Beyond and Beneath -- a sermon on Jesus at Nazareth

Rev. Teri Peterson

Gourock St. John’s

Beyond and Beneath

Luke 4.14-30

17 January 2021, NL3-22

Last week we heard about John the Baptist preaching at the Jordan River, and baptising people, including Jesus, who then heard God’s voice proclaiming him God’s beloved Son. After his baptism, the Holy Spirit led Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days, where he experienced several temptations — to turn a stone into bread, to worship Satan in exchange for the glory of the kingdoms of the world, and to demonstrate his specialness by throwing himself from the top of the Temple. Having resisted all these, he then returned home, where we pick up the story today in the gospel according to Luke, chapter 4, beginning at verse 14. I am reading from the New Revised Standard Version.

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Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

    because he has anointed me

        to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

    and recovery of sight to the blind,

        to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.”’ And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

Can you imagine the scene that day in the synagogue? This hometown boy has been away for a few months, listening to John the Baptist and then going on that wilderness prayer retreat, and he’s been making his way home — they’re hearing glowing reports from every village along the way and can’t wait to welcome him back, to hear all about his experiences and what he’s learned about God and the scriptures, and to celebrate that one of their own is rising to prominence as a preacher.

New archaeological evidence suggests that Nazareth was a bigger town than previously thought, maybe having a thousand or so people. The scholars think that there may have been a number of priestly families living there, and that on the whole the town was more stringently devout than some other places — archaeologists have found evidence that they followed tighter rules and restrictions than some neighbouring towns did. If that’s the case, how much more proud would they be that this native son was becoming a teacher and healer, following in the footsteps of John the Baptist, encouraging people to repent and turn to God’s way? The buzz about Jesus was growing, people were talking about him at home, in the streets and marketplace, and in the synagogue.

His first weekend home, of course he was invited to the front to speak. It happens to everyone training for the ministry! Just come up and say a few words, we’re so proud and excited to hear from these young people who have grown up in our Sunday School classes, we just know they’re going to do great things and be a credit to us and all the time we invested in them.

Jesus stood and was handed the scroll for the week’s lectionary reading — Isaiah. Isaiah is a long scroll, 66 chapters, so unrolling it would take some time, carefully finding the spot for chapter 61, near the end, before reading out a passage we heard just a few weeks ago during Advent. All eyes were on him as he rolled and rolled, then found the right place, and finally read out: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” Then when he finished reading, he rolled and rolled until the scroll was carefully put away. Only then did he start a sermon.

Already after the first sentence, people were thrilled. He spoke so well, especially for a workman’s son. They murmured to each other and swelled with pride for being the place that this great man came from, the neighbours who looked after him and changed his nappies, the friends who studied with him, the people who taught him and who bought their furnishings from his father — they knew him before he was famous, in fact it was probably their help in his upbringing that made him this way! They would definitely get a mention in his award speech.

And then Jesus kept talking. He didn’t stop where they were happy and leave them wanting more. He didn’t quit while he was ahead. He had read what was to become the mission statement of his own ministry, and now he was going to tell them what that meant in practice.

The truth is, he said, the good news is for the people who are beyond you — outside your circle of holiness, like the gentile widow that Elijah fed during the drought. And the good news is for people who are beneath you — like the enemy general that Elisha healed of leprosy. God’s grace is good news to the poor, the captive, the blind, the outcast, and the oppressed. 

And the people of Nazareth, who were careful and observant about correctness and holiness and purity, who were priests and small business owners and tradesmen, were furious. They are not the poor, the captive, the blind, the outcast, or the oppressed. Or at least, they don’t see themselves that way, aside from the situation with the Romans. So what does that mean for them, and their expectations for how their hometown celebrity Jesus will treat them?

In essence, Jesus said to them: not everything is about you. 

That doesn’t mean God doesn’t love you and care about everyone. It just means that God’s world does not necessarily revolve around me.

And Jesus’ mission was for those who never had their moment in the sun: those that the people of Nazareth assumed were beneath them or beyond their bounds. Too often, we expect that everything God says and does is for us — by which I mean the “us” that is in our comfortable circle. Us in our nation, or our language, or our skin colour, or our religion, or our socio-economic status. But if the way we interpret something is not good news to the poor, the captive, the blind, the outcast, and the oppressed, then it is not actually Jesus’ good news. It’s just our expectations, reinforced by some pretty words. 

No wonder the people of Nazareth were furious enough to try to throw Jesus off a cliff. He pointed out their privileged position, and said his mission was to people who needed him more — and then gave examples that suggested that his work would challenge their position, hold them accountable to a vision of God’s kingdom that was more just than the world in which they lived. Their response suggests that they would prefer the status quo rather than the work of God as described by the prophets, or even by Jesus’ mother in her magnificat.

The thing is, if it isn’t good news for the poor, it isn’t good news for anyone. And, despite what the people of Nazareth and down through the ages think, if it is good news for the poor, it will also be good news for the rest of us, no matter how uncomfortable it feels at first. As Emma Lazarus wrote, and later Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said, “until we are all free, we are none of us free.” Our welfare is bound up with each other, and — like the word I mentioned last week, kuleana —  we have a responsibility to one another. So as long as we think some people are beyond us, outside the bounds, or as long as we think some people are beneath us, then none of us have truly received the good news.

So what would be good news to the children who received such paltry food parcels for their lunches this week?

If it isn’t good news to hungry children, it isn’t good news for anyone, no matter how happy we might be to hear it.

What would be good news to the person fleeing their home because they can no longer live in the midst of war or famine or abuse or lack of opportunity? 

If it isn’t good news to the person standing on the beach at midnight trying to decide whether to get into the overloaded raft, it isn’t good news for anyone, no matter how good it makes us feel about God or ourselves.

What would be good news to the immigrants who serve as carers, working for private companies or councils rather than the NHS, wondering about their immigration status and their place in the immunisation priorities, and paying for their own PPE from their minimum wage?

If it isn’t good news for the invisible members of society, it isn’t good news for anyone.

Jesus reads this passage from Isaiah, a passage about God’s kingdom being a kingdom of jubilee, of justice that creates equity, and then says it is fulfilled in him, this is his mission. In his person, in his very being, by his presence among us, these words become true in our present reality. Throughout Luke’s gospel we will see him bringing this about — he is anointed for this purpose, to make God’s kingdom visible here and now, and that will be good news for the poor, the captive, the blind, the outcast, and the oppressed. We may well join the people of Nazareth when we realise the good news is not targeted just to us — indeed, that it is actually targeted to “them.” But only when it’s good news for the least can it be true good news for the greatest. Anything else is just shallow empty words…or even idolatry, a god made in our own image. And the good news of Jesus Christ is so much more than that, so much deeper, so much wider. He challenges us to follow him beyond our comfort zone, so that all people, even “them,” can hear good news and experience God’s kingdom, here and now. 

May it be so. Amen.

kuleana -- a sermon for Baptism of the Lord

Rev. Teri Peterson

Gourock St John’s

Kuleana

Luke 3.1-22 (New Revised Standard Version)

10 January 2021, NL3-21, Baptism of the Lord

Today’s reading may be a familiar story to some of us, but this is one of those times when our familiarity makes it easy to gloss over some of the details in the way Luke tells the story. But those details are important, because they tell us things about how God is working, who Jesus is, and what the Holy Spirit is doing in and through us as God’s people. So today, rather than reading all 22 verses at once and then talking about them, we’re going to read and discuss bit by bit. The reading today is from the gospel according to Luke, chapter 3, verses 1-22, and I’m reading from the New Revised Standard Version. We’ll begin with just verses 1-6. 

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

“Prepare the way of the Lord,

    make his paths straight.

Every valley shall be filled,

    and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

and the crooked shall be made straight,

    and the rough ways made smooth;

and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”’

We are familiar with this quote from Isaiah — usually we hear it during Advent, and it calls up memories of Handel’s Messiah. Isaiah wrote to people who were in exile, waiting for God to come and take them home. To hear God’s promise accompanied by the call to prepare the road on which God would travel to rescue the people meant that they should be hopeful because it would happen soon, they should get ready! Luke uses that same passage to describe what John the Baptist was doing — preparing the way of the Lord, because he was coming soon, so people should both be hopeful and get ready. Now, what John thought that would mean is unclear, we don’t know what he expected the Messiah to do or how he would act, we just know that he was preparing the way.

Usually that’s all we read for this section, but actually we really need to back up to the beginning! All those names and places seem so easy to skip over, but they are there for a reason. Luke tells us that all these things took place during a particular time and in a particular location. They didn’t have a calendar like ours where you could just say the month and year…but that isn’t he only reason he describes that time and location by referencing the important people of the day: the emperor, the governor, and the client kings, and then the high priests of the Jerusalem Temple. These are the people who defined the age, the ones who controlled the politics, economy, culture, and religion. While ordinary people would not interact with any of these leaders, the fact is that even if they didn’t think about it all the time, their lives and options were affected by those leaders’ choices and actions. Their images were on coins and buildings, their movements could ease or disrupt business, their rulings changed how people ate and worked and worshiped, and they were generally just the backdrop to life.

Against that backdrop, we have John, son of a priest, out in the wilderness — unsupervised, in other words — preaching and baptising outside the institutional and liturgical structures of the time. So after naming all the people who have power in the empire in one way or another, who define our lives, suddenly Luke changes focus, drawing our attention away from all those things that have consumed our energy and around which we have oriented our worldview. The word of God is in the wilderness. Out on the margins, away from the centre of earthly kingdom power, the kingdom of God is breaking in, and it will change the way we see. It will change the way we mark time. It will change what we think is important, and what will define our lives and actions and options. 

All those imperial powers are still there, but they are no longer the star of the story or the defining characteristic of the age. Instead, we tear our eyes away from their antics and we are drawn toward something happening out at the edges, where we have the space to re-orient our worldview around God’s kingdom instead of the empire.

Unlike some other gospel writers, Luke does not tell us about John’s clothes, he only tells us about his words. He was pointed in his preaching, as we hear in verses 7-14:

John said to the crowds that came out to be baptised by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.’

And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’ In reply he said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’ Even tax-collectors came to be baptised, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’

It doesn’t seem that John is interested in winning people over with charm — it’s hard to imagine many people would love being called a brood of vipers! He wants people to realise that the fact that their name is on the roll of the chosen people is good and all, but that’s the beginning, not the end. They can’t rely only on their past to carry them into the future — how we live as God’s people matters. After all, the psalms tell us that all creation sings the glory of God in its own way — including the stones. So if all God wanted was names on the roll, the rocks would suffice. But we are meant to bear good fruit for the kingdom of God — this kingdom that is breaking through the world’s ways and drawing us out.

What then should we do? The people stand at the waters edge, dripping wet, receiving God’s grace and wondering how to live in response. How will their everyday lives reflect the change they have undergone in the river?

If you have two coats, give one to someone who doesn’t have any. That way everyone in the community has a coat.

If you have two servings of your meal, give one to someone who doesn’t have any. That way everyone in the community has enough to eat.

If you have a position of power, don’t use it to enrich yourself, but rather to serve others.

Now tax collectors, who were Jewish but also collaborated with the Roman Empire, augmented their wage by inflating the amount people owed. That way they could keep the extra and so live more comfortably themselves. And soldiers were Romans, an occupying force meant to keep the peace, but they did so by terrorising people into submission. 

All of these people — those with an extra coat, those collecting taxes, even the soldiers — are normal everyday people, the middlemen of the empire. They’re not the leaders, but they’re also not the poorest of the poor. They’re people with more than enough. People like most of us. And John tells them that what they ought to do if they want to live according to the grace they have received is to take responsibility for one another. 

Having two coats and giving one away might make us feel vulnerable. What if I need that coat tomorrow? But in this kind of community, that moment would be met by someone else giving their extra one to me. It’s a way of life that is both generous and dependent at the same time. 

Last week I learned a new word from a friend who lives in Hawaii. The Hawaiian language has a word, kuleana, that’s hard to translate, but basically it means reciprocal responsibility. So for example, Hawaiians say they have a kuleana to the land, to care for it and respect it, and in return the land has a kuleana to us, to feed and provide. I think this word perfectly encapsulates this sense of responsibility to one another that John is preaching: I have a responsibility, as someone with more than enough, to give away that excess to those who do not have enough. And when I am in a vulnerable position, those with more than enough have a responsibility to give their excess to me. And so as a community, we depend on one another, in a constant give and take. No one is hedging against future vulnerability by storing up for themselves, like you would do in the imperial worldview, but rather by being part of a community of reciprocal responsibility. We have a kuleana to each other in the kingdom of God.

This was such a radical idea — remember that the word radical means “root”, and John said that the axe was lying at the root of the trees, changing things by going back to the very foundations, and his preaching was really bringing people back to the very beginning of how God’s creation was meant to work, in kuleana to each other from the ground to the animals to the humans made in God’s image! It drew people in and re-focused them, and they wondered…as we hear in verses 15-22.

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptise you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison.

Now when all the people were baptised, and when Jesus also had been baptised and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

For those who have never been to a threshing floor — chaff is the outer husk of wheat, and when the grains of wheat are agitated to loosen the chaff and then tossed into the air, the chaff separates and blows away. But it is very dangerous — even the tiniest spark of electricity can ignite that cloud of chaff and the fire can burn the whole field. 

Each of us will have chaff that needs separating…and every community does too. Those practices that are dangerous and can easily ignite a fire of bad behaviour that destroys the community need to be separated and blown away. It may not be pleasant, but it is important. 

Sometimes I think we forget that John said this right after giving those instructions about the kuleana of life in the kingdom of God, so we tend toward reading it as if there are bad people who are going to be burned away. And that may be one possible reading, but when we read the whole story together, it sounds to me more like the chaff is those ways of living that John was asking us to leave behind, to repent of — repentance literally means to turn around 180 degrees, to change the way of living and thinking. Chaff is a protective husk — and John has just asked us to shed our protections and entrust our welfare to the whole community of reciprocal responsibility. And chaff floating randomly in the air can be dangerous — we have to fully let it go, because grasping at those unhealthy old ways can destroy that community of care.

Perhaps that is one reason that baptism is the symbol of entering into this community — because the water washes that chaff away and we live differently in response. Isn’t it fascinating that Luke tells us that Jesus was just baptised with everybody else — he’s part of this community. Yet he’s also, of course, different: he sees the heaven opened and hears God’s voice proclaiming Love. He is one who does not need the chaff washed away himself, but he will still be in this community of kuleana, and so he shows us from the very beginning how to live in ways that bring God pleasure and delight. It will be a different way of life than the one defined by those important guys at the beginning of the chapter — we will need to turn 180 degrees and put that behind us if we are to instead focus on God’s kingdom living, here and now. This is what it means to be baptised: to live differently because we have experienced God’s grace and now can’t help but act on it.

May it be so. Amen.

"healing" America -- a guest post by Laurene Lafontaine

A couple of weeks after the US election, a number of US citizens working in the Church of Scotland were asked to contribute an essay to the Church of Scotland magazine called Life and Work. The topic was about "healing America" after such a divisive election.

The essays ended up having to be significantly edited for length, but we were told we could publish full original essays here if we wished. The magazine was published this week...and after the events of this week in Washington DC and a number of US state houses, it seems like time. 

This guest post is by the Rev. Laurene Lafontaine, a minister in Aberdeen.

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Growing up in a family which was neither religious nor political, I was a bit of an outlier with my overwhelming interest in both religion and politics.  There are  memorable moments in my journey of faith, and I can clearly remember various political moments as if they were yesterday.  For example, at a 1984 rally, I met Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman Vice-President nominee of an American major party; shaking hands with both Bill and Hillary Clinton after getting up at 4:45 am on election day 3 November 1992 for their 6:00 am last campaign stop in Denver; the resounding roar of 80,000 people when Illinois Senator Barack Obama accepted the nomination for Democratic nomination for President in Denver, Colorado 2008; meeting Vice President Joe Biden in 2012; and the haunting election night of 8 November 2016. 

In 2016, as voting results were reported along the political prognosticators’ acknowledgement they had got it wrong, a growing angst and dread overtook the anticipation and excitement many Americans felt earlier in the day. Around 1:30 am(CST)/6:30 am GMT, after it was clear a win was unattainable, I went to bed. I was feeling utterly devastated along with at least 63 million other Americans and countless across the globe. Hillary Clinton would not be the 45^th President of the United States, and our worst nightmare had begun. 

This nightmare has included children being taken from their parents at the Mexican border, a Muslim travel ban executive order, impeachment, withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, and an America First agenda. Unimaginable damage to American democratic fabric has occurred. Trump has been the catalyst which not only brought the pervasive structural racism and white supremacy in American society to the forefront, but also legitimised outright brutality and violence perpetrated upon people who were African Americans, immigrants, children, Muslims, LGBTQ, Asians, reporters, to name a few. 

The unmitigated racism, on which America was founded and built, has flourished under this administration. The horror of watching African Americans literally being murdered, lynched, before our very eyes by those called to protect or armed young men … there are no polite words for this utter depravity.  Instead of bringing people together, he has spent four years golfing, tweeting, and sowing hate and discord in a divided country.  

His intentional dismantling of the American governmental social and educational programs and structures is deeply concerning as the impact will be felt for generations. As a child born into poverty, such programs provided early education opportunities, essential food support, medical care and financial assistance to families like mine. In 1965, I was a member of the first Head Start class held in my hometown. Head Start provided a safe environment where a curious 5-year-old could begin to thrive intellectually. Education is the golden ticket, in conjunction with social support, they are crucial to the development of a just and peaceful society. 

America is at a critical stage of societal development.  America is like an unruly 244-year-old adolescent, relatively speaking, nation struggling to develop a healthy identity, post-Cold War. Addressing the brutal history of genocide and slavery will be crucial in efforts to shift from a racially bias culture to a bias free society. 

After four years of divisive political leadership, President Elect Joe Biden and Vice-President Elect Kamala Harris are faced with a monumental task particularly as the catastrophic Covid crisis rages out of control.  Their challenge is to develop a new inclusive leadership approach beyond typical party politics. It is encouraging that a core value of their transition team is a diversity of ideology.

I am cautiously optimistic.  Joe Biden is the right person for this challenge.  He is centre-left with considerable experience and a rich history of bringing diverse perspectives together. He is a team player who surrounds himself with bright people who are often much smarter than he is. His selection of Kamala Harris was wise and bold. Joe Biden is a good man guided by a strong faith, an openness to learning, and an inclusive understanding of justice. Two of my friends worked on his staff whilst he was Vice President, so their experiences have also informed my perspective.  

Returning to religion and politics, often a hesitancy exists regarding a religious voice in the public forum because it’s perceived as political. Had several religious leaders spoke out when Trump belittled or said awful things about a person, ethnic groups etc, would it have made a difference? I hope so. At least, those people might have felt like they mattered. What are the social justice issues in the UK? As Christian leaders, we can share the Gospel message by addressing social justice issues in the public forum and advocating for those affected by those issues. If we don’t, who will? 

"healing America" -- a guest post by Julia Cato

 A couple of weeks after the US election, a number of US citizens working in the Church of Scotland were asked to contribute an essay to the Church of Scotland magazine called Life and Work. The topic was about "healing America" after such a divisive election.

The essays ended up having to be significantly edited for length, but we were told we could publish full original essays here if we wished. The magazine was published this week...and after the events of this week in Washington DC and a number of US state houses, it seems like time. 

This guest post is by Julia Cato, who is a graduate probationer, seeking a call to ordained ministry in the CofS.

~~~~

“How do you think it will go?” a friend asked a week before the 2020 U.S. General Elections. “I have no idea” was my honest reply.  I sighed with what I realised was almost defeat.  I already had the sense that no matter how the elections would go, no one would come away a winner.  There was too much divisiveness and too much harm done. Now, a few weeks on, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party’s win feels more like a reprieve than a victory.   

I attended a DoDDS (Department of Defense Dependents Schools) primary school on a U.S. Air Force Base in Germany.  I remember every morning we would stand to sing either “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” or “America the Beautiful”.  Then, with our hands on our hearts, we would recite in unison, “The Pledge of Allegiance” to the U.S. flag hanging in the corner of the classroom.  Every single day of every school year. 

I remember my German mother’s quiet discomfort with this morning ritual of school children pledging their allegiance to a flag.  It would be years before I would learn how a flag can mean different things to different people.  And even more time would pass before I would begin to understand how national histories haunt us until we make reparations for our sins. 

I can still recite “The Pledge of Allegiance” by heart. Not only did we pledge allegiance to the flag, but also “to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all (emphasis mine).”  The Very Reverend Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas writes, “On the one hand is the democratic vision that America is founded upon, with freedom and justice for all. On the other is the actual foundation of America, with its embedded ideology and practice of white supremacy. These two sides are at war with one another.”

The 2020 US General Elections are about more than just Biden versus Trump, they are about who we are as Americans and who we want to be.  Come 20 January 2021, the 46th President of the United States will have to lead a country greatly divided.  While many will be celebrating the new administration with its first woman of colour vice-president, millions will not.  If there is to be true and lasting change, the new President and his administration will have to push forward in new ways, not falling back on institutionalised patterns. 

“Liberty and justice for all” must embrace God’s justice moving us toward a freedom and wholeness in which we all can see one another as equals.  As Christians, we must articulate and model God’s justice from our pulpits, from within our prayer groups and bible studies, from within our homes, and from within ourselves.  There cannot be unity among the people of the United States of America where there is not justice for all.

A deeper understanding of reconciliation and healing is necessary, and this will require a reckoning with the injustices committed, not just over the last four years, but throughout our nation’s entire history.  My hope for the next four years is that we Americans will take advantage of this reprieve and begin a healing which can only unfold by effectively rooting out white supremacy embedded in our systems and structures, and perhaps most significantly for white Americans, within ourselves.  

- Graduate Probationer, Julia A. Cato

"healing" post-election USA

 A couple of weeks after the US election, I was asked to contribute an essay to the Church of Scotland magazine called Life and Work. The topic was about "healing America" after such a divisive election, and they were asking a number of American citizens living and working in the Church of Scotland to reflect. I said that I was feeling a bit cynical about calls for "healing" and that these were likely the most dangerous two months in post-Civil-War US history, but I would try.

The essays ended up having to be significantly edited for length, but I was told I could publish my full original essay here. The magazine was published this week...and after the events of this week in Washington DC and a number of US state houses, I thought it was time.

~~~~

It feels difficult to write about healing a post-election USA when the election is, in many ways, still ongoing. It may or may not be too strong to say that I’m writing while we are witnessing an attempted coup, but however it turns out, I think it’s safe to say that the divisions in the United States are deep and present-tense, and will not be easily plastered over.

Indeed, it actually feels a little bit trite to talk about “healing” when that carries some implications of restoration to a previous health that I’m not sure has ever truly existed. From the inception of the nation, it has carried an illness (white supremacy and a sense of exceptionalism) that has inexorably led to this brokenness. Should that brokenness be healed if it means simply returning to the way things used to be? If that’s the road taken, then we will surely find ourselves at this same place again, and again, and again.

I want to be hopeful that the moment we are witnessing now is indeed a moment of transformation. Once upon a time, the racism in the country was institutionalised as a system of enslavement and of colonial expansion. Then it was institutionalised as a system of segregation. Then there was a period when racists hid behind hoods and under cover of darkness. Today it’s again out in the open, and that feels, paradoxically, like a move toward health. After all, we cannot transform what we do not name. Pretending the problem of white supremacy and nationalism does not exist will only allow it to grow (as has happened for the past 50 years when many thought we had made great strides). Now that we can see plainly that much of that progress was an illusion, there is hope for real change. Much like South Africa needed Truth in order to have Reconciliation, the same is true in the USA. And there has not been very much truth-telling there.

For centuries it has been the American way to present an image, to paper over differences (or to melt them together, we might say), and to act as if everything is fine — as long as you’re white, you’re one of us. But underneath, the sense that people of colour might not be “real” Americans, that they were inferior in some way, has persisted, both subconsciously in people (and consciously in plenty of people) and systemically in the way society and economy and culture are structured. Honesty about that could pave the way forward.

Perhaps the fact that so much division is now visible to the white gaze, where it used to be hidden (but still present, and has always been visible to non-white people!), is actually a good thing. It allows us to honestly see how much work we have to do, and to do it for real this time rather than just with a few words that are nothing more than a cheap plaster that does nothing for true healing. This will be heartbreaking work, but also heart-healing work — if we are willing to engage with it at every level, not just as individuals but also in the way the economy works and doesn’t work, in the ways cultural institutions (music, dance, theatre, art, literature) are valued, in government, in systems of power in communities, and within churches. It will mean wrestling with theological language that equates “dark” with “bad,” it will mean changing the way resources are used, it will mean adjustments in who is at the table when decisions are taken, it will mean listening and believing the stories people tell, it will mean stepping aside to allow new leadership, and — perhaps most difficult of all for a nation built on rugged individualism — it will mean actually caring about and for our neighbours in tangible ways and in policy ways.

The current situation feels so destabilising, but maybe that’s exactly what the USA needs if it is to truly achieve a society of “liberty and justice for all” and not just some. So I hope President Biden won’t rush to “healing” but will first encourage some soul-searching and truth-telling, so that the healing that eventually comes will be on a cellular level and not just skin-deep.

Mary Sings -- a sermon for the fourth Sunday of Advent

Rev. Teri Peterson

Gourock St. John’s

Mary Sings

Luke 1.46-56 NRSV

20 December 2020, NL3-16b, Advent 4 (blessings of an impossible Christmas)

Today we pick up right where we left off last week, with Mary visiting her relative Elizabeth. They're both pregnant and Elizabeth has blessed Mary for her trust in God's word to her. I'm reading from the gospel according to Luke, chapter 1, beginning at verse 46, from the New Revised Standard Version.

And Mary said,

‘My soul magnifies the Lord, 

  and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, 

for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.

   Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 

for the Mighty One has done great things for me,

   and holy is his name. 

His mercy is for those who fear him

   from generation to generation. 

He has shown strength with his arm;

   he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

   and lifted up the lowly; 

he has filled the hungry with good things,

   and sent the rich away empty. 

He has helped his servant Israel,

   in remembrance of his mercy, 

according to the promise he made to our ancestors,

   to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

And Mary remained with her for about three months and then returned to her home.

This week I read a startling news article. Did you know that 2020 is the year that human-made things literally outweighed nature? This is the year that all the stuff we have created — our built environment of concrete and metal and glass, machinery, waste, everything we own — all of that now weighs more than all the entire biomass of the earth. Plastic alone weighs more than all the animals on land and sea! And the vast majority of that mass has been created since the second World War.

Reading about this definitely gave me pause when I was shopping for Christmas gifts. How can we celebrate the Christ who turns everything upside down and at the same time not add to this heavy footprint on God’s beloved creation?

I also had Mary’s song at the front of my mind as I was reading about the study titled “poverty linked to higher risk of Covid death” showing that those living in poorer health board areas of Scotland were more likely to have severe cases of Covid requiring intensive care, and because fewer critical care beds were available in those areas, people in economically deprived areas are more likely to die. We’ve seen the effects of that in Inverclyde through this pandemic, and the statistics nationwide bear out that more poor and disadvantaged people are dying—both from Covid and from other things going untreated as the health service tries to cope.

And again, the news this week is full of the epidemic of drug misuse in Scotland, and here in Inverclyde a rising rate of drug use and deaths. Of course we know that drugs and deprivation go hand in hand, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to us. 

Into the middle of this reality, where hope seems impossible, Mary sings.

Like all of us, she begins from her own personal experience. Though she was not a person of power or status or wealth, just a poor teenager in an out-of-the-way town in an occupied land, God noticed her. God loved her. God called her. And she sang of her gratitude, her awe and wonder, her praise. This thing that God had done — called her to be a prophet and the mother of the Messiah — would not be easy, yet she said that God had done great things for her! She may have been scared, as anyone in her position would be, but her confidence in God’s goodness was enough to raise her voice.

And then, halfway through, Mary recognises that her own personal experience, her own little life that has been unremarkable, is also part of something bigger. Something that God has been doing for a long time, and will continue to do through her and her son, and on into the future: upend the systems of this world and make them look more like the kingdom of God.

From generation to generation, God works with power and mercy, through the lowliest and the marginalised, to fulfil the promise that changes everything: scatters the proud, brings down the powerful, and sends the rich away empty, while lifting up the lowly and filling the hungry with good things. 

This is the Word that becomes flesh in Jesus. This is the promise that Mary is bearing in her body, the fruit of her faithfulness. This is who God is and what God does — from the earliest days of scripture to the very end of the book and beyond.

I wonder how many of us would join Mary in praising God for these things … given that we are far more likely to be the proud, powerful, and rich in this scenario? We are, globally speaking, at the top of this system that God is turning upside down. We are the ones whose lifestyles have created a situation where our stuff weighs down God’s creation. We are the ones who stand at arms length from the realities of deprivation and wring our hands and make a donation here and there and pray for something to change.

We should be careful what we pray for, because the song Mary sings is definitely about change. It’s about an upending of a system that is, frankly, immoral and against the values of God’s kingdom. Which is not to say that those of us who benefit from the system are bad, but rather that the entire system is. We can't even claim that it’s broken, because the reality is that it’s working exactly as it’s been designed — to privilege the few at the expense of the many, to lift up some on the backs of others. And that system is exactly what God in the flesh will challenge, insisting on valuing every person as a beloved child of God, deserving of enough to eat and inclusion in the community and compassionate care…and that challenge is what will get him killed by the powers that do not want to be scattered or sent away empty. But the Mighty One who looks with favour on Mary will not be thwarted. Not this time, not ever. This is a promise that cannot be broken, and God will find a way to fulfil it, even if it means breaking the power of death to do it.

If this is what God is doing in Christ, then we who are called the Body of Christ had better be ready to be a part of it. If we celebrate Christmas and then nothing is different afterwards, we haven’t celebrated the Messiah that Mary is singing about today. Her words echo through the generations calling us to the kind of impossible Christmas that changes the world. What does the Word of God Incarnate have to say to those who live in such dire poverty that drugs seem the only comfort? Or to those who get richer while the poor get poorer? What does the community of those who love Mary’s son have to say to those who care more about their ability to shelter money in tax havens than about the lack of critical care beds in our hospital? How does the magnificat sound to the earth that groans under the weight of our economy’s need for constant consumption?

I’m sure I’m not alone in wishing Christmas was just about celebrating a birth and then getting back to normal life, just like any other birthday party. But what God is doing in Christ is saving the earth and all that is in it, even if that means saving us from ourselves. This is an act of love so monumental that it turns everything upside down. Who are we to wish that God would…what, love us a little less so we could go on as before? It’s impossible for God to do anything but love, and to fulfil promises, and this is the promise that makes Mary rejoice and that hopefully brings us the same kind of joyful commitment to God’s call that we, too, will be willing to bear God’s word in our bodies—and into the world that is desperate for the good news to be more than just pretty words or songs or cards or presents.

May it be so. Amen.

Three Wise Women -- a sermon for Advent 3

Rev. Teri Peterson

Gourock St. John’s

Three Wise Women

Luke 1.26-45

13 December 2020, Advent 3 (Blessings of an impossible Christmas)

(NL3-16, first half)

Today we transition from a season of reading from the Old Testament to the New, beginning the gospel according to Luke, which we will read from now until Easter.

The first two chapters of Luke’s gospel are like an overture, setting the scene for the story of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection. Luke’s primary themes are all present in the overture, so we have a hint of what is to come.

Luke begins with the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, who are elderly and childless. Zechariah is a priest who receives a visit from the angel Gabriel, telling him that Elizabeth will bear a son and they are to name him John. Zechariah is doubtful, and Gabriel takes away his ability to speak until John is born. Today’s reading from Luke chapter 1 begins at verse 26, six months after Elizabeth became pregnant. I am reading from the New Revised Standard Version.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.’ Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her. 

 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’ 

Every single time I read this story, I think about how much Gabriel sounds like an alien when he greets Mary. Instead of “hello” he says “greetings favoured one” — and she was much perplexed. Of course she was perplexed — who talks like that? Even in ancient Palestine, I’m fairly certain people did not go around saying “greetings favoured one” to each other.

Aside from the strange stilted alien phrase, though, there’s more to be perplexed about. Why does the angel address her as “favoured”? She must have wondered what he was talking about, or if he had picked the wrong girl. After all, she was betrothed but not yet married, likely a young teenager. In Nazareth the tradition says that Gabriel met Mary at the well — a tradition which connects Mary to a long line of women in the Old Testament whose marriages were made at the well, including Rebekah who became the wife of Isaac, Rachel and Jacob, and Moses’ wife Zipporah. While Mary would know those stories, she would never have expected to be part of one! She was a poor teenager from a nondescript family in a town far from the centres of power, in an occupied land. For an angel to address her as “favoured” would be confusing indeed — favoured by whom? In what sense? Not in any of the usual ways. 

While she was still pondering this strange word, Gabriel explained that actually, he meant favoured by God. He doesn’t say why, though. What was it about Mary that drew God’s attention? She wasn’t anybody important, just a girl at the well. But she barely had time to think that thought before Gabriel said she was going to be a mother!

So often our pictures of Mary are of a quiet, shy girl who keeps her eyes down and submits to whatever she’s told. But Mary’s first out-loud question proves her to be a bit more practical than we usually give her credit for. She wants to know how this is going to work — the mechanics of the situation. She doesn’t yet live with her husband-to-be, so…what’s the next step? 

Gabriel’s answer that she’s going to be filled with the cloud of God’s presence, like the cloud that filled the Temple when it was built, or like the cloud that covered Mount Sinai, may or may not have been very comforting. But as Gabriel insisted that nothing is impossible with God, Mary spoke up again: Here am I, the servant of the Lord.

A lot of prophets have answered God with this same phrase — in Hebrew it’s “hineini”. Here am I. Moses says it, and Samuel, and Isaiah — and all of them said it before God actually told them what he was calling them to do. This is the answer of someone who trusts their relationship with God enough to say yes, even though the fullness of the task is not yet clear to them. 

Mary is the first woman to ever be recorded saying “hineini” in response to God’s call. She agrees to carry God’s Son, without yet knowing the full picture of what that will mean — including the risks to her own physical health, to her safety in her family and community, or the challenges of parenting, let alone parenting the son of God! Like the prophets before her, she trusts God, and that will have to be enough even though she doesn’t have a map.

Gabriel did give her a hint, though, when he mentioned Elizabeth. Mary headed straight there, apparently by herself, to get some advice from her older relative. It was a fair distance from Nazareth into the hill country, which is the area that includes Jerusalem and Bethlehem and other surrounding villages. When she arrived, Elizabeth too joined the ranks of the prophets, filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking truths neither she nor Mary understand yet. Over the next three months they will have many such conversations, passing knowledge from generation to generation, sharing the experience of growing a world-changing child in their bodies, blessing each other with the companionship of women while the men of the story are silent on the sidelines. 

I originally titled this sermon “Three Wise Women” as a balance to the wise men of Epiphany. Those travellers came from afar and symbolise the whole world recognising the Messiah who has been born…but before those wise men can set out on their journey, before the star shines in the sky, before any of the Christmas story can take place, we need the three wise women of this story first! And I can hear you wondering, because there are only two women named in the story. Of course Mary was wise enough to trust God’s impossible word. And Elizabeth wise enough to recognise God at work in and through Mary’s life. And the third….is the Holy Spirit! In the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Aramaic which Mary and Elizabeth spoke, the word for Spirit is a feminine noun, ruach, so would usually use the pronoun “she” or “her”—and even better, in the Old Testament the Spirit is sometimes personified as God’s wisdom, and so the third wise one appears in the story! God’s Spirit fills Elizabeth and she speaks God’s wisdom.

I particularly love Elizabeth’s last Spirit-filled line: “blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

How often we need this encouragement! From one generation to another, to be reminded of the blessing that is born of trust, even in something that seems impossible. It’s a blessing that only asks we take the next step, even if we aren’t sure what the one after will be. Mary says “here I am” and then visits Elizabeth, and slowly the path begins to unfold before her, one step at a time. And it turns out that what seemed impossible before isn’t really, because with God, nothing is impossible.

Perhaps in this season where so much normality feels out of reach, we too can trust God enough to take just the next step and see what God unfolds after that. Or perhaps this is a season when we are the ones who are called to speak with the Spirit’s voice and encourage those who are struggling with what the next step might be. Whether that’s across the generations or across other divides, can we reach out to one another and find the blessing together?

May it be so. Amen.