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Lenten Devotion 4/7/2022

Devotion Thirty Seven
April 7, 2022

We get the newspapers every Sunday, and my husband reads them and then tells me what he thinks I would be interested in. This is a great arrangement – to have someone preview the paper for you! And it gives me more time to do the crossword puzzles!

So, a few weeks ago, Jeff handed me a page from the ‘Parade’ section. It was an ad for a ‘sculpture’ called ‘Life of Christ.’ At the bottom of the sculpture is a nativity scene complete with sheep. Then up a level is the portrayal of an adult Jesus healing someone. Then the next level up depicts Jesus with two children. Continuing up the spiral is Jesus on the cross with two women at his feet. The Jesus on the cross looks like he is napping. No blood or any evidence of agony. Then at the top of the sculpture is a puff of cloud with Jesus coming down the cloud, arms open, white-robed, like an entertainer greeting a crowd. Oh, and did I mention that all the figures in the depiction are very clearly white?

Talk about a white-washed, sanitized, distorted depiction of a first century Jewish man from Palestine whose life, by the way, was not a walk in the park as depicted in the sculpture, but was steeped in controversy. There were disputes with religious leaders. Jesus was challenged by authorities. He was a wanted man with a target on his back. And he was killed in the most brutal way imaginable for the time. There was blood and lots of it.

We are approaching holy week. This is the week that we remember Jesus’ brutal, bloody death. We remember his fearlessness heading into Jerusalem knowing he would be killed. We remember his nighttime prayer in Gethsemane, asking for a reprieve, but willing to take the cup. We remember how he was betrayed and deserted by his followers. And we remember the words of forgiveness from the cross, from one broken and bloodied, in agony and humiliation.

None of the gory details of the stories should be edited out. Omitted. Glossed over. Or white washed.

Because we need to be reminded of how low we can sink. Of how desperate we can be when we feel threatened. Of how brutal we are when we are losing control. We need to be reminded of how we cling to the status quo, to our privilege, and our pride.

The sanitizing of Jesus’ life and death robs his witness of courage, of radicality, of the challenge of the status quo, of defiance, of sacrifice. The wildness of mercy.

We need to be reminded of the pain and the hardship and the enemies that Jesus faced so that we can begin to appreciate the love he demonstrates for those around him, for God, for us. A sanitized, whitewashed portrayal of Jesus robs him of his radical power and consigns him to meaningless oblivion which may be why the Church in the US is fading, dimming, dying? Oh, and by the way, the statue in the ad costs $139.99. Better to give the money to the poor. Or for Ukrainian relief.

Prayer
In these Lenten days, may we remember the powerful stories of Jesus that challenged the assumptions and authorities of his day. May his witness give us the courage to challenge the assumptions and authorities of our day that are draining dignity and hope from so many lives. May we see in Jesus a power that can cure our warring madness and our greed as well as our addiction to fossil fuels which is irreparably damaging Earth. Amen.

Lenten Devotion 4/6/2022

Devotion Thirty Six
Wednesday April 6

I don’t know about you, but I hardly expect the grocery store to be a place of spiritual illumination. But, in the wildness of mercy, I had a spiritual experience in the produce aisle.

I am not one to pay attention to the sound coming over the sound system in the store. That is something that I typically tune out. I am busy concentrating on what I am in the store to buy and trying to remember everything on my list, etc. I can’t have my mind cluttered with whatever dribble is being disseminated through the loudspeakers. It’s usually an annoyance.

But somehow as I was going down the aisles, the words of the song coming over the speakers caught my ear. What was she singing? It sounded like, “I’m broken and it’s beautiful.” That can’t be right. But I stayed tuned in and that is what the song was saying. It’s a superstar Kelly Clarkson song from the movie “Ugly Dolls.”

I think this is a beautiful image for Lent. We’re broken and we’re beautiful. That seems to be the way the God of the Bible sees this wayward human species. Broken and beautiful. That seems to be the way Jesus sees people. Broken and beautiful. That seems to be the way we are to look at others. As broken and beautiful. And then there is the invitation to see ourselves that way: I’m broken and it’s beautiful.

So often broken means no good. Doesn’t work. Something to be pitched. This is especially true in our throw away culture. The US produces 1,704 pounds of garbage per person per year. That is three times the global average. Broken? Worthless. Trash it.

But the song, “Broken and Beautiful,” invites us to see things another way. We are all broken in some way. Damaged. Hurt. Scarred. Imperfect. You can’t go through life without difficult experiences that take their toll. That is what makes us who we are. Each person unique and precious. We are all broken. And we are all beautiful. And we are here to see the brokenness and the beauty in each other and in ourselves. Isn’t that what love is all about?

Prayer
Take some time to think about how you are imperfect, damaged, scarred. Think about the hurt and pain that you see in others. That is part of what makes us who we are. The Christian image of God is a God that claims us as beloved. As we are. And we see Jesus as someone who embodies that claim. Broken, beloved, beautiful. That is who we are. Amen.

Sermon 4/3/2022

Date: April 3, 2022
Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 543:16-21 and Luke 11:55-12:8
Sermon: A House Full
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells

The beautiful book, With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman, has this dedication: “To the stranger in the railroad station in Daytona Beach who restored my broken dream sixty-five years ago”. That’s intriguing, isn’t it. Well, here is the story behind the dedication.

Howard Thurman was born in 1899 in Daytona Beach, FL. His grandmother had been a slave. He grew up under the strictures of Jim Crow in a town that was run by the Ku Klux Klan. Thurman rose to become one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. He was supremely influential in the life Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When King was recovering from a stab wound in New York City, he had two books with him: The Bible and Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman. Thurman wrote 22 books. He served as the dean of Rankin Chapel at Howard University and dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University. He founded an interfaith church, The Fellowship of All Peoples, in San Francisco in1944. Thurman and his wife, Sue Bailey Thurman, spent a year touring India, Ceylon and Burma on a Pilgrimage of Friendship and met with Mahatma Gandhi. Thurman taught and lectured around the world.

Ebony Magazine called Thurman one of the 50 most important figures in African- American history. In 1953, Life Magazine rated Thurman among the twelve most important religious leaders in the United States.

So what about this unnamed man at the train station in Daytona Beach who restored Thurman’s broken dream? When Thurman was young, to get into high school, students had to pass an eighth grade assessment. Schools for Blacks only went up to the seventh grade so that high schools for Blacks would not be needed. The principal of the school in Daytona volunteered to tutor Thurman so that he could pass the eighth grade general knowledge test and go to high school. In addition to the three public high schools in Florida that accepted Blacks, there were several private schools supported by the church for Black students. It was determined that Thurman would attend Florida Baptist Academy of Jacksonville. He would live with a cousin there. Thurman’s family scraped together what he would need.

Here’s what happened according to Thurman:

“When the time came to leave for Jacksonville, I packed a borrowed old trunk with no lock and no handles, roped it securely, said my good-byes, and left for the railway station. When I bought my ticket, the agent refused to check my trunk on my ticket because the regulations stipulated that the check must be attached to the trunk handle, not to a rope. The trunk would have to be sent express but I had no money except for a dollar and a few cents left after I bought my ticket.

“I sat down on the steps of the railway station and cried my heart out. Presently I opened my eyes and saw before me a large pair of work shoes. My eyes crawled upward until I saw the man’s face. He was a black man, dressed in overalls and a denim cap. As he looked down at me he rolled a cigarette and lit it. Then he said, ‘Boy, what in hell are you crying about?’

“And I told him.

“‘If you’re trying to get out of this damn town to get an education, the least I can do is to help you. Come with me,’ he said.

“He took me around to the agent and asked, ‘How much does it take to send this boy’s trunk to Jacksonville?’

“Then he took out his rawhide money bag and counted the money out. When the agent handed him the receipt, he handed it to me. Then, without a word he turned and disappeared down the railroad track. I never saw him again.” [With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman, pp. 24-25.]

And so the dedication of his autobiography “To the stranger in the railroad station in Daytona Beach who restored my broken dream sixty-five years ago”. Such a lavish act of generosity, of intimacy, can change our lives. If we let it.

The story of Jesus being anointed with oil by a woman is well known. Let’s think of some other well known stories associated with Jesus. There is Jesus multiplying the loaves and fish. Jesus changing the water into wine. Jesus healing the servant of the Roman officer. Jesus casting out the demons from the man in the graveyard. Jesus healing Peter’s mother in law. Jesus healing the blind man. Jesus healing the person with leprosy. Jesus healing the man by the pool of Siloam. Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Jesus casting the demon out of Mary Magdalene. Jesus stilling the stormy seas. Jesus overseeing the catch of fish. Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. Jesus forgiving those who killed him from the cross. I am sure I missed some, but the idea here is that in one story after another, Jesus is helping people. He is doing things for others. He is giving. He is serving.

In the story we heard today, at a dinner with his friends, Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and others, Mary, breaks open a jar of nard, worth a year’s pay, maybe about $40,000 today. And she anoints Jesus’ feet with the nard, an aromatic oil. And the amount of nard is so lavish, the perfumed scent fills not just the room but the whole house. The stench of the death of Lazarus a few verses earlier is replaced by the fragrance of devotion and gratitude. And she wipes Jesus’ feet with her hair, which she has let down for the occasion. Letting down the hair in mixed company was forbidden by social dictates. Being touched by a woman was a violation of the religious law making Jesus ritually unclean. And Mary functions as a religious authority anointing Jesus the way a prophet, a priest, or a king might be anointed by a male religious official. Back in her lane as a woman, Mary anoints Jesus for his burial so near at hand. This is a wild act of intimacy and extravagance. This episode is scandalous in so many ways.

And in the story, Jesus accepts the anointing, the touch of Mary, the lavish gesture. With his death at hand, Jesus doesn’t say, We don’t have time for this, I have work to do before they get me. Gotta go heal some more people and feed some more people and forgive some more people. My time is short. No. He doesn’t reprimand Mary for violating the Law of Moses and making him ritually unclean. Mary, no, not before the Passover, I have to be ritually clean. No. Jesus accepts the gift. He welcomes the love. He relishes the devotion. He receives Mary’s lavish, intimate gesture of extravagant generosity. And there is a house full of the aroma of the oil, full of love, full of loyalty and devotion. Jesus says yes to this gift.

Howard Thurman said yes to the generosity of the random stranger who paid for his trunk. He could have said, Oh no, I can’t let you do that. I can’t accept your charity. I can’t pay you back. I can’t let you. But Thurman accepted the gift.

I would like to invite us to take a few minutes to think about a time when you received a gift of love that changed your life. A time when someone did something for you that you could never explain or repay. A time when you were the recipient of lavish generosity. From a friend, a family member, or a stranger. Think of a time when you were on the receiving end of something lavish that made all the difference. Just think about that for a couple of moments.

I’ve heard about someone who pushed a woman in a wheelchair for the whole Camino de Santiago, over 500 miles. There are people who donate organs to complete strangers. Someone gives an anonymous scholarship to pay for a student to go to college. How have you been the recipient of some kind of random, unexpected, life-changing gift.

Congregation shared stories from their lives.

This story of the anointing of Jesus has so many teachings to offer. One thing we learn from this story is that Jesus says yes to being served, to receiving, to accepting the love of another. In an extravagant, lavish way. And the scent of the nard, the love, fills the house. Jesus shows us that God is seeking to bless us. That life is an amazing gift. That life is filled with awe and wonder and beauty. And we are called to say yes! To allow others to give to us. To receive the gift. To take the house full of blessings.

We are not to let our pride, or our delusions of self-sufficiency, or constructs of fairness, or obsession with independence, or desire to control get in the way of our receiving love and goodness and generosity and blessing from others, from God.

Say yes to love. To the love of Jesus who died out of love for us. To the love of God. To the love and generosity of our sisters and brothers of this precious human family. Say yes. Let the house be filled with love.

May our autobiographies — written, spoken, or just remembered — also be dedicated to those who have restored our broken dreams with their acts of love. 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.

Lenten Devotion 4/5/2022

Devotion Thirty Five
Tuesday 4.5.22

As the covid pandemic erupted and spread and took over our lives, I was adamant about wearing a mask, limiting contact with other people, and hand sanitizing. At one point, as I distanced myself from another person in a public setting, the person I was with asked me, “Why do you assume that he has covid?” I replied, “I assume that everyone has covid, including me.” Taken aback, my companion replied, “Fair enough.”

I am not a medical professional or trained in public health, but after absorbing a lot of information about covid, my mind synthesized the situation into that simple behavioral guideline: assume everyone, including you, has it. That assumption would lead me to behave ways that would hopefully protect the safety of others and myself and reduce the strain on the healthcare system.

In looking back on that approach, I like that it took away the need to be constantly assessing different situations and people and adjusting accordingly. It took away the need to make judgements based on what? Impressions? Assumptions? Friendship? Unverified information? Bias? Convenience? Expediency? It was so much easier to just assume that I and everyone else had it, whether we knew it or not, because this thing works that way. Now we pivot into the wildness of mercy. What about simply assuming that each and every person bears not a virus, but the Divine Image. Each and every person is sacred, holy. Period.

No constant judging and assessing and deciding and allotting and defining. No worries about making a mistake or interjecting bias or leaving someone out. Just a blanket assumption, everyone is created in the Divine Image. Then behaving accordingly.

Frankly, it’s hard enough to try to treat everyone, including myself, as sacred and holy, without adding to that some kind of delineation process: Who gets treated as holy and sacred and who doesn’t.

So as we proceed through these last weeks of Lent, I encourage us to try to be intentional about seeing everyone, in person, at work, in our family, in the neighborhood, on the news, on social media, as precious, beloved, and sacred, created in the Divine Image. And try to notice if that changes your behavior in any way or your assumptions. Lent is a time to turn our lives toward God. How about turning our lives toward the image of God in every person?

Prayer
Just like all birds and all elephants and all fish share common characteristics as living creatures, let us remember that we share common characteristics with each and every other human being. We are all created in the Divine Image. May we behave in ways that honor that image in ourselves and in everyone else. May we learn to function from the assumption that every life is precious and sacred. Amen.

Lenten Devotion 4/4/2022

Devotion Thirty Four
April 4, 2022

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was a mere 39 years old.

While Dr. King’s life was short it was certainly influential, impactful, and inspirational. Dr. King gave his life to God’s dream of one human family living together in peace on this beautiful Earth.

To live into that reality, King had the courage to confront not only racism but economic injustice, militarism, violence in all of its forms including war, toxic nationalism, greed, and other forces that work against the dream of God.

King’s aim was not to gain notoriety for himself but to bring the world closer to the reality of God, on Earth as it is in heaven.

Here are some quotes from Dr. King to inspire you today:

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.

And while we are being inspired by Dr. King, let’s also remember that today is the anniversary of Dr. Maya Angelou’s birth. So here is some inspiration from her:

Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.

The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

It is impossible to struggle for civil rights, equal rights for blacks, without including whites. Because equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air: we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it.

The hope, the hope that lives in the breast of the black American, is just so tremendous that it overwhelms me sometimes.

Prayer
Give thanks for all those who have gone before us who have helped create the road that leads to flourishing life for all of Creation. Think about how you are part of making that road for those who will come after you. May we freely give all of the courage and creativity we have to this blessed world. Amen.