Telling Our Stories
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For November 13, 2022:
Telling Our Stories
by Dean Feldmeyer
Luke 21:5-19
My 3rd grade Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Ridley was a storyteller par excellence and she used her gifts to lure us kids into the Christian faith. David and Goliath. Samson and Delilah. Adam and Eve. Gideon. Abraham. Deborah the warrior princess. And, of course, The Good Samaritan, The Prodigal Son, Christmas, Easter. She also told us her stories about her faith journey, about her own upbringing in the church, her grandparents who took her to church, and her experiences there.
She wove a magic spell as she sometimes read, sometimes told us those stories and others. And I kept coming back to church even when she wasn’t my teacher anymore because I knew there were stories there — stories that could thrill me and excite me and make me laugh. Stories that could fill me with awe and wonder and send an electric shiver up my spine.
I’m an old man now and, truthfully, nothing much has changed. No matter how many times I’ve heard them, I still love to hear the stories of my faith. As a preacher, I love to tell them. Every time I go to church it’s like walking into a huge anthology.
And some of the stories in that collection are mine.
In the News
Our culture is acutely aware of the power of stories.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is the chief medical correspondent for CNN. In a news report he filed in June of this year, he tells the story of his first-hand encounter with the wounds that are caused by military style rifles (AK47, AR15, etc.).
During his neurosurgery training and the first several years of his career, he recalls that he didn’t encounter what medical professionals call cavitation wounds, where the bullet creates not a linier track through the body of the victim but a huge “cave,” where organs and bones are literally exploded and shredded. That’s because between 1994 and 2004, certain semi-automatic firearms were banned. It wasn’t until 2003, while he was covering the war in Iraq, that he first saw that kind of firearm damage.
He was embedded with the Devil Docs, the Navy medical team that provides front-line medical care for the Marines and it was there that he first saw limbs blown clean off the body and wounds so horrific that he thought they must’ve been caused by a bomb or IED. But, in nearly every case, he says, they were caused by rifles.
It was just a couple of years later that he began to see the same sorts of injuries to civilians — adults, youths, even children — in US cities.
Dr. Gupta has learned that simply saying that a person was shot doesn’t do justice to the kind of savage, devastating damage that an AK47 does to a human body. And lots of doctors are wondering if it isn’t time for what they have come to call an “Emmet Till moment” for our country wherein we actually show the viewing audience what those wounds look like.
Emmett Till was a 14-year-old Black teen who was abducted, tortured, and murdered in 1955 by white racists in Mississippi after a white woman said that he whistled at her. Till’s mother took the unusual step of holding an open-casket funeral and allowing a photographer from Jet magazine to photograph her son’s disfigured, unrecognizable face to show the country the result of racial violence.
“The truth is,” says Dr. Gupta, “I’m not sure America is ready to see that [bullet trauma from assault rifles]. More importantly, it isn’t a decision anybody can make unless it’s their loss and their story to tell — like Emmett Till’s mother.” Many consider that Mamie Till’s decision to show and tell her son’s story to America, an account of which is currently being shown in the movie “Till” in theaters across the country, was a turning point in the country’s collective support for the civil rights movement.
In the Scripture
This morning’s gospel lesson from Luke finds Jesus admiring the temple with some of his followers.
The temple was a point of pride for first century Jews. It was not just a church, a house of worship; it was a nationalistic symbol and rallying point for the Jewish people. It had stood on that site for more than five centuries. It was the only place where acceptable sacrifices could be made to YHWH. It was God’s house.
Thirty years after Jesus spoke these words, in 66 CE, a band of Jewish guerilla rebels called the Zealots and an even more fanatical, rebel group called the Sicarii would rise in armed revolt and attempt to drive the Romans out of Palestine. The Romans’ response was to execute 6,000 Jews and loot the temple.
The Zealots and the Sicarii responded in all out revolution that was successful for a short time. They overran the Jerusalem garrison and killed all or most of the Roman soldiers stationed there.
The Roman emperor, Nero, sent the Syrian Legion under Celestius Gallus to assist the auxiliary troops in restoring order but the rebels launched a surprise ambush at a narrow pass near the town of Beth Horon and defeated the Romans, killing more than 6,000 soldiers.
A year later, Nero sent Vespasian, a quiet and unassuming general, with four legions (about 10,000 troops), to put down the revolt. Vespasian’s son, Titus, was his second in command.
Rather than attack Jerusalem, Vespasian launched a campaign of suppression and terror throughout Palestine. Refugees fled before the Roman onslaught with many going to Jerusalem hoping to find safety behind the city’s walls. But rather than use the influx of new people to shore up the city’s defenses, the survivors became embroiled in violent infighting about who was in charge. Jews turned against Jews while the Romans burned and looted the countryside.
Meanwhile, back in Rome, riots were breaking out over Nero’s exorbitant taxes and his treatment of the people. Nero committed suicide when it became clear that the rioters were about to break into his palace. The senate asked Vespasian to return home, put down the riots, and take the reign as Emperor, which he did, leaving Titus to conclude the suppression of the Judean revolt.
Titus attacked Jerusalem, and laid siege to the city. The siege lasted seven months. When the walls were breached, the rebels retreated to the Temple, their last stronghold, but it didn’t hold. It was destroyed, the holdouts killed or taken captive, and the rest of the city was burned and looted.
The historian, Josephus, estimated the casualties from this conflagration, what has come to be called the First Jewish War, at about 1.1 million Jews killed and 97,000 captured and sold into slavery. In 73 CE, the last remnant was chased to the mountain fortress of Masada where 960 Jewish rebels committed mass suicide rather than surrender.
Hundreds of thousands of other Jews, among them many Jewish Christians, fled to other countries to escape the Roman campaign of terror. Some went south to Egypt. Some fled northeast to Asia Minor and the city of Ephesus, and some fled northeast to Syria and the capital city of Antioch where most scholars believe Luke’s gospel was written within 3-5 years of these events.
So, in Luke’s account, when Jesus tells his followers that “the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down,” he may be prophesying for his listeners, but, for Luke’s readers, he is describing something that has already taken place.
In fact, the entire passage is nearly an exact account of what happened to Jews and Jewish Christians during the Roman holocaust that followed the revolution. The temple, indeed, the whole city of Jerusalem, was destroyed. Nation did, in fact, rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Famine and plagues broke out in the city during the seven-month siege. People were imprisoned because of what they believed and they were betrayed and even killed by their own people.
This was no mere speculation, it was fact. It had happened to those readers.
But now, Luke was giving these refugees who had flocked to the Christian community in Antioch, a context for their suffering. It was not without meaning. In fact, it was a perfect opportunity for witnessing. No testimony is as powerful as that of those who have suffered for their faith.
This present devastation, this suffering, this fear and deprivation is not the end of the story. It’s the beginning. God’s plan cannot be undone by human action, not even the action of the Roman Empire. The appropriate Christian response to all of this: Be faithful in telling your story. “By your endurance you will gain your souls.”
Luke’s words can be understood as powerful metaphors for us when we feel that our temple is being torn down. For many of us, our temple is the old mainline protestant church, particularly, for me, the United Methodist Church that is under siege with those on the inside fighting each other over who is in charge while the walls crumble and fall.
It’s as though we are arguing about how to mow the lawn while the house is burning down.
In the Sermon
I have a few friends who are alcoholics. They are all members of AA and have been sober for anywhere from four to thirty years. Part of the process they take up in their ongoing recovery from the disease of addiction is telling their story. To each other. To their families. To their friends. Heck, to just about anyone who will listen.
Some of them you can’t shut up! Telling their story is as much about their own recovery as it is about helping others recover. So, they do it constantly.
When we go to visit our grandkids, my 11-year-old grandson can’t wait for us to arrive. He charges out the door and runs to us with hugs. And then he takes his grandma’s hand and leads her to the front door of the house saying, as they go, “Nano, I have three, no, four things to tell you.”
These are the stories of his days and how they have gone but they are also the stories of his life, the stories that give his life meaning and telling them to someone else, gives them even more meaning, still.
When my siblings and our spouses all come together for a reunion or a wedding or funeral we all sit around a table and share stories. Some are new stories — what has happened since we saw them last. Some are old stories that have evolved through every telling and retelling through the years. They make up the Feldmeyer Mythos, the stories that give our lives meaning and cement us together as a family.
A couple of years ago, I visited the Holocaust center in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. I happened to be there on a weekday afternoon when a 90-year-old holocaust survivor was speaking, telling her story. A high school class was there, listening politely and when she asked if there were any questions, several hands shot up. The first to be recognized was a redheaded girl in a white blouse and red and black kilt. She wanted to know why the guest speaker did this, talk about her horrible experience to others. “Isn’t it really painful to drag all of this back up?”
The speaker answered that she wasn’t dragging anything back up. It was already “up” all the time. From time to time it receded to the back of her memory but it was never completely gone from her mind. “So, I share it,” she said. “It makes it seem lighter to carry.”
Then she went on to the questioner and the rest of the kids sitting there, “Maybe sometime you have a bad memory, something that gives you pain, that makes you want to cry. Maybe then you tell your story to someone you trust and maybe you cry together and the heat of the pain cools for a while. Until next time. That’s a good thing, no?”
They all agreed that it was, indeed, a good thing.
For us Christians, sharing our faith stories is usually not so much about sharing our pain, though it may be sometimes, but about sharing our joy.
We worship a God who accepts us exactly as we are, warts and all. That is the cause of much joy for us. And we want to share that joy, that story, so others can experience it, too.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Being Idle for God
by Tom Willadsen
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19
In the Scriptures
This week’s Luke passage has an interesting sequence.
The disciples comment on the beauty of the Temple.
Jesus replies that one day it will be destroyed.
When?
There will be wars, natural disasters and signs in heaven…but before all those things you’re going to persecuted, betrayed and called on to defend yourselves.
Then (presumably) comes the destruction.
For those of us who like to pencil things like the Apocalypse onto our calendars, this is not especially helpful. Has there ever been a time when we’ve been free from wars, rumors of wars and natural disasters?
A few years ago I was writing a stewardship drive sermon and wrote, “In these uncertain economic times….” I stopped and wondered if there have ever been times when people did not worry about the economy. I phoned the oldest coherent member of my Presbytery and asked if he could recall a time when people could make a pledge to the coming year’s church budget with certainty. He might still be laughing. Plus ça change.
Jesus’ vague response means we must always be prepared.
There is a bit of incongruity in Jesus’ response. At the end of v. 16 he says, “they will put some of you to death.” Yet in v. 18 he says, “But not a hair of your head will perish.” He may mean that those to whom he is speaking will all survive, or that they will live forever with him even after death. It does not appear that he’s arguing for the immortality of hair.
Paul writes to the Thessalonians, again, and tells them, among other things, to stay away from believers living in idleness. He reminds them of the tradition he taught them — (let’s be honest, this tradition can’t be all that old) — his example of supporting himself while bringing the gospel to them. He certainly could have asked for pay. In fact, in the last chapter of his letter to the Galatian Christians he wrote, “Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher.” It’s a complete non sequitur, just something he needed Galatians to understand: Pay your teachers.
Toward the end of this reading Paul explains, “We hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.” The term “busybodies” is an interesting one, especially when paired with “idleness.” Busybodies are not idle — they meddle in other people’s lives. Meddling takes effort and effort is work. Idle bodies are the opposite of busy, yet idlers are often busybodies.
It's possible that the reason some of the Thessalonian Christians are idle is that they expect Christ to return imminently. Why sock money away into their IRA if Jesus is going to return before they hit retirement age? This is similar to how modern Jehovah’s Witnesses regard the future. It’s more likely that some of them were not pulling their weight, contributing their fair share to the community.
In the News
While welfare reform is not one of the hot button issues that drove people to the polls at the midterm elections, it continues to be a contentious issue in our polarized nation. Many Americans regard assistance to the poor as counterproductive, as though poverty alone should drive people to find a job, pull themselves up by their boot straps and be productive members of society. Doesn’t Paul say exactly that to the Thessalonians?
I took a series of classes on poverty a few years ago. The two commonly accepted beliefs about the poor in the United States are that they are lazy and that they are stupid. Thus, they are to blame for their situation. Until they get the gumption to get off their duffs and find a job there really isn’t anything we can do for them.
And I remember Jesse Jackson running for president pointing out how the poor people are the ones who are taking the early bus to work.
Of course, those commonly accepted beliefs about the poor are simply incorrect. Poverty is a complex, structural, societal problem and urging people to work harder in a broken system is a recipe for the status quo.
Noam Chomsky gets at the futility bred by our current system this way:
“The people who are unemployed want to do the work, but the system is such a catastrophic failure that it cannot bring together idle hands and work. This is all hailed as a great success, and it is a great success — for a very small sector of the population.”
In the Sermon
The last thing most of our members need to hear in church is a sermon against being idle. I asked my men’s group — at 58 I was the youngest person in the room by more than five years — their thoughts on being idle.
They can’t stand it. They have to be doing something, be productive all the time. The oldest one in the room conceded: “Idleness is easier as I get older,” but he did not like it.
Most of them could begin the quote “Idle hands….” But weren’t sure, exactly how it ended. Ben Franklin concludes the thought “…are the devil’s playthings.”
One wit said that he gave up idolatry when he became a Christian. Diligence, hard work, perseverance. We all know that we got where we are because we worked hard, and anyone who worked as hard as us could also.
Point out to your busy bodies (two words, the opposite of idleness) that God does not command us to work in the Ten Commandments. God commands us to stop working. For a whole day. To force us to see that we depend on God for everything.
Paul’s advice to the Thessalonians was to a community who relied on each other in a way that families in the United States do not. It was not to a 70-year-old retired military officer whose presence at home drives his wife crazy.
The Luke passage reminds us that God is in charge, Jesus, certainly not we, ourselves.
A member of my church dropped into my office one morning because he was ready to be deployed, to roll up his sleeves and work for the church. Pastor would certainly have a lengthy to-do list for him. He was no longer physically able to drive the school bus, a job that he cherished. His abundant enthusiasm was matched by a dearth of competence. Aside from having him put the inserts in the bulletin each week, a task already in capable hands, I could not think of a single thing to keep him off the streets and out of pool halls as my mother used to say.
He hounded me, but I assured him I had to give his request some thought, I needed some time.
A week later I gave him what I knew would be the hardest task he could imagine.
His eyes gleamed with the eagerness of a puppy.
“Don, I want you to be still.”
“Still what?”
“Just still. Be still and know God.”
My task did not involve tools or muscles. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Isaiah 65:17-25
Radical Imagination
Isaiah paints a gorgeous picture of the future God will create. He adds in all the details, so we can imagine it — houses, vineyards, no sounds of weeping, all of it as amazing as the wolf and the lamb eating together.
We need this kind of imagination in our world, says adrienne maree brown (who uses all lower case letters in her name). She says our borrowed imaginations are too small, and “we’re living inside of imaginations that other people told us were true and told us were like, this is how the world is…we live in this abundant world, and we’ve been told it’s scarce. And then we’re given all these stories of scarcity.” She adds, echoing Isaiah, “So, so much of the work, for me, of radical imagination is like, what does it look like to imagine beyond the constructs? What does it look like to imagine a future where we all get to be there, not causing harm to each other.”
She adds, “We are aware, if we wake up, we are in a place where we can create so much history and so much change. Everything is falling apart, but also, new things are possible. And Octavia said that “[t]here’s nothing new / under the sun, / but there are new suns.” We are in a time of new suns. We’re in a time of new suns. We have no idea what we could be, but everything that we have been is falling apart. So it’s time to change. And we can be mindful about that. That’s exciting.” As with Isaiah, the vision leads us forward.
* * *
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Daylight Savings Time: Community Killer?
We all lament changing our clocks twice a year (the car is never right! The microwave is too hard!) and this change may also be a danger to our communal lives. Paul writes to the Thessalonian faithful about how to strengthen their community, building up the group with shared work and common care for each other. In our world, Daylight Savings Time may make us worse at living in community. Being tired makes us less compassionate, according to researchers who “analyzed millions of charitable donations made within the United States between 2001 and 2016. They found that donations dipped significantly in the week just after Daylight Savings Time—a dip not seen in states that don’t change their clocks in the spring…The same pattern seems to play out on the individual level, thanks to how sleep affects the brain. In another experiment, participants were deprived of sleep one entire night, then tested the next morning on their willingness to help others…The findings were striking: People deprived of sleep were less willing to help others, and it didn’t matter whether the person in need was close to them or not.”
The bigger danger, of course, is our overall level of fatigue, and how it corrodes our best impulses. To live in the kind of caring community Paul describes, we have to be well-rested.
* * *
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Avoid the Lazy
Writing to the Thessalonian believers, Paul urges them “to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us.” He offers his own hard work as part of the community as an example.
Modern social science supports Paul. Good behavior and bad behavior are contagious in communities. “When we see someone being kind or generous, it gives us a warm glow feeling inside. Researchers call this “moral elevation,” and it not only feels good but inspires us to want to do good ourselves.” Says one researcher, “People resonate when they watch someone do something good.” We don’t imitate the exact behavior, we do other beneficial things. “In other words, people resonate with the underlying reason for doing good and become motivated themselves to spread the goodness. This suggests people are prosocial by nature, waiting for inspiration to act.”
As people of faith, we don’t have to wait. We can follow the example of Jesus, and hear Paul’s words to us: “Do not be weary in doing what is right.” With our actions, we may start a chain of kindness and compassion in the world.
* * *
Isaiah 65:17-25, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Slow Love
“I am about to create new heavens and a new earth,” God says through the prophet Isaiah. We are still anticipating the fullness of that day. Michael Leunig reminds us that love is slow. Anything involving love takes time. The community building work that Paul talks about in the letter to the Thessalonians is slow work, too.
“Nothing can be loved at speed,” Leunig says, adding, “I think we might be looking at the loss of love in the world due to the increased velocity of ordinary life; the loss of care, skill and attention enough to ensure the health and happiness of each other and the planet earth. It is a baffling problem and governments seem unable to recognize it, or do much about it at present.”
God’s love for the world is slow, and takes time to come to fruition. Our care for each other requires slowness, too.
* * *
Isaiah 65:17-25
Ice Skating for Everyone
What do the new heavens and the new earth look like in our world? Perhaps like a huge ice rink in the Bronx, New York City’s poorest borough.
Developers wanted to use a long-vacant armory to build a mall, in spite of the objections of the neighbors, who said that a mall full of low-wage jobs was the last thing their neighborhood needed. Mom turned community activist Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter says, “What we need in the Bronx isn’t just jobs. It’s a new economy.”
Neighbors fought the mall proposal until it was defeated. Approved recently in a community partnership, the proposed “750,000-square-foot Kingsbridge National Ice Center will feature a suite of nine rinks, including a 5,000-seat rink for international competitions. It will attract the world’s greatest athletes, say its backers, who include former New York Rangers star Mark Messier and figure skating Olympic gold medalist Sarah Hughes.”
To get the approval, “the developer spent months in negotiations with a group of community and labor organizations…These groups agreed to put their picket signs away and support the plan. In return, they got the developer’s pledge to set aside $1 million annually for 99 years to pay for free ice time for local kids, 50,000 square feet of “community space,” green construction, and a promise to pay the facility’s estimated 260 permanent workers at least $10 an hour.”
Says Pilgrim-Hunter, “Our new economy: this is it. This is where it starts.”
* * * * * *
From team member Chris Keating:
Isaiah 65:17-25
State of Babies
Isaiah’s community yearns for the promises of God’s future, including restoration of the land, and healing for the community and individuals. The vision is as poetic as it is holistic, inviting the people of God to reimagine hope in a new time. The prophet’s re-imagined community will provide for the wellbeing of both infants and the elderly. Among developed countries, the United States has an astonishingly high infant mortality rate of more than 5 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. Related to this are historically staggering racial disparities in maternal and infant health in the United States. For example, pregnancy related deaths among Black and indigenous women in the country are over three and two times, respectively, higher than rates for white women. These outcomes are examples of the sort of underlying inequities in the United States, notes the Kaiser Family Foundation, which found that infant and maternal health disparities persist “even when controlling for certain underlying social and economic factors” such as education and income.
* * *
Isaiah 65:17-25
They shall not bear children for calamity
A decade ago, the infant death rate in Baltimore, Maryland, soared past 13.5 percent per 1,000 babies born — more than twice the national average. Community leaders were called to action by an editorial in the The Baltimore Sun newspaper that essentially said, “we’re failing” at saving babies. B’More for Healthy Babies, a nonprofit partnership between the city, universities, faith groups and health care providers, was launched mas a collaborative effort designed to meet the needs of women most at risk of losing newborns. The program provides education, access to services, and other health-promoting resources, and has managed to bring Baltimore’s infant mortality rate down to 8.8 per 1,000 births — still higher than the national average, but better than many comparable cities.
* * *
Isaiah 65:17-25
At risk elderly
Isaiah’s comprehensive vision for healing and wholeness challenges the church to consider how it will ensure the health and wholeness of elderly persons. Implementing the best practices learned during the pandemic may be especially important in this year’s flu season, which has now officially crossed the line into epidemic status. Hospitalizations for non-Covid 19 respiratory diseases are currently surging across the United States. The Department of Health and Human Services is monitoring hospital capacities and is “standing by to deploy additional personnel and supplies as needed,” said Dawn O’Connell, assistant secretary of the DHHS’s Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
* * *
Luke 21:5-19
Telling the story
As Dean Feldmeyer notes in his main article this week, the suffering endured by Luke’s audience was not without meaning. Indeed, their suffering became an opportunity for offering a faithful witness to the promises of Christ. They were called to be faithful in their testimony. In a similar fashion, the retelling of America’s painful legacies of white supremacy, Jim Crow laws, and racial prejudice becomes a vital part of discovering possibilities of healing. The recent movie “Till” offers an opportunity to hear one of these brutally painful stories once again. The decision by Emmitt Till’s mother, Mamie, to have images of her son’s remains published in magazines was fueled by her desire to make sure the world knew what had happened to him.
While 67 years have passed since young Emmett Till was kidnapped, mutilated and murdered for allegedly interacting with a white woman, his story has never really faded from our social consciousness. But efforts to tell the entire story of his lynching have always been met with resistance. “As Black people, our stories are still deemed controversial in many ways,” says Keith Beauchamp, one of the writers of “Till.” Beauchamp noted that non-white Americans experience something similar with regularity, too.
* * *
Luke 21:5-19
Why storytelling matters
Testimony is an ancient practice of the faith, and a powerful way of communicating experiences of God’s love and truth. According to the Practicing Our Faith project, testimony has two dimensions: “Telling the truth to God about our lives,” and “Bearing witness to others about God’s redemptive activity in the world.” Writer Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros expands this definition of testimony by suggesting that the church can use testimony as a truth-telling practice that forms a sacred space where “each person is part of history.” She writes:
Often, people gravitate to stories with happy endings or tales about everyday people — but even unpleasant stories can be a powerful way to convey a message. Storytelling can be used as a mode of healing, because stories carry in them all the voices of those who have recounted the same story time and time again. When the church employs storytelling in a way that can reshape people’s lives, reflecting who they are back to themselves, the church becomes a shared space where each person is a part of history.
* * *
Luke 21:5-19
I love to tell the story
Imagine the sort of shift that might happen this week if, instead of the usual sharing of “joys and concerns,” worshipers were invited to practice telling each other faith stories? Harold Percy observes, “Churches seeking to develop witnessing and inviting membership should make a point of encouraging their members to tell their faith stories to one another and of providing plenty of opportunities for them to do so. They should seek to make this a normal and expected part of congregational life.” This could be as simple as inviting people to name someone who influenced their faith at an early age, or describing a moment when their faith took on new meaning, shifting from a childhood perspective to a more adult experience of faith often through a moment of crisis or change.
* * * * * *
From team member Katy Stenta:
Luke 21:5-19
Suffering
“By endurance you will gain your souls.” The idea that suffering through will somehow strengthen you can be very attractive when you are going through hard things, but it can also lead to suffering Olympics, where we are tempted to compare our hardships and trials, or try to verify who has had it harder. The solace of those who have suffered is not supposed to give permission for us to persecute one another, but instead to hope for the day that persecution shall cease.
There is something that human beings do called “inspiration porn.” It’s when we see something bad happen to someone and then we see them rescued or saved, and we all feel uplifted by it. Say someone has a birthday party, no one comes, so their favorite pop star celebrates their birthday instead. Or someone does not have the accessibility device they need so the local robotics team builds it for them instead, or someone walks to work for years and years, so a rich person finally donates a car to them.
The problem with these feel good stories is that they focus on the suffering, instead of upon the systematic issues. All of these individuals are worthy of love and care, because they are human beings. Their endurance and testimony are that they are beloved children of God, and they deserve birthdays, accessibility devices, and transportation without suffering. The point is that the times of trials accent this suffering, but endurance builds the soul in small ways — by getting up and going to work, loving your neighbor and taking care of your body every day as well.
* * *
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Resting in Community
Who is unwilling to work? When we live in community with one another the work of every individual may be different but it is all important. What is the work of a baby or a child but to delight and play and laugh? What is the work of an elder but to guide and give wisdom? What is the wisdom of the marginalized but to make us aware of those who are being forgotten? What is the role of those who cannot sit still but work with their hands, and for those who love order to organize and for those who are creative to give artistic expression to the human experience?
Is there not room in a community for everyone to have work? Why do we pretend there are people who do not have jobs or don’t want to work? And why do we think that every single moment has to be about making things. Why do we pay those who care for people, like nurses, teachers, childcare workers, the least amount of money? What does it say about our society that we worry so much about idleness of the individual but worry less in Western culture about working together as a community? There is something stark about the individual idleness that works against the community working together that could be worked on here. Perhaps the single person could sit still more often if the community worked more in concert.
* * *
Isaiah 65:17-25
New Things
When I picture heaven, I do not picture everyone at rest. I picture that there will be joyous labor to be done. We will be building and doing whatever our favorite things are — not because we are forced to, but because we will finally have the time and space to do so. Can you imagine such a place? Where we have the freedom and energy to finally create as we will? That’s what I imagine God means when she says, “Look I am creating a new thing.”
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Surely God, our God, is our salvation.
All: We will trust in God and we will not be afraid.
One: For God is our strength and our might and has become our salvation.
All: With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
One: Let us give thanks to our God and call on God’s name.
All: We will sing praises to our God who has done gloriously.
OR
One: Let us sing to God a new song who has done marvelous things.
All: God’s right hand and holy arm have brought forth victory.
One: God has remembered steadfast love and faithfulness.
All: All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.
One: Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth.
All: Let us break forth into joyous song and sing praises.
OR
One: God calls us together to be one people in love.
All: We come to share God’s presence with one another.
One: God calls us to work together and to rest together.
All: Together in work and in play we will reach out to others.
One: Share the good news of all God has in store for us.
All: We will share the gospel with all God’s children.
Hymns and Songs
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
UMH: 140
AAHH: 158
NNBH: 45
NCH: 423
CH: 86:
ELW: 733
W&P: 72
AMEC: 84
Renew: 249
I Sing the Almighty Power of God
UMH: 152
H82: 398
PH: 288
NCH: 12
W&P: 31
Renew: 54
This Is a Day of New Beginnings
UMH: 383
NCH: 417
CH: 518
W&P: 355
I Love to Tell the Story
UMH: 156
AAHH: 513
NNBH: 424
NCH: 522
CH: 480
LBW: 390
ELW: 661
W&P: 560
AMEC: 217
Where Charity and Love Prevail
UMH: 549
H82: 581
NCH: 396
LBW: 126
ELW: 359
In Christ There Is No East or West
UMH: 548
H82: 529
PH: 439/440
AAHH: 398/399
NNBH: 299
NCH: 394/395
CH: 687
LBW: 259
ELW: 650
W&P: 600/603
AMEC: 557
Christ for the World We Sing
UMH: 568
H82: 537
W&P: 561
AMEC: 565
Renew: 299
O Zion, Haste
UMH: 573
H82: 539
NNBH: 422
LBW: 397
ELW: 668
AMEC: 566
This Little Light of Mine
UMH: 585
AAHH: 549
NNBH: 511
NCH: 524/525
ELW: 677
STLT 118
Break Thou the Bread of Life
UMH: 599
PH: 329
AAHH: 334
NNBH: 295
NCH: 321
CH: 321
LBW: 235
ELW: 515
W&P: 665
AMEC: 209
Spirit of the Living God
UMH: 393
PH: 322
AAHH: 320
NNBH: 133
NCH: 283
CH: 259
W&P: 492
CCB: 57
Renew: 90
Our God Reigns
CCB: 33
Lord, I Lift Your Name on High
CCB: 36
Renew: 4
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 exists in community as the Holy Trinity:
Grant us the wisdom to dwell together in community
as we honor one another and witness to your reign;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
Praise and glory are yours, O God who dwells in perpetual union with yourself and all creation. Help us, as your children, to live not only in union with you but with all. Help us to honor one another and to be faithful witnesses to all you are doing among us. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to live in community and to witness for God.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have forsaken our likeness of you as we have failed to live in community with others. We have cut ourselves off from your family and so we are distanced from you. We seek our good without regard for the needs of others. Separated from one another we find ourselves separated from you. Without that connection we are unable to witness to you and your presence among us. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us so that we may live in harmony with all creation and witness to your loving presence. Amen.
One: God in community and seeks it with all creation. Accept the community of God’s creatures as your family and share the good news with all.
Prayers of the People
Wondrous and glorious are you, O God, creator of all. Out of the fullness of the Trinity you created us to be in communion with you and one another.
(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 have forsaken our likeness of you as we have failed to live in community with others. We have cut ourselves off from your family and so we are distanced from you. We seek our good without regard for the needs of others. Separated from one another we find ourselves separated from you. Without that connection we are unable to witness to you and your presence among us. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us so that we may live in harmony with all creation and witness to your loving presence.
We give you thanks for all the blessings we have received from you. You have filled creation with your glory and your love. You have breathed into us your very own life and Spirit. You have stayed with us when we have wandered from your path. You have given us one another as companions and helpers. We thank you for all your gracious gifts.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We lift into your light and care those who are on our hearts this day. We join our hearts and spirits with yours in reaching out to those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit. We pray for those who struggle with poverty and those who struggle with wealth. We pray for those caught in the webs of violence and hatred. We pray for those who feel left out. As you work in and through us to make a new heaven and a new earth, we offer ourselves to be part of your presence in these times of need.
(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
Being Unafraid to Find Joy in God’s Creation
by Quantisha Mason-Doll
Isaiah 12
How many times a day do you say, “Thank you Lord!”? It’s okay if you don’t say it out loud or you do not say “thank you” at all. (Just so you all know, God will not be upset if you forgot to say thank you a couple of times.)
Our lesson for today comes from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah was someone who spent a lot of his life guiding people in praise of our Lord. He was someone who, when he spoke, it was for the good of the community. Isaiah’s ministry and life were about reminding people of all ages what God has to offer. He wanted us to find joy in God’s creation even on the days when our world does not feel so bright.
Has anyone here had a really bad day when it felt like nothing had gone your way? I know I have had those days — sometimes it is a couple of days in a row. Those days do not make me feel special and sometimes those days make it hard to remember that God thinks we are pretty awesome.
Isaiah’s words to us are all about finding joy even if it is as small as giving thanks to God. There were times when Isaiah felt like the Lord was angry — those were the bad days. Isaiah placed his trust in the Lord and better days came.
On our not-so-special days we should try our best to remember the words of the prophet Isaiah: “… give thanks to you, O Lord … surely God is my salvation.”
Prayer
Lord, we want to be like you.
We want to be kindness.
We want to be joy.
We want you to be wells of salvation.
Help us Lord to make these things come true.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, November 13, 2022 issue.
Copyright 2022 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.
- Telling Our Stories by Dean Feldmeyer — Most of us came to the Christian faith via stories. So, why are we so timid about telling ours?
- Second Thoughts: Being Idle for God by Tom Willadsen. Based on 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 and Luke 21:5-19.
- Sermon illustrations by Mary Austin, Chris Keating, Katy Stenta.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children's sermon: Being Unafraid to Find Joy in God’s Creation by Quantisha Mason-Doll. Based on Isaiah 12.
Telling Our Storiesby Dean Feldmeyer
Luke 21:5-19
My 3rd grade Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Ridley was a storyteller par excellence and she used her gifts to lure us kids into the Christian faith. David and Goliath. Samson and Delilah. Adam and Eve. Gideon. Abraham. Deborah the warrior princess. And, of course, The Good Samaritan, The Prodigal Son, Christmas, Easter. She also told us her stories about her faith journey, about her own upbringing in the church, her grandparents who took her to church, and her experiences there.
She wove a magic spell as she sometimes read, sometimes told us those stories and others. And I kept coming back to church even when she wasn’t my teacher anymore because I knew there were stories there — stories that could thrill me and excite me and make me laugh. Stories that could fill me with awe and wonder and send an electric shiver up my spine.
I’m an old man now and, truthfully, nothing much has changed. No matter how many times I’ve heard them, I still love to hear the stories of my faith. As a preacher, I love to tell them. Every time I go to church it’s like walking into a huge anthology.
And some of the stories in that collection are mine.
In the News
Our culture is acutely aware of the power of stories.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is the chief medical correspondent for CNN. In a news report he filed in June of this year, he tells the story of his first-hand encounter with the wounds that are caused by military style rifles (AK47, AR15, etc.).
During his neurosurgery training and the first several years of his career, he recalls that he didn’t encounter what medical professionals call cavitation wounds, where the bullet creates not a linier track through the body of the victim but a huge “cave,” where organs and bones are literally exploded and shredded. That’s because between 1994 and 2004, certain semi-automatic firearms were banned. It wasn’t until 2003, while he was covering the war in Iraq, that he first saw that kind of firearm damage.
He was embedded with the Devil Docs, the Navy medical team that provides front-line medical care for the Marines and it was there that he first saw limbs blown clean off the body and wounds so horrific that he thought they must’ve been caused by a bomb or IED. But, in nearly every case, he says, they were caused by rifles.
It was just a couple of years later that he began to see the same sorts of injuries to civilians — adults, youths, even children — in US cities.
Dr. Gupta has learned that simply saying that a person was shot doesn’t do justice to the kind of savage, devastating damage that an AK47 does to a human body. And lots of doctors are wondering if it isn’t time for what they have come to call an “Emmet Till moment” for our country wherein we actually show the viewing audience what those wounds look like.
Emmett Till was a 14-year-old Black teen who was abducted, tortured, and murdered in 1955 by white racists in Mississippi after a white woman said that he whistled at her. Till’s mother took the unusual step of holding an open-casket funeral and allowing a photographer from Jet magazine to photograph her son’s disfigured, unrecognizable face to show the country the result of racial violence.
“The truth is,” says Dr. Gupta, “I’m not sure America is ready to see that [bullet trauma from assault rifles]. More importantly, it isn’t a decision anybody can make unless it’s their loss and their story to tell — like Emmett Till’s mother.” Many consider that Mamie Till’s decision to show and tell her son’s story to America, an account of which is currently being shown in the movie “Till” in theaters across the country, was a turning point in the country’s collective support for the civil rights movement.
In the Scripture
This morning’s gospel lesson from Luke finds Jesus admiring the temple with some of his followers.
The temple was a point of pride for first century Jews. It was not just a church, a house of worship; it was a nationalistic symbol and rallying point for the Jewish people. It had stood on that site for more than five centuries. It was the only place where acceptable sacrifices could be made to YHWH. It was God’s house.
Thirty years after Jesus spoke these words, in 66 CE, a band of Jewish guerilla rebels called the Zealots and an even more fanatical, rebel group called the Sicarii would rise in armed revolt and attempt to drive the Romans out of Palestine. The Romans’ response was to execute 6,000 Jews and loot the temple.
The Zealots and the Sicarii responded in all out revolution that was successful for a short time. They overran the Jerusalem garrison and killed all or most of the Roman soldiers stationed there.
The Roman emperor, Nero, sent the Syrian Legion under Celestius Gallus to assist the auxiliary troops in restoring order but the rebels launched a surprise ambush at a narrow pass near the town of Beth Horon and defeated the Romans, killing more than 6,000 soldiers.
A year later, Nero sent Vespasian, a quiet and unassuming general, with four legions (about 10,000 troops), to put down the revolt. Vespasian’s son, Titus, was his second in command.
Rather than attack Jerusalem, Vespasian launched a campaign of suppression and terror throughout Palestine. Refugees fled before the Roman onslaught with many going to Jerusalem hoping to find safety behind the city’s walls. But rather than use the influx of new people to shore up the city’s defenses, the survivors became embroiled in violent infighting about who was in charge. Jews turned against Jews while the Romans burned and looted the countryside.
Meanwhile, back in Rome, riots were breaking out over Nero’s exorbitant taxes and his treatment of the people. Nero committed suicide when it became clear that the rioters were about to break into his palace. The senate asked Vespasian to return home, put down the riots, and take the reign as Emperor, which he did, leaving Titus to conclude the suppression of the Judean revolt.
Titus attacked Jerusalem, and laid siege to the city. The siege lasted seven months. When the walls were breached, the rebels retreated to the Temple, their last stronghold, but it didn’t hold. It was destroyed, the holdouts killed or taken captive, and the rest of the city was burned and looted.
The historian, Josephus, estimated the casualties from this conflagration, what has come to be called the First Jewish War, at about 1.1 million Jews killed and 97,000 captured and sold into slavery. In 73 CE, the last remnant was chased to the mountain fortress of Masada where 960 Jewish rebels committed mass suicide rather than surrender.
Hundreds of thousands of other Jews, among them many Jewish Christians, fled to other countries to escape the Roman campaign of terror. Some went south to Egypt. Some fled northeast to Asia Minor and the city of Ephesus, and some fled northeast to Syria and the capital city of Antioch where most scholars believe Luke’s gospel was written within 3-5 years of these events.
So, in Luke’s account, when Jesus tells his followers that “the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down,” he may be prophesying for his listeners, but, for Luke’s readers, he is describing something that has already taken place.
In fact, the entire passage is nearly an exact account of what happened to Jews and Jewish Christians during the Roman holocaust that followed the revolution. The temple, indeed, the whole city of Jerusalem, was destroyed. Nation did, in fact, rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Famine and plagues broke out in the city during the seven-month siege. People were imprisoned because of what they believed and they were betrayed and even killed by their own people.
This was no mere speculation, it was fact. It had happened to those readers.
But now, Luke was giving these refugees who had flocked to the Christian community in Antioch, a context for their suffering. It was not without meaning. In fact, it was a perfect opportunity for witnessing. No testimony is as powerful as that of those who have suffered for their faith.
This present devastation, this suffering, this fear and deprivation is not the end of the story. It’s the beginning. God’s plan cannot be undone by human action, not even the action of the Roman Empire. The appropriate Christian response to all of this: Be faithful in telling your story. “By your endurance you will gain your souls.”
Luke’s words can be understood as powerful metaphors for us when we feel that our temple is being torn down. For many of us, our temple is the old mainline protestant church, particularly, for me, the United Methodist Church that is under siege with those on the inside fighting each other over who is in charge while the walls crumble and fall.
It’s as though we are arguing about how to mow the lawn while the house is burning down.
In the Sermon
I have a few friends who are alcoholics. They are all members of AA and have been sober for anywhere from four to thirty years. Part of the process they take up in their ongoing recovery from the disease of addiction is telling their story. To each other. To their families. To their friends. Heck, to just about anyone who will listen.
Some of them you can’t shut up! Telling their story is as much about their own recovery as it is about helping others recover. So, they do it constantly.
When we go to visit our grandkids, my 11-year-old grandson can’t wait for us to arrive. He charges out the door and runs to us with hugs. And then he takes his grandma’s hand and leads her to the front door of the house saying, as they go, “Nano, I have three, no, four things to tell you.”
These are the stories of his days and how they have gone but they are also the stories of his life, the stories that give his life meaning and telling them to someone else, gives them even more meaning, still.
When my siblings and our spouses all come together for a reunion or a wedding or funeral we all sit around a table and share stories. Some are new stories — what has happened since we saw them last. Some are old stories that have evolved through every telling and retelling through the years. They make up the Feldmeyer Mythos, the stories that give our lives meaning and cement us together as a family.
A couple of years ago, I visited the Holocaust center in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. I happened to be there on a weekday afternoon when a 90-year-old holocaust survivor was speaking, telling her story. A high school class was there, listening politely and when she asked if there were any questions, several hands shot up. The first to be recognized was a redheaded girl in a white blouse and red and black kilt. She wanted to know why the guest speaker did this, talk about her horrible experience to others. “Isn’t it really painful to drag all of this back up?”
The speaker answered that she wasn’t dragging anything back up. It was already “up” all the time. From time to time it receded to the back of her memory but it was never completely gone from her mind. “So, I share it,” she said. “It makes it seem lighter to carry.”
Then she went on to the questioner and the rest of the kids sitting there, “Maybe sometime you have a bad memory, something that gives you pain, that makes you want to cry. Maybe then you tell your story to someone you trust and maybe you cry together and the heat of the pain cools for a while. Until next time. That’s a good thing, no?”
They all agreed that it was, indeed, a good thing.
For us Christians, sharing our faith stories is usually not so much about sharing our pain, though it may be sometimes, but about sharing our joy.
We worship a God who accepts us exactly as we are, warts and all. That is the cause of much joy for us. And we want to share that joy, that story, so others can experience it, too.
SECOND THOUGHTSBeing Idle for God
by Tom Willadsen
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19
In the Scriptures
This week’s Luke passage has an interesting sequence.
The disciples comment on the beauty of the Temple.
Jesus replies that one day it will be destroyed.
When?
There will be wars, natural disasters and signs in heaven…but before all those things you’re going to persecuted, betrayed and called on to defend yourselves.
Then (presumably) comes the destruction.
For those of us who like to pencil things like the Apocalypse onto our calendars, this is not especially helpful. Has there ever been a time when we’ve been free from wars, rumors of wars and natural disasters?
A few years ago I was writing a stewardship drive sermon and wrote, “In these uncertain economic times….” I stopped and wondered if there have ever been times when people did not worry about the economy. I phoned the oldest coherent member of my Presbytery and asked if he could recall a time when people could make a pledge to the coming year’s church budget with certainty. He might still be laughing. Plus ça change.
Jesus’ vague response means we must always be prepared.
There is a bit of incongruity in Jesus’ response. At the end of v. 16 he says, “they will put some of you to death.” Yet in v. 18 he says, “But not a hair of your head will perish.” He may mean that those to whom he is speaking will all survive, or that they will live forever with him even after death. It does not appear that he’s arguing for the immortality of hair.
Paul writes to the Thessalonians, again, and tells them, among other things, to stay away from believers living in idleness. He reminds them of the tradition he taught them — (let’s be honest, this tradition can’t be all that old) — his example of supporting himself while bringing the gospel to them. He certainly could have asked for pay. In fact, in the last chapter of his letter to the Galatian Christians he wrote, “Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher.” It’s a complete non sequitur, just something he needed Galatians to understand: Pay your teachers.
Toward the end of this reading Paul explains, “We hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.” The term “busybodies” is an interesting one, especially when paired with “idleness.” Busybodies are not idle — they meddle in other people’s lives. Meddling takes effort and effort is work. Idle bodies are the opposite of busy, yet idlers are often busybodies.
It's possible that the reason some of the Thessalonian Christians are idle is that they expect Christ to return imminently. Why sock money away into their IRA if Jesus is going to return before they hit retirement age? This is similar to how modern Jehovah’s Witnesses regard the future. It’s more likely that some of them were not pulling their weight, contributing their fair share to the community.
In the News
While welfare reform is not one of the hot button issues that drove people to the polls at the midterm elections, it continues to be a contentious issue in our polarized nation. Many Americans regard assistance to the poor as counterproductive, as though poverty alone should drive people to find a job, pull themselves up by their boot straps and be productive members of society. Doesn’t Paul say exactly that to the Thessalonians?
I took a series of classes on poverty a few years ago. The two commonly accepted beliefs about the poor in the United States are that they are lazy and that they are stupid. Thus, they are to blame for their situation. Until they get the gumption to get off their duffs and find a job there really isn’t anything we can do for them.
And I remember Jesse Jackson running for president pointing out how the poor people are the ones who are taking the early bus to work.
Of course, those commonly accepted beliefs about the poor are simply incorrect. Poverty is a complex, structural, societal problem and urging people to work harder in a broken system is a recipe for the status quo.
Noam Chomsky gets at the futility bred by our current system this way:
“The people who are unemployed want to do the work, but the system is such a catastrophic failure that it cannot bring together idle hands and work. This is all hailed as a great success, and it is a great success — for a very small sector of the population.”
In the Sermon
The last thing most of our members need to hear in church is a sermon against being idle. I asked my men’s group — at 58 I was the youngest person in the room by more than five years — their thoughts on being idle.
They can’t stand it. They have to be doing something, be productive all the time. The oldest one in the room conceded: “Idleness is easier as I get older,” but he did not like it.
Most of them could begin the quote “Idle hands….” But weren’t sure, exactly how it ended. Ben Franklin concludes the thought “…are the devil’s playthings.”
One wit said that he gave up idolatry when he became a Christian. Diligence, hard work, perseverance. We all know that we got where we are because we worked hard, and anyone who worked as hard as us could also.
Point out to your busy bodies (two words, the opposite of idleness) that God does not command us to work in the Ten Commandments. God commands us to stop working. For a whole day. To force us to see that we depend on God for everything.
Paul’s advice to the Thessalonians was to a community who relied on each other in a way that families in the United States do not. It was not to a 70-year-old retired military officer whose presence at home drives his wife crazy.
The Luke passage reminds us that God is in charge, Jesus, certainly not we, ourselves.
A member of my church dropped into my office one morning because he was ready to be deployed, to roll up his sleeves and work for the church. Pastor would certainly have a lengthy to-do list for him. He was no longer physically able to drive the school bus, a job that he cherished. His abundant enthusiasm was matched by a dearth of competence. Aside from having him put the inserts in the bulletin each week, a task already in capable hands, I could not think of a single thing to keep him off the streets and out of pool halls as my mother used to say.
He hounded me, but I assured him I had to give his request some thought, I needed some time.
A week later I gave him what I knew would be the hardest task he could imagine.
His eyes gleamed with the eagerness of a puppy.
“Don, I want you to be still.”
“Still what?”
“Just still. Be still and know God.”
My task did not involve tools or muscles. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:Isaiah 65:17-25
Radical Imagination
Isaiah paints a gorgeous picture of the future God will create. He adds in all the details, so we can imagine it — houses, vineyards, no sounds of weeping, all of it as amazing as the wolf and the lamb eating together.
We need this kind of imagination in our world, says adrienne maree brown (who uses all lower case letters in her name). She says our borrowed imaginations are too small, and “we’re living inside of imaginations that other people told us were true and told us were like, this is how the world is…we live in this abundant world, and we’ve been told it’s scarce. And then we’re given all these stories of scarcity.” She adds, echoing Isaiah, “So, so much of the work, for me, of radical imagination is like, what does it look like to imagine beyond the constructs? What does it look like to imagine a future where we all get to be there, not causing harm to each other.”
She adds, “We are aware, if we wake up, we are in a place where we can create so much history and so much change. Everything is falling apart, but also, new things are possible. And Octavia said that “[t]here’s nothing new / under the sun, / but there are new suns.” We are in a time of new suns. We’re in a time of new suns. We have no idea what we could be, but everything that we have been is falling apart. So it’s time to change. And we can be mindful about that. That’s exciting.” As with Isaiah, the vision leads us forward.
* * *
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Daylight Savings Time: Community Killer?
We all lament changing our clocks twice a year (the car is never right! The microwave is too hard!) and this change may also be a danger to our communal lives. Paul writes to the Thessalonian faithful about how to strengthen their community, building up the group with shared work and common care for each other. In our world, Daylight Savings Time may make us worse at living in community. Being tired makes us less compassionate, according to researchers who “analyzed millions of charitable donations made within the United States between 2001 and 2016. They found that donations dipped significantly in the week just after Daylight Savings Time—a dip not seen in states that don’t change their clocks in the spring…The same pattern seems to play out on the individual level, thanks to how sleep affects the brain. In another experiment, participants were deprived of sleep one entire night, then tested the next morning on their willingness to help others…The findings were striking: People deprived of sleep were less willing to help others, and it didn’t matter whether the person in need was close to them or not.”
The bigger danger, of course, is our overall level of fatigue, and how it corrodes our best impulses. To live in the kind of caring community Paul describes, we have to be well-rested.
* * *
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Avoid the Lazy
Writing to the Thessalonian believers, Paul urges them “to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us.” He offers his own hard work as part of the community as an example.
Modern social science supports Paul. Good behavior and bad behavior are contagious in communities. “When we see someone being kind or generous, it gives us a warm glow feeling inside. Researchers call this “moral elevation,” and it not only feels good but inspires us to want to do good ourselves.” Says one researcher, “People resonate when they watch someone do something good.” We don’t imitate the exact behavior, we do other beneficial things. “In other words, people resonate with the underlying reason for doing good and become motivated themselves to spread the goodness. This suggests people are prosocial by nature, waiting for inspiration to act.”
As people of faith, we don’t have to wait. We can follow the example of Jesus, and hear Paul’s words to us: “Do not be weary in doing what is right.” With our actions, we may start a chain of kindness and compassion in the world.
* * *
Isaiah 65:17-25, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Slow Love
“I am about to create new heavens and a new earth,” God says through the prophet Isaiah. We are still anticipating the fullness of that day. Michael Leunig reminds us that love is slow. Anything involving love takes time. The community building work that Paul talks about in the letter to the Thessalonians is slow work, too.
“Nothing can be loved at speed,” Leunig says, adding, “I think we might be looking at the loss of love in the world due to the increased velocity of ordinary life; the loss of care, skill and attention enough to ensure the health and happiness of each other and the planet earth. It is a baffling problem and governments seem unable to recognize it, or do much about it at present.”
God’s love for the world is slow, and takes time to come to fruition. Our care for each other requires slowness, too.
* * *
Isaiah 65:17-25
Ice Skating for Everyone
What do the new heavens and the new earth look like in our world? Perhaps like a huge ice rink in the Bronx, New York City’s poorest borough.
Developers wanted to use a long-vacant armory to build a mall, in spite of the objections of the neighbors, who said that a mall full of low-wage jobs was the last thing their neighborhood needed. Mom turned community activist Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter says, “What we need in the Bronx isn’t just jobs. It’s a new economy.”
Neighbors fought the mall proposal until it was defeated. Approved recently in a community partnership, the proposed “750,000-square-foot Kingsbridge National Ice Center will feature a suite of nine rinks, including a 5,000-seat rink for international competitions. It will attract the world’s greatest athletes, say its backers, who include former New York Rangers star Mark Messier and figure skating Olympic gold medalist Sarah Hughes.”
To get the approval, “the developer spent months in negotiations with a group of community and labor organizations…These groups agreed to put their picket signs away and support the plan. In return, they got the developer’s pledge to set aside $1 million annually for 99 years to pay for free ice time for local kids, 50,000 square feet of “community space,” green construction, and a promise to pay the facility’s estimated 260 permanent workers at least $10 an hour.”
Says Pilgrim-Hunter, “Our new economy: this is it. This is where it starts.”
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From team member Chris Keating:Isaiah 65:17-25
State of Babies
Isaiah’s community yearns for the promises of God’s future, including restoration of the land, and healing for the community and individuals. The vision is as poetic as it is holistic, inviting the people of God to reimagine hope in a new time. The prophet’s re-imagined community will provide for the wellbeing of both infants and the elderly. Among developed countries, the United States has an astonishingly high infant mortality rate of more than 5 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. Related to this are historically staggering racial disparities in maternal and infant health in the United States. For example, pregnancy related deaths among Black and indigenous women in the country are over three and two times, respectively, higher than rates for white women. These outcomes are examples of the sort of underlying inequities in the United States, notes the Kaiser Family Foundation, which found that infant and maternal health disparities persist “even when controlling for certain underlying social and economic factors” such as education and income.
* * *
Isaiah 65:17-25
They shall not bear children for calamity
A decade ago, the infant death rate in Baltimore, Maryland, soared past 13.5 percent per 1,000 babies born — more than twice the national average. Community leaders were called to action by an editorial in the The Baltimore Sun newspaper that essentially said, “we’re failing” at saving babies. B’More for Healthy Babies, a nonprofit partnership between the city, universities, faith groups and health care providers, was launched mas a collaborative effort designed to meet the needs of women most at risk of losing newborns. The program provides education, access to services, and other health-promoting resources, and has managed to bring Baltimore’s infant mortality rate down to 8.8 per 1,000 births — still higher than the national average, but better than many comparable cities.
* * *
Isaiah 65:17-25
At risk elderly
Isaiah’s comprehensive vision for healing and wholeness challenges the church to consider how it will ensure the health and wholeness of elderly persons. Implementing the best practices learned during the pandemic may be especially important in this year’s flu season, which has now officially crossed the line into epidemic status. Hospitalizations for non-Covid 19 respiratory diseases are currently surging across the United States. The Department of Health and Human Services is monitoring hospital capacities and is “standing by to deploy additional personnel and supplies as needed,” said Dawn O’Connell, assistant secretary of the DHHS’s Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
* * *
Luke 21:5-19
Telling the story
As Dean Feldmeyer notes in his main article this week, the suffering endured by Luke’s audience was not without meaning. Indeed, their suffering became an opportunity for offering a faithful witness to the promises of Christ. They were called to be faithful in their testimony. In a similar fashion, the retelling of America’s painful legacies of white supremacy, Jim Crow laws, and racial prejudice becomes a vital part of discovering possibilities of healing. The recent movie “Till” offers an opportunity to hear one of these brutally painful stories once again. The decision by Emmitt Till’s mother, Mamie, to have images of her son’s remains published in magazines was fueled by her desire to make sure the world knew what had happened to him.
While 67 years have passed since young Emmett Till was kidnapped, mutilated and murdered for allegedly interacting with a white woman, his story has never really faded from our social consciousness. But efforts to tell the entire story of his lynching have always been met with resistance. “As Black people, our stories are still deemed controversial in many ways,” says Keith Beauchamp, one of the writers of “Till.” Beauchamp noted that non-white Americans experience something similar with regularity, too.
* * *
Luke 21:5-19
Why storytelling matters
Testimony is an ancient practice of the faith, and a powerful way of communicating experiences of God’s love and truth. According to the Practicing Our Faith project, testimony has two dimensions: “Telling the truth to God about our lives,” and “Bearing witness to others about God’s redemptive activity in the world.” Writer Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros expands this definition of testimony by suggesting that the church can use testimony as a truth-telling practice that forms a sacred space where “each person is part of history.” She writes:
Often, people gravitate to stories with happy endings or tales about everyday people — but even unpleasant stories can be a powerful way to convey a message. Storytelling can be used as a mode of healing, because stories carry in them all the voices of those who have recounted the same story time and time again. When the church employs storytelling in a way that can reshape people’s lives, reflecting who they are back to themselves, the church becomes a shared space where each person is a part of history.
* * *
Luke 21:5-19
I love to tell the story
Imagine the sort of shift that might happen this week if, instead of the usual sharing of “joys and concerns,” worshipers were invited to practice telling each other faith stories? Harold Percy observes, “Churches seeking to develop witnessing and inviting membership should make a point of encouraging their members to tell their faith stories to one another and of providing plenty of opportunities for them to do so. They should seek to make this a normal and expected part of congregational life.” This could be as simple as inviting people to name someone who influenced their faith at an early age, or describing a moment when their faith took on new meaning, shifting from a childhood perspective to a more adult experience of faith often through a moment of crisis or change.
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From team member Katy Stenta:Luke 21:5-19
Suffering
“By endurance you will gain your souls.” The idea that suffering through will somehow strengthen you can be very attractive when you are going through hard things, but it can also lead to suffering Olympics, where we are tempted to compare our hardships and trials, or try to verify who has had it harder. The solace of those who have suffered is not supposed to give permission for us to persecute one another, but instead to hope for the day that persecution shall cease.
There is something that human beings do called “inspiration porn.” It’s when we see something bad happen to someone and then we see them rescued or saved, and we all feel uplifted by it. Say someone has a birthday party, no one comes, so their favorite pop star celebrates their birthday instead. Or someone does not have the accessibility device they need so the local robotics team builds it for them instead, or someone walks to work for years and years, so a rich person finally donates a car to them.
The problem with these feel good stories is that they focus on the suffering, instead of upon the systematic issues. All of these individuals are worthy of love and care, because they are human beings. Their endurance and testimony are that they are beloved children of God, and they deserve birthdays, accessibility devices, and transportation without suffering. The point is that the times of trials accent this suffering, but endurance builds the soul in small ways — by getting up and going to work, loving your neighbor and taking care of your body every day as well.
* * *
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Resting in Community
Who is unwilling to work? When we live in community with one another the work of every individual may be different but it is all important. What is the work of a baby or a child but to delight and play and laugh? What is the work of an elder but to guide and give wisdom? What is the wisdom of the marginalized but to make us aware of those who are being forgotten? What is the role of those who cannot sit still but work with their hands, and for those who love order to organize and for those who are creative to give artistic expression to the human experience?
Is there not room in a community for everyone to have work? Why do we pretend there are people who do not have jobs or don’t want to work? And why do we think that every single moment has to be about making things. Why do we pay those who care for people, like nurses, teachers, childcare workers, the least amount of money? What does it say about our society that we worry so much about idleness of the individual but worry less in Western culture about working together as a community? There is something stark about the individual idleness that works against the community working together that could be worked on here. Perhaps the single person could sit still more often if the community worked more in concert.
* * *
Isaiah 65:17-25
New Things
When I picture heaven, I do not picture everyone at rest. I picture that there will be joyous labor to be done. We will be building and doing whatever our favorite things are — not because we are forced to, but because we will finally have the time and space to do so. Can you imagine such a place? Where we have the freedom and energy to finally create as we will? That’s what I imagine God means when she says, “Look I am creating a new thing.”
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WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Surely God, our God, is our salvation.
All: We will trust in God and we will not be afraid.
One: For God is our strength and our might and has become our salvation.
All: With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
One: Let us give thanks to our God and call on God’s name.
All: We will sing praises to our God who has done gloriously.
OR
One: Let us sing to God a new song who has done marvelous things.
All: God’s right hand and holy arm have brought forth victory.
One: God has remembered steadfast love and faithfulness.
All: All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.
One: Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth.
All: Let us break forth into joyous song and sing praises.
OR
One: God calls us together to be one people in love.
All: We come to share God’s presence with one another.
One: God calls us to work together and to rest together.
All: Together in work and in play we will reach out to others.
One: Share the good news of all God has in store for us.
All: We will share the gospel with all God’s children.
Hymns and Songs
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
UMH: 140
AAHH: 158
NNBH: 45
NCH: 423
CH: 86:
ELW: 733
W&P: 72
AMEC: 84
Renew: 249
I Sing the Almighty Power of God
UMH: 152
H82: 398
PH: 288
NCH: 12
W&P: 31
Renew: 54
This Is a Day of New Beginnings
UMH: 383
NCH: 417
CH: 518
W&P: 355
I Love to Tell the Story
UMH: 156
AAHH: 513
NNBH: 424
NCH: 522
CH: 480
LBW: 390
ELW: 661
W&P: 560
AMEC: 217
Where Charity and Love Prevail
UMH: 549
H82: 581
NCH: 396
LBW: 126
ELW: 359
In Christ There Is No East or West
UMH: 548
H82: 529
PH: 439/440
AAHH: 398/399
NNBH: 299
NCH: 394/395
CH: 687
LBW: 259
ELW: 650
W&P: 600/603
AMEC: 557
Christ for the World We Sing
UMH: 568
H82: 537
W&P: 561
AMEC: 565
Renew: 299
O Zion, Haste
UMH: 573
H82: 539
NNBH: 422
LBW: 397
ELW: 668
AMEC: 566
This Little Light of Mine
UMH: 585
AAHH: 549
NNBH: 511
NCH: 524/525
ELW: 677
STLT 118
Break Thou the Bread of Life
UMH: 599
PH: 329
AAHH: 334
NNBH: 295
NCH: 321
CH: 321
LBW: 235
ELW: 515
W&P: 665
AMEC: 209
Spirit of the Living God
UMH: 393
PH: 322
AAHH: 320
NNBH: 133
NCH: 283
CH: 259
W&P: 492
CCB: 57
Renew: 90
Our God Reigns
CCB: 33
Lord, I Lift Your Name on High
CCB: 36
Renew: 4
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 exists in community as the Holy Trinity:
Grant us the wisdom to dwell together in community
as we honor one another and witness to your reign;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
Praise and glory are yours, O God who dwells in perpetual union with yourself and all creation. Help us, as your children, to live not only in union with you but with all. Help us to honor one another and to be faithful witnesses to all you are doing among us. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to live in community and to witness for God.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have forsaken our likeness of you as we have failed to live in community with others. We have cut ourselves off from your family and so we are distanced from you. We seek our good without regard for the needs of others. Separated from one another we find ourselves separated from you. Without that connection we are unable to witness to you and your presence among us. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us so that we may live in harmony with all creation and witness to your loving presence. Amen.
One: God in community and seeks it with all creation. Accept the community of God’s creatures as your family and share the good news with all.
Prayers of the People
Wondrous and glorious are you, O God, creator of all. Out of the fullness of the Trinity you created us to be in communion with you and one another.
(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 have forsaken our likeness of you as we have failed to live in community with others. We have cut ourselves off from your family and so we are distanced from you. We seek our good without regard for the needs of others. Separated from one another we find ourselves separated from you. Without that connection we are unable to witness to you and your presence among us. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us so that we may live in harmony with all creation and witness to your loving presence.
We give you thanks for all the blessings we have received from you. You have filled creation with your glory and your love. You have breathed into us your very own life and Spirit. You have stayed with us when we have wandered from your path. You have given us one another as companions and helpers. We thank you for all your gracious gifts.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We lift into your light and care those who are on our hearts this day. We join our hearts and spirits with yours in reaching out to those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit. We pray for those who struggle with poverty and those who struggle with wealth. We pray for those caught in the webs of violence and hatred. We pray for those who feel left out. As you work in and through us to make a new heaven and a new earth, we offer ourselves to be part of your presence in these times of need.
(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 SERMONBeing Unafraid to Find Joy in God’s Creation
by Quantisha Mason-Doll
Isaiah 12
How many times a day do you say, “Thank you Lord!”? It’s okay if you don’t say it out loud or you do not say “thank you” at all. (Just so you all know, God will not be upset if you forgot to say thank you a couple of times.)
Our lesson for today comes from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah was someone who spent a lot of his life guiding people in praise of our Lord. He was someone who, when he spoke, it was for the good of the community. Isaiah’s ministry and life were about reminding people of all ages what God has to offer. He wanted us to find joy in God’s creation even on the days when our world does not feel so bright.
Has anyone here had a really bad day when it felt like nothing had gone your way? I know I have had those days — sometimes it is a couple of days in a row. Those days do not make me feel special and sometimes those days make it hard to remember that God thinks we are pretty awesome.
Isaiah’s words to us are all about finding joy even if it is as small as giving thanks to God. There were times when Isaiah felt like the Lord was angry — those were the bad days. Isaiah placed his trust in the Lord and better days came.
On our not-so-special days we should try our best to remember the words of the prophet Isaiah: “… give thanks to you, O Lord … surely God is my salvation.”
Prayer
Lord, we want to be like you.
We want to be kindness.
We want to be joy.
We want you to be wells of salvation.
Help us Lord to make these things come true.
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The Immediate Word, November 13, 2022 issue.
Copyright 2022 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.
