​The Bible begins in darkness. Genesis 1:1-2 says, “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” Notice how busy God is in the darkness. The theologian Catherine Keller, in her book On the Mystery, argues that what is often translated as “formless void” is better translated as “waste and wild.” And, she says that the darkness can be understood to be hovering, pulsating, over the deep chaos.

     Genesis tells us that God breaths over this deep, dark abyss and that depth... dark as rich soil... dark as good coffee... dark as the woods around my house last night before the storm... was full of potential. In her sermon “Embracing the Light and Darkness in the Age of Black Lives Matter,” Dr. Wil Gafneys says, “We are afraid of the dark but God is not. Darkness is a creative space to God.” God works in this fertile chaos and draws out creation... first light and then water and the sky and the land and then plants, stars, planets, all creatures that swim, slither, run, and fly... and finally, us... humanity. But, before there was anything else, there was wild deep and darkness and God. God was there, working in the dark.

     In another sermon called “Conspire with the Spirit,” Dr. Gafney notes that throughout scripture, God is shown abiding in the darkness. In Exodus 20:21, Moses approaches the mountain where God is said to be. It is all sound and fury, smoke and lighting and trumpet and thunder. The people stay at a distance, but Moses approaches God in the Thick Darkness. That same thick darkness is also described in Deuteronomy 4:11. Second Samuel 22: 12 and Psalm 18:11 describe God making darkness a canopy around Godself. 1 Kings 8:12 and 2nd Chronicles 6:1 each describe God as dwelling in thick darkness. The text in Dr. Gafney’s list that probably most poetically describes the holiness of the dark is Isaiah 45: 3, God’s word to Cyrus: “I will give you the treasures of the darkness and riches hidden in secret places, so that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name.” While some parts of the Bible use darkness and light to contrast distance from God and nearness to God, it is clear that there is a vibrant biblical tradition of God being in the shadows and the deep and heights and the dark.

     So, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised to read that there is something holy and healing about a shadow here in Acts 5. Now, I’ll admit that I think the signs and wonders here are more likely intended to mirror the signs and wonders of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. Acts is the sequel to Luke, after all, and shows us how Christ’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, lived on through the Apostles. Just as Jesus healed people, so will the Apostles. In a story that mirrors in many ways the story of people lowering their friend down through a roof so that Jesus may heal him in Luke 5 and the story of the bleeding woman who sought healing by touching the hem of Jesus’ garment in Luke 8, here in Acts 5, we are told that people were bringing the sick to lay on cots and mats in the street near where Peter was preaching, so that if he walked by them, and his shadow cast over them, like God’s breath cast over the deep, that they would be healed.

     You might read this as a sign of the sheer desperation of the ill. The stories from Luke certainly seem to be the acts of those desperate for healing. How sick must you be and how greatly might you be suffering to look for healing in a shadow? I appreciate that these people are never described as somehow pathetic or foolish for going to such measures, though their need is obvious. If healing and wholeness are so close, obviously you will draw near, as Moses did to the Thick Darkness of Sinai. You might find treasures in the shadows and God in the shade offered by Peter’s moving form, as he goes about preaching and teaching and healing on behalf of the Risen Christ.

     Now, I’m not saying that the shadow of Peter is exactly like the Luminous Darkness of God. Peter was not God though the Holy Spirit was with him. But, I do wonder if the people who hoped to even be touched by his shadow, if not his healing hands, had some spark of memory of their mysterious God who drew light and life out of the abyss and direction and care from the deep.  They might not understand how the shadow might help but they are willing to seek out its holy potential. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

     Anyone who tells you that goodness and holiness are only found in the light, in whiteness, in that which is clear and easy to understand has missed this message of the Bible, that God abides in the dark.... that life can be born from the deep and the wild... that the shadows can bring healing and that God is bigger and more mysterious than our tidy and often incorrect orderings of the world can contain. The white supremacist who murdered 10 people in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo yesterday... he thought goodness could only live in whiteness and in tidy, racist social categories. He destroyed lives because he had more faith in whiteness than in God, who abides with us in both the light and the dark. May we who know the God who abides in the thick darkness, the Christ of the Empty Tomb, and the Holy Spirit who flows even through the densest of shadows never follow down his same path. And, may we work with the Holy Spirit, as our forebears the Apostles did, for a world where all may be made well.
​
Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Wil Gafney, "Fifth Sunday of Easter" Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2022)
Also, these two sermons of Dr. Gafney's:

• Embracing the Light and the Darkness is the Age of Black Lives Matter: https://www.wilgafney.com/2015/12/27/embracing-the-light-the-darkness-in-the-age-of-black-lives-matter/
• Conspire with the Spirit: https://www.wilgafney.com/2018/01/07/conspire-with-the-spirit/

Catherine Keller, On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008)

     Tell me if you recognize these song lyrics:
      Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
      He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
      He have loosed the fateful lightening of His terrible swift sword
     His truth is marching on
​
     As many of you have said, it’s the Battle Hymn of the Republic, written by Julia Ward Howe in 1862. Howe, a poet, abolitionist, and suffragist, actually spent quite a lot of time just down the road in Gardiner, Maine, and one of her daughter’s eventually moved there. During the Civil War, Howe had worked for the US Sanitary Commission, an organization that encouraged more sanitary conditions at field hospitals and for soldiers. After witnessing the destruction of that war instigated by slavers, both during battle and the on-going suffering veterans and people who lost family members and friends after the war, she grew leery of war, in general. It was too easy for powerful people to risk other’s lives for their own petty gain.

     In 1870, she shared what would become known as The Mother’s Day Proclamation for Peace. This proclamation, and her organizing of peace actions and demonstrations in New York, would serve as one part of the foundation for our current holiday of Mother’s Day, though, in her lifetime, she was not able to successfully develop the Mother’s Day for Peace into a national holiday.  Here is the text of her proclamation:

MOTHER’S DAY PROCLAMATION
Boston, 1870
Arise, then… women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies.
Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage,
for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says:  Disarm, Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
nor violence vindicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
at the summons of war,
let women now leave all that may be left of home
for a great and earnest day of council.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means
whereby the great human family can live in peace,
each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask
that a general congress of women, without limit of nationality,
may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient,
and at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
to promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
the amicable settlement of international questions,
the great and general interests of peace.
~ Julia Ward Howe

     While I do not think that women, as some essential part of our being, are just magically more peaceful and less capable of violence, I have been thinking about Mrs. Howe’s proclamation this week. What would it mean to listen to the wisdom of the ones who have been tasked with both the physical risk, often life-threatening, of bearing children into the world as well as, in so many cases, the bulk of the responsibility in nurturing them into adulthood? How do we reckon with the aftermath of violence, even violence that seems justified, and the ways that trauma ripples out, like flood waves or earthquakes, completely changing lives?

     Howe’s proclamation is at once a realistic assessment of the pain of state violence and the need for collective mourning, while also demonstrating a kind of absurd level of hopefulness in the power of everyday people of good will to work together for peace. This congress of international women who will meet to wage peace? Impossible. It could never happen. It is good to remember that it’s the Easter season, though. And, people thought that Resurrection was impossible, too. Perhaps our faith is rooted in working towards the faithful impossible.

     I started this sermon by mentioned one song about war, The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Our Psalm, today, is also a song written in response to war and state violence. This Psalm describes God as a stronghold for the oppressed. Stronghold here means something like a fortress or force you can count on for support and salvation. In his commentary on this text, John Kselman says this image of God, as “righteous judge and defender of the oppressed” is very common in Psalms. I’d add that it’s common across the Bible all the way into Jesus’ life and ministry.

     The Psalmist doesn’t spend any time questioning the validity of state violence, but does describe the horrors of war, sometimes with a level of glee towards the suffering of enemies that I can’t really stomach. But, here in the middle of the Psalm, is this assertion that God stands with those who suffer at the hands of enemies of the nation in which they live... that God stands with the regular people whose lives are made worse by the call to war of their leaders. God does not forget the cry of the afflicted. God is the one who lifts the suffering up from the gates of death. And, those who have been saved will rejoice at the gates of God’s city, the fortified walls of Jerusalem.
​
     Julia Ward Howe called for an audacious congress of women to work for peace. The Psalmist sings praises for God at the city gates in the wake of a terrible war. What is the hopeful and impossible seeming future you are dreaming of? Is it a world where all people have what advocate organization SisterSong calls “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities?” Is it a world where transgender kids have the support they need to grow into the lives they are called to live, whole and healthy and beloved? Knowing that God is your stronghold, what impossible future can you see beyond the gates of death that are looming? What songs will you sing to God as you work with the Holy Spirit for the impossible? May you find the song of praise that can guide you in this holy work of the faithful impossible.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Information about Julia Ward Howe and the Mother's Day Proclamation:

• https://peacealliance.org/history-of-mothers-day-as-a-day-of-peace-julia-ward-howe/
• https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/mothers-day-for-peace/
• https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/julia-ward-howe

Sistersong: https://www.sistersong.net/reproductive-justice
John S. Kselman, "Psalms," The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994).

      ​What does it mean to live in the world when you know that Resurrection is real? That is part of what Paul addresses in his letters to churches. As we progress into the Easter season, that is still a question to which we must attend. How do we live in the world in a way that is shaped by our belief that Resurrection is real? Paul, in this letter to the church in Rome, argues that being Christian means grounding ourselves and our actions in love.

     In an introduction to this letter that he wrote for the New Interpreter’s Bible. Neil Elliott notes that Paul hadn’t actually yet met the Christians to whom he was writing. The work that we now call the book of Romans was not a letter to encourage people he had known and worshiped with. This is a letter to Christians whom he did not know but whom he hoped to convince to support his ministry. It seems like he really wanted to “present his case,” so to speak. This letter ends up being what is likely the most complete articulation of his understanding of his mission and of what it means to follow Christ out of all of his letters that have survived to the current day. When Paul was trying to get some people, who didn’t know him to support his mission, he decided to tell them, very clearly, what he believed. And, what he believed was “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

     I preached on Romans a little while ago and noted that there might have been some tension in the congregation that Paul was addressing. Elliott, in his commentary, noted that Jewish people, including those who would understand them as followers of Jesus, had only recently been allowed to return to the city. There seems to be some conflict between those who were ethnically Jewish and those who were Gentile, even though they all followed Jesus. Because there lingered an anti-Judaism within the Roman elite and among Roman citizens, Paul wanted to make sure that that kind of ethnic and religious prejudice was not a part of their Christian community. Few things would be less loving than harassing an ethnic minority that the government had chosen to target. Unfortunately, Christians continue, to this day, to forget this lesson of Romans.

     I always think it’s interesting to read how Paul reads other biblical texts. He was a Pharisee and knew Jewish scripture and religious law like the back of his hand. Once he had his conversion experience and began to follow Jesus, he began to read those scriptures and practices through the lens of his new faith in Christ. Our reading for today includes some of his commentary on that scripture and practice as a way to affirm the on-going influence of Jewish religious law on early Christian churches. He assumes this church, even with a large Gentile population, knows parts of Jewish traditions, particularly things that were central to Jesus’ own teaching. And love was both the foundation of Jewish law and Jesus’ mission.

     Paul, like Jesus himself, sees love as foundational to what we know as the Ten Commandments: “Any other commandments are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” And, when you are trying to develop a life shaped by how you follow Christ, these scriptures, grounded in love, can help you learn how to shape your life with Christ. Following this ethic of love will give your life a God-contour. In his poetic commentary on this text, Dr. Israel Kamudzandu says “love is the grand ground on which everything grows and flourishes.” He goes on to say, “While hate and oppression dehumanize others, love, if well done and exercised, will give birth to a new world order, one in which healthy love can be nursed, grow, and flourish.” If we return to the question at the beginning of the sermon, how do you live like the resurrection is real? You love, as Jesus loved.

     It can be very easy to say “love your neighbor,” though people seem to struggle with what love actually means. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people justify saying some pretty heinous homophobic things by arguing that it would not be loving for them to be kind to someone who’s gender or relationship they don’t think is appropriate. They might compare it to yelling at someone to stop them from, say, touching a hot stove. I will tell you right now: homophobia is not loving, no matter what kind of intent is behind it. And, yet, people will say they are doing it out of love. This love thing is complicated, isn’t it?

     Jesus gives some pretty clear instruction about what is loving. He told a story once about a man who, despite risks to his safety and a disruption in his routine, helps a stranger who has been beaten. He also spoke of God judging the nations by how much they demonstrated love by feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty, by welcoming the stranger, by offering clothes and medical care to those who need it, by tending to those imprisoned. He also told a couple stories about lost people and lost sheep being sought after and welcomed when they returned home. If you want to know how to love, those seem like some places to start.

     In his commentary on this text, Dr. Kamudzandu says, “The church is indeed a place where persons can be organized, socialized, and mobilized to effectively love others.” This is one of my favorite descriptions of church that I’ve seen recently. I love the idea of church as a place where we practice love inside the walls so that we may practice love beyond these walls. This is why we gather and pray and sing together... to remind each other of God’s love and to share that love with the world. It is where we can talk with one another about what loving action actually is and offer amends and forgiveness when we fail to love. Love can be our lifestyle... that’s how Dr. Kamudzandu describes it: Love as a lifestyle. I pray that you can feel God’s love today and that you may see a way to practice that love in the world beyond these doors. If Resurrection is anything, it is love. May that love arise anew in you today and every day.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Wil Gafney, "Third Sunday of Easter," Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2022)
Israel Kamudzandu: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-23/commentary-on-romans-138-14
Neil Elliott, "Romans," The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary (Nashville: Abingdon Press,
1994)

​     "Do not be afraid." Who hear has heard that before? Maybe you heard about that dream Joseph had where an angel said to him: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit." Or maybe you’ve heard Jesus’ own teaching as he sent the 12 disciples on their mission of healing (Matthew 28:1-10): “Do not fear those who kill the body by cannot kill the soul.” Or, maybe you remember all those other times in the Bible when God or God's messenger told somebody "Do not be afraid." Like, when God said to Abram, "Do not be afraid, I will protect you from any army that seeks to harm you." Or, when God was saving Hagar and Ishmael after Abraham threw them out into the wilderness, God said, "do not fear" and saved the mother and child. Or, when Moses and Joshua were facing daunting enemies, they both hear from God, "Do not be afraid... you will survive and thrive well beyond the evil they intend for you." The stories of the Bible tell us again and again, when things look bleak, do not be afraid. God is getting ready to do a new thing.

     I am not sure how much comfort those promises brought Jesus’ disciples as they witnessed his trial, death, and burial in a tomb. I imagine that, at this point in the story, they’ve been very afraid, perhaps for days now. In less than a week, those closest to Jesus watched him go from being lauded by the common people who saw him as a beacon of hope to being crucified by the powerful people who saw him as a challenge to their authority. They were so fearful, that most abandon him. But, two of them, Mary from Magdala and another woman named Mary, as Judith Jones points out in her commentary, the same two who stayed with Jesus when he died, also went to see his tomb in the early one morning.

     Remember when I said, last Sunday, that the ground would shake once again? After the earth-moving triumphal entry into the city, and then the earth-shattering arrest and the trial, when Jesus took his last breath, the earth shook once again and the curtain covering the most sacred part of the Temple tore in two, from top to bottom. It would shake one more time as the two women named Mary arrived at the tomb.  As Elizabeth Johnson notes in her commentary on this text, Matthew’s resurrection account is the only one that includes this detail. She says, “The shaking of the earth is an appropriate parallel for the way that the events of Good Friday and Easter morning shake the very foundations of everything once thought to be secure.” Thankfully, the angel showed up just in time to explain what was happening. The angel said, “Do not be afraid.” 

     The angel told them, "He is no longer here. He has been raised. You can look in the tomb for yourselves.” Then, the angel appointed the two women as the first preachers of the Resurrection, telling them to tell the rest of the disciples what they have learned. The angel also tells them that Jesus has gone back out into the land where he preached and taught and healed people.  The Marys, and everyone else, will be able to meet him out there.

     Matthew tells us that the Marys left the tomb with fear but also great joy. Scripture also tells us that Jesus meets them on the road, in the midst of their joy and their fear, and repeats this same divine message “Do not be afraid.” All of this is so weird and so hard and so miraculous. But it is not the end. Go and tell the others. The others will meet Jesus again, too, in the midst of their fear. And, he will promise to be with them until the end of the age. I pray that you, too, will meet Jesus out there... out in the world where he healed and helped and connected with people. He is still with us, through the end of the age. Remember his words and take heart: Do not be afraid. More life can happen. And, when it does, we must leave the tomb and tell everyone about it. 
​Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
That'll Preach podcast: 08 // What? He Lives in You! [Luke 24:1-12] // Jacqui Lewis: https://soundcloud.com/thatllpreach/he-lives-in-you Judith Jones: https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3228 Melinda Quivick: https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1990 Elizabeth Johnson: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/easter-matthew-2/commentary-on-matthew-281-10-4 Wil Gafney, "Easter - The Great Vigil," A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2022) 
Artwork images:
Out the cave view: Photo by Luca Bravo on Unsplash

     He rode into town with two borrowed donkeys. Neither a hero of battle nor Roman nobility, and yet, the people gathered and greeted him as though he were one... as though he was really able to save them. That’s what Hosanna means: “Save me.” They took their cloaks and branches hastily cut from trees and they made him a clear path into the city. Hosannas rang across the city, hosannas usually reserved for the rich and powerful. In that moment, the crowds believed Jesus could help them. They believed that he could save them. So, they shouted and sang and made a fuss. And, into the city he rode, on two borrowed donkeys.

     Some version of this story is in each of the four Gospels. The stories vary as you would expect from four storytellers. One donkey or two, an unknown crowd or disciples, there is always a ruckus. Jesus is always greeted with joy. Matthew's version of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem says that the city shook with the intensity of crowd. In her translation of the text, Dr. Wil Gafney prefers to use the definition “shake” rather than “turmoil.” Jesus’ entry into the city is intended to have the power of an earthquake. Or, perhaps we are to read this as a convulsion of need by the people witness this strange parade. Either way, the people and city are shaken. And, the ground will shake again, later that same week. This tumult might be a warning, too.

     Jesus wasn't the only one who marched into the city during this festival. In his commentary on this text, Stanley Sanders talks about Jesus’ entry in the city is intended to be a contrast to that of the Roman elite. Pilate would have ridden into town and he wouldn’t have had to borrow a donkey, though, it should be noted, that he didn’t pay for the chariot he likely rode in on. That was the people’s money, taken by Rome. He and the soldiers he commanded would have made their own way into the city, displaying all their power and might in order to intimidate the people into good behavior during their religious celebration.

     We must remember that Passover was a holiday where the people celebrated their delivery from oppression in Egypt. Pilate needed to make sure they didn't get so overcome with all the talk of liberation that they became foolish enough to try to rebel against Rome. Sanders says that people would be required to show up to welcome Pilate and pledge obedience to the conqueror. To appear to be anything less than celebratory at his return to the city would be to court destruction at the hands of his garrison. I don't know if many people would have should Hosanna at Pilate. Maybe they would have, but, I bet most of them didn’t think he had come in the name of the Lord.

     If we are paying attention to Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, we can see how deeply his mission is connected to the hopes of his people. He is so connected to their prophecies of salvation that he reenacts one, albeit strangely, from the book of Zechariah. That’s what the whole business about the two donkeys is about. They are trying to follow a prophecy from Zechariah. It also shows us how deeply other people responded to his mission of wholeness and liberation. In the middle of a huge religious celebration, with dangerous soldiers all around, enough people gathered around him to move the earth with their adulation and excitement. I think we are also to see that their excitement, and Jesus' dedication to his mission probably also made some powerful people nervous. When the people already have liberation on their minds, and are shouting "save me" at a man they call a prophet, you can bet some powerful people would pay attention. That attention was rarely good attention. You don't claim the space of a king, even a humble one on a donkey, without courting conflict.

     We should make sure to take note that, even in the midst of an empire ready to harm you at the least provocation, the crowd saw an opportunity for hope and liberation, and they rushed forward to be a part of it. They were willing to grasp at any bit of freedom they could manage, even if was simply the freedom to celebrate this prophet more sincerely and graciously than any emissary that Rome could send their way. So, they shouted so loudly that the city had to pay attention and they shifted the earth beneath their feet.

     The world is so complex. It has always been, but I am most attentive to the complexities of right now. It is possible to create an entire litany of terrible things happening: It is now a felony for parents to give their children life-saving gender-affirming care in the state of Alabama, the war in Ukraine is looking more and more genocidal, the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point Reservation doesn’t have consistent access to clean water. We are still in the midst of a pandemic that has changed so many people’s lives forever. I imagine that the somberness of this coming week’s Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services will feel familiar because it is easy to feel somber these days. And, part of the gift of Holy Week is the space to feel that grief. Grief is not separate from our faith. It is a part of it. Palm Sunday reminds us that joy and shouting are, too.

     Rev. Jayne Davis, in her work on spiritual practices, talks about the value of setting aside time for acknowledging the holy in your life. She calls this making room for Sabbath. She’s not telling Christians to take up Jewish religious practices. She suggesting that we take time to rest in God’s presence, even if it’s only for a few minutes. I invite you, in this hectic world with many demands on your time and your care, to treat Holy Week as this set-aside space, where you can draw nearer to Christ, as these crowds did, and feel whatever is on your heart in that moment. Christ is with you in the silence, the shouting and the earth-shaking. May you find your Hosanna and welcome Christ, once again, into this place.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Stanley Saunders: https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2404
Wil Gafney, "Palm Sunday- Liturgy of the Palms," A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2022)
Jayne Davis: https://www.churchleadership.com/leading-ideas/7-spiritual-practices-for-the-new-year/
Art credit: Swanson, John August. Entry into the City, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56544. Original source: www.JohnAugustSwanson.com - copyright 1990 by John August.​

​     There is a beautiful and heartbreaking novel by Mary Doria Russell called The Sparrow. It is a book about humanity and science and religious faith and, also, aliens. If you aren’t inclined to enjoy books about sentient, singing aliens or people building a spaceship out of an asteroid, I would encourage you to read it for what it says about humanity, and, particularly, how it talks about intuition. When I think about intuition, as I have learned what it means, people usually use it in a context that makes it sound almost like a magical gift. If you have good intuition, your brain or heart or stomach has a keen ability to sense the truth about something. And, it often seems to me that intuition is something you either have or not. At least it did before I read The Sparrow.

     In the book, there is an astronomer named Jimmy. One of his jobs is to pay attention to signals a large satellite in Puerto Rico picked up. He is one of the people who decides if a signal is from something in space or from something on earth. There is another character in the book, Sofia Mendes, who has been hired by a company to see if she can write a computer program that can do what Jimmy does. Think of it like someone figuring out how to mechanize weaving, so that a machine does most of the work instead of a person... except, in this case, the work is astronomy and analyzing sound waves. Most of the time, the signals Jimmy is interpreting are easily recognized to be from earth. Any astronomer, with enough experience with the equipment, could figure it out. But, then this one signal came in and it was different.

     Since I’ve already told you that there are aliens, I don’t feel like I’m spoiling anything by tell you that Jimmy figured out that this signal was from a sentient life-form on another planet. More importantly, Jimmy figured out that it was a song sent all the way here, across four lightyears, from a solar system called Alpha Centauri. As Jimmy explained how he figured out that it was an actual transmission from other beings and specifically music, Sofia began to realize that what led Jimmy to this correct revelation wasn’t simply his training in astronomy.
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     When explaining himself, he said “The signal just looked like music to me.” Jimmy’s academic training plus his experience with the quirks of his scientific equipment plus musical training he’d had as a kid plus some work he done as a high schooler on old musical recordings combined with an experience of hearing two other characters sing together the night before to give him this epiphany. Sofia asked if another astronomer could have come to the same conclusion. He said, maybe? What he did wasn’t magic. Somebody else might have figured it out eventually. But, he also admitted that if someone else realized it was music, they might think it was from earth and not keep working on it long enough to realize that it wasn’t. That moment confirmed for Sofia that she couldn’t create a program that would have made this discovery. This discovery was possible because of Jimmy’s intuition. And, she couldn’t program intuition. 

     In The Sparrow, intuition is a skill, not a gift. Jimmy has intuition because he has learned how to connect all the pieces of his training and his life experience into knowledge that he knows is sound enough to trust. And at this vital moment, each little part of who he is... a pianist, a scientist, a man who is falling for a woman with a lovely voice... combined into this little voice in his brain that said “this transmission is a song.” His world, maybe the whole world, would never be the same after that. Sofia, for all her competence and hard work, could not download all of the pieces of his life into a computer. She could not repeat digitally what his mind had done organically. His intuition was honed and tended to in a way that computers can’t reproduce.

     I remembered this story about Jimmy’s intuition as I read today’s scripture from Luke and this description of the kindom of God as being like a tiny mustard seed and the even smaller yeast that causes dough to rise. You never know what the small thing, be it the weird high school job or the moments of shared song, will give rise to in your life. The portion of Luke that today’s reading is taken from is from the part of the story leading up Jesus entering into Jerusalem. Dr. Fred Craddock, in his commentary on this text, says that these stories from the time on the way to the city are experiences meant to prepare the disciples, and we, the readers, for what will happen in Jerusalem and what will happen at the tomb. Every little bit of this story, every experience, no matter how small, will become part of the intuition that allows the disciples, and us, to interpret Jesus’ trial, death, and, eventually, the resurrection.

     Dr. Craddock describes the parables this way: “Both (the planter and the baker) perform small acts that have expansive consequences.” Planting and baking are skills, honed over time and experience. Not every seed planted grows and not every bread mixed rises. But, the more you train... the more you practice... the more you observe... the more likely you are to trust yourself to take the right action, at the right moment, to help something grow.  Craddock thinks this is how Jesus was training his followers to take heart that, even in terrible days that were ahead, “God was still at work.” And, that they were working with the Holy Spirit in ways that they might not even see, in acts so small they might miss them, but nevertheless, whose impact will ripple out and affect life and creation far beyond their present time and place.

     Think about the things that are mustard seeds and yeast in your own life... the experiences that have grown into the life of faith that you are cultivating at this moment. Remember them and take heart. In times of confusion and fear, all these little parts of you, can come together with the Holy Spirt and guide you to great insight and right action. You might not discover aliens but you might be surprised by some other kind of new life growing forth in your midst. You are the only one who can take what you carry inside of you and use it for good. As Rev. Jayne Davis says, “And the world needs to see how God is reflected through you, the real you.” What is the kindom of God like? The very littlest bit being put to good use.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Wil Gafney, "Lent V," A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2022)
Fred. B. Craddock, Luke (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009).
Mary Doria Rusell, The Sparrow (New York: Ballentine Books, 1996)
Images used:  Mustard seed image: Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash; Mustard plant: Photo by ross tek on Unsplash; Dry yeast: Photo by Karyna Panchenko on Unsplash; Dough: Photo by Claudia Stucki on Unsplash. 

     First, I have a few questions: if someone says they love you and then takes your favorite shirt without asking, are they behaving in a loving way? If someone says they love you and then pinches your arm really hard, are they behaving in a loving way? If someone says they love you, and then puts peanuts in your food, even though you are allergic, are they behaving in a loving way? If someone says they love you, and then makes it illegal to talk about your family at your job, are they behaving in a loving way?

     We’re not sure who wrote the letter that became known as 1 John. Scholar Pheme Perkins, in his introduction to this book, that a tradition developed that credited John the Evangelist as the author of the letter, though most scholars believe that it was actually written by a follower of the Evangelist’s teaching, rather than John himself. This author is writing to both offer instruction to other Christians but also to remind them of the core of the faith they to know through the Gospel of John: That Jesus offers creation a particular connection to God’s love and that the people who follow Jesus should live lives shaped by that love.

     In preparing this sermon, I read part of a book called All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks. When hooks died in December, the world lost one of the most important theorists and practitioners of love in action in the last 40 years. In All About Love, hooks talks about how people both yearn for and struggle with love. In this book, written 20 years ago while also feeling like it could be written for this very moment, hooks wonders if we, as a society, might better be able to learn how to love if we actually all agreed about what love means. She suggests, first, that it is best to understand love not as a noun, a person, place, or thing that just is, but instead, to use love as a verb, that is, an action... something we do.

     With this idea of love as an action in mind, she suggests a definition of love written by a psychiatrist named M. Scott Peck. Peck says that love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” According to hooks, Peck goes on to explain: “Love is as love does. Love is an act of will- namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.” hooks herself goes to describe the various elements that are a part of love: care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust. She also says that honest and open communication is part of the act of love.

     You know those questions that I asked at the beginning of the sermon? I wanted to ask them because hooks argues that you can’t say you love someone and then turn around and harm them. Just because the word love is on your lips that doesn’t mean that you are being loving with your actions. If love is something you choose to do, your actions must reflect care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust. That doesn’t mean that we don’t sometimes hurt people we love. Because we all will hurt someone we love. But, if we are choosing to love them, we can choose to apologize and make amends because our love makes us accountable to them. On the other hand, if we keep saying we love someone and keep hurting them, then we aren’t really loving them.

     The Gospel of John tells us that Jesus said this to his disciples: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” The first letter of John carries this commandment forward, beyond the first disciples, through to the Christian community that followed about 70 years later. As it turns out, followers of Christ have disagreed for about 2000 years on how to do that best. Competing teachers shared different ideas about who Jesus was then and now. Disagreements about what to believe about Jesus and how to follow him threatened to split the community to whom this letter was addressed. When considering any theology or practice of the faith, the author of the letter holds up The New Commandment as the standard: You should have love for one another. You should make the choice to behave in loving ways to one another.

     “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” If you heard that alone, you might be tempted to understand love as simply a thing, a noun, a gift given. But, I don’t think the author of 1 John, or Jesus for that matter, intended it that way. Love is an action extended through Christ to creation. And, it is a behavior in which we may choose to participate. “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” God sent Jesus as an act of Love. Jesus offered healing and forgiveness as acts of love. If God acts in love this way towards us, we ought to also act towards each other lovingly. Or, as Dr. hooks might say, with care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment honesty, and trust. And, Dr. Gafney argues, our acts of love are part of God’s acts of love. In the version we heard this morning, it says that God’s love is perfected in us. Dr. Gafney argues that this word “perfected” is intended to convey wholeness or completion, not simply to say the love is made very good. God’s acts of love are made complete in our acts of love.

     This week, I hope that you can spend some time with these ideas about love. Consider how you can act in love. Remember times that you have felt loved. Rev. Jayne Davis, whose work on spiritual practices we’ve been reading through this Lent, speaks of gratitude as a spiritual practice. Maybe each day this week, try to think of three ways you’ve been loved or offered love and say a prayer of thanksgiving for them. May you revel in these memories of love this week. And, may the inspire your loving actions in the days to come.
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Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Wil Gafney, "Lent IV," A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2022)
bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 2000)
Pheme Perkins' introduction to The First Letter of John in The New Oxford Annotated Bible: The New Revised Standard Version with Apocryphya, ed. Michael Coogan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)
Jayne Davis: https://www.churchleadership.com/leading-ideas/7-spiritual-practices-for-the-new-year
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Has anyone here read the book The Runaway Bunny lately? Just in case you haven’t, I’m going to read it to everyone to refresh your memory (website readers... do you have this book? I bet the library does).

     Oh, this little bunny... I often wonder what frustrated him so that running away seemed like the thing to do. Have you ever been tempted to run away? Why do you think the bunny might have wanted to run away? You can type your answer in the chat or raise your hand and tell us if you are in person.

     And, did you notice the mom’s response: “If you run away, I will come find you. Because I love you.” If you are a rock, I will climb the mountain to be with you. If you are a bird, I will become the tree that is your home. I will walk across the air to meet you on the trapeze. So much transformation happening in order to care for the little one. Why do you think the little bunny told his mom he was going to run away? How do you think the little bunny felt hearing that his mom would always find a way to be with him?

     I don’t think the Apostle Paul knew anything about The Runaway Bunny when he wrote his letter to the church in Rome. Which is too bad, because I think he might have felt some resonance between his notion that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord and this bunny mom who will go to great lengths to find her son if he were to run away.  Of course, we have a little more background about the letter to the Romans than we do to the bunny’s motivations. Paul wrote this letter to both offer instruction to the church and also garner support for his mission to Spain.

     The scholar Neil Elliott in an introduction to Romans that there was a lot going on behind the scenes in that church: Jewish people, including people who considered themselves followers of Jesus and also Jewish, had just been allowed to return to the city after being kicked out by the previous Emperor. Elliott argued that they had likely lost property and connections to the broader community when they were exiled. It is hard to rebuild those ties and regain that financial footing. Elliott even suggests that there could have been tensions among Gentile Christians, who were never forced to leave, and Jewish Christians, who were trying to rebuild their lives in the city. So much of the government had grown to mistrust Jewish people and had targeted them for violence.

     We can’t forget that Rome was inclined to use violence to concentrate its power. Paul seemed worried that the prejudices of the imperial government would filter into the churches.  Paul wanted to help members of this church resist the imperial impulse to violence and encourage the more privileged among them to care for the ones who were more at risk. But, he also knew that caring for ones that the government hates can put you at risk, too. Today’s reading is about affirming that Christ is present with those who feel like their lives are precarious. Or, in the language of the bunny book, Christ is the wind that moves their sails, the gardener that tends their bulbs, and the tree that will be their home.

     I wonder if the little bunny in the book needs some reassurance, which is why he tells his mom that he wants to runaway. He needs to hear that she will always want him and love him. While the people in the church in Rome are not talking about running away, they do have a real question: In the midst of hard things, can we know that Christ is with us? In the midst of violence and exile, illness and poverty, war and struggle, is this Christ’s spirit really here? The scholar Israel Kamudzando calls these the “questions of the human soul” in “desperate moments.” Has your soul had similar questions in desperate moments?

     Paul’s response to these questions? “If God is for us, who is against us... it is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.” In all the ways that we and the world can be harmed, Paul assures the church, as Dr. Wil Gafney says in one of her commentaries on this text, “in all these things God is with us and for us.” This doesn’t mean, as Elliott argues in his commentary, that all of this suffering is good for us. Instead, he argues, that Paul is saying “amid all these things God’s purpose prevails.” This kind of hopeful potential, even in the midst of pain, is certainly good news, isn’t it?

     Rev. Jayne Davis, in her work on spiritual practices, invites us to ask good questions, approaching our faith with curiosity. When you are feeling discouraged, I invite you to pull out Paul’s questions from this text, questions that Dr. Kamudzando suggests can be used as a template for prayer, and pray them. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? And, pray through Paul’s response, too: Neither death, no life, nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creations will be able to separate us from the love of God is Christ Jesus our Lord. And, then maybe eat a carrot with your mom, firm in the knowledge that you do not have to be lost to be loved. And, if you feel lost, you will still be loved.
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Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Wil Gafney, "Lent 3," in A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2022)
Jayne Davis: https://www.churchleadership.com/leading-ideas/7-spiritual-practices-for-the-new-year/
The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown, pictures by Clement Hurd (Harper and Row Publishers Inc, 1942)
Neil Elliott, "Romans," The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994).
Israel Kamudzando: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-17/commentary-on-romans-826-39-4
Art image credits for two images: https://pixabay.com/photos/gaztelugatxe-bizkaia-vizcaya-4377342/ and Photo by Barbara Zandoval on Unsplash. ​