Wind in the Sails
Monday, February 7, 2022
What Do You Know to be True of God?
Thursday, January 27, 2022
Sermon from Epiphany 3 C, January 23, 2022
EPIPHANY 3 C
JANUARY 23, 2022
LUKE 4:14-21
“THE REVOLUTIONARY GOSPEL”
14Then Jesus, filled
with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him
spread through all the surrounding country. 15He began to teach in
their synagogues and was praised by everyone. 16When he came to
Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath
day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the
prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place
where it was written: 18“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because
he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim
release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the
oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20And
he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes
of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21Then he began to say to
them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
John Lennon penned
these words, “You say you want a revolution, well, you know, we all want to
change the world.” Yes, but, not everyone agrees on how it should be changed.
The Gospel lection
for today begins with these words, “Filled with the power of the Holy
Spirit...,” which Jesus received on the day of his baptism (Luke 3:21-22),
Jesus began his ministry in Galilee. That is where we begin today. Jesus has
emerged from his baptism consumed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Emboldened
by the power of the Holy Spirit. Everybody in the towns and villages around the
Jordan River started talking about his preaching. Communities invited him to
teach in their synagogues. He was in demand because his preaching was powerful
and new. Unlike any they had heard. It seemed empowered from beyond.
The Gospel writer Luke
makes a big deal of the Holy Spirit, both in the Gospel and in the Book of
Acts. In fact, in the Acts of the Apostles, the official name of the book in
the Bible would be better entitled, the Acts of the Holy Spirit. In Acts it is
the Holy Spirit that is the primary actor, moving the early community of
believers outward from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).
It was THAT Holy
Spirit that had inhabited the whole being of Jesus and it was pushing him
forward into the world. The Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he went out
preaching in a world that might not ultimately welcome the good news he was
preaching or even see it as good news. There were many people who responded
positively to his message. Luke says that the people praised his preaching. They
thought well of him. He seemed to be the small-town boy making it big. Of
course, we know, because we know the whole story, that as time passed and the
message of the Holy Spirit infused Jesus began to sink in not everyone was impressed.
Where we find ourselves
in Luke today is for Luke the launch of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. Jesus had
come home to Nazareth where he was graciously invited to offer an
interpretation of the scripture reading for the day. Jesus was enjoying a
growing celebrity in the surrounding communities, so it seemed proper to invite
him to his home synagogue to bless them with a bit of his Spirit-infused wisdom.
Luke tells us that
Jesus was handed the Isaiah scroll, from which he read a word from Isaiah
61
about the ministry of the Spirit, which served to anoint a preacher who would
bring good news to the poor. One is sure that Jesus read the text faithfully as
he spoke the words of Isaiah detailing the nature of this good news.
Captives would be
released.
The blind would
receive their sight.
The oppressed would
go free.
The year of Jubilee
would be proclaimed.
Surely, the
congregation at the synagogue knew these words. They were words of hope for a
nation of Israel that had for centuries been overrun, enslaved, exiled and
diminished. Isaiah’s Spirit-inspired message is one of justice and mercy, of
righteousness and freedom, and no doubt it was solace for the weary Hebrew
soul.
When Jesus finished
reading the passage he sat down, and with every eye in the congregation focused
on him, they awaited his wisdom on this passage. What would the famous teacher
have to say? What fresh understanding would he bring?
“Today this scripture
has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
In other words: I’m
the one Isaiah spoke of. By the power of the Holy Spirit I am going to do these
very things. You say you want a revolution? It starts today, with me.
We all want to change
the world, but we don’t all agree on how it should be changed, or what it
should look like after the changes. For Jesus, the blueprint for revolution was
this passage from Isaiah 61. It was controversial and revolutionary from the
start, from the moment he sat down and told his hometown powerbrokers that he
was the one, powered by the Holy Spirit, that was ushering in a change. The
world was about to turn upside down, and inside out.
Each year on Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. day our Facebook feeds, our Twitter timelines are filled
with quotes. Each one of them important and inspirational. Dr. King reminds us
that we are called to something bigger and more important than our own selfish
desires. He calls us to a blessed community where all are valued. He was not
always so beloved, as you may recall. In the 1960’s his was a message that was
roundly rejected and so was he. Dr. King was not only a controversial figure,
he was loathed. The FBI investigated him actively. He was the subject of
violence and threats daily, and his family as well. Even his clergy colleagues
urged him to tone down his rhetoric. In Birmingham, AL the clergy colleagues
wrote a letter published in local papers asking him not to engage in public
demonstrations for the poor, the incarcerated and the oppressed in their town.
Dr. King, infused by the power of the Holy Spirit kept working for what he
believed Isaiah and Jesus called him to do. Then, one day, he was murdered from
afar.
Revolutions that
unseat power can extract a price; I suppose. Jesus surely was not oblivious to
that when he stood to read the scroll from Isaiah, nor when he sat down to
proclaim its fulfillment in the hearing of his hometown neighbors; the people
he had known and who had known him all his life. The audacity of the
carpenter’s son. Who does he think he is?
Ah, we love Jesus.
2000 years since his passing we who are Christian proclaim our love for him,
but his words of revolution and transformation and systemic change are often
ignored by a church that is comfortable and entrenched. His words that so
offended the people of his hometown and of his own faith that they openly
plotted his demise often barely intersect our lives.
Where is the power of
the Holy Spirit now? How do we find the revolutionary Jesus in sermons whose
transient truths are as fickle as the Kentucky weather?
Once upon a time,
long ago, a person said to me after worship that they would have preferred I
preach less social justice and more gospel, more good news. OK. I heard you.
But I respectfully disagree with your premise and your conclusion. Look how
Luke introduces the ministry of Jesus here. “God has anointed me to bring good
news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and
recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the
year of the Lord’s favor.”
Here is how I read
this. If the Good News we proclaim as a church, if the Gospel we are preaching
isn’t good news to the poor, isn’t good news to the captives, isn’t good news
to those who are blinded, isn’t good news about freedom for those who we have
systematically oppressed, isn’t good news about the Kingdom of God on earth as
it already is in heaven, then it isn’t the Good News that the Holy Spirit inspired
in Jesus.
Is that radical? Is
that revolutionary? Yes. If it wasn’t then the Jewish religious authorities and
the Roman oppressors wouldn’t have paid him any attention. People wouldn’t have
given up everything they own to follow him. And the world would have just kept
on going as it was. Without hope. Without a promise. Without a savior. Without
the revolutionary Jesus.
Jesus, standing with
the scroll of Isaiah in his hand in the synagogue where he grew up and was on
the cradle roll, where attended Hebrew school; looked at the people who had
known him since birth and dreamed of a world infused by the Holy Spirit, where
the oppressed were set free, where the blind recovered their sight, where the
poor received good news and where the Kingdom of God broke into Galilee like it
already was in heaven.
Today, he told them,
I am going to make good on this passage. And he did. All his days from that day
forward were spent doing just what he said he would do. Just about every moment
of his every day forward was spent working on good news to the poor, recovery
of sight for the blind, setting the oppressed free and proclaiming God’s
Kingdom come to earth.
I have to ask myself
when I prepare a sermon every week. Every week. How can I be faithful to the
text, to the Good News? If you take it lightly it doesn’t really amount to
much. If you take it seriously, well, then you must call yourself as the
preacher and the church as your hearers to account. Jesus has told us what the
Good News is. May the same Holy Spirit that emboldened and empowered Jesus
infiltrate this community until there is Good News for all. Amen.
Tuesday, January 4, 2022
My Uncle David
1 3 2022
My Uncle David died tonight. My heart is broken. He was my Mom's younger brother. 82 years old.
When I was just five, he asked me if I wanted to ride in an airplane. At the time he was a CFI, Certified Flight Instructor with Spartan Aviation in Tulsa. It thrilled me, this idea of flying. It quickly turned to dread as he fired the engine and we began to taxi. But, it was a harbinger of things to come for me. In 1996 when I had put a little money together I began to realize my dream of flying. It was because of Uncle David I loved airplanes.
When I was a child I began to draw WWII era fighter planes and I became fairly proficient at it. It was Uncle David that gave me a love for these high performance planes. On the wall of his house there were two paintings of Spitfires. They inspired me.
As a small child I used to love to ride in the car with Uncle David. He had an Austin Healy, then a 1967 GTO. When I was in grad school he had a 1979 Corvette. Yes, I drive a sports car today. Yes, it was his influence on me that caused me to love a sports car.
When I graduated with my Masters Degree from TCU, Uncle David took me to Nieman Marcus and bought me a $400 overcoat, in 1984 dollars. He believed I would need that overcoat and that I would need to look professional, and he was proud of me. I did need that overcoat in the Kentucky winters. I did need to look professional, and though that coat no longer fits me (it's a size 36) I still have it to this day. The gift itself matters to me. It means something to me that he did that. I will possess that coat until the day I am called to the life beyond.
I am crushed tonight. He was my light. He was my example. Now he rests eternally with his mother and father and his sister, my beloved Mom. There is only slight consolation in this. COVID destroyed his ability to breathe, to live, to hope at all. Through many dangers, toils and snares he had already come, but this one was too much. My heart is crushed.
There is so much more I could write and say about Uncle David. He meant the world to me. That's all that really matters.
Peace and Love,
Jerry
Thursday, February 4, 2021
Where Are We Headed?
February 4, 2021
The pandemic has eased a bit over the last week. About 9% fewer new cases across the United States in the past week. That's a good trend. Many among us have already received the first dose of either the Pfizer or the Moderna vaccine for COVID-19. That's also a good trend. In Kentucky teachers and administrators have been among those targeted to receive the vaccinations early because we all want our children back in school, and we all want our teachers safe. In Clark County where I serve at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) all educators and support staff of Clark County Public Schools who were willing to receive a vaccine have had their first round. Yet another good trend -- save for the several who refused the vaccine.
With the decline in new infections and the vaccination doses increasing in speed, there is hope that we will emerge from this exile and find ourselves on the other side of it. But, where are we headed? Will the other side of this be a land flowing with milk and honey or a foreign soil to which we have yet to acclimate? I tend to believe it to be the latter. Here's few thoughts about where we might be headed.
There is a terrible trend in the United States where People of Color are NOT getting vaccinated in a number that will significantly reduce the proliferation of the disease. The data produced on those vaccinated to date shows overwhelming evidence that People of Color are not getting the vaccine at anywhere near the rate of whites. Why? I am not qualified or knowledgeable enough to say, but I do know this. Healthcare has been distributed disproportionately between whites and people of color for a very long time. Data shows that income for whites is disproportionately higher than for people of color. And that's just the United States. People of color across the globe have been historically underserved.
The equitable distribution of the vaccine is a raging debate. The UK and Europe are engaged in a battle over vaccines. Portugal is inundated with new cases, and in South America and sub-Saharan Africa, in India and among the poorest of the poor across the globe vulnerability to COVID-19 and access to vaccines are major hurdles.
We are learning a new reality about how small the world is, no matter national origin or ethnicity. If someone, somewhere in the world is sick, it can and almost certainly will travel across national borders. That is the case with the new strains of COVID-19 that have proliferated in the last month. They are more transmittable and therefore are more deadly, and the effect will be disproportionally worse for People of Color.
So, I am inclined to believe that where we are headed isn't the place we may hope we are. People keep saying, a return to normal. I do not think that phrase means what they think it means. Normal has always been a relative and subjective term, but the normal ahead of us may stretch our definition of normal.
Having offered those thoughts I would also assert that I am not a complete skeptic. I am, at least in part, a believer in the power of humans to overcome obstacles. So, I hope that where we are headed includes a renewed focus on equity; an equity that respects the dignity of every human and provides access to healthcare at a previously unprecedented level. If that's where we are headed that will be a good trend, too.
And speaking of equitable distribution of healthcare -- if the rollout of this vaccine has shown us anything about subsidized healthcare it is this: you offer people a lifesaving drug for free and they will take it without asking who is paying for it. Lots of people say they don't want subsidized, socialized, communist healthcare until they need it to save their lives and couldn't otherwise afford it.
So, I am hopeful that one of the places we are headed is a more equitable distribution of healthcare resources.
Where else are we headed? If the capital insurrection/attempted coup is any indication of the direction we are headed then we might be tempted to lament. Still, I believe the general response of shock and horror to the most egregious act on American soil I have witnessed in my lifetime is more indicative of America as a whole. The overwhelming majority of American people were horrified at the sight of insurrectionists hunting down congress members, building a gallows and calling for the hanging of the Vice President. Horrified may be a mild word. So, as bad as it was, and it was the most undemocratic, scary moment I have seen, I believe that our country will repudiate political violence and vengeance when history is written. Further, I believe that as dangerously close as we came to a dictatorship that the long course of history from these moments forward will arc toward democracy. If so, that will be a welcome trend.
Where are we headed? I really don't know. I really don't. I simply have hope that our better human side will prevail, even though, and I say this with a heavy heart, the Church of Jesus Christ has had a hand in fomenting the unrest, the insurrection, the refusal to accept defeat and promulgated the idea that somehow God had hand-picked the 45th President -- and thus electing the 46th was a rejection of God's will for our country. And that is sad.
This is longer than I intended so let me finish by saying that wherever we are headed the sad isn't over, and the way is still long. May God be our guide. May peace be with every living human, animal and plant. May where we are headed be where God is calling us to be.
Peace be with you,
Jerry
Tuesday, September 1, 2020
Monday, February 24, 2020
Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday, Year A, February 23, 2020
Monday, November 11, 2019
The Little Free Pantry
Today we placed the Little Free Pantry at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Winchester, KY. It is a way for people who need just a bit of food to have access to it. I am really honored and grateful for this project. The congregation has been really supportive of the effort and I can't wait to see what blessings may result.
Of course it's possible it will be vandalized.
Of course it's possible someone will abuse it, clean it out and take everything.
It's worth the risk.
Thanks to Meredith Peck Guy for the idea. Cecil Walson for building it. (I helped a little.) Mason Guy for financing it and helping get it installed. Lee Kidd for helping get it installed. Kelly Johns for the graphics work she does so well. The youth and children of the church for filling it up for the first time.
May the Little Free Pantry be a blessing.