Sermon of the Week
Courage for Lent: The One with Heart

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on March 22, 2020.
The fourth of a five part sermon series for Lent. #pcusa

Keywords:  King David, Man Born Blind, Literary Analysis, Brene Brown, Fred Rogers, Heart, Coronavirus.

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
John 9:1-12
and 1 Samuel 16:1-13

Like their parents, my daughters aren’t quite sure what to make of the fact
that there will not be any more in-person classes at school this academic year.

We got the word last week when we were out of town,
in Florida, trying to take a much-needed rest from school and work and life
and, instead, finding that this novel coronavirus
was more dangerous than anyone quite had thought
and so we needed to come home early, and we did,
home to self-quarantine and shelter in place orders,
checking in with our family and our friends and our neighbors,
and, for our kids, trying to come to grips with the fact that
they won’t be going back to middle school.

All of us are feeling disoriented. Disrupted.
I know I am.

Mixtures of emotions, for sure: happy for some time at home with family,
quite sad that we’re not able to see our friends in person again for a while,
maybe a long while,
not so sure how we feel
about not diving into the stress of school work right away,
but absolutely sure that the stress of these current moments is enough,
thank you very much.

I’ve been talking with them about their school work lately,
even before all of this.
I don’t want to go too deeply into this,
I don’t really mean to bring them into the middle of a sermon,
but they said something lately about school
that has impacted how I’ve been reacting
to these two stories from the bible that are before us today.

In 8^th grade English, apparently, you learn a lot about how to study a story.

You explore metaphor, symbolism,
figurative vs literal speech,
foreshadowing and allusion,
all great things to think about,
all topics that are in a modern preacher’s toolbox
when we sit down to try to understand a passage of scripture
like the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Man Born Blind
or the ancient story of the selection of David to be the new King of Israel
a new King because God had decided that the existing King, King Saul,
wasn’t the right kind of King for that moment.

I spent a lot of time in Seminary working on some of those very techniques
so I could try to understand these Biblical stories better too….
and they’re important, because John uses a lot of symbols to get his point across:
elements like light and water–for-washing and even the faculty of sight,
because the guy who wrote the book we call the gospel of John
is trying to get the reader to see
that this Jesus is someone unique, someone important…
someone sent by God to heal and to bring compassion to a hurting world.

He literally says that phrase a lot in his Gospel: “come and see.”

So the writer of John likes to use metaphor and symbol to point to Jesus.

There’s a lot of symbolism in the other reading too,
the story of the selection of David:

there’s a flask of oil, which is the traditional way a King would be made the king,
someone duly appointed would anoint them with it,
literally pour the oil over their head like a crown,
so the flask of oil has a lot of meaning, foreshadowing at the start of the story;

then there’s the familiar motif in the Hebrew Bible of the selection of the youngest
an inversion of the traditional way that power was conveyed, right,
we expect responsibility to be handed down to the oldest, to the first born,
but time and time again, in the Hebrew Bible,
it is the unexpected one, the youngest, who steps up, who is called:
so it was for Isaac, not his brother Esau
and for Joseph, and that amazing technicolor dreamcoat,
not one of his 11 older brothers,
and so it will be for King David.

So David fits into a biblical motif, a trope, that we could explore,
noting how David was not even included by his father,
because he was tasked to be working in the fields…
there’s no way Samuel would want David to be a part of the dinner party,
let him tend the sheep.

It is the same sort of motif you get in our modern-day stories
like Cinderella or Rey from the more recent Star Wars movies,
where the one seen as the least plausible, most unlikely, most marginalized
that person becomes the central figure of the story.

All of these are great things to analyze in an English class,
or in a sermon, for sure.
And this helps us understand the God that these stories are trying to describe for us,
the same God that loves the Samaritan woman at the well,
and the pharisee Nicodemus,
the two central characters of the last few weeks,
implausible, unlikely people
through whom the love and the compassion of God would be made real.

There is a time and a place for that kind of reflection,
and it helps us dig deeper, sometimes.
And I kind of love doing that sort of work.

But sometimes it makes sense to just look at the story as a story, too,
to not feel like you have to go too deep underneath it to learn something from it.

Yesterday, when we were talking with our kids
about all of this stuff going on and about school and quarantines and
and about trying to give ourselves permission to adapt to the circumstances
and to not put too much pressure on ourselves to have everything worked out just yet,
one of my daughters said something like,
“Yeah, it feels so good to read a book right now
without having to analyze it for a class.”
To read it and just take the story in and try to get its point from the narrative. [Read more…]

Sermon of the Week
Courage for Lent: About that Quarantine

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on March 1, 2020.
The first of a five part sermon series for Lent. #pcusa

Keywords: Temptation, Dar Williams, Fasting, Courage, Worries, Quarantine, Coronavirus.

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Romans 10:8b-13
and Matthew 4:1-11

The sound that greeted me this morning,
as I headed over to my car to drive here before dawn
was the sound of birds chirping.

I love that sound.

Through the dark months of November through February
I didn’t hear it very often on Sunday morning.
The birds are all down south somewhere on their winter break,
enjoying chips and salsa and maybe drinks with the worms in them.

But today the birds were loud, and noticeable
as if they were trying to get my attention,
with all that built up energy of being away for so long
and looking forward to a beautiful spring.

And I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for spring.
Winter seems so long, and confining,
and I have no where warm to fly off to.

February is the longest month,
even if it is technically the shortest, whether it has the extra leap day or not.

I first heard the singer/songwriter Dar Williams perform when I was in college
I’m guessing she’s not particularly well known among this group
but she became a favorite of mine
mainly because she’s thoughtful and wordy
and that seems to fit my musical sensibilities just fine.

Every year, when things are snowy and cold and it seems like it has been dark
for months and months,
because it has been dark for months and months
I remember Dar Williams’ song called February
which is a slow, almost melancholy song about relationships
and the long days of winter.

It has this verse in there about this couple walking and spotting a flower
and it being so out of place, there in the winter:

And February was so long that it lasted into March
And you found us walking a path alone together.
You stopped and pointed and you said, “That’s a crocus,”
And I said “What’s a crocus?” and you said “It’s a flower,”
And I tried to remember, but I said, “What’s a flower?”
And you said, “I still love you.”

And I love that, even though it is so sad,
because it so beautifully captures the dreariness I feel sometimes about winter
and maybe a yearning toward spring…
And then one morning, you’re met with the sing-song of birds
so beautiful and urgent that they wake you up
and you’re looking forward to the sunrise.

///
Spring will be here before we know it.
Next week is Daylight savings, where we turn our clocks forward an hour.
The birds already know what time it is, and hopefully, we will too.
Warmer weather has been treating us early this week,
and there are already Royals baseball games on the radio.

I’m ready for spring, and I’m also ready for Lent,
that for us always happens right around this time, also.
Lent is a season of looking forward,
of reflection and preparation for the death of our Lord Jesus,
and then the joy of his resurrection.

The themes of this season are meant to help us focus on the future,
on why the things God has done for us,
that God keeps doing for us,
prepare us and shape us to be better, stronger, more grounded people,
how we can follow Christ’s example
about how to get through some hard times
with hope, and faith, and with courage.

Courage seems to be an important word for people of faith these days.

Courage is the power to do something that needs to be done,
even though it is scary, or dangerous, or just not very fun at all.

It is doing the right thing, even when it is hard.
It is standing up for the good,
even when others want to tempt you to look the other way.
It is making a sacrifice for a bigger principle.
It is about using the gifts and resources and talents you’ve been given
for a particular purpose, even if you don’t know how it is going to end up, exactly.

So courage and faith often go hand in hand,
faith being the ultimate trust we have in a greater power, a higher good,
the very love of God,
and courage being the actions we undertake, in faith,
that risk love
that believes that doing the right thing matters, even if it’s hard.

Courage is sustained by faith,
grounded in the example of our lord Jesus Christ,
and is gift of God for us,
even if it doesn’t always feel like a gift we want at the moment.

///
This month, we’re going to be looking at Lent
by talking a bit about courage,
where we can find it,
how it can inform our actions
the ways we can find strength from it.

Or, to put it another way,
we’re going to be exploring ways of taking up courage for Lent.

Sometimes we talk about giving up something for this season.
The practice of fasting, for a day or for a season, is ancient and well accepted,
and these days I know people who are giving up chocolate, for example,
though I don’t really know why.
Others are giving up alcohol, or trying to kick a smoking habit
which is great.
Some give up meat during Lent.
Some are giving up cursing
(and I know some of those people, and to them I say ‘good luck’).
Others are abandoning social media for a spell.

All of that is well and good,
and if this is a sort of spiritual practice that works for you
that helps you stay mindful of your relationship to the creator
and the beautiful way that she made you
helps you love yourself and your neighbor better,
then it’s a healthy practice for this season.

Others often take this time to add a little something
maybe some extra volunteering, or a financial donation somewhere
as a way to remind themselves of the importance of their time and their resources
and how these are meant to be shared for a broader purpose.
This sort of thing is commendable also, as a Lenten discipline.

It isn’t an either/or proposition,
giving something up OR taking something on.
There is no right way to walk these forty days leading up to holy week.
It just matters that you’re seeking a way to ponder the meaning
of God’s incredible love
the gift of God’s selfless compassion
and the call to participate in God’s beloved community.

And so, in the area of adding a little something,
we’re going to be exploring how we can add some courage to our life of faith,
with God’s help.

///
This story of the Temptation of Jesus in the wilderness
is almost always the way we begin the season of Lent.

Most of the time, when we look at this story,
we focus on the temptations themselves,
and the fact that Jesus is struggling with these things that are good things
honestly good and worthy things
and we ourselves wonder why he doesn’t take the tempter up on the offer. [Read more…]