Power and Weakness

Today was the second in a series bookending our first ever Harry Potter Vacation Bible School at Calvary UMC in Frederick. I described it in this way: The Harry Potter story is one in which love for friends and for the world wins out against this relentless drive for power and control. God uses our vulnerabilities (weaknesses) too.

Scripture:
2 Corinthians 12:6-10 (NRSV)
But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. 
 
Luke 22:24-27 (NRSV)
A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest. But he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.” 
 
Sermon: Power and Weakness
Let us pray: 

Patient teacher, we know we seek to control our own lives, but you remind us through scripture and story that you have different intentions for us. You intend us to love. So be with us in worship this morning, speak through the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts, so we draw ever closer to your intentions for us. Amen.

I have a confession to make. I am a huge nerd. I know that is surprising to all of you, but I had to preface my sermon this week with that. When I wrote my ordination paperwork, I referenced Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings and probably Star Wars and Firefly too. So I am pretty used to connecting the Bible to my geekery. And that’s what we did this past week. We looked at the popular world of Harry Potter and used it to teach about Biblical stories and Christian values in our second Vacation Bible School of the summer. 
 
One of those values has really struck me lately. The Harry Potter story is an illustration not just of a battle between good and evil but between the love of power and the power of love.
Sure, there are definitely evil characters in the books. Lord Voldemort is the epitome of evil: he has no redeeming qualities and really spent his whole life being evil, even his childhood. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, the heroes of the story, are a little more complex, but they are at their cores good people. I would think many of us would prefer to think of ourselves as the Harrys, Rons, or Hermiones of the world, but even though evil is apparent even in our own communities, I think we would be hard pressed to point to someone and label them as the embodiment of evil the way Lord Voldemort is in the story. And so we can distance ourselves from the story. Oh, we think, we would join resistance movements if we lived in that kind of world, but we don’t, so as long as we are nice to people that counts as acting out goodness in the world. We have less responsibility in this framing of the story as good v. evil. So I want us to look at it differently. This is not just a battle of good over evil, but of power and weakness.

Did you catch that phrase in our scripture reading today about power and weakness? Paul, was writing to the Corinthian community in what sounds like a defensive way. Someone must have accused him of being weak, of being not as important as everyone made him out to be. I mean, if someone refered to me as weak, I would probably be mad. And Paul probably was too. But his response is not to show power, not to prove that he was strong, but to agree with the criticism. Yes, he says, yes I am weak. This, as my friend David points out, is a truly vulnerable moment for Paul.

He tells his Corinthian readers that he is hurting; really hurting. He is looking for God to take something from him, some part of him that caused him deep pain. We don’t know what it is, but we do know that Paul wants to be done with it. He wants an instant cure.¹ 

And he admits to that desire to the whole Corinthian community. He is hurting and uses the famous phrase everyone wonders about: he says he has a thorn in his flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7). We don’t know what it is. But I understand his desire to be done with pain and want an instant cure. 
 
My understanding comes not from a physical illness or pain in my own life, but from the pain that comes from being vulnerable enough to love and then having to face losing that love. Brené Brown, a researcher and storyteller, defines “vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”² It is easy to decide the risk is too great, to decide that feeling is linked with failing, with weakness, and we try to shut ourselves off from vulnerability. This is what Voldemort’s whole life illustrates. His father left, mother died, he grew up in an orphanage, and so even as a child, he decided that loving someone who could leave him or die was too great a risk. Instead, he would focus on what he could control and began to pursue power and success at any cost. 
 

Over and over again throughout the books, Voldemort scoffs at the power of love. When he confronts Harry Potter in the Chamber of Secrets, he wants to know the great power that protected Harry as a baby, and when he discovers that Harry was protected by his mother’s love, Voldemort dismisses that as luck.³ Voldemort always believed that if he discovered a more powerful wand, or used more powerful magic, he would never have to love anyone and risk being hurt by them. But that meant that he never risked knowing the power of love either.⁴ He was so afraid of experiencing the thorn in his side that Paul spoke of, so afraid of being weak, that he never knew the true strength of love. 

When Voldemort was preparing to face Harry Potter for the last time, one of his henchmen asked to go find Harry and bring him to Voldemort. Voldemort declined the offer, saying “[You do not understand Potter] as I do. I know his weakness, you see, his one great flaw. He will hate watching the others struck down around him, knowing that it is for him that it happens. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come.”⁵ Voldemort called Harry's love for his friends, his compassion for those who were hurting, his willingness to sacrifice himself for others, a weakness. And surely, Harry felt weak in the Battle. Over and over again, the narrator describes how Harry tries to compartmentalize as he sees the death toll rise, tries to keep putting one foot in front of the other, but he feels so much pain. And still he is willing to give up his own life for the ones that he loves. And that love is what kept him alive when he was thought to be dead. That love, that weakness--- spoiler alert--- wins. 

Now, I don't think any of us are like Voldemort, not in the sense of his complete failure to empathize or feel remorse, but I do think we sometimes avoid being vulnerable because we don’t want to risk, we don’t want to appear weak, we don’t want to hurt. And we don’t want to change. Maybe we don’t trust that love actually wins. Many of you know I have had multiple miscarriages and suffer with infertility, and I have found that despite all the ways I have witnessed love winning in the pursuit of parenthood, despite all the different ways there are to parent, there are absolutely times I want to shut myself off, stop trying to be a mother in any way and just do something different. Maybe take up juggling? Have you ever felt that way? In the wake of a divorce or a friend’s betrayal or a lost job or an unexpected death, do you want to run away, shut yourself off from feeling? Find some way to not feel so weak and exposed?

Or maybe your avoidance of vulnerability comes within community. Maybe you don’t want to argue anymore, so you don’t engage with anyone about politics who doesn’t agree with you unless it is to shut them down. Maybe you are afraid of illness and so you don’t want to visit anyone in the hospital, not matter how lonely they may be. Maybe you are uncomfortable around people speaking a different language and so you belittle them and avoid them and start to believe they are profoundly different from you. To be vulnerable means that we might have to feel not only our pain, but also another’s pain. And if we feel someone else’s pain, we might feel a responsibility to do something to support them. 
 
Harry, Ron, and Hermione are vulnerable throughout the story. And their vulnerabilities are risks, they do get hurt. Harry spends so much of the books looking for a father figure in the headmaster Dumbledore, in his godfather Sirius, in teachers like Lupin and Mad-Eye Moody. And these figures often fail him in some way; they hide truth from him, they leave him, they turn out to be someone they are not, or they simply make a mistake. And yet from each of these figures, Harry learns love and grows stronger in that love. Even with their betrayals and failures, still that love built him up to be the hero he becomes at the end of the story. 
 
And that’s the point Paul is trying to get across, I think. He is acknowledging that he is just like us, just like Harry. He doesn’t want to hurt. He doesn’t want to be so vulnerable. He has asked God to take away his weakness. But God didn’t take away his weakness, and God doesn’t take away ours either. Through Paul’s prayers, God speaks to him and all of us, saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Through the Harry Potter story, through our own lives, we see the same thing. True power, the power of love, is made perfect in weakness, in vulnerability. In taking risks and walking without certainty.

This is what Christ asks of us. This is how Jesus himself lived. In our Gospel story today, Jesus reminded his disciples that true greatness isn’t about power but about service. Throughout Jesus’ life, he consistently chose love over power, even though that meant instead of a crown of gold he wore a crown of thorns. He chose love even when facing violence and ridicule. But this choice of love is the power of Christ. That in our vulnerability, in our risk taking, in our weakness, love has the last word over death. 
 
My question for you, for us, to go home with this week is in what ways do we choose love? Not in what ways are we good and nice to other people, but in what ways do we open ourselves to one another, even when it makes us weak and vulnerable? In what ways is God making us perfect in our weakness, perfect in our love?

1David Finnegan-Hosey, Christ on the Psych Ward (New York: Church Publishing, 2018), 67.
2Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (New York: Gotham Books, 2012), 34.
3J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, (New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic Press, 1999) 317.
4See J.K. Rowling, “Chapter 35: King's Cross,” Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, (New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic Press, 2007) 705-723.
5J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, (New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic Press, 2007) 654.

Wasted?

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Manna Collecting at Our Feet: A Review of Christ on the Psych Ward

As a pastor and chaplain, I have experienced the presence of Christ on behavioral health units, or psych wards. I led a weekly Bible study on a local behavioral health unit as a volunteer chaplain, and served on a behavioral health unit as the student chaplain before that. Nearly every experience I had on the behavioral health unit brought me face to face with God. One week, we read the Beatitudes together in Bible study, and we spoke of how blessing does not mean being lucky, because we did not feel very lucky that day on the locked-down unit. It does not mean being prosperous. It means God is walking alongside of us, choosing us, whether or not we realize it. So many weeks, a patient would lead us in prayer for another patient, for me, for our world, in a way that we would know the Holy Spirit was with us. It was hard, too; especially on days when everyone sat and stared at me, or when someone tried to read scripture out loud but couldn’t because the hospital didn’t have Bibles at a more accessible reading level, or when I met someone who was so angry I remembered why the nurses’ station gave me a panic button. But even then, God was there, offering love again and again. When I would share (in very general terms to keep confidentiality) about my experiences on the behavioral health unit, my parishioners would begin to open up about their own stories of mental health struggles. In his new book, David Finnegan-Hosey asserts, "telling our stories is an act of resistance to the alienation and isolation of mental illness." And we have found, in telling those stories, in resisting alienation and isolation, we draw closer to one another and to God.

 David Finnegan-Hosey has written a book to help us tell those stories and to share his own. Christ on the Psych Ward is part memoir about his experience in and out of psych wards and part theological text, using the Biblical story to help frame not only his story but all of our stories. As he tells his story, he helps us discover what my congregation was beginning to discover as we broke the silence around mental illness. He writes, "Rather than a conversation about people with mental illness, and how the church can help them, I want the church to listen to and hear the stories of people with mental illness, and to discover the surprising gifts we have to offer."

One of the most surprising gifts that Christ on the Psych Ward offers was not surprising to me at all, because I have known David for a long time.* I found it incredibly refreshing to experience his readings of scripture, especially his interpretation of Genesis 3, the story we often refer to as "The Fall." He asks questions of the text, doesn't fall into easy readings, and, from the depths of the psych ward, shows us why these stories and how we read them matter. Who told you you were naked? God asks in Genesis 3:11a. And David imagines God's voice shaking, saying, "Who told you...that you were lacking in anything? Who told you that you were anything but beautiful and good?" These are questions of life and death when read from psych wards, but they are also questions of life and death that our faith communities should be wrestling with instead of perpetuating tired agendas of shame. I want to use this book not only to interrupt the stigma of behavioral health struggles in church, but also to teach confirmands about sin and shame and challenge Sunday school classes to locate the presence of God in their own lives every day.

I found refreshing challenge in David's words, and I also found grace. This book gives us, clergy and Christians and simply people who are seeking, the grace that is God’s vulnerability in our own vulnerability. When I first read this book, it was on the eve of the first anniversary of my beloved mother-in-law’s unexpected death and while recovering from surgery before my last (in this chapter at least) attempt to live out my call to have a baby. And so I found myself drawn in because of my own need, not only as a pastor, but as a child of God. David speaks of God’s grace being sufficient for us, about learning to take life day by day, moment by moment. He said in the psych ward, he kept a “victory column,” with things like getting out of bed, taking a shower, eating a meal, and other small wins, to help him notice the sufficiency of grace we have to help us get by. He said, using the story from Exodus 16, “Perhaps we are all struggling, longing for an abundance that seems always out of reach, missing the manna collecting at our feet." David’s book was some of that manna collecting at my feet as I struggled on a difficult day. It was a surprising gift, much like many of the patients I have worked with behavioral health unit and the sharing of stories in my own congregation. May it be so for you as well.

Manna collecting at my feet. Or, in this case, laying on my feet and snoring.

*David and I met on a mission trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2006. We got to work together often in United Methodist Church circles, but he has since joined the United Church of Christ because The UMC's commitment to justice has rotted as we continue to discriminate against queer folks and as we have been unwilling to listen to and act upon our missionaries' call to peace in Israel/Palestine (among other things). The whole time I read this book, I lamented the loss of his voice in our denomination (the guy is so freaking Wesleyan, really) and wonder at the sheer number of passionate theologians The UMC has lost or silenced because we just can't love our neighbors. But that is a whole other blog post.

Birthday parties for those who are gone

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Leaning into God: Living by Faith

A sermon for Calvary UMC right before Reformation Sunday.

Scripture: Romans 1:16-17,3:21-31 (NRSV)

For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”

…

But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Sermon:

Let us pray:

Patient teacher, we give you thanks for your wisdom and ask that you move among us to open our hearts to receive that wisdom. Speak to us this morning through the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts. Amen.

October is a wonderful month, and October this year is very special. It started with a very important birthday of my own, and it is ending with a very important anniversary--- 500 years since the Protestant Reformation began. One of those days may be a bigger deal historically than the other. But anyway, this month we are celebrating with a sermon series on the important themes of the reformation that continue to help us reform today. Last week, Pastor Steve preached on God's sovereignty, a much needed message in the midst of the chaos that sometimes seems overwhelming. Today we will talk about another key theme: living by faith.

Faith is one of those words we use a lot without being too clear on what it means. Sometimes we use it to mean trust. I have faith in the new directors that the next Star Wars movie will be good. Or, perhaps more relevant for us in church today, we have faith that God is at work in the world. Sometimes we use faith to mean believing in what we can't see. Hebrews 11:1 is one of the more famous Biblical definitions: Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Belief in heaven, for example, or the resurrection of Jesus. And faith is those things. But I think the definition of faith we often forget, the one that Paul speaks of in our scripture today, is more than trust, more than belief. Faith is the ability to open ourselves to receive the gift of grace God has already offered to us.

Martin Luther, the German monk who lit the tinder that began the Protestant Reformation five hundred years ago, became obsessed with the concept of faith.¹ Luther was a monk, faith was his job. He was trained in the faith, immersed in scripture. And still, he doubted. He felt distant from God, sure his sins could never be forgiven and he would find himself eternally punished. He sought to discover what good works could cleanse him. And yet, still he felt distant, and he began to see how the payment of indulgences that were created to help assuage people of their guilt and give them a way to atone for their sins prevented people from truly connecting with God. It wasn't until he discovered this passage in Romans that we read today, let it sink into his heart, that he realized he had gotten faith all wrong. In reading how the righteous will live by faith, he felt the “burden of his soul” begin to roll away.² He knew he no longer had to earn his salvation. That God has done the work. He had only to open himself to God and receive the gift of grace.

Luther preached this good news of faith his whole life. The Church was Reformed, and for five hundred years we have experienced the peace and joy that comes with the assurance that God loves us and forgives us, right? Well, apparently, this ability to walk by faith is more difficult than it appears. Though it ought to bring us relief, though it ought to feel for us like we have strong, comforting arms wrapped around us in love, too often we want to be in control. Believing we can earn our own salvation means that we have some control, that we don't have to rely on God after all. If we check the right things off a list, or if we pay the right amount of money, we can control our fate. We can earn God's love.

Only, have you tried to earn someone's love before? How did it work out for you? But we still do it all the time. This is not a problem of the medieval Catholics, my friends. Even today we find it easier to clench our fists in control than we do to open our hands to receive.

Two hundred years after Luther nailed 95 theses about how we are made right with God through our faith not through our works, John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism, was also struggling with his faith. John Wesley was the son of a preacher. He experienced a miracle as a young child being saved from a fire. He started a club in college with his brother and other friends that earned them the name Methodist because their practice of faith was so regulated, scheduled, methodical. He became a missionary, crossing the Atlantic to preach to people in Georgia in early 1736. He was on board a ship bound for the Georgia colony when a ferocious storm shredded the main sail and flooded the decks. Many of the English passengers aboard screamed in terror that they would soon be swallowed by the deep. But a group of Moravian missionaries from Germany calmly sang throughout the squall. They were unafraid of death, an astounded John Wesley later recounted in his journal. But it wasn't until two years later on May 24 that Wesley, back in England, discouraged by the path his life had taken, and miserable, stumbled into a Moravian society meeting. He would never have gone if he did not remember the calm singing on the ship two years before. That evening someone read from Luther's Preface to the Epistle to Romans. About 8:45 p.m., he writes, “while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

Wesley realized that as much as he tried, he could not control God's love for him. It is a free gift. The Moravians he saw on that boat understood that gift. They found peace even when it was difficult because they were secure in God's love for them. They knew God was with them through the storm. They didn't have to compete for God's affections, or try desperately to get God's attention. Their hands were open, and they trusted God.

I myself have been try to unclench my hands and open myself to receive God. As I have mentioned to you before, I might not be the most organized person in my everyday life, but I have a plan. Graduate college, graduate seminary, get a job, get married, get ordained, have kids...only that last piece hasn't worked so well for me. Three years of trying, two miscarriages, and decreasing hope. Last year, I lamented to a friend that hope hurts too much. That I don't trust hope. And so she told me not to focus on hope. She said, focus on faith. Lean into God in troubled times, stop trying to control everything, and look for the good things in life. Seek the gifts instead of just the things you are missing. Around the same time, someone gave me a simple gift, a candle in a jar with the words, “Faith does not make things easy--- it makes them possible.” And for a year, I have lit that candle and prayed. I have tried to lean into God when I am feeling bitter and hurt and lost. I have given thanks when I don't really want to because there is always something to be thankful for. I have tried to let go of all the “shoulds” I have in my life. This should have happened. And instead I have tried to see God beside me and receive not the grace I think I should receive, but the grace I already have just for being a child of God.

Now, Wesley still struggled with doubt, and so did Luther, and I certainly will too. Wesley wondered why he wasn't more joyful sometimes. Reformation is a constant process, which I hope you will find through this sermon series. Faith is a journey. It is something we have to live by.

I don't know that one day I will wake up and lean into God naturally, always seeing the beauty and possibility in every day. Luther and Wesley didn't. But in those moments they did, in those moments I do, that is what it looks like to live by faith.

So in what ways do you clench your hands, telling God that you know a better way of doing things, or simply unable to believe that God could love you of all people? And what can help you to open your hands ever wider to receive the gift of grace God offers us? My prayer for all of us is that we can continue to reform our own hearts, that we may live by faith.

1Marin E. Marty, Ocober 31, 1517: Martin Luther and the Day that Changed the World (Brewster, Massachusetts: Paraclete Press, 2016), 19 and 23.

2“We Live By Faith- Romans 1,” 1 June 2005, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, accessed 14 October 2017, https://worship.calvin.edu/resources/resource-library/we-live-by-faith-romans-1/.

Love Never Ends

My last sermon for Presbury UMC.

Scripture:

1 Corinthians 13:1-3, 8-13 (NRSV)

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

...

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

2 Corinthians 13:11-13 (NRSV)

Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

Sermon:

Let us pray:

Patient teacher, we give you thanks. We should always start with thanks because no matter how weak our faith or how slim our hope, we always have your love. So we thank you. And we ask through the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts this morning that you may help us always to name that love and be part of that love ourselves this day and always. Amen.

How many of you like love stories? Me too! In the famous romance story Star Wars, the first time Han and Leia express their love for one another, it went a little something like this:

That is true love right there. What does it have to do with our scripture from 1^st and 2^nd Corinthians? Nothing, I just wanted to make a Star Wars reference in my goodbye sermon to all of you.

Anyway, love stories have been on my mind as I prepared to say goodbye to all of you. Not romantic ones, except for Star Wars of course. Even though this 1 Corinthians 13 passage is frequently used at weddings, the love it describes is not a romantic love in the least. The apostle Paul who wrote this letter to the early Corinthians church was not the most romantic guy. He wanted us to understand at least a little bit the kind of love that God has for us. You see, romantic love may inspire us, spark something within us, but it is not stable. It must be grounded in commitment if it is to endure any length of time, and even then it does not always last. But that doesn't mean love, the love that God has used as the foundation of our being, the love God has taught us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the love that God offers us each and every day through the movement of the Spirit, is not stable. In fact, the scripture verse that keeps coming to mind is the last from this chapter: And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

I talked about faith not long ago. I said that it was more than just believing something to be true. Intellectually, we may know something to be true, but that doesn't always mean that we no longer have doubts in our hearts. Nor is faith the trust that the storms in life will pass or reveal a greater gift. Faith is about leaning into the presence of God even when we are afraid.

And yet, that is easier said than done.

I talked about hope just last week. About how hope can disappoint us, but when it does it is not the hope God is calling us to. God is not calling us to a specific outcome, to be postivie or optimistic. God is calling us to act into the possibilites for good that God is constantly creating.

And yet, still it is hard to hope.

But the greatest of these is love. That's what Paul tells us. In fact, he writes that is all you have is hope, that is not enough. He writes that if all you have is faith, you are nothing. He writes, If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. It almost sounds harsh. But my experience is that this love is what sustains us when our faith slips. Love is what holds onto hope when we no longer can. Love can transform us in the darkest hour of our lives because love never ends.

In the last four years I have been your pastor, I have seen the transformational power of love through this church. I have watched when I bring one of you with me to see someone in the hospital or at home, and I have seen their whole faces change. Sure it means a lot to have the pastor come visit, but to have a fellow church member come visit, someone you have known for years, that means something even more. I have watched as you have offered help to one another, whether it is a ride somewhere or letting someone stay with you. One person told me this week that even though she doesn't have biological family in Edgewood anymore, people in church have adopted her and become her family, taking her to doctor's appointments, bringing her meals, and helping her find someone to help around the house. Another told me he introduces members of the church as his siblings because that's how connected he feels. I have been witness to the transforming power of love as our youth have gone on mission trips and as our children have played with a Muslim youth group. I have watched people sit and listen with our guests experiencing homelessness at the shelter, offering them anointing for healing. I have watched you love one another as Jesus loved us, which was the commandment he gave to us before his death and resurrection in the Gospel of John.

I, too, have been on the receiving end of that love. When I came to Presbury, I'd like to think I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to work. Deer Creek and Mt. Tabor had taught me how to pastor, and helped me to fall in love with the church again, and I was ready to get to know you and jump right into ministry. You put up with my hare-brained ideas, indulged my geeky-ness, and cleaned up after me when I threw confetti around everywhere. You welcomed Aaron, and even though he still considers himself to be a Baptist, he knows you are his church home. He felt included and valued and discipled here. And when we had the worst year of our lives, you were there, laying hands on Aaron to ask for his healing, sending us cards and sharing your own stories of loss so we did not feel so alone, and continually telling me you were praying for me. You caravaned to Washington D.C. to celebrate my ordination. You hugged us, laughed more with us that at us, cried with us, and continue to cover us in prayer. That love has lifted us up, kept us floating above water when we have struggled with our grief and anxiety so much that our own faith and hope have waned. God poured love into you, and you poured it out onto us.

Maybe using the Star Wars clip about love was not so disjointed after all. Me telling you that I love you may make you want to say, duh, we know. But I don't think you do know how much your love has carried us through. You might say that it is your work as the church to love. And it is. But churches are not often described as loving places, but rather as places of judgment and hypocrisy. But even when we fall short here at Presbury, we are still a loving community, trying to learn to love better. So thank you--- which incidentally was my response to Aaron when he first told me he loved me. But that's another story.

Love doesn't always get the words right, the way that faith tries to. Love doesn't work toward vision of what the future will hold, the way faith does. Love is. We know only in part, as Paul reminds us. But love reminds us that we are fully known by God, in all our struggles, in our defeats, in our joys, and God loves us.

God expresses that love to others through us. Our world is in such need of the love that is crammed into the people in this building. After a week of news of mass shootings at even a congressional baseball game wondering when it will be difficult for people who should not have guns to get guns, of yet another trial in which a murder of a black man is seen as inconsequential when the officer who killed Philando Castile was acquitted, and yet another trial that reminds us why so few people report sexual abuse that ended with a deadlocked jury because can women be believed over a rich, powerful man? And that's just the news. What hurt is here in our church, here in our community? Such hurt cannot be healed except with love. You have shown it to me and to one another. You have shared it in service and in mission. And you need to keep on sharing it now, with your new pastor Tiffany, with your siblings in this new church partnership at Cranberry, and with all of Edgewood. Because you never know who is feeling drained of their faith and hope and in need of a little love to remind them why they are on this earth in the first place. You yourself may be in that position. Your faith may feel a little shaky, like mine has, especially since Aaron's mom died. Your hope may flicker like it is going out, like mine has through this whole journey of infertility and miscarriage. As you face this new transition with a new pastor and a new partner church, your faith and hope may be solid but you may still be nervous and anxious. But love never ends. You only have to turn to one another to find the love that God pours out through us.

Thank you for the ways you have been part of my love story with God. And for allowing me to be part of yours. I look forward to seeing how the story continues with Pastor Tiffany and continues as Aaron and I go to Calvary. When Paul wrote the second letter to the Corinthians, he gave them farewell advice. It's short advice, and good, but my advice for you is simply to love one another. For, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians and I am sure is true for you, the God of love and peace will be with you. Always. Amen.

A Tribute to My Mother-In-Law

We lost my husband Aaron's mother a day before her fifty-sixth birthday and a week and a day before Aaron's thirtieth birthday. This is what I shared at her celebration of life. 

I am Shannon Sullivan, Bonnie's daughter-in-law. Or Ms. Bonnie, as I usually call her. What can I say--- it's hard to break habits from high school. We all know the stereotype of the relationship between mothers-in-law and their daughters-in-law, but it probably won't surprise you to know that Ms. Bonnie was not like that. In fact she supported me and defended me and continually checked in to make sure that Aaron was treating me all right. Even though my sisters insist that I am the reacher and Aaron is the settler in our relationship, Ms. Bonnie--- and David too--- always looked out for me. “That Aaron better be spending time with you instead of always going to the airport!” she would say to me.  

The first time I went to Aaron's house as his girlfriend, Aaron and I went walking through the woods and came back with the bottoms of my jeans caked in mud. She was mortified, worrying that my parents would never let me come back. So she made me borrow a pair of Aaron's pants so she could wash mine. And his pants fit me. Kind of a terrible experience for a fifteen-year-old girl who knew little about body positivity, but I later joked that we would have to get married because we would save so much money on pants if we could borrow one another's! But it was just the first of many ways she took care of me--- of us--- even while she made us laugh, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Mr. Mike told us the other night that she knew Aaron and I would get married when we went away for college even though we went to different colleges. But she never said anything to Aaron because she never wanted to influence him. Sure, she gave advice, but she always wanted us to make our own decisions and supported us no matter what we did.  

But it was her faith that really was transformational. There's a story in the Bible about the relationship between a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law. It's the book of Ruth. In it, a woman named Naomi loses her husband and both sons and decides to move back to her own country. One daughter-in-law kisses her and wishes her well but another clings to her and ends up going with her to Bethlehem. That one is Ruth, whose name means friend, and Ruth really took care of Naomi in the fog of her grief and nourished her into life. Bonnie was more like Ruth was in this story for me, and I was more like Naomi, especially this year. Naomi at one point says change her name to Mara, because Mara means bitter and she thinks God has dealt bitterly with her (Ruth 1:20). I felt a lot like Naomi this past year. Now, Ruth's life was one big struggle too, but she does not give up, as Naomi actually does and I felt like doing at times too. And Ms. Bonnie never gave up either. 

I was one of the people who helped care for my mother-in-law on and off for the past two years. I would come over to her house to help with meals and moving around, but I would bring my grief baggage and my frustration with God and my hopelessness that I would ever have a baby. Ms. Bonnie always had hope, for herself, for me. She was always there to give me an encouraging word. She would often say that it was so hard because she couldn't do anything, couldn't offer anything because she was so weak. Carrying hope for someone who doesn't have anymore is a pretty big offering. So is prayer. She and Mr. Mike would pray for Aaron and I every day, even while Aaron and my prayers were often focused on ourselves because of how isolating our grief and anxiety can be; she didn't let her physical isolation and even later her depression keep her from directing her energy for prayer towards others. She was a true friend, a woman who was always giving, always loving, in spite of her own pain and in spite of my frequent bitterness.  

Chaplain Allen Seigel at Upper Chesapeake read Proverbs 31:10-31 as Ms. Bonnie was dying. Verse 29 says, “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” Bonnie did surpass them all. And even though I am still thinking of changing my name to Mara sometimes, I give thanks to God for Bonnie's friendship, her guidance, her prayers. And I know the love of Christ that she taught us will still sustain us as a family always.

After the flood you set in the clouds a rainbow: more reflections on miscarriage

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https://www.shannonesullivan.com/blog/setintheclouds

A Great Thanksgiving: An Appalachia Service Project Reflection

Presbury United Methodist Church has partnered with the Norrisville Charge United Methodist Churches the last three years to take youth to serve through the Appalachia Service Project. This is my reflection on this year's trip and a slightly edited version is posted on the ASP blog. I am so grateful for their willingness to break the silence around miscarriage and posting this reflection.

This content has moved to https://www.shannonesullivan.com/blog/a-great-thanksgiving-an-appalachia-service-project-reflection

On the Day of my Ordination

In college, I told one of my friends that when I grew up I just wanted to love people. He made an inappropriate comment at the time (ahem, Jeff), but I have pursued ordination as a way to live into that calling to just love people. And on my ordination day today, I find myself feeling like the most loved person in the world.

It has been a difficult day for me in many ways. My grandmothers should be here. My baby should be filling up my womb. They aren't and it isn't anymore. And I am being ordained into a church that has refused God's call on T.C. Morrow, who should have been to be commissioned today but was not. So the love I have felt today has been threaded through with loss, the loss caused by grief and the loss caused by injustice.

But even in that loss I have felt God's arms wrapped around me as family and mentors, friends from high school and seminary, colleagues, parishioners and co-ministers drove all the way here to celebrate with me, whoop-whooped in support as Bishops prayed over me, commissioned me to take on the mantle of trouble-maker and justice-seeker, and covered social media with well-wishes and encouragement. I have felt hope again, for myself, for the church, for our world. But that hope is not just a nice, warm feeling, but a charge to keep moving (thank you Bishop King for preaching exactly the words I needed to hear and also for mentioning Star Wars). Because God has work for us to do.

A Forsaken God

What follows is a sermon on the Fourth Word for a community Seven Last Words service. Seven United Methodist Churches (with 6 pastors) came together to remember the crucifixion: Cokesbury Memorial, Presbury, Union, Union Chapel, Clarks, and New Hope Christian Fellowship UMCs. As usual, I wish I had more time to work on it...there are a few places that seem rough and not quite as pointed as I would hope. But the Holy Spirit spoke anyway. 

Scripture: Mark 15:33-39 (NRSV) 
When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. (34) At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “Listen, he is calling for Elijah.” And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” 

Reflection:
Let us pray:

Even from the cross you are our patient teacher. You turn to scripture when words fail. On this dark night, when words fail us, may the whispers of all our hearts and the words of my mouth proclaim your love for us, declaring in the words of the Psalmist that, indeed, God has done it! Amen.

A teenage boy, childhood memories undoubtedly filled with images of violence and a constant undercurrent of fear, stands at the border between Greece and Macedonia in a makeshift refugee camp. He holds a plain sign with these words written across it: “sorry for Brussels.” But it is not an apology; it is a gesture of solidarity, for he, too, (better than anyone in Brussels) knows what it's like to be surrounded by bombing, to see the dead in the streets, to live in constant fear. And now he has escaped, only to find himself mired in a camp in which the “living conditions are poor, and children his age are suffering from dysentery, influenza and scabies. Food, proper shelter and clothing are also scarce.”¹ And now he does not only have to worry about his own fear of death, but also that he has suddenly become the object of fear. He can see it in the faces of those on the other side of the border, hear it in the anti-immigrant rhetoric that seeps into the camp.

And I wonder if his words don't echo Jesus': “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
And then someone else somewhere else says the same thing. Maybe it's because they've heard of another terrorist attack, or another innocent gunned down, or another child taken away from abusive parents. Maybe it's because they have heard about another family or community member overdosing. Maybe it's after getting the diagnosis of cancer or depression or Alzheimer's. Or after losing a job or a baby or a spouse. Or maybe they are the sole caretaker of a loved one and are feeling overwhelmed. Or maybe they are facing abuse from a loved one and keep hoping they can fix them. The list goes on, but the sense of abandonment is the same. You have felt it too, being cut off from everyone around you, even if you, like the young boy with his sign, are surrounded by thousands of people. You know what it feels to say, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Jesus' cry on the cross, the last words he says before his death according to the Gospel of Mark, is a familiar one to us, even if we are not familiar with the story of the crucifixion, and even if we aren't familiar with Psalm 22, which is the scripture that Jesus echoes in this cry. Mark's community, and Jesus' as well, would have known Psalm 22. Without reciting the whole psalm, that opening line gives us insight to the anguish Jesus felt. The psalmist goes on to say, “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up...and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death” (Psalm 22:14-15). This is the depth of despair Jesus felt on that cross. Many times we "theologize" the despair, labeling this as the only moment when Jesus was fully human and not fully divine. For surely God could not be so powerless. Surely God could not be so like us. 
 
Besides, we don't want a God who cries like we do, feels forsaken like we do. We want a God who swoops in to save us, who breaks down the barrier between Macedonia and Greece for that young boy, who flicks away bullets Matrix-style from the bodies of young black men, who cures cancer and rescues the abused. We want an awesome display of power, complete with fireworks, worthy of a big budget action film.

But in that way, we are more like the crowd watching the crucifixion that day than we are like true disciples. We often think of the crowd as being bloodthirsty, wanting to see suffering, wanting to get rid of Jesus and his blasphemy once and for all, but the Gospel of Mark shows a secret desire within the crowd for Jesus to win. “The crowd wanted to 'see' a miracle”--- as someone claims when they say, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” They wanted to see a God who comes to us, crosses split in two, guns blazing, Roman soldiers and abusive religious leaders scattered in terror. But what they see instead is the Human One, the Word became Flesh.² Oh, we will get triumph and glory--- just you wait and see--- but it will not come as we expect it to come. Instead, Good Friday teaches us that God comes to us broken, feeling everything that we feel, even the very worst feeling any of us has ever had: that is, feeling forsaken by even God. That is incarnation. God does not just sample our emotions when God puts on flesh and dwells among us. God in Jesus feels what it means to be human to the very depths of how awful and frightening and lonely it can be.

So, even when we cry out, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” we are not really forsaken. Our God is beside us, knowing our pain intimately, crying with us, even when we don't realize it. Jesus is holding up that sign with the teenage boy, “Sorry for...” not as an apology for tragedy and hardship but as a reminder that he understands our fear and pain better than anyone.

We still want a God who fixes everything. Who overturns the oppressors, exchanges our pain for pleasure, and keeps the shadows at bay. The story, of course, is incomplete without Easter, in which we do find a kind of triumph and power.³ But for a moment, for tonight, I want us to sit with our incarnate God, God-with-us, and open our hearts to the one who knows our struggle completely. Because the point of Good Friday is not God's power. The point is God's presence. On Good Friday and every day God chooses to love us, no matter how vulnerable that makes God to us. Over and over again, God chooses love. What do we choose?


1Kathleen Wong, “In Wake of Belgium Bombings, Refugee Child Holds Up Sign That Says, 'Sorry for Brussels,'” 22 March 2016, News.Mic, accessed 23 March 2016, http://mic.com/articles/138647/in-wake-of-belgium-bombings-refugee-child-holds-up-sign-that-says-sorry-for-brussels#.hoNGTwV0t.
2Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus, Twentieth Anniversary Edition (Mayknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2015), 390.
3Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, “Palm Sunday,” The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem ( New York: HarperCollins, 2006), location 2409 of 3342.