Another due date

Another due date. Still no baby.

I am not hopeful like I was on our last due date. In fact, we conceived our son a week after my last due date, but, like the first baby, he died too. All my babies are dead, and I have since discovered that without genetic testing of an embryo before implantation, we have a slim chance of ever having a living baby, especially because I can't get pregnant easily in the first place.

And yet, as I preached from Paul's Letter to the Romans 5:1-5 and Rebecca Solnit's book Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities just two Sundays ago, hope is not the same as positivity and optimism. That kind of hope disappoints, as I have suffered three years to receive the gift that I have known I wanted since I was twenty-months-old and became a big sister for the first time. I know that no matter how much I may hope to bear a child, I may never become pregnant. And I am comforted that the medical end of our journey to become parents is in sight. But hope is really about action; it is about living into possibilities that we cannot begin to imagine, but that we can still influence in one way or another. As we begin this journey in our new house and new city with new jobs, we continue to act to build our family. Because those actions may influence us to become better parents and better Christians and better activists and more authentically ourselves. Because those actions may be a glimmer of light for someone else who is struggling. Because those actions are ways we can move forward in love for ourselves, love for others, and love for God.

I didn't notice until after we bought the house, but there is a maple tree and a scraggly pine tree framing our home. Both are the trees I remember my autumn and Christmas babies by.

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.

You are a child of God

You are a child of God.

No matter what people think about you. No matter what you think about yourself. You are a child of God, and no one--- NO ONE--- can separate you from God's love. That's what we were reminding ourselves of today at the spring meeting of the Judicial Council of The United Methodist Church.

The Judicial Council is like the Supreme Court of our church, and for years their docket has been filled with complaints pertaining to human sexuality. Today's meeting was no exception. However, these meetings are not usually open to the public, except today. Today, the Judicial Council heard oral arguments over whether or not the election of a married lesbian to the office of bishop in the Western Jurisdiction is lawful under our Book of Discipline. The bishop in question is Bishop Karen Oliveto, a fellow Drewid who I have worked with at General Conference and marched beside on the fiftieth anniversary of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,'s "I Had a Dream" speech. She is a true leader and one of the most pastoral people I have ever met. She is also one of the most Wesleyan! Today, one of my professors from Drew described her as "one of the best of us" clergy. It is heartbreaking and horrifying to listen to a fellow clergyperson from the South Central Jurisdiction continually using the words "null, void, unlawful" when speaking of the ministry and person of such an amazing child of God. But then, the Book of Discipline itself uses the phrase "incompatible with Christian teaching" in reference to same-gender loving people, so why should we be so surprised?

But in spite of witnessing the church at its worst in this trial, I also witnessed the church at its best. I have not been organizing with this particular church community at the last convocation or General Conference because of depression accompanying my infertility and miscarriages, turning me inward, sapping my energy. Today, though, a clergy colleague called me up and encouraged me to drive to New Jersey with her, and I am so glad we went. I got to see old friends and professors and classmates. I met people I have only met online and made new connections. I sang Mark Miller songs and received communion. I saw people who have been beaten down stand up straight and live into their calling. I was witness to the persistence of the resurrection. I witnessed how no matter how much death we might experience, God is still bringing about new life.

When we arrived, we stood in the lobby to pray before going into the hearing. And we started to sing: "No matter what people think. Think or say about you. You are a child, you are a child of God! No matter what the church days, decisions, pronouncements on you, You are a child, you are a child of God!" And as we sang, Bishop Oliveto and Robin walked out among us on their way to the room where the hearing was and stopped to greet us. Here they were, and many of us were, feeling discouraged. Perhaps wondering what life could possibly be found in this United Methodist Church. But the life was this community, sprouting up from a deep grounding in love to show how we can live as children of God.

Before we left, we received communion from the United Methodist Queer Clergy Caucus. The tables where the members of the Jurisdictional Conference sat were covered in rainbow stones and bread and juice. The room where words were uttered rejecting the movement of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of queer people was washed in songs about grace and tearing down walls. We reclaimed a space of death for new life where all people are recognized as children of God. We spoke the truth that there is nothing, no one, not even the church, that can separate us from the love of God.   

I am not hopeful about the future of the church based on the work of the Judicial Council or the Commission on a Way Forward. I am hopeful about the future of this church led by the amazing people I saw witnessing to the resurrection today.

Communion reclaiming Judicial Council space

Finished: A Good Friday Sermon

This year Presbury UMC worshiped with Lord of Life Church (ELCA) for Good Friday.


Scripture: John 19:25b-30 (NRSV)
Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Sermon: Finished
Let us pray:

Patient teacher, we hear this story year after year. But even though it may be familiar to us, we ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts startle us into transformation and new life. Amen.

Jesus was dying. The women watched as he, already brutalized, was dragged through the city. They watched as the nails went into his hands, as the cross was lifted up. Their eyesight may have been blurred as they wept, their hearing may have been obscured by their own wailing, but they knew what was happening to their beloved teacher, healer, and savior. They knew his life was finished, and, with it, theirs as well.

We have not been to public executions. They are considered barbaric, though of course this week I learned that the state of Arkansas prepares to put seven people to death in ten days because the drugs they use in executions are set to expire. And of course, you can see plenty of footage on Youtube documenting police shootings in our own country. And of course, we hear almost daily it seems of bombs being dropped, on our behalf we are told, in other parts of the world. But while with these reminders we may catch a glimpse the shame of public executions, the senseless violence of it, most of us do not really understand it. But we do understand pain. And the women at the foot of the cross in the Gospel of John are like we have been at one point or another or maybe like we are now, consumed by our own pain. Wondering how our lives could go on.

 And while the women stood there, hearts breaking, helpless, angry even, Jesus said, “It is finished.” And then he died. So what is finished?¹ His life? We know that not to be the case. His work? Well, I don't know. Have you ever met someone needing healing, redemption, salvation? So then “it” couldn't refer to sin either, since we know there is still some sin left in the world, right? Maybe “it” meant pain, his and others? The women at the foot of the cross could tell you otherwise. We could tell you otherwise. 

Like so much of the Bible, the statement “It is finished” is open ended, resisting easy answers. So you may read it differently than I do. Tomorrow I may read it differently than I do today. But today, I think that Jesus didn't mean all pain was over when he declared, “It is finished.” He didn't mean sin was gone. We read this statement as an ending, but instead it is a beginning.²Even as he was dying, Jesus was promising us a new way to live.

You see, in the Gospel of John, “while the world hurls forth the worst it has to offer, Jesus remains unfazed and triumphant."³ Can you imagine what the women at the foot of the cross felt when they heard Jesus' words? They were despairing and fearful, but he was calm and confident. He wasn't belittling their pain, though; in fact, just a few verses earlier in our scripture, he encouraged them to continue to lean on one another when he told the beloved disciple and his mother that they were family now, saying, “Woman here is your son.” But death did not shake him the way it was shaking them. Because he trusted in God's transforming power. And he declared, even though no one could see it yet, that the old life was gone and new life was beginning already. It is finished.  

Frankly, I always preferred the Jesus of the Gospel of Mark, who cries out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). I want a God who knows my pain. But in the Gospel of John, the women are the ones who know my pain. They are huddled together, broken. But Jesus reaches out to them, not allowing the ugliness of the world defeat him and inviting us not to let it defeat us either. He does not let sorrow have the last word, or pain. In the Gospel of John, new life does not begin in the empty tomb, but even before, even from the cross. Because Jesus shows us possibility where we might never see it. Before the resurrection, he shows us how to remain triumphant even in the midst of pain.

I don't know about you, but this is a lesson I need in my life. Presbury knows that my family and I have struggled a lot in the past year. This is not the first, but the second Easter in a row that I would have been pregnant if I had not miscarried. And I have still not yet experienced the promise of new life. I cannot see it. I don't have certainty that next year or the year after we will finally have a baby. The bitterness gets so overwhelming at times. But Jesus in the Gospel of John on Good Friday tells us we don't need certainty. And he tells us that we don't have to let pain overwhelm us. He tells us it is finished. He doesn't tell us how or when; when he says, “It is finished,” he invites us even in the midst of our pain now, today, to live differently.

So what has to be finished in your lives, and also in our world, for you to walk in this new beginning Jesus has made the way for? On a post-it note, I want you to name, on one side, what needs to be finished in your own life, and on the other side in the world, for us to walk in new beginnings. Maybe it is bitterness and jealousy, like I struggle with after miscarriage. It could be a sin that needs to stop controlling your life. It could be a toxic relationship or a job that keeps you from walking in new beginnings. And on the other side, what needs to be finished in our world? Let us trust Jesus' declaration that it is finished, even when we can't imagine otherwise. I want you to write it down and come forward and nail it or just post it to the cross. We will leave those things there, and prepare our hearts to follow Jesus into a new life trusting the old is finished and there will be--- that there is already--- a new beginning before us.

 1The idea that follows riffs on the commentary by Randall C. Bailey, “Good Friday,” Preaching God's Transforming Justice: A Lectionary Commentary, Year A, eds. Dawn Ottoni-Wilhelm, Ronald J. Allen, and Dale P. Andrews (Lousiville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 192.

2Trygve David Johnson, “Homeletical Perspective on John 18:1-19:42,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year A, Vol. 2, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Lousiville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 301 and 303.

 3Mary Louise Bringle, “Homeletical Perspective on John 18:1-19:42,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Vol. 2, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Lousiville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 309.

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.

An Afternoon in a Refugee Camp

The refugee camp in Bijelo Polje, 2004.

When I was fifteen, I visited a refugee camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I don't remember much about it--- I think the people there were refugees from Kosovo maybe? I don't remember much what the camp director told us about how the camp ran, how many people were there, how long people could expect to be there. But I do remember the children in the camp. How we tried to play games with them but really the kids were clinging to us so tightly we could barely move our arms to toss a ball, and the ball would come right back to us. My sister, who was fourteen then, said she still remembers the face of the little girl who held her hand the entire time. She remembers trying to get her to play but she'd just smile, shake her head and just hold her hand. I remember not all the children had shoes, but perhaps it was just because it was summer? I remember the concrete everywhere--- different from the images of tent cities with blue UN tarps like we usually see on TV nowadays. But this camp was concrete encased in a chain link fence. I remember the faces of the children pressed into the fence as we left.

The woman who translated for us while we were in Bosnia went on to work in a local school there and I remember her telling me that the children at that camp went to her school. So these refugees had different opportunities than ones crossing the sea or living in a tent on a border somewhere. But whenever I hear about refugees in the news, I remember the feel of tiny hands gripping mine with fierce longing. I remember the faces of children so desperate to be treated as something other than a criminal or a burden or unwanted that they were willing to attach themselves to a stranger like me who could not even remotely speak their language or, let's be realistic, throw or catch a ball.

And so when the president of my country issues an executive order banning refugees from entering the country for 120 days--- except those from Syria who will be banned indefinitely--- I get angry. How dare we prioritize a mythical concept of safety over the lives of children? I remember the faces of the kids watching us leave--- those were not the faces of terrorists. Those were not the faces of threats to our national security. They were the faces of children wondering why they lived in a cage. Wondering when they would have a home. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, 65.3 million people around the world have been forced from their homes, including nearly 21.3 million refugees. Over half of refugees are under the age of 18. These are the people we are really rejecting.

So let's stop allowing our politicians to feed us lies about our safety and instead embrace our fellow human beings. Call your representatives. Financially support organizations working with refugees. Reach out to local organizations that help with resettlement (if you are in the Baltimore area, check out the Refugee Youth Project). Pray and work for a world where people are not forced from their homes in pursuit of peace and stability. Remember that it is not our safety that is a concern but the safety of these children in camps.

The people who walk in darkness

Upper Chesapeake Medical Center has restarted a perinatal bereavement support group. I was the first speaker, and the group ended up being relaxed and informal, but this is what I had prepared to say.

In the last year, I have had two miscarriages. The last one was only a few weeks ago. We have been trying to have children for over two years. And I should tell you I am a pastor, so this is a busy time of year for me. It is Advent, the season of preparing our hearts and minds for the coming of Christ by remembering and even reenacting the birth of a baby. It's also a season of waiting.

Does this sound like a super fun time of year for a person dealing with the death of babies and wondering when, if ever, she will ever get pregnant again?

Hint: it's not.

One of the scriptures we read during Advent that I usually open Christmas Eve services with is from the prophet Isaiah. He writes, The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined (Isaiah 9:2). He writes about the Israelites, desperately hoping for a new reign of peace and prosperity after life under the oppression of the Assyrian Empire. Christians read it as the anticipation of Jesus's birth. And it is a scripture that has been sticking with me in this season. Because I feel like those people who walked in darkness--- not (necessarily) because of politics, but because of grief.

I knew I was going to have a miscarriage my first pregnancy. We had conceived on Christmas day last year, which is probably more information than you need to know, but this was after over a year of trying and my desperation was so strong that I basically missed a day of work every month when I got my period because all I could do was sit around and cry. When we learned we were going to have a Christmas baby, it seemed too perfect. I didn't trust it. Perhaps that says something about my faith, you can analyze that later, but this moment should have felt like dawn after a long night. Instead it just felt like more darkness. That is until just before the eighth week, when I finally started picking out baby names and researching potential Halloween costumes. Finally, that light seemed to be shining! And then I had a miscarriage. I remember sitting in the car on the way to the emergency room on my husband's twenty-ninth birthday while he prayed for us and he was still praying that our baby would be okay. I had no such hope. I already knew our baby was gone.

Now the days after our miscarriage were not as dark as that day. I could feel hope again. After all, we hadn't been sure we could get pregnant naturally but we did. And when it started to get dark again, after not getting pregnant for seven months on our own and with some help, the day of the baby's due date ended up being another experience of renewal that let some light seep in. And then I got pregnant again, a week after my first due date, and, even though I was cautious, I allowed myself to hope this time. To hold my belly and talk to the baby. To again try and decide on a middle name for a boy. But I only allowed myself to hope a little bit. I had grown accustomed to the dark.

I miscarried again. And this time I saw no light. And when people reminded me that God was still with me, and that I have a wonderful supportive husband and church, and that I have so much to be thankful for, I just got more bitter. I wanted to be left alone in my grief. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and my heart adjusted to hopelessness.

But I don't think hopelessness is all the darkness of pregnancy and infant loss can teach me, and maybe teach us. Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again...”¹
 
One of those things I have learned is the power of community. I have always believed that community is beautiful, but it was not until I was stumbling in this darkness myself that I actually experienced it saving me. Like just his past Tuesday, when I was exhausted and ran into a family acquaintance in a hospital waiting room while looking for one of my parishioners. She asked me which of my sisters had lost the baby. I burst into tears when I told her it was me, not one of my sisters, even though I thought I was doing so well with not crying in public. But while I tried to blink back tears, she took my hand and told me about how between her two children, she lost five pregnancies. She told me about how her son was a twin, but his twin died at seventeen weeks. She had to carry the dead baby within her as she carried the living one. And she told me this story not with triumph, not with the smile and “See, one day you will have a beautiful baby too just like I did,” end to the story. She told me her story just to let me know I was not alone, and she had cried too, so many times.

I want to run the show. I want to be able to plan my pregnancies the way my mother did, when she decided she never wanted to be pregnant in the summer again, so my sisters' birthdays are June 1 and June 3. I want my doctor to tell me the next IUI will work. I want to know when I get that positive on the pregnancy stick that I will be pregnant for forty weeks, not seven or eight. But we don't run the show. We don't have control over our ovulation or the quality of our eggs. We don't have control over crying in the middle of a hospital waiting room with an almost stranger. But when I stop trying to control the outcome, I might start to see beauty and goodness in the light there is, even if it isn't the kind of light I wanted or expected. Like the beauty and goodness there was in sitting with a woman, listening to her story and not feeling so alone anymore.

The darkness of pregnancy and infant loss is horrible. I would give up this journey in exchange for a baby in a heartbeat. But there is still goodness in the midst of the horribleness, still light in the darkness, even if it is a just faint glow. And I believe that is because the darkness is not dark to God, as Psalm 139 tells us. To God, the night is as bright as day. God can work the good from even terrible situations. God can help us see beauty by that faint starlight even when the sun isn't shining.

So though even today I do not expect to see a great light, to feel the warmth of a smile on my face when I get to hold my baby for the first time, I know that this darkness we walk in the meantime is not just a place of death and hopelessness. That we can learn to walk in the dark, and to reach out to our siblings in this journey and help them walk too. And maybe together we will find that even the night can be bright.

1Barabara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark (New York: HarperOne, 2014), 5.

Joy Happens In Relationship

This is  a sermon from Presbury United Methodist Church's Mismatched Nativity series. 

Scripture: Luke 1:39-58 (NRSV)
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home. 

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. 

Sermon: 
Let us pray:  

Patient teacher, we probably don't all feel very joyful this morning. Maybe we are worried about a loved one in the hospital. Maybe we saw our credit card bill and are trying to figure out how long it will take to pay it off. Maybe we just got a bad night's sleep. There are so many things that keep us from rejoicing in you. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts show us how near you are today. For that is good news indeed. Amen.      

We are continuing our sermon series on a Mismatched Nativity. You can come up after worship, or just see from your seats that this Nativity is composed of many different sets, and many from places like Haiti and South Africa. Of course, there are also gnome and Snoopy nativities represented, so it is a bit of a strange concoction here. But it serves as a visual reminder for what we have been talking about--- these characters from the story of Jesus' birth were not so different from us. Their lives are not perfect. They had problems like we do. They messed up once or twice in their lives--- but, even if you aren't convinced they did mess up, everyone around them thought they did and judged them for it, made their lives harder for it. Zechariah prayed but really didn’t have hope. Mary was less pure and holy than spunky and courageous. Today, we are talking about Elizabeth, a person of faith who experienced joy but also still felt fear and anxiety, just like many of us do.    

Our scripture today is about joy pure and simple, from Mary to Elizabeth and back again. But remember that joy and happiness are not the same thing. We are not talking about a sense of contentment, like after a long day when you finally get to put your feet up and relax. We are not talking about the feeling of pleasure we experience when eating our favorite food. We are not talking about the warm fluttery feeling like the kind you get in your stomach when you realize the next Star Wars movie is out next week. Or maybe you don't get that feeling, but I do! Joy is a deeper feeling than those even though it is sometimes fleeting. Joy is a kind of resistance and resilience. Joy transforms us, and shows us possibilities we once thought impossible.     

Let's just look more carefully at Mary and Elizabeth's story. If we picture these women at all, which, let's face it, Elizabeth and Zechariah are left out of the Nativity so often we don't think of them as being a part of the story--- but if we picture these women, we picture halos and light, big smiles and big bellies. Scripture doesn't exactly tell us otherwise, though it does suggest that Mary probably did not have a big belly yet, but I wonder if the halos and smiles put us off from the part of the story we can best relate to--- that Mary and Elizabeth were afraid.     

We aren't really sure why Mary set out and went with haste to see Elizabeth. Yes, the angel had given her the good news, but it wasn't like she had a car and could just run over with cake and balloons. Rev. Adam Hamilton in his bible study about the geography of the story of Jesus' birth says that the journey by foot between Mary's and Elizabeth's homes could have taken nine days. He writes, “The fact that Mary was willing to travel nine days across three mountain ranges [hill country, the scripture tell us, remember] to see Elizabeth speaks volumes about how she was feeling. She longed for someone who might believe her and who could help her make sense of what was happening.”1     

Now in those days, women would often journey to family member's homes to help with pregnancy, delivery, and taking care of the newborn baby. It was probably not out of the ordinary for Mary to go on such a journey, or at least women Mary's age. But I have a friend who has another theory. She believes that Mary was kicked out by angry and frightened parents. We really have no idea, but think about it--- how many of you would believe a teenager, even the sweetest, most innocent teenager you know, if they told you that the Holy Spirit impregnated them with God? Maybe they got angry and sent Mary away, to wait until her delusion had passed or to negotiate with Joseph's family so no violence would befall Mary, since the law at that time, whether or not it was enforced, was to stone a woman who had committed adultery, even against her betrothed. Whatever you believe, I think these possibilities tell us that this journey to Elizabeth's house was not taken by Mary while she was skipping and singing to woodland animals like a Disney princess. She was afraid and uncertain. Her courage in agreeing to serve God was waning in the face of very real fears and anxieties.     

And Elizabeth, she was also full of fear and anxiety, despite the faith she exhibited when we read about Zechariah a few weeks ago. Of course, I could be projecting my own experiences onto Elizabeth, but two different people I talked to this week who had multiple losses and struggled with infertility agreed with me, so this is not isolated. As much as Elizabeth wanted to become pregnant, as much as she realized our God is a God of miracles, for those who experience pregnancy loss and infertility, pregnancy is scary. Every time I told someone I was pregnant this last time--- which was only a few people because I was so scared--- I burst into tears. And not happy tears. Every time someone responded with congratulations, I didn't feel like I could accept it yet. I felt like I was holding my breath--- and I could tell Aaron was too. I remembered seeing people post pictures not of 12 week sonograms but of the actual pregnancy test just weeks after conception and could not fathom how you could share something that was so uncertain.     

Elizabeth, you may remember from the beginning of chapter one of Luke's Gospel, went into seclusion for the five months after she conceived. Even though she was a woman of deep faith, a woman who proclaimed, “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.” Elizabeth felt like she was holding her breath. Did Zechariah really have a vision? Did God really mean this baby would be the one, or maybe she would miscarry and have another? God's time isn't our time after all. Even though she had faith, she was afraid. Rev. Hamilton points out that, “It seems to have been Mary's visit that drew Elizabeth out of her seclusion. Mary needed Elizabeth, but perhaps Elizabeth also needed Mary.”2     

Mary and Elizabeth were not these majestic superwomen who could do anything and everything easily and without any fear or worry just because God called them to do it. They were people full of faith, people seeking to love God more. And as people of faith, when their belief waned, when their fear reared it's head, they reached out to one another. And that reaching out made their faith even stronger. That reaching out gave them joy, true joy, based on the knowledge that they were not alone. That God was with them, helping them to see beauty and goodness even in the difficult things.3     

“Joy happens in relationship.”4 There isn't some magic formula for joy, some specific prayer or action that only haloed people with big smiles can experience. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child that would become John the Baptist leaped in her womb. But her heart leaped too. And she finally felt the presence of the Lord again stronger than her fear and anxiety over her pregnancy. She blessed Mary, crying out to her in joy, which then prompted the most joyful song in all of scripture, at least to me. The Magnificat. With Elizabeth's blessing, Mary was able to let joy fill her again after over a week of walking and worrying, seeking a friend. She knew God had remembered her because Elizabeth did--- not as a teenage mom, but as a person blessed by God.     

Do you have a person like Elizabeth and Mary had? A friend who is there to help you find God when it is hard, a friend who can help you hear God's voice when you can't? That is what this week was for me, from church people to life-long friends, to Muslim women, to a virtual stranger in a hospital waiting room, I encountered people like like Elizabeth, who emerged from their own pain to speak a word of blessing upon me.     

This is a congregation full of Elizabeths and Marys who need to take the journey to reach out to one another in love and let God transform them. So let us open our hearts to the joy God already has in store for us. In the spirit of reaching out, I invite you to turn to your neighbor and rejoice together, as Elizabeth and Mary did together. Offer one another signs of God's joy!    

1Adam Hamilton, The Journey: Walking the Road to Bethlehem (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2011), 63.     

2Ibid., 65.     

3I thought about this following a comment on The Young Clergy Women Project Facebook Group, posted 1 December 2016, accessed 10 December 2016.   

4Another comment this time on the YCWs Preach the Narrative Lectionary Facebook Group, posted 10 December 2016, accessed 10 December 2016.

Tear Down this Wall

Today is November 9. It is 27 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I've been to the Berlin Wall. I've seen the bits of it left standing, surrounded by modern buildings, covered in colorful graffiti. It seems so much smaller, almost quaint. But still it is eerie, to imagine the rest of the wall, sprouting along the trail, marking where it once was. I went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum, witnessed story after harrowing story of how people from East Berlin would escape into West Berlin, how they would escape into freedom. And often into the arms of loved ones long separated by the unforgiving concrete. 

Of course, it isn't too hard to imagine the rest of the wall, imagine the watchtowers with guns pointing toward the wall, the barbed wire, the bare ground between living spaces and the wall. It isn't hard because I have seen the wall in between the USAmerican and Mexican border. Now this wall isn't as much concrete as metal, jutting out of the earth in between families and communities. Graffiti and art installations still decorate that wall, but only on the Mexican side. The other side, the side of the land of the free and the home of the brave, is all guns and barbed wire. Though nowadays, graffiti covers both sides of the wall in Berlin, the museum speaks of the same, stark militarism that was once on the Soviet side of the wall. The USAmerican side was full of art, tributes to those walled off. The reversal of roles in our country today is unsettling.

Today, 27 years after the joy of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we woke up to find the president-elect of the USA is the candidate who promised another wall. "Build the wall," became the chant at his rallies. One of his big campaign promises from the beginning has been to stop the flow of immigration from the south. But when I hear the chant, "Build the Wall," I think of Berlin, split down the middle between freedom and totalitarianism. I think of craning my neck to see the sky over the wire topping the fence of the existing wall in Mexico. I think of fear and loss. And I wish that instead of chanting, "Build the wall," we were echoing (Republican!) President Ronald Regan's words, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

The work we have to do now, post-election, is this work of tearing down walls. Of putting this wall, and this whole campaign, in context with our shared history. Yes, there are some who feel disenfranchised, disenchanted, who wanted a big upset and change when they voted for the new president-elect. But now that the election is over, we need to step back and remember the reason we once fought against one wall. We need to spend some time tearing down instead of building up. Tearing down our walls, walls of hostility between white people and Muslims/Latinx/Black/queer/the-list-goes-on people, and the actual physical walls that divide families and communities. The actual physical walls that, even if they are built by the USA, fit seamlessly with a history of tyranny we ascribed once to the Soviet Union.

Because tonight is also the anniversary of Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, when in 1938, people attacked synagogues and Jewish businesses in Germany, a pogrom announcing what would become the Holocaust. Glass shards splintered in the streets, inside buildings, marking the shattered ideal of community and safety. The shattered ideal of freedom. Could this be a possible outcome of this election? The rhetoric of this campaign season, 78 years after Kristallnacht, has been violent, pitting races against each other. While our president-elect has not called for a night of Broken Glass against Muslims or Latinx, in the fearful and violent world we live in it would not be far to journey to such a night. But we can still tear down walls of hatred before we shatter our ideals of freedom.

I was only two years old when the Berlin Wall fell, but I grew up listening to my parents talking about the power of the images of people with sledgehammers descending on the wall. You could buy pieces of the wall--- and I know many people who still have a piece. The crumbled wall was a symbol of freedom, of reuniting families. Of the Spirit of Democracy. Not like the shattered glass on Kristallnacht, symbols of division and hatred. But it is up to us what we will choose to build up and what we will tear down.

Tear Down this Wall

Today is November 9. It is 27 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I've been to the Berlin Wall. I've seen the bits of it left standing, surrounded by modern buildings, covered in colorful graffiti. It seems so much smaller, almost quaint. But still it is eerie, to imagine the rest of the wall, sprouting along the trail, marking where it once was. I went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum, witnessed story after harrowing story of how people from East Berlin would escape into West Berlin, how they would escape into freedom. And often into the arms of loved ones long separated by the unforgiving concrete. 

Of course, it isn't too hard to imagine the rest of the wall, imagine the watchtowers with guns pointing toward the wall, the barbed wire, the bare ground between living spaces and the wall. It isn't hard because I have seen the wall in between the USAmerican and Mexican border. Now this wall isn't as much concrete as metal, jutting out of the earth in between families and communities. Graffiti and art installations still decorate that wall, but only on the Mexican side. The other side, the side of the land of the free and the home of the brave, is all guns and barbed wire. Though nowadays, graffiti covers both sides of the wall in Berlin, the museum speaks of the same, stark militarism that was once on the Soviet side of the wall. The USAmerican side was full of art, tributes to those walled off. The reversal of roles in our country today is unsettling.

Today, 27 years after the joy of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we woke up to find the president-elect of the USA is the candidate who promised another wall. "Build the wall," became the chant at his rallies. One of his big campaign promises from the beginning has been to stop the flow of immigration from the south. But when I hear the chant, "Build the Wall," I think of Berlin, split down the middle between freedom and totalitarianism. I think of craning my neck to see the sky over the wire topping the fence of the existing wall in Mexico. I think of fear and loss. And I wish that instead of chanting, "Build the wall," we were echoing (Republican!) President Ronald Regan's words, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

The work we have to do now, post-election, is this work of tearing down walls. Of putting this wall, and this whole campaign, in context with our shared history. Yes, there are some who feel disenfranchised, disenchanted, who wanted a big upset and change when they voted for the new president-elect. But now that the election is over, we need to step back and remember the reason we once fought against one wall. We need to spend some time tearing down instead of building up. Tearing down our walls, walls of hostility between white people and Muslims/Latinx/Black/queer/the-list-goes-on people, and the actual physical walls that divide families and communities. The actual physical walls that, even if they are built by the USA, fit seamlessly with a history of tyranny we once ascribed to Soviets.

Because tonight is also the anniversary of Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, when in 1938, people attacked synagogues and Jewish businesses in Germany, a pogrom announcing what would become the Holocaust. Glass shards splintered in the streets, inside buildings, marking the shattered ideal of community and safety. The shattered ideal of freedom. Could this be a possible outcome of this election? The rhetoric of this campaign season, 78 years after Kristallnacht, has been violent, pitting races against each other. While our president-elect has not called for a night of Broken Glass against Muslims or Latinx, in the fearful and violent world we live in it would not be far to journey to such a night. But we can still tear down walls of hatred before we shatter our ideals of freedom.

I was only two years old when the Berlin Wall fell, but I grew up listening to my parents talking about the power of the images of people with sledgehammers descending on the wall. You could buy pieces of the wall--- and I know many people who still have a piece. The crumbled wall was a symbol of freedom, of reuniting families. Of the Spirit of Democracy. Not like the shattered glass on Kristallnacht, symbols of division and hatred. But it is up to us what we will choose to build up and what we will tear down.