Recent Sermons
"A Little Flat" July 7, 2024
Our Justice Coordinator committed us to participate in an interfaith effort to speak about Christian Nationalism during worship one Sunday in July. Here is the sermon given by Rev. Michelle Webber at our church. It was inspired by Psalm 123 and Mark 6:1-13
“A Little Flat”
I don’t know about you, but the 4th of July fell a little flat for me this year. Maybe it was how stressful fireworks are for my dog.
Maybe it was the shift from patriotism to nationalism in popular rhetoric. Maybe it was the disappointing presidential debate.
It’s not the only thing that felt a little flat for me this week.
At the last worship planning meeting, when we chose scriptures for this summer, I mistakenly read today’s psalm as “23,”
not “123.” On Monday when I read through the scriptures, I had to double check that I was reading the right psalm.
It came across a little flat.
I expected
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil:
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
And, yes, I do always hear Psalm 23 in the King James version, but instead of “The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall not want,”
on Monday I read “To you I lift my eyes” and “we have had more than enough of contempt… of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud.” Come to think of it, these descriptive phrases may be why the 4th of July fell flat for me. I have had more than enough of the scorn of those who are at ease, and the contempt of the proud. Oh, how my heart wants “I will fear no evil,”
because I am kind of afraid of evil right now. Though, I have to admit that I was comforted with the idea expressed in Psalm 123
that we can look beyond our masters to the mercy of God.
When I was in school, elementary through high school, I learned some myths about our country, one of which is that we are an egalitarian society, in which all people are treated equally under the law and all people have equal opportunities. I had some teachers who ventured to open our eyes to historical realities. Ms. Hebden taught us about propaganda. We did a simulation of the historic election that resulted in Hitler’s legal rise to power. Indeed, our class elected Hitler. Mr. Sigg encouraged us to read the book “Who Rules America Now?” a 1983 revision of the original 1967 book by G. William Domhof, which I did. And I learned a lot. As much as we have endeavored to be a country in which all are treated equally under the law and all people have equal opportunities, we have never achieved that ideal.
Psalm 123 is both comforting and disturbing to me, as a model for how we respond to the experience of having more than enough of contempt and of receiving the scorn of those who are at ease, the contempt of the proud.”
It is comforting to know that we can seek mercy from God. Going to God, ritually, to seek gracious compassion and mercy in the face of contempt and scorn, instead of giving in to hopelessness or despair is useful. In this week when we celebrated the birth of our Nation, let us go to God in our prayers, asking for compassion for our country, asking for mercy and seeking a hopeful future
for the great American experiment in democracy.
But it is disturbing for our relationship with God to be equated to the relationship between master and servant. This kind of relationship exemplifies so much of what has been wrong in the history of the great American experiment in democracy. We have never been a strict democracy. Time and again, our will to live into the ideal of egalitarian democracy has fallen a little flat. We have always privileged some citizens over others in their ability, if not their right, to access political power. And every time we get closer to the ideals laid out in our earliest documents, to the right of all people to live as if created equally and to have equal access to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, barriers are put in place to keep some from accessing equality.
We began, as a country, in which there were literally masters and slaves and we have had competing forces to change that and to keep as much of that kind of relationship as possible ever since. There have been Christian voices on both sides of the issue in every era of American history. And so, I find scriptures that cause us to normalize a master/slave relationship disturbing, especially in an era when some who call themselves Christians, actually want to establish an American theocratic system, in which Christianity is the established religion of our country, the prioritized top of the hierarchy in the history of privilege.
Thankfully, the lectionary pairs Psalm 123, in all of its comfort and consternation, with the story of Jesus sharing his power with his disciples. Jesus is tired. He is frustrated. He has just tried to bring his good news to his hometown. He had great success sharing it all around, but at home, all people see is cute little Jesus, the carpenter’s son. They do not give him any authority.
His reaction is not to assert his power. He doesn’t do big showy miracles to convince them of his divinity or lord his power over them. His response is to share his power with the 12 disciples. This is not a slave/master hierarchy, but what is called a flat organizational structure. Jesus intentionally places the power of God a little flat. In such structures, each person has more autonomy,
more personal choice and more accountability for their own choices. The United Church of Christ is a flat organizational structure like this. We look to Jesus, as we understand him through study and prayer, to be the head of every setting of the church. Other than that,
we are all on the same organizational plane. Each member of our church is called to a direct relationship with Jesus through prayer and study and is the only arbiter about what you consider the truth of your own Christian faith.
When I look out from this pulpit, I see you, not as sheep of my flock, or vessels to be filled, but as individuals who are dynamically engaged in a relationship with the divine on your own terms, who come together to form a common understanding of what it means to follow the way of Jesus. You each have as much to teach me about being a follower of Jesus as I have to teach you. I see, in you,
the group of people Jesus has empowered to cast out demons and cure the sick.
Here are his instructions for us, as we endeavor to be like Jesus in the world,
Although he gave them authority over unclean spirits, he doesn’t tell them what to do with that authority. He literally tells them to go with whatever they have on at the moment, with no further preparation, and to rely on the hospitality of strangers to meet their needs. What they are to do with their authority must come from their own study and prayer while following Jesus. There are no S.M.A.R.T. goals, no job description with an annual review, and no boss to approve of their action plan. They have broad autonomy.
These two power structures set up in today’s scripture are still at odds in our world today.
Autonomy, often called freedom in our context, is an American value that has been protected and violated in equal measure, depending on what side of the power structure you are born into. And it is a topic of debate in today’s political climate. What does “freedom” mean? Does it mean that you are free to act in any way, no matter who else it hurts? Does it mean freedom to be who you truly are in public, no matter who else is uncomfortable? Does it mean freedom to hate? Freedom to love? Freedom to travel? Freedom to speak your truth? We hear a lot about freedom, much of which mimics the double speak of George Orwell’s book “1984.”
Christian Nationalism (Some say "White" Christian Nationalism) is a movement that embraces the kind of hierarchical relationship alluded to in Psalm 123, in which God is our master and we are God’s servants. Freedom, in this ideology, means that everyone follows what the leaders say it means to be Christian and American. As in Psalm 123, Christian Nationalists respect a particular hierarchy of power that requires us to behave as servants to those higher up on the power rung. The hope of Christian Nationalists
is to establish the United States as a Christian nation and to codify the kind of hierarchical relationships we read in Psalm 123,
in which those lower down in the hierarchy seek the directives of their betters, like we might seek wisdom from God. Christian Nationalist “scholars like Samuel Huntington have [argued]: that America is defined by its “Anglo-Protestant” past and that we will lose our identity and our freedom if we do not preserve our cultural inheritance.” (Christianitytoday.com Feb-21)* Their agenda seeks to prioritize “anglo-protestant” culture in all aspects of American life. And we see where they are succeeding. Oklahoma now requires the bible to be taught in schools. Louisiana requires the 10 commandments to be displayed. Religious arguments were cited when Roe-v-Wade was overturned.
Christian Nationalism seeks to reduce our autonomy, requiring us to seek mercy from those with more power, as we are instructed to do in Psalm 123. If empowered, they may very well seek to make autonomous Christianity, like we practice, illegal, establishing a state church. They have been working on this agenda for some time, but now we see it spoken of more publicly. As the young folk say today, they are saying the quiet things out loud.
In February of 2008 the National Offices of the United Church of Christ received a letter from the IRS to inform us that our tax-exempt status was being reviewed, in light of the fact that then Sen. Barack Obama was the keynote speaker at the UCC General Synod in 2007. The letter stated that “reasonable belief exists that the United Church of Christ has engaged in political activities that … jeopardize its tax-exempt status.”** We were accused of backing a candidate for president. As a result of the investigation, we were cleared and our tax-exempt status remains intact. Barack Obama was a member of a UCC church and had not declared his candidacy for president when we contracted with him to provide the keynote address. We were likely targeted because we have challenged the government on several occasions in history.
Our ancestors in faith once threw a bunch of tea into the Boston harbor and defended the people who gained their freedom on the Amistad. During the civil rights era, we backed the Wilmington 10, including UCC minister Ben Chavis. We agitated to make TV and radio airwaves public property and have worked toward marriage equality socially and legally since 2005. And most recently, we have backed a group of young people who won the right to sue the US government over its failure to address climate change. We are a pesky little autonomous denomination. We like our flat organizational structure and have agitated to make the United States
a system that shares power more equally with more citizens.
The difference between the UCC’s organizing to change our political system and that of Christian Nationalists is that we prioritize things that flatten power, that allow us to hear more voices and for more people to prosper in our country. There is now a movement afoot in our country to turn back the clock of society to the moment when the Constitution was written. While we have much to celebrate about the moves made by the men who shaped our constitution and the nascent government of the United States,
they were products of their time. They sought independence from oppression by a monarchy, but they did not venture that far
outside of the hierarchical culture in which they were raised. They did not give a governmental voice or vote to anyone other than male landed gentry, out of fear that those without land, being of greater number, would easily control the vote. It is no exaggeration to say that some want to return us to such a political reality and they are using the language of Christianity and the hierarchical model of power found within our scriptures to try to get us there.
So what are we autonomous Christians to do?
First, study, pray, and understand the stories of our faith found in our sacred scriptures. Your knowledge of the way of Jesus is important. Your voice in the public sphere about what it means to be a follower of Jesus is important.
Second, study about the rise of Christian Nationalism so that you understand who is involved in the movement and what doublespeak they are using to win voters to their cause. I will include a list of resources in our weekly update.
Third, vote. And encourage as many people to vote as you can. Despite current voter suppression efforts, voting is still a good way
for the majority of Americans to get their voices heard.
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, fear no evil. Fear begets despair. And despair will make us fall flat in the wrong ways. Jesus flattened our access to divine power, not our ability to impact the world. He also gained no political power in his day, but changed the world by his everyday interactions with people, by empowering others to access and use their power, too. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” If we turn from despair, God may just empower us to prepare a banquet before the eyes of those who would see us starve. Amen.
* https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2021/february-web-only/what-is-christian-nationalism.html (July 6, 2024)
** https://www.ucc.org/obama-speech-in-2007-prompts-1/ (July 6, 2024)
“A Little Flat”
I don’t know about you, but the 4th of July fell a little flat for me this year. Maybe it was how stressful fireworks are for my dog.
Maybe it was the shift from patriotism to nationalism in popular rhetoric. Maybe it was the disappointing presidential debate.
It’s not the only thing that felt a little flat for me this week.
At the last worship planning meeting, when we chose scriptures for this summer, I mistakenly read today’s psalm as “23,”
not “123.” On Monday when I read through the scriptures, I had to double check that I was reading the right psalm.
It came across a little flat.
I expected
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil:
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
And, yes, I do always hear Psalm 23 in the King James version, but instead of “The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall not want,”
on Monday I read “To you I lift my eyes” and “we have had more than enough of contempt… of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud.” Come to think of it, these descriptive phrases may be why the 4th of July fell flat for me. I have had more than enough of the scorn of those who are at ease, and the contempt of the proud. Oh, how my heart wants “I will fear no evil,”
because I am kind of afraid of evil right now. Though, I have to admit that I was comforted with the idea expressed in Psalm 123
that we can look beyond our masters to the mercy of God.
When I was in school, elementary through high school, I learned some myths about our country, one of which is that we are an egalitarian society, in which all people are treated equally under the law and all people have equal opportunities. I had some teachers who ventured to open our eyes to historical realities. Ms. Hebden taught us about propaganda. We did a simulation of the historic election that resulted in Hitler’s legal rise to power. Indeed, our class elected Hitler. Mr. Sigg encouraged us to read the book “Who Rules America Now?” a 1983 revision of the original 1967 book by G. William Domhof, which I did. And I learned a lot. As much as we have endeavored to be a country in which all are treated equally under the law and all people have equal opportunities, we have never achieved that ideal.
Psalm 123 is both comforting and disturbing to me, as a model for how we respond to the experience of having more than enough of contempt and of receiving the scorn of those who are at ease, the contempt of the proud.”
It is comforting to know that we can seek mercy from God. Going to God, ritually, to seek gracious compassion and mercy in the face of contempt and scorn, instead of giving in to hopelessness or despair is useful. In this week when we celebrated the birth of our Nation, let us go to God in our prayers, asking for compassion for our country, asking for mercy and seeking a hopeful future
for the great American experiment in democracy.
But it is disturbing for our relationship with God to be equated to the relationship between master and servant. This kind of relationship exemplifies so much of what has been wrong in the history of the great American experiment in democracy. We have never been a strict democracy. Time and again, our will to live into the ideal of egalitarian democracy has fallen a little flat. We have always privileged some citizens over others in their ability, if not their right, to access political power. And every time we get closer to the ideals laid out in our earliest documents, to the right of all people to live as if created equally and to have equal access to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, barriers are put in place to keep some from accessing equality.
We began, as a country, in which there were literally masters and slaves and we have had competing forces to change that and to keep as much of that kind of relationship as possible ever since. There have been Christian voices on both sides of the issue in every era of American history. And so, I find scriptures that cause us to normalize a master/slave relationship disturbing, especially in an era when some who call themselves Christians, actually want to establish an American theocratic system, in which Christianity is the established religion of our country, the prioritized top of the hierarchy in the history of privilege.
Thankfully, the lectionary pairs Psalm 123, in all of its comfort and consternation, with the story of Jesus sharing his power with his disciples. Jesus is tired. He is frustrated. He has just tried to bring his good news to his hometown. He had great success sharing it all around, but at home, all people see is cute little Jesus, the carpenter’s son. They do not give him any authority.
His reaction is not to assert his power. He doesn’t do big showy miracles to convince them of his divinity or lord his power over them. His response is to share his power with the 12 disciples. This is not a slave/master hierarchy, but what is called a flat organizational structure. Jesus intentionally places the power of God a little flat. In such structures, each person has more autonomy,
more personal choice and more accountability for their own choices. The United Church of Christ is a flat organizational structure like this. We look to Jesus, as we understand him through study and prayer, to be the head of every setting of the church. Other than that,
we are all on the same organizational plane. Each member of our church is called to a direct relationship with Jesus through prayer and study and is the only arbiter about what you consider the truth of your own Christian faith.
When I look out from this pulpit, I see you, not as sheep of my flock, or vessels to be filled, but as individuals who are dynamically engaged in a relationship with the divine on your own terms, who come together to form a common understanding of what it means to follow the way of Jesus. You each have as much to teach me about being a follower of Jesus as I have to teach you. I see, in you,
the group of people Jesus has empowered to cast out demons and cure the sick.
Here are his instructions for us, as we endeavor to be like Jesus in the world,
- Take nothing for the journey, except a staff
- Wear sandals
- Whenever you enter a house, stay there
- If someone does not welcome you, shake it off and move on
Although he gave them authority over unclean spirits, he doesn’t tell them what to do with that authority. He literally tells them to go with whatever they have on at the moment, with no further preparation, and to rely on the hospitality of strangers to meet their needs. What they are to do with their authority must come from their own study and prayer while following Jesus. There are no S.M.A.R.T. goals, no job description with an annual review, and no boss to approve of their action plan. They have broad autonomy.
These two power structures set up in today’s scripture are still at odds in our world today.
Autonomy, often called freedom in our context, is an American value that has been protected and violated in equal measure, depending on what side of the power structure you are born into. And it is a topic of debate in today’s political climate. What does “freedom” mean? Does it mean that you are free to act in any way, no matter who else it hurts? Does it mean freedom to be who you truly are in public, no matter who else is uncomfortable? Does it mean freedom to hate? Freedom to love? Freedom to travel? Freedom to speak your truth? We hear a lot about freedom, much of which mimics the double speak of George Orwell’s book “1984.”
Christian Nationalism (Some say "White" Christian Nationalism) is a movement that embraces the kind of hierarchical relationship alluded to in Psalm 123, in which God is our master and we are God’s servants. Freedom, in this ideology, means that everyone follows what the leaders say it means to be Christian and American. As in Psalm 123, Christian Nationalists respect a particular hierarchy of power that requires us to behave as servants to those higher up on the power rung. The hope of Christian Nationalists
is to establish the United States as a Christian nation and to codify the kind of hierarchical relationships we read in Psalm 123,
in which those lower down in the hierarchy seek the directives of their betters, like we might seek wisdom from God. Christian Nationalist “scholars like Samuel Huntington have [argued]: that America is defined by its “Anglo-Protestant” past and that we will lose our identity and our freedom if we do not preserve our cultural inheritance.” (Christianitytoday.com Feb-21)* Their agenda seeks to prioritize “anglo-protestant” culture in all aspects of American life. And we see where they are succeeding. Oklahoma now requires the bible to be taught in schools. Louisiana requires the 10 commandments to be displayed. Religious arguments were cited when Roe-v-Wade was overturned.
Christian Nationalism seeks to reduce our autonomy, requiring us to seek mercy from those with more power, as we are instructed to do in Psalm 123. If empowered, they may very well seek to make autonomous Christianity, like we practice, illegal, establishing a state church. They have been working on this agenda for some time, but now we see it spoken of more publicly. As the young folk say today, they are saying the quiet things out loud.
In February of 2008 the National Offices of the United Church of Christ received a letter from the IRS to inform us that our tax-exempt status was being reviewed, in light of the fact that then Sen. Barack Obama was the keynote speaker at the UCC General Synod in 2007. The letter stated that “reasonable belief exists that the United Church of Christ has engaged in political activities that … jeopardize its tax-exempt status.”** We were accused of backing a candidate for president. As a result of the investigation, we were cleared and our tax-exempt status remains intact. Barack Obama was a member of a UCC church and had not declared his candidacy for president when we contracted with him to provide the keynote address. We were likely targeted because we have challenged the government on several occasions in history.
Our ancestors in faith once threw a bunch of tea into the Boston harbor and defended the people who gained their freedom on the Amistad. During the civil rights era, we backed the Wilmington 10, including UCC minister Ben Chavis. We agitated to make TV and radio airwaves public property and have worked toward marriage equality socially and legally since 2005. And most recently, we have backed a group of young people who won the right to sue the US government over its failure to address climate change. We are a pesky little autonomous denomination. We like our flat organizational structure and have agitated to make the United States
a system that shares power more equally with more citizens.
The difference between the UCC’s organizing to change our political system and that of Christian Nationalists is that we prioritize things that flatten power, that allow us to hear more voices and for more people to prosper in our country. There is now a movement afoot in our country to turn back the clock of society to the moment when the Constitution was written. While we have much to celebrate about the moves made by the men who shaped our constitution and the nascent government of the United States,
they were products of their time. They sought independence from oppression by a monarchy, but they did not venture that far
outside of the hierarchical culture in which they were raised. They did not give a governmental voice or vote to anyone other than male landed gentry, out of fear that those without land, being of greater number, would easily control the vote. It is no exaggeration to say that some want to return us to such a political reality and they are using the language of Christianity and the hierarchical model of power found within our scriptures to try to get us there.
So what are we autonomous Christians to do?
First, study, pray, and understand the stories of our faith found in our sacred scriptures. Your knowledge of the way of Jesus is important. Your voice in the public sphere about what it means to be a follower of Jesus is important.
Second, study about the rise of Christian Nationalism so that you understand who is involved in the movement and what doublespeak they are using to win voters to their cause. I will include a list of resources in our weekly update.
Third, vote. And encourage as many people to vote as you can. Despite current voter suppression efforts, voting is still a good way
for the majority of Americans to get their voices heard.
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, fear no evil. Fear begets despair. And despair will make us fall flat in the wrong ways. Jesus flattened our access to divine power, not our ability to impact the world. He also gained no political power in his day, but changed the world by his everyday interactions with people, by empowering others to access and use their power, too. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” If we turn from despair, God may just empower us to prepare a banquet before the eyes of those who would see us starve. Amen.
* https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2021/february-web-only/what-is-christian-nationalism.html (July 6, 2024)
** https://www.ucc.org/obama-speech-in-2007-prompts-1/ (July 6, 2024)
