Children’s message:
Jesus came to bring not peace he said, but a sword…
Now I have a couple of swords right here
There was certainly a lot of fighting with swords in those days
Not as much anymore, unless, you are like me
A samurai warrior
Was this the type of sword Jesus spoke about?
Maybe…
But in the book of Revelation, Jesus is described as having a Sword as well,
Interestingly, the sword is coming out of his mouth, not in his hand
When he comes to judge the earth
The Sword is his Tongue
Which, proclaims the Word of God
Indeed, Christ in every way is the Word of God
What is the Word of God?
How can it divide us? As it says today
Even in our own family
Well, there are some values, some things in life
That are just so important
Nothing else can get in the way of it - Even family
The Word of God tells us mainly two things
That we are in need of God’s grace and forgiveness and mercy
We can freely accept it, and so God can transform us to love others
It sounds crazy
But if we actually hold true to those values of Christ
It will make us better family members to begin with
The family is like the smallest unit of our communities
It starts right here in this group
We start by caring for, and respecting here
And then we go out
And share it with others
Especially our universal family of the Church
And we always have that Sword of God, God’s Word
That tells us, though we make mistakes and fail
we are loved by God more than we can imagine
And so is everyone else.
May that Love guide your feet wherever they take you! :)
Adult Message:
So, I recently decided, I’m not going to be white anymore…
Now hear me out…
I told my wife I actually have a lot of freckles
So, a lot of me is not white anyways…
But culturally? I am sure culturally I am very “white”
I’m not happy with it
This idea of “whiteness”
No ethnic identity, not where you are from in the US
Just white, bland, plain
I am not really on board with that
Because it is just not true
Look at the Irish – not considered “white” at first
Later power always needs to consolidate
When I have to fill out any forms asking for demographics
I will put Irish, Italian, Mexican, probably some English with a last name like Allen, adopted into the Lutheran family
How can we deconstruct “whiteness”?
It is a cultural concept, created by us
It is neither historically accurate,
Nor is it biblically viable, certainly not from a NT perspective
Yet we see even in the OT the push toward diversity of language and culture
When Lutherans arrived in this land
German, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, etc.
They still spoke their native languages
Wanting to be American (and nothing wrong with patriotism)
But they encouraged their offspring
not to speak native languages
Only to speak English so as to fit in better
Now how many people wish
they had kept up that other language?
There is a natural human tendency to unite together
One, monolithic culture, language, etc.
“Whiteness”
We then often put that culture or idea
or the economy, the country
Above God somehow
We put ourselves in God’s place
Arbiters of the universe, or at least Fullerton CA
What comes first for us? What has highest priority?
Rereading a book from 1970 called “Bury me at Wounded Knee” by Dee Brown
History of what happened to the native peoples
of what we call America
There is a striking story of a General Carleton aka Star Chief
in New Mexico, Late 1800’s
Removes Navaho
And other tribes of people living on the land for years
Destroys their crops, steals their animals,
burns their orchards
People that were living in relative peace,
Besides the feuding between themselves
and Mexican raiders occasionally
Yet they were taken from their land
Put on a terrible reservation
Where many suffered, and died
So that the Europeans could invade and begin
Mining the land and stripping its natural resources
Writing about all of this the general said
It was inevitable
That his race of people should overtake this land
It was Divine Providence that was leading them to do so
The Indigenous, though valiant, were just the weaker race
It was not Divine Providence, it was simply human greed
Greed that has existed forever
And it comes from our fear
Our need to conquer others
Even those who came after the General was removed
Who saw the conditions of the people…
Did not fully restore them
Gave them back some land,
but not the best land they had before
He acted like a paternalistic savior to them
Instead of humbly returning what was theirs
But we have here this idea the general was putting forward
Our “race” is greater than other “races”
Take the European settlers back to Europe
And they had been fighting each other for centuries
But this idea of the “white race” was formed
And applied to Manifest Destiny
A way to continue that human greed
The Spaniards did it
The Church was even coopted into this
The land was there for the taking
Because the people were not Christian
Going against everything Jesus stood for in the process
The Romans did it in the time of Jesus
Taking over whole nations,
though they mostly just made them pay homage
Subjugated them with wars, force to pay taxes,
usually they didn’t fully occupy a territory in the same way
It has been happening over and over again
throughout history
Our own history is an example of that greed
Jeremiah 28:
9 If I say, "I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name," then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.
The people were saying peace when there was no peace
They were all in agreement
Jeremiah was the lone voice of disagreement
He said there would be no peace with Babylon,
The people would be taken off into slavery
Jerusalem destroyed
Not something they wanted to hear
But they needed to!
We need to hear different perspectives!
People that disagree with us!
It is actually a good thing
Not when we are just fighting
and talking over one another though
As so often happens when things become heated
Even with people very close to us
it can be hard to have these difficult conversations
Especially when we disagree
One thing I remember when I was a kid
My parents would go to my aunt and uncle’s house with other family and friends
Every year like a big party
But they would be arguing and having debates and conversations the whole night
They called it Yankee Pub
No talk about specific politicians,
But they would talk about the issues
that were going to be voted on
Things got a little heated in there,
I don’t remember any fistfights breaking out
I was mostly playing with my cousins having fun
But it still instilled in me this desire
To debate, to argue
I took a personality test before my first trip to the Holy Land
To prepare - Said I was a debater
My wife wholeheartedly agreed
I like to debate - Express my perspective
I am grateful to the work of chaplaincy
Which teaches us to listen first
To hear from all sides of an argument
Even though sometimes it is painful
I think it is important for our country,
for our church, and for our city, For our family unit
I think it is important to be able to know our own story
Maybe where one is from here in the USA
Or where the family came from to get here
To think about how we are unique
How your church is different from others
There is not just one monolithic culture
That is what God wants actually
God wants us to be unique - Different, special, set apart
God wants diversity (Tower of Babel)
And - We can have differences
And still be united as people of God
With what is of primary importance
What are our priorities as people of God?
What have we put above God?
We must die to ourselves once again
Jesus says you must lose your life
Your soul, your self
To find it.
We must listen to others - Grow to love others
Let go of greed and control for power
Die to our fear
That holds us back from fully opening up to one another
Our fear of losing, Our fear of the other
We must claim our identity in Christ
God’s love that unites us
beyond our culture and language etc.
We need a healing, a revival!
a rebirth!! Salvation
We need justice
Because we have justice and mercy with God
We can do so with one another
Don’t know where to begin?
Quoting Joanne Larson who is a Coach for the ELCA:
“Start local!”
Support the education and development of youth
Support opportunities for meaningful employment
Promote moral values of care and compassion for others
Paul says that we have died to sin,
and been reborn with Christ
The evil is washed away
And we can finally live into who God created us to be
With all our quirkiness, our differences, our arguments
Our visions of what life could be
And hopefully,
With all of our love and kindness,
Compassion and mercy we can muster.