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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: July 16, 2023
Scripture Lessons:  Genesis 1:20-31 and John 10:7-15
Sermon: What Is Pro Life?
Pastor:  Rev. Kim P. Wells

Summer Sermons 2023 are based on topics suggested by the congregation.

While we were in Los Angeles this past week and a half, our son asked me to take his pick up truck into the shop for a repair.  When I dropped the car off, I asked the technician if there was something to see near by, somewhere to go, while I waited for the car.  He suggested going to the park with a lake a few blocks away.  So that is what I did.  I spent several hours enjoying Echo Park Lake, in the heart of Los Angeles.  The park includes a small lake with a walking path around it.  There are swan boats that can be rented.  The ones that you pedal to paddle.  It turns out that the lake began in the 1800’s as a reservoir for drinking water for the city of Los Angeles.  In the 1890’s the decision was made to turn the area into a public park and the four owners of the land around the reservoir donated 33 acres to be used as the park. 

Development of the park continued in the 1930’s as a Works Progress Administration project during the Depression.  A beautiful fountain was added when the 1984 Olympics were held in Los Angeles. 

Yes, Echo Park Lake is an attractive city park with a gorgeous view of the downtown skyline and lovely homes and apartments surrounding the lake.  But what really got my attention when I visited was, well, the posted rules for the park.  Among the rules for the park, along with things like no dumping and littering were:
        
         No feeding of non-domesticated animals
         Cruelty to any animal is a felony
         Abandonment of animals is against the law
         Harassment of animals is against the law
         All migratory birds are state and federally protected
         No injury to park property or plants

Frankly, I was surprised at the many rules that were intended for the safety of the wildlife and the trees and plants, as well as the water itself.  The protections seemed very comprehensive and specific which probably explains why, here at this lake, in the middle of urban Los Angeles, there is a plethora of bird life including various species of ducks and geese and other water birds. 

I was really glad to see the concern for nature conveyed in the rules for Echo Park Lake and I throughly enjoyed my afternoon at the lake while my son’s car was being fixed.

Concern for nature is at the heart of the purpose of the human species according to our faith tradition, as we heard from Genesis this morning.  Humanity was created, in the image of God, to carry out God’s mission of caring for the wondrous creation.  That includes human life as well as the life of plants and animals – all forms of life –  and it involves protecting the health of the environment that supports all of the myriad forms of life that make up the natural world.  So to be pro life is to be a supporter of all forms of life and of all of the habitat that is needed to support that life. 

The rights of nature movement is a beautiful expression of being pro life in our time.  This is a movement, worldwide, that seeks to get legal protection, rights, for land and water, as well as other than human species of life.  The rights of nature movement seeks to gain legally recognized rights for animals and plants and waters as well as people.  To me, this is a beautiful expression of our calling as a species to be pro life in all of its diversity, adaptation, abundance, balance, and interdependence.  That is what it means to be pro life in the Christian tradition:  To support the flourishing of all life, all of creation, by taking seriously our place in the vast system of creation to be caretakers entrusted with the stewardship of all that is. 

And this faith-based conception of what it means to be pro life is manifested in the ministry of Jesus and his focus on what it means to fully support and protect human life.  In the stories and teachings we have that are associated with Jesus, we see Jesus completely protecting the sacredness of human life.  He offers not only material support for human life – food, water, wine, healing –  but he offers spiritual support and the support of the community for all people.  This is expressed through forgiveness, grace, egalitarian community, generosity, equal rights for all people, and the decrying of laws, practices, and attitudes that diminish the lives of some people and privilege others.

Jesus shows us what abundant life for everyone looks like.  No one living at the expense of another.  Everyone valued and cared for.  No one demeaned or degraded.  No one beyond redemption or transformation.  No one.
I recently read a novel that takes place in Finland in 1946.  One of the characters, a doctor, reflects on the treatment of the dead body of another character:  “She weeps, too, for the care and attention she knows this body [the dead body] is being shown, in contrast to the countless labour-camp prisoners, her husband perhaps one of them, whose bodies are disposed of like so much offal.”  [Ice by Ulla-Lena Lundberg, p. 400.]  To be pro life to is to care at least as much for the living as for the dead.

When we are not pro life, fully supporting the life and habitat entrusted to our care and keeping, then we are denying and diminishing ourselves as human beings.  In the verses from John, we hear of false teachers, those who will try to lead the flock astray.  Well, we could spend until next Sunday discussing how we have gone astray when it comes to our calling to care for all of life; the ways that we have manipulated and dominated so that much of life is made subservient to the interests of a small portion of the human population.    

Here in Florida, an environmental coalition wanted to protect the rights of the waterways of Florida so that they can provide suitable habitat supporting many species of life.  But a ballot initiative to protect the rights of the waters of the state would never be supported.  No industrial dumping, no agricultural run off, no dumping of sewage and waste water, no spewing of heated water.  This kind of initiative would never gain widespread support here in Florida where people supposedly come first – which really means the economy comes first and that translates into rich people come first.  People in Florida don’t care enough about nature to bear the cost of needed protections.  BUT we do care about ourselves.  Overall, we are a selfish, self-centered lot.  And so these environmental groups came up with the idea of protecting not the rights of water or nature per se, but the rights of people, us, the inhabitants of Florida, to clean, safe water for consumption and recreation.  Now, that is something which serves us, so we can get behind that.  So that is the ballot initiative we have been promoting here at church and in the state.  It’s watered down, but it is a way to make a step in the right direction.  Oh, we know those thieves, marauders, and hired hands, that Jesus talks about, who are monopolized with serving what they see as their own personal interests. 

Our faith teaches that we are created to be pro life.  We were put here to be protectors and care takers of all that supports life, all life, not just human life.  And Jesus shows us how to create human community that does just that: supports all of human life, through faith and community, and fulfills its role in the wider Divine plan by living simply and sustainably with generosity and compassion.  To be pro life, in the human community is to support life in all of its diversity, adaptation, abundance, balance, and interdependence.  ‘I am because you are’ as the African proverb puts it.  We are in this together.  And we are in it with the wider community of life around us and the habitat that supports all of life. 

Now we all know that when we say ‘pro life’ these days, the phrase is usually associated with the issue of abortion and reproductive rights.  The words ‘pro life’ are associated with protection of the life of an unborn fetus. 

And, let’s be clear, there is no direct mention of abortion in the Bible.  There is a reference to life before birth in Psalm 139:  “It was you who formed my inward parts; you who knit me together in my mother’s womb.  My form was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.”   These verses are poetic professions of theology not biology.  They speak of God, a God that knows us fully and completely and still loves us!

Interestingly, the roots of what we know as the pro life movement are in the 1800’s among doctors who were concerned about protecting the lives of women who were having abortions that were often fatal to the mother.  They wanted to protect the lives of women.  That is a far cry from the position associated with the pro life movement today.  Today what is known as the pro life movement, is a movement that is centered on making abortion illegal and unobtainable.  Period.  It is supposedly protecting the life of those not yet born.  It is definitely protecting patriarchy, privilege, and subjugation of the masses.  What is called the pro life movement is not protecting life in the broader sense that encompasses the wellbeing and flourishing of creation as whole. 

In fact, supposedly protecting an unborn life – is it really pro life?  One of the speakers at the UCC General Synod in Indianapolis talked about “children born into a world of horrors.”  And there are so many.  Flooding. Heat.  Houselessness.  Famine.  Censorship.  Climate change.  The school to prison pipeline leaving so many children without fathers and mothers to raise them.  The addiction epidemic that prevents parents from providing adequate love and care for their children.  Lack of access to health care and affordable child care.  And what about, here we will touch on a real hot button, the ravages of extractive capitalism irreparably damaging the earth and the lives of people from whom labor is extracted for the gain of a few leaving children without the basic necessities of life?  To be pro life is to dream and invest in a new economic system that provides for all.  Not for a few at the expense of the many which is what we currently have in this country. 

When we get sucked into capitalism and rugged individualism, we are perpetrating the thievery and marauding Jesus talks about.  When we look out for number one, for ourselves, our family,  our tribe, our kind, and allow the society around us to continue to privilege the rich and ensure their rights at the expense of those made poor, we are not pro life.   And we cannot find our highest good, our true purpose, our deepest joy without honoring our place in the Divine plan to care for all of life and all of creation.  To separate ourselves from that web is to cut ourselves off from our health and wholeness.  It is to throw ourselves to the wolves, to that which is death dealing, instead of that which is life giving – the way of egalitarian community that we see among the followers of Jesus. 

I want to close with another story from Los Angeles.  When I was making my way home, we got to the airport a bit early.  After checking my bag, I wanted to take a few minutes to repack my carry on bag.  I looked for a place to sit down in the ticketing area.  I didn’t see any seats.  I went up a floor to the security and gate level of the airport.  Again, I looked for somewhere to sit.  There were no chairs to be seen.  I went back down to ticketing, surely I missed seeing a seating area.  Ah, there were some seats.  An airport attendant was standing next to the row of 6 chairs.  There was a sign indicating that this was the place to wait for wheel chair assistance.  There was no one in any of the seats.  I asked the attendant if I could sit there for a few minutes to repack my small backpack.  She said no.  That’s when an expletive which should not be repeated in church escaped my lips.  The attendant, a middle aged Black woman, said, regretfully, “I’m sorry.”  I told her, my home airport was Tampa and there were chairs and places to sit down everywhere you turn.  That’s when I learned that there used to be a lot more seating in the Los Angeles airport.  But it has been removed.  To discourage houseless people from staying at the airport.  There is a woman who has lived at the airport for the last 5 years, moving from bathroom to bathroom.  And that would explain why there are repeated public service announcements at the airport saying that only people involved in traveling and employees of the airport are permitted on the airport premises. 

After the tutorial about the issues relating to the houseless in the LA airport, the attendant told me to go down a floor, to baggage claim and ground transportation, and walk past the coffee and tea shop, down to the last carousel, and there were a few chairs there.  Sure enough.  So, I sat down and repacked my little carry on backpack.  Then headed up two levels to airport security and the gates. 

The houseless problem of LA prevented me from having a convenient place to sit down to repack my bag.  Really?  But that is how it is with the web of life, the web of reality, the web of creation.  Everything is interconnected.  Interdependent.  To be pro life, is to be aware, to care about, and to make choices, that are for the benefit of the whole.  And then what we find is that we are taken care of.  We have what we need not only materially, but also spiritually and emotionally.   When we are truly pro life, according to our faith tradition and the teachings of Jesus, we find that we have life.  To the fullest.  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.

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: June 18, 2023
Scripture Lesson: Genesis 11:1-9
Sermon: Becoming An Anti-Racist
Pastor:  Rev. Kim P. Wells

When you started your day today maybe you chose what kind of juice you wanted to drink.  Maybe you selected which clothes you would wear.  Maybe you decided what to have for breakfast.  And whether to have a coffee or a tea.  Maybe you chose which aftershave to splash on.  Maybe you picked out something from the freezer to defrost for dinner. 

Maybe you even decided whether to mow the lawn or come to church this morning.

Most of us probably made numerous choices and decisions, just this morning, before church.  We are very fortunate to have so many options!

And as we awoke this morning with all of these choices to make, we also want to notice that we awoke into a society that is characterized by systemic and individual racism.  That is a trait of our culture.  It is part of our reality at this time in this place.  And if we open our eyes and our minds, it can be seen all around us.  We don’t wake up and say to ourselves, “I am going to choose to participate in systemic, institutional racism today.”  Or, “I am going to choose not to participate in systemic institutional racism today.”  As long as we are living in this country, we are living in a reality imbued with racism.  It surrounds us and it is within us.  We don’t really have the choice of opting in or opting out. 

We don’t have health insurance for all, like Europeans, because when the New Deal was being implemented the white people and politicians would not support paying for health care for all of the Black people in the country.  And as a consequence, millions of white people have died and are dying from lack of access to needed healthcare as well as countless Black people.  This is systemic racism.  And there are countless examples of similar decisions in our society – past and present.  And this hurts everyone.  And it is part of our reality like the air we breathe.

I just finished listening to the book Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America, (by Beth Macy), a thorough examination of the opioid addiction epidemic focussed on northern Virginia.  This is a horrifying family and community destroying health crisis.  Interestingly, it has been revealed that this epidemic is a bigger problem among whites than Blacks because doctors more freely prescribed pain relievers to white people than to Black people because they had less trust in the Black people to use the prescriptions appropriately.  There it is again, systemic racism. 

You can see it all the time in the media, including in mainstream news, not just social media.  More negative images and assumptions relating to Black people and people of color.  More reporting on crimes perpetrated by Black people and people of color. 

All of this and so much more helps to form the reality we are living in.  And it is passed on from generation to generation.  Like we know from the song in the musical South Pacific, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught.”  And we are.  Carter G. Woodson, the African American historian and journalist, would call this ‘miseducation.’  And it is.  And it is something we all learn.

Systemic racism is so imbedded in the culture we are in that we often don’t even see it.  I certainly don’t.   It has become part of the atmosphere we live in.  It’s simply like the air we breathe.  We don’t really notice it.  It is just there.  And it impacts the reality of whites and Blacks alike. 

Thankfully, there are people in our country who are helping us all to see this reality; what is actually there but has been ignored, forgotten, or very often, intentionally suppressed.  I mean, if you are not allowing people to teach actual history, the story of past events and actions, it can only be because you are afraid of the truth.  We are waking up to see more honestly and clearly the reality that we are all a part of.  

The Bible story that we listened to of the Tower of Babel is a story that helps us to see our reality more clearly.  Yes, this is a story that helps to account for the diversity among the human species, of habit and language.  It helps to explain why there are humans all over the earth and not just in certain specific habitats.  The story has been taken as a commentary on humanity over reaching and trying to attain the Divine.  And there are other lessons in this story of ancient lore intended to express truth that applies to all of humankind, the whole world, not just one culture, time, or place. 

When this story is considered in its wider context of the book of Genesis, we remember that the human creature has been tasked with filling the Earth and taking care of the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every living thing that moves upon the Earth.  And in the Babel story, what is the human community doing?  They are concentrating their energy and efforts on building a tower that they believe will bring them closer to God.  They are concentrating their power in what they see as self-preservation.  They are limiting their attention to themselves and their perceived  desires.  The building of the tower is a sign of self absorption and devotion to self preservation.  It is self serving.  All this while they are supposed to be spreading themselves around the planet and taking care of each living creature including its habitat.  Instead, they are monopolized with concentrating on taking care of only themselves.  They are limiting their attention to themselves instead of the whole of creation.  Obsessed with their tower they are neglecting the greater good; the needs of the whole creation, not just their own desires and needs.  This is a problem.  They are not carrying out their appointed role in the created order.  They are denying the image of the Divine within them that is concerned with the wellbeing and flourishing of the whole of creation, not just one community. 

We can see how these lessons shed light on the human construct of race and racism.  It is a system, integrated with patriarchy and capitalism, that has been built into a huge monolith of power, consuming resources, energy, and creativity.  And it is all concentrated on the self preservation and self serving desires of some at the expense of the greater good, not only of other people but of the planet.  Systemic racism which is embedded in our society has caused us to neglect our responsibilities to the greater good and to the well being of the whole of creation.  Investment in this enterprise has come at an enormous cost, to people of color, to the planet, and even to those we consider ‘white’ who are supposedly benefitting from this system.  Tell that to the unemployed, depressed communities of Appalachia where the most reliable way to feed your family may just be by dealing drugs. 

Racism.  Systemic.  Institutional.  It is like that big tower in the story from Genesis.  It is something that has been constructed by human beings.  The concept of race has been created by people.  There is no such concept among other living creatures – a hierarchy based on variations in color.  Color is a feature in nature that may be related to mating and procreation, but there is nothing like the humanly created construct of race.

So when we consider race, it is not like getting to know more about, say, space – something that exists that we did not create or construct.  Race is about something that people have made, constructed, invented, designed, and created. 

Now, here is what I think is important about that.  Since we have created it, we have perpetuated it, we have woven it into our reality, we have passed it on from generation to generation, we have given it power, this means that we can change it.  It is within our power to deconstruct, to destroy, to dissemble, the tower we have created – racism.  Bill McKibben, the well-known environmentalist and founder of 350.org talks about our ability to ‘de-create.’  Since humanity has created race and racism, we have the power to de-create racism.  Take it down.  Brick by brick. 

It’s small, but just having the national holiday Juneteenth is a tiny brick being removed from the monolith of racism that can then be used to construct a new reality that is not only not racist but is proactively anti racist.   That tower of Babel came down and humanity spread and flourished across the earth to take up caretaking of the entire planet.  Sometimes what we have constructed must be demolished so that something better can take its place.

This is work for us as Christians, followers of Jesus, people of love and compassion for at least two reasons.  One is we have a responsibility for dismantling racism because as Christians, believing we are created in the Divine Image, we are called to take care of the whole earth, every person, every life form, every acre of land, every fathom of water.  This is work for us as Christians who are citizens and inhabitants of this country who want to make it a better home for everyone and who are called to serve the world entire. 

This is also work for us to do as the Christian church because the church and religion have been used, or I would say abused, to construct and reinforce the racist system in which we find ourselves.  Yes, there were abolitionists in the church.  Yes, there are people in the church today working tirelessly to deconstruct racism and build an egalitarian culture in which all people and the Earth itself flourish.  But the church is imbued with racism just as the society that we are part of.  As the church, we have helped to create this society and we have upheld it.  At best with ignorant, benign intentions.  At worst, with completely self serving motivations. 

So, we as Christians, have a particular responsibility, obligation, motivation, to do this work of de-creating the racism of the society we are part of in this country.  And there is work for us to do in every aspect of society – education, politics, government, religion, healthcare, sports, arts, entertainment, social relations,  economic arrangements, the legal and criminal justice and law enforcement systems – all across the board.  We must ferret out and remove all obstacles to equity and justice like removing asbestos or lead paint from an old building.   And there must be recompense and assistance to those who have been sidelined, redlined, and maligned by the racist reality that has infected our society.

This is work we all need to be doing.  And we need to be doing it together and helping each other.  Helping each other learn, grow, self examine, strategize, mobilize, and offer support and encouragement along the way.  And if I say something that appears to be imbued with racism today, or at any time, I hope you will point it out to me.  You see, we have all been very carefully taught.

So I am going to close telling a story on my dear husband.  He knows this is coming.  I warned him!

Now those of you who know Jeff know of his kindness and his commitment to justice.  He would never knowingly harm anyone.  He is always helping people.  In addition, he is very well-educated, Harvard.  He has a doctorate.  He is a student of American history having been the assistant curator of the Paul Revere House in Boston.  He majored in Government.  He’s been a pastor, a science teacher, a social worker, and a garage door installer, among other things!  Yes, his people came over on the Mayflower but he is very much committed to being on the side of the oppressed. 

This will help you to understand the story I am going to share about the pervasive nature of the absorption of racism into our psyches simply by being in the society we are in. 

We were in Colorado last month attending a baby shower for my niece.  As we were driving to the airport in Denver, with the mountains in the background, and unending flat plains as far as the eye could see, we were commenting about the terrain.  I mentioned that if I was coming across the country in a wagon to settle in the west, I would take one look at those mountains and turn around.  Jeff commented that there was all this land, this space, with nothing there.  It makes sense that they settled there.  I questioned him.  Nothing there.  I reminded him there were people living there.  Indigenous people.  Who lived there.  And were nomadic.  And who lived off that land.  Oh yeah, Jeff said, sheepishly.  I forgot about that. 

I tell you this not to condemn Jeff.  But to remind us how deeply rooted racism, ethnocentrism, whiteness, and patriarchy, are embedded in our reality whatever our background or ethnicity.  It’s a tall tower.  And it keeps us from our calling to tend and care for all of the earth and all of the earth’s inhabitants, human and other than human.  It separates us from God.  From Divine Love.  From the reality of God.  From each other.  And from the natural world.  And we all have work to do on this – whoever we are, wherever we are, in this society. 

I am reminded of someone from our congregation who was in his last days in the health center at Westminster Suncoast.  He made it a point to get to know, take an interest in, to learn about and show compassion for the nursing aids, mostly Black women, who took care of him.  He was still trying to help dismantle the edifice of racism to his dying day.  Many of you knew him – Lloyd Conover.

We all have lots of choices that we can make each and every day.  Today, you decided to come to church instead of mowing the lawn, or going out to brunch, or reading the paper, or catching up on your social media feeds.  As the church, as Christian people, as followers of Jesus, may we choose to fulfill our calling to attend to the flourishing of all people, all life forms, and the creation itself.  This necessitates eradicating the systemic, institutional, and individual racism that pervades our society.  Like the tower in the story from Genesis, the humanly constructed tower of racism must be dismantled and the bricks used to create egalitarian community where people of all hues and tongues not only thrive and flourish but take care of planet Earth.  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.