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Friends, all I can say is what a week to end up preaching\u2026<\/p>\n
I suspect there are at least one or two here today who climbed into a pulpit on September 16th,2001 and the months following and may remember what this feels like.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t mean the sheer incomprehensibility of the attacks \u2013 at least to those of us born and raised in this country \u2013 but rather the aftermath.\u00a0\u00a0 The hateful response to anyone who looked or sounded \u201cforeign\u201d –especially those with brown skin.\u00a0\u00a0 The changes in our own government, the \u201cPatriot Act\u201d and the like.\u00a0 \u201cSee something, say something.\u201d\u00a0 Distrust your neighbors \u2013 especially those with headcoverings and accents.\u00a0\u00a0 It still bottoms out my stomach when I think about it.<\/p>\n
This week feels the same.\u00a0 Changes in government, gag orders, stepping out of treaties and away from world citizenship.\u00a0 And now the ICE raids, families keeping their kids out of school, worried about neighbors turning them in\u2014or at the very least not standing up to power.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a lot and it\u2019s overwhelming and it has the potential to seem completely hopeless\u2026except that we are called to be people of hope.\u00a0\u00a0 In essence for me, that\u2019s what our baptisms recognize \u2013 they\u2019re an outward sign of inward grace.\u00a0 Grace found in all people \u2013 regardless of race, religion, creed, time, place, socioeconomic status, or ability. There\u2019s no clearer indication of this than the baptism of the Divine by a human.\u00a0\u00a0 And for me, no clearer call on my heart than our baptismal vows.<\/p>\n
I chose to use them as our call to worship because I think we need to have them in front of us.\u00a0 To give us strength when we\u2019re weary.\u00a0 To pull us back when we\u2019re getting distracted.\u00a0\u00a0 To make us angry enough to flip tables that society would like us to quietly sit at.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the first time that people of faith\u2014and to be clear I don\u2019t mean just Christians – \u00a0have been called to action, called to stand with the vulnerable, called on a massive scale to respond with a very clear \u201cNO\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 Some of you have heard me tell the tale of Denmark in 1943, when after three years of Nazi occupation during which time the entire population, including the royal family, refused to comply with even intolerance, Hitler sent transport ships on the eve of Rosh Hashanah to gather up the Danish Jews.\u00a0\u00a0 Word was spread across the countryside and through the cities \u2013 and overnight the Danish people hid over 7,000 of their fellow citizens away \u2013 in hospital beds, under fake names.\u00a0 In barns, in basements.\u00a0 And then shuttled them away in the holds of fishing boats across the waters to neutral Sweden.\u00a0 The German ships returned empty — and Denmark holds the distinction of being the only country in occupied Europe where the majority of those sent to the death camps were not Jewish.<\/p>\n
A more recent example comes closer to home, when in March of 1965 came first the horror of Bloody Sunday, when 600 African Americans marching from Selma to Montgomery Alabama were beaten, run down, and tear gassed by State troopers and county possemen on the Edmund Pettus Bridge — followed by two more marches along that same route when thousands of people of all races, many of whom were clergy and other people of faith \u2013 \u00a0with the third one ending with more than 25,000 assembling to protest at the Alabama State Capital, demanding the removal of obstacles to Black voter registration.\u00a0 ( On a side note \u2013 if you want to be inspired, I highly recommend watching the film \u201cSelma\u201d \u2013 that\u2019s how I spent part of last Monday.)<\/p>\n
There are others\u2014like the decades of struggle, pain, and hard work that made possible this brand new Book of Discipline I got this week \u2013 but you get the point.\u00a0\u00a0 At such a time as this, we are called to build the kindom.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
To fall down and get back up.<\/p>\n
To pick each other up \u2013 or lay down beside each other until we can rise again.<\/p>\n
To stand behind, beside or in front of those who are vulnerable.<\/p>\n
To use every ounce of whatever privilege we have<\/p>\n
to speak out,<\/p>\n
to lead out,<\/p>\n
to fight our way out of this mess going on around us.<\/p>\n
Because that\u2019s how we renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil and unjust powers of this world, and repent of our separation from God and each other.\u00a0 So that we can accept the freedom and power God gives us\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves!<\/p>\n
And this becomes possible, because we know, to the very core of our beings, that the God of Jacob formed us too and the promise that echoes through the ages remains true:\u00a0 \u201cI have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.\u00a0 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amen.<\/p>\n
January 26, 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"