Sermon: Making Glad the City of God
Good
Morning! It sure is nice to see all of
your faces today – I feel like I’ve been gone for much longer than I was for
the 31st General Synod of the United Church of Christ. Rather than my usual sermon, what I have to
offer this morning is more of a reflection on the goings-on of Synod.
Like
a good worship service, Synod is always themed with a particular scripture, and
this year it was pulled from the 46th Psalm, which you’ve probably recited
in memorials or other trying situations – it begins with that comforting familiar
phrase, God is our refuge and our strength.
The Psalmist must have been writing in a time of extreme suffering and
anxiety, because the language used paints a vivid picture;
“though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in
the heart of the sea;
3 though its waters roar and
foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.”
And he doesn’t stop there – it’s not just the
natural world in commotion, but humans too;
“The nations are in an uproar,
the kingdoms totter; [God] utters his voice, the earth melts.”
Two types of the threats seem to
challenge God's rule: cosmic disorder\ and political ones, those nations who
seek to destroy God's people . In the ancient world, water was often used to
denote existential chaos and danger. We
see this in the first chapter of Genesis, when on the first day, God parts and
subdues the water to create order out of the uncontrollable power and confusion
of water. It sounds like the Psalmist is
describing earthquakes and volcanoes, Tsunamis and floods.
Both of these forces are representation of the chaos God has
already conquered at creation and continues to keep at bay. It’s obvious that this was written in a time
of great upheaval, worry and fear. And
yet, the Psalmist sings that God is with us within the chaos.
When
I hear these phrases, they seem a lot more real than I would expect reading a
2000-year old document. It’s not just
the phrase about the ‘earth melting’… It’s hard to read about mountains shaking in
the sea without conjuring up images of glaciers collapsing into the sea, or the
earth changing without visualizing the epidemic of wildfires we’ve seen in the
west. Just yesterday I read that the Great
Barrier Reef in Australia has officially been declared ‘dead’ – or bleached -
due to rising sea temperatures. And the next verse seems just as fateful regarding
our human affairs. Nations are in an
uproar across the Middle East, and are our kingdoms tottering on the brink of a
nuclear war perhaps? There is an awful
lot to worry about, and these days, even if we try to ignore it, we are more
connected than ever before. Connected to
each other, connected to happenings far across the globe. Whether or not we ask for it, it’s difficult
to avoid having world turbulence intrude on the Good Life on a regular
basis.
But
the Psalmist assures us, God is with us.
In
today’s gospel reading, Jesus seems a little frustrated with ‘this generation’
for making assumptions. The crowds appear ready to judge only
on the basis of the company they keep. John the Baptist is a social misfit, much like
the prophets of old. Like a modern
minimalist, he eschews social norms and spends time in the wilderness eating
bugs and wearing minimal clothing.
People assume he is demon-possessed – or simply crazy. You know, like vegans and people who live in
tiny homes off the land.
Jesus,
on the other hand, does the opposite. He
makes himself available and accessible, eats and drinks with the lower classes and
stays in society - and is critiqued for the company he keeps. People assume he
is a glutton and a drunkard.
The
fact that people are quick to dismiss a person’s merits or worth based on who
they hang with is as old as, well, the Bible.
We’ve all done it… in the very least, I know we all experienced
at least one part of it in school, right?
Me myself, I am guilty of both. I
was part of the ‘band geek’ variety in high school. Since marching in formation in ugly uniforms
with funny hats during football games – the height of the social scene in high
school – meant that I couldn’t hide my band geek status, instead I embrace it -
defiantly. Everyone remotely connected
to the band geek crowd (this included choir geeks, theater geeks and maybe even
Debate geeks by association) were part of my social family. But, on the flip side, anyone I remotely
perceived as in the ‘popular crowd’ I made huuuuge assumptions about. I missed out on knowing a lot of really
interesting people in high school because of my definitions of who was ‘in’ and
‘out’.
And,
it’s not just school silliness, of course.
I’m pretty sure we all still do this… maybe it’s
that neighbor down the street who has a bunch of friends who ride Harley’s…
or the kid who hangs out with a crowd that look like hooligans…
or maybe it’s someone from a different club, or a different team, or a certain
political persuasion…
Or
a different church! What guilt by
association comes from being in the UCC? In some circles, being in the UCC means we’re
hopelessly liberal, vegan and live in tiny homes… or awesomely
autonomous and make up our own rules.
When I was in college, someone tried to entice me into their Christian
youth group by calling the UCC, ‘Unitarians Considering Christ’ with a derisive
smile. There are plenty of assumptions
about the UCC.
But
at Synod, I saw the wide spectrum of people and communities engaged with our
denomination. Just like in our pews, in
our national denomination we have former Catholics and unchurched,
Fundamentalists and Christian Scientists, and everything in between. We have churches that are Open and Affirming
towards LGBT people, and we have churches that identify as Evangelical,
Conservative, Orthodox or Traditional – called ECOT for short. We have a whole association of Calvin-based
churches, and one for more Pentecostal churches that call their clergy
‘Bishops.’ We have conservative leaders,
like the Rev. Ken Evitts of Northwest Hills Church outside of Omaha, and
married gay pastors like Rev. Scott Jones of First Central in Omaha – who are
extremely good friends despite their differing politics. They can do this because they listen to each
other, and they have a common goal; the health of the church. We make an intentional effort to be united and
uniting, and live in the richness and tension that is present from diverse
lives, experiences, faiths and points of view.
Jesus points out that God's will has
been made known in more than one way, through different kinds of
mouthpieces. What are our
expectations of a prophet's vocation or the messiah's behavior? And how do our
expectations, and the little conditions they contain, prevent us from
recognizing the will of God in human form?
Two
of the most moving moments at the 31st General Synod involved
teens. The UCC was intentional this year
in integrating youth and young adults into all the business of Synod. Every conference was encouraged to recruit
youth or young adults to attend. Like
me, youth and young adults were assigned a working committee on one of the
resolutions before the assembly, and they attended business meetings and
provided testimony during the large group proceedings. Some of those youth came to the microphone
regarding the Resolution calling for our government to lift the ban on
researching gun violence from a public health perspective. And it was harrowing to hear their
stories. A young man from out west
related how a Facebook comment tipped off a classmate to another classmate’s
state of mind. When police investigated
her home, they found bombs, guns and ammunition prepared for a mass casualty
event. Then a young woman from Kansas
explained about the live-shooter drills they do at their school; that police
officers fire blanks at them in mock situations while they hustle for
barricades and exits. You could hear the
emotion in her voice when she explained how frightening these drills are for
the kids.
And
then, the next morning, the microphone was again turned over to a group of
teens from Chicago. They related how
they were in line the day before when debate was curtailed, and wanted to speak
to the issue. Gun violence had impacted
every single one of them, as well. One
of the speakers lost a brother last year.
The second talked about dodging bullets daily on his way home from
school. A young woman shared that three of her friends had been claimed by gun
violence. These youth were mostly from
Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s south side. Both groups stole the collective breath of
the assembly. Both groups pleaded with the adults in the room to do something
about this phenomena that is impacting all their lives.
Jesus’
words this morning remind us not to put prophets in a box, because they rarely
meet our expectations, but to open our ears more like infants. And that’s what we try to do at Synod.
The
lasting impression Synod leaves you with in this tumultuous and highly partisan
time is that civility and dialogue in regard to emotional and contentious
issues are not only possible, but are valued and valuable. We discussed contentious issues like whether
the US should offer assistance to die for terminal patients; climate change;
corporal punishment; the $15 minimum wage; children living under Israeli
military law; and of course, the most important and contentious of all – what
requirements must people fulfill to become an ordained minister. And, to be truthful, we had quite a
difference of opinion on most of those, but we were still able to come to a
vote without name-calling, or accusations, or even celebrating the vote. The moderator repeatedly asked the assembly
to hold their cheers after each vote, because it was not a competition with
victors, it was being the body of the church.
(I’m
sure this makes it sound incredibly dry… but in a way, it was refreshing and inspiring to be one of
5000 people gathered to listen for God’s still-speaking voice through the
experience and concerns of those around us.)
The
scripture chosen by the denomination was not all of Psalm 46, but a small line
in the middle of it; “there is a river whose streams make glad the city of
God.” I confess, going into Synod, I had
trouble understanding why that verse was the verse chosen as our theme. But, after the successful conclusion of the
31st Synod, now I think I understand. Because while the mountains
are trembling, and the earth is changing, and the seas are foaming and
threatening to bring chaos to our midst, there is a stream, a
small...refreshing…tame…a saving flow of water that doesn’t
drown us or flood our homes or beat down on us like Niagara Falls. Rather, it is an orderly and managed source
of strength and sustenance.
And
maybe God is made happy by this minutaea, by these people acting orderly to nourish
and sustain our community, the church. So that we can prayerfully and
respectfully agree to speak with one voice, and as our tradition has done since
the founding of this country, we still strive to speak the gospel to the modern
day.
There
was another moment that stood out during Synod. A moment when you could feel
the emotion in the room. It was so powerful that it was repeated the next
morning, because we in the United Church of Christ are United and Uniting so that
we may one day be one - and it’s something we take seriously.
The
moment happened at the close of business on Monday night. Apparently elated by how well business was
proceeding, the Moderator broke out in a spontaneous singing of that favorite
hymn….
We are one in the spirit, we are one in
the lord. We are one in the spirit, we
are one in the lord. And we pray that
our unity will one day be restored. And
they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they’ll know we
are Christians by our love.
Amen
and Amen.
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