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saved together

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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My sermon is only a few days old, but it feels like a lifetime ago, thanks to my implant surgery. I finally felt up to doing some work today, so here you go.

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One of the many joys of being in New Orleans last week was I had the chance to see our nephew’s children. (Well—we got to see the parents as well.) Ben and Jenny, his wife, have three kids: Gabriel, or Gabe; Galena, or Lena; and Anastasia, or Ana. They are six, four, and one.

We met at a Cuban restaurant that had a big outside play area so the kids could run around when they got tired of the adults talking. Ana was quite the explorer, but a pattern quickly developed: when she came back to the table, she came to me, arms raised, ready to be picked up, and she would sit in my lap until it was time to get down again. As the afternoon passed and she got tired, she put her head on my shoulder. I sang softly to her and she began to pat me on the back.

She had never seen me before, but somehow knew I was someone who loved her.

As I turned to the scripture this week and read Mark’s description of the children coming to Jesus, I couldn’t help but see Ana running to me, so trusting and joyful. She didn’t have to know me, she trusted the love that she knew connected us.

I don’t mean she went through some logical, philosophical thought process. I mean she trusted the love that has not yet been taught not to trust. She knew that she and I were connected. She knew if she put her hands in the air, I would pick her up. And I was offered the gift of affirming what she knew by pulling her up in my lap.

I got to reinforce the love that connects us.

When I first read our passage for today, it felt like a bit of an odd choice for World Communion Sunday, but as I thought about Ana and I reflected on the scene Mark described where the disciples scolded Jesus for playing with the children instead of doing whatever adult thing was more important, I changed my mind. This is a beautiful text for today.

If you grew up in church, you may have heard some version of this story: God created the universe and then created human beings. What is often underlined is humanity is sinful from the start. They couldn’t stay away from the fruit they weren’t supposed to touch and sinned by eating it, damning all of humanity who came after them, which is why Jesus had to come and die to pay for our sins.

That story has had a great deal of influence, but it’s not true—at least, not according to Jesus and Ana.

The first words God said about every aspect of creation—including humanity—were, “That’s good!” We were born in original love, not original sin. It is life, not God, who too often teaches us otherwise.

Love is intrinsic. Love is where we start and where we are going, if we follow God’s story. We learn division and separation. We learn prejudice. We learn selfishness. We learn fear. We learn shame. And so, Jesus said, we have to re-learn how to welcome love like a child, arms up trusting that love will embrace us.

We can’t do that work alone. We need each other to find wholeness, to remember that we are made for love.

In one of her books, Madeleine L’Engle tells the story of her young granddaughter who, when her new baby brother was brought into the house, was determined to get close to him, so much so that one afternoon she climbed up into the crib as the little one was sleeping. The little girl was about four. Her mother saw her go into the room and stood at the door for a moment before she intervened. The girl stroked her brother’s head and said, “Tell me about God. I’m forgetting.”

Each time we come to this Table together we repeat Jesus’ words to his loved ones: “Whenever you share this meal, remember me.

Theologian Ilia Delio says,

We are saved, made whole, not as individuals but as a collective community, a body imbued with a living Spirit of life, the pulsating energies of love. . . . The universe is unfinished, we are unfinished, the earth is unfinished, and, much to our amazement, God is unfinished, as well. . . . We are saved by our reconciliation with God within and without, by making a conscious option for the whole. As we are brought into wholeness, God, too, is made whole.

A couple of Thursdays ago, the most important thing I did was attend to my grandniece. It may seem like the world was not changed by what we did together, but Jesus would say otherwise.

We call today World Communion Sunday because several denominations agreed to mark the day together. The name is a bit audacious because only a small fraction of the world’s population will take part. Our sharing the meal together, may also seem like the world will not be changed, but—again—Jesus would say otherwise.

As we prepare to feed one another from God’s Table, we are going to sing the song I wrote this summer, “The Belong Song.”

you belong and I do too
we belong yes me and you
everybody sing the song
everyone belongs

take a look around this place
we’re short on shade and we’re long on grace
risking hope with open hearts
that’s how revolutions start

you belong and I do too
we belong yes me and you
everybody sing the song
everyone belongs

we are not alone
we are not alone
we are not alone

our hurt has helped shape who we are
but we are more than battle scars
our broken-hearted harmony
unleashes love and sets us free

you belong and I do too
we belong yes me and you
everybody sing the song
everyone belongs

Though I didn’t write it as a Communion hymn, it works pretty well. Some of you asked to sing it; thanks for the suggestion. We are here today to remember ourselves in Jesus’ name, to help each other not forget that we are all wonderfully and uniquely created in the image of God and worthy to be loved, to continue becoming the people we were created to be when we were born in original love. Amen.

Peace,
Milton

roundabout theology

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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0

When I got my Honda a couple of years ago, it was my first time to have a screen and easy access to a GPS. When I tell it I want to come here, it says the quickest way to get from Guilford to here is to take I-95 to I-91. It is (usually) quick, and mostly uneventful, but it is also rather bland. But when I take that route, I feel like all I really see is the highway.

As I result, I have made it a habit to plan my time so I can leave a bit earlier and wander on the small roads through North Branford, which winds through farms and houses. It takes about ten minutes longer, but I see more than the road when I go that way.

I also go around the traffic circle in Branford, or the rotary, as many of us say, though my first inclination is to call it a roundabout because that is what they were called in East Africa, thanks to the British influence. When I lived in Nairobi, the city had a million people and only one traffic signal. All the other intersections were either stop signs or roundabouts.

As you know, the key to a working traffic circle or roundabout is recognizing who has the right of way—that is, who gets to go first and who has to wait. I was learned about driving in Nairobi, where they drive on what we call “the wrong side” of the road, and the car to the right was the one who go to go first, so I thought “right of way” meant being on the right. I was surprised to learn that even when you are on the left, you have the right of way.

Before cars, the term meant the right to cross or pass through someone else’s property. When cars made traffic a reality, the phrase came to mean who gets to go first. To remind ourselves of that, we put up the signs that are upside down yellow triangles: the YIELD signs.

Yield is an interesting word because it carries more than one meaning. Though we may not think about it when we are sitting in traffic, it’s a word that carries a history steeped in power because it can mean to give in or submit or surrender to a stronger force or person. The problem is the interaction assumes hierarchy and conflict, which doesn’t make for a great metaphor when it comes to relationships.

Yield can also mean a return on investment, or the harvest of a crop—the yield of a farm. It is the reward of our actions, if you will.

We can say, then, that being willing to yield at the roundabout is not so much about giving in to an adversary as it is reaping the harvest of our cooperation and mutuality to get where we are going.

James knew nothing of traffic circles, but he did offer us a “roundabout theology.” Listen to the last part of our scripture again:

You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.

“The hard work of getting along with each other”—that’s a phrase worth remembering. Getting along is rich and meaningful—it’s the stuff love is made of—and it’s work. Hard work. We have to mean it. It doesn’t happen by accident.

With that in mind, I want to pass along a couple of things that found me this week as I was thinking about this sermon. One is a quote from Shane Parrish, who writes one of the newsletters I read. He said,

Too often, the people we ask for feedback are nice but not kind. Kind people will tell you things a nice person will not. A kind person will tell you that you have spinach on your teeth. A nice person won’t because it’s uncomfortable. A kind person will tell us what holds us back, even when it’s uncomfortable. A nice person avoids giving us critical feedback because they’re worried about hurting our feelings. No wonder we think other people will be interested in our excuses.

His words may feel odd as we talk about yielding, but I think they help underline that we are talking about investing not giving in. If we are committed to helping each other get where we are going, then doing the hard work of being kind rather than just being nice or polite is a big part of the journey.

The other thought came from a person named Peter who is part of a group of guys I meet every Saturday morning for coffee—at 6:30 am. One of the rituals of our gathering is that one of the others, Bill, always asks, “Milt, what’s the word tomorrow?” I am then expected to give a quick summary of my sermon, which is good for me because I have to make sure I know what the point of my sermon is.

After I talked about the roundabouts, Peter said, “That makes me think of what I learned from my hummingbirds. They are beautiful creatures. I have five feeders set up because I love to see them. You can’t believe how selfish they are. If one bird is at the feeder, another will chase them away to get to the same feeder rather than go to one that is open where they both could eat.” Then he said, “I’ve always thought that would make a good sermon.”

“It will!” I said. “Tomorrow.”

As James said, “Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others.” As we travel together, may we be those who look for ways to yield—to be kind (and nice), to defer, to not have to be first, to look beyond ourselves—to do the hard work of helping each other get where we are going. Amen.

Peace,
Milton

nothing new

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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Words take on lives of their own, so what we say and how we say it matters.

I know that is not news, but I repeat it because I saw it happen even as I was preparing to preach today. A friend from Texas, who is a former minister, called to check in this week and asked about my sermon. When I told him we were working through James’ letter for the month of September, he said, “I really don’t like James. He’s too judgmental.” Then last night I got an email note from Leon confirming that he would read this morning, and it began, “I love this reading.”

Words take on lives of their own, whether they are written down or spoken.

To get that point across, James used a whole bunch of metaphors to talk about, well, a metaphor. He wrote about the power—and danger—of the tongue, which is a metaphor for what we say and how we say it: for how we choose our words. In these few verses he likened the tongue to a bit in a horse’s mouth, a rudder for a ship, and a spark that sets off a forest fire, with a couple of other references thrown in.

In his descriptions, he also used rather incendiary and hyperbolic language (talking about sending the whole world up in smoke, for example), which often leads us to think his point was for us to not lose our tempers, but his picture was larger than that.

He wanted his readers to understand what they set in motion when the spoke. Whenever they spoke. He had specific people in mind when he set his words free and, as we said at the beginning, words take on lives of their own.

What do these words have to say to us?

We live in a time when it feels like language is changing a great deal. I don’t know whether that is because language is changing faster now than it has in the past or whether it feels that way because we are the ones having to learn new vocabulary and new definitions. I think it is probably the latter because language is always going through changes. Just pick up a Shakespeare play to see that. He wrote in English, but it is not what an English we easily recognize.

When it comes to those changes, it matters to notice that language doesn’t change. What I mean by that is language is not the subject of the verb, but the object. I know that’s kind of an English teacher moment, but it matters to remember that other forces—and we are one of them—change language. What words mean to us changes because what life means to us changes; how we look at life and describe it changes.

Then we have to remember that those changes don’t happen the same way for everyone. What a metaphor means to you may not be the same to me. How we think we are describing something or someone may not be heard that way, which is another way of saying our words are like the bit in a horse’s mouth, or a ship’s rudder, or the match that starts the fire.

I love the way our translation this morning phrases it: “By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it.”

Let me offer another way to make the same point. By our speech we can restore the world, turn chaos into harmony, raise someone’s reputation, and energize the whole world with the spark of our love.”

What we say and how we choose to say it makes a difference.

This is a good place to point out a change I made in today’s lectionary reading. It was supposed to begin with the first verse of chapter three, but we started with the third verse because the first two talked about being teachers. They say,

Don’t be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you’d have a perfect person, in perfect control of life.

James’ words make me think he had had a few educational experiences where what he had tried to communicate as a teacher had not been taken the way he intended. That makes me think of how I had to learn that when I said something that I thought was profound to a class full of students it was to everyone’s advantage for me to ask, “Did that make sense?” because they didn’t always get understand what I was trying to say.

His words speak to more than just educators, though we could also hear the word teacher as yet another metaphor in these verses, since we all play that role in some sense at different points in our lives. Part of what I hear in what he said is not to rush to be the expert, to be The One Who Knows, but to teach—or speak—as a lifelong learner.

And what we are trying to learn is how to live lives of integrity, of honesty.

We have spent three weeks reading in James. First, he implored us to listen before we spoke, and then to make our actions match our words, which brings us to this morning and the reminder (as one of Ginger’s seminary professors used to say) that actions may speak louder than words but words speak more clearly.

To drive home his point, James closed with a string of rhetorical questions:

A spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don’t bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don’t bear apples, do they? You’re not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?

He knew the answers; we know them as well.

Whatever we have to say will be better understood if we are honest and consistent and humble in what we have to say. Our words and our actions should match. Our words, however they come out, reflect who we are and who we appear to be to others. James’ questions call us to remember that those two views should be the same because the words we say take on lives of their own, so what we say and how we say it matters.

As I said when I began, I know I am not saying anything new, but it’s good to be reminded. Amen.

Peace,
Milton

un-euphemistic faith

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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0

It was a Communion Sunday at our church this past week, and it was also the Sunday after the shooting in Georgia. Here’s what I said in that intersection. The scripture was James 2:1-8, 14-17.

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Sometimes we speak in euphemisms, that is we say things we mean, but we don’t intend for them to actually be acted upon.

For instance, if someone comes to my house I might say, “Make yourself at home,” I mean make yourself comfortable, but if the person were to begin to rearrange the furniture or take pictures off the walls so they felt more at home, I would probably move fairly quickly to clarify what I meant.

If we were to distill our passage for this morning down to one sentence, it would say, “We can’t live out our faith euphemistically.” We need to live into our words. James offered a couple of specific examples to make his point.

First, he said, don’t say everyone belongs and then be impressed by money and power. Make room for everyone equally. Don’t play favorites. His second admonition is even more pointed: Don’t just say the right words, live them out. If we see someone who is hungry and cold, do more than say, “Be warm and eat well.” Feed them and clothe them.

As our translation puts it, “Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it?”

We can’t live out our faith in euphemisms.

That sounds fairly simple, doesn’t it? Let your actions speak as loudly and clearly as your words. Put your money where your mouth is. Don’t say one thing and do another.

It becomes more layered when we apply his words on more than a personal level, when we look at the systems we are a part of. It matters that we bring food to put in the plastic crates in the Parish Hall so Leon can take them to the Hamden Food Bank. That food feeds people. We are doing more than saying, “I hope you find a good meal.”

And—not but—AND those cans of tuna and vegetables don’t change a broken system that makes it hard for many people to live sustainable lives.

Yesterday, Ginger and I participated in an event for Raise the Roof, which is a nonprofit on the Shoreline that raises money for Habitat for Humanity of Greater New Haven. Each year they have a kind of “Dancing with the Stars” gala that raises the bulk of their money. This is the tenth anniversary of the gala and they have funded over twenty houses in New Haven.

It is a wonderful event and a wonderful organization, and—not but—AND part of the reason they fund houses in New Haven is the land in Guilford or Madison is too expensive and the towns have regulations that make that kind of building difficult, even though actual affordable housing would be both meaningful and beneficial to those communities—to any community.

We have to continue to work to live out our faith on both levels, personal and systemic. We can’t do it all. We can’t meet every need. And we can do something. We can meet the need in front of our faces and we can find ways to do the longer work of changing our systems.

I know a big part of the reason systems have been on my mind is the school shooting in Georgia this week. Once again, we are all disheartened by the horrible news and still as a nation we have done very little to make it more difficult for people—for children—to get assault weapons. As a nation—as a system—our words and our actions don’t match. We could change things, but we keep choosing not to do so.

I know that is a brutal example, and it matters that we figure out how to talk about the systems we are a part of, that we could change. I spent a good bit of time this week deciding, first, if I was going to mention the shooting and second, how to talk about it because I know it’s not an easy fix. I know it means we have to be willing to have hard conversations.

And then I decided to say it out loud as an invitation to hard conversations. We can begin to change systems by learning how to have hard conversations. As I have said before, one of the best ways we can change the world around us is to be willing to really listen and talk to each other right here in this congregation. We don’t all think alike, or feel the same way about what is happening, and yet, we do—if we are willing to listen and risk with one another.

Let me tell you why I feel so deeply about the school shootings. I was a high school English teacher in Winchester, Massachusetts when the shooting at Columbine High School happened. One of my favorite things about my school, which demographically was a lot like Columbine, was the big pile of backpacks in the hallway outside my room. For me, it was a huge monument of trust: no one worried about something getting stolen, no one worried about something bad being in them, they just pulled their books out and stacked them up.

After Columbine, one of the first things my school did was to ban that stack of bags—not because they found anything, but because they chose fear over trust. And the school became less safe and less hopeful.

We are eight weeks from an election that shows deep divisions in our country, particularly if all we are looking for are deep divisions. What if we don’t look for divisions? What if we lean into our shared humanity? Jesus called us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. That means I have to understand that you are as human as I am. We all belong to God.

Saying we are going to agree to disagree is kind of like saying, “Be warm and have a good meal,” to someone who is hungry and cold. It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t deepen the trust between us—and the world, our country, our town, and our church need us to grow in our trust and love for one another.

We deepen our trust and love when we bring food for the food pantry, or we trust each other to bring enough lunch for our potluck, or gather to make prayer shawls, or play in the bell choir. We do it when we attend to the details of one another’s lives, remembering significant moments and checking in when we are sick or struggling. We are extending our reach by welcoming the Liberian choir in a couple of weeks.

One of the continuing ways we live out our trust and love, both for God and for one another is sharing this sacred meal together. We pass the bread and the cup from person to person as a clear symbol of our connection to one another in Christ. And so we come once again to the table, bringing our fear and our trust, as we share this meal . . .

Peace,
Milton

first, listen

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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For the month of September I am preaching from passages in the Letter from James, a small book towards the end of the New Testament that is an exercise in practical theology. This week’s sermon drew from James 1:17-27.

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One of the things I remember about the beginning of the pandemic when we were in lockdown was how much I detested being on Zoom. And I couldn’t figure out why. I am an off-the-charts extrovert (you probably didn’t know that), so I imagined having the chance to see and talk to others from our separate isolations would be a good thing, but it wasn’t.

After a couple of weeks, I came across an article that talked about people’s struggles with Zoom and it listed my problem. It said the reason we were having trouble was we were not used to seeing myself on screen. I know didn’t like seeing my facial expressions as I was making them. I felt disembodied somehow, even as I was trying to participate.

In natural conversation, we don’t see ourselves as we talk to others. Our expressions come from the inside out. With Zoom we were, quite literally, beside ourselves—or in front of ourselves, actually—which made us self-conscious; I realized that’s what made me uncomfortable.

It also offered a solution by showing how to turn off “self-view,” so that we only say those we were talking to. That little tip saved me from my frustration. I don’t need to see myself while I’m talking to other people. I do, however, need to remember I’m on camera and that others can see me.

Even though the writer of the letter attributed to James had no concept of being on a Zoom call, he did know something about how we look at ourselves, and he knew that it takes effort and intention for us to remember who we are as we move through the various situations that come our way.

A mirror was technology he understood, when it came to seeing a reflection of ourselves. We don’t have to stand in front of a mirror to remember what we look like; if we did, we wouldn’t get much done. But, he said, someone who describes themselves as a follower of Christ and still lashes out in anger, or makes damaging statements about others, or does things that take advantage of others is like a person who can’t remember who they are if they aren’t staring at themselves.

One of the first thing that comes to mind for me are those moments from time to time when someone in the public eye is caught on an open mic making a racist, or misogynist, or homophobic statement. Almost every time, part of their apology is to say something akin to, “That’s really not who I am.”

And yet, it is in some way. They said and did those things. They need to go back to the mirror and check in.

But let’s not talk about them. Let’s talk about us and how we remember who we are. Theologian Katie Van Der Linden wrote,

When you walk away from a mirror, you can still catch glimpses of yourself in windows and other reflective surfaces. So don’t forget who you are. You are a faithful follower of Jesus, whether you’re stranded on a desert island or you’re in the middle of Manhattan. Faith is about what God sees and what the world sees; they are not separate. Hear the word, do the word, follow the word, alone in your car or on a crowded bus. The journey is yours, but others may notice.

Who do we see when we catch a glimpse of ourselves?

Are we being the people we think we are? Do our lives reflect the image of God that lives in us?

The way to answer those questions affirmatively, our passage says (and I love our translation this morning) is to

Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. Human indignation doesn’t accomplish God’s justice.

In a way, that sounds like what we learned as kids: stop, look, and listen.

Listen first, then speak—when we have something to contribute—and leave our outrage behind. And hear the last sentence again: “Human indignation doesn’t accomplish God’s justice.”

“My life was changed by someone shouting at me or by a long rant on Facebook” is, I feel fairly confident, a sentence that no one has ever said. Anger is part of who we are, and it is an appropriate response when we have been hurt or someone we care about has been hurt. Outrage, on the other hand, is not useful in building relationships, even when we’re right.

Hearts and minds are changed in conversation, in relationship—by listening and speaking and standing up for and with those who far too often get shouted down. God’s justice is accomplished, our verses say, by reach out to the homeless, lonely, and loveless in their plight, and guarding against corruption.

Listen, then talk. Don’t use outrage as a motivational tool. Take care of those who need to be taken care of. This little letter attributed to James is full of accessible wisdom. It holds a unique place among New Testament books for its practicality. He offers theology with skin in—stuff that changes the way we think about everyday life. We are going to keeping reading this letter throughout September.

This morning, James asks that we look at our reflection to see how much the image of God shines through. We were created to incarnate love to one another. Is that who we see when we look at ourselves? Amen.

Peace,
Milton

creative tension

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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0

My sermon is a day or two late making it here because I was a part of the New England Songwriters’ Retreat, which was a transcendent experience for me. (If you would like to read more about that, please subscribe to my newsletter.) The retreat was close by, so I was able to slip away Sunday morning for a “preach and run” at my church. The passage was Ephesians 6:10-20.

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One of my favorite phrases is “creative tension.”

The idea is to take two things that appear opposite or contrary to one another and, rather than think of them as offering an either-or choice, to hold them both in a way that we can see greater options.

The phrase came to mind as I reflected on our passage for this morning because one of the fundamental truths of life, for me, is that responding to violence with violence is never an enduring solution and I am preaching from a passage that uses war as a spiritual metaphor.

Hence, a creative tension.

The only fight I ever had was with Johnny Pike. That is, unless you want to count the time when I was five and my brother was three and we were supposed to sing “Jesus Loves Me” before my dad preached at a church in Conroe, Texas. Miller hit a wrong note and I laughed. He punched me and we started wrestling to the point that they had to pull us apart.

So, I’ve been in two fights and the second one was with Johnny Pike.

We were both in the sixth grade at Hubbard Heights Elementary School in Fort Worth, Texas, and we got into an argument over a science project that escalated to agreeing to meet on the football field across the street from my house after school. My parents said my brother came running home and slid under his bed, yelling, “Milton’s gonna get killed!” Johnny and I scrapped for a bit until we both were starting to cry; I tried to throw a punch and Johnny’s big brother jumped on me and held me down while Johnny ran away.

I am not a fighter. I don’t think violence is redemptive. One of my least favorite hymns is “Onward Christian Soldiers.” And I wonder if I would feel that way if I had spent my life in Kabul, or Darfur, or Somalia, or Gaza.

As I was preparing for this sermon, I read something written by a pastor named Austin Crenshaw Shelley who told of a time when she was in seminary and expressed her dislike for war metaphors in the Bible. Another student who was a Coptic Christian from Ethopia and whose church had been the target of a terrorist bombing said, “You prefer verses about peace because you have never needed a warrior God.”

We have to hold both ideas in creative tension as we look at these verses and listen to his metaphor.

Paul was writing to folks who were oppressed. The government was after them. They were considered dangerous, rebellious, incendiary. The lives they lived were not safe. War was a reasonable metaphor for their lives. The verses we read were the closing words to his letter. He had spent a significant part of his writing challenging them to relate to one another with kindness and love and integrity, as we have seen in the passages we have read over the past couple of weeks. As he brought the letter to a close, he told them to be strong in Christ and then used the various pieces of armor worn by Roman soldiers to describe what he meant. Once he had that picture of the soldier in their minds he said, “Our enemy is not physical,” and he talked about spiritual forces.

In other words, Johnny Pike is the least of our problems.

When I think of spiritual forces the words that come to mind are things like despair, shame, hopelessness, abuse, oppression, and prejudice. Those are all things that are larger than one person or one country; we could add to the list, I’m sure. In the face of all that, Paul said, be strong in the boundless resources of God.

When I was in college I heard my father preach on this passage and his words stayed with me, in part I think, because his whole point had to do with a preposition, and I didn’t think he had ever paid that much attention to prepositions.

He said that when we read “the armor of God” we tend to think of is possessive–that the armor belonged to God and God handed it out to us to get us ready to fight. He said the better way to read it was to hear the preposition as descriptive, which is to say the armor was God. To put on the armor of God was to wrap ourselves up in God—to be strong in the Spirit.

When God is the armor, we get a different view of the metaphor. Look at the verbs: resist, stand your ground, pray, keep alert. Paul never said anything about attacking. He talked about preparing and persisting, and then he asked them to pray for him while he was in prison that he would not lose faith.

As I thought about how to close this sermon, my first instinct was to point to people like Mahatma Ghandhi, Rosa Parks, or Martin Luther King—people who have stood strong and persevered by wrapping themselves in the armor of God. And then I thought of Ivor and June Mitchell, two people I cooked with this summer in Ireland, who have lived in Belfast their whole lives working for peace. They gave me a deeper understanding of the complexity of all that had happened, as well as how tenacious and compassionate we must be to foster justice and community.

Then a quote came to mind that I learned, first, from Ginger, but dates back to the days of the ancient Greek philosophers—“Be kind for everyone is fighting a great battle”—and I thought about people I know, and millions more that I don’t, who struggle daily to survive for any number of reasons, many of which feel like forces beyond their control.

The truth is we are all fighting great battles, often within ourselves. I then get this image in my mind of people putting on the armor of God—enveloping themselves in God’s tenacious and unfailing love and keeping on. To put on the armor of God is not a call to violence, but to love and faithfulness to God and it is also a call to carry on together.

And that takes me to one final thought. In every movie I have seen where a character has to put on some kind of armor, someone helps them get dressed. They can’t put it on by themselves, which takes me back to the quote: “Be kind because everyone is fighting a great battle.”

We all need help putting on the armor of God in the middle of our creative tensions. We can’t put on the armor of God alone. We all need help being reminded that we are wonderfully and uniquely created in the image of God and worthy to be loved. We need help to remember that responding to violence with more violence is not a solution. We need help remembering we what we bring to the struggle are peace, hope, truth, trust, and love.

May we be armor-bearers for one another so that we all may know what it feels like to be loved and protected. May we be those who trust that love is the best armor of all. Amen.

Peace,
Milton

 

all together

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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0

We read Paul’s writings as theological texts instead of letters much of the time. The passage for today from Ephesians gives me the feeling that Paul was writing to remind folks of what they already knew about life together more than he was trying to lay down the law. And his words helped me remember words and music written by old friends and sung with so many people down the years.

_______________________

“So be careful to live your life wisely, not foolishly. Make the most of every opportunity because these are desperate times.”

That’s the first sentence of our passage for today, which lets us know we came in on the middle of the conversation. Paul had been admonishing the recipients of his letter to be aware, to courageous, to be intentional in all sorts of situations, and then he boiled it down to say, “So be careful to live your life wisely, not foolishly. Make the most of every opportunity because these are desperate times.”

If we were to update the last sentence into a more contemporary phrasing, we might say, “Seize the day because it’s all we have,” or “Live like there’s no tomorrow,” but how do we live into those words in ways that make them more than a good slogan?

Let me ask my question another way: What is the difference between wise and foolish?

Wisdom is more than being smart or educated or clever. We talk about the owl as a symbol for wisdom, though I’m not sure why other than they have the sense to pay attention and not say much. When I searched for why the owl is considered wise, I found that the explanation went all the way back to the goddess Athena who saw wisdom in the owl because of its big eyes and solemn appearance. But there’s more to wisdom than looking the part.

The Hebrew notion of wisdom was the ability to function well in life and in relationships. It carried a sense of discernment and hospitality. A wise person was one who had a sense of themselves and how they were connected to everyone and everything around them. “Work,” he said, “to understand God’s intent for our lives.”

I’ll come back to that, but first, I want to notice that the root of the word fool can also mean a blacksmith’s bellows, as in a wind bag. To be foolish is full of hot air, if you will, or blown by the wind without any sense of intention or grounding.

Paul then went on with a couple of other comparisons. Along with being wise and not foolish, he exhorted his readers to be intentional rather than careless and filled with God’s spirit rather than being drunk. All three contrast those who look to live as though they are a part of a larger whole with those who are self-absorbed.

Now let’s go back to what it means to understand God’s intent for our lives. When Paul told people to be filled with the Spirit of God, he said it happened in three ways: by speaking to each other in a melody of love, singing songs that draw us together, and being grateful in the midst of our circumstances, all of which lead us back to the sense of wisdom as hospitality.

God’s intent for us is to live as though relationships matter most—and we live into that intention when we speak and act with love, trust, joy, and gratitude.

I imagine that when he wrote those words, Paul knew he was not telling the Ephesians things they weren’t already aware of, just as I know I am not talking about things that already happen here. When I think of how we speak to one another in a melody of love I think about those of you who gather on Wednesdays to make prayer shawls and other things, and those of you who come on Fridays to play music together. I think of those who lead our music in the summer so Linda can have her time away. We speak the melody of love when we volunteer to usher and host coffee hour, or the way Anna and Bill share their vegetables.

My favorite example is Anna’s response to the email thread among our church leadership about housing a Liberian children’s choir in our fellowship hall in September. “Of course we should do it,” she said. “That’s what Christians do for each other.”

And we then we actually sing together each Sunday. I am always happy when we select a hymn that evokes a story from you. A lot of hymns do that for me. And, even though we don’t always pick winners, I like it when we sing hymns that are not in our usual repertoire, as Lynda calls it, because they ask us to stretch and learn together.

Since it’s summer and I have my guitar, lets learn one now. Don’t worry—it’s just a chorus that was written by some friends of mine. It is called “All Together,” which feels appropriate for this morning.

all together, sing the song
all together, everyone belongs
together, a family
we are all, all, all, all together

The last thing is to be grateful in the middle of our circumstances. That is easier some days than others, and it is also something we can choose to do. What are some of the ways you cultivate gratitude in your life? Who is this room are you thankful for and why? If we are going to make the most of every opportunity in the short time we walk the planet, letting people know why we love them and are thankful for them ought to be on our list every day.

Let’s sing one more time:

all together, sing the song
all together, everyone belongs
together, a family
we are all, all, all, all together. Amen.

Peace,
Milton

comfort instead of correct

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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0

I spent some time with the prophet Elijah this week, remembering we all need to be nurtured.

__________________________

From time to time, it is good to remind ourselves that our Bible is not a single book, but more like an anthology, or collection of books wrapped in a single cover—sixty-six of them, in fact. Like any good anthology, the Bible contains a variety of literature: narratives like the Gospels, songs and poetry like the Psalms, wisdom literature like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, correspondence like the letters to the early churches, and histories like the passage we read this morning from 1 Kings.

1 and 2 Kings tell the history of the Hebrew monarchy from David forward, including the years when it was split into two nations, Israel and Judah. Like history books you may have had in school, these books are full of wars and blood and what we today would call geo-politics. Some chapters read more like movie scripts than what we might expect of scripture. The chapters that precede the verses we read this morning have that kind of cinematic feel.

They tell the story of the prophet Elijah, who lived during the reign of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, monarchs of Israel who used their powers like weapons and treated people like disposable resources to be used up. They were not nice people, to put it mildly, and Elijah sent word to them that God had had enough of their wickedness.

Elijah then had a huge showdown with the prophets of the pagan god Baal, whom Ahab and Jezebel worshipped. Elijah challenged the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal to a contest to see whose deity would send down fire on their respective altars and prove their supremacy.

Once the two altars were prepared, Elijah let the others go first. When no fire appeared, Elijah mocked them. When it was his turn, he got a little cocky and has his helpers douse the altar with water three times—so much water that it ran off the sides and filled the trench around the altar. When he called down the fire from God it came so fiercely that it incinerated everything on the altar including the stones. And then he rounded up all the prophets of Baal and had them executed. (Like I said, more cinematic than spiritual.)

It seems as though Elijah thought that people like Ahab and Jezebel who abused power for their benefit would repent if they faced greater power, but he learned quickly that responding to power or violence with greater power or violence is not a lasting solution—not for long, anyway.

In her anger, Jezebel responded with more violence and sent her soldiers to find him and kill him. In a flash, Elijah went from being a confident conqueror to becoming a frightened fugitive. He ran into the desert and prayed for God to kill him because he felt so alone and defeated. Finally, when he thought he was out of the range of his suitors, he collapsed in exhaustion.

And God sent a messenger who woke him up and gave him food and water.

The messenger didn’t ask, “Why did you run away instead of staying and trusting God to take care of you?” or “This isn’t that big of deal. God will protect you.” or “What did you do to make Jezebel so mad?”

The messenger woke Elijah and said, “Get up and eat,” and offered the prophet freshly baked bread and water. Elijah ate and then went back to sleep. The messenger came a second time with the same message and the same meal, except this time they added, “You have a difficult road ahead of you.” Elijah ate and then went on his journey.

Elijah, as both a prophet and a person, had things he did with confidence and things that paralyzed him. He knew how to call down the presence of God in public places, but when he was by himself he couldn’t stare down his fear.

I have been thinking about him all week, and I even had a pretty good draft of a sermon, but that changed yesterday morning when I took Ginger to the Goose Lane Clinic for her to get her blood drawn. Because of a horrible childhood hospital experience that left her traumatized, Ginger has a deep fear of needles. She had not had her blood drawn in ten years.

I watched and admired her as she prepared for the visit. Over the past couple of weeks, she consulted a counselor who gave her practical exercises to do unfolding her arm to help desensitize her. She went to the clinic and asked to see the room where she would be and talked to them about the person who would be best to do the procedure.

Gil Spencer tells me that I mention Ginger in most every sermon I preach. I know I talk about her a lot. You probably feel like you know her even though she doesn’t get to Hamden often. From the day I first time I met her, I have been impressed by her confidence and forthrightness. This a woman who went to Nigeria to work in a leprosy village as a college student. I have never thought of her as one who carries much fear. But, just as the Bible is an anthology of different kinds of writing, she, like the rest of us, is a multi-layered person who is made up of more than one story.

Over the course of our marriage, I have not always said or done the right thing to help her in moments when the fear is palpable—and I have worked to learn from my mistakes. As we planned out our trip, I thought of the messenger coming to Elijah—“Get up and eat.”—and I tried to pay attention to how I could best support her. As she walked to the car, I had the song she had chosen blaring on the stereo. I went with her into the room with the nurse and handed her a congratulatory fun-size Snickers bar when it was over. And I took her to breakfast, like the messenger said: “Get up and eat.”

You see, this is not a fear I share. I don’t get anxious if I have to have my blood drawn. But just because it is not my fear does not mean it’s not significant. And just because Ginger is confident by nature does not mean she should be able to conquer her fear easily. Life is not that simple; neither are people.

I would not have been much help if I had said, “Oh, it’s not that big of a deal. People get their blood taken all the time.” The best thing I did was to take her seriously—to pay attention before I took action or said anything.

As I watched her get through the morning Elijah’s story took on some new layers for me, particularly in what God’s messenger said and did. When we see someone else who is hurting, or frightened, or depleted by life, we do our best work when we don’t see those moments as teaching moments, but as nourishing moments instead. When we are worn out or anxious, we don’t need advice, we need companionship. We don’t need people to tell us what to do, we need people to listen rather than dismiss, who nurture instead of discount. People don’t become less afraid or less exhausted because they were told to get over it.

In the anthology of stories that make up our lives together, we all have a difficult road ahead. May we look at one another through God’s lens of love so that we, like the messenger, offer compassion and care that comfort rather than correct. Amen.

Peace,
Milton

morning by morning . . .

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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0

The story this week was the Hebrew people complaining about life and God answering with breakfast.

__________________________

Yesterday marked eleven years since my father died.

There are ways in which it feels like yesterday and then ways in which it seems like so much life has gone by between then and now. In his honor—well, because he gave me a good excuse—I had a hot dog for lunch. I also loved that as I was working on this sermon one of the jokes he told (and retold) came to mind. In his honor, I will offer it to you.

A young man felt a calling to join a monastery and pledged himself to a life of silence. He was only allowed to speak once every five years when the Abbott called him in for a conference, and even then he was only to say one sentence.
At five years, the Abbott asked him if everything was alright and the monk said, “The mattress is lumpy.” So they gave him a new mattress. At ten years, when asked about his life, he said, “My sandals are worn out.” So they gave him new sandals. At fifteen years, he said, “My room is cold,” and the Abbott replied, “I think we are going to have to let you go. All you have done since you got here is complain.”

Thanks, Dad.

The writer of Exodus makes the Hebrew people sound like that monk. After being freed from generations of oppression, rather than singing songs of joy and gratitude, they complained about their conditions, mostly because they were hungry. Desperately hungry, it seems—to the point that they said, “Maybe we would have been better off dying as enslaved people in Egypt. At least there we had something to eat.”

They were so focused on their hunger, on their desperation, on the reality that they were on a journey without a map, that they starved their gratitude.

I say they, but it wasn’t as if everyone was saying the same thing. Assuming that groups of people speak in unison is not only inaccurate but a little dangerous as well. We must keep reminding ourselves that groups speak with more than one voice. We open ourselves to misunderstanding if we think Democrats think this, or Republicans think that; Israelis all say one thing and Palestinians all say something else.

But there was discord in the community. What people shared in common was that they were struggling. Life wasn’t going the way they wanted, or the way they had hoped. And they were still new at being free. They had only been gone from Egypt for a month. Even though scripture refers to them as Israelites, they were years away from becoming an actual nation. They didn’t even have the Ten Commandments yet. In this part of the story, they were people united in their faith and frustration, and the frustration had the upper hand. They couldn’t see beyond where they were and what they did not have. What they could do was complain.

And God heard their complaints and responded by sending that word through Moses and Aaron to say exactly that: “Tell them I have heard their complaints.” Not tell them I’m tired of hearing about it, or tell them to count their blessings, or tell them they are in big trouble. Just, “Tell them I have heard them.”

Then God responded those complaints by saying, “Every morning it will rain bread and every evening birds will just come and sit in the camp so that everyone can eat. But,” God said, “I want to see if they can follow instructions.” Those were that each person or family should only collect what food they needed for that day and trust that there would be more to come.

That evening, birds settled in the camp and provided meat for dinner. The next morning, the ground looked like it was covered with a heavy dew, but then that evaporated leaving thin flakes of something that turned out to be bread, but bread like they had never seen. They tasted it and asked each other, “What is it?” Turns out the Hebrew word for that question is manna.

Moses answered them by saying, “It’s what God has given you.”

The daily routine did two things. First, it fed everyone—it answered the complaints. Second, it redirected the vision of the people.

They had gotten in the habit of complaining to the point that they couldn’t see beyond their circumstances. They were only a month away from having been enslaved and they had gotten to the place where they woke up every morning and all they could see was what was wrong—and there was a lot wrong. They had good reason to complain. The problem was they couldn’t see anything else.

When God said, “I’ll test them to see whether or not they follow my instruction,” perhaps it wasn’t so much that God wanted to see if they would be compliant, but that God wanted to change the way they looked at their lives one day at a time.

Though the story is told as though this was one incident, the bread and birds continued until they were ready to enter into Canaan and settle down. For years they woke up and looked out to see the ground covered in grace, and each evening they closed out their days with the same message. They were still in the desert, they were still without a permanent home, they were still struggling, and, as we will sing in a few moments, morning by morning new mercies they saw—if they were willing to see them as they traveled.

Poet David Whyte has a poem called “Learning to Walk” that gives a glimpse, perhaps, of what it was like to step out and see the ground covered in grace.

Walked out this morning
into a broad green garden
with the rising sun in my eyes
and the first hint of the day’s
heat touching my face,
feeling as broad as the garden
and young as the day
and soaking up the heat
in my black tee-shirt,
walked straight forward
out of the gate,
through the wood,
along the river,
toward the mountain
and thought of the future
I could make in the world
if I walked toward it
like this,
with my face toward the hills
and my eyes full of light
and the earth sure
and solid beneath me,
walking on
with a fierce anticipation,
and a faithful expectation,
with the sun and the rain
and the wind on my skin . . .

We may not be stuck in the desert, but we are susceptible to what we allow to dominate how we see our world and ourselves. Hear me clearly: I am not talking glass-half-full or glass-half empty. Optimism and hope are not the same thing. Things don’t always work out. Pain isn’t always resolved. Life is hard and it hurts. And, if we wake up looking for grace, there’s a good chance we will find it, even in the middle of the hard stuff.

Morning by morning new mercies we see. May we think of the future we could make in the world if we walked toward it like that. Amen.

Peace,
Milton

how do we get through this?

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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1

I preached this sermon at the end of a long week and the stories wound together.

_____________________

A couple of weeks ago, Ginger was helping Lizzy!, our little blind Schnoodle, find her way outside from our kitchen. Lizzy! got down the stairs to the patio on her own, but then she had to turn either right or left to find a way around the small stone wall that separates the patio from the back yard. She didn’t turn. As she got close to the stones, Ginger yelled, “Walls,” and Lizzy! turned away, only to almost walk into another section. “More walls,” Ginger yelled, and she and I both started laughing. Then Ginger said, “Well, that’s going to show up in somebody’s sermon.”

When I got to this scripture about the wind blowing so hard that the disciples couldn’t cross the lake, I knew she was right. I pictured Jesus walking toward the little boat yelling, “Wind!”

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We have spent the month of July reading through Mark 6 together. We started with Jesus and the disciples returning to his hometown of Nazareth where people were astounded at first, but then became belligerent and unwilling to let him grow up. Then we saw how Jesus sent them out in pairs to build relationships wherever they could and to move on from the places and the people where they could not. Last week we read the story of Jesus’ big garden party—a meal for over 5000 people that started with the disciples saying they didn’t have eight months of wages to cater the dinner and Jesus showing them there was enough to go around.

They were tired. Jesus was tired. He wanted some time to himself to pray and reflect and he wanted them to get some rest, so he told them to take a boat back to the other side of the lake and he would meet them there. When they finally got in the boat and out in the water—a place they knew well—the headwinds were so strong that they spent all night rowing and couldn’t get to the other shore. It was getting close to dawn. The disciples were working hard. They were doing what they knew to do. Several of them had fished for a living. They knew about boats and wind and water, but on that night it didn’t matter. They were stuck. And tired.

When I imagine the conversations that might have taken place that night, I hear at least one of their voices asking, “How are we going to get through this?”

Perhaps I pictured them that way because it is a question I have been asking this week. I told you a couple of Sundays ago that my audiologist had recommended I pursue a cochlear implant because of the severity of my hearing loss. Ginger and I met with a surgeon who concurred. I have felt hopeful about this process, even though it is going to be a significant change. It seems like that offers me a chance for life to be very different that it has for the last twelve or fourteen years.

Last Wednesday I went for another battery of tests that were the penultimate step before we meet again with surgeon to set the date for me to get a new ear.

For about two hours I repeated words and sounds and sentences as best I could. After the test I learned I had done too well. It wasn’t so much that my hearing had improved as it was I figured out a lot of the sentences from the context, so I scored too high for my insurance to approve the implant. I was devasted. I felt like I hit a wall of wind like the disciples.

I was immobilized by my despair for most of the day wondering, “How am I going to get through this?”

I understood what it felt like to be in that boat. But then something happened to them that did not happen to me. They saw someone walking toward them on the water. He was not bothered by the wind. He didn’t even seem to be coming to where they were. They thought it was a ghost at first and screamed, and then realized it was Jesus and called out in fear and desperation.

Jesus got in the boat, the wind died down, and they got to the other side. The disciples were amazed, but still confused. The gospel writer said they still didn’t understand about the loaves even though they had gotten through it.

The Lesson of the Loaves was not a parable Jesus had told. Jesus never said, “Here’s what the loaves mean,” to them or to us. But look back at the story again. Jesus told them to feed the people and the disciples said, “We don’t have enough money to do that,” which I hear as another version of “How are we going to get through this?”

And Jesus asked, “How many loaves do you have?”

They gave him the loaves that they had and when the meal was over there was more than enough for everyone. They had gotten through it.

As for me, late Wednesday night I sent an email to all three of my doctors telling them how I felt about what had happened with the test. It didn’t change anything, but it at least gave me something tangible that I could do. Thursday afternoon I heard from my audiologist saying she understood and asked me to come in for more testing this coming week. It doesn’t mean I am going to get the implant, but it does mean the story is not over.

I got through it. I found enough to keep going. I felt like I had to learn the lesson of the loaves.

Let me be clear: I don’t mean the lesson of the loaves is, “Just hang in there and everything will work out for everyone,” because everything doesn’t always work out. Sometimes the boat sinks. Sometimes people go hungry. I still may not qualify for my implant.

I am not saying that when God closes a door, God opens a window. Sometimes doors close because they need to be shut, and most of the time God is not the one closing them. God didn’t make those people get hungry in the middle of that pasture or set the wind against the disciples just to teach them a lesson, any more than God inflicted me with profound hearing loss.

And that brings me to Gladys Knight and the Pips. (I mean, the connection is obvious, don’t you think?)

Last Sunday evening when word came that President Biden was not going to seek reelection, I was stunned by his news, but what disheartened me was how some of his political adversaries responded with attacking words rather than show the slightest compassion for what must have been a difficult decision. That was another night that I asked, “How are we going to get through this?”

I kept hearing an old song by Gladys Knight and the Pips. The opening lines say,

I’ve just got to use my imagination
to think of a reason to keep on keeping on.

Maybe Motown is not where you look for inspiration, but it spoke to me, in part because when I hear the word imagination as a sibling to the word image—as in the image of God in which we were created. The Spirit of God is imagination: the eyes to see beyond the limits and fears of the moment.

Can you see the imagination of Jesus in response to the disciples saying the had no money? He took a sack lunch and started sharing and invited a hillside full of people to join the party. And then he came walking across the water because his disciples still couldn’t hear the music.

We have so much inviting us to despair. I’ve already mentioned our political climate. Friday I saw the video of a police officer shooting a woman named Sonya Massey as she stood in her kitchen. The death toll in Gaza is almost 50,000. The people of Ukraine and Sudan are suffering from wars in their countries. And those are only three of the almost one hundred wars around the globe. We have all kinds of reasons to keep yelling, “Walls!” and putting up our defenses.

So, how do we get through this?

How do we imagine life beyond our fear and pain, beyond our confusion and concern? How do we trust the lesson of the loaves—trust that God is with us and we are with each other and that is enough, even when things stay tough?

We live in important days, days that feel critical, maybe they even feel like the world has never been this bad. May we be imaginative enough to remember that we are not the most important people who have ever lived, or the most troubled, we are just the latest ones. I am not the first one to ever have been denied medical care because my insurance wouldn’t cover it any more than the people on that hillside were the first to be hungry or the disciples were the first sailors to get caught by the wind.

We belong to a legacy of love, a lineage of people who got through it because they trusted that the love of God never let go, of people who imagined that love was enough—and got through it. May we go and do likewise. Amen.

Peace,
Milton

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