Third Sunday of Easter 1 April 14, 2013 Text: Simon, son of John, do you love me? Three breakfasts, one bumper sticker, an article, a memory and a stewardship sermon walked into a bar... Yesterday at church we had two, count em, two breakfasts. First there was Men s Fellowship: they gathered for just that (fellowship) and then they did their Spring clean up of the grounds. They know something very important: there is never a 2 nd chance to make a 1 st impression. They love their church and they want to invite others to this fellowship. The second breakfast was Loaves and Fishes breakfast (Habitat for Humanity). So many churches were represented and we had a table for x church, a table for y church a table for z church... And table after table after table for First Plymouth Church. Talk about walking the talk. And then there is the breakfast this Saturday at DICP College View: a neighborhood so challenged that Habitat for Humanity is building a multi unit complex there to help empower the area and make it safe for children. First Plymouth is weaving community there by inviting them together. The bumper sticker: If you love Jesus seek justice, any fool can honk. It is one thing to love Jesus, it is quite another to follow him. And the article this week worth mentioning. A young woman at a hip hop concert in South Dakota, which she describes as the home of American Christian conservatism. In Sioux Falls no one, NO ONE, goes out on the edge to speak about cutting social issues, particularly gay rights. Yet the hip hop artist did just that by singing a song called Same Love. The artist s name is Macklemore. The young woman who wrote the blog noted this: 1 Before the song, Macklemore spoke really simple words along the lines of: Hey, you can all have your own opinions on how we treat gay people in this country, but this is mine. And I held my breath in anticipation of some kind of uproar or walk-out but the crowd cheered.... In our red state, in our conservative little city, the 5,000 young people in that arena wanted to hear about marriage equality. These are the words that so inspired 5,000 young people: 2 When I was in the third grade I thought that I was gay 'Cause I could draw, my uncle was, and I kept my room straight I told my mom tears rushing down my face She's like "Ben you've loved girls since before pre-k tripping, " Yeah, I guess she had a point, didn't she? Bunch of stereotypes all in my head. 1 This section, and any of her words later in this sermon are found at: http://dannikanash.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/an-open-letter-to-the-church-from-my-generation/ 2 Same Love Lyrics: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Third Sunday of Easter 2 April 14, 2013 I remember doing the math like, "Yeah, I'm good at little league" A preconceived idea of what it all meant For those that liked the same sex Had the characteristics The right wing conservatives think it's a decision And you can be cured with some treatment and religion Man-made rewiring of a predisposition Playing God, aw nah here we go America the brave still fears what we don't know And God loves all his children, is somehow forgotten But we paraphrase a book written thirty-five-hundred years ago I don't know And I can't change Even if I tried Even if I wanted to If I was gay, I would think hip-hop hates me Have you read the YouTube comments lately? "Man, that's gay" gets dropped on the daily We become so numb to what we're saying A culture founded from oppression Yet we don't have acceptance for 'em Call each other faggots behind the keys of a message board A word rooted in hate, yet our genre still ignores it Gay is synonymous with the lesser It's the same hate that's caused wars from religion Gender to skin color, the complexion of your pigment The same fight that led people to walk outs and sit ins It's human rights for everybody, there is no difference! Live on and be yourself When I was at church they taught me something else If you preach hate at the service those words aren't anointed That holy water that you soak in has been poisoned When everyone else is more comfortable remaining voiceless Rather than fighting for humans that have had their rights stolen I might not be the same, but that's not important No freedom till we're equal, damn right I support it With the veil over our eyes We turn our back on the cause Till the day that my uncles can be united by law When kids are walking 'round the hallway plagued by pain in their heart A world so hateful some would rather die than be who they are And a certificate on paper isn't gonna solve it all But it's a damn good place to start No law is gonna change us
Third Sunday of Easter 3 April 14, 2013 WE have to change us Whatever God you believe in We come from the same one Strip away the fear Underneath it's all the same love About time that we raised up And I can't change Even if I tried Even if I wanted to I can't change Love is patient Love is kind Here is some of what this young woman wrote about being in America s heartland and hearing this song at a concert: During the song, almost every person at the concert had their hands up and their eyes closed it reminded me of church. The whole crowd spoke every word with Macklemore. We were thirsty for those words. We want to hear about equality and love in a gentle way.... Say what you want about my generation, but we can smell fake from a mile away. This rapper from Seattle had brought us truth in song form, and we all knew it. I live in such a conservative bubble that I couldn t believe the crowd s positive, thankful reaction. But I shouldn t have been surprised. No one knows the tension of that song like my generation in South Dakota does. So many of us were brought up in churches and Christian homes, and even if we weren t, we ve experienced the traditional Christian culture that just resonates from South Dakota s prairie land. We know conservatism; we know tradition. But we also have Twitter, we watch SNL, we listen to Macklemore, and we read Tina Fey. We re more in touch with the rest of the country than the Midwest has ever been. Some of us love the church and some of us hate it, but there aren t too many people for whom it s irrelevant. So when Macklemore takes on that tension with his poetry, his South Dakota audience listened. We practically yelled with him when he spoke the lyrics: When I was at church, they taught me something else: if you preach hate at the service, those words aren t anointed. That holy water that you soak in has been poisoned. We yelled because we knew that holy water too well. We knew that hateful preaching too well. We had all been hurt by it in one way or another..... I m worried about the safety of the Church. The Church keeps scratching its head, wondering why 70% of 23-30 year-olds who were brought up in church leave. I m going to offer a pretty candid answer, and it s going to make some people upset, but I care about the Church too much to be quiet.... I m saying this: we cannot keep pitting the church against humanity.... DON T hear me saying that we can t fight culture on anything. Lots of things in culture are absolutely contradictory to love and equality, and we should be battling those things. The way culture treats women, or pornography? Get AT that, church. I ll be right there with you. But my generation, the generation that can smell B.S, especially holy B.S, from a mile away, will not stick around to see the church fight gay marriage against our better judgment. It s my generation who is
Third Sunday of Easter 4 April 14, 2013 overwhelmingly supporting marriage equality, and, Church,... it is not in your best interest to give them that ultimatum. Two breakfasts yesterday, one this coming Saturday. One bumper sticker. An article. This week I also had a memory: Pretty good for someone who is 59-years-old and memory is, um.... what was I talking about? The memory is this: It is of our church Council five years ago, choosing today s scripture lesson as a guiding passage for their work as our leaders in the congregation. What struck the Council most about the passage is Jesus question to Simon Peter, Do you love me? In the original Greek reads this question reads, agapas meh, which we translate as, Do you love me? Is this accurate? Sort of. The Greek verb that is translated here is agape, the form of love that God has for us. This is a complete love, a total love. Agape is a love that gives without condition, loves without condition, and will die so that another might have life, and have it more abundantly. Simon son of John, agapas meh? Do you love me as God loves, with sacrificial love? Peter s response to this is very interesting. In English we read, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Is this accurate? Sort of. But the love in Peter's answer uses the Greek root word of philia to respond to Jesus. This form of love is not nearly as encompassing as agape. Philia is the kind of love you have for other people when you care for them enough to give something to them; but it is not an all-encompassing love; it is not sacrificial. It is not the love with which God loves us. It is not agape. Simon son of John, agapas meh; do you love me as I and God love you?" Yes, Lord, you know that philo seh, I love you, up to a point." What captivated our church Council five years ago was how easy it is love God with philia; how hard it is to love God with agape. As one young woman, reflecting on her childhood church experience, once said, I went to church every Sunday, and I listened to what they said about Jesus, and I believed it all, I really did; but was there anyone anywhere who cared about it enough to behave as if it were true? Our church Council chose this as a guiding passage because they wanted to build a church, an intentional Christian community, that cared enough to behave as if it were all true. Three breakfasts, the bumper sticker, the article and the, um, um, uh, the memory. I also had one request to preach on Stewardship today. Stewardship sermons are always a hoot. Ministers HATE asking people for money and so they show it by doing such an exceptionally poor job of it year after year. There is of course the all time favorite: the guilt approach, Jesus died for you on the cross and this is ALL you can do in return? Say, now there is an appeal sure to garner huge results.
Third Sunday of Easter 5 April 14, 2013 There is the whining business approach: We expect the cost of living to go up 2.387234 percent and if you could all just up your pledge by that amount we could barely make ends meet because you really haven t given us enough in the past. Wow. People are just jumping for their checkbooks after a sermon like that. There is the approach of making the associate minister do the sermon under the guise of mentoring her or him along. But you get a sermon, such as one that actually happened, laced with resentment because the pay is so little and then a line like this, which I swear I am not making up, I upped my pledge. Up yours. Sigh. Let me tell you why my wife and I make a financial commitment, why we tithe, not to the church, but to the mission of the church, because want to behave as we believe. We tithe because First Plymouth had two breakfasts here yesterday: one where a group of men know that we members and friends of First Plymouth need an effective launching pad for our many missions, that we need a worship space and meeting space so that we can have the room and the time to be transformed into the image of God, so that we can meet as fellow pilgrims along the way and support each other in our joys and sorrows. In the other breakfast we celebrated all the homes we have built with other churches so that families can have a clean, safe place to live and raise their children. We tithe because we will host another breakfast this Saturday at DICP and help weave community in a neighborhood that is struggling to pick itself up and become stronger. We tithe because we are so inspired and deepened and humbled by so many of you as you love Jesus but don t honk about it but rather seek justice, doing the intentional works of mercy and grace that make a profound difference in people s lives. We tithe because for years and years this congregation has been out front being the kind of church that young people are thirsting for, a church where, even when it is challenging and painful, we choose the path that leads to justice for all, a church where two same gender adults can love each other and be fully integrated into our life together. We tithe because this church doesn t preach hate and exclusion and say others have to be like us rather than in the image of God in order to be welcome here. We tithe because the nursery and the toddlers class are bursting at the seams and we need to make our Director of Children s Ministries fulltime to accommodate the growth. We tithe because each week we the congregation have a moment for mission, each month we have a Can Do Sunday, each quarter we have a clothing drive, each year we have alternative gift fair. We tithe because we are part of a church that understands that we are NOT a social service agency; that our service is an expression of our relationship with God a beloved community that is fed in worship, transformed in our spiritual formation, supported through our Web of Care, and because of this we are intentional about walking the talk.
Third Sunday of Easter 6 April 14, 2013 We tithe because we members and friends know that there is no magic Big Brother or Big Sister who will come and take care of us; there is only us, and together our financial generosity empowers our mission to be hands that work and hearts that love, and people who behave as they believe. We tithe because it is in this beloved community, this Body of Christ, that we are invited by the Holy Spirit to live into the covenant of the rainbow promise. And covenants, be they marriage or friendship or church commitments always invite us into being fully human, fully alive, never ever letting us be less than we are. We tithe because the Holy Spirit is so active here, flying around in our midst, inspiring our souls and inviting us to see where she is working in the world and beckoning us to follow her where she leads. Three breakfasts, one bumper sticker, an article, a memory and a stewardship sermon walked into a church. A church with a mission: a beloved community with hands that work and hearts that love, inviting us to empower ourselves to be as we believe. It s worth supporting. Amen. George C. Anastos