Scripture: Luke 4: 21-30
I am open, and I am willing, for to be hopeless would seem so strange, it dishonors those who go before us, so lift me up to the light of change. Holy One, light of change, touch my mouth and all of our hearts. Amen.
I have to be honest that I have been all over the map in these last two weeks. Tears, rage, exhaustion… I’ve felt them all. And I’ve heard from many of you that you are feeling the same thing. And that is by design. So how can we hold each other in our authenticity, our honest feelings, our fears … and also be prophets and healers- to each other and for our world? For, I believe that is what being followers of Jesus is all about.
I don’t pretend to have answers. But I want to invite us to pray together on the message: care, grieve, protest… write, dance, create… care, grieve, protest…write, dance, create.
[pause]
The Executive Orders began on Day 1 and they keep coming…
Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government…
Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling…
And the lies that are the heart of any authoritarian project:
As President Trump said on Thursday, the horrible crash at DCA was because, “the FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative…”
And I’ve found myself reeling and thrown back to the 1980’s when I was a newly out lesbian in Ronald Reagan and George Bush’s America. It was a time when so much of what was said about me and my community were hate-filled lies.
In 1987, Reverend Jerry Falwell famously said “God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah primarily because of the sin of homosexuality. Today He is again bringing judgment against this wicked practice through AIDS.” In the mid-80’s Sen. Jesse Helms often said “Homosexuals are weak, morally sick wretches.” In 1992, 36 percent of Americans believed AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behavior.
Dan Savage, a gay writer and activist has also been thrown back to the 1980’s. Last week he remembered, “During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for. It didn’t look like we were going to win then and we did. It doesn’t feel like we’re going to win now but we could. Keep fighting, keep dancing.”
Grieve, Protest, Dance. Out of remembering how he and so many LGBTQ+ people navigated the Reagan and Bush years, comes hope for resistance and resilience now.
Shonda Rhimes, the African American producer, director, and actor, has also been thrown back in time these last ten days. She is remembering Toni Morrison words in the wake of regressive racist laws of the early 2000’s. Rhimes shared Morrison’s words, “This is the time when artists go to work. Not when everything is alright. Not when it looks sunny. It’s when it’s hard. And I thought about all those people who wrote in prisons, in Gulags, under duress. They were doing it… [Morrison continues] There is no place for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. This is how civilizations heal.”
Grieve, Protest, Write, Dance, Create… Grieve, Protest, Write, Dance, Create. That’s how civilizations heal.
[pause]
Our scripture reading for today comes from one of the most powerful chapters in the entire newer testament. Luke 4 begins with Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness in which the devil attempts to delude Jesus three times with power, authority and wealth. With each temptation, Jesus responds that his life is rooted in relationship with God, and real authority, power, and meaning come from spiritual clarity.
Luke Chapter 4 continues with Jesus, fresh from his resistance to a distorted sense of power and purpose, returning to his hometown of Nazareth and entering into the synagogue where he is handed the scroll of the prophet ISAIAH. Like our lectionary, synagogues in Jesus’ time read through the scroll from week to week. The portion that Jesus reads isn’t something he chooses, it was given to him to read. And what is that portion of scripture?
“The Spirit of God is upon me,
because the Holy One has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
The Holy One has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of God’s favor.”
And then we get our reading from Luke 4:21-30:
Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth…[but then] he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in their hometown. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah… yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
There is a lot in the fourth chapter of Luke, there’s a lot in this story of the early part of Jesus’ ministry. And there are so many parallels to today. The temptations haven’t really changed much. It feels like we’re awash in the siren’s call of power-over, domination, and money. The assignment still stands the test of time: proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of God’s favor.
I sometimes forget it, but the preparation is also the same and it pours over us: The Spirit of God is upon us, because the Holy One has anointed us…
And, just as Jesus fulfilled the scripture in his day, we, too are invited to fulfill it in ours. Make no mistake, we are awash in distorted and false prophecy… the lies can threaten to overwhelm. The horror and the violence and the death are very real. When we reject the temptation that power-over, domination, and greed whisper and shout, when we name clearly that others have fallen prey to that temptation, we will anger some in our hometowns, our families, and our kindred in society. We may even be threatened and pushed to the brow of the cliff. But we are invited to remember that we, too, are rooted in the Holy Spirit. And maybe that will allow us to walk back from the cliff’s edge and proceed with our ministry.
In a few minutes, we will come to the communion table together. And, thinking about that sacred meal, UCC theologian and pastor Mary Luti wrote a piece this week. She starts by quoting the gospel of Luke
He took bread, and after giving thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And he did the same with the cup after supper…
“When Christians talk about Communion, we say it’s a remembrance of Jesus, a memorial. Which is true, but also potentially misleading, as if what we’re doing at the table is reminiscing, like you would maybe at a wake.
“But in the gospel’s original Greek, the word for remembrance is stronger, edgier, more demanding—anamnesis—literally, “against amnesia.” It turns out that remembering Jesus in Communion is oppositional, like standing up to something, an adversary. Remembering at the table is not reminiscence, it’s resistance. It’s refusing to forget.
“There are forces around us and within us that want us to forget what they’ve been up to for eons, wreaking havoc, taking up all the breathing room, squeezing the life out of everything for ego, profit, supremacy, and power. Killing for sport.
“They’re still at it, night and day, trying to fog over all traces of Jesus’ love revolution in the world and in our hearts. They hope we’ll lose his trail, his story’s thread. They hope we’ll forget we ever knew him.
“For if we forget, we’ll be putty in their hands. If we forget, they can tell us anything they want, and we won’t know they’re lying. In the vacuum of forgetting, injustice has it easy, violence rules the day.
“Communion is dangerous memory, it’s our uprising. At the table we take a stand. We remember God’s gifts and mighty deeds. We remember Jesus. We remember each other. We remember everyone and everything hate erases. We refuse to forget.”
When I posted Dan Savage’s words on my Facebook page this week, Barbara Johnson responded. (You might remember Barbara as the woman who, in 2012, was denied communion by a Catholic priest at her own mother’s funeral because she is lesbian.) In reading Dan’s words Barbara said, ‘I just burst into tears. I remember every second of the AIDS crisis. But we need to add “and we bathed and fed our friends dying in hospice rooms.’ We took care of one another when no one else would. We must take care of one another now.”
My friends, we are in times of great peril, violence, and fear. It’s OK to be reeling, to be sad, to be exhausted. AND, we are invited to remember. To remember our queer kindred who cared, and grieved and protested and danced. To remember our artist ancestors who go to work when it is hard. To remember our teacher Jesus who still leads a love revolution.
Care, Grieve, Protest… Write, Dance, Create.
May it be so. Amen.
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