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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: April 23, 2023   Earth Sunday
Scripture Lessons: Job 12:7-10 and John 15:1-8
Sermon: Connected!
Pastor:  Rev. Kim P. Wells

This past week, I had to have a tire patched on our car.  So the tire people asked about when and where the tires had been purchased.  Were they under warranty?  I looked in the glove box for some kind of receipt.  Well.

Out came the map of Pinellas County.  And the map of Tampa.  And the map of Greater Orlando.  And the map of Miami/Fort Lauderdale.  And another map of Pinellas County.  And the map of Florida.  And the map of Bradenton.  And another map of Tampa.  And the map of Sarasota.  And finally another map of the state of Florida. The young man with tire expertise was watching these maps spew from the glove box with amusement; like treasure from a chest in a video game.  

As someone who tries to avoid using my phone when I can, even I haven’t looked at those maps for years because now we have map apps.  

And I haven’t looked at a phone book in years.  Because now I look up a phone number online.  

And if I want to know what is going on in St. Pete over the weekend, I no longer look at the weekender in the St. Pete Times or Creative Loafing, I look online.  

And if I want to tell you something or ask you a question, I might call you from the church landline or from my cell phone.  But more likely, I will text or email you.  

And to find out about an organization I am interested in, do I look at the last paper newsletter that was sent to me?  No.  I look at the last email I got.  Or I look at their Facebook page, or Twitter, or Instagram even though I myself do not have any of these social media accounts.    

And when I was all the way over in Spain for two months this past fall, in the sticks, supposedly getting away from it all on sabbatical, I was tracking that hurricane Ian every day.  

If I want to find out about something, I am going to probably start by looking on the internet then go to other sources as needed.

You see, for all the problems there are with the internet and social media, we are more connected now than at maybe at any other time in history.  We are truly part of a world wide web.  We can communicate instantly with anyone in the world any time.  We can watch important events unfolding in real time.  We can record crimes as they occur to see who really did what.  We can listen to all kinds of music, from any where in the world, at any time.  We can watch countless movies and shows and documentaries any time and almost anywhere.   We are connected to unlimited information constantly.  

Try living without the internet.  It isn’t easy even for me as one who tries not to become dependent on devices.  We experienced this when we were in Spain.  Our devices are not set up for the way the Internet works in Europe, so reception is spotty at best.  Where we were, most of the internet was 3G when it was available.  That was a problem.  Everything very slow.  And at one point on the Camino, the home button on my phone stopped working.  And there was no Apple store nearby with an English speaking staff to either fix or replace it.  These experiences make you realize how connected we are – to our phones, to the internet, to each other, and to the world.  

Connection is important.  And technology enables us to make many connections that are significant and important both to information and to people and groups.  But well into the ancient past, our human cultural heritage has emphasized the importance of our connection to nature; our direct involvement and relationship to the environment around us.  We cannot be fully human without an awareness of the actual world around us and how we are part of the web of life.  

Being connected to nature grounds us in our dependency on the Earth itself and on all the life forms that inhabit the Earth.  It reminds us of our need for one another to live, thrive, and survive.  Our connection to nature connects us to what gives us life and what sustains us.  Contemporary author, Michael Pollan tells us,  “Before I started writing about food, my focus was really on the human relationship to plants.  Not only do plants nourish us bodily — they nourish us psychologically.”  We need to be connected to nature.  It is who we are.    

Our connection to nature is our lifeline to what we need to know not only to live but to live with purpose and meaning and understanding.  Over and over in the Bible, there are references to nature and how it illuminates our human experience.  We are incomplete, not fully functioning, without that knowledge.  Our connection to nature helps us to know that we are part of something greater than ourselves.  We are not the center of the universe.  A Jewish sacred writing from the 3-5th centuries reminds the reader:  “Even though you may think them superfluous in this world, creatures such as flies, bugs, and gnats have their allotted task in the scheme of creation.”  Nature helps us to maintain our proper perspective on our place in a larger whole.  

Connection to nature also connects us to the past and to the future.  The trees and the land around us have a far longer history than we do.  They remind us of the past that we are inheriting.  And connection to nature connects us to the future.  What we do today has implications for the people and the planet for a future far beyond our years on this Earth.  Nature connects us to a far larger reality in terms of time.  And then there is the awareness of time from a cosmic perspective – light years, space time. Connection to nature shows us that we are privileged, blessed to exist in this amazing reality!

As Bishop Desmond Tutu put it:  “The first law of our being is that we are set in a delicate network of interdependence with our fellow human beings and with the rest of God’s creation.”

We are connected not only to each other but to the actual environment that we inhabit; that hosts our lives.  We need to be plugged in to relationships and community and the world within us and the world around us.  So often all we see is our need for other people.  But scripture and human cultural history remind us of our need to be connected to the natural world.  We need the land and sea and sky to sustain our living; to bring us beauty.  And we need the plants and animals of the natural world to make our lives possible – with food, relationships, and a sense of something greater than ourselves.  We need the seasons to teach us about ourselves and about life.  We need nature to help mitigate our greatest fear as human beings, the fear of death.  Nature teaches us of the circle of life so that we need not fear death. 

As we look at the environmental problems we are facing today, the climate crisis especially, we see that this is largely a result of our disconnect from nature.  As our species has become more industrial and technological, we have been neglecting our appropriate connection to nature.   That disconnect has been created by greed and it fosters greed which leaves destruction in its wake.  

Poet John Donne of the 16-17th century was aware of the disconnect that was emerging, and observed:  “No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe, everyman is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine.”   No person is an island.  We live in an amazing reality, a seamless whole, a web of connections.  Pull a thread, and much unravels.  And we see much unraveling around us each and every day.  

And friends, here we circle back to technology.  Because of technology, we can know more about nature, the environment, the world around us, than ever before.  We can see what is happening anywhere on the planet.  The beauties of space are being shown to us in ways that are stunning and brain bending.  We can learn about animals and life forms in ways that are magnificent.  My sister in law, also not technologically inclined, is following the nesting of birds around the world thanks to webcams set up for that purpose.   She is connected to a particular bird building a nest and raising a family on another continent that she has never been to.  Talk about connected!

It is also our connection to technology that is showing us all the damage that humanity is doing to Earth.  We can access data about temperature, and weather, and water levels.  We have pictures and images showing us what we are doing.  And it is not pretty.

Our connection through technology also teaches us about gains in renewable energy, new commitments to carbon neutrality, the possibilities and products and initiatives that are available for recreating a future that is sustainable.  We can be connected to the many positive steps that are being taken and we can join forces with people who are taking positive action.  We can provide mutual support and encouragement.  We can share each other’s grief and sorrow over the condition of Mother Earth.   We can be connected.  

Like that beautiful image of the vine and the branches from the gospel of John, may we stay connected, rooted in the soil of our planet, provided for us by Divine Love.  May we prune the GREED and entitlement that have led to abuse of our Mother Earth.  And with our incredible ability to connect, may we bear fruit – creating a world that protects the land and water and provides for all people to have what they need to flourish. 

Our faith tradition gives us a map to a beautiful future, if we will but follow it.  

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: April 16, 2023
Scripture Lesson: John 20:19-31
Sermon: Rising
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells

Every year during Lent and Holy Week, there are articles and posts about crucifixion.  That is, about the actual process of crucifixion from an anatomical, biological, physiological perspective.  What was done and what actually happened to the body.   Churches have adult ed classes about this.  I remember many years ago, a charter member of LUCC, Virginia Bodendorfer, gave me a long article, very detailed, written by a doctor, explaining the whole process and the effects on the body.  So, we seem to have some kind of maybe gory or voyeuristic fascination with the physicality of the crucifixion.  There may be many reasons for this.  The worse the pain, the greater the love?  I don’t know.  I think the article from Virginia is one of the few things you won’t find among the volumes of papers in my office!

But as an historian by training, I have always found it interesting that the crucifixion of Jesus is one of the few things in the gospels that seems to be historically authenticated by an outside party, Josephus, a Jewish historian.  

So, we seem to know quite a bit about the crucifixion.  But what about the resurrection?  What about the particularities of, well, the resurrection?  

We have the stories in the gospels which are faith based, not necessarily fact based.  And what are we told about the resurrection?  We are told of the body of Jesus being placed in a tomb.  And we have accounts several days later in the gospels of women close to Jesus finding the tomb empty of Jesus’ dead body.  And some stories around that.

Then we have accounts of encounters between Jesus and those who knew him.  Like the one we heard this morning.  Jesus appearing to the disciples in the locked room.  And the story of the conversation with Thomas.  

But we seem to have no account of, well, how the body came back to life, or was restored, or resurrected.  We have no explanations about what occurred between Jesus being put in the tomb and the tomb being found empty.  There is no story about, say, the stone being moved, the body being unwrapped, life being breathed into the body, clothes being provided for the resurrected Jesus.  There is a gap in the story.  No description or details or explanations of the process involved.  We are told of the grave clothes being at the tomb.  And angels appearing and saying he is not there.  That he has gone ahead to Galilee.  But there is no ‘how’ provided.  

Now, many of you may be thinking, who cares?  We don’t need to know.  It’s symbolic or metaphorical, or it’s a miracle and you can’t explain a miracle, that’s why it’s called a miracle.  

But stay with me a moment.

I find this lack of detail about the resurrection interesting in part because there are many other stories in the gospels that have a lot of details and explanations.  We are told what happened and who was there and what occurred.  Let’s just stay with the gospel of John which we heard from this morning and look at a few examples.

The first miracle or sign in the gospel is the story of water being turned into wine at the wedding in Cana.  We are told of 6 large stone water jars.  We are told of Jesus, his mother, and servants being present.  We are told of the servants filling the 6 stone jars with water.  Then we are told that the chief steward draws a sample from a stone jar.  And it is wine.  Good wine.  In the story, there are people involved who see and participate in what happens.  There is lots of detail in the story.  

There is the story of the healing of an invalid near the 5 porticos of the Temple during the festival.  There were many invalids and onlookers.  There is a conversation in the story.  Jesus tells the invalid to take up his mat and walk.  And he does.  

There is the story of the feeding of the 5,000.  Not 2,500 or 7,000 but 5,000.  There were many witnesses.  The disciples are involved.  We are told that 5 barley loaves and 2 fish are collected.  Jesus gives thanks.  The food is distributed.  And there are 12 baskets of leftovers.  Not 11.  Not 15.  But 12.  [A significant number in Judaism.]  There are many participants and details in this story.

In the story of the man born blind, again there are people around.  We are told of Jesus spitting on the ground and making mud with the saliva and dirt and putting it on the man’s eyes and then telling him to go wash in the pool of Siloam.  There is an involved description of what goes on in the story.

And there is the story of the raising of Lazarus.  Martha, maybe Mary, and other mourners are present.  The stone is moved from the grave.  There is a smell.  We are told Jesus looks upward and prays.  He cries out in a aloud voice, “Lazarus, come out.”  Lazarus emerges, bound in strips of cloth, even his face is wrapped, we are told.  And Jesus instructs the on lookers to unbind Lazarus.  Again, a story told with great attention to detail. 

Then there is the story of the resurrection.  Jesus is buried.  Three days later, the stone has been moved from the entrance to the grave.  We are not told how.  The linen wrappings are there.  Angels are there.  The body is gone.  But we are not told what happened, how the stone was moved, how Jesus was resurrected.  There is no detail, no explanation of the actual resurrection process. 

So we have a story of suffering and sacrifice that leads to new life.  We have a story of transformation.  We have a story that conveys that love is stronger than death.  That redemption, restoration, reconciliation is always possible.  No matter the circumstances.  There is a path from death to new life.

But we can’t just open our maps app and be shown the route.  Here’s how you get from death to life.  Here’s how you get from horrible violence to peace.  Here’s the route from devastation to restoration.  No.  We aren’t just handed a user manual that tells us how this all works.  

There’s death.  And there is new life.  And I think we are not told of the intricacies of the resurrection because it is left to us, in our time, in our context, with our challenges, to create the process.  To make the path.  To map our the route.  As we go.  Our faith tradition tells us this is possible.  It assures us that it can happen.  We are given the power of Divine Love to overcome even death.  But is up to us to lean on our faith and on each other and make the way.  We are to figure out how fill in the gap.  What process is needed.  In a way that leads to the triumph of life and love over death and defeat.  

This past week on Wednesday I went to the vigil at 49th Street and Ulmerton Road during the execution of Louis Gaskin.  We held signs and made a witness to the many drivers traversing that intersection.  There were many honks in support of our witness.  And then we heard from Herman Lindsey, a person who was wrongly convicted, spent 3 years on death row, and was finally exonerated in 2009.  He is the 135th exoneree in the US, and the 23rd exoneree in the state of Florida which has the highest rate of exonerations in the US.   Though exonerated, Lindsey still does not have his full civil rights reinstated.  

But Herman Lindsey told us a part of his story, a story of making that path from death to life, in a way that he never could have anticipated.  When Lindsey was finally released from death row, he wanted to get back to his family and friends, make money, go back to a normal life.  The last thing he wanted was to think about or talk about his harrowing experience with the criminal injustice system which had consumed his life for years.  He wanted to put all that behind him.  But the executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty contacted him and asked him to speak to a group about his experience.  He was not interested.  He didn’t want to talk to any audience.  He didn’t want to relive his experience on death row.  He didn’t want to worry about any body else on death row.  He just wanted his life back.  But Mark Elliott, the director, persisted.  And then he offered to pay Lindsey to speak.  Lindsey told us, “I wanted a new pair of Nikes, so I said yes.”  And this is what Lindsey has been doing ever since.  One group.  Then another.  Then another.  Talking to people about how the death penalty is wrong.  And how it creates victims, not just the ones who are killed, but all those who have to carry out the killing are traumatized by it.  And about how the death penalty is against our deepest religious and moral convictions.  And we compromise ourselves when we try to justify it and certainly when we implement it.  So, Lindsey never got his normal life back.  Instead he got a new life.  As an advocate for the eradication of the death penalty.  He is the executive director of Witness to Innocence the only national organization in the US composed of and led by exonerated death row survivors and their family members.  A life he never anticipated or imagined.

To me, we aren’t told about the details of the resurrection because we are supposed to use our imaginations.  As renowned scientist Albert Einstein observed, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”  We are supposed to be creative.  We are supposed to imagine.  We are supposed to discern and devise the way from death to life in our time and in our context, our situation.  Whatever we are facing, as an individual, as a society, as a culture, as a species, we have been given the capacity to navigate the way from death to life.  From terror to justice.  From abuse to affirmation.  From deprivation to abundance.  From destruction to construction.

There is so much pain, woundedness, violence, and injustice around us, within us, and among us.  There is so much need for the transforming power of love.  This means there are countless ways for us to witness to the resurrection.  To make the way from death to life.   To create our story.

When we feel the wounds and heal the wounds, our doubt becomes belief.  And we are raised to new life.  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.