Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons

Lament as Confession - March 7th, 2021

Lament as Confession

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, March 7, 2021, Lent 3, “Learning to Sing the Blues” series.

              Text: Psalm 51:1-17

Lament is what we do when bad things happen to us or those we love. We’ve been focused on that kind of lament the past couple of weeks. But what about when we do bad things to ourselves or to others? This also inspires lament, when guilt at the damage we’ve done causes us to experience anguish, that terrible weight of realization that you can’t undo the thing, that it’s just out there in the world. It might be public. It might be just between you and the person you’ve hurt. It might be secret. But in any case, it’s happened and it’s in you. What will you do with it? As with any suffering, difficult emotions, or reality, we are invited to bring it to God in prayer.

The so-called “penitential psalms” of lament are models. Today we received Psalm 51, the Psalm traditionally included in the Ash Wednesday liturgy. Every year these lines land in my being with a thud:

…I know my transgressions,
    and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
    and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
    and blameless when you pass judgment.
Indeed, I was born guilty,
    a sinner when my mother conceived me. (Ps 51:3-5)

Another, perhaps less familiar prayer, Psalm 38, includes these lines:
For my iniquities have gone over my head;
    they weigh like a burden too heavy for me.

My wounds grow foul and fester
    because of my foolishness;
I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;
    all day long I go around mourning.
I am utterly spent and crushed;
    I groan because of the tumult of my heart. (Ps 38:4-5,8)

These lament prayers in scripture give us words that viscerally describe the experience of suffering both the guilt and consequences of our own iniquity, sin, and “foolishness.” In that often railed against verse, Psalm 51:5—the verse that makes it sound like babies are horrible sinners—what we receive are words of pain and grief at the unavoidable participation in sin even from our earliest moments of life; because none of us, even as children, are free from the capacity for self-centeredness and ignorance and doing harm. 

There is a difference between such awareness of human sin, true remorse, and confession and words spoken or actions taken in an attempt to evade responsibility or do damage control. For some, what really makes them upset is not that they’ve hurt someone, but getting caught in their wrongdoing. They may do a press conference or release to issue a public apology to try to cover their backsides. But at the end of Psalm 51 it says:

For you (God) have no delight in sacrifice;
    if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (51:16-17)

Going public with your transgression will be deeply painful, but notice here that the public act of making a sacrifice is nothing more than hypocrisy unless that public act is attended by a true acknowledgement of the harm done and a heart broken by the pain of it. 

At this point, some of you may be tempted to check out of this conversation, turned off by all this sin and guilt stuff. So let me acknowledge that, for ages, there has been an unhealthy and unbalanced emphasis on sin and judgment in Christian preaching and teaching. Whether intended or not, the message received by thousands upon thousands of the faithful is that we are born bad and that God is mostly interested in judging us, giving us grades based on performance, and deciding who’s “in” and who’s “out” of heaven. As a result of this long imbalance, lament as confession will likely feel much more familiar and “traditional” than the rage and searing accusations against God we’ve encountered from Jeremiah the past couple of weeks. 

Wanting to balance “original sin” with “original goodness” (Gen. 1:31) and out of an impulse to bring healing to battered spirits schooled in fire and brimstone theology, many protestant churches stopped praying prayers of confession in public worship and stopped emphasizing human sin in preaching. As with most pendulum swings, there is danger of throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. For grace to mean anything, we have to acknowledge why it matters. In short, it matters because, as the apostle Paul says clearly, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) We do things that are destructive and harmful to others, to the planet, to ourselves. We do these things personally and systemically, by choice and by being part of a culture infused with sinful systems. Sin is what separates us from God and from others. It takes the form of all kinds of actions that cause broken places, fractures, distance, disintegration, separation. Sin is a real thing. And, if we have caring hearts (as I believe the vast majority of people do), it feels awful to know we’ve done harm.

The purpose of penitential prayers of lament is not to cause suffering or to rub in that we are separated from God or to draw us into a place of self-loathing. Rather, the confessional laments give us space to be with God in the suffering we feel because of our sin, to acknowledge how our actions have created separation, and to be honest about the ways we beat ourselves up for our transgression. In other words, as with all lament, we are encouraged to turn toward God and to be honest. Psalm 51:6 says, “You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.” As anyone in recovery will tell you, the first step is admitting there is a problem—to yourself and to your God. The first step is to stop trying to keep secrets from God, to tell the truth; to name the harm you’ve done, name the pain you’re feeling, know you can’t undo it, and acknowledge you need help. 

In Psalm 32 we receive the invitation clearly: 

Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
    and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
    and you forgave the guilt of my sin. 

Therefore let all who are faithful
    offer prayer to you;

And in our Psalm today, Psalm 51, the whole prayer pleads with God for mercy and forgiveness, for cleansing, restoration, and deliverance. 

Have mercy on me, O God,
    according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
    blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
    and cleanse me from my sin.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
    and put a new and right spirit within me. (51:1-2,10)

Lament as confession invites us to trust that God loves us even when we have messed up and done harm. That doesn’t mean God will magically remove consequences of our actions or that we will magically be relieved of responsibility or pain. But it does mean that our failure and foolishness and cruel mistakes are not the full measure of who we are. It does mean that we are assured of meaningful life, new life, a fresh start as a beloved child of God. No matter what. God doesn’t cancel us. God will walk with you through humiliation, retaliation, loss, illness, and any other consequence of your sinful action. And God will give you freedom and power to do better in the future.

Once you experience the way God is present to you and remains with you in the destruction and disorientation wrought by your sin, things like steadfast love, grace, and mercy are no longer just pleasant words. Those gifts from God are finally understood as the only firm foundation to stand on, they are liberation from despair and fear, they are hope and life. 

Brilliant lawyer, author of Just Mercy, and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson, says this: “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.” 

Hear that: You are more than the worst thing you’ve ever done. 

In my heart I know it’s true. But, wow, it’s hard to really believe. 

Life with my dog Harvey teaches me. Harvey is an 80 pound Clumber Spaniel. He is hilarious, adorable, and our angel. There was a time, however, when Harvey became obsessed with the cat’s food and would go to any length to get the cat’s dish once he realized he could reach it. He could get very mean about the cat food. It came to pass that, before I’d discovered a solution to the cat bowl access problem, Anthony and I took a trip and had a sitter stay with Harvey, Daisy, and AnnieRose. While we were gone, the sitter startled Harvey when he had gotten ahold of a cat food dish and he reacted from his primal protective-of-food space and bit her hand, causing real damage—like needed surgery damage. It has only ever happened that one time in all his 10 years, but my angel of a dog did real violence to one reaching out in care. 

That moment was awful and did real damage, lasting damage. That is part of what’s in Harvey, part of Harvey’s capacity in certain scenarios. But that is far from all of Harvey’s being. He is more than this worst thing he has done.

I can see that in him. Our spiritual practice of lament as confession is a way to try to see that in ourselves. 

The wonder of this practice is that you will be humbled, but not in a way that makes you feel like less, but in a way that reminds you just how much you matter, just how much you are loved, just how much God believes in your capacity for goodness. Lament as confession doesn’t leave you in sackcloth and ashes, it frees you to rise from the ashes with a clean heart and a new and right spirit, ready to try again in the power of God’s grace. 

 

Silent Prayer of Confession…

Jesus, Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us.

Jesus, Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us.

Jesus, Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Grant us peace.

https://foundryumc.org/

 

Lament as Trust - February 28th, 2021

Lament as Trust

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, February 28, 2021, Lent 2, “Learning to Sing the Blues” series.

            Text: Jeremiah 20:7-18

If you were to flip through the pages of the Bible I was given by my church in the 3rd grade, you’d see that I spent some time as a child, marking passages I thought were especially important. Some I remember in particular are from Proverbs, and the topic is anger and how important it is to speak “pleasant words” if you speak at all. For example, Proverbs 29:11 says, “A fool gives full vent to anger, but the wise quietly holds it back.” 

I was determined to try to be patient and wise and to speak pleasant words, kind words, gentle words. I was what? 8 or 9 or 10 years old? Since those early days of my life with God, I’ve come to understand that holding back quietly isn’t always the way of wisdom. There “is a time to keep silence and a time to speak,” (Ecclesiastes 3:7) a time for anger and for peace. Last week, we began to explore the spiritual practice of lament and were reminded that we are not limited to only “pleasant words” when we speak to God. We are free and, in fact, encouraged to bring it all—and that includes our most raw expressions of pain, rage, and grief. The encouragement is simply to be honest. Though it isn’t always simple or easy to do that.

Just this past week, I spent time with a beloved friend who is experiencing a time of deep suffering. Significant losses and challenges in his life have left him feeling alone and deeply depressed. Through his tears, he talked about how he wears masks every day, never letting others see what he’s feeling. He has always been the one to take care of things, to manage the details of life for himself and his loved ones, to be strong and confident. He feels like a failure right now. This is an all-too-common experience for men in particular, though of course “fake it ‘til you make it” is a sometimes dangerous strategy employed by persons of any gender identity. Thank God, my friend found it within himself to trust me enough to reach out and say he needed a hand. But here’s the thing: if no one teaches you or gives you resources to ask for help—or to tell you it is allowed!—then tragedies of all kinds can and do occur. Many people literally do not have the language to give voice to their pain or know how to ask for help. 

This is one reason it is such a gift that the prayer and practice of lament is part of our faith tradition. When our congregations utilize the language of lament in prayers, sing words of lament in Spirituals and other sacred music like we’re receiving today in worship, and create the kinds of brave spaces in which people feel free to be honest, we collectively learn the language of pain and can practice naming the pain and suffering in our lives and the pain we observe in the world around us. And we also learn that it is OK to bring it all to God.

Last week and today we have received words of lament from the prophet Jeremiah. In chapter 1 of the book, we are told that Jeremiah’s calling as a prophet was upon him “in the womb.” When Jeremiah becomes aware of this call, he protests that he’s too young for the task. And, in response, God promises to be with him, tells him not to be afraid, puts God’s words in Jeremiah’s mouth, and appoints him “over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow…” (Jer 1:10) Yeah, that always goes well… There’s a reason for the  saying “don’t shoot the messenger…” Jeremiah sets about speaking truth to power and calling the people out for their idolatry and breach of covenant with God. Persecution ensues.

One example is found just prior to our scripture passage for today where we are told that Pashhur, a priest in charge of the temple police whose job it was to keep order in the sacred space, had arrested Jeremiah, beaten him, and put him put him on display in stocks. (Jer 20:1-2) // Jeremiah has some feelings and some choice words for God.

In fact, the laments of Jeremiah include some of the most brutal charges against God in the entire Bible. The first of the two laments Shelley read for us, verses 7-12, the lament we heard echoed in the presentation from the Heritage Signature Chorale, accuses God using the metaphor of seduction or enticement and sexual violence—overpowering. When Jeremiah cries out about the “violence and destruction” done to him by God there is no one to hear or to help. Jeremiah’s “close friends” are characterized as plotting the same kind of violence against him that God has committed.

The second lament, found in verses 14-18 hearkens back to the words Jeremiah received at his calling. He curses his own existence, wishes he had never drawn breath, wishes both he and his calling had died in the womb.

Keep in mind that Jeremiah is not here spewing hate speech against a stranger, making these claims against a known enemy or a foreign threat. This isn’t Jeremiah namelessly, facelessly bullying someone through social media. This is Jeremiah crying out to the God who was with him in the womb, the God who’s been with Jeremiah all along, the God with whom he has a close, intimate relationship. And as much as some may have the impulse to remind Jeremiah of this, to try to talk him off the proverbial ledge, it is important to just let Jeremiah have these feelings, to let him use all his words in his moment of deepest anguish and to turn the sharp, biting power of prophetic speech back upon the God who had given him that power. We don’t need to protect God or God’s feelings. God can take care of herself. 

I am reminded of what a colleague said to me once after he witnessed a particularly anxiety-ridden and brutal event in which I had taken some direct hits in a very public way. He said, “Sometimes when my children say cruel things to me, I have to remember that they feel safe enough with me to process their feelings that way, trusting my love enough to hang in there with them.” It might have been one of the kindest things a colleague has ever said to me. It certainly came right when I needed it. And I think of God like the parent who takes so much and understands why the complaints and charges and laments are coming. God knows what a mess we’ve made of so many things in the world. God knows the injustice and suffering within the human family. God knows why we cry out. And God’s love is steadfast no matter what.

Even Jeremiah, in the midst of his most scathing diatribe against God, signals something that contradicts his attack. Did you notice how, like an unexpected green shoot appearing in the slightest crack in hard and cold pavement, a little praise chorus emerges between the laments? “Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For God has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.” (20:13) Even in the midst of the deepest suffering and lament, after accusing God of the worst kind of abuse, Jeremiah praises God as deliverer. Here all that is managed is that one little verse, verse 13, that smallest thread connecting Jeremiah to something beyond the pain, to someone beyond the suffering. It is a sign that Jeremiah hasn’t been completely swallowed up by the abyss.

Sometimes we may think that lament is an inherent rejection of God or reveals lack of faith or trust in God’s goodness, mercy, justice, and love. But, consider: if with God we are willing to take off all our masks, to stop faking being “fine”…if we stop going it alone, cleaning ourselves up, and using only pleasant speech, and instead just open up and vent everything we are feeling, right, wrong, or completely over-the-top, that might just be a sign of the deepest faith and trust. And it may be that in giving voice to your pain, your own “verse 13” may emerge.

But, even so, in the moment—and perhaps for many moments to follow—there is disruption in relationship with God. “The prayer of lament is the language of the painful incongruity between lived experience and the promises of God.” As one author writes, “The lament prayer is…full of tension and paradox. On the one hand, it signals the breakdown of previous ideas about God that have foundered on the harsh facts of experience, with the result that God seems utterly hidden and frightening. On the other hand, it expresses a trust in the goodness of God so profound that is continues to cry out for God in the agony of God’s apparent absence and silence and looks for redemption in the midst of God’s terrible hiddenness. Paul Ricoeur rightly speaks of ‘the enigma of a lament that remains…caught up with an invocation.’”

Sometimes one verse of invocation is all we can manage in the flow of curses and complaints to God. Today the invitation is to trust that whatever you can manage is enough. God knows. God understands. God can take it. Try to trust that, whether you can speak or feel it, there is a “verse 13” truth, a lifeline, a love, that will never, ever let you go, there is a God who will deliver and bring you through.

https://foundryumc.org/

Ash Wednesday Mediation - What Time is It? - February 17th, 2021

What Time is it?

A mediation by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, February 17, 2021, Lent 1, “Learning to Sing the Blues” series.

            Text: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 / Reading by Josiane Blackman

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Lament as Agency - February 21st, 2021

Lament as Agency

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, February 21, 2021, Lent 1, “Learning to Sing the Blues” series.

            Text: Jeremiah 12:1-4

For some cultures, lament is simply part of life. This shows up sometimes in the personal and communal rituals of people’s faith traditions. Sometimes, lament emerges as music rising from a people’s soul, art formed from the lived reality of their lives. The Black Spirituals that many of us know well in the church and their cousin, the blues, are examples of this. The late, venerable Black Liberation Theologian James Cone says plainly, “I am the blues and my life is a spiritual. Without them, I cannot be.” 

However, for many people, there is a natural aversion to the idea of lament. This arises from a variety of influences, religious and cultural. 

In many churches, it is communicated mostly through un-written rules that tension, anger, and really any emotion identified as “negative” are not appropriate or welcome. I’ve heard often over the years that someone stayed away from church when they were suffering—because they might cry or because they felt they couldn’t be the way they thought they needed to be in church. And in an effort to 

balance what was (and still is in some places) an overwhelming focus in the church on sin and guilt, the tendency is to avoid the “downer” topics of failure and fear or the practice of confession. Stadiums and sanctuaries fill up where the “power of positive thinking theology” and “happy, clappy” worship downplays, denies, or distracts from the deep pain, loss, struggle, injustice, and feelings of confusion and powerlessness that many experience every day.

One author writes, “It seems safe to say that within American culture there are deeply conflicting attitudes toward expressions of grief, rage, and other negative emotions. On the one hand, there is the oft-noted tendency in our culture to cover up experiences of loss and failure in both personal and public life and to uphold what has been called official American optimism. On the other hand, there is a strong counterpressure in therapeutic American society, often encouraged by the mass media, to ‘let it all hang out,’ to demand that all emotions be immediately and publicly vented.” 

The “let it all hang out” impulse, without any safe or guided channel, simply spews painful emotions in every direction in ways that don’t lead to healing, but rather do more damage. This is not what the spiritual practice of Judeo-Christian lament is. I was tempted to pre-empt a variety of concerns by sharing a whole list of things lament is not. However, I have chosen to simply say that over the course of this Lenten season, we will explore some of what the spiritual practice of Christian lament is. As I said this past week in our Ash Wednesday service, if ever a time called for lament, this is it. //

Over the years in pastoral conversations, I have discovered that often, the key question, the question that loosens knots of confusion and stuckness is this: Who is God to you? How do you think about God? What is God like in your experience?

The answer affects how we feel and act in relationship with God. If we think of God as remote and “hands-off”—a benevolent but uninvolved creator, that will affect our engagement. If God is understood as controlling all things in a micro-managing kind of way, that will evoke a different kind of relationship. If our conception is that God fixates on our mistakes or is mostly about punishment, well, you can imagine that makes a difference in how we feel about God and about ourselves. 

In these common ways of thinking about God we are left in a pretty crummy place. We are on our own and left to our own devices, powerless and manipulated on the gameboard of “God’s plan,” or fearful, never feeling we measure up, and weighed down with guilt. And these feelings may hit closer to home than we care to admit. None are appealing or helpful, especially when we are faced with suffering, persecution, anxiety, injustice, and death. 

Thankfully, we are not left with only these conceptions of God. As feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson highlights, the tendency has been to think about the God-human relationship in a “power-over” or “powerlessness” paradigm. She invites a shift to a “power with” image. This invokes a different kind of relationship altogether. 

I remember years ago, a member of my then congregation noted that she felt really solid about the words I say at the beginning of worship every Sunday except for when I get to God “knows you by name, loves you, and wants to have an ever-closer relationship with you.” She said, “The relationship part is where I need work.” This is where I want to ground our understanding of lament—in all the various ways we will explore it through this Lenten season. 

God doesn’t just want to be around you or to observe you or to be a vague “energy” in your life. God wants to have an ever-closer relationship with you. A relationship. As Jewish theologian Martin Buber described it, God wants to be in an “I-Thou” relationship, subject to subject, free agent to free agent. This is understood as a relationship that is mutual, that is respectful of the others’ freedom, that honors the uniqueness and dignity of the other. It is a sharing of two selves, a “power with” kind of meeting. 

Perhaps this sounds obvious or simple. But do keep in mind that scripture and particular images of God have been used to justify subjugation of women, people of color, and minoritized groups—to make us feel that we don’t have agency or voice of power. Some of you will have watched the PBS series The Black Church this past week and been reminded how slave masters feared enslaved persons learning to read because once they could read the Bible for themselves, they would understand even more clearly both who God is—a God of justice and liberation—and who they are to God—beloved children of dignity and worth. The Spirituals were, according to Howard Thurman, “an expression of the slaves’ determination to be in a society that seeks to destroy their personhood. It is an affirmation of the dignity of the black slaves, the essential humanity of their spirits.” 

Likewise, feminist and womanist theologians highlight the ways that biblical prayers of lament provide a model for women’s resistance to domination and abuse. “Women who have been taught (like children) to be ‘seen and not heard’ in relation to faith and religion should notice that the very act of putting anger, impatience, and frustration into words often enables the speakers in the Psalms to come to a renewed sense of assurance in God’s continuing care.”

My friend and teacher, the Rev. Jesse Jackson gave voice to all of this with his famous call and response lament and affirmation… “I may be poor, but I am somebody! I may be on welfare, I may be uneducated, but I am somebody! I may have made mistakes, but I am somebody! I must be, I’m God’s child.”

The core affirmation is that you are a person. You are somebody. You have agency. Your voice, your experience, your perspective matters—and not only if or when you are successful in the world’s eyes, but also when you’ve hit rock bottom. You can cry out from that place and be met there by a God who knows you by name, loves you, and wants to have an ever-closer relationship with you. 

And in that relationship, you don’t have to clean it all up or have “the right answer.” I’ve observed over the years, particularly when teaching about prayer, that there is a strong tendency to feel that being angry at God, talking back to God, or accusing God is off-limits—that it’s wrong or breaks the “good, faithful Christian” rules. Our scriptures contradict this over and again, as persons reveal faith in God’s steadfast presence precisely through their anger at God, their arguing with God, their accusations against God. This, you see, is a sign that they know themselves to be in the kind of relationship with God that allows them to be somebody with God, to be free to speak, to act, to feel.

Our text from Jeremiah is a good example. In this lament, the prophet brings formal charges against God saying, “let me put my case to you. Why does the way of the guilty prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive?” (v.1) Jeremiah implies that the wicked continue in their destructive ways because God “is blind” to their ways. (v. 4) Jeremiah speaks of how the treacherous have God in their mouths but not their hearts. And then he cries out, “my heart is with You and look at what I’m going through! This is unfair! Give the guilty their due, God!” // Our focus today is not to try to answer Jeremiah’s perennially valid question of why so often the guilty not only get away with their crimes, but prosper. Our focus is on the fact that Jeremiah lifts his voice with this complaint and request to God. Notice that Jeremiah didn’t just spew his anger and complaint all over society. He brought it to God in relationship. This is what we are talking about when we speak of Judeo-Christian lament.

I can already hear some sweet Church People responding to Jeremiah. Can you imagine what some would say in the presence of Jeremiah’s outcry? “Now, now. I know it’s hard. It’s not fair. But God has a plan. God is in control.” And I then imagine Jeremiah firing back: “If God is in control, then I don’t want anything to do with that God or to be anywhere near that God because none of this is OK…”

One teacher writes, “A lament is a passionate expression of distress. To lament is to wail and to complain and to ‘sing the blues’—of loneliness, hopelessness, helplessness, grief, exhaustion and absence of meaning. It is the voice…of a person in turmoil. Finding this voice for ourselves and learning a vocabulary with which we can honestly engage…in a way that does not deny or dishonour…very real anguish, is vital…Availing ourselves of the language of lament is the alternative to disengagement.” 

If we aren’t given permission to lift our own voice, to name what is real for us in our lives, to lament, then we may very well disengage—from other people, from the church, from life, from God. I distinctly remember a woman in one of my prayer courses explaining how she felt that God had abandoned her in her time of greatest need, the suffering and death of her loved one. As we engaged in some conversation, it became clear that she had never felt she could name how angry she was at God for all that had happened. She realized that she didn’t believe she had permission to bring that anger directly to God. She lost her voice…she denied her true feelings and experience…and, as a result, put distance between herself and God. She said, “I wandered away. Maybe God has been waiting for me all along…” 

You have permission to lament. You have permission to bring your charges against God. You have permission to come into God’s presence as the somebody you are. God is there. Waiting. 

https://foundryumc.org/

Creative Extremists - February 14th, 2021

Creative Extremists

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, February 14, 2021, Transfiguration Sunday. “Tired Feet, Rested Souls” series.

      Text: Mark 9:2-9

Months ago, in a conversation among the staff team related to our Journey to Racial Justice initiative, an African American staff member asked, “Is the goal for us to simply become a nicer, kinder, more well-informed version of white supremacy? Or are we trying to really change things?” This, for me, is an important set of clarifying questions as we move more deeply into this pivotal year as a congregation, denomination, and nation. And the questions may find some response on this Transfiguration Sunday.

Six days prior to the extraordinary events we read about today in our Gospel, Jesus told his disciples what was going to happen to him—that he would suffer, be rejected, killed, and then after three days rise again. Peter didn’t want to hear it.  And Jesus’ response was, “You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” (Mk. 8:31ff.)  Jesus goes on to speak to the disciples and the larger crowds about what a “divine thing” looks like:  deny self, take up your cross, lose your life for Christ’s sake and for the sake of the gospel, because that is the only way to truly have or save or keep your life. And six days after Jesus shares these words, he takes Peter, James, and John up a mountain to pray. And then things got weird and wondrous and scary. Moses the lawgiver and Elijah the prophet show up and talk with Jesus who is, himself, a fulfillment of both law and prophecy. Jesus’ appearance changes in a “dazzling” display, and not, by the way in a way that makes his brown eyes blue, but in a way as amazing as if I could keep using environmentally friendly detergent and get my whites to come out of the laundry like new-fallen snow (that would be a miracle for sure!). Peter, unable to simply receive what was happening, offers a suggestion for what they should do. And just then, out of the foggy cloud, there comes one very clear message of exactly what they should do: “This is my Beloved child.  LISTEN to him.”  Listen.

One would think that such an amazing experience coupled with this clear message would have an impact on those present. But it seems that listening was just as hard for the first disciples as it is for us. Because Jesus has to keep repeating himself. The text records that Jesus speaks of his suffering, death, and resurrection two more times (9:31, 10:34). The disciples must not have been listening in their active listening workshop because they completely miss the point. The first time, they respond by playing that best-selling game “Who’s The Greatest?” And the next time James and John—who witnessed the vision on the mountain and heard the voice from the cloud—ask for plum positions in Jesus’ Cabinet after he wins the election. Both times, Jesus responds with the same message: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” (Mk. 9:35, 10:44) Die to self so that you can rise to a new life in God’s love, a life that manifests in self-giving service to others. Three times this pattern plays out; three times Jesus speaks of dying and rising. Why was it so hard for the first disciples to listen and to truly comprehend this? Why is it so difficult for us?  

First of all, it’s often difficult to get ourselves out of the way so that God can get through to us, so that we can truly receive a voice that is not just the echo of our own voice. And then, if we are able to grow quiet or still enough to receive what God is saying, the message—especially this core message!—presents its own challenge. Because who really wants to hear about losing yourself, being humbled, giving something up? Jesus’ teaching about dying to self and rising to a new life of loving service threatens the status quo of our lives—it requires change. Jesus’ words about denying the self is in direct opposition to the world that tells us to invest in self-help, self-defense, and self-promotion. Jesus calls us to follow him, to lose the false self and claim our true humanity, and that challenges any notion of ourselves as either too important or too insignificant to serve others. Jesus’ call to serve others is not a cozy, comfortable idea that we can accomplish by simply “liking” certain posts on FaceBook or reTweeting the pithy ideas of other people (though in my experience even doing that can put us in an uncomfortable position with friends and family). 

To really listen to Jesus is to hear ourselves being called out of complacency, to hear ourselves being given work to do, to acknowledge the prejudices, bigotry, and defensiveness that get in the way of our solidarity with others, our responsibility to not just look out for #1 but to look out for the well-being of others and to sacrifice things if needed for their sake. It is to hear a call to true solidarity with suffering, to sit with it in ourselves and with others and to allow brokenness to lead you where it will. Jesus knew where it was leading him.  //  And it was only after he was led there, all the way to the cross and beyond, that those first disciples really got the message. Their lives were changed forever.

If we really take in the message of Jesus, the proclamation of the Kin-dom, the good news that is Gospel, we will see there is no half-way, there is no lukewarm, there is no kinda-sorta in the call. It may not happen all at once—we in the Wesleyan spiritual tradition do talk about “growth in holiness” and “going on to perfection/perfect love” after all. But my point is that you either commit to follow the Jesus revealed in the Bible or not. And Jesus was not half-hearted, but was an “extremist.” Not the kind we may immediately associate with that word—persons whose focus is exclusive and violent. Jesus was an “extremist for love, truth and goodness.”

On this Transfiguration Sunday, as we conclude our series infused with the teachings of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from his Letter from the Birmingham City Jail, I am struck by Dr. King’s reflections on extremism. King was responding to the “white moderates” about whom he lamented, “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”  The “lukewarm” position of the “white moderates” led them to call the non-violent direct actions being done in Birmingham “extreme.” At first, King was “disappointed” about this but, upon reflection, decided he could wear that label with pride. He wrote:

Was not Jesus an extremist for love: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Was not Amos an extremist for justice: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.” Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Was not Martin Luther an extremist: “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God.” And John Bunyan: “I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.” And Abraham Lincoln: “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.” And Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . .” So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime—the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists. 

I believe that the nation and world remain in dire need of creative extremists. 

The story we receive from the Gospel today reveals that the fulfillment of the law and the prophets in Jesus results in a transformation, a transfiguration, a metamorphoó (μεταμορφόω). This is not a glimmer of a change, it’s a terrifying, wonder-full-on revelation of a human life completely One with God and lit from within with all the gifts and power of Spirit. It is an extreme moment whose message is clear: “This is my Beloved child. LISTEN to him.” And not “in one ear and out the other” listening. And not listening in a way that leaves you cozy in the status quo of “my way and right away” and doing only what “works for me.” Rather, listen and truly receive, take in the message and vision of life infused with self-giving love, justice, humility, compassion, and courage—because that is what the world needs, it’s what our shredded relationships and Republic need, it’s what we ourselves need. Spiritual writer, Frederick Buechner says, “To journey for the sake of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world’s sake—even when the world bores and sickens and scares you half to death—that little by little we start to come alive.”  

That is what we are all asked to do today: listen to the One who reveals to us how to participate in the work of new creation and to live. God’s law reveals how to live together in peace with justice so that all receive the dignity and provision of life in God’s Kin-dom. God’s prophets reveal a vision toward which we are always working and warn of the obstacles in getting there. The call to practice the law and align with the prophetic vision in our lives and communities requires real transformation. “Is the goal for us to simply become a nicer, kinder, more well-informed version of white supremacy?” That would be like a people who take the powerful, prophetic words of Martin Luther King, Jr. and put them on refrigerator magnets or t-shirts but don’t write the words on their hearts. That would be a lukewarm reception of what Spirit is saying that allows for gaslighting, denial, and rationalizations. The goal is not to be more well-informed, the goal is transfiguration, creative extremism. The goal is to be extremists for love, extremists for the extension of justice. The goal is a more truly human world, scrubbed of the stains of white supremacy, economic injustice, environmental destruction, and every form of prejudice and tribal violence. Are you willing to go up the proverbial mountain with Jesus, pray for the grace to truly receive the voice of Christ—in the words of scripture, in the witness of the saints past and present, in the voices of those around us who may be saying things hard to hear—and to be open to the particular ways that God is speaking, calling, acting in your life today, ways that will really change you?  If so, listen with a humble heart, a quiet mind, an open door. And be ready to step back onto the journey from the place of revelation and transfiguration to wherever the path—and God’s love—leads. It won’t be simple or easy—that is certain. But what is even more certain still is that beloved community and life, deep and true, awaits.

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