by the Rev'd Richard Smith, Ph.D.

It’s the Fifth Sunday of Lent, and the Easter Vigil, the most sacred night of the church year, is not far off. It's time to get ready to stir once again the baptismal waters. It's time to practice resurrection.

To help us do this, we’re given this story about Lazarus of Bethany. It’s a warm-up exercise for practicing resurrection.

Lazarus of Bethany. The name “Lazarus” means “God helps,” and the name “Bethany” means “house of the afflicted.” So this is a story about how God helps those in the house of the afflicted, which could be just about any of us at any given moment--when we lose a job, or our good health, or the person we love the most.

If we can pay attention to what happens in this story, and find our place in it, we might get a glimpse of how resurrection works, not only for Lazarus, but for us as well.

In this story, a man falls sick, then dies, then lies in a tomb. Those who love him wonder how this can be happening. They weep. They lose hope.

And Jesus arrives at Lazarus' tomb--but on the fourth day, the day beyond all hope.  Through many stories in Scripture, the pattern repeats itself: first come three days of crisis and struggle, and then comes the third day, when God acts victoriously. It is on the third day that God acts.

But now, in the Lazarus story, it’s too late for that. It is now the fourth day. Jesus arrives on the hopeless day.

He bears the wrath of Martha, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died!” Do you hear a silent sub-text from Martha here, “Where the hell were you?”

Up to this point in the story, death, tears, and sadness are in control. But when Jesus appears that begins to change.

What happens next is a collaboration, a dance if you will, between Jesus and Lazarus and the community.

Jesus, through his own tears of grief at the loss of his friend, bellows out three commands: one to Lazarus himself, and two to his community.

The first command is to the community. “Take away the stone.”

Sometimes the stone that entombs a person is so huge, so seemingly unmovable, that the individual can’t budge it by themselves. If they are ever to escape their tomb, they need a community of people working shoulder-to-shoulder to roll away the stone.

Moms and dads losing their kids to gang and police violence, refugees fleeing the violence and poverty of Central America, little kids losing their parents to deportation, elders like Iris Canada living in isolation and fear of eviction, addicts wanting to become clean, victims of collateral damage in war.

People become trapped in tombs like these. They can’t escape these tombs by themselves. It takes a community to roll back the stones.

Communities have done this, have rolled back huge stones. Like the village in southern France, an entire town that, at great risk, sheltered 5,000 Jews during the Holocaust. Or the wonderfully diverse community that surrounded Dr. King at Selma, or Cesar Chavez in his pilgrimage from Delano to Sacramento. Communities of people working shoulder-to-shoulder to remove the heavy stones from the tombs of their brothers and sisters.

“Take away the stone,” Jesus says to the community gathered at Lazarus’ tomb.

Then Jesus gives a second command, and this one is to Lazarus. “Lazarus, come out!”

Now it is Lazarus who must act.

Jesus calls him by name, calls to his friend in all his uniqueness, knowing what makes him laugh, what makes him cry, his favorite recipes, and songs, and hiding places. Loving all these things about him, he calls his friend by name--to come out of the death and darkness that surrounds him; out of the despair, the lack of joy, the loss of purpose.

Lazarus must make a choice here. He must pry himself loose from the darkness of the tomb, his old ways of thinking, his old ruts, and imagine new possibilities, gently turning a new way, toward life.

It’s true, as philosophers say, that one of the fears that can cripple us is our fear of death. But there is another fear that can cripple us even more: the fear of life--life with all its risks and rewards, its pleasures and pains, its loves and losses. It’s this fear of life that Lazarus must now come to terms with as he hears Jesus cry out to him, “Lazarus, come out of that tomb!”

Lazarus must choose to live.

Slowly, courageously, Lazarus takes his first steps out of the tomb. But as he moves into the sunlight, he still wears his burial clothes. His hands and nose and eyes and mouth and ears are bound. His feet are bound, too, so he can’t walk easily.

So Jesus utters one final command. As with the first command, this one is to the community: “Unbind him, and let him go.”

It’s as though the community is needed to complete the action of resurrection. Jesus has called Lazarus forth to new life--“Lazarus, come out!"--and Lazarus has responded to that call. But now that Lazarus is back among them, it is up to the community to unbind him so that he can once again take his rightful place. He can't do this by himself.

Yazmin Liliana Elias Obregon (detainee number A: 076-373-569). Yazmin is a single mother of three U.S. citizen children all born in the US. She's is now detained at West County Detention Center in Richmond which houses undocumented immigrants apprehended by ICE..

Yazmin came to the U.S. at the age of 4 and lived in Santa Rosa. When she was 14 years old, Yazmin entered an abusive relationship with a man who would become the father of her children. He abused her for nearly 10 years, beat her, sexually abused her, and forced her to use drugs so she would abort her pregnancies. This ex-partner, now in Mexico, has continued to threaten Yazmin. If she is deported to Mexico, Yazmin fears for her life.

As a long-time survivor of severe physical violence, Yazmin coped by self-medicating her trauma with alcohol. She later completed a 3-month inpatient program to treat her alcohol and trauma. She entered rehab for the sake of her kids; she wants to be a stronger mother to provide for them.

Yazmin had completed rehab and was continuing an outpatient 6-month program when ICE detained her. The reason they gave was an old DUI conviction that she has long since resolved

Prior to being detained, Yazmin had paid her debt to society and was well on the way to a new life for herself and her kids. The dry bones of her life were slowly knitting themselves together.

She was working two jobs to support her kids. They, too, have been through a lot. They suffer from PTSD, ADHD, and depression. They were making great strides after the treatment they received, but now that their mother has been taken from them, they are regressing.

As her youngest son, Elijah says: “Since my mom got detained, I have been feeling sad and it’s hard for me to focus on school. I really need for my mom to come back. Adults think I need medicine, counselors, social workers, but all I need right now is my mom.”

The question is whether our society will unbind her, give her a second, well-deserved, chance. Over 25 organizations have rallied to her side now, but under the current administration, the appeals have gone nowhere.

If the community is not there for Yazmin, does not unbind her from past mistakes and from all the ways the world has conspired against her, then her chances of returning to her kids and starting a new life are slim.

The question as she struggles to put her life back together--as she struggles out of the tomb--is whether we, like the community around her, will help unbind her.

We'll know tomorrow afternoon. Her hearing before the immigration judge is tomorrow afternoon.

So where are you in this story of Lazarus?

Maybe you identify with Jesus in this story. Maybe you know someone or some group of people who are slowly emerging from their tombs. What do you now want to say to them? Is there anything you want to do to help unbind them?

Or maybe you identify with Lazarus. Maybe you find yourself in a tomb at this time in your life. What is it like to hear Jesus call you by your name, call you out of that tomb, invite you back to life? What would it require for you to respond to that call? Are there any resistances you would you need to overcome?

In short, how do you, in these final days of Lent, intend to practice resurrection?

They Did Not Know That We Are Seeds

Sara Warfield

March 19, 2017

Second Sunday in Lent, Year A

At the center of our faith is a man who was mocked, stripped, flogged, and eventually tortured to his death. Jesus begged his Father to take the cup of suffering from him. He cried to God, “why have you forsaken me?” He died an enemy of the state after being unjustly condemned during a sham of a trial. Jesus, the word made flesh, God incarnate walking with us on this ground, breathing this air. Jesus suffered and was buried.

It is this story that carries us through this season of Lent, and it is powerful. It is powerful because we know that to be human means to experience suffering, and we know that Jesus knows what it means to suffer. We know that he cried out to his Father in the worst of his pain, just as so many of us have called for our mother or father when we have despaired. Our God is not a remote God who watches our pain and fear and loss dispassionately from above. Our God has suffered with us.

So at first it struck me as a little odd, if not a bit insulting, that Paul wrote to the Church in Rome that they should boast of their sufferings. Is this a contest? Is the person who suffers the most the most faithful? But just as I was about to step up on my soapbox to rail against how some Christians emphasize, if not glamorize, suffering, I remembered who exactly Paul was writing to.

His letter is addressed to a small group of Christ-followers living in the capital of a huge and powerful empire. They worshiped a God no one around them believed in. Indeed, the coins in their pockets declared that the Roman Emperor Nero was Deus et Dominus, God and Lord.

The authorities were getting suspicious, and more and more hostile. In ten years, the emperor’s formal persecution of the Christian community would begin. Some sources say that Nero had Paul beheaded in that time. The threats to this community’s safety were real and growing. So I don’t think that Paul was congratulating them. No, Paul was trying to make meaning of the suffering that they were already experiencing. They weren’t seeking it. They didn’t deserve it. But the suffering was there and real and difficult. So Paul challenged Christ’s followers in Rome: what would your faith have you do?

But we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.

Paul’s words of encouragement remind me of a saying that’s been popping up in the past few years as a rallying cry for the oppressed. It says, They tried to bury us, but they did not know that we are seeds.

So often suffering feels like being shoved deeply, inescapably into the darkness, surrounded on all sides, stuck, paralyzed. We don’t know what the Church in Rome had written to Paul before he sent that response, but I imagine it might have been something like, “We are so scared. They are closing in on us.”

We all know this feeling. When your mother died, and you had no idea how you would go on without her. When you lost everything, and not even your family would take you in for fear of your addiction. When ICE agents were circling your block in a van. When you were sleeping on the streets, your wallet shoved into your underwear so that no one would steal it while you slept. When your partner said he was leaving. The darkness becomes thick, the fear paralyzing. The temptation is to give up.

The seed often looks dried out, like there’s not another drop of life in it. Like it will remain lifeless forever. The grief is so heavy, almost impenetrable. But in the midst of that darkness. Paul tells us, “God’s love has been poured into our heart through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” This is good news. A strength that is not your own starts to stir within you.

You don’t have to do anything. The Spirit is already there, infusing you with what you need. And you feel a crack in the darkness, the hard shell of the seed giving way to a spark of new life within. It’s still dark, and you are still closed in on all sides, but a tiny sprout reaches out, pushes into the hard-packed dirt. It’s not easy. It requires endurance—the trust that the Spirit will continue to send you strength through God’s love. Sometimes it’s a fight against your own hopelessness. But that tiny ounce of trust in the Spirit propels you. Your little sprout continues to push through the darkness. Against all odds. It feels like it takes forever. It’s exhausting. Grief is exhausting. Change is exhausting.

Until the dirt around you starts to feel warmer. And tiny drops of light start to drip down towards you. Until, quite suddenly, you break through. Suddenly, you feel a breeze on your face. You’re a tiny sprout in the sun. As you slowly grow towards the light, you start to figure yourself out. This is a leaf. This is a stem. This is a tendril. You start to notice new, beautiful things about yourself. Strengths that you didn’t know you had before. Endurance produces character.

And before you know it, you’re in full blossom, radiant in color and dancing in the breeze. Hope blooming out of the hard dirt. Suddenly, you are the one we write stories about. You are the inspiration, the breath of God’s hope we can take in when something buries us. You who were buried only to be reborn with new strength. Illness tried to bury you…Addiction tried to bury you…Loss tried to bury you, but they did not know that you are a seed.

But maybe you feel like the lifeless seed right now, buried impossibly deep in the hard-packed dirt, surrounded by darkness. I know that this message might feel hard to hear. That’s okay. You don’t have to hear it. You don’t have to agree or try to do anything. Those of us who can will hold the hope of God’s love for you. We will trust on your behalf. We will have faith in your stead. That’s what this community, this Body of Christ, is for.

Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” Even as he says it, Jesus knows there is suffering to come. And yet he speaks of hope, which is our spring of water when we are buried. This is the story of the Lenten season. We intentionally practice suffering in small ways by giving something up. We reflect somberly on our mortality, how we will eventually be literally buried in the ground. But then, after 40 days and crying out with joy and light and singing, we proclaim together that:

They tried to bury Jesus, but they did not know that he was a seed.

Being Beloved

First Sunday of Lent, Year A, 2017

The Rev'd Richard Smith, Ph.D.

There’s a pretty basic question at play in today’s gospel. It’s about our identity, about who we are, and, more specifically, what it means concretely to be God's beloved daughters and sons.

If you listen to the prosperity gospel preachers, the ones most welcomed these days at the White House, you’ll get one set of answers: that being God’s beloved child means God will bless you not just with eternal salvation but with material wealth here on earth.

Today’s gospel passage suggests otherwise. Take a look.

This passage comes immediately after Jesus has been baptized by John in the Jordan River. You remember that scene when the heavens opened, Jesus saw a dove rest on him, and heard the voice from heaven, "This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased."

Awesome words, but what does it mean concretely to be the Beloved Son in whom God is well pleased?

Jesus needs to find out, so the Spirit leads him into the desert for a retreat. He fasts for forty days and nights, and, at the end, he is starving and exhausted--which is when the tempter arrives, and throws three temptations at him.

Each temptation begins by calling into question whether Jesus really is the beloved child of God.

For example, in the first temptation, notice the "IF": “IF you are the Son of God”, and IF God really does love you, then command these stones to become loaves of bread.

The implication is that being God's beloved son means never going hungry, means always being full. This fullness will be supplied by supernatural means. The laws of planting and harvesting will be suspended. It’s a prosperity gospel message.

But Jesus rejects this idea that being loved by God means you will always be filled. Instead, he remembers the word he heard that day in the Jordan. That word was "Beloved". Nothing can change the reality and power of that word.

At times he may be full and at other times hungry, but the word remains true in either case. Hungry or not, Jesus will still be the Beloved Child of God.

In the second temptation, the tempter implies that IF you really are God's beloved child, you will always be physically safe. You can leap from the very top of the temple. The laws of gravity will be suspended for you. Angels will break your fall. You won't even injure your foot.

But Jesus doesn’t buy this understanding of God's loving care. You do not show that you are God’s beloved child by remaining physically safe.

In the course of Jesus' life, there will be times when he is not safe. He will get hurt--emotially, physically, spiritually--but even then the word he heard on the day of his baptism will still be true: He will still be God’s beloved child.

And in the third temptation, the tempter tells Jesus that if he worships the evil one and adopts his ways, he will have control over all the kingdoms of this world.

But Jesus is a Jew of the first commandment. He worships only "the Lord your God". He refuses to worship the evil one and live according to the those values. That means he will not have political power.

But although, from a political point of view, Jesus will be powerless, the word he heard that day in the Jordan will remain true: He will still be God's beloved child.

So Jesus is very clear about who he is. "I am God's beloved child, and there will be moments when I am hungry; moments of physical, emotional, spiritual pain; moments when I am powerless and helpless.

But through it all, I will still be God's beloved child.

There’s a story you may remember from school about one of the West’s other great teachers who lived many years ago in Greece, a man named Socrates.* One day, his fellow citizens accused him of heresy and of corrupting the youth of Athens. They gave him the death sentence--he would be executed by drinking a cup of hemlock.

Socrates accepted the judgment of the court, gave an impressive speech about the meaning of life and death, found no cause for fear; drank the poison and died.

Jesus‐‐‐how different his story was, how different his way of being human! When Jesus came to his own death, he was almost hysterical with terror and fear; looked for comfort from friends and an escape from death and found neither; finally got control over himself and accepted his death in silence and lonely isolation.

The difference between Socrates and Jesus could not be more clear.

Jesus was a more profoundly weak and vulnerable man than Socrates. Socrates never wept over Athens as Jesus once did over Jerusalem. Socrates never expressed sorrow and pain at the betrayal of friends. He was never over‐extended, he was convinced that the just man could never suffer genuine hurt. Socrates was calm, poised, and aloof--a philosopher.

By contrast, Jesus took his place among the poor, the outcasts, those whose lives do not follow the script of the prosperity gospel--like those in today’s homeless encampments, like the children in our neighborhood who go to sleep each night in fear that their parents will be snatched from them in the middle of the night by Immigration.

Jesus was, you might say, a more profoundly weak and vulnerable man than Socrates. This allowed him to feel with us the human condition, including the human struggle and darkness and anguish that calls out for justice, redemption, salvation.

Jesus is very clear about who he is, and in today’s gospel this clarity governs his response to each of the temptations the devil throws at him.

I remember the story of Martin Luther, the great reformer. Whenever he was feeling discouraged or confused or lacking confidence, he would do some self-talk, he would say: “Martin, Martin, you are baptized!” This remembrance of his own deepest identity--that he was a beloved child of God--gave him a renewed strength and clarity to move through the confusion and to discern the path he needed to take.

While Jesus may have been conscious of his true identity in a clear and immediate way, most of us need a little spiritual work to reach this clarity. Which is why we do Lent. It’s why we take on the ancient practices of extra prayer, some fasting, and giving alms.

So now, at the beginning of our Lenten journey, a blessing for you. It’s one I included in this week’s parish email. I like it so much, I want to use it to conclude this sermon.

Beloved Is Where We Begin-- by Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace 

If you would enter
into the wilderness,
do not begin
without a blessing.
Do not leave
without hearing
who you are:
Beloved,
named by the One
who has traveled this path
before you.
Do not go
without letting it echo
in your ears,
and if you find
it is hard
to let it into your heart,
do not despair.
That is what
this journey is for.
I cannot promise
this blessing will free you
from danger,
from fear,
from hunger
or thirst,
from the scorching
of sun
or the fall
of the night.
But I can tell you
that on this path
there will be help.
I can tell you
that on this way
there will be rest.
I can tell you
that you will know
the strange graces
that come to our aid
only on a road
such as this,
that fly to meet us
bearing comfort
and strength,
that come alongside us
for no other cause
than to lean themselves
toward our ear
and with their
curious insistence
whisper our name:
Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.

* Grateful to Michael J. Buckley for his discussion of the contrast between Jesus and Socrates.