One Nation Under God?
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For May 9, 2021:
One Nation Under God?
by Tom Willadsen
Acts 10:44-48, 1 John 5:1-6, John 15:9-17, Psalm 98
The United States’ immigration system is a catastrophe. Asylum seekers are kept off US soil and shuttled to hearings, sometimes more than 1,000 miles from where they sought to enter the country.
Asians, a population group of which 57% are immigrants, are the targets of violence and intimidation because of fear stoked by the prior occupant of the White House.
What would the United States look like if it truly were “one nation under God?” What would it be like to live in a place where everyone was treated as one who has been “born of God?”
In the News
The situation at the southern border of the United States regarding the presence of unaccompanied minors has improved substantially since March 28.
It is, of course, a scandal and embarrassment that so many children were forced to stay in crowded, often unsanitary conditions for an average of 133 hours (well beyond the INS mandated limit of 72 hours) because of a sudden, dramatic increase in February and March. Republicans’ claim that the President is to blame because he communicated a desire to “open the borders” is misleading and unfair. A number of factors drive emigration from Central America: two major hurricanes last year, inadequate public health response to Covid-19, warmer weather and a persistent threat by gangs to recruit younger and younger members, all make parents desperate to send their children to the hope of a better future, or any future at all, in El Norte. The lack of border enforcement that some allege the President has promised was more likely a simple recognition that Joe Biden is a more humane individual than the last occupant of the White House. Emigration from Central America has waxed and waned for decades. It is unfortunate that certain voices in public service have tried to politicize this basic, humanitarian issue.
While both parties assert that the nation needs “comprehensive immigration reform,” neither is willing to compromise on their pet issues: border security for Republicans and paths to citizenship for Democrats. As the can is kicked down the road by another Congress, the wait for someone to emigrate legally from Mexico is around 21 years! Other countries’ residents do not wait quite so long. By far the largest source of legal immigrants to the US is Mexico.
The past president changed the way the United States reacts to requests for asylum at the southern border (not at the border with Canada, our procedures on that border are unchanged) in ways that are contrary to American and international law. “Seeking asylum is legal under both domestic and international law — even during a pandemic. People arriving at the U.S. border have the right to request asylum without being criminalized, turned back to danger or separated from their families.”
One of the measures the Trump administration put in place is called “metering,” which limited the number of people who could request asylum at a given port-of-entry per day. There are also the Migrant Protection Protocols. Under the Migrant Protection Protocols someone seeking to claim asylum at the southern border would have their hearing scheduled in one of seven designated border towns. Someone crossing the Rio Grande at McAllen, Texas, may have had their hearing scheduled in Calexico, California, nearly 1,400 miles away.
In the case of metering, international law was broken when people were kept from getting to US soil to make an asylum claim. They may or may not have been registered and scheduled for an asylum hearing. In any case, these hearings were held in Mexico, again keeping people from reaching US territory to seek asylum as international law requires.
Our immigration system is a catastrophe. How can a nation that calls itself “a nation of immigrants” make it so difficult for the people who come seeking citizenship to be treated with so little dignity?
Coinciding with the national disgrace at our southern border is a dramatic increase in violence against people from Asia and the Pacific Islands.
While examples are numerous, the one that most recently captured the news cycle was the killing of eight employees at three Georgia spa businesses on March 16. Six of the eight victims were Asian women.
As the pandemic was just entering the news in the United States in March of last year, the President repeatedly referred to Covid-19 as “the Chinese Virus” and “the Wuhan Virus.” Several months later he used the term “Kung Flu.” Researchers concluded that the President’s tweet on March 16, 2020 caused a dramatic increase in acts of anti-Asian violence.
The Census Bureau classifies people who trace their heritage from more than 20 countries as “Asian.” There are an enormous variety of cultures among US citizens and residents of Asian descent. By far the largest group of Asian Americans are those who identify as Chinese (23%), followed by Indians, Filipinos and Vietnamese. The confusion and conflation of different Asian ethnicities is a long-standing problem for Americans. Forty years ago a high school classmate informed me, “You can’t trust the Chinese since they bombed Pearl Harbor.” I didn’t bother to point out that the classmate who’d just eliminated him from the handball tournament in our gym class was Vietnamese.
Asians of all types have been targeted for acts of violence and intimidation throughout American history, but the frequency of these attacks has increased dramatically. And Asians from more than 20 countries are being targeted because of the “Chinese flu.”
This situation is especially galling when one considers that some of those being attacked are now American citizens who were adopted, many during infancy, from countries like South Korea and China. These people have grown up in a White majority culture. The country that adopted them refuses to accept them as full citizens, equal children under God.
In the Scriptures
Acts 10:44-48
This passage is toward the end of Peter’s sermon at Cornelius’s home in Caesarea. It’s not exactly clear how far Joppa was from Caesarea, but 40 miles is a good estimate. When was the last time you walked 40 miles because your boss told you to because he had a vision? Didn’t think so. Peter gets to Cornelius’s home and essentially has another conversion experience. The six circumcised (Jewish) believers with him are also converted. Yes, yes, it’s possible that the Holy Spirit can reach non-Jews. Their case is so compelling, even the leadership back in Jerusalem is persuaded.
Psalm 98
It’s not clear what Psalm 98 is celebrating. Deliverance from slavery? Creation? Renewal of creation? A military victory? Whatever the occasion, it’s big. By the end of it the sea and the hills are singing God’s praises. ZZ Top famously sang, “We’re bad, we’re nationwide.” God is even badder than those bearded boys from Texas — God’s creation-wide!
One way to conceive of Creation that is often overlooked is that the Creator brought order out of chaos. The same thing happens every Sunday morning when the choir gets set to process into worship, a miracle I get to witness every week! For a fuller treatment on Creation as the undoing and taming of chaos, see Jon Levenson’s Creation and the Persistence of Evil.
John 15:9-17
A lot of the themes is today’s gospel lesson echo in last week’s gospel lesson and this week and last week’s readings from 1 John. Love is not an emotion as Jesus uses it here. It is strong, determined, resolute…and it comes from God! Last week’s epistle included that same concept: We love because God first loved us. (1 John 4:19). The themes of loving service and serving with love, and keeping the commandment by loving, are interwoven here and in the epistle lesson. Can love be commanded? Not if it’s an emotion. That would be like deciding to like a food that tastes objectively awful (for me Brussel sprouts) because I had been commanded to. If love is seen as an attitude of devotion and commitment to others, a commitment that began with God the Creator, was exemplified by the Son, cf. John 13:12, then given full expression by the community of the followers of the son, then yes, love can be commanded. You can wash someone’s feet without liking them, but you cannot do it without love.
1 John 5:1-6
The author of the letter is still sniping at the Gnostics in today’s reading. Believing, loving, begetting and knowing are all intertwined in the first two verses. Later in the passage, at verse 6, the blood of Christ is emphasized, in addition to water. This may be a reference to Jesus’ side having been pierced during the crucifixion, proof of his complete human incarnation (John 19:34); take that, Gnostics!
In the Sermon
The biblical mandate to welcome the stranger, “love the stranger, for you were strangers in Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34), which is echoed in American secular terms on the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” could be in our national DNA. 1 John tells us that we are all equally children of God. There is no qualification: love comes from God, was expressed and embodied in Christ Jesus, and given as the force that unites all people with one another and with the living God. It is as though God has chosen to adopt every one of us.
An analogy could be made for citizenship in the United States — practically all of us have come here from somewhere else. Those who did not have been oppressed and disposed by others who themselves came from elsewhere. Americans could recognize and embrace our common humanity and our common un-earned status as Americans. Instead, too many of us are focused on strengthening borders between and around people just like us to keep those out who are not just like us.
Remember last week when you read perfect love casts out fear? Well, 1 John tells us all about perfect love, its source and where and how it flows. Are we brave enough to love without fear? Are we brave enough to trust God if we tear down the walls we build around us?
SECOND THOUGHTS
Dying is Easy
by Dean Feldmeyer
Acts 10:44-48, John 15:9-17
Stand-up comedians speak in the language of life and death.
If they do well, you will hear them tell their friends and colleagues: “I killed out there.” If they witness another comedian doing poorly on the stage the say: “Oh, wow. She’s dying up there.” The language of laughter is closely linked to the language of life and death.
It’s no wonder that many comics have adopted as their unofficial motto an old axiom of questionable origin: “Dying is easy; comedy is hard.”
The phrase, which some credit to long ago Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean (1787-1833) gives witness to an almost universal experience of actors that, when it comes to acting, comedy is more difficult than tragedy.
So true is the saying that it has been adapted and claimed by others inside and outside of show business.
In the Culture
Did Donald Wolfit paraphrase a comment by Edmund Gwenn or was it the other way around? The statements of even the eyewitnesses are inconsistent. But, here’s the story:
Donald Wolfit was a famous British stage actor, director, and producer who became one of Hollywood’s most bankable character actors. He was most famous, however, for his portrayal of the doomed King Lear, who dies at the end of the play.
The story goes that a critic once complimented Wolfit on his portrayal of Lear and, especially the death scene. The actor, speaking about the art of acting, responded, “Dying is easy; it’s comedy that’s hard.”
Edmund Gwenn was an early contemporary of Donald Wolfit. A very successful actor, he began with roles on the stage and later appeared in Hollywood films, most famously as Kris Kringle in the 1947 version of A Miracle on 34th Street.
In 1959, Gwenn was 81 years old and suffering from pneumonia after a stroke. His good friend, movie director George Seaton, regularly visited the bedridden actor at the Motion Picture Country House (today the Motion Picture & Television Fund Foundation), a retirement community and hospital that was created by members of the entertainment community to care for elderly people in the industry who, for whatever reason, cannot afford to take care of themselves. Seaton recalled that on his final visit Gwenn was suffering terribly. Addressing the actor by his nickname, the director said, sympathetically: “All this must be terribly difficult for you, Teddy.”
Gwenn answered: “Not nearly as difficult as playing comedy.”
Later accounts have Gwenn answering Seaton with his own paraphrase of Donald Wolfit’s quote: “No, George. Dying is easy. It’s comedy that’s hard.”
The comment is so chock full of irony and humor that it has been quoted and paraphrased and intentionally misquoted dozens of times:
In the 1982 movie, “My Favorite Year,” Peter O’Toole, playing a burned out, alcoholic, silent film actor based on Errol Flynn says, “Dying is easy; comedy is hard.”
Today, that sentiment, if not the exact wording, has made it to the stage on Broadway. That’s where, in the musical, Hamilton, George Washington says to the young, idealistic Alexander Hamilton: “It’s alright, you want to fight, you’ve got a hunger. I was just like you when I was younger. Head full of fantasies of dyin’ like a martyr? Dying is easy, young man. Living is harder.”
Other versions include:
Humorist Art Buchwald: “Dying is easy. Parking is hard” and “Dying isn’t hard. Getting paid by Medicare is hard.”
Luke Spencer, a character on the TV show “General Hospital,” said it in 1963: “Dying is easy; it’s living that’s hard.”
Singer Annie Lennox put a more personal twist on it: “Dying is easy. It’s living that scares me to death.”
And, coming full circle, back to the actor’s art, Mary Pat Hooligan, a character in the 2006 film “For Your Consideration” says, “Dying is easy. Playing a lesbian is hard.”
You’ve probably heard some version of the saying, maybe a different version than the ones listed here. The interesting thing to me is that in just about every version the speakers all agree with the opening sentiment that, “Dying is easy.”
That’s probably because it is. I mean, when compared to some other things, not necessarily including comedy, dying might be considered comparatively easy.
Dying is a single, one time thing. You do it and its done. You don’t have to do it over and over again to get it right. It’s Simple. Easy.
Living, however, just goes on and on. You do it today and tomorrow you have to do it all over again. And the day after that and the one after that. And living for others, that thing Jesus wants us to do? Forget about it. It’s hard. Why, it’s nearly impossible.
In the Scripture
In the Gospel lesson (John 15:9-17) Jesus reminds his disciples that, if they want to remain his disciples they must obey the commandments that he gave to them. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (vv. 12-13)
Jesus gives them the commandment to love one another then he explains to them what that means and gives them a visible, tangible example of what that kind of love looks like. They are to love one another exactly the way Jesus has loved each of them.
And how has Jesus loved them? Well, he has laid down his life for them. And, yes, that means that he is willing to die for them or on their behalf. The love he’s talking about is self-sacrificial love. And one thing self-sacrificial love does is it sacrifices itself for the beloved, even to the point of death.
“You won’t have anything to live for,” the saying goes, “until you have something that you would die for.”
Nearly every parent knows the meaning of that kind of love. We don’t even have to think about it. Something threatens our children and we instinctively step forward in front of our child to shield them with our own body. It’s where the axiom, “take a bullet for,” comes from, isn’t it? Being willing to “take a bullet for” someone means that we would be willing to die for them.
It means that we would be willing to lay down our death, the only death we get, for one whom we love.
In the Acts passage (10:44-48) Peter witnesses the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the household of the gentile Roman Centurion, Cornelius. Earlier, Peter has been invited by Cornelius to come to his home and teach him and his friends and family — a considerable crowd, according to the text — about Jesus.
Peter knows that, according to Jewish law, it is illegal for a Jews to visit in the home of a gentile. But God has told Peter, in a dream, that this old law no longer applies. Followers of Jesus are free to spread the good news anywhere they choose, be it a Jewish home or a Gentile one.
From this point, Peter will dedicate himself, with Paul, to bringing the gospel to anyone, Jew or gentile, who can benefit from hearing it. He is not laying down his death, but his life. He intends to live and give of himself and the life he has been given to the salvation of the gentiles.
“No greater love is there than this, that a person lay down their life (and their death) for others.”
In the Sermon
The first line of the Declaration of Independence: “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America…”
The last line of the Declaration of Independence: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
There is an essay floating around on the internet called “The Price They Paid.” It purports to tell the “rest of the story” about the horrors, tortures, suffering, and misery that were visited upon the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. While a few of the items in that essay are based on, if not exactly grounded in, truth, the facts remain that, after pledging to lay down their lives and / or their deaths for each other and the liberty they sought to obtain for the United States, many of them went on to live out their entire lives in service to others.
After the American Revolution 13 signers went on to become governors. 18 served in their state legislatures. 16 became state and federal judges. Seven became members of the US House of Representatives. Six became US senators. James Wilson and Samuel Chase became Supreme Court justices. Jefferson, Adams, and Elbridge Gerry each became vice president. Adams and Jefferson later became president.
Five signers played major roles in the establishment of colleges and universities: Franklin and the University of Pennsylvania; Jefferson and the University of Virginia; Benjamin Rush and Dickinson College; Lewis Morris and New York University; and George Walton and the University of Georgia.
While they were willing to lay down their deaths, most of them laid down their lives. They lived for the values they claimed as their own.
_____________________
In the novel, If I Stay, by Gayle Forman, Mia Hall is a gifted, 17-year-old cellist who has everything she could ever want, a loving family, an adoring boyfriend, a supportive best friend, and an amazing career ahead of her in music. All of that changes suddenly. Mia and her family have a terrible car accident and Mia is rushed to the ICU. Caught between life and death, she watches and listens from inside her comatose state as family and friends come to visit her at the hospital. Soon Mia realizes that she must make the most critical decision of her life — wake up to live a life more difficult than she ever could have imagined, or slip away and die.
Even though she is in a coma, she is aware of what is going on around her. She can hear the people she loves when they talk to…and about…her. She is aware that she has a choice to make and the time for making it is becoming more urgent with each passing day. She can A) wake up from the coma and begin what will be a very difficult journey to a kind of health unlike the one she knew and anticipated before the accident. Or, she can just let herself slip away into deeper and deeper sleep, never to awaken again.
On one hand she really wants to wake up to see her friends and family, but on the other she isn’t sure if she is really ready to face a more difficult life. She is almost ready to give up when her best friend and boyfriend visit her and tell her how much they will miss her if she never wakes up.
"I don't know exactly what's happened to me,” she tells the reader. “And for the first time today, I don't really care. I shouldn't have to care. I shouldn't have to work this hard. I realize now that dying is easy. Living is hard."
Nevertheless, as tough as it will be, Mia chooses to live. A few pages later, she says:
"It's the hardest thing I will ever have to do. I summon all the love I have ever felt, I summon all the strength that Gran and Gramps and Kim and the nurses and Willow have given me. I summon all the breath that Mom, and Dad, and Teddy would fill me with if they could. I summon all my own strength, focus it like a laser beam into the fingers and palm of my right hand. I picture my hand stroking Teddy's hair, grasping a bow poised above my cello, interlaced with Adam's.
And then I squeeze."
In the end, it is not for her own benefit but for that of those she loves and who love her that she chooses to live. Given the choice of laying down her death or laying down her life, she chooses to lay down her life.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
John 15:9-17
From Servants to Friends
“I do not call you servants any longer,” Jesus tells his followers as part of his farewell to them. In a similar vein, business owners who want to retire are taking the step of selling their businesses to their employees. The people who work for the business have an opportunity not to be employees any longer, but shared owners.
The “silver tsunami” of baby boomer business owners who are retiring offers a rare opportunity for businesses to become co-ops, or to have employees as stock owners. Often, the children of the owner or founder have no interest in the business, and the people who understand and love the business are the employees. “When Vern Seile, one of the largest employers on Deer Isle, Maine, decided it was time to retire and sell his three retail businesses, he realized he had no one to sell to. His kids didn’t want the whole enterprise, and there was nobody on the remote island who could buy it, either. If he sold it to someone from “away,” they wouldn’t care for it like he had and preserve the legacy he’d built over several decades. In fact, the only offer came from a competitor on the mainland who promised to close one of the businesses and lay people off…Seile discovered that if he wanted to be rewarded fairly for years of hard work, his best option was to sell to his employees. In June of 2014, the Island Employee Cooperative (IEC) was born. This was the largest and most complex conversion to a worker cooperative ever done in the United States, and the IEC has become the largest worker co-op in Maine and the second-largest in New England.”
Or, “for example, A Yard and a Half Landscaping Company, in Waltham, Massachusetts. Founded in 1988 by Eileen Michaels, the company was already succeeding by opening its books, sharing profits with employees, and involving employees in decision-making. When Michaels decided to prepare for retirement by offering the company to her employees, incorporating as a worker-owned cooperative was a natural step. The bilingual co-op employs many workers from El Salvador, and classes on everything from horticulture to democratic decision-making are offered in English and Spanish.”
This kind of transition offers opportunity to employees who might not have another such option. “The only thing harder to find than a job in many rural, inner-city, and immigrant communities is a good job. And even harder to find is any opportunity to own a business and build wealth. Imagine the difference it makes to the construction workers who are now equal owners of Build With Prospect, Inc. in Brooklyn, New York City. They vote for and can hold a seat on the board, thereby determining the overall direction of the company. They influence decisions on everything from human resources to the long-term plan. If they cared about keeping their jobs before, think how much more it means now, when they share in the long-term profits. That’s going to show up in the quality of their work. And the quality of their jobs is going to show up in the quality of their lives.”
“I do not call you employees any longer,” many business owners are saying, but partners and owners.
* * *
John 15:9-17
Connections
Showing their enduring connection to each other, even as his death approaches, Jesus likens his disciples to branches, rooted in a vine. The connection is so close that you can’t have one without the other. Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist, is also an enrolled member of the Citizen Band Potawatomi, and she finds similar connections all around us. Dr. Kimmerer muses, “we have created a consumption-driven economy that asks, “What more can we take from the Earth?” and almost never “What does the Earth ask of us in return?” The premise of Earth asking something of me—of me!—makes my heart swell. I celebrate the implicit recognition of the Earth’s animacy, that the living planet has the capacity to ask something of us and that we have the capacity to respond. We are not passive recipients of her gifts, but active participants in her well-being. We are honored by the request. It lets us know that we belong.”
Like vine and branches, we are more connected than we know.
Kimmerer adds, “Reciprocity—returning the gift—is not just good manners; it is how the biophysical world works. Balance in ecological systems arises from negative feedback loops, from cycles of giving and taking. Reciprocity among parts of the living Earth produces equilibrium, in which life as we know it can flourish. When the gift is in motion, it can last forever.”
Our connection to Jesus – vine and branches – feeds everything that we do in life. Kimmerer find a parallel in our connection to the living systems on earth. “Gratitude is our first, but not our only gift. We are storytellers, music makers, devisers of ingenious machines, healers, scientists, and lovers of an Earth who asks that we give our own unique gifts on behalf of life.”
Apart from me, you can do nothing, Jesus tells us, and the created world carries the same message.
* * *
John 15:9-17
Lay Down Your Life for Your Friends
As they were both ill with cancer, two friends took time to talk to each other in front of an audience about the time, coming soon, when each would die. In preparing to lay down their lives, they used their time to talk about what it was like to know that the end was coming. Kozo Hattori and Sue Cochrane talked about getting ready to let go of their lives.
Kozo said “I’ve been offered an on-ramp to death, to accept and embrace it in a slow way… I don’t know how long it might be, but to be aware of it, and to walk it, and to not turn away from it is important.” He had been out skateboarding with his kids, and said, “t’s funny, I don’t know if you get this feeling but it’s almost like I am returning to my 12-year-old self. "The more childish you become, the more powerful you become," is what one of my healers told me. I’ve been returning to that 12-year-old self in so many ways through skateboarding.”
Sue Cochrane wrote on her blog “I’ve practiced law, practiced the piano, practiced creative writing and practiced meditation. I practiced with specific goals in mind:- success, mastery, achievement, enlightenment. Now I practice letting go of goals… Most things I do now seem to be very small and very focused. For example, a year ago I discovered that I enjoy making small, improvisational quilt pieces, usually about 12 by 12 inches. I no longer dream of making gorgeous, handmade memory quilts for my three sons (“dream” being the operative word – I’ve never made a full-size quilt in my life). I don’t intend these improv pieces to be part of a quilt. I don’t need to preplan the color, shapes and fabrics the way you need to when making a large quilt. I make them just for the joy of creating them I love making choices in the moment and seeing what develops. I find great satisfaction in completing them in one day.”
Knowing we have a terminal illness is a long practice in laying down one’s life, and these two people took time to make sure other people were also learning from their journeys.
* * *
Psalm 98
Singing a New Song
“O sing to the Lord a new song,” the Psalmist summons us. Soon many people will be singing a new song of work, as offices re-open, or don’t re-open, and as our jobs shift again. As many people are re-thinking their work, theologian Matthew Fox has noted that work is causing a spiritual crisis for many people. The loss of work is a spiritual problem because “people who don’t have work feel very bad about themselves. They can’t give back to the community. They feel useless; they can’t take care of their families; they don’t have a way to participate in the life of their society. We all want to give back to the community and feel good about ourselves.”
Fox notes that work and a job may have different meanings for us. “Work is your calling; your purpose; what you’ve come here to do in this lifetime. A job is something we do to pay our bills. The ideal job combines the two—enabling you to get paid to fulfill your calling. Sometimes, though, you have to settle for a job to pay your rent—at least temporarily—and fulfill your purpose in your off-work hours. It’s important to know the difference because I think that a lot of people’s dissatisfaction with their jobs eats away at their real work if they don’t realize they can do both. Joy is the sign of real work: the joy that you derive from doing it and the joy that others derive from the result. If the joy is missing, it’s not your work; it’s a job.”
Our return to familiar patterns of work nudges us to ask how we can sing God a new song with our hours and our days, while serving God’s world through our work.
* * *
Psalm 98
Sing for Joy
Vocal artist Bobby McFerrin has built his career around singing new kinds of songs, using his voice in unique ways, and he says the purpose of it all is joy. As the Psalmist proclaims, “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises.” McFerrin understands his artistry as a pathway to that. He says, “I want everyone to feel joy at the end of a concert. Not, I don’t want them to be blown away by what I do. I want them to have this sense of real, real joy from the depths of their being. That’s what it’s all about, because I think when you take them to that place then you introduce — you open up a place where grace can come in.”
McFerrin marvels at the transformation that can come from singing, even for someone who sings as often as he does. “It is a wonderful thing, what music can do. There have been nights when I’ve walked on stage and I have felt absolutely awful, just terrible, you know, physically, you know, ill — raging headache or something, you know. And at the end of a concert, you know, I’m 70 percent healed…Or there have been nights when I’ve emotionally been just maybe a little bit off — maybe I’ve had an argument with someone or a misunderstanding with one of my children or something like that, you know…And within a minute [on the stage], you know, I’m open, I’m happy, I’ve cooled off. I think the best way to sort of deal with temptation is to actually sing.”
After decades of singing, he says he’s reached a different place, something that all musicians want. “They want to get to the point where they don’t think — they don’t have to think anymore about their technique. They simply have it. It’s not something they struggle to get, you know, anymore. They’ve got it, you know; they’re not conscious of themselves playing. They just play. You know, they’re not thinking about playing; they’re just playing. And it’s taken me a long, long, long time to get there. I started singing at 27. I’m 61. And now I can say that I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even think about singing. I just sing.” By grace, perhaps we can all get to that place of ease when we sing our praises to God. We don’t think; we just sing to God a new song.
* * * * * *
From team member Katy Stenta:
1 John 5:1-6, John 15:91-7
In the Waiting Room
There is a great story of Jillian Lauren adopting her son. She talks about the long journey to Ethiopia. She and her husband Scott fly over with 8 other families and live with them during the process. Finally, after a few days there they get to meet the child, Tariku, and play with him all day. They meet his teenage mother, and do a formal Entrustment ceremony and promise to take care of Tariku. She related that Tariku means "his story," because he already has so much history for a baby boy.
After all of this they go back to the embassy to finalize the adoption. Once there, a man tells them they are not eligible because the paperwork says they can only adopt a child up to 4 months old — and this baby is 11 months old. Jillian sees the typo and tries to clarify that it’s supposed to say 4 years old. After waiting for hours, with the baby asleep on her shoulder, Jillian and Scott tell the social worker what happened, and she leaves too.
So Jillian started sobbing and all of the families surrounded her even though they were done and packed and ready to return home. They all stayed with each other for three hours. Finally the social worker comes back and has it all taken care of.
When the plane took off with Jillian and Scott and Tariku on it, Jillian realized that these other babies’ parents were more than just friends, they were all families now.
We are all in the waiting room, knowing we are already adopted and beloved by Christ, but we are not all together with him yet. And yet, while we wait it is our job — our blessing and privilege — to become family not only with Jesus Christ, but with one another. There is no better use of our time.
* * *
John 15:9-17
Love and Serve One Another
Throughout the Bible it is promised that somehow, in some way, every knee shall bow to God. In Isaiah 45:23 it says “every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God.” Psalm 86:9 says similarly that “all the nations you have made shall come and bow before you.” It is continued and repeated throughout the New Testament — Philippians 2:10-11, Romans 14:11, 1 Corinthians 15:28. There are more indirect versions of this promise as well, but the promise is this: At the end of the world every knee shall bow to God. It’s a promise so strong it appears in the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Psalms.
How might this happen? No doubt this will happen, because when Christ returns to the world, Jesus will do so on bended knee — loving and serving the world. And since that is where Jesus is all the world will kneel, so that they (we) can be beside him. No doubt this is why John 13:34 gives Jesus' last commandment to “love one another” for it is through loving servanthood, indeed friendship with Christ, that we will truly see and know him. And when Jesus Christ returns and kneels to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and wash the feet of his beloved, we will also kneel to God, to be beside him. In this way Jesus’ ministry will be completed, causing every knee to bow and every tongue to confess the holiness of God.
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John 15:9-17
Peter Pan
Everyone knows that Peter Pan is the boy who never wanted to grow up. He lost himself in Neverland to have adventures and stay young forever. Peter Pan, immature and unafraid of death, is willing to lay down his life for his friends — the lost boys and Wendy. He says “To die would be an awfully great adventure.” Later, another story of Peter Pan is told when he is an adult in the movie Hook. In this adventure, Peter Pan runs away from his family and his relationships because he is afraid of getting hurt. In the end though, he decides that “to live would be an awfully great adventure.”
There are two ways to “lay down one’s life for Christ.” The first way is to die a martyr. Though noble, as my seminary professor Dr. Dykstra said: “You can lay down your life, your job, your marriage for Christ, but you can only do it once.” He was not saying don’t sacrifice for God, but be really sure that that is the only way left to serve God’s purpose, and that once it’s given up, you cannot give it up, or use it to serve God ever again. The second way is to live one’s life for God. If, in fact, we can find ways, especially in Westernized individualistic culture, where martyrdom for Christianity is not demanded by the powers and principalities and you can be a person who lives in and for the community, then that is another and quite worthy sacrifice. What are ways you can lay down your life for God?
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From team member Chris Keating:
Acts 10:44-48
What it is like to be the “first”
Peter stands astonished as the Spirit dances among the Gentiles. The Gospel’s reception among Cornelius’ household has been positive—but the question lingering behind the scenes is, “What’s it like to be among the first non-majority persons to join a group?”
Documentary film producer Andraéa Lavant faces that question nearly every day. A lifetime of being an outsider prepared Lavant to become the first visibly disabled Black woman to cross the Academy Awards’ famed red carpet. Lavant, who produced the Oscar-nominated documentary Crip Camp reflected on the experience of rolling her rhinestone-clad wheelchair across Hollywood’s legendary runway.
She inhaled deeply, “embracing the fact that I was making history as the first visibly disabled Black woman at the Academy Awards.”
“It’s rare that I entered a space and felt like I could bring all of me without rejection and exclusion,” she said in a story for Essence. “At my Black church, I was the disabled girl. At my all-disabled summer camp, I was the Black girl. I never saw anyone who even remotely resembled me in the media.”
The film, whose production team included executive producers Barack and Michelle Obama, relays the story of the disability rights movement by challenging prevailing views of disabled persons as “broken charity cases.” She writes that her intention is to break apart barriers and become a model for authentic access and inclusion.
Part of that was realizing she would be the first Black disabled woman at the Academy Awards.
“May this Academy Awards moment serve as a milestone moment for lasting, systemic change for disabled people of color across the globe,” Lavant said. “I might have been the first visibly disabled Black woman on the red carpet, but I’m determined not to be the last.”
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Acts 10:44-48
The astonishing diversity of God
It’s a good idea to pay attention when the Holy Spirit interrupts a sermon, which is exactly what Peter and the members of the church did in Acts 10:44. Astonished by the Spirit’s movement among the Gentiles, Peter understands that there is no reason to withhold baptism from these new believers.
Paying attention to the “astonishing diversity of God” is at the heart of the ministry of New York City’s First Corinthian Baptist Church. The 10,000 member congregation is one of the largest church’s in Harlem, and is also a long-time advocate for the inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members. Senior pastor Michael Walrond Jr. says that “So many who claim to be Christian have looked upon our brothers and sisters who have been seeking to live an authentic life, and we have used our own hypercritical, graceless moralism to judge. Somehow, the Christians could not handle the diversity of God.”
As Walrond explained to National Public Radio’s Scott Simon, “For me to be a follower of teachings of Jesus on some levels mean that I lead with love and I honor the nature of love. But I honor what I call the inherent dignity of all human beings.”
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John 15:9-17
Discovering joy
Jesus’ words, notes Karoline Lewis, seem a bit out of sync with both the context of his farewell address and the painful realities of contemporary life. “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you,” Jesus tells them. Given that he’s been talking about his betrayal and death, it’s a fair bet the disciples were wondering about what sort of “joy” Jesus intends.
Some years ago, Archbishop Desmond Tutu traveled to Dharamsala, India for a joint birthday celebration with the Dalai Lama. The two spiritual leaders, whose friendship had been formed over several brief meetings throughout the year, decided that the best way to celebrate their birthdays was to spend a week together reveling in their joyful friendship. Author Douglas Abrams followed the two and combined their words into a book titled “The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World.”
As they began their conversations, Archbishop Tutu made a distinction between spiritual joys and the perpetual human search for happiness. Tutu noted:
“It’s wonderful to discover that what we want is not actually happiness. It is not actually what I would speak of. I would speak of joy. Joy subsumes happiness. Joy is the far greater thing. Think of a mother who is going to give birth. Almost all of us want to escape pain. And mothers know that they are going to have pain, the great pain of giving birth. But they accept it. And even after the most painful labor, once the baby is out, you can’t measure the mother’s joy. It is one of those incredible things that joy can come so quickly from suffering. “A mother can be dead tired from work,” the Archbishop continued, “and all of the things that have worried her. And then her child is ill. That mother will not remember her exhaustion. She can sit at the bedside of her sick child the night through, and when the child gets better you see that joy.”
(From: Lama, Dalai; Tutu, Desmond; Abrams, Douglas Carlton. The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, (pp. 32-33). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition, 2016.)
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WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship:
One: O sing to God a new song who has done marvelous things.
All: God’s right hand and holy arm have gotten the victory.
One: Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth.
All: Break forth into joyous song and sing praises.
One: God is coming to judge the earth.
All: God will judge the world with righteousness and with equity.
OR
One: God calls us as sibling to join together as God’s family.
All: We rejoice to know we are God’s beloved children.
One: God gives us one another so that all may be blessed.
All: We welcome all so that we may bless and be blessed.
One: God rejoices when we are in harmony as a family.
All: We will strive to bring unity to all God’s family.
Hymns and Songs:
How Great Thou Art
UMH: 77
PH: 467
AAHH: 148
NNBH: 43
NCH: 35
CH: 33
LBW: 532
ELW: 856
W&P: 51
AMEC: 68
Renew: 250
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
UMH: 139
H82: 390
AAHH: 117
NNBH: 2
NCH: 22
CH: 25
ELW: 858/859
AMEC: 3
STLT: 278
Renew: 57
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
UMH: 140
AAHH: 158
NNBH: 45
NCH: 423
CH: 86
ELW: 733
W&P: 72
AMEC: 84
Renw: 249
Of the Father’s Love Begotten
UMH: 184
PH: 309
NCH: 118
CH: 104
LBW: 42
ELW: 295
W&P: 181
Renw: 252
Spirit Song
UMH: 347
AAHH: 321
CH: 352
W&P: 352
Renew: 248
Pues Si Vivimos (When We Are Living)
UMH: 356
PH: 400
NCH: 499
CH: 536
ELW: 639
W&P: 415
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
UMH: 358
H82: 652/653
PH: 345
NCH: 502
CH: 594
LBW: 506
W&P: 470
AMEC: 344
Amazing Grace
UMH: 378
H82: 671
PH: 280
AAHH: 271/272
NNBH: 161/163
NCH: 547/548
CH: 546
LBW: 448
ELW: 779
W&P: 422
AMEC: 226
STLT: 205/206
Renew: 189
Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
UMH: 384
H82: 657
PH: 376
AAHH: 440
NNBH: 65
NCH: 43
CH: 517
LBW: 315
ELW: 631
W&P: 358
AMEC: 455
Renew: 196
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
UMH: 400
H82: 686
PH: 356
AAHH: 175
NNBH: 166
NCH: 459
CH: 16
LBW: 499
ELW: 807
W&P: 68
AMEC: 77
STLT: 126
Father, I Adore You
CCB: 64
Our Love Belongs to You, O Lord
CCB: 63
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who our loving parent:
Grant us the grace to accept our place in your family
so that we might share your life with all our ‘siblings’;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are our loving parent. You call all people to be part of your family. Help us to live as siblings in peace and grace. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to accept others as God’s children.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are your children and yet we refuse to accept one another as part of your family. We see differences and decide that this means they are not part of our family. We want to take your place and sit in judgement about who is in and who is out. We ignore Christ’s call to love and give our lives for others. We are more concerned with how they can serve us. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us so that we may truly live as your children. Amen.
One: God is our loving parent who welcomes us all. Receive God’s gracious love so that you may share it with others.
Prayers of the People
We praise you, O God, the giver of life and the parent of all. From you all creation comes into being and has its meaning.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are your children and yet we refuse to accept one another as part of your family. We see differences and decide that this means they are not part of our family. We want to take your place and sit in judgement about who is in and who is out. We ignore Christ's call to love and give our lives for others. We are more concerned with how they can serve us. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us so that we may truly live as your children.
We thank you for the blessings of this life. You have gifted us with an abundance of good. We thank you for the beauty of the earth and for the joy of being your beloved children. You have given us each other so that we may be blessed through them.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for our siblings throughout the world. We pray that we may all come to know you as our loving parent and each other as kin. We pray for those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit. We offer to your loving care those who are caught in violence and war. We join with you in seeking justice and mercy for all.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Talk to the children about families. They can be very different. Some are large and some are small. Some are parent(s) and child(ren) and some include others such as grandparents. However alike or different each is a family. God’s has a family, too. All of us are God’s children so we all are family together.
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CHILDREN'S SERMON
The Good Fruit
by Bethany Peerbolte
John 15:9-17
Head to your local grocery and pick up some good-looking fruit (one piece is enough) and then dig to the bottom of the case and find one that is not so pretty. You may have to bruise it up yourself at home. Putting a banana in the fridge will do the trick real quick. Kids will get a kick out of seeing good fruit and nasty rotting fruit. It will also help them understand why we work so hard to give our best to the ones we love.
During your lesson, the fruit will serve as a visual representation of how apparent it is that we want the people we love to have the good fruit. Connect that to Jesus expressing friendship and love for us and how our response is to show love to others in return.
In your message say something like:
I want you to think of a place you feel very loved. Maybe it’s being hugged by your favorite aunt. Or when a friend shouts your name in a cafeteria and invites you to sit with them. Think of where you are when you feel love and who is around. Can you think of one person who makes you feel loved?
Now if you had the choice to give them this fruit (show the good fruit) or this fruit (show the bruised brown fruit) which one would you give to that person who makes you feel loved. We would want to give them the fresh fruit, right? We want the people who love us to have the best.
Our Bible story today talks about love and what we do to show our love. Jesus says he loves us and that we are to show the same kind of love to other people. So what kind of love did Jesus show to people? Well, we know Jesus was gentle with everyone whether they agreed with him or not. We know Jesus worked to bring peace to people’s lives who didn’t have a lot of peace. He shared in joyful celebrations. He was patient when people didn’t understand him. These things “gentleness, peace, joy, patience” are called the fruits of the Spirit.
And just like these fruits (hold out the good and rotten fruits) we want to give the best stuff to the people we love and Jesus gives the best to us, too. When he asks us to show love as he did, he asks us to give our best to our loved ones. It may mean being gentle when we play with our siblings or being extra joyful when a friend gets a good grade on a test. We may have to be patient with our parents when they are having a bad day or being extra kind to our teachers because it's hard for them at the end of a school year.
I know you all can give good things — good fruits — to the people that make you feel loved. Let’s say a prayer to ask God to help us see all the ways we can love others this week
God of love. We want to show others love. Help us see the good fruit we have to give. Thank you to everyone who makes us feel loved too. In Jesus name, we pray, Amen.
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The Immediate Word, May 9, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- One Nation Under God? by Tom Willadsen — What would the United States look like if we truly were “one nation under God?” What would it be like to live in a place where everyone was treated as one who has been “born of God?”
- Dying Is Easy by Dean Feldmeyer — Dying is easy; living the gospel is hard.
- Sermon illustrations by Katy Stenta, Mary Austin, Chris Keating.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children's sermon: The Good Fruit by Bethany Peerbolte.
One Nation Under God?by Tom Willadsen
Acts 10:44-48, 1 John 5:1-6, John 15:9-17, Psalm 98
The United States’ immigration system is a catastrophe. Asylum seekers are kept off US soil and shuttled to hearings, sometimes more than 1,000 miles from where they sought to enter the country.
Asians, a population group of which 57% are immigrants, are the targets of violence and intimidation because of fear stoked by the prior occupant of the White House.
What would the United States look like if it truly were “one nation under God?” What would it be like to live in a place where everyone was treated as one who has been “born of God?”
In the News
The situation at the southern border of the United States regarding the presence of unaccompanied minors has improved substantially since March 28.
It is, of course, a scandal and embarrassment that so many children were forced to stay in crowded, often unsanitary conditions for an average of 133 hours (well beyond the INS mandated limit of 72 hours) because of a sudden, dramatic increase in February and March. Republicans’ claim that the President is to blame because he communicated a desire to “open the borders” is misleading and unfair. A number of factors drive emigration from Central America: two major hurricanes last year, inadequate public health response to Covid-19, warmer weather and a persistent threat by gangs to recruit younger and younger members, all make parents desperate to send their children to the hope of a better future, or any future at all, in El Norte. The lack of border enforcement that some allege the President has promised was more likely a simple recognition that Joe Biden is a more humane individual than the last occupant of the White House. Emigration from Central America has waxed and waned for decades. It is unfortunate that certain voices in public service have tried to politicize this basic, humanitarian issue.
While both parties assert that the nation needs “comprehensive immigration reform,” neither is willing to compromise on their pet issues: border security for Republicans and paths to citizenship for Democrats. As the can is kicked down the road by another Congress, the wait for someone to emigrate legally from Mexico is around 21 years! Other countries’ residents do not wait quite so long. By far the largest source of legal immigrants to the US is Mexico.
The past president changed the way the United States reacts to requests for asylum at the southern border (not at the border with Canada, our procedures on that border are unchanged) in ways that are contrary to American and international law. “Seeking asylum is legal under both domestic and international law — even during a pandemic. People arriving at the U.S. border have the right to request asylum without being criminalized, turned back to danger or separated from their families.”
One of the measures the Trump administration put in place is called “metering,” which limited the number of people who could request asylum at a given port-of-entry per day. There are also the Migrant Protection Protocols. Under the Migrant Protection Protocols someone seeking to claim asylum at the southern border would have their hearing scheduled in one of seven designated border towns. Someone crossing the Rio Grande at McAllen, Texas, may have had their hearing scheduled in Calexico, California, nearly 1,400 miles away.
In the case of metering, international law was broken when people were kept from getting to US soil to make an asylum claim. They may or may not have been registered and scheduled for an asylum hearing. In any case, these hearings were held in Mexico, again keeping people from reaching US territory to seek asylum as international law requires.
Our immigration system is a catastrophe. How can a nation that calls itself “a nation of immigrants” make it so difficult for the people who come seeking citizenship to be treated with so little dignity?
Coinciding with the national disgrace at our southern border is a dramatic increase in violence against people from Asia and the Pacific Islands.
While examples are numerous, the one that most recently captured the news cycle was the killing of eight employees at three Georgia spa businesses on March 16. Six of the eight victims were Asian women.
As the pandemic was just entering the news in the United States in March of last year, the President repeatedly referred to Covid-19 as “the Chinese Virus” and “the Wuhan Virus.” Several months later he used the term “Kung Flu.” Researchers concluded that the President’s tweet on March 16, 2020 caused a dramatic increase in acts of anti-Asian violence.
The Census Bureau classifies people who trace their heritage from more than 20 countries as “Asian.” There are an enormous variety of cultures among US citizens and residents of Asian descent. By far the largest group of Asian Americans are those who identify as Chinese (23%), followed by Indians, Filipinos and Vietnamese. The confusion and conflation of different Asian ethnicities is a long-standing problem for Americans. Forty years ago a high school classmate informed me, “You can’t trust the Chinese since they bombed Pearl Harbor.” I didn’t bother to point out that the classmate who’d just eliminated him from the handball tournament in our gym class was Vietnamese.
Asians of all types have been targeted for acts of violence and intimidation throughout American history, but the frequency of these attacks has increased dramatically. And Asians from more than 20 countries are being targeted because of the “Chinese flu.”
This situation is especially galling when one considers that some of those being attacked are now American citizens who were adopted, many during infancy, from countries like South Korea and China. These people have grown up in a White majority culture. The country that adopted them refuses to accept them as full citizens, equal children under God.
In the Scriptures
Acts 10:44-48
This passage is toward the end of Peter’s sermon at Cornelius’s home in Caesarea. It’s not exactly clear how far Joppa was from Caesarea, but 40 miles is a good estimate. When was the last time you walked 40 miles because your boss told you to because he had a vision? Didn’t think so. Peter gets to Cornelius’s home and essentially has another conversion experience. The six circumcised (Jewish) believers with him are also converted. Yes, yes, it’s possible that the Holy Spirit can reach non-Jews. Their case is so compelling, even the leadership back in Jerusalem is persuaded.
Psalm 98
It’s not clear what Psalm 98 is celebrating. Deliverance from slavery? Creation? Renewal of creation? A military victory? Whatever the occasion, it’s big. By the end of it the sea and the hills are singing God’s praises. ZZ Top famously sang, “We’re bad, we’re nationwide.” God is even badder than those bearded boys from Texas — God’s creation-wide!
One way to conceive of Creation that is often overlooked is that the Creator brought order out of chaos. The same thing happens every Sunday morning when the choir gets set to process into worship, a miracle I get to witness every week! For a fuller treatment on Creation as the undoing and taming of chaos, see Jon Levenson’s Creation and the Persistence of Evil.
John 15:9-17
A lot of the themes is today’s gospel lesson echo in last week’s gospel lesson and this week and last week’s readings from 1 John. Love is not an emotion as Jesus uses it here. It is strong, determined, resolute…and it comes from God! Last week’s epistle included that same concept: We love because God first loved us. (1 John 4:19). The themes of loving service and serving with love, and keeping the commandment by loving, are interwoven here and in the epistle lesson. Can love be commanded? Not if it’s an emotion. That would be like deciding to like a food that tastes objectively awful (for me Brussel sprouts) because I had been commanded to. If love is seen as an attitude of devotion and commitment to others, a commitment that began with God the Creator, was exemplified by the Son, cf. John 13:12, then given full expression by the community of the followers of the son, then yes, love can be commanded. You can wash someone’s feet without liking them, but you cannot do it without love.
1 John 5:1-6
The author of the letter is still sniping at the Gnostics in today’s reading. Believing, loving, begetting and knowing are all intertwined in the first two verses. Later in the passage, at verse 6, the blood of Christ is emphasized, in addition to water. This may be a reference to Jesus’ side having been pierced during the crucifixion, proof of his complete human incarnation (John 19:34); take that, Gnostics!
In the Sermon
The biblical mandate to welcome the stranger, “love the stranger, for you were strangers in Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34), which is echoed in American secular terms on the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” could be in our national DNA. 1 John tells us that we are all equally children of God. There is no qualification: love comes from God, was expressed and embodied in Christ Jesus, and given as the force that unites all people with one another and with the living God. It is as though God has chosen to adopt every one of us.
An analogy could be made for citizenship in the United States — practically all of us have come here from somewhere else. Those who did not have been oppressed and disposed by others who themselves came from elsewhere. Americans could recognize and embrace our common humanity and our common un-earned status as Americans. Instead, too many of us are focused on strengthening borders between and around people just like us to keep those out who are not just like us.
Remember last week when you read perfect love casts out fear? Well, 1 John tells us all about perfect love, its source and where and how it flows. Are we brave enough to love without fear? Are we brave enough to trust God if we tear down the walls we build around us?
SECOND THOUGHTSDying is Easy
by Dean Feldmeyer
Acts 10:44-48, John 15:9-17
Stand-up comedians speak in the language of life and death.
If they do well, you will hear them tell their friends and colleagues: “I killed out there.” If they witness another comedian doing poorly on the stage the say: “Oh, wow. She’s dying up there.” The language of laughter is closely linked to the language of life and death.
It’s no wonder that many comics have adopted as their unofficial motto an old axiom of questionable origin: “Dying is easy; comedy is hard.”
The phrase, which some credit to long ago Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean (1787-1833) gives witness to an almost universal experience of actors that, when it comes to acting, comedy is more difficult than tragedy.
So true is the saying that it has been adapted and claimed by others inside and outside of show business.
In the Culture
Did Donald Wolfit paraphrase a comment by Edmund Gwenn or was it the other way around? The statements of even the eyewitnesses are inconsistent. But, here’s the story:
Donald Wolfit was a famous British stage actor, director, and producer who became one of Hollywood’s most bankable character actors. He was most famous, however, for his portrayal of the doomed King Lear, who dies at the end of the play.
The story goes that a critic once complimented Wolfit on his portrayal of Lear and, especially the death scene. The actor, speaking about the art of acting, responded, “Dying is easy; it’s comedy that’s hard.”
Edmund Gwenn was an early contemporary of Donald Wolfit. A very successful actor, he began with roles on the stage and later appeared in Hollywood films, most famously as Kris Kringle in the 1947 version of A Miracle on 34th Street.
In 1959, Gwenn was 81 years old and suffering from pneumonia after a stroke. His good friend, movie director George Seaton, regularly visited the bedridden actor at the Motion Picture Country House (today the Motion Picture & Television Fund Foundation), a retirement community and hospital that was created by members of the entertainment community to care for elderly people in the industry who, for whatever reason, cannot afford to take care of themselves. Seaton recalled that on his final visit Gwenn was suffering terribly. Addressing the actor by his nickname, the director said, sympathetically: “All this must be terribly difficult for you, Teddy.”
Gwenn answered: “Not nearly as difficult as playing comedy.”
Later accounts have Gwenn answering Seaton with his own paraphrase of Donald Wolfit’s quote: “No, George. Dying is easy. It’s comedy that’s hard.”
The comment is so chock full of irony and humor that it has been quoted and paraphrased and intentionally misquoted dozens of times:
In the 1982 movie, “My Favorite Year,” Peter O’Toole, playing a burned out, alcoholic, silent film actor based on Errol Flynn says, “Dying is easy; comedy is hard.”
Today, that sentiment, if not the exact wording, has made it to the stage on Broadway. That’s where, in the musical, Hamilton, George Washington says to the young, idealistic Alexander Hamilton: “It’s alright, you want to fight, you’ve got a hunger. I was just like you when I was younger. Head full of fantasies of dyin’ like a martyr? Dying is easy, young man. Living is harder.”
Other versions include:
Humorist Art Buchwald: “Dying is easy. Parking is hard” and “Dying isn’t hard. Getting paid by Medicare is hard.”
Luke Spencer, a character on the TV show “General Hospital,” said it in 1963: “Dying is easy; it’s living that’s hard.”
Singer Annie Lennox put a more personal twist on it: “Dying is easy. It’s living that scares me to death.”
And, coming full circle, back to the actor’s art, Mary Pat Hooligan, a character in the 2006 film “For Your Consideration” says, “Dying is easy. Playing a lesbian is hard.”
You’ve probably heard some version of the saying, maybe a different version than the ones listed here. The interesting thing to me is that in just about every version the speakers all agree with the opening sentiment that, “Dying is easy.”
That’s probably because it is. I mean, when compared to some other things, not necessarily including comedy, dying might be considered comparatively easy.
Dying is a single, one time thing. You do it and its done. You don’t have to do it over and over again to get it right. It’s Simple. Easy.
Living, however, just goes on and on. You do it today and tomorrow you have to do it all over again. And the day after that and the one after that. And living for others, that thing Jesus wants us to do? Forget about it. It’s hard. Why, it’s nearly impossible.
In the Scripture
In the Gospel lesson (John 15:9-17) Jesus reminds his disciples that, if they want to remain his disciples they must obey the commandments that he gave to them. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (vv. 12-13)
Jesus gives them the commandment to love one another then he explains to them what that means and gives them a visible, tangible example of what that kind of love looks like. They are to love one another exactly the way Jesus has loved each of them.
And how has Jesus loved them? Well, he has laid down his life for them. And, yes, that means that he is willing to die for them or on their behalf. The love he’s talking about is self-sacrificial love. And one thing self-sacrificial love does is it sacrifices itself for the beloved, even to the point of death.
“You won’t have anything to live for,” the saying goes, “until you have something that you would die for.”
Nearly every parent knows the meaning of that kind of love. We don’t even have to think about it. Something threatens our children and we instinctively step forward in front of our child to shield them with our own body. It’s where the axiom, “take a bullet for,” comes from, isn’t it? Being willing to “take a bullet for” someone means that we would be willing to die for them.
It means that we would be willing to lay down our death, the only death we get, for one whom we love.
In the Acts passage (10:44-48) Peter witnesses the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the household of the gentile Roman Centurion, Cornelius. Earlier, Peter has been invited by Cornelius to come to his home and teach him and his friends and family — a considerable crowd, according to the text — about Jesus.
Peter knows that, according to Jewish law, it is illegal for a Jews to visit in the home of a gentile. But God has told Peter, in a dream, that this old law no longer applies. Followers of Jesus are free to spread the good news anywhere they choose, be it a Jewish home or a Gentile one.
From this point, Peter will dedicate himself, with Paul, to bringing the gospel to anyone, Jew or gentile, who can benefit from hearing it. He is not laying down his death, but his life. He intends to live and give of himself and the life he has been given to the salvation of the gentiles.
“No greater love is there than this, that a person lay down their life (and their death) for others.”
In the Sermon
The first line of the Declaration of Independence: “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America…”
The last line of the Declaration of Independence: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
There is an essay floating around on the internet called “The Price They Paid.” It purports to tell the “rest of the story” about the horrors, tortures, suffering, and misery that were visited upon the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. While a few of the items in that essay are based on, if not exactly grounded in, truth, the facts remain that, after pledging to lay down their lives and / or their deaths for each other and the liberty they sought to obtain for the United States, many of them went on to live out their entire lives in service to others.
After the American Revolution 13 signers went on to become governors. 18 served in their state legislatures. 16 became state and federal judges. Seven became members of the US House of Representatives. Six became US senators. James Wilson and Samuel Chase became Supreme Court justices. Jefferson, Adams, and Elbridge Gerry each became vice president. Adams and Jefferson later became president.
Five signers played major roles in the establishment of colleges and universities: Franklin and the University of Pennsylvania; Jefferson and the University of Virginia; Benjamin Rush and Dickinson College; Lewis Morris and New York University; and George Walton and the University of Georgia.
While they were willing to lay down their deaths, most of them laid down their lives. They lived for the values they claimed as their own.
_____________________
In the novel, If I Stay, by Gayle Forman, Mia Hall is a gifted, 17-year-old cellist who has everything she could ever want, a loving family, an adoring boyfriend, a supportive best friend, and an amazing career ahead of her in music. All of that changes suddenly. Mia and her family have a terrible car accident and Mia is rushed to the ICU. Caught between life and death, she watches and listens from inside her comatose state as family and friends come to visit her at the hospital. Soon Mia realizes that she must make the most critical decision of her life — wake up to live a life more difficult than she ever could have imagined, or slip away and die.
Even though she is in a coma, she is aware of what is going on around her. She can hear the people she loves when they talk to…and about…her. She is aware that she has a choice to make and the time for making it is becoming more urgent with each passing day. She can A) wake up from the coma and begin what will be a very difficult journey to a kind of health unlike the one she knew and anticipated before the accident. Or, she can just let herself slip away into deeper and deeper sleep, never to awaken again.
On one hand she really wants to wake up to see her friends and family, but on the other she isn’t sure if she is really ready to face a more difficult life. She is almost ready to give up when her best friend and boyfriend visit her and tell her how much they will miss her if she never wakes up.
"I don't know exactly what's happened to me,” she tells the reader. “And for the first time today, I don't really care. I shouldn't have to care. I shouldn't have to work this hard. I realize now that dying is easy. Living is hard."
Nevertheless, as tough as it will be, Mia chooses to live. A few pages later, she says:
"It's the hardest thing I will ever have to do. I summon all the love I have ever felt, I summon all the strength that Gran and Gramps and Kim and the nurses and Willow have given me. I summon all the breath that Mom, and Dad, and Teddy would fill me with if they could. I summon all my own strength, focus it like a laser beam into the fingers and palm of my right hand. I picture my hand stroking Teddy's hair, grasping a bow poised above my cello, interlaced with Adam's.
And then I squeeze."
In the end, it is not for her own benefit but for that of those she loves and who love her that she chooses to live. Given the choice of laying down her death or laying down her life, she chooses to lay down her life.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:John 15:9-17
From Servants to Friends
“I do not call you servants any longer,” Jesus tells his followers as part of his farewell to them. In a similar vein, business owners who want to retire are taking the step of selling their businesses to their employees. The people who work for the business have an opportunity not to be employees any longer, but shared owners.
The “silver tsunami” of baby boomer business owners who are retiring offers a rare opportunity for businesses to become co-ops, or to have employees as stock owners. Often, the children of the owner or founder have no interest in the business, and the people who understand and love the business are the employees. “When Vern Seile, one of the largest employers on Deer Isle, Maine, decided it was time to retire and sell his three retail businesses, he realized he had no one to sell to. His kids didn’t want the whole enterprise, and there was nobody on the remote island who could buy it, either. If he sold it to someone from “away,” they wouldn’t care for it like he had and preserve the legacy he’d built over several decades. In fact, the only offer came from a competitor on the mainland who promised to close one of the businesses and lay people off…Seile discovered that if he wanted to be rewarded fairly for years of hard work, his best option was to sell to his employees. In June of 2014, the Island Employee Cooperative (IEC) was born. This was the largest and most complex conversion to a worker cooperative ever done in the United States, and the IEC has become the largest worker co-op in Maine and the second-largest in New England.”
Or, “for example, A Yard and a Half Landscaping Company, in Waltham, Massachusetts. Founded in 1988 by Eileen Michaels, the company was already succeeding by opening its books, sharing profits with employees, and involving employees in decision-making. When Michaels decided to prepare for retirement by offering the company to her employees, incorporating as a worker-owned cooperative was a natural step. The bilingual co-op employs many workers from El Salvador, and classes on everything from horticulture to democratic decision-making are offered in English and Spanish.”
This kind of transition offers opportunity to employees who might not have another such option. “The only thing harder to find than a job in many rural, inner-city, and immigrant communities is a good job. And even harder to find is any opportunity to own a business and build wealth. Imagine the difference it makes to the construction workers who are now equal owners of Build With Prospect, Inc. in Brooklyn, New York City. They vote for and can hold a seat on the board, thereby determining the overall direction of the company. They influence decisions on everything from human resources to the long-term plan. If they cared about keeping their jobs before, think how much more it means now, when they share in the long-term profits. That’s going to show up in the quality of their work. And the quality of their jobs is going to show up in the quality of their lives.”
“I do not call you employees any longer,” many business owners are saying, but partners and owners.
* * *
John 15:9-17
Connections
Showing their enduring connection to each other, even as his death approaches, Jesus likens his disciples to branches, rooted in a vine. The connection is so close that you can’t have one without the other. Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist, is also an enrolled member of the Citizen Band Potawatomi, and she finds similar connections all around us. Dr. Kimmerer muses, “we have created a consumption-driven economy that asks, “What more can we take from the Earth?” and almost never “What does the Earth ask of us in return?” The premise of Earth asking something of me—of me!—makes my heart swell. I celebrate the implicit recognition of the Earth’s animacy, that the living planet has the capacity to ask something of us and that we have the capacity to respond. We are not passive recipients of her gifts, but active participants in her well-being. We are honored by the request. It lets us know that we belong.”
Like vine and branches, we are more connected than we know.
Kimmerer adds, “Reciprocity—returning the gift—is not just good manners; it is how the biophysical world works. Balance in ecological systems arises from negative feedback loops, from cycles of giving and taking. Reciprocity among parts of the living Earth produces equilibrium, in which life as we know it can flourish. When the gift is in motion, it can last forever.”
Our connection to Jesus – vine and branches – feeds everything that we do in life. Kimmerer find a parallel in our connection to the living systems on earth. “Gratitude is our first, but not our only gift. We are storytellers, music makers, devisers of ingenious machines, healers, scientists, and lovers of an Earth who asks that we give our own unique gifts on behalf of life.”
Apart from me, you can do nothing, Jesus tells us, and the created world carries the same message.
* * *
John 15:9-17
Lay Down Your Life for Your Friends
As they were both ill with cancer, two friends took time to talk to each other in front of an audience about the time, coming soon, when each would die. In preparing to lay down their lives, they used their time to talk about what it was like to know that the end was coming. Kozo Hattori and Sue Cochrane talked about getting ready to let go of their lives.
Kozo said “I’ve been offered an on-ramp to death, to accept and embrace it in a slow way… I don’t know how long it might be, but to be aware of it, and to walk it, and to not turn away from it is important.” He had been out skateboarding with his kids, and said, “t’s funny, I don’t know if you get this feeling but it’s almost like I am returning to my 12-year-old self. "The more childish you become, the more powerful you become," is what one of my healers told me. I’ve been returning to that 12-year-old self in so many ways through skateboarding.”
Sue Cochrane wrote on her blog “I’ve practiced law, practiced the piano, practiced creative writing and practiced meditation. I practiced with specific goals in mind:- success, mastery, achievement, enlightenment. Now I practice letting go of goals… Most things I do now seem to be very small and very focused. For example, a year ago I discovered that I enjoy making small, improvisational quilt pieces, usually about 12 by 12 inches. I no longer dream of making gorgeous, handmade memory quilts for my three sons (“dream” being the operative word – I’ve never made a full-size quilt in my life). I don’t intend these improv pieces to be part of a quilt. I don’t need to preplan the color, shapes and fabrics the way you need to when making a large quilt. I make them just for the joy of creating them I love making choices in the moment and seeing what develops. I find great satisfaction in completing them in one day.”
Knowing we have a terminal illness is a long practice in laying down one’s life, and these two people took time to make sure other people were also learning from their journeys.
* * *
Psalm 98
Singing a New Song
“O sing to the Lord a new song,” the Psalmist summons us. Soon many people will be singing a new song of work, as offices re-open, or don’t re-open, and as our jobs shift again. As many people are re-thinking their work, theologian Matthew Fox has noted that work is causing a spiritual crisis for many people. The loss of work is a spiritual problem because “people who don’t have work feel very bad about themselves. They can’t give back to the community. They feel useless; they can’t take care of their families; they don’t have a way to participate in the life of their society. We all want to give back to the community and feel good about ourselves.”
Fox notes that work and a job may have different meanings for us. “Work is your calling; your purpose; what you’ve come here to do in this lifetime. A job is something we do to pay our bills. The ideal job combines the two—enabling you to get paid to fulfill your calling. Sometimes, though, you have to settle for a job to pay your rent—at least temporarily—and fulfill your purpose in your off-work hours. It’s important to know the difference because I think that a lot of people’s dissatisfaction with their jobs eats away at their real work if they don’t realize they can do both. Joy is the sign of real work: the joy that you derive from doing it and the joy that others derive from the result. If the joy is missing, it’s not your work; it’s a job.”
Our return to familiar patterns of work nudges us to ask how we can sing God a new song with our hours and our days, while serving God’s world through our work.
* * *
Psalm 98
Sing for Joy
Vocal artist Bobby McFerrin has built his career around singing new kinds of songs, using his voice in unique ways, and he says the purpose of it all is joy. As the Psalmist proclaims, “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises.” McFerrin understands his artistry as a pathway to that. He says, “I want everyone to feel joy at the end of a concert. Not, I don’t want them to be blown away by what I do. I want them to have this sense of real, real joy from the depths of their being. That’s what it’s all about, because I think when you take them to that place then you introduce — you open up a place where grace can come in.”
McFerrin marvels at the transformation that can come from singing, even for someone who sings as often as he does. “It is a wonderful thing, what music can do. There have been nights when I’ve walked on stage and I have felt absolutely awful, just terrible, you know, physically, you know, ill — raging headache or something, you know. And at the end of a concert, you know, I’m 70 percent healed…Or there have been nights when I’ve emotionally been just maybe a little bit off — maybe I’ve had an argument with someone or a misunderstanding with one of my children or something like that, you know…And within a minute [on the stage], you know, I’m open, I’m happy, I’ve cooled off. I think the best way to sort of deal with temptation is to actually sing.”
After decades of singing, he says he’s reached a different place, something that all musicians want. “They want to get to the point where they don’t think — they don’t have to think anymore about their technique. They simply have it. It’s not something they struggle to get, you know, anymore. They’ve got it, you know; they’re not conscious of themselves playing. They just play. You know, they’re not thinking about playing; they’re just playing. And it’s taken me a long, long, long time to get there. I started singing at 27. I’m 61. And now I can say that I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even think about singing. I just sing.” By grace, perhaps we can all get to that place of ease when we sing our praises to God. We don’t think; we just sing to God a new song.
* * * * * *
From team member Katy Stenta:1 John 5:1-6, John 15:91-7
In the Waiting Room
There is a great story of Jillian Lauren adopting her son. She talks about the long journey to Ethiopia. She and her husband Scott fly over with 8 other families and live with them during the process. Finally, after a few days there they get to meet the child, Tariku, and play with him all day. They meet his teenage mother, and do a formal Entrustment ceremony and promise to take care of Tariku. She related that Tariku means "his story," because he already has so much history for a baby boy.
After all of this they go back to the embassy to finalize the adoption. Once there, a man tells them they are not eligible because the paperwork says they can only adopt a child up to 4 months old — and this baby is 11 months old. Jillian sees the typo and tries to clarify that it’s supposed to say 4 years old. After waiting for hours, with the baby asleep on her shoulder, Jillian and Scott tell the social worker what happened, and she leaves too.
So Jillian started sobbing and all of the families surrounded her even though they were done and packed and ready to return home. They all stayed with each other for three hours. Finally the social worker comes back and has it all taken care of.
When the plane took off with Jillian and Scott and Tariku on it, Jillian realized that these other babies’ parents were more than just friends, they were all families now.
We are all in the waiting room, knowing we are already adopted and beloved by Christ, but we are not all together with him yet. And yet, while we wait it is our job — our blessing and privilege — to become family not only with Jesus Christ, but with one another. There is no better use of our time.
* * *
John 15:9-17
Love and Serve One Another
Throughout the Bible it is promised that somehow, in some way, every knee shall bow to God. In Isaiah 45:23 it says “every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God.” Psalm 86:9 says similarly that “all the nations you have made shall come and bow before you.” It is continued and repeated throughout the New Testament — Philippians 2:10-11, Romans 14:11, 1 Corinthians 15:28. There are more indirect versions of this promise as well, but the promise is this: At the end of the world every knee shall bow to God. It’s a promise so strong it appears in the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Psalms.
How might this happen? No doubt this will happen, because when Christ returns to the world, Jesus will do so on bended knee — loving and serving the world. And since that is where Jesus is all the world will kneel, so that they (we) can be beside him. No doubt this is why John 13:34 gives Jesus' last commandment to “love one another” for it is through loving servanthood, indeed friendship with Christ, that we will truly see and know him. And when Jesus Christ returns and kneels to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and wash the feet of his beloved, we will also kneel to God, to be beside him. In this way Jesus’ ministry will be completed, causing every knee to bow and every tongue to confess the holiness of God.
* * *
John 15:9-17
Peter Pan
Everyone knows that Peter Pan is the boy who never wanted to grow up. He lost himself in Neverland to have adventures and stay young forever. Peter Pan, immature and unafraid of death, is willing to lay down his life for his friends — the lost boys and Wendy. He says “To die would be an awfully great adventure.” Later, another story of Peter Pan is told when he is an adult in the movie Hook. In this adventure, Peter Pan runs away from his family and his relationships because he is afraid of getting hurt. In the end though, he decides that “to live would be an awfully great adventure.”
There are two ways to “lay down one’s life for Christ.” The first way is to die a martyr. Though noble, as my seminary professor Dr. Dykstra said: “You can lay down your life, your job, your marriage for Christ, but you can only do it once.” He was not saying don’t sacrifice for God, but be really sure that that is the only way left to serve God’s purpose, and that once it’s given up, you cannot give it up, or use it to serve God ever again. The second way is to live one’s life for God. If, in fact, we can find ways, especially in Westernized individualistic culture, where martyrdom for Christianity is not demanded by the powers and principalities and you can be a person who lives in and for the community, then that is another and quite worthy sacrifice. What are ways you can lay down your life for God?
* * * * * *
From team member Chris Keating:Acts 10:44-48
What it is like to be the “first”
Peter stands astonished as the Spirit dances among the Gentiles. The Gospel’s reception among Cornelius’ household has been positive—but the question lingering behind the scenes is, “What’s it like to be among the first non-majority persons to join a group?”
Documentary film producer Andraéa Lavant faces that question nearly every day. A lifetime of being an outsider prepared Lavant to become the first visibly disabled Black woman to cross the Academy Awards’ famed red carpet. Lavant, who produced the Oscar-nominated documentary Crip Camp reflected on the experience of rolling her rhinestone-clad wheelchair across Hollywood’s legendary runway.
She inhaled deeply, “embracing the fact that I was making history as the first visibly disabled Black woman at the Academy Awards.”
“It’s rare that I entered a space and felt like I could bring all of me without rejection and exclusion,” she said in a story for Essence. “At my Black church, I was the disabled girl. At my all-disabled summer camp, I was the Black girl. I never saw anyone who even remotely resembled me in the media.”
The film, whose production team included executive producers Barack and Michelle Obama, relays the story of the disability rights movement by challenging prevailing views of disabled persons as “broken charity cases.” She writes that her intention is to break apart barriers and become a model for authentic access and inclusion.
Part of that was realizing she would be the first Black disabled woman at the Academy Awards.
“May this Academy Awards moment serve as a milestone moment for lasting, systemic change for disabled people of color across the globe,” Lavant said. “I might have been the first visibly disabled Black woman on the red carpet, but I’m determined not to be the last.”
* * *
Acts 10:44-48
The astonishing diversity of God
It’s a good idea to pay attention when the Holy Spirit interrupts a sermon, which is exactly what Peter and the members of the church did in Acts 10:44. Astonished by the Spirit’s movement among the Gentiles, Peter understands that there is no reason to withhold baptism from these new believers.
Paying attention to the “astonishing diversity of God” is at the heart of the ministry of New York City’s First Corinthian Baptist Church. The 10,000 member congregation is one of the largest church’s in Harlem, and is also a long-time advocate for the inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members. Senior pastor Michael Walrond Jr. says that “So many who claim to be Christian have looked upon our brothers and sisters who have been seeking to live an authentic life, and we have used our own hypercritical, graceless moralism to judge. Somehow, the Christians could not handle the diversity of God.”
As Walrond explained to National Public Radio’s Scott Simon, “For me to be a follower of teachings of Jesus on some levels mean that I lead with love and I honor the nature of love. But I honor what I call the inherent dignity of all human beings.”
* * *
John 15:9-17
Discovering joy
Jesus’ words, notes Karoline Lewis, seem a bit out of sync with both the context of his farewell address and the painful realities of contemporary life. “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you,” Jesus tells them. Given that he’s been talking about his betrayal and death, it’s a fair bet the disciples were wondering about what sort of “joy” Jesus intends.
Some years ago, Archbishop Desmond Tutu traveled to Dharamsala, India for a joint birthday celebration with the Dalai Lama. The two spiritual leaders, whose friendship had been formed over several brief meetings throughout the year, decided that the best way to celebrate their birthdays was to spend a week together reveling in their joyful friendship. Author Douglas Abrams followed the two and combined their words into a book titled “The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World.”
As they began their conversations, Archbishop Tutu made a distinction between spiritual joys and the perpetual human search for happiness. Tutu noted:
“It’s wonderful to discover that what we want is not actually happiness. It is not actually what I would speak of. I would speak of joy. Joy subsumes happiness. Joy is the far greater thing. Think of a mother who is going to give birth. Almost all of us want to escape pain. And mothers know that they are going to have pain, the great pain of giving birth. But they accept it. And even after the most painful labor, once the baby is out, you can’t measure the mother’s joy. It is one of those incredible things that joy can come so quickly from suffering. “A mother can be dead tired from work,” the Archbishop continued, “and all of the things that have worried her. And then her child is ill. That mother will not remember her exhaustion. She can sit at the bedside of her sick child the night through, and when the child gets better you see that joy.”
(From: Lama, Dalai; Tutu, Desmond; Abrams, Douglas Carlton. The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, (pp. 32-33). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition, 2016.)
* * * * * *
WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship:
One: O sing to God a new song who has done marvelous things.
All: God’s right hand and holy arm have gotten the victory.
One: Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth.
All: Break forth into joyous song and sing praises.
One: God is coming to judge the earth.
All: God will judge the world with righteousness and with equity.
OR
One: God calls us as sibling to join together as God’s family.
All: We rejoice to know we are God’s beloved children.
One: God gives us one another so that all may be blessed.
All: We welcome all so that we may bless and be blessed.
One: God rejoices when we are in harmony as a family.
All: We will strive to bring unity to all God’s family.
Hymns and Songs:
How Great Thou Art
UMH: 77
PH: 467
AAHH: 148
NNBH: 43
NCH: 35
CH: 33
LBW: 532
ELW: 856
W&P: 51
AMEC: 68
Renew: 250
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
UMH: 139
H82: 390
AAHH: 117
NNBH: 2
NCH: 22
CH: 25
ELW: 858/859
AMEC: 3
STLT: 278
Renew: 57
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
UMH: 140
AAHH: 158
NNBH: 45
NCH: 423
CH: 86
ELW: 733
W&P: 72
AMEC: 84
Renw: 249
Of the Father’s Love Begotten
UMH: 184
PH: 309
NCH: 118
CH: 104
LBW: 42
ELW: 295
W&P: 181
Renw: 252
Spirit Song
UMH: 347
AAHH: 321
CH: 352
W&P: 352
Renew: 248
Pues Si Vivimos (When We Are Living)
UMH: 356
PH: 400
NCH: 499
CH: 536
ELW: 639
W&P: 415
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
UMH: 358
H82: 652/653
PH: 345
NCH: 502
CH: 594
LBW: 506
W&P: 470
AMEC: 344
Amazing Grace
UMH: 378
H82: 671
PH: 280
AAHH: 271/272
NNBH: 161/163
NCH: 547/548
CH: 546
LBW: 448
ELW: 779
W&P: 422
AMEC: 226
STLT: 205/206
Renew: 189
Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
UMH: 384
H82: 657
PH: 376
AAHH: 440
NNBH: 65
NCH: 43
CH: 517
LBW: 315
ELW: 631
W&P: 358
AMEC: 455
Renew: 196
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
UMH: 400
H82: 686
PH: 356
AAHH: 175
NNBH: 166
NCH: 459
CH: 16
LBW: 499
ELW: 807
W&P: 68
AMEC: 77
STLT: 126
Father, I Adore You
CCB: 64
Our Love Belongs to You, O Lord
CCB: 63
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who our loving parent:
Grant us the grace to accept our place in your family
so that we might share your life with all our ‘siblings’;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are our loving parent. You call all people to be part of your family. Help us to live as siblings in peace and grace. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to accept others as God’s children.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are your children and yet we refuse to accept one another as part of your family. We see differences and decide that this means they are not part of our family. We want to take your place and sit in judgement about who is in and who is out. We ignore Christ’s call to love and give our lives for others. We are more concerned with how they can serve us. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us so that we may truly live as your children. Amen.
One: God is our loving parent who welcomes us all. Receive God’s gracious love so that you may share it with others.
Prayers of the People
We praise you, O God, the giver of life and the parent of all. From you all creation comes into being and has its meaning.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are your children and yet we refuse to accept one another as part of your family. We see differences and decide that this means they are not part of our family. We want to take your place and sit in judgement about who is in and who is out. We ignore Christ's call to love and give our lives for others. We are more concerned with how they can serve us. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us so that we may truly live as your children.
We thank you for the blessings of this life. You have gifted us with an abundance of good. We thank you for the beauty of the earth and for the joy of being your beloved children. You have given us each other so that we may be blessed through them.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for our siblings throughout the world. We pray that we may all come to know you as our loving parent and each other as kin. We pray for those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit. We offer to your loving care those who are caught in violence and war. We join with you in seeking justice and mercy for all.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Talk to the children about families. They can be very different. Some are large and some are small. Some are parent(s) and child(ren) and some include others such as grandparents. However alike or different each is a family. God’s has a family, too. All of us are God’s children so we all are family together.
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CHILDREN'S SERMONThe Good Fruit
by Bethany Peerbolte
John 15:9-17
Head to your local grocery and pick up some good-looking fruit (one piece is enough) and then dig to the bottom of the case and find one that is not so pretty. You may have to bruise it up yourself at home. Putting a banana in the fridge will do the trick real quick. Kids will get a kick out of seeing good fruit and nasty rotting fruit. It will also help them understand why we work so hard to give our best to the ones we love.
During your lesson, the fruit will serve as a visual representation of how apparent it is that we want the people we love to have the good fruit. Connect that to Jesus expressing friendship and love for us and how our response is to show love to others in return.
In your message say something like:
I want you to think of a place you feel very loved. Maybe it’s being hugged by your favorite aunt. Or when a friend shouts your name in a cafeteria and invites you to sit with them. Think of where you are when you feel love and who is around. Can you think of one person who makes you feel loved?
Now if you had the choice to give them this fruit (show the good fruit) or this fruit (show the bruised brown fruit) which one would you give to that person who makes you feel loved. We would want to give them the fresh fruit, right? We want the people who love us to have the best.
Our Bible story today talks about love and what we do to show our love. Jesus says he loves us and that we are to show the same kind of love to other people. So what kind of love did Jesus show to people? Well, we know Jesus was gentle with everyone whether they agreed with him or not. We know Jesus worked to bring peace to people’s lives who didn’t have a lot of peace. He shared in joyful celebrations. He was patient when people didn’t understand him. These things “gentleness, peace, joy, patience” are called the fruits of the Spirit.
And just like these fruits (hold out the good and rotten fruits) we want to give the best stuff to the people we love and Jesus gives the best to us, too. When he asks us to show love as he did, he asks us to give our best to our loved ones. It may mean being gentle when we play with our siblings or being extra joyful when a friend gets a good grade on a test. We may have to be patient with our parents when they are having a bad day or being extra kind to our teachers because it's hard for them at the end of a school year.
I know you all can give good things — good fruits — to the people that make you feel loved. Let’s say a prayer to ask God to help us see all the ways we can love others this week
God of love. We want to show others love. Help us see the good fruit we have to give. Thank you to everyone who makes us feel loved too. In Jesus name, we pray, Amen.
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The Immediate Word, May 9, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
