Community and Suffering

 Ruth 1:1-22

The book of Ruth in so many ways shows us exactly the opposite of the book of Job.  In Job when everything goes wrong, he first piously pouts and prays, and then as things get worse and worse, he eventually yells at God.  I’ve shared with you before that I love the book of Job because it shows a God who responds to our pain, responds to our cries, responds even to our anger when it is expressed directly to God.  Our God shows up, is present and loving.  And in the end of Job, all that he had comes back to him in greater abundance than before.

But, while I deeply love the message of Job that God is there when we are honest, real and completely open with God, I think I love the book of Ruth even more.  In the book of Ruth, we see a very different response to a similar situation.  Naomi, who is, in many ways, the real star of the book of Ruth, has, like Job, lost everything.  As you know, women had no agency at this point in time.  They could not own property, they could not hold jobs.  Everything they had and everything they were was dependent on the men to whom they were attached.  So when Naomi loses not only her husband, but both of her sons, when her spouse and her children are dead and along with them, her livelihood, her property, and all that she has, she, too, has truly lost everything.  This can’t be understated.  Everything she knew was gone.  And as she says here herself, she is too old to remarry and produce more sons.  Unlike Job who can go on to remarry and have more children, Naomi is past that.  So, like Job, she too is angry and grieving.  As she says, “Don’t call me Naomi, (which means pleasant) but call me Mara (which means bitter) for El Shadai has made me very bitter.  I went away full, but the Lord has returned me empty.”  

Like Job, Naomi is angry.  Like Job, Naomi is in deep grief.  Like Job, Naomi seems beyond hope.  But unlike Job she does not act like she is beyond hope.  Job sits and complains.  Job sits covered in sackcloth.  But Naomi moves herself into action, instead.  She picks up to move back to her home land, having hope that there will be food there for her.  She doesn’t start with a complicated plan.  She just starts by putting one foot in front of the other.  We are told, “She arose… because while in the territory of Moab she had heard that the Lord had paid attention to his people by providing food for them.”  So while she may have been expressing pain, expressing despair, she chose to act out of her hope.

And what she finds, in this first step, this unclear, unplanned, but decisive first step to go home is that she is not alone.  Ruth, who has also lost her husband and therefore her livelihood as well, commits to going with her.  And Ruth is adamant in that decision.  Naomi takes a step into life, and in doing so finds she is not alone.

This is my message for each and every one of you today, and what I hope you will take from today.  When we choose to step forward in hope, to take action despite our feelings of grief, of loss, or of despair; when we follow the call to act, we will find that we are not alone.  We will not be sent on the journey by ourselves.  The helpers are there, and they will come.  And along with them, there is often a plan, often a vision, often the insight to see the call into the next step, and the next, and the next.

My family has been watching the series, “Call the Midwife”.  This week we watched an episode from the second season in which the main character, Jenny, is trying to help a woman who had been forced, out of complete destitution, to go into the workhouses in London.  She had been there for 35 years, until they closed.  And now her life is one of agony, one of deep poverty.  But at the base of her pain and her grief is the fact that when she had first gone into the workhouses, she had entered with five little children.  The way these workhouses functioned was that all children would be taken from you when you entered into the workhouse.  All five of these very young children were taken from her.  This woman, now an old woman, has no knowledge of what happened to her kids past the day that they were taken from her.  But she yearns for them, calls for them, cries out for them.  When one of the nurses goes to help her, all this woman can talk to her about is seeing her hope of seeing her daughter, Rosie, who at the time was the eldest of the five, and was 8 years of age, in particular, again.  The nurse, Jenny, is so upset by all of this that she decides to find out what happened to the children.  And she discovers that all of these five very young children died very quickly after being taken from their mother.  “Failure to thrive” it was said.  The system destroyed the children by taking them away from their mother.  Jenny doesn’t know what to do with this information.  She brings it back to Nanatus house, devastated by this history that she has discovered.  And the response?  “And what do you propose to do, Nurse Lee, now that you have garnered these unedifying facts?”  When Nurse Jenny Lee says she doesn’t know, the nun continues, then, to quote the apocrypha, “you have been curious in unnecessary matters.  The past remains the past.  The present, unamended.’”  Another of the sisters joins in, “Sister Monica Joan is right.  It’s what happens in the here and now that counts.”  Nurse Jenny Lee responds with, “Forgive me but her life in the here and now is not safe or filled with love.  She waits every day for a child.  For children that are never coming home.” The nuns respond, “Then you should turn your mind to that.”  And so she does.  Nurse Jenny goes and does more research, and she finds where the children have been buried, which is in a mass burial ground.  But within that mass grave, there are specific locations for each of the children.  She memorizes where each child is and then takes the old woman to the grave site.  She says “We are standing by a public grave.  There are many put in here.  This is where they buried the workhouse inmates.”  

“I had too many,” Mrs. Jenkins says.  

“Yes, and they are all here.”  Jenny replies.

“Together?” she asks.

“I was able to get plans of the cemetery and the graves in the public records.  It’s all written down.  Percy and May are lying next to each other.  Just over there.  Alice is to the right, over there.  I think in the summer that tree must cast some shade there.  And George is by the cross.  Rosie is right here, Mrs. Jenkins, almost underneath your feet.”  The old woman bent down, putting her hands on the snow over the grave of Rosie “I’d have liked her in with me to warm her feet.  But I can see she’s tucked up safe.”  She sobbed and cried, but was then was able to grieve properly and to finally find some peace, knowing where they were, knowing what had happened to them.  Jenny then invited her into a new life: invited her to help her community to sew and make costumes for the Christmas pageant.

Nurse Jenny had seen a problem: the suffering of this older woman who had no closure, no way to grieve, no way to move on past those horrible 35 years.  And while Jenny did not know what to do, she took her own suffering, her own pain, her own despair to her friends.  While they didn’t give her the exact answer, they pointed her in the right direction.  And in the end, after Jenny had taken the steps to learn, to share, to help move Mrs. Jenkins forward, it was the entire Convent that helped Mrs. Jenkins to find work, to find meaning in making the costumes.  They, together, invited her into their community, and they, together, helped her to grieve, to mourn, and to find peace.

 I think about Moses who knew what he had to do but was afraid to do it.  In choosing to step forward, God provided that Aaron and Miriam would go with him and would help him.  He was not alone.  

I think about the women who started MADD: when Candace Lightner’s child was killed by a drunk driver, she knew something had to change.  She put it out there and Cindi Lamb joined her (who had also lost a child due to a drunk driver).  Together they were able to make a huge change.  MADD has lowered the number of those who have died from drunk driving by half!  That is huge.  

The work that people are doing to help refugees from the Ukraine they are doing together.  The work that Hope Solutions is doing to help the homeless in Contra Costa County started with people from a church dreaming and envisioning and planning together.  There are so many needs in our world.  But when we get stuck in the “I don’t know what to do” there is no movement.  Pray, ask God what is the thing that is concerning you the MOST right now.  And then speak about that!  Share with us your fears, your concerns.  Do you try to solve these problems alone.  Together we can do so very much!

When we are in pain, when we are grieving, when we are struggling against loss and fear, we are called to listen to that pain as a calling from God to act.  And when we do not know what we can do to act, the first thing we must do is to say “yes”.  That’s it.  Say “yes, I will act.”  The second thing then that we are called to do is to remember that we are not lone rangers.  None of us is here alone.  Not one of us has been put here on this planet to solve the problems of the world on our own.  We are made for connection, we are made for community.  That pain in your heart, that tugging on your sleeve, that call to action: it is not given to any one of you alone.  Our lone ranger complexes keep us stuck in inaction.  And while God showed up for Job, and God will always show up for us, too, Job was not able to do what Ruth and Naomi did.  Job stands as a lone book.  Ruth, in contrast, is an ancestor of Jesus.  Our ideas that we should be able to figure it all out on our own keep us from acting at all.  We end up being Jobs rather than Naomis when we forget that God has not put us here alone.  

It was together that Ruth and Naomi were able to rise above their situation and survive.  It was together that Ruth and Naomi were able to make enough difference in the world that Ruth is listed as one of the ancestors of Jesus.  It was together that they were able to thrive.  And it is together that we, too, will change our world.  All we have to do is say “yes”.  And then look for the helpers.  They are there.  God makes sure of it!

Choosing to be who we are choosing to be...

          I'm just ending a two week stay-cation.  I really needed the break.  This time has called forth a lot from me, people are stressed and acting that out, and I needed to step back, remember who I am and, more importantly, Whose I am, regroup, re-center, re-focus.  I've had many thoughts emerge that I will be writing about over the next few weeks, but for today I want to talk about people's behavior once again.

          I was driving down the road a week ago with my family.  The kids were in the back seat, David and I in the front.  Someone pulled up next to me and started screaming at us " *&!-ing homosexuals!"  I don't know why.  The kids just laughed: they aren't sure why that would be considered an insult, which I take as a good sign.  But whenever extreme anger comes my direction, it tends to upset me and I sit with it and in it for some time.  I can't just shake it off, or laugh it off, as the kids did.  I want to know why people are so angry.  I want to know what about my family of five just driving in our little car offends them.  I want to know why they chose those particular words.  

          Inevitably I also come to a place where I wonder about what the angry people were hoping to accomplish by screaming at strangers and just calling them names which can give us no possible understanding of why they are angry or what they are wanting to be different.  And I come back again to the thought that we have a choice about what we contribute in this life-time.  On the balance sheet of life, do we give more positives to the world or more negatives?  Do we empower, support and lift one another up with kindness and love, or do we squash, harm ,and destroy?  What do we want our legacies to be?  What do we want to choose to leave here as our mark on this world?  We don't get to live forever.  We have little time with which to grace the lives of those with whom we travel.  So what do we want our contributions to be?

         But as I sat with it this time, I thought about my own actions in this world.  I often think big-picture about my own actions: what kind of carbon foot-print am I leaving?  How am I contributing to the over-all health of the planet by driving my car or planting trees?  How do my shopping purchases help or harm the poorest of the poor?  How can I be part of the solutions when dealing with climate change rather than adding to the increasing destruction of a fragile planet?  How can I confront racism in my almost-entirely-white congregation?  

       But this time I found myself thinking instead about littler things.  I heard echoed in a comment of one of my children negative words that I said first: words that were judgmental and attacking, that encouraged looking at the faults of another rather than the gifts, words that were dismissive and pridefully self-righteous.  I heard a stance of annoyance and frustration with the inevitable challenges in life, rather than wonder and delight at the beauties of our world and the gifts of the people in our communities.  And I realized that we do indeed develop habits, fall into patterns, that determine our influence in this life time; an influence of good or an influence that is more negative.  Do we focus on what is wrong about others, what is irritating to us, what is a problem for us?  Do we condemn and put down those who are different from us?  Or do we seek to find the good, the wondrous, and emphasize it and support it?  Do we teach our children to be negative and catty about others?  Or to look for what is beautiful and true and good in our differences?   This isn't to say that we ignore problems.  But can we reframe them in terms of judging actions rather than people, and on what we can do to help, rather than on what is bad and feels unsolvable? 

      When we have been challenged and attacked, it is easy to respond in kind.  But is our goal to return what has been given to us, or to rise above, to be better, to grow and contribute what is right and good to our world?  To make changes based not on judgements, but on wisdom, learning, and a desire to contribute what is good?

        I recognize in my own life that this is a growing edge.  I need to be better at focusing on the good, at rising above the hate and anger that is around us, at choosing in my interactions with the world to give what is grace-filled and loving rather than what is defensive, destructive, angry, or harmful.  This has to start with the little things.  And it has to begin with "me."

Struggles with the World

        I have to say that I am disappointed in my world.  The older I get, the more I live through, the more this is true.  Disappointed, by the way, is a very understated word in this case. It pains me, it devastates me, to see the ways people justify destroying the earth, brutalize people of color, refuse to help refugees, don't hesitate to increase the divide between the rich and the poor by giving more and more to those who already are rich and taking away from the poor, the underprivileged and the oppressed even the little that they have.  The more I see, the more I have come to believe that there really are people who choose evil in this world: they choose to "otherize" anyone who does not look like them or have the same wealth, power or general life situation as them: they "otherize", then villainize, then work to actively oppress, injure, destroy and damage anything that gets in the way of them acquiring more money and more power for themselves.  I've spent years trying to understand the fear that could cause this kind of behavior, and I have no doubt that I will continue to try to understand it.  But as I read in one of my study leave books this week, "it is problematic to refuse to see willful intent to commit evil." (p73 of Sustaining Hope in An Unjust World by Timothy Charles Murphy. MA: Chalice Press, 2019).  I don't like to see it that way.  But as I read his arguments, I had to agree.  There is evil here: intentionality in harming the earth and other people to obtain what a person wants for themself.  The author goes on to say, "progressives have the bias that education will solve most problems," and I admit that I, too, have had this bias.  I have mistakenly assumed that people are cruel and do horrible things to others because they just don't understand.  And I've had to come to a new awareness that many do understand. And are choosing to do harm, because it serves them.  That awareness is devastating to me.  I don't understand it.  I can't comprehend it.  But I am having to accept it.
       I have to admit that those moments of acceptance of this reality often lead me to a place of abject despair, in which I see the upcoming destruction of our planet (probably through climate change, and probably much sooner than many imagine) as the natural and logical consequential ending for a species that has, itself, become a virus: one that feeds off of the earth, other creatures and even other people by destroying them.  In those moments of despair I think "Well, we deserve this.  Maybe once we've wiped ourselves out the earth can begin to heal."  But then I look at my children, and I hear the birds, and I see pictures of elephants and forests and I cannot bear the thought of all of them being wiped out because of our selfishness and greed.
        More, I have come to realize that the choice to NOT act, the choice to just sit and do nothing while the earth spins out of control; this is a choice that comes from a place of privilege.  Black people do not have the choice to avoid involvement when their families, their friends, their communities are being slaughtered in this country.  Those who are already being devastated by climate change were not given the choice to avoid being devastated by the climate chaos. Those who are refugees escaping deadly home situations do not have a choice about being affected by policies that refuse to grant them safe spaces to live and raise their children.  And the list goes on.
       So, in spite of my devastation, in spite of my sense of despair, in spite of the grief that I feel on a daily basis now for my image of what our world could be, should be, would be, I have to choose to act on behalf of the "least of these" to the best of my ability, to stand with the disenfranchised, exploited, oppressed and poor, no matter what the cost to my personal life.  As a post I saw recently said, "Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are."  Because I believe deeply that we are all connected, that when you hurt, I am hurting too (whether I know it or not!), in some ways I think this comment is inaccurate.  So perhaps, I would say it this way, "Justice will not be served until those who are oblivious to their own personal damage at the hands of the injustice are as outraged as those who are obviously and outwardly devastated by the injustice."  Either way, I feel called to action.  And I hope that you will join me.

Habakkuk

               Habakkuk is one of the prophets whose words are written as poetry.  But unlike many other prophets, Habakkuk is a prayer to God.  More than that, it follows the format of many of our psalms of lament.  Next lent I expect us to focus on the different types of psalms.  We haven’t done that yet, so to give a preview, there are many different types of psalms, and like with hymns or other kinds of poetry, the different genres of psalms follow different formats.  Psalms of lament usually include most of the following components:

               Intimate Address to God

               Complaint

               Petition

               Argument in favor of the petition

               Vengeance

               Rejoicing and praise

               The main difference between Habakkuk and another writer of a psalm of lament is that unlike the psalms, which usually offer the complaints, petitions, etc. on behalf of the speaker, Habakkuk is speaking on behalf of the people.  He was one of the Southern prophets, speaking very close to the time of the Babylonian exile, anticipating the exile, and pleading for God to intervene, to save the nation, to save the people. 

               As I listened to Habakkuk’s words, I am reminded of an exchange that I’ve seen several cartoonists recreate in which one person is complaining and loudly lamenting, “I want to yell at God and demand to know why God allows so much suffering, so much pain!  I just want to demand that God tell me why God hasn’t done anything and I want to scream at God that if God really cared, God would DO something.  I want to demand to know why God hasn’t done it!”  To which the listener to this rant asks, “Well, why don’t you?”  The original speaker responds, “Because I am certain God would ask me the same thing.”

I think this is summed up well in the words to one of my favorite praise songs, sung by Matthew West entitled “Do Something”:

I woke up this morning

Saw a world full of trouble now, thought

How’d we ever get so far down, and

How’s it ever gonna turn around?

So I turned my eyes to Heaven

I thought, “God, why don’t You do something?”

Well, I just couldn’t bear the thought of

People living in poverty

Children sold into slavery

The thought disgusted me

So, I shook my fist at Heaven

Said, “God, why don’t You do something?”

(God) said, “I did, I created YOU”

I’m so tired of talking about

How we are God’s hands and feet

But it’s easier to say than to be

We live like angels of apathy who tell ourselves

“It’s alright.  Somebody else will do something.”

Well, I don’t know about you

But I’m sick and tired of life with no desire

I don’t want a flame, I want a fire and

I wanna be the one who stands up and says

“I’m gonna do something”

We are the salt of the earth

We are a city on a hill

But we’re never gonna change the world

By standing still

No, we won’t stand still

If not us, then who

If not me and you

Right now

It’s time for us to do something

If not now, then when

Will we see an end

To all this pain

It’s not enough to do nothing

It’s time for us to do something

Habakkuk is speaking words that almost all, if not all, of us have felt at one time or another.  We, too, want God to fix the pain in the world - ideally in the way we think it ought to be fixed.  There are many times when we feel if God really loved us, really loved the world, God would surely step in and fix things.  For many this is reason enough to believe that God doesn’t exist at all.  After all, if there were a God, why wouldn’t he/she step in a fix everything?  But the response of God?  Well, according to Habakkuk, the response is, again and again, to throw it back at us.  We have been given this world, we have been blessed with unbelievable abundance, with good minds, and with each other.  We have been given all the tools we need to confront the pain in the world.  We’ve been given all the resources we need so that everyone could have enough, should have enough.  If they don’t have enough, we have no-one but ourselves to blame.  I’m reminded of the saying, “Pray as if everything were up to God.  Act as if everything were up to us.”

This is, indeed, the message of all the prophets.  A message that Jesus echoed every time he told us to love all people even our enemies, even those people we don’t understand, even those people we don’t like, as we love ourselves.   If we were experiencing hunger or oppression or pain, we would fight for better.  But we don’t do this for those among us who are, in fact, facing these things.  We don’t give to others to the same degree that we take care of ourselves.  Extremely few people do.  But that’s the call.  It’s the call of the prophets, it’s the call of Jesus.

And perhaps it is a hard message to hear.  I know it is for me.  I wonder how I can be better at not contributing to the pain and suffering of the world, how I can use my resources for the good of everyone.  None of us is wealthy by American standards.  But we are wealthy in comparison to most of the world.  How can we better use our resources to further God’s kingdom and to care for our brothers, sisters, siblings throughout the world?  How can we use our power for good?  To change the systems that oppress and keep resources from those who need them the most?

I remember in my Prophets class as a seminary student our professor telling us that all of the prophets were speaking to the elite of Israel and Judah: those who had both the power and the resources and were using it for their own gain to the great loss of those they were supposed to serve and love.  Our professor told us that while in some ways these words apply to us as well, there is a difference in that while we have many resources, most of us have very limited power. I shared with you a few weeks ago that a Princeton University study showed that public opinion has absolutely zero impact on the decisions made by our federal government.  The limited power we do have comes in the form of how we vote, and in the actions we take locally.  But still, our power is not that of the people being addressed by the prophets.  Their words were meant to convict the leadership.  Well, we know that that fails to happen.  Those in power STILL use their power to better their own positions and rarely, RARELY, consider the “least of these” as the people they most need to care for.  But as I said in my first sermon on this series, the prophets were extremely political.  They were speaking to those in power and condemning them for not caring for their own.  And while it may be a relief to know that we don’t carry that kind of power, normally, I think that we must consider that these words are being spoken to us as well.  As I was working on this sermon, my Facebook paged dinged at me and this quote popped up from the Lord of the Rings: “Some believe is it only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found.  I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay… small acts of kindness and love.” 

There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best grown corn.  One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it.  The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.

“Why sir,” said the farmer, “Didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”

None of us truly wins, until we all win!  None are whole if we are not all whole. 

I'm reminded again of the story of Ubuntu: I am because we are.  Some children were approached by an anthropologist who said whoever could run the fastest would win a bag of candy for himself.  He put the children all on a starting line, but when he said "go!", all the children took each other's hands and ran together so they would win together.  The confused anthropologist asked them why they had done this.  The children answered that they could not be happy if even one of them was unhappy.  They had to win together because then they would all be happy together.  They understood at a much deeper level than we do that we are all interdependent. I am who I am because of all the people who have gone before me as well as all the people I now know.  We create our future together.

Today we end our series on the prophets and so there is one other piece that I want to discuss with you this morning.  Several of you have asked me after hearing these fiery words from our prophets each week if I really believe that God punishes people in the way that the prophets believed happened when the Israelites were exiled to Babylon.  I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that I do not believe this.  Just as I do not believe in a God who will step in and fix things because that God has already given us all we need to fix it ourselves, I also believe very deeply that God is not a wrathful being who will harm or hurt us.  God wants genuine relationship with us.  Genuine relationship means that there must be freedom to be who we choose to be, act how we choose to act, and either fail or succeed at bringing love, peace, and grace to a broken world.  That leaves us then, as we reflect on the prophets, perhaps to wonder if their words of threat actually mean anything.  While I do not believe that God brings wrath upon our heads, I do think that in life there are consequences for our actions.  Our behavior changes the world.  It affects the world.  And the world is then the one that we live in and live with.  If we want a world that is kind to us, we must create that world by being kind to others.  When we fail to seek justice for one another, all of us are lessened, deeply and truly.  The call of the prophets, and the call of Jesus to love all – all creation, as we love ourselves: that is not just for the “other”.  That is for our well-being as well.  The prophets threat is real: if we do not care for one another, all will be lost.  If we do not take care of our poor, our marginalized, those we don’t want, those we don’t like, those we fear, those we ‘hate” – if we cannot learn to see them as the brothers and sisters that they are, the threat to us is real.  I don’t believe it’s because God will harm us.  God’s love for us is genuine, deep and sincere.  But if we continue to create a world in which others live in terrible ways, if we accept this as okay, as the norm: if we continue to think in terms of “us and them”  then at some point, we will be the “them” who are hurting as well.  Maybe not in our lifetimes.  Maybe it will come for our grandchildren or their grandchildren.  But it will happen.

The call of the prophets, as I have said, is the same as the call of Jesus: love God, love yourself, and love each other with all that you are and all that you have.  It’s not easy at all.  But it is simple.  

Deep Yearnings

         On Friday I had the gift of going on a mother-daughter day with number one child before she returns to college for the second semester of her first year.  We did one of our favorite trips: drove down to Monterey, went to the aquarium, ate clam chowder in sour dough bowls, drove along the coast to Carmel, where we went to the beach and then did some art gallery exploration and window shopping before returning home.  A full day.  A wonderful day.  We listened to books on tape for the drive up and back, had a lot of time to talk and walk, did some singing in the car together as well (which we love), and just enjoyed each other's company.  All of it was good.  My favorite part was the time we spent on the beach.  

           The beach was almost empty of people, the tide was out which created a hugely expansive beach, the sun was in a perfect location adding a touch of mystery and sheer beauty, the weather was absolutely perfect - not hot, not cold; the water was not too icy for walking barefoot through the waves, and I had the best company I could imagine.  We walked, we played in the sand, Eldest danced a bit, we gloried in the beauty of the day.  We saw interesting dogs running around, and interesting shells and rocks:

         I felt this deep sense of gratitude for the day, for the time, for the experience.  I still do.  It was, in so many ways, a perfect day.  I couldn't have ordered one better.  It was a day for us, which is a rare thing, and because of that, so much more deeply appreciated.  I breathed it in.  I still breathe it in with thanksgiving and with humility for the gift of the day.

         But underneath it all, I also felt this yearning, this restlessness, this … maybe it was grief.  Grief that the day would not last?  Grief that my daughter would soon be leaving again for her second semester of college?  Grief that everything is temporary, that everything passes, including the beautiful? At some level it was grief that this day pulled out of regular life is not one that everyone can experience, especially in this difficult time when there is so much extreme poverty (and increasingly this exists even here in the U.S.), so much war and chaos, so much pain and discrimination, so much fear and hatred.  It is also painful to me that those thoughts cross my mind when I am in the midst of beauty.  I would like to be able to put aside, just for a day, awareness of the pain in our world, the destruction of our environment, the inequality and inequities that are rampant around us, the acting out by building walls of hate, discrimination, prejudice and "us vs. them" thinking that are tearing our world apart.  But I don't seem able to do that.  Even to be present with my daughter, I can't put all of that aside.

      I read somewhere that our deepest yearnings are ultimately an ache for the divine.  And that the pain we feel is that sense of separation from that which is beyond and bigger and better than ourselves.  Partly true.  But I would say it goes even deeper than that.  As I have said before, I believe that we, all of us, are, ultimately, one.  What hurts you, hurts me: what hurts me, hurts you.  As I said in my sermon yesterday, we are one body (I didn't make this up, folks: it's in every sacred text ever written).  When the foot is injured, we limp.  When the eye is not allowed to see (because that eye is scary and might take something from me), then our vision is limited.  When we do not allow others to have the same quality of life that we have, the person who is damaged by that decision is ourselves.  The point?  That yearning is not just for the wholeness of God.  That yearning is for the health and wholeness of creation, of all of us, of the world.  And until we can create a world where we all have enough, and we are unafraid, and we can look at each other person with eyes of love and care and compassion - until we create such a world, all of us will have within us somewhere that restless yearning, that ache for what we can only imagine, that longing to be whole again, to be home again, to be right within ourselves and right with the world.  It is only through loving each other more fully that we do connect more deeply with God.  The reason we are only given two commandments: to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves is that they are the same thing.  We only love God as much as we love our enemies.  And we only connect to God as deeply as we can connect to those we fear the most.

        I am still grateful for the day I had with my daughter.  I think that time and those experiences strengthen me to keep going in the battle for all people.  I think that vision of what could be for all of us gives me the strength to work for everyone to have this, too.  At the same time, the yearning, the pain, the ache is as much a part of the memories of the day as all of the good.  And perhaps that is just as important as it also pushes me to keep stepping forward in a pro-active way.

        I wish our world were different: I wish it were kinder, gentler, more loving, more compassionate.  And those are things we have to keep working for.  At the same time, there is still a great deal of beauty out there; the times of connection with loved ones, the incredible beauty of nature, the smells of fresh air and salt water, opportunities to walk and learn and grow and be.  It's all part of what we are.  May the good strengthen us all for the work ahead.  May the yearnings be a call into action.  May our deep desires and the aches of our hearts that ultimately are a call to connect to the divine create within us a commitment to love all that God loves with fullness and without prejudice.  For it is in that loving that we will connect more fully and deeply with God and in that connection that, finally, our deep yearnings will find satisfaction.

The Power of Kindness ("The Power Of..." Part II)

       Once again I am a bit late in deciding what my Lenten discipline will be this year.  It's not that I hadn't been thinking about it - I had.  I thought at first that maybe I would give up media at home: I've done that before, just really focused on time with my kids without computer, phone or TV interruption.  But this year with the Olympics it isn't so easy since the kids and David also want to watch these.  I thought about giving up sweets, but again, can't get the kids on board with this particular practice and it is really hard to do this when others are not limiting their sweet intake.
        But finally the universe conspired to show me what it is I really need to do for my Lenten discipline this year.
         First, I saw a clip from Oprah in which she was talking to a young woman about deciding what kind of energy she would choose to keep around her: positive energy in the form of kind, helpful people or negative energy from angry, attacking, abusive people.  The young woman said she wanted to do good by helping the negative folk to become more positive.  Oprah said, "that's great, but..." and went on to talk about how others' negative energy can really impact us in harmful ways if we do not also have people around who boost us up, affirm life and remind us of the good in the world.                Second, I saw this paragraph posted on a friend's FB page, "You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you, making you spill your coffee everywhere.  Why did you spill coffee?  You spilled coffee because that was what was in your cup.  Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea.  The point is that whatever is inside the cup, that is what will spill out when it is bumped.  When life comes along and shakes you (which will happen), whatever is inside you will splash out.  It's easy to fake it until you get rattled.  So, we have to ask ourselves, "what's in my cup?"  When life gets tough, what will spill out?  Joy, gratefulness, peace, and humility?  Or will anger, bitterness, harsh words and violent reactions come out?  Today let's work towards filling our cups with gratitude, forgiveness, joy, words of affirmation, kindness, gentleness and love for others."
       And finally, I read several comments in response to posts on FB that were, frankly and simply, unkind.  There was no reason for the cruelty, there was no reason for the unkindness.  In one post a mother shared the joy of having a 19 month old boy who was doing very well. Her post was a happy comment about a joyful boy and it ended with "tell me the wonderful things about your children and what they do that makes you proud!" This very positive, affirming post was met with attacks accusing her of bragging and trying to make others feel bad.  It was absolutely unkind.  And as a result, she left the mothering group that I was part of, saying she joined for support and was leaving because of the unkindness she found instead.  I understand her experience.  I had to leave a group of pastors recently (yes, pastors!) because one of the administrators of the group was attacking and unkind to me when I shared something very vulnerable, very personal, and very hard.
       All three of these events coincided in a way that made the discipline of this Lent a clear choice for me: I will be focusing on kindness.  I will work hard not to respond to others, even to people who are being mean, with anger.  I will look hard for the kindness that surrounds me.  I will focus on the good, the positive, the life-giving joy and beauty in each day. I will delight in what is lovely and on actions of grace and unexpected generosity.  I will live into what is wonderful each day. And I will do my best to pass on kindness and care to others.
        Towards this end, I may have to turn off much of the negativity, stay away from FB at times unless it is to post something positive, but I will work hard to surround myself with those who are gentle and humble and kind.
       I find that once I start looking for the good, for the kind, that it surrounds me constantly, and often comes in unexpected ways: David spinning my daughter down the aisle in the grocery store, my children saying silly things that bring the deep gift of laughter, kind comments of appreciation, beautiful stories of generosity towards others, smiles from strangers, the offer of help with the simple things: carrying in a large box, taking off one's coat, getting out of a car.
      It is not only easy to see kindness once we start looking for it, it is also easy to participate in it.  Ask people how they are, not as a brush-off salutation, but with genuine interest.  Bring a flower to someone.  Write a thank you note just saying you appreciate another person for being who they are and doing what they do.  Offer a meal, offer a prayer, offer a shoulder to cry on.  Take a moment to compliment someone, to offer an affirmation of caring and support.  Pick up a piece of garbage and throw it away.  Wash an extra dish, one that isn't yours.  Take an extra minute of time to be with someone else.
       The power of kindness increases with every moment of attention we give to it.  Seeing, noting and giving attention to the good and then taking time to pass it on or to offer gratitude for it: these make a difference.
       I begin my Lenten practice of noticing and participating in kindness then by thanking all of you who read my blog.  It is the highest of affirmations to know that my words and thoughts are read, that they matter to someone else.  It is a vote of confidence and support that does not go unnoticed by me.  I am grateful that you spend that time with me in this way.  I am grateful that you feel my words and my person are worth your attention.  Have a beautiful day.  And do not underestimate the power of your kindness to me, or to others!

Sunday's Sermon - Responding as God calls

Micah 6:1-8
Psalm 15
Matthew 5:1-12

Today we have three wonderful passages from scripture.  And I’d like to just take some time to look at each of them in turn for a minute.  We started with the Micah passage - What does the Lord require of you?  But to do justice, to love mercy (or kindness) and to walk humbly with God.  As I will say more than once today, this is not that God is saying to us that God will not accept or love us without us doing these things.  This is not “works righteousness” in which we earn our way into God’s love through our actions.  Rather, God has already chosen us and God is saying that in response to that love, we are to be faithful people.  If we are faithful, we will respond to God’s love for us with trust that we will have enough and therefore there is more than enough to share with others.  When we lack that faith, we will find ourselves in painful chaos, not because God is punishing us but because we find that there are consequences in life for our actions.  Those to whom Micah was speaking had come to believe that the way they expressed faith to God was through rituals and ceremony, rather than through trust, giving and loving others.  Does that sound familiar?  We know that there are people who come to church not to be supported in their work for God and God’s people, but rather to “prove” their faith to God and to others, or because they believe coming to church is what God wants and is seeking from us.  God is challenging that.  Micah tells us that our response to God’s love should be the way we live our every day lives.  And that it is through justice, kindness and a humility that pleases God.  Justice in this case has to do with caring for the poor and oppressed.  The word “mercy” or kindness here “hessed” is actually about love, loyalty and faithfulness.  The word “humbly” is more along the lines of “circumspectly” and really is about putting God first or living in conformity to God’s will in every area of life – ethically especially.  This passage is a rejection of the idea that there is only one thing that Israel can do to make things right between Israel and God.  Israel is being called to right her relationship with God by a complete change of life style to one of caring for others.  And again, what that looks like is sharing – sharing everything with the trust that there will still be enough for us. Sharing our resources, sharing our space, sharing our time and attention and caring. But again, this isn’t about making ourselves worthy.  This is about allowing God to transform our lives into lives of love, lives dedicated to living for God’s will.
The psalm for today, also encourages living lives of love.  And it, too, appears, on first glance, to be a lecture about what you need to do to earn that love.  But instead, it is a description of what your lives will be like, are like, when you live in God’s love.  Those who abide in God’s love will not slander, will not do evil, will speak the truth from their hearts, will honor other people, all of whom are also children of God.  These will be the signs by which you are known to the world as God-fearing people.
And finally we come to the beattitudes.  While some people interpret these as future promises – (those who are suffering now will reap their rewards in heaven), Father Chacour, the archbishop of
Galilee, a Palestinian priest who is also an Israeli citizen, says that in Aramaic, which was the language Jesus spoke, the word “blessed” here is not a passive word.  He says that actually it should be better translated, “get up and do something about it”.  So instead of reading, “Blessed are those who are poor,” we should be reading this passage, “get up, go ahead, do something, move, you who are hungry for you will be satisfied.  Get up, go ahead, do something, move, you peacemakers for you will be children of God.  Get up, go ahead, do something, move, you who are persecuted for the kingdom of heaven is yours.”  And again, we are confronted by this reading to respond to God’s love with action, to respond to God’s love not by being passive, but by acting with justice, compassion and love towards all we encounter.
My favorite book of all times is Jane Austen’s classic, Pride and Prejudice.  I read the book probably once a year, and have the A&E five hour movie version of the story that I also probably watch at least once a year.  I’m sure most of you know the story, but for those who don’t – the main character, Lizzie, is an intelligent, cheerful, confident and witty young woman who comes from a family in which manners and education are lacking and whose fortune is entailed away on a cousin.  In other words, while Lizzie (and her older sister) have much to recommend themselves, they come from a family with nothing to recommend itself.  The family members are embarrassing and inappropriate in their actions, as well as being basically poor.  In this context she meets a man of good breeding, education and fortune, Mr. Darcy, who is clearly offended by her circumstances but who none the less falls in love with Lizzie.  She is unaware of his feelings until one day he comes to her and proposes, announcing that while the situation of her family makes the match one he cannot at all rationally desire, his feelings for her none the less leave him no choice but to ask her to marry him.  Because of his situation, he has no doubt at all of her acceptance of his proposal, and because he believes honesty to be important, he does not hesitate to put down everything about her family even as he asks her to marry him.  Even though she is aware of the lacking in her family, she is none the less extremely offended by the way he asks her, besides being convinced that he is a proud, arrogant, selfish person, and she rejects him, also being honest about what she thinks of the way he has proposed, describing it as ungentlemanly.  This is the turning point in the story for both characters.  Lizzie learns soon afterwards that some of her prejudice against Mr. Darcy comes from mis-information which she chose to believe rather than checking it out for accuracy.  But it is more Mr. Darcy’s transformation on which I wish to focus today.  Lizzie’s words, mixed with his love for her, force him to look at himself and to genuinely reflect on his own behavior.  This in turn causes a profound change in his person as he works hard to let go of his arrogance and pride and become a genuinely compassionate, “gentlemanly” man.  His love for Lizzie changes him.
Many, if not most, of our classics focus on the amazing power of love to transform people; to make them into wiser, more compassionate, more present, more holy people, more WHOLE people.  But these aren’t just stories.  This actually happens when we allow God’s love to change us.
John Newton was the captain of a slave ship when slavery was profitable and “popular” among the elite.  But after several years of working as a slave ship captain he went through a conversion experience in which he met God.   After his experience he went to seminary to become a pastor and during his time there he developed a more Christian understanding of the incompatibility of slavery with God’s love.  He came to see it for the evil it is and to condemn it and fight against it.  He became a pastor to other sailors, teaching them about God’s love for all and God’s hatred of slavery or anything that oppresses and hurts God’s people, that leaves some people out, that builds a wall against others.  His song “Amazing Grace” is autobiographical as he talks about the blindness that kept his focus on money and fame rather than on the love that God would have us share.  “I was blind, but now I see” - probably the most famous line in the song, in part because most of us have experiences of enlightenment at one point or another, in which the values we held, the lifestyles we’ve adopted, or the beliefs we have held onto so tightly break in the face of hard but deep truths, in the face of love.  For John Newton, his love of God forced a complete change in his life and he became an advocate for God’s justice for all people.
This is what God’s love for us and our returned love of God does for us.  When we stay open to God’s direction and God’s guidance, if we accept God into our hearts, but also into our minds and our souls, we become transformed people, made for love, made for justice.
All three of today’s passages say the same thing to us.  All three say that we are to respond to God’s love with justice, mercy, and compliance to God’s will.  This is not “works over faith” because you cannot earn your way into God’s heart or God’s love through your actions.  Not at all.  The truth is, there is nothing you can do to improve God’s love for you.  That is good news, that is a joyful thing.  That should boost us up, lift us up.  God is not demanding good from us, or really anything from us.  God loves us first, God calls us first.  Our life with God begins with God’s initiative, with God calling us, claiming us.  But when we accept God’s love into our hearts, when we accept Christ into our being, our actions will reflect that, our lives will reflect that, our very beings will reflect that. Our lives do reflect God by being lives not just of ritual or even “right thinking”, but instead by being lives of justice, of mercy, of humility, of kindness.  We become the image of God by living lives of love.

Sunday's Sermon - spreading the light

Genesis 1:1-5

Matthew 2:1-12

Mark 1:4-11

John 2:1-11

I’ve been thinking about the passing of William Christopher, the man who played Father Mulcahy on MASH.  And I was reflecting on two scenes in MASH in which he played a very central role.  In the first scene, he ends up acting as nurse for a surgery Hawkeye is doing because there just aren’t enough personnel available. In the middle of the operation, Father Mulcahy closes his eyes and begins to pray for the healing of the patient when Hawkeye suddenly yells at him “retraction!” and so he does what Hawkeye says and doesn’t finish the prayer.  Hawkeye apologizes but Father Mulcahy’s response is, “Well, God knew what I meant anyway.”  Which was more important?  Which of his two actions were more Godly?  Helping with the surgery or praying?

I want you to think about that while I share with you another scene from a different episode.  Father Mulcahy is giving a boy laid out on a stretcher with a toe-tag on his big toe his last rites.  The Father is praying over him when he thinks he sees a sudden movement of the boy’s toe.  He looks up and sees a single tear falling from the boys closed eyelid and realizes the boy with the toe tag is NOT in fact dead.  As a result of seeing this, he is able to call for a doctor’s help and the boy’s life is saved.  Still, I ask you, which was more important: the Father blessing the boy and giving him last rites?  Or his recognizing that the boy was still alive?

I invite you to think about that as we reflect for a few minutes on Epiphany.  How many of you remember what the word “Epiphany” means?  The word “Epiphany” means “manifestation”.  For us in the church, Epiphany is the Manifestation of Jesus, or the marking of God’s manifestation in Jesus: the pronouncement and revealing of who Jesus is.  There are three events that we consider “Epiphanal” in the scriptures.  Do you know what these are?

The three incidents are: the visit of the magi, the baptism of Jesus, and the miracle of turning the water into wine at the wedding in Cana.  Before 1969 all three of these Scriptures were heard on successive Sundays. All three stories were considered to form a unit because they progressively reveal first the identity of Jesus (from the visit of the Magi who proclaim him to be the Messiah), second, the authority of Jesus (the Spirit descending and the voice declaring that Jesus was God’s son with whom God was pleased) and finally the power of Jesus (through his miracle of turning the water into wine). These three events also show Jesus’ Divinity as recognized or declared first by the Magi (those considered wise), second by God (the Spirit), and third by those around Jesus (who experienced the water becoming wine).

            Now, however, instead of having three weeks of epiphany which successively and progressively focus on these three events, we usually have the Magi and the Baptism stories read either together (like today), on successive Sundays, or only one of the two stories is read each year.  Additionally, the third story, the story of the wedding at Cana is only in our lectionary every third year.  Still all three are considered Epiphany, all three are important to our faith. 

           All three involve some form of communication with God, but the primary manifestation, as seen in all three of these events, of the Divine in Jesus is through action.  The Magi travel, following the star to worship the Christ and pay him homage.  The Spirit descends on Jesus after Jesus takes the action of seeking baptism.  And Jesus, himself, physically changes the water into wine.  The manifestations of the Christ – of God’s presence, authority and power in Jesus – all happen through these actions. These aren’t actions absent of prayer or absent of connection to God, but they are action none the less.  Faith is about doing.  You are how you act, which shows how you really believe, what really matters to you, what is really important and central to you. 

About 13 years ago I was having computer trouble and a friend recommended a computer expert to fix it.  He particularly recommended this man because he was a Christian computer technician.  The computer expert, after looking at the computer in my home for awhile, said that he would need to do a full system re-format.  He took my computer and discs of all my programs that he would need to re-load onto the computer to his home office.  When he returned the computer, it was obvious within the first hour or so that he had not fixed the problem and that the computer was as messed up as before.  I ended up having to buy a new computer.  When I did so and went to load on my programs, I noticed that one program had never been returned from the computer expert.  Ironically it was my Bible software.  He was a man of faith, so I was told, yet he had “stolen” my bible software.

Matthew 21: 28-31 reads:  ²⁸ “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

²⁹ “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

³⁰ “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

³¹ (Jesus continued…)“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

Saying that we have faith is not the same as acting like Jesus calls us to act – acting with love, acting with grace, living out that faith.  We, too, are called to manifest God’s presence – to make it known to others, to shine the light of the Christ into the lives of others – to follow in the footsteps of the Christ by physically manifesting the presence of Christ.  We do this in many ways.  But paying attention, like the Father in the MASH episodes, helping provide care when called on to do so, allowing ourselves to be called into action and responding to that call – these are the ways we manifest God’s presence.  Our faith doesn’t impress others, doesn’t touch others, doesn’t shine the light into their lives, unless it is manifest in the way we live our lives and live that out. 

Again, I’m not saying that the prayer part isn’t important.  Prayer is central.  It grounds us, it makes us into the people who can do the action.  Father Elias Chacour, archbishop of Israel said this: “Vision without action is just a daydream, but action without vision is a nightmare.”   I would change that, “to action without prayer is a nightmare.”  We can’t rely on our own desires or our own impulses to guide us into being the faithful people we are called to be, to lead us to do what’s “right” in God’s eyes.  We have to be guided by God and prayer, study, meditation, time with God allows us to hear, and to be centered in our relationship with God.

Still, people know us by the way we behave.  “They will know we are Christians by our love”.  So how do we behave?  You have probably all heard the story:  A driver did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection. The tailgating woman behind him went ballistic, pounding on her horn and screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to drive through the intersection with him. Still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer.

The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed and placed in a cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.

He said, "I'm awfully sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping the guy off in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the ‘Choose Life’ license plate holder, the ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ bumper sticker, the ‘Follow me to Sunday School’ bumper sticker and the chrome plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car."

            I think about AA and other 12 step groups.  They have a saying which is “act as if.” The idea behind it is that we grow into being who we want to be by doing the behaviors of the ones we want to be.  We grow into being the kind of Christians we are called to be by practicing doing it.  This applies to any Christian actions including praying.  None of us are going to have it right from day one.  We have to just DO it.  It is not just our thoughts or our prayers but our actions make a difference in how people feel and if and how people heal.  AA is a doing, not just a thinking.  One of the proofs of that is that those who sponsor others are much more likely to stay sober themselves.  You have to give help in order to get helped.  We have to live our faith out in order to truly and fully experience belief and the grace that is offered to us.  We grasp and experience grace by living into it.

            Epiphany, the manifestation of God’s presence in Jesus – it is grounded in relationship with God, but it is experienced through action.  For us, too – we spread God’s light by being grounded in prayer – and by living out that faith through action.  Amen.

Lyle's Words on Sunday: Religion and the LGBTQ Community Post-Orlando

I am posting this with Lyle's permission.  Lyle is one of our very active folk at Clayton Valley Presbyterian Church.  He delivered this on Sunday to much applause as well as many tears.  I am grateful for Lyle's courage in sharing his experience and his challenge to us all to be more and do more for those who are so often mistreated by the Church at large:

Religion and the LGBTQ Community Post-Orlando

by: Lyle Swallow

[Delivered at Clayton Valley Presbyterian Church

Gay Pride Sunday June 26,2016]

"I am a gay man in the San Francisco Bay Area who is proud of and committed to his church."  Let me repeat that statement.  "I am a gay man in the San Francisco Bay Area who is proud of and committed to his church."

I say this for an important reason: I am becoming more rare every day.  What you need to know, if you don't already know it, is that more and more members of the LGBTQ community are rejecting religion of any kind – organized or otherwise.  Sometimes they are just being quietly agnostic or atheistic.  Other times – and it is the loud ones you hear – they are openly hostile and vitriolic about religion.  They hate the church and religion.  They see it as evil and the cause of great suffering in the world.  And they are very vocal about it.  The recent incidents in Orlando have raised the fire under that pot.

Let me give you an example.  The Wednesday after the horrible killings in Orlando I attended a meeting of gay leather men in San Francisco.  People were checking in with each other about Orlando and generally trying to take care of each other emotionally.  Someone mentioned the sermon the previous Sunday by the Pastor at Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento and the room exploded.  A thoughtful man I greatly respect said quietly:   "Religion is the root of all evil."  My reply thought was – "No, evil is the root of all evil".  Please note, in my opinion, in acting this way, the LGBTQ folks are actually engaging in their own unhealthy conduct.  They are doing what they say they don't want others to do:  categorizing peoples or groups and then vilifying the entire group.  They are demonizing all religions and all religious people for the acts of some.

Don't get me wrong.  Among my LGBTQ friends in the Bay Area are some who are actively engaged in religious activities and spirituality.  They include a good friend who is the pastor at MCC San Francisco, a lesbian couple who are both very active in their synagogue and at which one is on the board, faculty and graduate students and Pacific School of Religion, and many people whom I consider to be incredibly spiritual, whether or not affiliated with a formal religious organization. 

But, my impression is that the numbers who oppose religion in any form completely are growing.  And the church has to accept that it has played and IS playing a HUGE part in this.  It is no surprise that so many LGBTQ people feel the way they do:

·       Many of them were rejected by or expelled from their churches because they were gay or queer or transgender.

·       Many were told over and over again by their churches that they are hated, they are evil, they are sinners, they will go to hell.

·       Many have been shunned and excluded by their families because of strict religious beliefs.  It is no surprise that such significant numbers of homeless youth are gay and transgender –they have been kicked out by their families, frequently because of religious beliefs.

·       Some have actually been publicly "outed" by others in their religious organization, which threatened jobs and family relationships.

·       They hear about and have to deal with open hatred from so-called clergy, like the pastor at Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento who only wished that MORE gays and lesbians had been shot and killed in Orlando.  There are way too many clergy who preach that gays should be dead.

·       They see a sign outside of a Salvation Army church after the Orlando shooting that says:  "Well, you asked for a sign from God."

·       They drive by a church marquee that says:  "Satan made gays and transgenders"

·       Daily they hear state and federal politicians say awful things about LGBTQ people as a class, and making ridiculous and unfounded statements to support narrow and bigoted views.

·       State legislatures are trying to pass laws to formally permit and sanction businesses discriminating against LGBTQ people because of their religious beliefs.

·       Religious charities go out of their way to prohibit gays and lesbians from adopting kids.

Over and over and over they experience or hear about awful, terrible things that are done to or said about LGBTQ people because of religious beliefs.

So, is it any wonder that these people have chosen to reject the people and institutions that vilify us, that want to deprive us of our rights, even want us dead, don't want us to exist?

And, is it any wonder that I and so many others are ecstatic when a church like Clayton Valley goes so far as to fly a rainbow flag?  I don't think you can fully appreciate what an amazing thing that is to us LBGT folks.

I am going to borrow some questions from a speech made by the Lieutenant Governor of Utah following the mass killing in Orlando and ask that you consider how you and people you know might respond to these questions:

When you heard about the shooting in Orlando, how did you feel? 

When you heard it was mostly LGBT people who were killed, did that change

how you feel?

You care it is gay people now.  Did you care about them on the Saturday BEFORE the

shooting?

Let me be clear, I am not asserting or even suggesting that the horrible actions and statements I have described reflect the beliefs of many in the religious communities.  I am fairly confident they are not the views of anyone in this congregation.

But, the bottom line is that organized religion is losing ground FAST in the LGBT community.  And the only way to counter that is for EVERYONE to affirmatively do something.  So, I am going to challenge you today.  I am going to challenge you to ACT.  Action will speak volumes – much more that platitudes.  And there are lots of ways you can do that:

·       Don’t tell me how you feel.  Do something.  

·       Don’t tell me how sad you are.  Do something. 

·       When someone tells a homophobic joke in a meeting, stand up and say “you can’t say that around me”. 

·       Write to your politicians and object to laws that discriminate against LGBTQ people.

·       When you hear someone in your family or circle of friends say bigoted or unkind things about LGBTQ people, stop them and educate them.  Tell them it is not OK for them to feel that way or to say those things.

·       Support fundraisers for the various LGBTQ causes – from the Rainbow Community Center, to youth programs, to housing for LBGT seniors. 

·       Don't tell me you support LGBTQ people – DO something.

·       Don't just say that you disagree with evil Pastor Jimenez in Sacramento or the many other clergy who vilify gays – ACT.  Write to them and to their congregations.  Attend a protest rally at the Sacramento church.

Don't get me wrong.  I fully appreciate and applaud all that CVPC is doing with respect to LGBTQ issues and to many other causes.  I literally applaud all of you for that and, again, say that this church's stand and its decision to fly the rainbow flag is more meaningful and impactful than you will ever know.  And I KNOW some of you individually are already engaged and taking action in many ways on many issues.  For that I say a heartfelt Thank You.  And to the rest of you I urge you to – stand up, speak out, act up.  ACT!  And be sure that the people you engage with know of your connection to this church so that they SEE the face of the church  You are the church.

I want to close the way I began.  I am VERY proud of this church community.  And I am very committed to this church community.  You have much to show others.  So I urge you to Act.  As Christians and as loving people.  As the Dalai Lama has said:  "It is not enough to be compassionate, we must act."  Thank you and God bless you.