Saturday, January 30, 2016

Hometown Glory: A Sermon Preached By Rob Lee

Hometown Glory
Psalm 19
Luke 4:14-21
January 31st, 2016
Broad Street United Methodist Church

Holy and gracious God,
            As the Psalmist writes, May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight O Lord our strong rock, and our redeemer.

            Over Christmas break while I was home from Duke, I got coffee at Starbucks with my dear friend and fellow child of this church, Ashlee Perry. Both Ashlee and I have spent the majority of our young lives growing up in this place. We went to high school together, we’ve seen each other grow and change, and we make an effort to get together when our schedules permit. One of my favorite memories is that of the confirmation retreat when we were in the 6th grade. All those years later we pick up where we left off when we see one another. You did a good job, Broad Street, fostering life-long friendships and all. But nonetheless our conversation over coffee turned as it often does to nostalgia. We wondered about our community that we grew up in. We talked about it for some time and we came to the conclusion that while we appreciate what Statesville gave us growing up, we didn’t know if our careers or life-choices would allow us to come back to this place that we came to love. But we’ll get back to that in a moment.
            Today we hear words from Jesus, in fact this is Jesus’ first public sermon in Luke’s Gospel. In Luke’s Gospel this is placed right after Jesus has been tempted in the Wilderness and right before Jesus calls his first disciples. For whatever reason, this story is so important that it shows up in three of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But it is only Luke where this story is placed at the beginning of the narrative. Where does Jesus decide to go at the beginning of his ministry in Luke’s Gospel? He goes home, not only that, he like others who come into town from college or life adventures goes to church.
Jesus ends up at First Church in Nazareth, the downtown church with pretty stained glass and two worship services. Jesus decides to preach, as was the custom of a rabbi and picks up a scroll from the prophet Isaiah. He proclaims, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Jesus’ ministry begins in Nazareth. We hear other places in Scripture; can anything good come from Nazareth? The answer my friends, is yes.
            So using my detective skills from Mrs. McConnell’s Statesville High School English class, I see something important. Setting, especially in the Biblical text can mean a lot for the text we’re reading.  In Luke’s Gospel it is apparent that Jesus loved Nazareth and the synagogue there in Nazareth enough to come back and start his ministry in Luke’s Gospel. Even though it got the crowds mad he felt it was important to start what he was doing in his hometown. He was the original hometown glory. And I think that the reality of being at home can be a holy and grace-filled moment. Let’s examine this for a moment:
            I wonder what home looks like for you? What is the first thing that pops into your mind? Is it your grandmother’s Christmas tree or Christmas morning with your parents? Is it playing outside in the twilight hours until your mom calls you to come inside for the evening? Is home in the very pew you’re sitting in? Now I want you to take that image of home and put Jesus there. Does Jesus fit in with your home? Does Jesus feel comfortable in the place where you call home?
            You all know that tag line HGTV uses all too much, “Let’s make a house, a home.” How can we make this place we call home, Broad Street United Methodist Church, a place where Jesus would fit in? How can we make this place a temple where we are anointed to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor? How can we make Broad Street United Methodist Church a place of hometown glory?
            We do so through relationships. Through a relationship with God and relationships with one another we see the fruition of God’s beloved kingdom. We do so by opening our doors to persons who do not fit the mold of Broad Street United Methodist Church. We do so by creating spaces and places of grace here within these very walls. Ask any church consultant what they think is most important for a church and many will say as I’m sure you’ve heard, “You have to get outside your walls.” Well friends I’m here to tell you today that getting outside your walls will be ineffective if you don’t first examine what makes this church a home for you.
            What is it that makes Broad Street special to you? What is it about these old walls that have made this place shine for you? I can remember in high school I’d intern and part of my job was given to me from the Reverend Jason Harvey, we’d come in here and change light bulbs and polish brass. One day I asked in frustration why I wasn’t doing real ministry, and Jason so eloquently replied in that southern accent he has, “You don’t just invite people over and have paper plates for them, do you? No you bring out the finest china.”
            Dear people of God how can we combine our livelihoods with this church to make this building a home for saints and sinners alike? We do so by bringing the finest bread and wine that we offer at the table. We do so by bringing the cool refreshing waters of baptism at the font every Sunday. We do so by invitation and by greeting with a smile on our face. You know it’s been interesting visiting and finding a church home in the Durham area after leaving my job in West Jefferson. Luckily I’ve found one at Edenton Street United Methodist Church, but before that I went to a church where a lady told me I was sitting in her seat and I needed to move. That wasn’t creating an environment of home, was it? If Jesus really is the Christ, and if Jesus really means something to you then you must get to work creating an inviting space to share that life-changing love of Jesus Christ. For in Jesus the oppressive bonds of this world are loosened, the blind are given sight, the lame are given movement, and the dead are made to live again. We are given a home, not of this community, or country, or even world, but we are called to create that home here while we have the chance.
Deeper than that, if you like me claim the Wesleyan or Methodist tradition as the way of following Jesus, it is very obvious that personal piety should be connected to social holiness. In the book Friendship in the Margins, it says, “In drawing closer to Jesus, we discover that we cannot love him without loving others... as we love and live among those most likely to be overlooked—those who are poor, hungry, despised, imprisoned, or sick—we find ourselves in intimate relationship with Jesus.”  Broad Street United Methodist Church, you have so much going for you and so much to live for.
            Frederick Buechner writes, “… I may have glimpsed in the charity and justice and order and peace of other homes I have known, but that in its fullness was always missing. I cannot claim that I have found the home I long for every day of my life, not by a long shot, but I believe that in my heart I have found, and have maybe always known, the way that leads to it.” You know I think that I too have found the way that leads to home, and its right here in this very place.
            You all know I was a child of this church. I was baptized here on All Saint’s Day in 1992, I was confirmed here in the early years of the 21st century; I felt the first nudging toward my call to ministry at a renewal service (that’s Methodist speak for revival service) from this very pulpit 10 years ago. But what you may not know is that I had to leave this home for a season. For two and a half years I served and was a member of First Baptist Church, West Jefferson. I thought I could find a home in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship because of a bad experience with the Methodists at General Conference. But I got to Duke Divinity School and realized that my home, my place, my livelihood and hope is found in the United Methodist Church. While I had found a wonderful, supportive and caring home at First Baptist in West Jefferson, I realized that the church in West Jefferson is a very unique place in Baptist life, but it wasn’t my original home. And though I love the people and the place it wasn’t the home I had come to know here. They ordained me and loved me and sent me on my way in August, many of them realizing that my heart was with the Methodist Church and the people in it.
It’s always an interesting experience to come back and preach at your home church. I’ve received more encouragement from my colleagues back in the Raleigh-Durham area than ever before because they know how difficult it can be to go home to preach. For you all know me as 2-year-old Rob, 12-year-old Rob, and 18-year-old Rob, and now you see me here in this place. It’s peculiar at best. But in strange situations are where Jesus does his best work.
            You see Jesus knew as I have come to learn that your home is your home, and whether they are trying to throw you off a cliff like they did with Jesus, or in my case where you welcomed me into this pulpit with hugs and smiles today, your home matters. Don’t ever forsake the beauty of going home. It may not feel the same as it once did, and you may not be able to stay for long, but don’t ever forsake going home. Don’t ever forsake the beauty of coffee with a friend like Ashlee Perry, where our home for a season was this church. For in the beauty of home like Broad Street United Methodist Church is that we can listen, and wait, and wonder if Scripture is fulfilled in our hearing. Here, and now, and today. Thanks be to God. Amen.


Saturday, January 16, 2016

Good, So Very Good: A Sermon Commemorating the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, 2016


 
Good, So Very Good
A Sermon Preached by Rob Lee
January 17th, 2016
Martin Luther King Celebration, First Baptist Church on Garfield Street
I remember growing up in Sunday School singing that famous Sunday School hymn, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.” I want you to hold that song in your heart as we hear God’s word today from Eugene H. Peterson’s the Message, in Genesis the 1st chapter, verses 26-28, and 31a.

“God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature so they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, and, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.” God created human beings; he created them godlike, Reflecting God’s nature. He created them male and female. God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”… God looked over everything he had made; it was so good, so very good!"

Will you pray with me?
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou who hast brought us this far on the way; Thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray. Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, we met Thee. Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world we forget Thee, shadowed beneath thy hand, may we ever stand, true to our God, true to our native land. Amen

Have you ever been so close to God that you could reach out your hand and touch the Spirit that binds us all together? Have you ever been to a place or with a person whose presence brings you close to the Divine in ways you had never expected or thought possible? I want to spend my time tonight talking about two people in my life who have given me a dream for a beloved community. One of them is part of the Church Triumphant looking down on us today, and the other is sitting in this very room.
            My first encounter with race came before I even hit preschool. My parents had hired a babysitter to look after me while they worked. Janie Bowman was a lady 60 years my senior, but nonetheless we bonded and I tried to emulate her in every way, down to trying to limp like her and follow her around incessantly. But as I grew I noticed something that bothered me, Janie refused to drink out of the same glasses that my family did. She would insist on bringing hers from home because that was the culture in which she had lived for so long. We were separated by the deep chasm of race. Janie would always remind me we were different, until one day in desperation I screamed, “We aren’t different, you aren’t different from me.” I don’t tell this story to say that I’ve always known from an early age about the intricacies of the racial divide. But what I do say is that for me, Janie was part of what we at the Divinity School at Duke call Imago Dei, the image of God. For me, my conceptions of faith and how to treat people at my earliest age comes from Janie Bowman who joined the Church triumphant some years ago.
            The other lady I have in mind is a lady we know as Sister Bertha Hamilton. A faithful saint, I am confident I am closest to God in those moments I am with her. For in her actions and in her speech, she shows us that we are all irreplaceable icons of a loving and living God.  That is what I am here to say today: We are all created in the image of God, and we all deserve to be treated as such.
            Did you hear the text I read earlier? God created us in God’s image! All of us, there was no stipulation that said one race had the image of God over the other! God intended for the image of God to be in all of us, and completes that by the power of the Spirit that resides in our very souls. When we turned away and our loved failed in the first sin and every time we have sinned since, we see that we have damaged the image of God. We have hurt ourselves and others for the sake of preserving what we think is best for society. And that is when God weeps.
            You see when the world says black lives don’t matter God says they do matter. When persons committed to preserving and protecting public trust gun down or choke black men, God weeps. When children like Tamir Rice are gunned down, God’s heart breaks. When races perpetrate violence against one another because of social location, religion, or socioeconomic status we damage the image that God intended for us to be. But as the prophet Malachi said, God will stand as refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap, God will purify the descendants of Levi and make them worthy to present sacrifices to the Lord. If the people of God don’t stand up to stop the racist, sexist and homophobic overtures being taken by governments and persons of privilege then the stones are going to start crying out.
            You see there’s a reason Esther had to hear from Mordecai that she was meant for such a time as this. Because Esther, out of fear had become blind to the suffering of the people. Have we become blind to the suffering of people? Have we forgotten the image of God that was instilled in people like Michael Brown, Laquan McDonald, Sandra Bland, Jonathan Ferrell, and countless others? For if we start seeing racism as the grievous sin that it is, something that God doesn’t intend for us, then we can no longer sit back and do nothing.
            We must be people who look in the faces of those who have been hurt by racism and say, “You were created good, so very good, in the image of God, in fact.” And then we must combat that racism at its source and begin to fight the bonds that have held African Americans for far too long. We must say to the world that the church says black lives matter, and we must back up our words with actions.
 We must adapt the words of Dr. King that suggest that if we want to dream about the New Jerusalem or the promises God has for us, we have to start with the new New York, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis Tennessee, dare I say the new Statesville. For in these trying times for race relations we see tokens of trust that God is not done with us yet. God has not brought us this far to leave us here alone.
You know it is a bit peculiar for me to be speaking at this worship service this night. Years ago in the 19th century at Arlington Plantation my family owned slaves; in that time my family fought to keep this nation separated on the basis of race. I tell you this not out of asking for pity for the ignorance of my ancestors, but because I believe we might be acting out part of Dr. King’s very dream this evening. In that iconic speech in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. King proclaimed, “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”
            I can think of no better table for you and I to be seated at than at this table, the table of grace. The table where there is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no Catholic or Protestant, a table where black people and white people are equal not because of the color of their skin but because of the love that God has for everyone. Let me say that again church, we are bound together not because of race but because of love. And it is in that love that we must create a space and place for grace on both sides of the racial divide.
            The white people of this country need to start creating spaces for minority voices to speak the reality of their lives to us. For me, I have not learned what it means to have white privilege from the persons of power in white pulpits or persons in public trust. I’ve learned what it means to celebrate the diversity of this community from people like Janie and Sister Bertha. They have shown me that dignity and respect for all people is paramount in our time and place. We must say at the top of our lungs, “Dr. King had a dream and I have a dream too!” I want us to scream at the top of our lungs, “Black lives matter.” For if God created us all in God’s image then we are all good, we are all so very good.
            So where does that leave us realistically? We need to channel the late, great, Reverend J.C. Harris, who preached social justice and racial equality from this pulpit for 50 years. We need to be imitators of him, Dr. King, Rosa Parks, and the countless sung and unsung heroes of the American Civil Rights Movement. We need to be people who proclaim the glory of God’s hope of reconciliation.
            I want you to turn to your neighbor and say, “You were created good.” I want you to turn to your neighbor and say, “You matter,” because in the end, we’re all in this together. Because we have a light, a light for the nations, a hope for the people, because all of us, red and yellow, black and white, we are precious in his sight. And if we have a light, why don’t we share it just one more time together, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!.”
AMEN.