Author: lakewooducc

Date: March 27, 2011
Scripture Lesson: John 4:5-30, 39-42
Sermon: Go with the Flow
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells

Imagine a small village in the mountains where the people could not eke out an existence from the land, and so had to work on large plantation farms for months at a time, for a pittance, often ending up with little more than a few cents for their labor. Imagine a village with no school or means for formal education. Where most of the adults, including the leaders of the village, could neither read nor write. Where villagers speak an Indian dialect and have no way of communicating with the government authorities or the state, because of the language barrier. Consider a village where sometimes people went for days without eating because there simply was no food available. Where on cold nights families slept huddled together for want of a blanket. A village in which some of the beloved children were expected to die of malnutrition. A village in which people did not have the means to wear shoes. Imagine circumstances of extreme poverty, far more severe than even homeless people face here in the US.

Imagine a village in which there is a coming of age ceremony when children turn 10 years old, and the children are officially accepted as adults in the community. At 10, the children are told about their new life. They are told that they will have many ambitions, but will not have the opportunity to realize those ambitions. Children are told that life will not change. It would continue on – work, poverty, and suffering. The 10 year old children are thanked for their labor and contribution to sustaining the family, and then given additional adult responsibilities. [I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, ed. Elisabeth Burgos-Debray, p. 48]

Even though these villagers had values and traditions focussed on working
together and sharing responsibilities and helping one another, no one could have expected much of these people. These nameless subjects. Not considered worthy of notice in their society. And yet, it is in just such a village in Guatemala that Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, was born and raised. In the book, I, Rigoberta Menchu, Menchu discusses the circumstances of the Indian people in Guatemala. The circumstances in which she grew up. She tells us, “We each had a mat to sleep on and a little cover over us. We slept in the same clothes we
worked in. That’s why society rejects us. Me, I felt this rejection very personally, deep inside me. They say we Indians are dirty, but it’s our circumstances which force us to be like that. For example, if we have time, we go to the river every week, every Sunday, and wash our clothes. These clothes have to last us all week because we haven’t any other time for washing and we haven’t any soap either. That’s how it is. We sleep in our clothes, we get up next day, we tidy ourselves up a bit and off to work, just like that.” [p. 48]

Menchu did the best that she could in her circumstances. She was given the opportunity to spend some time in school. As a young adult, she decided that she needed to learn Spanish, and become literate so that she could defend the rights of the Indians of Guatemala. She became active in organizing villages like hers around the country to defend their rights against an oppressive government with an aggressive army. Menchu, along with her parents and siblings were very active in speaking out for the rights of the Indians of Guatemala. Her parents were killed by the government for their advocacy, as was at least one of her brothers. Eventually, Menchu herself faced the choice of being killed or leaving the country. She chose exile in Mexico where she continued to work for indigenous rights.

It was the combination of the direct personal experience of poverty in an oppressive socio/economic system perpetuated by the government combined with exposure to Christianity and the teachings of the Bible that fueled Menchu’s activism.
Her Christian faith combined with her native beliefs blended to form a powerful mix
which motivated Menchu to not only seek justice for her family and village, but for all indigenous people. She has spent her life, and indeed risked her life, in the pursuit of inalienable human rights for those who are denied those rights. No one, especially in Guatemala, would have expected a poor, Indian woman to have gained international recognition in the form of the Nobel Prize and participation in the United Nations. And yet, she has become an inspiration to millions around the world. Menchu is an extremely unlikely recipient of such adulation and admiration. Yet her personal experience inspired her to give her life to what she believes in. And she was ready to accept the cost of that commitment, even if it meant facing death as her family
members had to do.

Menchu was considered an unlikely channel or vehicle for the grace of God. This is the case with the Samaritan woman at the well, also. No one would ever have expected that Samaritan woman to be an agent of the grace of God. No one expected anything from her, but maybe sex and trouble! From the perspective that this story is told, this woman has three strikes against her. She is a woman. Certainly no more than a second class human being. Jewish rabbis, like Jesus, were not to talk with women in public, not even their wives. So, this woman should not be having any kind of conversation with Jesus. And yet their discussion is the longest conversation portrayed in the Gospels.

The next strike against the woman at the well, is that she is a Samaritan. The Jews and Samaritans were basically feuding cousins going back to the Babylonian exile and before. They had differences about who were the real Jews, the true chosen people, the authentic righteous ones before God. The Samaritans believed they carried on the au- thentic tradition of Moses and the Hebrews through worship at the temple on Mt. Gerizim. The Jews believed they carried on the authentic tradition of the Hebrews with worship at the Temple in Jerusalem. The two groups had been feuding for centuries. And as often happens, the antagonism was all the more bitter because of their close relationship. Jesus interacting with a Samaritan, man or woman, was scandalous! Can we think of a comparable conflict today? Maybe an Israeli and a Palestinian? Or an illegal Mexi-can and someone from the border patrol? Or a fundamentalist Christian and a fundamen-talist Muslim? Or maybe two teens from rival neighborhood gangs? It’s hard to say. But there is no way Jesus and this Samaritan woman should be talking with each other.

Then, there is the questionable relationship status of the woman at the well. We don’t know the specifics, but there is a reason that she is going to the well alone at noon in the heat of the day, instead of at dawn with the other women, or at sunset, when the village women would go together to the well to visit and gossip and share the news of the day as well as to get water. This woman is going to the well alone, she is an outcast.

So from a Jewish perspective as well as a Samaritan perspective, this woman is of no account, an outcast, trash. And yet, here she is, the recipient of Jesus’ living water. Favored by God. Gifted with grace. And she goes back to her town, where no one has any respect for her, and she tells these people who have shunned her what has happened. She wants them to have what she has been given. She is moved with love, generosity, and grace for the very people who have made her life miserable. And they are moved by her testimony, by her experience, and they, too, encounter Jesus as living water: As the Messiah.

This unlikely woman is the agent of God’s grace for her community and for the whole of Samaria. She facilitates reconciliation between the Samaritans and the Jews. With the disciples, the chosen ones, the ones who have been coached, tutored, and trained by Jesus for this very kind of mission, watching and grumbling from the side lines.

You never know about grace. You never know who will be an agent of grace in your life. You never know where that word of life and hope will come from. You just can’t count anybody out when it comes to grace from the God of cosmic love. It may come from the most unlike sources.

This Lenten season as we reflect on the theme Grace ABOUNDS!, the story of the Samaritan woman invites us to be open to grace from what we may consider unlikely sources. It may come to us from someone we consider an enemy. From someone that we find distasteful. From someone we have no respect for. It may come from someone whose lifestyle we abhor.

Think of the barriers, divisions, and animosities that separate us. Like those Samaritans and Jews. Like those men and women of ancient times. Like those considered sexually abhorrent. Think of our divisions today. This story invites us to think about grace coming to us form where we would least expect it: Maybe grace comes to a teacher from the parent of the most obstreperous child in the class. Maybe a homeless person is an agent of grace to someone from the chamber of commerce staff.
Maybe someone incarcerated is an agent of grace to a jailer. In the religious divisions of our day, can we imagine a Muslim woman wearing a hijab as an agent of grace to a fundamentalist Christian? Given the political divisions of our day, we can imagine:
A Tea Party supporter the agent of grace to a Democrat?
A Democrat an agent of grace to a Rubio Republican?
A Republican an agent of grace to a Green Party supporter?

Maybe a message of grace is coming to us from those who were caught in the earthquake and tsunami in Japan; in their notable civility and consideration and compassion for one another. We don’t get to decide who will convey divine grace. But we may choose not to see or accept the grace provided.

Perhaps another unlikely source of grace is the current entertainment idol Lady Gaga. In her newest hit song, she celebrates diversity and denounces society’s judgement of those considered different. She sings:
A different lover is not a sin
Believe capital H-I-M
Don’t be a drag, just be a queen
Whether you’re broke or evergreen
You’re black, white, beige, chola descent
You’re lebanese, you’re orient
Whether life’s disabilities
Left you outcast, bullied or teased
Rejoice and love yourself today
Cause baby, you were born this way.
I’m beautiful in my way
‘Cause God makes no mistakes
I’m on the right track, baby
I was born this way.

So, from Lady Gaga, an affirmation of empowering grace that some would say exceeds the message of many churches!
Lady Gaga, like Rigoberta Menchu and the Samaritan woman, remind us that no matter who you are, no matter what you have done, no matter how much you think you don’t care, no matter what your legality with the government, no matter your employment status, your educational status, your ethnic, physical, relational, or religious status, YOU may be an agent of God’s grace. There is no one in this room, or in this world, that cannot be an agent of grace.

When she accepted the Nobel Prize, Rigoberta Menchu offered this important reminder:
Please allow me, ladies and gentlemen, to say some words about my country and the civilization of the Mayas. The Maya people developed and spread geographically through some 300,000 square km; they occupied parts of the South of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, as well as Honduras and El Salvador; they developed a very rich civilization in the area of political organization, as well as in social and economic fields; they were great scientists in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, agriculture, architecture and engineering; they were great artists in the fields of sculpture, painting, weaving and carving. The Mayas discovered the zero value in mathematics, at about the same time that it was discovered in India and later passed on to the Arabs. Their astronomic forecasts based on mathematical calculations and scientific observations were amazing, and still are. They prepared a calendar more accurate than the Gregorian, and in the field of medicine they performed intracranial surgical operations. One of the Maya books, which escaped destruction by the conquistadores, known as The Codex of Dresden, contains the results of an investigation on eclipses as well a table of 69 dates, in which solar eclipses occur in a lapse of 33 years. Today, it is important to emphasize the deep respect that the Maya civilization had towards life and nature in general. Who can predict what other great scientific conquests and developments these people could have achieved, if they had not been conquered by blood and fire, and subjected to an ethnocide that affected nearly 50 million people in the course of 500 years. [Acceptance and Nobel Lecture, December 10, 1992, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1992/tum-lecture.html, 3/27/10]

These haunting words remind us of the consequences of rejecting those who may seem to be unlikely agents of grace. We see this in the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. Her testimony could have been rejected because of the source. Her people could have ignored her. But she had the courage to risk that rejection to offer her people the life giving water she had received from Jesus Christ. And the people of her village were open to her witness. And so they witness to us. Friends, God’s grace is being offered to us and through us. May we overcome the barriers and let the living water flow! 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.

Date: March 13, 2011
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 4:1-11
Sermon: Tempted to Settle
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells

Experts tell us that the number of people in the world suffering from hunger is diminishing. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that the number of hungry people decreased from 1023 million in 2009 to 925 million in 2010. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger, 3/13/11] Even with this decline, which is of course to be applauded, especially considering the economic situation worldwide, an estimated 16,000 children die daily from hunger-related causes. In the US, one in four children experiences food scarcity. 16.7 million children in the US suffer from hunger. [Bread for the World, http://www.bread.org/hunger/us/, 3/13/11] While we may not see the images of naked children with bloated bellies on the news each day, there are people who are dying of hunger, and people who go hungry every day, not just in Africa, but in most countries of the world, including ours.

Experts also tell us that the earth is capable of feeding the current population. The Food and Agriculture Organization projects that the world is currently producing enough food to feed 6 billion people and could double that output to feed 12 billion. The land is capable of supporting the needs of the human community for food. But there are untold decisions that would have to be made for this to happen. A concerted international effort would be required. Decision making at all levels of society and government would be involved. Which takes us into the realm of politics and government.

This is another area of human social life in which we are evidently also wanting. One indication are the numerous movements seeking change in government spontaneously emerging around the globe. We see other indicators of the problems of government in this country. While we may or may not agree with the objectives of the so called Tea Party, it has emerged out of a sentiment of dissatisfaction with the government. A desire for change characterized the mid term elections in the fall. And now people don’t like the change they implemented. So when we look at the world around us, from our communities to the world scene, there is a relatively high level of conflict and contention around government.

We also see an alarming level of conflict and contention around religion. We saw evidence of this in this past week’s report about the investigations of the House Homeland Security Committee into the domestic radicalization of U.S. Muslims. Interesting since Western society has a history of political activity being couched in religious garb specifically to avoid this kind of scrutiny. We should understand religion being used as a veneer for a political agenda. And yet here is an investigation that appears as an attack on religion to many.

While I understand from those of my parents’ generation that there was religious conflict between Catholics, Protestants, and Jews in times past, the relative tolerance that was developing has eroded with the rise of conservatism in this country. As a child of the 60’s and 70’s, if you had told me that we would be experiencing this level of religious conflict in this country in the 2000s, it would have seemed inconceivable. And it is not only in the US. On a visit to Scotland this past summer, we visited two major museums which had displays specifically aimed at diminishing, in fact, eliminating, religious intolerance and bigotry. At least they are tackling the problem in a forthright manner. But religious conflict is not unique to any one country or culture. And it appears to be growing.

So, this morning, we heard the familiar story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. It is read each year on the first Sunday of Lent. Like Moses, Elijah, and Noah, prime figures in his faith tradition before him, the story tells us that Jesus is led to the wilderness, a wild place, away from human influences and institutions. And here, by himself, he undergoes a time of spiritual testing. The aim is to strengthen his commitment to God, and his reliance on God, and his loyalty to God. Jesus’ testing comes in the form of the devil offering him food, political power, and religious power. He resists these temptations by staying focused on God’s realm and God’s hopes and dreams. Jesus stays rooted in God’s reality and does not let himself be swayed by the context of the moment from broader visions and values.

As we have noted, we, too, face challenges and temptations around food, world hunger, government and political power, and religious power and authority. The same temptations that we hear about in the story of Jesus in the wilderness. We face the temptation to abuse our abilities. We face the temptation to misuse our authority. And we easily and readily deceive ourselves that this is being done for good intent. The very carrots dangled at Jesus in the temptation story.

While the temptations are related to physical needs, political power, and religious authority, the overarching issue is vision. Perhaps we see only the immediate circumstance and won’t look at the long term consequences. Maybe we will let ourselves see only one small facet of an issue, instead of looking at multiple dimensions and perspectives. Maybe we let ourselves be swayed by immediacy without seeing past and future ramifications. We settle for some little good we can do, while remaining blind to the greater good that could be accomplished. We accept small, limited dreams. We accept disempowerment and apathy. We are reticent to embrace a more all encompassing universal view, a Godly perspective. Instead, we are swayed by our tribal and sectarian views. And we let ourselves believe this limited reality and think we have limited ability to effect wider reality.

While I have watched the saga of high speed rail unfold here in Florida, I have asked myself, if there are enough people who want it, why don’t they rise up? Get 1000 people to head onto I 4 and at the appointed time, all stop and park their cars. Have a widespread public, non violent action that bears witness to our values and passion. Do something. Not just accept a limited vision.

In the church, I went to a meeting this past week with representatives from area UCC churches. One of the topics of discussion was the marketing campaign for the UCC that is planned in conjunction with the national meeting of the UCC, the General Synod, which will take place in Tampa the first week of July. Each church has been asked for $1000 to help pay for the ads. The last General Synod was in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There was no information available about what these ads accomplished in in Grand Rapids. Did area churches get any visitors due to the ads and these thousands of dollars being spent? One person who served in Grand Rapids said his church got no response to the ads. Hmmm. Then there is the issue of July 4th week. That’s when the meeting and the ads will take place. How many people are going to be paying attention to church ads the week of July 4th? People are focussed on family reunions, picnics, the beach, boating, etc. So, I suggested at the meeting that we have an action at the Synod. Some kind of public demonstration about something that we care about as a church. Like all wear red t-shirts and join hands and circle the convention center in Tampa, or something to represent something we care about. Some kind of peaceful, non violent witness. Let the news cover it. And there’s your publicity. But there is no interest in this. They don’t want to offend people. They are assuming a limited vision of a market driven America and the church adopting consumerist marketing models for its ministry, which is offensive to me.

You see, the temptation is always to get caught up in what seems to be going on around us and accepting that limited view. This season of Lent at Lakewood, we are focusing on the theme Grace ABOUNDS! This is an invitation to expand our horizons. To see that there is so much more going on around us and within us than our usual limited scope of vision shows us. Each and every day, we are benefitting from blessings that we did not create or achieve or construct. Each day we are recipients of experiences and gifts that we had no hand in designing. With our eyes opened wider to grace, we can appreciate the incredible riches provided for us. We don’t have to function from the artificially constructed mode of scarcity that stymies generosity and compassion and love. We can function from a much larger
reality.

In addition, this Lenten celebration of Grace ABOUNDS! is intended to help us to see with more clarity the riches and blessings within us. We are created with an incredible capacity for love and good. Divine power is at our core. As we explore and experience this grace within us, we can free ourselves from the the attitudes and assumptions that constrain us and limit us and hold us back.

This increase awareness of grace is intended to influence all of our attitudes and thinking. Including our approach to issues such as world hunger, politics and government, as well as religion. Our expanding experience of grace is intended to help us see things from a larger perspective, from a longer view, from a global, creation context, instead of a limited, self centered perspective. The presence and power of God is greater than the contemporary issues, politics, or religious challenges we face. Grace ABOUNDS! is an invitation to experience ourselves as part of a much larger reality. A cosmic, sacred reality that benefits and blesses us continuously.

These Lenten days take place in the season of spring. In a temperate climate, the appearance is that things are dead. But really, they are dormant and preparing to erupt in new life. In the church, these Lenten days are more
subdued, introspective, and reflective. A time of dormancy leading to germination, and the celebration of prolific life at Easter, a festival of new beginnings.

When Jesus came out of the wilderness he began to preach saying, “Repent for the realm of God is here.” This Lenten season at Lakewood, you are invited to be part of the many opportunities to see that Grace ABOUNDS! Individually and collectively may we expand our vision to see God’s hopes and dreams for us. As we experience grace abounding may our eyes be open to God’s realm in our midst with all of its amazing power and potential. 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.