LAKEWOOD UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
2601 54th Avenue South St. Petersburg, FL 33712
On land originally inhabited by the Tocabaga
727-867-7961
lakewooducc.org
lakewooducc@gmail.com
Date: September 3, 2023
Scripture Lessons: Ecclesiastes 9:1b-4 & Zechariah 9:12
Sermon: Prisoners of Hope
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells
I would like to share a recent obituary with you:
“Agnes Abuom, the influential ecumenical leader and peacemaker, died May 31 after a short illness. She was 73.
“An Anglican layperson born in northwest Kenya in 1949, Abuom’s ecumenical roots ran deep. She had Anglican, Catholic, and Pentecostal family members. Her political engagement also emerged early, during her student days at the University of Nairobi.
“In 1976, Abuom’s political involvement forced her to flee Kenya for Sweden. She returned to Kenya in 1989 and was imprisoned for her opposition to President Daniel arap Moi. In 1997, she launched her own agency, TAABCO Research and Development Consultants, which coordinated social action programs in the Horn of Africa.
“Abuom was president of the World Council of Churches from 1999-2006. In 2013, she became the first woman and the first African to serve as moderator of the World Council of Churches’ Central Committee. Abuom was also closely associated with the All Africa Conference of Churches, the National Council of Churches of Kenya, and Religions for Peace.
“Abuom’s wholehearted commitment to justice was infectious. ‘When Dr. Agnes Abuom is done talking to you,’ wrote an interviewer in 2021, ‘you want to do either of two things; punch the air and scream, ‘We shall rise!’ Or sit in a quiet corner and ask yourself, ‘What’s my contribution to humanity?’’” [The Christian Century, August 2023, p. 22.]
As long as we are a live dog and not a dead lion, as Ecclesiastes puts it, we have power, and what are we going to do with that power? To me, just from this obituary, Abuom seems to be using her power to spread hope. As long as we are alive, we have the power to make a difference, and she wanted everyone to know that.
The message of the gospel of Jesus, the core of our faith tradition, is that the realm of God is within us and among us. Right here. Right now. And we are to bear witness to that. That is how we know that things should be better than they are – for humanity, for other than human life, for the planet and for Creation. We get a glimpse, an inkling, or like Abuom, an IMAX vision, of the reality of God, within us and among us. And that gives us hope that things can be better for all of us.
Who was most impacted by the hurricane this past week? Those who are made poor, who are sidelined, and marginalized. Who don’t have the money to go to a hotel or a shelter. Or to afford insurance for their home. I talked with a friend of the church who is houseless, and it was a severe strain for him that the buses were not operating on Wednesday. He told me that he had to walk all day to take care of his affairs. And he wore his best shoes. But they were worn out by all the walking. And how will he get another pair of good shoes?
There are many around us, among us, who struggle – in so many ways. Trying, trying, trying and never feeling like they are in a stable situation let alone getting ahead. It can be hard to remain hopeful that things will get better.
But that is part of how our society is set up: There are leaders and people in positions of power who want the population to be in a constant condition of struggle and despair. Who want people to be afraid and anxious. Who promote dualistic thinking – us and them. Because then people are easier to control. Divide and conquer. Keep people distracted with fighting amongst themselves. Keep people focussed on the perceived threat from their neighbors, so they don’t figure out what the people on the tippy top are doing to take advantage of those underneath. It’s an age old story.
So, for these summer sermons, we were given the prompt: ‘I would like to hear a sermon about.’ There was this response: “How to remain hopeful when nothing is going your way, when it seems the tables are turned against you.”
Here is my response: Come to church. I know it sounds simplistic. But come to church to be reminded that the realm of God is within you and among us. Come to hear that you are precious and sacred. Your life matters. Come to be reminded that you are alive and powerful. Come here to hear the truth: That there are those who are actually turning the tables against you. And that, in spite of that, we have the power to make this world a better place for all. Love is more powerful than greed or hate.
Here in church we celebrate stories of people who have overcome. And those stories are powerful and subversive. The Bible is filled with those stories. From the slaves of Egypt to the followers of Jesus. And here in church we continue to bear witness to stories of liberation and transformation. From the slaves of African descent, to the farmworkers, to the houseless people of the neighborhood, to the every day people of our congregation who have overcome so many challenges and struggles like lack of access to healthcare, and tragic grief, and demeaning discrimination. Here in church, we are empowered by those stories.
Some years ago, the LUCC congregation made the decision to open the facilities of the church as a shelter to those who were houseless for 3 months. We had 20-30 people stay here on the church premises. And, yes, we heard their stories. What they were dealing with. But in the midst of that experience, several people from the church family, from the congregation, shared that they had been houseless. They had experienced being shelterless. While we had known those people for years, this had never come up. Now we heard something new about them. How they had overcome. And those stories inspired compassion and hope for our houseless guests.
Church is a place to celebrate hope. If you want to stay in a state of despair and apathy and resignation, don’t come to church. Because here at church we tell the truth about who we are and how things are and how we’ve overcome. We celebrate the presence of the sacred within us and among us. We infect one another with hope. It’s contagious here. When your hope is running low, there is someone here who will give you some of their hope to help you persist. We rekindle hope in those whose hope is fading. Here we rejoice that ‘We shall rise!’ And we ask ourselves what we can be doing to make things better. There is power in church!
We’ll close with a story from India about a dog.
“There was once a perfectly normal little dog — neither fierce nor timid. One day, this little dog wandered off to a nearby fairground, and found itself inside the hall of mirrors.
“The little dog took one look around, and saw hundreds of dogs staring back at it. Terrified at being so surrounded, it began to bark and to bare its teeth. To its horror, every one of the hundreds of other dogs did the same. Suddenly the ordinary little dog was in the midst of a hostile army of strange and fearsome looking animals. Its barking grew even more frantic and its growl more vicious. It tried to bite the other dogs, but as soon as it got near to them, they too growled and tried to bite.
“This might have gone on all night, but the little dog’s owner came looking for it. As soon as the little dog caught sight of its owner and heard the familiar call, it began to wag its tail and jump up and down for joy.
“And yes, all the other dogs did the same. And the little dog went home thinking that perhaps the big, wide world wasn’t quite as terrifying as it had first thought.” [“The Ferocious Dog,” retelling of a traditional Indian story in One Hundred Wisdom Stories from Around the World by Margaret Silf, p. 108.]
At church, we see someone like Agnes Alboum in the mirror, or the person sitting next to you, or across the sanctuary, showing us the capacity for hope that is within us. And the big, wide world isn’t quite as terrifying. Amen.
A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.
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