3/17/2019 0 Comments The Unforced Rhythms of GraceA sermon
preached on March 17, 2019 at the First Church in Sterling, MA by Rev. Robin Bartlett Love will stitch humanity together. Love heals; love restores; love mends. It takes time, but love mends. I just can’t shake the sadness that the city in New Zealand in which the hateful slaughter of 50 Muslims at prayer was named Christchurch. The terrorist who committed this atrocity was poisoned by the heresy of “Christian” white supremacy. He didn’t just shatter the sanctity of the mosques with his death dealing. He shattered the sanctity of Christchurch and Christ’s church. He shattered the sanctity of prayer. He shattered the sanctity of humanity, raining bullets of hate on God-imaged people. In the Koran, it says that killing one person is killing all of humanity. On Thursday, all of humanity was killed once again. White supremacist, extremist right-wing terrorism is on the rise. A study came out that this month that said almost two-thirds of terror attacks in the (United States) last year were by white men and tied to racist, anti-Muslim, homophobic, anti-Semitic, fascist, anti-government, or xenophobic motivations. As the Church we must clearly and unequivocally say NOT IN OUR NAME. Not in Christ’s name. If you know folks who think that terrorism goes hand in hand with Islam, please do your best to correct the record. If you are one of those folks, please do your best to learn something different. To repent means to re-think. This Lent, cross the borders of creed and culture to know differently through love, as Christ taught us. And join us at the Worcester Islamic Center on Wednesday, March 20th to have dinner with our Muslim friends, learn something new about God, and show our love and support. If you can’t come, write a prayer for our friends there on our prayer banner. Our friend, Mona Ives has gone to every vigil for every tragedy after September 11, 2001 to lend her Muslim voice to say “not in our name.” She has spent her adult life trying to undo the image of Muslims as terrorists by speaking in interfaith spaces and educating non-Muslims. She couldn’t even go to the vigil at her own Worcester Islamic Center on Friday. She was too tired, too heart sore, too exhausted trying to convince white Christians that she is worthy of dignity and life. We are all weary. Our humanity is slowly being murdered hour by hour, day by day, by forces of hate and fear beyond our control. As Christ’s church, we must learn the unforced rhythms of grace. Come to Jesus. As Love’s people, we must re-humanize one another, repair what has been broken, and return to God. If the Church were Christian, gracious behavior would be more important the right belief, Phillip Gulley says. If the church were Christian our job titles would simply be: Professional Lovers of God and People. The Christian church plays a part in anti-Muslim, anti-semitic ideology. One of the heresies of the Christian church is the idea that we have somehow cornered the market on Truth. If we want to stop the rise of ideological extremism that leads to white supremacist terrorism, now is the time to re-claim the values of Jesus. Too often, this book about Jesus has torn people apart. There are many who believe that God himself wrote it with God’s holy pen. There is a “right” way to read it, and a “wrong” way. Every word, some say, is literally true, God-ordained and should hold up in every age and culture. When I came to First Church, I would ask occasionally why a long time member left years ago. “They said they wanted a church that was more bible based,” was sometimes the answer. That always confused me. It took me awhile to figure out that this was code for “they wanted a church that didn’t marry gay people,” or “they wanted a church that was less inclusive of different understandings of God.” So let me just be clear. This church is most certainly Bible-based. This church’s foundational text is, in fact, the Bible. The shimmering, clear, God-kissed message of this complex and rich and sometimes problematic story of God’s people is unfailing, indestructible love. And the Law of Love always wins over the letter of the law. Folks think that people like me cherry pick the texts to make God into who I want God to be—a social justice warrior who loves and accepts everyone. A liberal snowflake God, if you will. And maybe that’s true. The truth is, we are all being selective about which parts of the Bible to take more seriously than others. That is no more true of religious progressives than it is of religious conservatives. We all pick and choose. I just happen to admit it. So let’s ALL stop cherry-picking to use this text as a weapon against our opponents and instead re-claim the values of Jesus. Jesus was also asked to choose which parts of the text were the most important, too. In perhaps the most famous text in the Gospels, He was asked by a lawyer which commandment was the greatest. He answered “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. And the second commandment, he said, is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Loving others is how you love God, Jesus said. Love, not doctrine, is the only thing Jesus really went to the mat for. Love is what he lived and died for. If the Church were Christian, mirroring the compassion of Jesus would be more important than echoing the orthodoxy built up around him. Jesus taught that compassion is a verb not an adjective. Who remembers what story Jesus tells when the lawyer asks him who is neighbor is? In the Good Samaritan, Jesus tells the story of a man crossing the street to save a bleeding victim of a robbery; a bleeding man avoided by a priest and a Levite. The man who helped and healed and brought him to safety was a Samaritan. Jesus was a Jew. Jews and Samaritans hated each other. But it is the Samaritan who crosses the borders of race, creed and religious law to heal. And so Jesus calls his so-called enemy “good.” “Go and do likewise,” Jesus says. “Hello, Brother.” That’s what the first victim of Thursday’s white supremacist terrorist attack said to the gunman as he entered the Al noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. 71 year old grandfather Daod Nabi called his killer “Brother” before he was murdered. We know this because the carnage was filmed live for 17 minutes and broadcast on the internet in real time, all over the world. That video was 17 minutes of hate, but what we will remember is Daod Nabi. The killer wanted his message spread, but we will spread Nabi’s message instead. As he faced a rifle, Daod spoke peaceful words of unconditional love. That’s as much a profound statement about who he believed God to be as it is about who Daod was. He resisted letting his killer’s hate become his own, even as he faced down the barrel of a gun. He stayed faithful to the God who made us all brothers and sisters, to his last breath. “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do,” Jesus cried out on the cross as he took his last breaths. He did not let even his murderer’s hate become his own. He sees in his enemies the face of a brother and sister, and asks for their forgiveness. Re-claim the values of Jesus. Re-claim the values of Love. Love mends. Love restores. Love heals. I spent the weekend at a UU Christian Fellowship revival trying to get closer to God by learning fiber arts, of all things. They kept trying to teach me to knit and to mend, and I kept failing. It is probably a sign of my generation more than anything else to say that I don’t know how to mend things. This was not true of my parents and grandparents. Clothes used to cost more in their day, and things were made to function and last. My mother made a lot of my clothes as a young child. My grandmother and mother patched holes in jeans, darned socks, hemmed clothes. Now when I get a hole in a garment or even lose a button, I throw it away and buy a new one. I’m not proud of this…I’m just telling you the truth. I’m not the only one who treats my clothing as expendable. I found out this weekend that the fashion industry is second only to oil as one of the primary polluters of the world. God help me to repent of this habit for the sake of your creation. God doesn’t see us as expendable. You and I may not know how to mend…garments or relationships or our own brokenness or the world torn asunder…but God does. We may throw what we create away, but God doesn’t. God saves the pieces, and carefully stitches us back together into whole cloth. Elizabeth Spelman says that “repair is the creative destruction of brokenness.” After the flood in which he destroys the world and starts over, God re-recreates humanity with the remnant of what is left. And then God promises us with a rainbow never to destroy us again. Now when God makes us new, she doesn’t throw us away in a scrap heap and start over. God continually repairs and reinforces us until we are strong at the broken places. God gives us one another. We need to be in the business of mending, repairing, of healing, of RESTORATION together. Together, resistance and reconciliation is holy work. Together, we are a force for love in the world. Together, we have as many chances to see the face of God as we have people to meet and know. Together, we have everything. Gather up all the fragments, beloved. Of your family, of your community, of our county, of our world. And get to mending. Amen.
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3/10/2019 0 Comments The Purity TestA sermon preached by Rev. Robin Bartlett
at the First Church in Sterling, MA on the first day of Lent, 2019 March 10, 2019 In Jesus’ upside down kingdom, the Power of Love overcomes the Love of power. ”Do not put The Lord Your God to the test,” Jesus says. I translate that: “Do not put Love to the test.” Love wins. Every time. When we baptized Mia and Olivia, I dedicated them to the service of truth, and the practice of compassion. I dedicated them to the ways of peace, beauty, and love. These aren’t easy tasks to dedicate a person to. Over the course of their lifetimes, they will constantly have to be reminded of who they are, who they’ve chosen to be, and who God has called them to be. Because those things will be put to the test all the time. Especially in middle school, amen? Satan, the accuser, stands ready to claim us as his own, manipulating our human desire for power and control when we are tired and starving. Willing us to choose power over peace. We have to stand firm and say, “Do not put love to the test.” Because there will always be people who try to get you to question who you are. Jennifer Senior says that “purity tests are the tools of fanatics, and the quest for purity ultimately becomes indistinguishable from the quest for power” in an article from the New York Times I read yesterday. The article had nothing to do with Church (it was about the cancel culture in teen literature). But it reminded me of the ways in which denominations are tearing themselves apart right now, not for Love of God, but for love of power. All of the human groups you and I are involved in have purity tests. From the “clean eating” movement to the mommy wars; from political activist circles to religious denominations. There is a language we are supposed to know, and a group of norms we must not stray from. There is a a “right” way and a “wrong” way to be a patriot, a parent, a conservative, a liberal. There is a right way and a wrong way to be part of the group. There are ways to signal you are “in,” and ways to be summarily ousted. Even slacker moms like me try to out-slacker the other slacker moms. “I forgot to feed my kid breakfast today.” “Oh yeah? That’s nothing. I forgot to feed my kid breakfast all week.” The only people who can pass the purity tests administered by the standard-bearers of these groups are those most untainted by the poison of nuance and complexity. In other words, none of us, including the standard-bearers themselves. The Church has historically attracted people who desire power and authority, and who have a tendency to abuse that power. This is because the Church has historically attracted humans. (And one more time for those who missed it last week: the Church is not God.) Church wars throughout the ages have been fought by the standard-bearers over these questions, among others: Is slavery ordained by God? Should women be ministers? Should priests be celibate? Should gay people be ordained or married? Should wives submit to their husbands? Who should be allowed to take communion? The answers to these questions by church leaders have often had more to do with a desire for power and control of other people’s bodies than a desire to live as Jesus did. Not all power and authority in the Church is used for bad, of course. Phillip Gulley suggests that the question for the church’s leadership should always be: "Does (the use of authority) build others up or does it put them down?” If the Church were Christian, Phillip Gulley says, peace would be privileged over power. Putting people down is an act of power, and building others up is an act of peace. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” If the Church were Christian, its leaders would be a constant check against fanaticism disguised as purity. If the Church were Christian, it’s leadership would look for ways to lift up those who are cast out, build them up, and follow their lead. Love would be the only “test” we would administer to determine worth. Mercy and forgiveness would be our study habits. Grace would be the only way to “pass.” In the Church, scripture is considered authoritative. Therefore it makes sense that the Church’s weapon of choice in the quest for purity and power is the ancient words in this book. But this book is not God. In fact, Jesus taught us that we can judge the authority of scripture based on whether it builds others up or puts them down. That’s our lesson from today’s scripture. Anyone can quote scripture out of context. I can. You can. The devil can quote scripture, too. But Love will always win. In our passage from the Gospel of Luke on this first Sunday of Lent, Jesus is bone tired. He is literally famished after fasting in the wilderness for forty days. He is weak and exhausted. He is in a state of utter desperation, both mentally and physically. It is at this point when Satan puts him to the test. Jesus is offered bread at his hungriest. “If you are the son of God, turn this stone to bread,” Satan says. Jesus turns him down. “It is written, ‘one does not live by bread alone,’” he says. The devil leads him up to the top of a mountain, and shows Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world. “To you I will give all of the glory and authority, if you worship me.” And Jesus says, “It is written, worship the Lord your God and serve only him.” Then, Satan brings him to the pinnacle of the temple. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here.” And then, catching on to Jesus’ affinity for the Word of God, Satan quotes the words of the psalm we read this morning: “for it is written,” Satan says, “he will command his angels concerning you, to protect you.” Even the devil can quote scripture. Jesus says to him, “do not put the Lord God to the test.” “Do not put Love to the test,” Jesus says. The identity test for Jesus is not so much a test of who he is, but how he will live out his identity as Son of God. The devil knows perfectly well who Jesus is. The devil does not question who Jesus is, but tries to get Jesus to question who he is -- and Jesus does not fall for it. There will always be people who try to make you question who you are. The test is not so much a test of who you are, but how you will live out your identity as beloved by God. This past summer, I received a message to the First Church in Sterling Facebook page. It was from a Facebook profile with a picture of a man wearing Nazi insignia on his sleeve, though I failed to realize that when I first read his message. He asked me if our church was welcoming to people in interracial marriages and to the LGBTQ community. Naively, I answered him cheerfully in the affirmative. “Yes, all are welcome. We believe all people are children of God.” When he received my response, he proceeded to answer me by quoting long scripture passages about the immorality of black people and white people inter-marrying, and scriptures advocating that homosexuals be put to death. I responded by blocking him and reporting him. Soon afterward, he gave our church a one star review on Facebook saying that “this church and its minister are false prophets who fail to take into account the truth of scripture, and they block you rather than admit they are harmful liars.” And then he posted a picture of his gun on his profile with veiled threats to harm people who “do not take the word of God seriously.” Our church responded by leaving dozens of five star reviews on our Facebook page. Kristin Turner wrote: “The thing about love is - it doesn’t run out. We’ve been given bountiful, overflowing, endless, grace and love. At First Church it’s yours. We love First Church because it encourages us and reminds us to share love as Jesus did, carelessly, with all, especially those who have trouble loving us back, especially those who hate us, or who are hard to love. Often the people hardest to love, need love and grace the most - and thankfully, we’ve been blessed with enough of both to share it.” Ann Taft wrote: “First Church of Sterling literally saved my life. After being hospitalized for major depression and suicidal ideation, my first public outing was to First Church. I was met with such unequivocal LOVE. As an ex-Catholic, I feel welcome here. My family who are atheists feel welcome here. My family who are American Baptist feel welcome here. I’m also proud that my children are being raised in a community where they are not told “Believe this,” or “Don’t believe that,” but are instead asked “What do you believe, Beloved?” Jayne Perkins wrote: “This loving church community will love the hate out of our world by spreading love to all. Those who write lies about us are easily noticed as they contradict everything we are. But we will pray for every person who has hate in their heart. Especially those who create bots to spread their horrible messages. God is LOVE. Love will always win.” DO NOT PUT LOVE TO THE TEST. Not when First Church is on the job. The post has since been removed, but perhaps the most beautiful moment was when the First Church “mob” started engaging with the man’s post on our page, citing Bible passages about loving your neighbor and the enemy. “We’ll pray for you. We believe you, too, are beloved by God, internet Nazi.” Jeff Maxwell even invited him out to coffee. I told him that was a bad idea. The internet troll eventually left us alone because we bored him with our love, and he disappeared into the ether. His hate did not become your hate. There will always be people who try to get you to question who you are, who will try and put you to the test. The test is not so much a test of who you are, but how you will live out your identity as beloved by God. Here’s a reminder: You are made in the image of God, all of you. You were fearfully and wonderfully made, and created for God’s glory. You are known and named Beloved. You were called to build bridges, not walls. “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” You were called to be the hands and feet of THAT peace. The Power of Love will overcome the Love of power because of YOU. The Church was made for such a time as this because the Church is YOU. Even the devil can quote scripture. But you—you must never forget who you are. Bring peace where there is no peace. There is no time but now, no people but us, and no way forward without turning toward each other. Amen. 3/3/2019 0 Comments Because You Asked Me ToA Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday
preached on March 3, 2019 at the First Church in Sterling, MA by Rev. Robin Bartlett Patti Griffin wrote the song, "Up to the Mountain" for Dr. Martin Luther King, based on the prescient "Mountaintop speech” he gave right before he died, recalling the words of the prophet Moses. “We’ve got some difficult days ahead,” King told an overflowing crowd in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 3rd, 1968, where the city’s sanitation workers were striking. “But it really doesn’t matter to me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop … I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.” Make no mistake about this: Dr. King was not the vaunted hero he is now. Listening to him meant asking for trouble. Listening to Dr. King meant crossing boundaries. Following him was dangerous. He was, in fact, one of the most hated men in America the year that he died, with a 75% disapproval rating in polls. Less than 24 hours after giving the mountaintop speech, Dr. King was assassinated. When I’m tired and despairing about the world as it is, I play this song. I imagine singing it to Dr. King. I imagine Dr. King singing it to Moses. I imagine Jesus singing it to God: the Father he called “Daddy.” “Sometimes I just lay down, no more can I do. But then I go on again, because you asked me to.” Here’s what we know from the biblical prophets, from Dr. King, from Jesus: We will get to the Promised Land. It may not be in our lifetimes. But we keep going on again, because God asks us to. There’s a reason God is often speaking to people on the tops of mountains. Sometimes like the disciples, we need to be up high to see. We need a revelatory experience to appreciate who God is. We need to see a vision of the Realm of God; the Kingdom of Heaven; the promised land. (What does that look like? Help me preach this sermon). Once we get a glimpse of all that, we need to come back down and create it here, right where we are. In our Transfiguration scripture from Luke, Jesus asked three of his friends, Peter, James and John to follow him up to the top of a mountain to pray. As he was praying, a grand supernatural event occurs, and Jesus’ appearance changes. He is bathed in a warm, white light, and he is transfigured before them. Suddenly, Elijah and Moses appear in the clouds. And God’s voice booms out “This is my Son, the Chosen. Listen to him.” Peter, James and John had been about to fall asleep, but luckily they stayed awake for this moment. They are appropriately amazed. “Listen to him?” They think. “I can do that.” “It is good to be here,” they say to Jesus. “We like hanging out with you like this, chillin’ with Moses and Elijah and God,” they say. They say, “let us make three places for each of you to live, and we’ll just hang here forever, listening to you.” I’m sure it was good to be there—far above the hot mess down below. Up there, Peter, James and John could just worship their Lord. They could listen to his stories, sing some Christian rock, put up their Jesus hands and sway: “my God is an awesome God”….feeling blissful and above it all FOREVER. Unfortunately, Jesus made them leave. It turns out that “listening to him” didn’t mean gathering up his words like golden nuggets and using them later out of context as a weapon against other people. Listening to him didn’t mean worshipping him on a mountaintop and shutting out the world. Listening to him meant following him down the mountain the next day. Listening to him meant listening to the fathers who are begging, “heal my son.” Listening to Jesus meant casting out the demons that threaten to swallow up a faithless and perverse generation. Make no mistake about this: Jesus was not the vaunted hero he is now. Listening to Jesus meant asking for trouble. Listening to Jesus meant following: crossing boundaries to heal. Following Jesus was dangerous. He was one of the most hated men in Jerusalem just a few weeks after his transfiguration with a near 100% disapproval rating, and he was assassinated. Like the disciples, we wish it were less dangerous to listen to Jesus. It is easier to stay up on our mountains. It is nicer in our safe church buildings with our gilded crosses and our organs and our polite New England manners. Here, we can listen quietly to Jesus’ sweet words once a week before returning to our lives of relative comfort and prosperity. We need to ask ourselves what we are willing to risk to follow Jesus down the mountain. We need to ask ourselves what demons we need to cast out of our own faithless culture. We need to ask ourselves what boundaries we are willing to cross to be the people God has called us to be. And we need to ask ourselves who needs our healing. This year all through Lent we’ll be considering the book, “If the Church Were Christian” by Philip Gulley. He puts it this way: The church has been too deeply concerned about its own power and wealth. It has insisted upon a level of respect it has not earned, and it has been silent at critical junctures of history. It has far too often aligned itself with the powerful and the immoral, and in the process has neglected its responsibility for the outcast. Gulley says, if the church were Christian, it would welcome the other unconditionally. If the church were Christian, it would lose its fascination with law and doctrines, it would befriend the poor and marginalized, it would welcome the rejected. If the church were Christian, Gulley says, Jesus would be a model for living rather than an object of worship. If there is one thing I want you to take away from my sermon today, it is this: THE CHURCH IS NOT GOD. It’s been a tough month in the life of the Christian Church. The Catholic Church had its first ever summit on child sexual abuse by priests, gathered by the Pope. The church leadership listened to survivors tell their stories. Five anonymous abuse survivors addressed the gathering via a video. A survivor from Chile said the church's leaders had discredited victims and protected the priests who abused them. "You are the physicians of the soul and yet, with rare exceptions, you have been transformed, in some cases, into murderers of the soul, into murderers of the faith," he said. In the Catholic Church, priests are considered to be Christ’s representatives on earth. That’s the theology of priesthood. Imagine the catastrophic spiritual devastation it causes when one’s Priest becomes one’s abuser, and the leadership believes him and not you. God seems no longer accessible to you. It seems that Christ himself has become your abuser. This was an effective summit; a first step on the path to healing, perhaps. Philippine Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle choked up when he told the gathering that "wounds have been inflicted by us, the bishops, on the victims. ... We need to help them to express their deep hurts and to help heal from them," he said, adding that perpetrators need to face justice. I want you to hear this again: The Church is not God. You were fearfully and wonderfully made by a loving God. What harms your body harms God’s body. There are many who want to blame this disgusting abuse of power on the Catholic Church as if abuse of power is unique to the Catholic Church. We found out two weeks ago that since 1998, about 380 Southern Baptist leaders and volunteers have faced allegations of sexual misconduct, according to a sweeping investigation by two Texas newspapers that came out last month. The Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News also found that in the past 20 years, more than 700 victims have been abused, with some urged to have abortions and forgive their abusers. As your pastor, I have heard countless stories about the ways in which the Christian churches you grew up in or attended in the past have failed you and victimized you. Abuse of power happens anywhere power can corrupt, which is any institution human beings are involved in. So I want you to hear this again: The Church is not God. You were fearfully and wonderfully made by a loving God. What harms your body harms God’s body. What harms your body harms the Body of Christ. In a contentious meeting years in the making this week, the United Methodist Church—the United States’s third-largest faith community—voted to emphasize its opposition to same-sex marriage and gay clergy. The vote was deeply split, and will probably result in a split of the denomination. Many American ministers in the United Methodist Church already perform same-sex marriages and approve of the ordination of LGBT people as clergy, although the church’s rules officially forbid these marriages and ordinations. Many Methodists hoped that the church would amend those rules this week. Instead, a group of more than 800 clergy and lay leaders from around the world voted to affirm the church’s traditional view of sexuality — and to punish disobedient clergy more harshly than before. I want us to imagine what it might be like to wait your whole lifetime for your church or your denomination to debate your worthiness before granting you full fellowship in the Body of Christ. I want us to imagine what spiritual damage that might inflict upon actual, in the flesh, God-imaged people already endowed with sacred worth by our Creator. It is literally killing people. The Reconciling ministries of the UMC had to send out suicide hotline numbers after the vote at the General Conference this week to its thousands of LGBTQ constituents and clergy who have been waiting for a lifetime for their full inclusion in the denomination that raised them up. If one has to send out suicide hotline numbers following a vote of a Christian organization, one can surmise that the action taken may not have been Godly. I want us to be careful about tooting our own horn in this moment as an open and affirming Christian church. Because far too often we like to notice the speck in our neighbor’s eye without removing the log from our own. I want us to be proud of the work we’ve done to expand our welcome, yes. I want us to lift ourselves up as a healing sanctuary for the folks the Christian church has cast out, yes. I want us to be a public voice for the Christian Church to become more like Jesus, yes, yes, yes. But at the same time I want us to be able to say, “we’re sorry it took us so long. We will do what we can to reconcile with the God-imaged people we have harmed with our silence and complacency." And then, most importantly, we need to say: “We will be silent no more.” That’s what it might look like to take a step toward healing, I think. ONE MORE TIME FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK. The Church is not God. What harms your body harms the body of Christ. God is Love. And love is love is love is love is love is love is love. It cannot be killed or swept away. So beloved, join us this Lent to take a step toward healing. Join us to repent for the ways in which the Church has fallen short of the glory of God. Join us this Lent to HEAL the body of Christ, beginning with ourselves. Come down off your mountains! Walk toward trouble, take the highway to the Jesus danger zone, listen to the parents weeping for their children and do something about it. Join us this Lent to bravely follow the most hated man in Jerusalem. Join the Love REVOLUTION! Do not be afraid. Some days I look down Afraid I will fall And though the sun shines I see nothing at all Then I hear your sweet voice, oh Oh, come and then go, come and then go Telling me softly You love me so The peaceful valley Just over the mountain The peaceful valley Few come to know I may never get there Ever in this lifetime But sooner or later It's there I will go Sooner or later It's there I will go Amen. 2/23/2019 0 Comments Who is my Enemy? A Sermon delivered at the First Church in Sterling, MA
on February 23, 2019 by Rev. Robin Bartlett A man who had reached his 100th birthday was being interviewed by a reporter. “What are you most proud of?” the reporter asked. “Well,” said the man, “I don’t have an enemy in the world.” “Wow! What a beautiful thought! How inspirational!” said the reporter. “What’s your secret?” “I outlived every last one of them.” Said the man. I like his strategy. There’s one problem with it though: the only person I know for sure you and I can never outlive is ourselves. Jesus tells us to love our enemies. Just like we can’t love our neighbors if we don’t love ourselves first, we can’t love our enemies if we don’t love ourselves first. The first rule of preaching is to never talk about your process. But I’m going to break that rule because I like breaking rules. I struggled mightily with this sermon. I rewrote it probably 6 times. It was because I got stuck on one question I just couldn’t get past. Like the lawyer who tries to trick Jesus with the question, “Who is my neighbor?” I got all caught up in this question: “Who is my enemy?” It’s not that I don’t have an answer to that question. It’s just that I have too many complex answers. I’ve created more than a few enemies in my life. Sometimes I have produced enemies from hurtful mistakes I’ve made. But mostly I’ve made enemies by taking bold action, or telling hard truths. Notice Jesus doesn’t advise us to be more likeable in his sermon on the level place. He tells us instead to love those who hate us. My colleague Taryn said, “If everyone’s your friend…you’re doing life wrong, which is partially what Jesus meant. Get yourself an enemy! Then love them!” Or, as someone once said, “live your life in such a way that Westboro Baptist comes to picket your funeral.” I did a funeral for one of the great pillars of this church who now joins the saints in light—Bob Smiley—on Thursday. He had every leadership position there was to have in this church, from Moderator to deacon. Apparently he used to advise lay leaders that it was good to be in trouble with someone at First Church. It meant that something positive was happening…that some good change was afoot. I took that advice immediately to heart, as I am always in trouble with someone around these parts. So, I intended to preach some version of Taylor Swift’s immortal words: “haters gonna hate.” Love anyway. I was going to preach Howard Thurman’s wisdom: Don’t let other people’s hatred become your own. Don’t become the thing you disdain. But still, I kept getting caught up in this question: “Who is my enemy?” So, I did what preachers do—I looked to the scriptures for other instances of the word “enemy.” It’s in there a lot. Because I did two funerals this week, I recited the 23rd psalm a bunch. The part of the 23rd psalm that is most compelling for me is the line that says: “God sets a table before me in the presence of my enemies. He anoints my head with oil, my cup over flows.” Sometimes I imagine an extravagant table filled with bread and chocolate, fine linens and silver candlesticks, and my cup overflowing with wine. I picture God setting a place before me in the presence of my ex-mother-in-law, the mean girls from Rundlett Junior High School, the first man who broke my heart, domestic terrorists and Ann Coulter. I imagine God serving up a big pot of steaming chicken soup with dumplings, beckoning me to sit down. My enemies are watching me carefully place my napkin in my lap and they are salivating. I imagine Jesus teaching me to pray before we eat: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us as we forgive others. And then—maybe Jesus gives Ann Coulter the stink eye before saying— “And Deliver us from evil. Amen.” But, in biblical terms, there are two kinds of enemies: the demonic kind and the human kind. In the 23rd Psalm, David is referring to demonic enemies. David’s not referring to my ex mother-in-law at all, but to the ways in which Satan, the Accuser, attempts to steal our own worth. God is there in the midst of all that reminding us of the banquet he’s set before us in the PRESENCE of all that holds us back from Love’s glory. “What about when enemies have a human face, Jesus?” I decided to ask you all who your enemies were when I got home from a day long pastoral care training for lay folks yesterday. On Facebook. Late at night. I got hundreds of answers. The answers weren’t really wearing human faces like I thought they would be. They were more “what” than “who.” Who is YOUR enemy? I asked. You said things like ignorance, fear, autocorrect, expectations, ego, oppression, hatred, worry, alcohol, capitalism, fossil fuel companies, disco, the New York Yankees, secrets and systems that support them, apathy, exhaustion, judgement, people who ask for Saturday night sermon help… Some of you named people who have harmed you, Nazis, your exes, or people who deny the humanity of others. But here’s what surprised me: most of you said that you are, in fact, your own worst enemy. More than half of you said some version of “the voice inside my head is my enemy. The part of me that second guesses every decision, that tells me I’m worthless; that I’m not good enough. That’s my enemy.” You didn’t answer the way I expected you to: with your political opponents, the people in the internet comment section, the kids who always picked you last for teams in gym class, your critical grandmother who told you you we are fat and lazy, the people who have violated your bodies over the years with violence. You told me that the accuser resides inside of you. The enemy, it seems, is not just external to us, but inside of us. It’s like the horror movie when the actor suddenly realizes, “the call is coming from inside the house.” But here’s what I KNOW to be true: God is there, too, inside the house. God sets a table there in the midst of our fears and insecurities and our apathy and our anxiety and our tendency to beat ourselves up and says: “Your worth is determined by my Love, not the accuser’s hate. Here, have some soup.” Jesus says “love your enemy.” Just like we can’t love our neighbors if we don’t love ourselves, we can’t love the enemy if we don’t love ourselves. The word used in this passage from Luke for love—agape in Greek—is not the Hallmark kind of love. It isn’t the doormat kind of love. It is the rebel kind of love. It is the brave, whole-hearted, unreserved, unconditional desire for the well-being of the other. Expecting nothing in return. I want us to imagine together what it might look like to give brave, whole-hearted, unreserved, unconditional desire for our own well-being. Expecting nothing from ourselves in return. Not a thinner body, or a reprieve from foot-in-mouth syndrome, or remembering to send thank you notes. Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest and writer, thinks we should pray naked in front to the mirror. Bear with me. She recommends that from time to time we take off our clothes, look at ourselves in the mirror, and tell ourselves with as much tenderness as we can, "Here I am. This is the body-like-no-other that my life has shaped. I live here. This is my soul’s address." Thankfully, Jesus left us a blue print for how to love. He told us how to see the divine in the faces of our enemies, even if we see the face of our enemy in the mirror. He said: Do good. Bless. Pray. So beloved, if your worst enemy is yourself, go home tonight and pray naked in front of the mirror. Look at yourselves with as much gentleness as you can muster. Look at every stretch mark and wrinkle and mole and hair or lack thereof…let your body tell the story of where you’ve been. Embrace yourself with the kindness that can only come from a wastefully, extravagantly loving God. Your life has been shaped in that body. It is your soul’s address. Let God carefully set a table before you in the presence of all the demonic forces in your life that have led you to believe you are not worthy of Love. And then sit down at that table with God and have some delicious enemy pie. Amen. 2/3/2019 1 Comment Don't Shut Up Heavenpreached by Rev. Robin Bartlett
on February 3, 2019 at the First Church in Sterling, MA Sermons are better heard/seen/in the flesh. Join us at 10 am on Sunday mornings. I call this “churches gone wild week” in the lectionary. Congregations are capable of great love, and great destruction. That’s the uncomfortable lesson both Jesus and Paul have to teach us this week. In our scriptures from Luke for the last two weeks, we have followed Jesus to his hometown congregation, where he preaches his first sermon. I recently had a similar experience, for the sake of field research. On October 7, 2018, more than 24 years after I graduated from Concord High School, I stood in the pulpit of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Concord, New Hampshire. This is the church where I was born and came of age in. My mother was the music director for 18 years. My father is still on the buildings and grounds committee. My stepmother chairs the stewardship drive. I know about every fight the church has had in the past 40 years, every minister they ever ran out of town, and who was on which side. I also know them to be capable of loving me into the person I am. I hadn’t been back on a Sunday morning in at least 20 years, maybe more. I swallowed hard, my mouth suddenly dry. I looked out into the congregation to see my father, my brother, my niece, my sixth grade teacher, my high school English teacher, my grade school piano teacher, my Sunday School teacher, my childhood friend, my friend’s parents and my parent’s friends. “These people will never take me seriously,” I thought. (How many of you grew up in this church? Show of hands. I started to realize what you all feel every Sunday.) The elder of blessed memory who scolded me after I played an angel in the Christmas pageant telling me I “acted more like a devil than an angel up there,” had long since gone to live with God. I’m not saying I’m relieved that she died, only that her absence that morning took some pressure off. I had never been so scared to preach a sermon in my life. At the risk of comparing myself to Jesus, I preached the good news Jesus preached to his own hometown congregation, from the scripture you heard Megan preach last week: The spirit of Love is upon me because I have been anointed to bring good news to you who are brokenhearted. All of you who are held captive will soon be released, the blind will see, and the oppressed will receive justice. And I am proclaiming this—2018--the year of Love’s blessing—the year of the Love Revolution. Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Tears streamed down my face as we sang the closing hymn. I was home. In the receiving line, person after sweet person held my hands and told me how proud they were of me. “That was the best sermon I have ever heard.” “You are so beautiful.” “I can’t believe it’s you.” “Who knew you had this in you?” “Aren’t you Beth’s daughter? Please tell her how much we miss her.” It was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. I just couldn’t believe they remembered me—just one of the church kids—24 years later. And that they came just to see how I’d turned out. The congregants were also quick to point out to me that my theology was now so different than theirs that I could never be their minister. “You’re a Christian now? How does *that* work?” The subtext was "Thanks for visiting, but that would never fly here.” You can never go home again. “Isn’t he Joseph’s son? He is so gracious,” Jesus’ hometown congregation praises him when the service he preaches at is over. But Jesus knows long before his triumphant entry into Jerusalem that groups of humans can turn on a dime. He knows that humans can close each other off to heaven just as quickly as they rain down grace. He knows you can never go home again. So Jesus goes ahead and ruins all those good vibes in the receiving line. He predicts that they will reject him before they do, so he heads them off at the pass: “I’m sure you want me to heal you. But I know from scripture that prophets are rejected in their hometowns.” When the congregation heard Jesus say this, they turn on him. His prediction comes true after he says it out loud, which kinda sounds to me like the very definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy, no? The congregation flies into a rage, drives him out of the synagogue, and out of the town. They don’t just stop there, they try to hurl him off a cliff! Jesus passes right through them, which is such a beautiful image of non-anxious leadership. He just kind of rises above their anger and perseveres, and goes on his way. May we all be like “chill Jesus,” amen? When someone is so angry they want to hurl you off a cliff, it’s not you, it’s them. Just take a deep breath, pass through the midst of them and go on your way, my friends. Our reading from first Corinthians is one of the most famous readings from the scriptures. It is most often read at weddings, and people cross stitch it onto wall hangings. We are tempted to think that this reading is trite, romantic or lacks nuance. But this reading is not at all Hallmark sentimentalism. It comes from a pointed letter Saint Paul wrote to the church in Corinth rebuking them for becoming a petty, nasty brood of vipers. The people of the church were in the midst of being total jerks to one another. They were passive aggressive, or just aggressive. They were giving each other the silent treatment, making dramatic threats to leave, and threatening to lower their pledges if they didn’t get what they wanted. They were talking about each other behind each other’s backs in the church parking lot. They were undermining leadership with petty gossip. In short, they were behaving badly. They couldn’t figure out how to live with one another, much less how to love one another. They didn’t even like one another! And so Paul says “Look: we can say we are all for creating heaven on earth and gathering in the spirit of Jesus, but if we don’t have love, that means absolutely nothing. We can study scripture and pray and generally know a lot about God, but if we don’t have love, that’s all a worthless endeavor. Might as well go bowling. Even if we give all of our possessions away to the poor and don’t have love, we gain nothing. Meaningless.” And then Paul tells them what Love really is when you are no longer a swooning teenager, or a princess on your wedding day. When you are an adult, Paul says, Love is not a feeling, but a way of being. Love is patient. Love is kind, he says. Mostly he tells the church in Corinth how NOT to be in Love: Don’t be envious Don’t be boastful Don’t be arrogant Don’t be rude Don’t insist on getting your own way Don’t be irritable Don’t rejoice in wrong doing. “There’s no room for any of that nonsense when you are adulting,” Paul says. “Stop trying to throw one another off the cliff.” He’s not talking about LOVERS, he’s talking to the church. Now this church is blessedly not particularly oriented toward petty fights at all. Mostly, we are a beloved community with a sincere focus on our mission. And we can still get outraged about the small things every now and then. We are only human and doing the best that we can, amen? In August of 2016, I came home from vacation and my thoughts were turning to homecoming and getting the church ready, I sent an email out to the operations team leadership saying, “Hi all! When is our new sign going to be installed on the front lawn?”And Doug wrote a “reply to all message” that said, “I saw the sign! It is amazing. Probably installed Wednesday.” This was in the evening and I was in my house which as most of you know is quite close to the church. I swear to you I was fully sober. And I was so excited to see it, that I ran immediately over to the church to witness with my own eyes the newly installed church sign Doug was talking about. What I saw looked exactly like our old sign. Forest green, with just the words “The First Church in Sterling”, barely visible, and back from the road, fading into the green bush behind it like camouflage. At first I was confused, and then I was just mad. In fact, I had never been so furious with this church. My belly was in KNOTS. I considered going back to therapy. “We spent all this money on the sign, one that was supposed to stand out and SAY WHO WE WERE, and the new sign we made is exactly the same as the last one!” I yelled at my husband. I wrote to my best collegial friends: “They changed the sign plans without telling me. And it fades into the bushes and doesn’t have our denominations on it, and doesn’t have my name on it, and it was supposedly going to! What do you think this MEANS?!” My colleague friends said, “maybe they are trying to tell you that they don’t want too much change too fast. Maybe they figure they are the town church, and they should go for small and tasteful. You got too much press last year! They didn’t like it. Maybe you should use this as an opportunity for conversation about communication and mission and change.” For a full hour, I was enraged. “I’m just curious,” I wrote in an email to the church leadership who worked on the sign. “Did something change with our sign plans? This new sign looks just like our old one. Did I miss something?” Chris Roy finally wrote back, after I had slipped further into the abyss until there was practically no return. “You missed something alright. The sign is not going to be installed until this Wednesday.” And Jon Guild replied, “in case folks don’t know, Doug saw the new church sign yesterday…on a smartphone. If the “new” sign is green, has peeling paint, and looks very similar to our existing sign…that’s probably not the new sign.” “Whoops,” I said to my colleagues. “It turns out that was the old sign I was looking at.” And they died. “Thanks to your nervous breakdown, Robin, we have sermon fodder for WEEKS,” they said. We will call our sermons, “I saw the sign,” “signs and wonders,” “Signs, signs, everywhere are signs”. Sometimes we are a little too quick to hurl each other off cliffs without having all the facts, without assuming good intent, without offering abundant grace instead. We jump to wild conclusions without asking our friends directly, trusting their intentions, or waiting for an answer. We are only humans, and doing the best that we can. In the spirit of doing the best that we can, three years ago your church leadership did some really good work. In January of 2016, several of your congregation’s leaders got together to create what they called a behavioral covenant, after multiple afternoon workshops and work sessions on “Walking in the Way of Peace.” They learned skills like active listening, speaking the truth in love directly to people you have a concern with in a timely fashion, and assuming good intent. They learned about avoiding “parking lot” conversations, triangulation, Facebook comments section debates, and “reply to all” emails, or emails with emotional content when a face to face meeting is called for. This is how to treat love not as a feeling, but as a way of BEING, they told us. It’s not easy, which is why we have one another to keep us accountable. Here is the covenant we made, articulated beautifully by Janet Baker and Vicki Gaw: As a congregation, we gather in the spirit of Jesus to create heaven on earth. To succeed in our mission, we must practice open and honest communication among ourselves and with others: We will speak from our hearts and without judging; seeking facts, ideas and inspirations. We may disagree, and we will do so with respect. When we have concerns or questions, we will bring them directly to the person or group with the responsibility. We will do so with the expectation of being heard and understood and the possibility of deepening our own understandings. In all this, we will speak with love and nourish our connections by sharing our laughter, our prayers, our lives, and ourselves. These promises are how we practice being Love, here in this place. Beloved, be patient. Be kind. Rejoice in the truth. If you incite rage in others, remember it’s not about you. Don’t let anyone throw you off a cliff…big breath, and go on. Be humble enough to say you’re wrong. Offer forgiveness like it is water for the thirsty. Begin again and again. Open up the heavens by remaining open to one another. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. Amen. 1/13/2019 0 Comments The Power of YouA sermon by Rev. Robin Bartlett preached on January 13, 2019 at the First Church in Sterling, MA Jesus' Baptism Sunday I read a story in the Manchester Union Leader this week about a New Hampshire hiker named Pam Bales who followed a sneaker trail up Mount Washington in October to rescue a hiker in distress. In near blizzard conditions, she found a hypothermic man who had hiked up that morning before her, shivering in his shorts and t-shirt. She found him just sitting there in the snow above tree line. He was unresponsive to her questions, so she gave him a name (John). She gave him warm clothes and a hat and covered his body with hand warmers and foot warmers—everything she had in her pack. Despite his protests for her to leave him, and at great physical risk to herself, she put her micro-spikes on his sneakers and force marched him for 8 hours in freezing cold temperatures and deep snow all the way down the mountain and into his car. He mumbled a few words to her before he drove away and she never saw him again. Pam Bales risked her life to save this man. She didn’t want to die herself, but she refused to give up on him. Though she could not fathom why he would put himself and other hikers at risk by not checking the weather and bringing the proper gear, she gave him a name. She gave his life particularity. She regarded him as worthy of saving. Remember that Mr. Rogers song? It’s you I like, It’s not the things you wear, It’s not the way you do your hair– But it’s you I like The way you are right now, The way down deep inside you– Not the things that hide you, Not your toys– They’re just beside you. But it’s you I like– Every part of you, Your skin, your eyes, your feelings Whether old or new. I hope that you’ll remember Even when you’re feeling blue That it’s you I like, It’s you yourself, It’s you, it’s you I like. That’s how The Reverend Mr. Rogers spread the Gospel of Love on TV…with the power of the word “you.” He was a televangelist, but he didn’t suggest that if you believed the right things about Jesus you’d get a new car or house like Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker did. Mr. Rogers didn’t even mention Jesus or God at all. He simply sang that song to children every week. It’s you I like. Every part of you. And children loved him for it. He gave their lives particularity. He regarded them as worthy of saving. Fred Rogers was criticized widely for this approach to child development. He still is. Everyone from parents to preachers to teachers to politicians fret that this theology has led to the downfall of society. It’s dangerous to tell kids they are loved the way they are. Our children think they are special snowflakes. This “everybody gets a trophy” nonsense is what’s wrong with kids today. Many of my more Conservative colleagues worry that focusing on God’s extravagant love for us in absence of God’s wrath and judgment has led to a whole generation of unrepentant, self-obsessed sinners…the “me generation.” The “selfie generation.” Many of my liberal colleagues suggest that focusing solely on God’s grace makes people too comfortable with their own complacency with injustice in an unjust world. Maybe they are all right. Who knows. But if the goal of “me-culture” is supposed to be sky rocketing self-regard, it doesn’t seem to be working. The way I see it, we are more self-loathing than ever before. In an increasingly individualistic world where self-reliance, choice and freedom are the highest values, consumerism becomes the main mechanism for self-fulfillment. We aren’t told we are loved enough, if you ask me. Our value no longer comes from our status as Beloved children of God, but from our status as consumers in the marketplace. The result is that we feel as though we are never enough. The result is that we have forgotten that we belong to each other. The Gospel tells us a different story. Our scriptures say “You are precious and beloved in God’s sight. YOU. You, you and you. You are God’s child, the beloved. In you, God is well pleased.” No mistake or sin or injustice or face lift or range rover will change who you are to God. “You” is a more powerful word than “me.” Like the word “me”, “you” is particular. It is specific. It is personal. But to hear the word “you” is to be regarded by another. You matter. The word “you” gives us particularity to someone else. It makes us worthy of saving. Love makes you a you. Human babies are the only offspring in the mammal species that need love to stay alive. In fact, we know from studies done in orphanages that if human babies—even if they are fed and dressed and bathed properly—if they are not held regularly they can experience both psychic and physical death. It’s called “failure to thrive.” We are loved into existence. We need to be held in order to experience healthy psychological development. When we are born, we do not know that we are separate from our caregiver. Newborns believe their mothers are just an extension of themselves. This is why it is so critical that we respond to their every need in the first weeks and months. It is only through the process of being held and regarded by another that we begin to know ourselves to be separate entities. Caregivers mirror back to us our smiles and sounds, and we realize we are a self. We become not just a ”me” but a “you.” You are loved into your you-ness. Love is what makes you a you. Love is what makes you not just part of another person, but your own person. Once you realize that you are a separate entity, the next stage of development is to realize that you are part of a larger “we.” That your circle of love extends beyond you and your mama and into your family and your community and the world. Baptism is simply an outward sign of an inward grace—an affirmation that you are part of a larger “we.” In our scripture from Luke, John admits that though he has the power to baptize with water, someone far more powerful is coming after him. He’s not even fit to untie the sandals of Jesus, John says. And yet, Jesus waits until all the people have been dunked into the River Jordan, and then presents himself to be baptized. I wonder what John was thinking in that moment. I wonder if he was shaking in his sandals. “Why would God himself want me to baptize him? I’m not even remotely worthy to do this, and here he is bringing up the rear.” The Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove in this moment, and the heavens open up. God’s voice booms down, “YOU are my son, the beloved. With YOU, I am well pleased.” Baptism confirms Jesus’ status as beloved with the power of the word “you.” An outward sign that he, too, was part of the larger “we.” Karoline Lewis says that maybe “Jesus needed to hear “you” so as to recognize who he needed to see. It’s hard to pay attention to another when you have never had another pay attention to you.” Imagine for a moment that we paid attention to other people the way we are paid attention to by God. Hear these words from Isaiah again: Do not fear, for I have created you, I have formed you. I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. Do not fear, for I am with you. Pam Bales treated John, the unprepared hiker, this way. “Do not fear, for I am with you,” she said. She called him by name. She gave him particularity. She told him he was worthy of saving. She had no idea what happened to “John” after he left the parking lot at base trail. She had no idea why he was on that mountain without proper gear, or whether or not he got treatment for hypothermia and got home. She never so much as found out what his real name was. Ty Gagne writes: (Pam) Bales would not get an answer until a week later, when the president of her rescue group, Allan Clark, received a letter in the mail, and a donation tucked between the folds. I hope this reaches the right group of rescuers. This is hard to do but must try, part of my therapy. I want to remain anonymous, but I was called John. On Sunday Oct. 17 I went up my favorite trail, Jewell, to end my life. Weather was to be bad. Thought no one else would be there, I was dressed to go quickly. Next thing I knew this lady was talking to me, changing my clothes, talking to me, giving me food, talking to me, making me warmer, and she just kept talking and calling me John and I let her. Finally learned her name was Pam. Conditions were horrible and I said to leave me and get going, but she wouldn’t. Got me up and had me stay right behind her, still talking. I followed but I did think about running off, she couldn’t see me. But I wanted to only take my life, not anybody else and I think she would’ve tried to find me. The entire time she treated me with care, compassion, authority, confidence and the impression that I mattered. With all that has been going wrong in in my life, I didn’t matter to me, but I did to Pam. She probably thought I was the stupidest hiker dressed like I was, but I was never put down in any way — chewed out yes — in a kind way. Maybe I wasn’t meant to die yet, I somehow still mattered in life. I became very embarrassed later on and never really thanked her properly. If she is an example of your organization/professionalism, you must be the best group around. Please accept this small offer of appreciation for her effort to save me way beyond the limits of safety. NO did not seem in her mind. I am getting help with my mental needs, they will also help me find a job and I have temporary housing. I have a new direction thanks to wonderful people like yourselves. I got your name from her pack patch and bumper sticker. My deepest thanks, —John Bales was deeply moved by the man’s gesture and his reference to the fact that she made him feel that he mattered. She said, “Some people have asked me if I tried to find John. The thought of searching for him felt wrong. As I’ve reflected more on this story and its relation to the issue of mental health, my response to the question about finding John has evolved. I have in fact found John, and he is very close by me. John is my neighbor, he is my good friend, a close colleague, a family member. John could be me.” Beloved, You matter to God. You matter to me. Every part of you. You, in the particular. You are worthy of saving. On this day when we remember our baptisms, let us remember to use the extravagant, wasteful Love we are given to show other people that they matter, too. Amen. An Epiphany Sermon
preached on January 6, 2019 by Rev. Robin Bartlett at the First Church in Sterling, MA Arise, shine, your light has come! Yes, it is winter. Yes, it is dark. Yes, we suffer. Every day we are alive we must mourn all that we have lost: our innocence, our dignity; our loved one; the life we carefully chose for ourselves somehow turned asunder. It is always darkest before the dawn… And your light has come. Yes, there is hate. Yes, there is debilitating illness and death and starving children. Yes, there is rage and outrage. Yes, there is division and dehumanization. Yes, there is war. And mass shootings. And climate change. And racism and ethnocentricism. And greed. And poverty. And still out of this darkness, your light has come. Look around this room! God’s light has come in the form of human flesh. Beautiful beloved human flesh of all shapes and all sizes, of all colors and ages and walks of life. God’s light is in YOU: in all races and classes and ethnicities and genders and sexualities and political and religious beliefs. Arise and shine! Your light has come. The light has come from those who feed hundreds of people at community lunches in the parish hall on Saturdays. The light has come from the hugs offered during the passing of the peace. The light has come from those quietly knitting prayer shawls for our folks who need to feel God’s arms wrapped around their shoulders. The light has come from the La Romana mission team planning once again to visit a remote village in the Dominican Republic to offer medical care and clean water to Haitian workers there. The light is baked into the cookies lovingly made each week for coffee hour. The light has come in the hands and feet and eyes and heart of the person in the pew next to you. The light has come in the heart of every stranger who is just a piece of us we do not yet know. Our advent scriptures promised us that all flesh shall see the glory of the Lord TOGETHER. Look around! We can’t see God’s glory if we can’t see one another. This is our epiphany. Your light has come. The story of Epiphany is a story about the light of Love emanating from human flesh in a time of impossible darkness: King Herod—a puppet leader inserted by the Roman empire—heard about a baby born in Bethlehem who was to become king of the Jews. And he erupted into a vengeful, murderous jealousy. No one could be king but him! He raged and he sputtered. He ruminated and he intimidated. Too gutless and powerless to do anything on his own, Herod looked around for those loyal to him and fearful of his power to do his dirty work. He called on some gentile scientists--Wise Men and astrologers--to follow the star to where this tiny baby lay, sleeping in heavenly peace. He wanted these men to reveal the powerful baby’s location, just so that Herod could destroy him. The wise men set out to follow the brightest star they had ever seen out of the darkness, journeying for days with no map or direction, not knowing the final destination. They just kept doing the next right thing until they got to Bethlehem. The Wise Men do, in fact, find the baby, and they are filled with joy. They offer him gifts of gold fit for royalty, frankincense in honor of religious leadership and myrrh, foreshadowing his death on the cross and his resurrection. There’s a joke that goes if wise women were the ones going to visit Mary and the baby, they’d bring a casserole, diapers and a mess of chocolate, Lanisoh cream, and wine for Mary. After visiting the baby Jesus and bowing down before him, the wise astrologers intuitively knew that the gifts he would give the world were far more precious than the gifts they had brought. The light of his truth invaded their consciousness so much that they dreamt about it. And the next day, they chose another path home. Rather than give up the location of the baby to Herod as they were ordered to do, they went another way. They knew he was a dangerously narcissistic King Baby who feared being unseated by this lowly and humble baby King. An epiphany is often described as a moment of great realization that causes you to change in some way. The magi became wise in this encounter with God’s light. They chose the path of Love over their orders to comply. They chose the path of Love over following a dangerously unfit ruler. They chose the path of Love over the Law of the land. And so it is with you and I. We can notice the light encased in human flesh all around us. We can choose to be dazzled by it. The light, if we let it, can permeate our consciousness and change who we are. And we, too, can choose a different path. We too, can choose Love over power. Love over division and cruelty. We, too, can choose Love even over the law of this land. Richard Rohr says that Christ is a name for the immense spaciousness of all true Love. We can choose Christ. This is our epiphany. Arise, shine, the light of all true love has come down to earth. Love has come to live among us! Love has MOVED INTO THE NEIGHBORHOOD. The word made flesh. Love made flesh. LIGHT made flesh. We gather in the spirit of a child who would unseat corrupt, hateful, murderous human rulers with a LOVE so profound, so pure, so penetrating, that the whole world lit up with it. We have followed the light to this place, and found God encased in human flesh. We have no choice but to bow down. My interfaith colleagues were heartened about the fact that the new congress was sworn in this week on a plethora of sacred texts, from the Bible to the Buddhist sutras to the Koran to the Torah, to the constitution of the United States. It was indicative that the diversity of this country had finally coalesced together into the halls of power. God speaks through so many mediums. God’s truth is written into so many books. Someone asked this of my colleagues: What text would you be sworn in on? And one of them answered this: I would be sworn in on a newborn baby. At first I rolled my eyes and was like, “man, my UU colleagues say some weird stuff.” But then I thought, wait. That’s the Gospel. I mean, imagine that. Imagine congress putting their hands upon the fragrant head of a squirming, wide eyed, impossibly soft and fragile young human, to make their promises to uphold all that is true and good. Imagine if every member of our government was sworn in not on a book full of words and laws—but on the hope of the whole world. A newborn baby. The word of God made flesh. Perhaps the powerful would choose a different path. Perhaps the government wouldn’t shut down, but build up. Perhaps our country would be re-built on the Good News of the Gospel and our laws would be shaped by the interests of the poor and marginalized rather than the interests of the rich and powerful. Imagine if we were all made to swear an oath before God and each other, on human flesh. Imagine if our words had to be backed up by putting some skin in the game. If before we swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, we placed our hand on our own children’s flesh. If before we pledged to serve this country faithfully, we put our hands on the flesh of an American soldier. If before we swore to serve God before all else, we put our hands on the flesh of a refugee child. If before we swore to love God, we put our hands in each other’s hands. Imagine. Perhaps we would make haste to Love our neighbor. Perhaps we wouldn’t be so quick to use our words as weapons. Perhaps we would be less cavalier about sending soldiers off to war. Perhaps we would be more willing to welcome the stranger, to re-humanize those we have cast aside. Perhaps we would choose a different path home. Perhaps we would become the light of the world. This comes from the writings of the desert fathers: “Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, 'Abba as far as I can, I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?' Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.” As William Blake said, “We are here but a little while to learn to bear the beams of love.” Beloved, this is epiphany. There is a burning bush in each one of us—a bush that burns but is not consumed. The light of God is ENFLESHED in us. That’s the truth of the Gospel. That’s the truth of Christ. We can use our bodies, our flesh, to do the work of Love in the here and now. We can become all flame. This year, like the wise men, let us resolve to choose new paths. Let us resolve to choose the path of love rather than the well-worn paths of divisiveness found in internet comment sections and twitter feeds. Let us choose God over Law. Let us choose Love over empire. Let us choose Jesus over petulant, raging politics and hate-inciting rhetoric that harms those on the margins. And then, let us light the path for others. You, beloved, are the word made flesh, love made flesh, light made flesh. So learn to bear the beams of love. That is the only gift we can offer to the Christ child worthy of his kingdom. There is no time but now, no people but us, and no way forward without turning toward each other. Become all flame. Arise and shine! Amen. 12/16/2018 0 Comments The Things I've DoneSome of us are drowning in our to-do lists right now. We are writing down the things we need to do to prepare for Christmas and then crossing them off one by one. Some of us write things that we have already done, just to have the satisfaction of crossing something off our list.
What’s on your to do list for this week, 8 days until Christmas Eve? If it’s like mine, it looks as long as Santa’s naughty list.
I’m getting anxious just saying all of this out loud. The crowd that gathers around John the Baptist is anxious too. But they are preparing for the end of the world, not the in-laws coming over (which for some of us might feel like the end of the world). They are going to get baptized in the river Jordan quick…figuring better safe than sorry in the terrifying days to come. They ask John “What should we DO” to prepare for God’s arrival? And John is just a little harsh in his response. YOU BROOD OF VIPERS, he says. (Isn’t it amazing that he can keep a congregation enraptured while at the same time calling them a bunch of “snakes?”) He doesn’t stop there. “Here’s what should be on your to do list: Bear fruits worthy of repentance, or be thrown in the fire. If you have two coats, give one to someone who has none. Stop charging interest. Be satisfied with what you have and don’t ask for more.” The scripture calls this “good news.” And John the Baptist wasn’t messing around. He subsisted in the wilderness on locusts and honey, and had a wild look in his eye. Whenever he preached it was fire and brimstone like a preacher wildly gesticulating on a street corner with a “repent or die” sign. If we encountered him now, it would be in a subway station with people walking quickly by assuming he was homeless and crazy. But his followers believed he was onto something. In fact, some people thought he was Elijah come back from the grave, and some thought he was the Messiah. But John says “No, fools. I’m just a voice crying in the wilderness! I am the broom sweeping the house to help you prepare for his coming. I’m unfit to untie the Messiah’s sandals.” In other words, he has the humility to say, “hey, I’m not the guy you should listen to. He’s on his way.” He had the good sense to point his followers to God. “John apparently had second thoughts about (Jesus) later on, however, and it's no great wonder.” Fred Buechner says. “Where John preached grim justice and pictured God as a steely-eyed thresher of grain, Jesus preached forgiving love and pictured God as the host at a marvelous party or a father who can't bring himself to throw his children out even when they spit in his eye. Where John said people had better save their skins before it was too late, Jesus said it was God who saved their skins, and even if you blew your whole bankroll on liquor and sex like the Prodigal Son, it still wasn't too late. Where John ate locusts and honey in the wilderness with the church crowd, Jesus ate what he felt like in Jerusalem with as sleazy a bunch as you could expect to find. Where John crossed to the other side of the street if he saw any sinners heading his way, Jesus seems to have preferred their company to (the diaconate), the Stewardship Committee, and the World Council of Churches rolled into one. Where John baptized, Jesus healed.” I don’t know about you, but I’m more motivated to bear good fruit in service to a Loving God of forgiveness and healing than I am by the terrifying threats of a man who wants to convince me of God’s great wrath and vengeance. However, the invitation to repentance still stands. Jesus convinces us that we should be motivated to repent simply because God loves us so extravagantly. There’s nothing else to do in response to that Love but name why we’re not always worthy of it. So, if we’re trying to get our spiritual houses in order to prepare for his coming, we might as well do it on our knees. “Repent” translates from the Greek metanoia to “change of thought.” We are called by God to change our minds in response to Love. The only way to bear fruit worthy of repentance is to change our minds. Have you changed your mind lately? We are told it is impossible to change people’s minds….that “once a ‘fill in the blank,’ always ‘a fill in the blank.” We are told that people who change their minds are weak-minded, or at least weak-willed. I wouldn’t be in this business if I believed that were true. These days, I think the thing that humbles and impresses me most about ministry is the sheer amount of stories I get to hear about people changing their minds. My favorite compliment I’ve ever gotten was confessed publicly by one of our beloved conservatives at a church dinner last spring as we were introducing ourselves to each other: “I’ve come to this church for forty years,” he said. And then, pointing to me almost accusingly he said, “and she turned me into a liberal.” Another one of the conservatives at the table replied to him, “What? NO! I’ll talk to you after dinner.” Lest you think he was kidding, the other day, I saw that same guy share a post on Facebook about climate change from Bernie Sanders. God’s miracles never cease. But in all seriousness, imagine being humble enough to take in new information, examine it in the light of Love, and change your ideology as a response. When I came to First Church in 2014 for my candidating week, I was surprised to find that the thing everyone wanted to talk to me about was the process to become open and affirming to the LGBTQ community, which you all had yet to complete. I didn’t know that it was a long and painful story in the congregation’s history, and you all wanted to know if I was going to help you write the final chapter. I remember sitting with one of our 90 year olds at a “meet the minister” coffee. He told me a story about how he left his last church because of an open and affirming process. “I didn’t think it was biblical,” he said, “to affirm same gender relationships.” And he didn’t like the fact that the minister was heavy-handed about it, and that the process seemed rushed, and “pushed through.” “Oh,” I said. “So I take it you are concerned that I might do the same thing?” “Oh, I’ve since changed my mind,” he said, with an off-handed gesture, as if it was no big deal. “I think it’s long past time for the church to become open and affirming. We need to be welcoming to all of God’s children. I hope you’re going to help us get there” he said. “How did you change your mind?” I asked him, amazed. I was far more entrenched in my own ideological leanings at 38 than he was at 90, and couldn’t imagine changing my position on such a deeply held moral intuition. “I listened to my grandchildren, and prayed about it.” Such a simple and profound act of humility: I listened, I prayed, I changed my mind. With God’s help, we have the power to develop new habits of mind. Even me. I wrote a sermon early on in my ministry here for Advent about Mike Brown’s death in Ferguson. I was pretty proud of it. It even got chosen to be on the UUA’s worship web as an example of how one should preach about racism. Not everyone appreciated it, though. I was lucky enough to have two beloved parishioners in my office the very next week because they trusted me enough to tell me the truth with grace. “Our son is a police officer. His life matters. We want our pastor to love him, too,” was the general content of our conversation. We talked about their fears every time he leaves the house. We talked about racism, and their thoughts on police corruption and the split second decisions police officers have to make that are a matter of life and death. They agreed that some of the cases of the deaths of unarmed black folks we heard about in the news could be because of racism. We disagreed in some ways, but there were many points of connection and a ton of empathy for one another. We hugged and we told each other how much we cared about each other at the end of the conversation. Still, they left my office, and I immediately burst into tears. I wasn’t sure I could minister outside my bubble. It was too hard. I liked preaching to the choir better. I texted my clergy friends, “I don’t belong here,” I said. One of my colleagues called me immediately. “Robin,” she said, “you’re not supposed to belong there. You can’t do good ministry among people to whom you think you ‘belong.’ What would you learn? What would they learn?” I thought the only way to do ministry was to be among those I perceived to be like-minded. I had so little faith in the God who calls me to re-think so that I might prepare him room. I had so little faith in the God who creates us like-hearted, not like-minded. Maybe that’s what John means by separating the wheat from the chaff: we must burn what no longer serves us in the fire of truth, and return over and over again, to Love. My friend Jake Morrill says that “the central task of these times of de-humanization is for us to engage in “re-humanization.” Which may be another way to say that we need to see and hear one another—our stories, our wounds, our quirks, our confessions—and even fall in love a little with one another. And, while we're at it, to come back to ourselves. I don’t know the exact strategies that will fix the big problems we face, or heal the wounds. But I think faith communities and other artistic communities can be about falling in love again with each other and with the earth, bearing witness to beauty even in the wreckage, and taking up the discipline of re-humanization. If our hearts got stirred up like that, if we let beauty tug us out of our stupor, we could be moved to fight for what we love. Tenaciously and tenderly. Like something precious might, even at the last hour, have a chance of being saved.” The best way to prepare for the coming reign of Love is to learn how to re-think everything we are sure we know. If we’re going to be ready for the One who comes in the form of a poor, brown, middle-eastern, Jewish, helpless baby migrant boy, born to an unwed mother and a stepfather in a cattle stall with only poor shepherds as witnesses….we better let beauty tug us out of our stupor. Like something precious might, even at the last hour, have a chance of being saved. Amen. 12/9/2018 0 Comments My Heart Will Go OnA sermon preached by Rev. Robin Bartlett
at the First Church in Sterling, MA on December 9, 2018 The Second Sunday of Advent Our worlds can grow dark so suddenly. We had a certain plan for our lives, and just like that, a new reality we didn’t plan for takes hold. Your beloved walks out of your home for the last time. The doctor says, “I’m sorry, there’s nothing more we can do.” You drop your last kid off in her dorm room and the house is quieter than you expected. A policeman arrives at your door. A verdict is read. Something comes out of your mouth that you can’t take back. Your boss calls you into the office to inform you of the restructuring. You lose a dreamed-about baby to infertility or miscarriage. You had the much-wanted baby, and suddenly you are too sad and numb to imagine your child’s future or your’s. You say your final goodbye to the wife you promised to love till death do you part. You never thought she’d go first. Barbara Brown Taylor calls the darkness a time in which you can’t see where you are going. In some way, you are given “The News,” and it changes everything you were sure of. The dark slows us down. It even stops us. Our old tools we brought with us are rendered useless there. You brought your map, but you can’t see it. You have a compass, but you can’t see it. You have a plan sketched out, but you can’t see it. The dark can be disorienting at best, and terrifying at worst. No wonder we are too quick to flip on the light switch. Mary Oliver says, “someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.” There is much to be learned in the dark, and much growth that can happen there, if we are brave enough to accept it as a gift. I met with our Ranny the other day, and she told me that she wouldn’t tell her story from up here because she hates public speaking, but that I could. Ranny has been sick with cancer for about a year, and she almost died three weeks ago when she had a bad reaction to the medicine. In fact, she thinks she died and came back. She was at the cancer clinic getting her chemo, and was suddenly plunged into the dark. Doctors and nurses and EMTs rushed around her trying to revive her. Somehow her heart went on, and she returned to us. “Dying is easy,” she said. “Living is what’s hard. And I want to live. I’m a stubborn old broad and I’m far too stubborn to die.” For the first time, though, she wasn’t afraid of death. She felt God’s presence there in that dark place. God guided her feet into the way of peace that day. The scriptures are full of the word “will”…a word that we associate with “not yet.” A word that we associate with promises, like the ones we make on our wedding day. In the Hebrew scriptures, God is the promise-maker. Take off the garment of sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem: God WILL show you splendor everywhere under heaven. God WILL give you the name “righteous peace.” God WILL bring your children back to you. God WILL lead Jerusalem with joy in the light of his glory. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high WILL break upon us.” GOD has, God can and God WILL. The biblical writers were living in a time of great darkness. They needed the reminder of who God was, the promise that God was still with them, and the assurance that their hearts would go on. It’s unfortunate that the darkness is so often used in our scriptures as a metaphor for sadness, evil, ignorance and fear. Because darkness is also where the whole world is created. God spoke light into the darkness. Darkness is where seeds are planted and regenerate new growth deep in the earth. God buried Jesus deep into the dark womb of his mother Mary, where he emerged 9 months later to save the whole world. God resurrected Jesus out of the darkness of the tomb. Life is created and re-created in darkness. And darkness is where all of us begin, intricately woven in the depths of the earth, knitted in our mother’s wombs, fearfully and wonderfully made. It is also where we will all return: back into the dark earth where we will become part of All That Is once again. I was introduced to Kate Bowler through her writing when I read her essay in the New York Times a few months ago. I immediately picked up her book called “Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved” and read it in a day. Kate is married to the childhood love of her life, who still makes her laugh and swoon. After living off of ramen noodles with her husband for years as a perpetual student, she got a professorship at Duke Divinity School; her dream job. After a long period of infertility and a devastating miscarriage, she finally had a baby boy who is their sun, moon and stars. They bought a house, and filled their days doing work they love, anticipating waking up to the giggles of their small boy. All of Kate’s dreams had come true. She and her husband were fond of taking long walks, planning a seemingly endless future, which could only get brighter. #blessed. And then at 35, she was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer, and was given a matter of months to live. Suddenly her world grew very small. Kate would leave everything she loved about her life far sooner than she had planned. Kate won’t see her toddler grow up. He won’t remember what she smelled like, or what her voice sounded like. Her husband’s bright future will no longer have her in it. Her interests and studies will die with her. Kate still describes herself as an incurable optimist on her website. She is a professor in Christian history. She has written the only book on the history of the American Prosperity Gospel. Ironically, she studies the group of folks who believe that the more faith you have, the more God will bless you with health, wealth, and happiness. Prosperity religion is a heresy and a toxic lie that poisons our country. And yet we are all susceptible to its allure, whether we go to a church that preaches it or not. We so badly want to believe that if things are going well, we are somehow blessed by God. That’s why our faith is so easily the first tool to go when we are lost in the dark. We forget that we worship a God who doesn’t protect us from suffering, and who also doesn’t leave us alone in it. A God who promises that when we’ve lost sight of the path ahead, only love is what remains. This, too, is a gift. Two months after her diagnosis, Kate Bowler writes: “CANCER has kicked down the walls of my life. I cannot be certain I will walk my son to his elementary school someday or subject his love interests to cheerful scrutiny. I struggle to buy books for academic projects I fear I can’t finish for a perfect job I may be unable to keep. I have surrendered my favorite manifestoes about having it all, managing work-life balance and maximizing my potential. I cannot help but remind my best friend that if my husband remarries everyone will need to simmer down on talking about how special I was in front of her. (And then I go on and on about how this is an impossible task given my many delightful qualities. Let’s list them. …) Cancer requires that I stumble around in the debris of dreams I thought I was entitled to and plans I didn’t realize I had made. But cancer has also ushered in new ways of being alive. Even when I am this distant from Canadian family and friends, everything feels as if it is painted in bright colors. In my vulnerability, I am seeing my world without the Instagrammed filter of breezy certainties and perfectible moments. I can’t help noticing the brittleness of the walls that keep most people fed, sheltered and whole. I find myself returning to the same thoughts again and again: Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard.” I remember Shelly Kennedy-Leonard looking up at the walls of cards she hung around her before she died: “Look how much love there is out there for me! I wouldn’t know about all this love if I hadn’t gotten sick!” She brought me to Drumlin Hill and described it to me in every season. “It never stops being beautiful. It is always peaceful. You can see deer here, in the meadow, and the calliope of fall colors in the fall, and the kids sledding down the hill in the winter, and if you come here early in the morning, the mist rises off of the hill, and it is like a magical heaven, and all of creation is in concert with God. When I pray here, I just feel deep in my bones that all will be well. I am sure of God’s love just because of all of this beauty….” God’s love was the only thing she was sure of. She knew she wasn’t alone in the dark. There is a line from Isaiah that says “the glory of the Lord will be revealed, all flesh shall see it together.” God doesn’t promise us health, wealth and happiness. God promises us to show up in the flesh. God promises all flesh shall see God’s glory TOGETHER. Kate Bowler says that what saves her every day is the ability to touch and be touched. Since she got sick, she just craves hands to hold, back rubs, hugs. “The weight of people‘s hands on my shoulders and head feels like I’m being put back together,” she says. Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard. When the old tools we carry no longer work, touch. Grab a hand, give a hug, use your hands to knit or make a meal for someone else, or your feet to march. Put skin in the game. Don’t leave anyone alone in the dark. We shall see God’s glory if we are willing to wait there, together. Amen. 11/25/2018 0 Comments Love is the Boss of Us.SERMON “Love is the Boss of Us”
My favorite meme from this week’s Romaine lettuce recall seemed appropriate for Christ the King Sunday. It said: The Romaine empire is fallen. Caesar is dead. Lettuce pray. This year at Thanksgiving, pie was better for us than salad. Don’t tell me that’s not evidence that God loves us and wants to be happy. Please pray with me: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts together find their way into the heart of God this morning. Amen. Today on this last day before the church year ends and begins again with Advent, we celebrate the reign of Christ. Hallelujah, Christ is King! Though some of us might have spent Thanksgiving gritting our teeth and smiling, your mother-in-law is not king, and neither is your sullen teenager….Christ is King! Though we spent all of Friday starting at 1 am trying to find black Friday deals, the marketplace is not King. Christ is King! Though some of us have an internal self critic that we cannot turn off, beating ourselves up from the inside, that voice is not King…Christ is King! Though we live in a country that is increasingly more divided and cruel, the president is not King; Wall Street is not King; the 24 hour news cycle is not King…Christ is King! Here’s what we celebrate on Christ the King Sunday: Love is, was, and ever shall be the boss of us. When Christ is the one in charge, when his Kingdom of Equals is established, when Love is the boss, the world looks completely upside down. Witness it with me: Before the sun comes up, the can collector gets to his work. His toe pokes through the hole at the top of his worn left shoe. He pulls on a moth eaten wool sweater and sighs, tired from his fitful sleep interrupted by the noise of the street. He grabs his shopping cart with a bum wheel, and slowly ambles down my block. He is the hardest working person in my Boston neighborhood. I don’t want him to see me looking at him through the window of my warm apartment. I don’t know if I’m ashamed for him, or for me. The can collector carefully picks through the cardboard and paper digging for gold: the silver gleam of a soda or beer can in my recycling bins and my trash cans. When he finds some, he piles them high into his mounded shopping cart, black garbage bags over-flowing with cans and hung on either side of the hulking metal contraption. On the streets of Boston one can find hundreds and thousands of cans and bottles that can be turned into recycling centers for 5-10 cents a piece if you can brave the weather: digging through snow, withstanding high humidity, waterlogged in the pouring rain. I lived in several neighborhoods in my seventeen years in Boston, and in each one there was an early morning collector of cans. The can collector was always small, old, weathered, and slow moving; invariably an immigrant of Asian descent. Perhaps the can collector brings his earnings back to his apartment in Chinatown, that he shares with multiple generations of his family, crammed into small beds and tight corners like the family that lived upstairs from me in my early years in Jamaica Plain. Or perhaps he uses the money he earns to bring cigarettes and food back to the shelter under the bridge where he lays his head. I never knew because I never asked. I never even said “hello.” All I know is that this quiet and industrious scavenger was often refused by drivers on the city buses because he took up too much room or his cans were too smelly; week-old beer is hard on the noses of the morning commuters bound for the Longwood Medical area. Mostly he went unnoticed. Alone. Abandoned. Rejected. Unseen, even when people passed him by. He is one of the world’s great losers. But in God’s eyes, he wears a crown. When I worked in downtown Boston, I got off at the Park Street station every day, and passed Michael on my way to my office building at the Unitarian Universalist Association on Beacon Street. Michael was a mainstay of the Boston Common, sitting on the bench or on the stairs that leads up to the statehouse. He was tiny with bird-like bones, his black skin made blacker by the grime of the streets he lived on. He had a leprechaun-like black beard sprinkled with wiry gray. His clothes hung off of him, his pants too big, and his belt wrapped tightly around his hips to hold them up. He was elfin, ageless, and he had a gigantic, white smile. I have rarely met anyone with more charisma than Michael. He called everyone “uncle” and “auntie.” He was rumored to have a million dollars stored away from panhandling, which I never believed, though I do know he was more successful than some of his less hilarious and cute homeless friends. Michael told everyone that it was his birthday every day, which was a brilliant marketing ploy. He also knew his perch would fill up with bleeding heart state house employees and liberal religious professionals headed to the Unitarian Universalist Association’s office building every morning at a little bit before 9 am from the T. I was one of them. “Hey auntie!” He’d call out, “it’s my birthday!” “Here’s five dollars,” one of his hurried customers would say as they dropped it into his wool winter hat on the ground. “Don’t spend it all in one place, Michael.” One day I asked him when his birthday really was, and he said, “Today! Give me a hug, auntie.” The pure grace of being called a family member by someone I would likely ignore if he wasn’t so charming woke me up to my own complacency every morning. It also assuaged my guilt for all of the other nameless, faceless people I passed lying on cardboard on the streets of my city. I was grateful Michael didn’t let me look away. So while I didn’t relish the idea of hugging someone so smelly, I’d hold my breath and hug Michael anyway. The stench of urine, body odor and something vaguely medical would creep into my nose and stay on my clothes for the rest of the day. I was a 24 year old secretary in an office filled with ministers then. One of the stern male minister bosses in my office saw me hug Michael one day. He took me aside to angrily and paternalistically inform me that this practice was dangerous. “Don’t do that again. You could contract diseases, or he could pick pocket you, Robin. You need to be more careful.” I sensed that I needed to be more careful around people like him, though, not around people like Michael. People like this minister were crowned with many worldly crowns…given secretaries to manage, his own office to make decisions from, high pulpits to preach from, and a hardened heart. Though Michael greeted everyone like family, rarely was he greeted like family by the lawyers, corporate executives and Beacon Hill residents who passed him on his path. He was alone; abandoned, really. Unseen, even by people who passed him by. He was one of the world’s great losers, ignored on a daily basis by the world’s great winners. But in God’s eyes, it is Michael who wears a crown. They took Jesus early in the morning to Pilate’s headquarters. He didn’t wear a robe and a crown, he wore a mantle: a large shawl which had tassels called tallith, and some dusty sandals. He was exhausted from a sleepless night of feeding his friends and washing feet, filled with dread of the fate that awaited him. He was heralded as a king earlier in the week as he rode into town on a lowly donkey, with coats to ease his seat and palms thrown down on the ground to soften the path. He knew at the time that he would be denied, betrayed and abandoned by the few friends he had left, so even that celebration was mawkish. Before Jesus is sentenced to death, Pilate asks him if he is a king. Jesus answers “You say that I’m a king, but I came to testify to the truth,” and “my kingdom is not of this world." “Crucify him!” the crowd shouts. The soldiers dress him up like royalty with a purple robe and a crown of thorns digging into his forehead, causing blood to pour down from his sweaty brow. And they mock him. He is whipped, beaten. They say “Hail! King of the Jews!” as they strike him in the face. He is hung on a cross with criminals flanking him on either side. “King of the Jews,” the sign above his head reads, menacingly. Calling Christ “King” is making a sneering mockery of the man who put the least of all first; who proclaimed his kingdom not of this world where royalty and presidents and politicians and billionaires rule from atop high towers. People who pass avert their eyes. His friends leave. He is the world’s great loser, crucified by the Roman Empire, sentenced to die by the King. He is unseen, abandoned, left to die alone. But in God’s eyes, it is he who wears the crown. This is our God, the Loser King, who rose again to remind us all that Love is, was and ever shall be the boss of us. So instead of celebrating Christ the King Sunday, why don’t we celebrate Christ the Can Collector Sunday? Why don’t we celebrate the birthday of Michael the panhandler, born to save us all? Because the Jesus I know would be much more comfortable collecting cans from the trash with his Chinese immigrant friend, or panhandling on the street with Michael proclaiming his birthday a holy day than he would be on some cosmic royal throne. This is what the Apostle Paul says, writing to his new churches, in the words of Elizabeth Meyer Bolton: ”I never cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that you will continue to grow in wisdom and in faith. I pray that you will know that you are called to hope. I know you look around the world, and you get discouraged. I know you look around and see war, and hear rumors of war. I know you see the violence, and all the loss. The rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer. I know you look around and see all kinds of people getting left behind, All kinds of people being abandoned... But have faith! For the one who was abandoned, The one who was rejected, The one who was left alone to die, That one God raised from the dead, That one God seated at her right hand side. That’s the one who had rule and authority and power and dominion over everything in this world and in the next!” We declare Christ King because we testify to this truth: In the end, the losers will win. The last will go first. The least of these inherit the kingdom. Love has dominion over everything in this world and in the next. So happy reign of the can collector Sunday. Happy birthday to Michael, the panhandler King. Hail to all who are forgotten, rejected, ignored, abandoned and left for dead, for Love will rise onto the heavenly throne. Love is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Love is, was, and ever shall be the boss of us! And He shall reign forever and ever. Amen. |
AuthorRev. Robin Bartlett is the Senior Pastor at the First Church in Sterling, Massachusetts. www.fcsterling.org Archives
February 2021
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