Sanctified to Pass the Word
Delivered on January 16th, 2011 at the United Church of Winchester, NH.
Call to Worship (responsive)
Leader: We have a dream that one day, all the peoples of our nation will be free.
People: This is our hope.
Leader: We have a dream that one day, all the peoples of our world will be free.
People: This is our desire.
Leader: We have a dream that one day, freedom will ring for every person of every land, for man and woman, for adult and child.
People: This is our dream, that one day everyone will be sanctified, regardless of color, creed, race, gender, belief or genetics, to hear the Word in their own way.
All: Amen.
Call to Confession
Please join me in a spirit of prayer.
We come to you with joyful hearts, O God, hearts filled with wonder and praise: for the magnificence of the universe you have created; for the constantly changing complexity of the lives you have given us; but most of all for your Incarnation, your dwelling, among us. We thank you for every prophet and enlightened person you have sent among us, speaking of dreams and of freedom. We thank you for the words that your holy messengers speak.
Prayer of Confession (unison)
Our lives are filled with words, O God, words and words and words: on television, in books, on the Internet; words we hear and words we speak. The words that are around us blend into nothingness. We say we believe in helping others; we even identify who those "others" might be: the homeless, the helpless, the hopeless; those who lack food, shelter, companionship; those who have been beaten down by life or left behind in our affluent society. Even so, we too often fail to follow our words with actions. Forgive us, we pray. Help us to connect what we say and what we do, that we may become ever-growing disciples of Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon
If, by reflection, analysis, and prayer, we are freed to acknowledge the wrongs around us, the pain among us, the sin within us, and the work before us, God’s mission of peace with justice is being revealed in our midst. Always remember and never forget: Your burden has been lifted! The liberating love of God is at work within you!
Scripture Lessons
Hebrew - Psalm 40: 1-11
Christian - Matthew 3:13-17
Sermon -- Sanctified to Pass the Word
Most of you know that I am in seminary. I am learning to be a minister. Some things I'm fairly practiced in, such as hospital visits and performing marriage ceremonies. Other things I need more practice in, like learning how to integrate led prayer into services seamlessly. I'm human, though, and I continue to practice my skills and gain new skills as I go through my seminary journey. As I gain more knowledge, I realize how little I know; as I realize how little I know, I become a better minister.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a minister, too. He was a Baptist minister, passionate, loud, and opinionated. He reverberated with his belief in a just and active God. He said a lot of things over his very full life, and some people say he was a prophet in our own time. Dr. King once said, “Nothing is more tragic than to sleep through a revolution.” Truly, the work of justice begins with a proper recognition that injustice is real! Let us be awakened by the movement of that Spirit which gives us life. The Spirit was very strong in him, and held him through many trials and troubles.
In 1963, in a letter to complacent clergy in the South, Dr. King wrote, “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. In the end,” he said, “we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” Burke said, “All that is required for evil to flourish in the world is for good men to do nothing.” Doing nothing is easy, and being appallingly silent is easy. Too easy. In a way, it's what we're trained to do – don't rock the boat, don't bring the attention down on yourself. But that isn't what Dr. King preached and taught.
What he taught was to just do what needed doing. It was... IS... that simple. Look around you. Do you see something that needs doing? Both in and out of this church there are a hundred opportunities for each of us to raise awareness, to share our joy in Spirit, to bring justice to a very unjust world. The question is, are we doing it, or are we being complacent, appallingly silent?
King said, “Even though we must face difficulties to today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed — we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.”
When we walk out the door of this church, we all have difficulties to face. Some of us have been struggling with weights just barely borne. My family is facing two of its members leaving. Others are dealing with divorce, death, illness, children leaving the country to bear arms in far off places... We have to face these difficulties today and tomorrow, and yet we still must keep our dreams alive.
As members of this church, The United Church of Winchester, we are a part of a larger community. We have members and friends in Winchester, in Hinsdale, in Keene and Ashuelot and Stoddard. No one family or person in this church is better than another. We're all human, with failings and strengths. Dr. King's dream is alive today because people like you and me, fallible people who made mistakes but kept on trying, continued to push for equality throughout our nation.
It doesn't end there, though. Look around – the color of your skin doesn't guarantee persecution anymore. Should we then declare Dr. King's dream recognized and forget about it? No! We remember that dream every year because it's important to see what is behind the obvious parts. Yes, Dr. King wanted to see little black children and little white children playing together. He succeeded! It doesn't stop there, though. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
Did you know that while there is a line in our Constitutional Amendments about equality of the races in this country, that there is no such line about gender? Yes, the world has accepted that women and men are equal and that equal work should equate to equal pay, and in most places that is now true. Yet it isn't in that fine document that guides our law makers and leaders. To this day, the 14th Amendment only implies equality of the sexes, rather than stating it outright. Why?
What about more difficult questions? What about marriage equality? What would we do, here in our church, if two of our female members stood up and asked to be married? Are we prepared to answer that? Are we ready to stand up for equality of all kinds? Are we ready to dispense the kind of equality that we've historically fought for, in all three of the denominations that make up this church?
We can't be silent on these things. Silence is usually considered the same as acceptance, and we cannot afford to hold back our opinions. We might disagree with one another; that's okay. I doubt Dr. King's followers believed every word he said. In peaceful disagreement, we can learn much from one another. The more members we have, the more opinions there are to share, and the more tolerance we must learn. This can't be a bad thing!
I want to challenge you, each of you. In the Bible, in Genesis 1:27, God creates man in their own image, male and female they created them. So it says in Scripture. God also created us black and white and yellow, Jew and Christian and Buddhist, male and female, all in God's image. God is so much more than just an old man with a beard sitting on a throne in the sky, after all. If God can create all these things, can we not accept all these things?
One of the best images of God I've ever seen was the very first Sunday School at the very first Unitarian Universalist church I went to. Each child was given a slice out of a big circle, and asked to draw “God as they understood God.” While the kids were coloring, they read stories from different faith traditions, sang songs, and had a little snack. At the end of Sunday School, before the children went to be with their parents, all the slices of the circle were gathered up. The Sunday School teacher glued them onto a big board, so that one whole was made of all the pieces. “That,” she said, “is much closer to what God really is, boys and girls. God isn't just one thing or another. God is ALL these things, and more! We worship God in our own ways, and that's okay, but we mustn't ever try to put limits on God.” That one simple craft, probably thrown together at the last minute for an unusually large group of children, has stuck with me through the years. How simple – God is. Period. There isn't anything after that. God is the ultimate in tolerance, I suppose, because God created all of us, and gave us our free will.
I think of today's New Testament Scripture. John the Baptist is standing in the water and here comes Jesus, the one he's been talking about. Faced with his Lord, he says, “You should be baptizing me, not the other way around!” But Jesus knelt and accepted John's baptism, because it was right at that time. He led his disciples to the water, and like Dr. King hundreds of years later, he was humble and peaceable even in the face of violence. There is so much to learn from Dr. King, who took so many of his own lessons from Jesus. As we get ready to face the rest of our day, and start the new week, let's keep our ears open for opportunities. Let's not keep silent when we should speak with gentle wisdom. Let's not be afraid to share out of fear of persecution. Let's be willing to stand up for a greater freedom, the freedom of all men and women of our world to worship and love and learn and play together, a single human race under God as we understand God.
Martin Luther King was a spirited preacher. He was filled with the Spirit, and he spoke in that strong, commanding voice we all think of when we hear the words of his famous speech. When he spoke of God's love for all creation, he said it with vigor and life. He made his congregation, the same congregation served by his father and his grandfather before him, stand up in the aisles and say, 'Amen!' We here in New Hampshire are a bit less vocal in our agreements, but our spirit is no less inflamed. We, too, carry the fiery love of God within us.
It isn't enough for us just to know about Spirit, though. We're all of us ministers, all of us evangelists, all of us modern day John the Baptists. Dr. King exhorted his followers to peaceably bring the word of God into the world around them, not by bothering people on street corners but through their actions and daily deeds, through their works of faith. They didn't bring about the equality of people in the United States with guns or clubs or threats. They did it with LOVE. They loved one another. They loved Dr. King. They went a little farther, emulating our Lord Jesus, and they loved their opponents and their enemies. They took to the streets not with knives and sticks, but with signs and hearts full of unconditional love taught to them by Jesus through Dr. King's teachings.
Perhaps we don't speak in tongues or get quite as sweaty about our preachin' here in The United Church of Winchester. Some of our messages are quite different from the ones spoken in that Baptist Church down in Dr. King's neighborhood. But isn't it the same Spirit that brings the sacred words to our lips? Isn't it the same God that calls to us to set aside our swords and turn them into plowshares? Isn't it the same Universal Force of Love that touches our hearts as it touched the hearts of Dr. King and his congregation in the late 1950s and early 1960s?
It is the same Spirit. It is the same God, the same Universal Force of Love. And the message is the same – Love one another. Be kind to each other. Treat others as you want to be treated. It doesn't matter if the OTHER is male or female, black or white or even green with purple spots. It doesn't matter if the OTHER is someone who's still struggling with their spiritual journey, or well practiced and well churched. What matters is that we all understand that God loves us, and that means ALL of us. Jesus preached love, and started an entire religion that's lasted 2000 years and counting. Dr. King preached love, and started a movement that's grown and expanded since it's inception in the 1960s and which will hopefully continue to grow until everyone can bow their head to God in their own way, until every person is free to love whoever God has sent to them, until no one lives enslaved to another for whatever reason. As Dr. King said, “Let freedom ring!”
I'd like to ask you all to bow your heads in a spirit of prayer with me.
O God of unconditional love, you who show no partiality in respect to persons, nations, genders or races, we have heard your good news of great joy for all the people. We hear that good news, and in hearing, we believe! We know that your sanctuary is a house of worship for all people, with no regard for the color of our skin, hair or eyes, with no concern over our gender, our current place on the journey of faith, or who we love and are loved by. As we worship you, knit us into a people, a seamless garment of many colors and shapes and sizes. May we celebrate our unity, made whole in our diversity. Amen!
Benediction
Martin Luther King dared to dream of a world where little black boys and girls could play with little white boys and girls. In this country, his dream has largely become a reality. As that amazing dream became real, his friends and family, his followers continued to expand and refine that dream. We, too, need to continue to refine the dreams that we have. Let us dream of a world filled with peace and love and joy. Let us dream of a world where all can worship at the altar of God as they choose. Let us dream big dreams of true equality and justice the world over!
Jesus said, “You ought always to pray and not to faint.” Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger women and men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, but for power equal to your tasks. Then, the doing of your work will be no miracle — you will be the miracle. Your dreams will match God's dreams, and each day you will wonder at yourself and the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God. Amen.
Call to Worship (responsive)
Leader: We have a dream that one day, all the peoples of our nation will be free.
People: This is our hope.
Leader: We have a dream that one day, all the peoples of our world will be free.
People: This is our desire.
Leader: We have a dream that one day, freedom will ring for every person of every land, for man and woman, for adult and child.
People: This is our dream, that one day everyone will be sanctified, regardless of color, creed, race, gender, belief or genetics, to hear the Word in their own way.
All: Amen.
Call to Confession
Please join me in a spirit of prayer.
We come to you with joyful hearts, O God, hearts filled with wonder and praise: for the magnificence of the universe you have created; for the constantly changing complexity of the lives you have given us; but most of all for your Incarnation, your dwelling, among us. We thank you for every prophet and enlightened person you have sent among us, speaking of dreams and of freedom. We thank you for the words that your holy messengers speak.
Prayer of Confession (unison)
Our lives are filled with words, O God, words and words and words: on television, in books, on the Internet; words we hear and words we speak. The words that are around us blend into nothingness. We say we believe in helping others; we even identify who those "others" might be: the homeless, the helpless, the hopeless; those who lack food, shelter, companionship; those who have been beaten down by life or left behind in our affluent society. Even so, we too often fail to follow our words with actions. Forgive us, we pray. Help us to connect what we say and what we do, that we may become ever-growing disciples of Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon
If, by reflection, analysis, and prayer, we are freed to acknowledge the wrongs around us, the pain among us, the sin within us, and the work before us, God’s mission of peace with justice is being revealed in our midst. Always remember and never forget: Your burden has been lifted! The liberating love of God is at work within you!
Scripture Lessons
Hebrew - Psalm 40: 1-11
Christian - Matthew 3:13-17
Sermon -- Sanctified to Pass the Word
Most of you know that I am in seminary. I am learning to be a minister. Some things I'm fairly practiced in, such as hospital visits and performing marriage ceremonies. Other things I need more practice in, like learning how to integrate led prayer into services seamlessly. I'm human, though, and I continue to practice my skills and gain new skills as I go through my seminary journey. As I gain more knowledge, I realize how little I know; as I realize how little I know, I become a better minister.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a minister, too. He was a Baptist minister, passionate, loud, and opinionated. He reverberated with his belief in a just and active God. He said a lot of things over his very full life, and some people say he was a prophet in our own time. Dr. King once said, “Nothing is more tragic than to sleep through a revolution.” Truly, the work of justice begins with a proper recognition that injustice is real! Let us be awakened by the movement of that Spirit which gives us life. The Spirit was very strong in him, and held him through many trials and troubles.
In 1963, in a letter to complacent clergy in the South, Dr. King wrote, “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. In the end,” he said, “we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” Burke said, “All that is required for evil to flourish in the world is for good men to do nothing.” Doing nothing is easy, and being appallingly silent is easy. Too easy. In a way, it's what we're trained to do – don't rock the boat, don't bring the attention down on yourself. But that isn't what Dr. King preached and taught.
What he taught was to just do what needed doing. It was... IS... that simple. Look around you. Do you see something that needs doing? Both in and out of this church there are a hundred opportunities for each of us to raise awareness, to share our joy in Spirit, to bring justice to a very unjust world. The question is, are we doing it, or are we being complacent, appallingly silent?
King said, “Even though we must face difficulties to today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed — we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.”
When we walk out the door of this church, we all have difficulties to face. Some of us have been struggling with weights just barely borne. My family is facing two of its members leaving. Others are dealing with divorce, death, illness, children leaving the country to bear arms in far off places... We have to face these difficulties today and tomorrow, and yet we still must keep our dreams alive.
As members of this church, The United Church of Winchester, we are a part of a larger community. We have members and friends in Winchester, in Hinsdale, in Keene and Ashuelot and Stoddard. No one family or person in this church is better than another. We're all human, with failings and strengths. Dr. King's dream is alive today because people like you and me, fallible people who made mistakes but kept on trying, continued to push for equality throughout our nation.
It doesn't end there, though. Look around – the color of your skin doesn't guarantee persecution anymore. Should we then declare Dr. King's dream recognized and forget about it? No! We remember that dream every year because it's important to see what is behind the obvious parts. Yes, Dr. King wanted to see little black children and little white children playing together. He succeeded! It doesn't stop there, though. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
Did you know that while there is a line in our Constitutional Amendments about equality of the races in this country, that there is no such line about gender? Yes, the world has accepted that women and men are equal and that equal work should equate to equal pay, and in most places that is now true. Yet it isn't in that fine document that guides our law makers and leaders. To this day, the 14th Amendment only implies equality of the sexes, rather than stating it outright. Why?
What about more difficult questions? What about marriage equality? What would we do, here in our church, if two of our female members stood up and asked to be married? Are we prepared to answer that? Are we ready to stand up for equality of all kinds? Are we ready to dispense the kind of equality that we've historically fought for, in all three of the denominations that make up this church?
We can't be silent on these things. Silence is usually considered the same as acceptance, and we cannot afford to hold back our opinions. We might disagree with one another; that's okay. I doubt Dr. King's followers believed every word he said. In peaceful disagreement, we can learn much from one another. The more members we have, the more opinions there are to share, and the more tolerance we must learn. This can't be a bad thing!
I want to challenge you, each of you. In the Bible, in Genesis 1:27, God creates man in their own image, male and female they created them. So it says in Scripture. God also created us black and white and yellow, Jew and Christian and Buddhist, male and female, all in God's image. God is so much more than just an old man with a beard sitting on a throne in the sky, after all. If God can create all these things, can we not accept all these things?
One of the best images of God I've ever seen was the very first Sunday School at the very first Unitarian Universalist church I went to. Each child was given a slice out of a big circle, and asked to draw “God as they understood God.” While the kids were coloring, they read stories from different faith traditions, sang songs, and had a little snack. At the end of Sunday School, before the children went to be with their parents, all the slices of the circle were gathered up. The Sunday School teacher glued them onto a big board, so that one whole was made of all the pieces. “That,” she said, “is much closer to what God really is, boys and girls. God isn't just one thing or another. God is ALL these things, and more! We worship God in our own ways, and that's okay, but we mustn't ever try to put limits on God.” That one simple craft, probably thrown together at the last minute for an unusually large group of children, has stuck with me through the years. How simple – God is. Period. There isn't anything after that. God is the ultimate in tolerance, I suppose, because God created all of us, and gave us our free will.
I think of today's New Testament Scripture. John the Baptist is standing in the water and here comes Jesus, the one he's been talking about. Faced with his Lord, he says, “You should be baptizing me, not the other way around!” But Jesus knelt and accepted John's baptism, because it was right at that time. He led his disciples to the water, and like Dr. King hundreds of years later, he was humble and peaceable even in the face of violence. There is so much to learn from Dr. King, who took so many of his own lessons from Jesus. As we get ready to face the rest of our day, and start the new week, let's keep our ears open for opportunities. Let's not keep silent when we should speak with gentle wisdom. Let's not be afraid to share out of fear of persecution. Let's be willing to stand up for a greater freedom, the freedom of all men and women of our world to worship and love and learn and play together, a single human race under God as we understand God.
Martin Luther King was a spirited preacher. He was filled with the Spirit, and he spoke in that strong, commanding voice we all think of when we hear the words of his famous speech. When he spoke of God's love for all creation, he said it with vigor and life. He made his congregation, the same congregation served by his father and his grandfather before him, stand up in the aisles and say, 'Amen!' We here in New Hampshire are a bit less vocal in our agreements, but our spirit is no less inflamed. We, too, carry the fiery love of God within us.
It isn't enough for us just to know about Spirit, though. We're all of us ministers, all of us evangelists, all of us modern day John the Baptists. Dr. King exhorted his followers to peaceably bring the word of God into the world around them, not by bothering people on street corners but through their actions and daily deeds, through their works of faith. They didn't bring about the equality of people in the United States with guns or clubs or threats. They did it with LOVE. They loved one another. They loved Dr. King. They went a little farther, emulating our Lord Jesus, and they loved their opponents and their enemies. They took to the streets not with knives and sticks, but with signs and hearts full of unconditional love taught to them by Jesus through Dr. King's teachings.
Perhaps we don't speak in tongues or get quite as sweaty about our preachin' here in The United Church of Winchester. Some of our messages are quite different from the ones spoken in that Baptist Church down in Dr. King's neighborhood. But isn't it the same Spirit that brings the sacred words to our lips? Isn't it the same God that calls to us to set aside our swords and turn them into plowshares? Isn't it the same Universal Force of Love that touches our hearts as it touched the hearts of Dr. King and his congregation in the late 1950s and early 1960s?
It is the same Spirit. It is the same God, the same Universal Force of Love. And the message is the same – Love one another. Be kind to each other. Treat others as you want to be treated. It doesn't matter if the OTHER is male or female, black or white or even green with purple spots. It doesn't matter if the OTHER is someone who's still struggling with their spiritual journey, or well practiced and well churched. What matters is that we all understand that God loves us, and that means ALL of us. Jesus preached love, and started an entire religion that's lasted 2000 years and counting. Dr. King preached love, and started a movement that's grown and expanded since it's inception in the 1960s and which will hopefully continue to grow until everyone can bow their head to God in their own way, until every person is free to love whoever God has sent to them, until no one lives enslaved to another for whatever reason. As Dr. King said, “Let freedom ring!”
I'd like to ask you all to bow your heads in a spirit of prayer with me.
O God of unconditional love, you who show no partiality in respect to persons, nations, genders or races, we have heard your good news of great joy for all the people. We hear that good news, and in hearing, we believe! We know that your sanctuary is a house of worship for all people, with no regard for the color of our skin, hair or eyes, with no concern over our gender, our current place on the journey of faith, or who we love and are loved by. As we worship you, knit us into a people, a seamless garment of many colors and shapes and sizes. May we celebrate our unity, made whole in our diversity. Amen!
Benediction
Martin Luther King dared to dream of a world where little black boys and girls could play with little white boys and girls. In this country, his dream has largely become a reality. As that amazing dream became real, his friends and family, his followers continued to expand and refine that dream. We, too, need to continue to refine the dreams that we have. Let us dream of a world filled with peace and love and joy. Let us dream of a world where all can worship at the altar of God as they choose. Let us dream big dreams of true equality and justice the world over!
Jesus said, “You ought always to pray and not to faint.” Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger women and men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, but for power equal to your tasks. Then, the doing of your work will be no miracle — you will be the miracle. Your dreams will match God's dreams, and each day you will wonder at yourself and the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God. Amen.
