You can watch video of this worship service on Facebook here -
https://www.facebook.com/david.p.charlton.9/videos/10164245095880298
Or on Vimeo here -
https://vimeo.com/462398288?fbclid=IwAR1u1ySYqZ7vvFte4MQDO3f-wM8ZZRdyuemxbu7zKaGgV-UHiWeWoau2iVk
This morning’s message is not the one I had planned to offer for today. My original message was one from the series What Did Jesus Do, with the title, He Took Time to Rest and Recharge. On Wednesday afternoon, as I was walking across the parking lot at the Serenity Center, I looked at my watch and it was 1:30, the time of the press conference of our state’s Attorney General. People had been waiting many weeks for that moment, and it was not only the city of Louisville that had been on edge as they waited; the entire nation had been on edge, wondering not only about the decision but also about the reaction to the decision. The question that came to my mind in that moment, as I thought about all the many difficulties of this year, was, how do we fix what is broken? Among the many things this year has made obvious, in my opinion, is that we are people, a nation, and a world, that are broken. How do we fix what is broken?
Sometimes, then, events dictate that another message is in order. The unrest in Louisville, related to the death of Breonna Taylor, is one more in a series of traumas we have faced this year, and we still have three months to go. Who knows what else might come our way in this strange, difficult year?
I want to acknowledge my awareness of the many landmines that await me in this message. There are many ways in which a message like this can go wrong. You might hear what I am not saying. I might say what I do not realize I am saying. I can reveal my own ignorance about the issues we are facing. I can fail to understand that what I say overlooks the experience of others. My words can push upon divides that already exist, threatening to deepen them even further. Someone can rightly ask, why didn’t you say this or that? Why didn’t you support this or that group? Why didn’t you speak about this injustice? There are more than a few holes in what I have to say. I know there will be ample opportunities for hearers and readers to say, yes, but…. It would be simpler to not preach such a message.
I believe, however, that in this difficult year of 2020 we must face our brokenness, a brokenness that already existed, but has been aggravated by the many challenges that have come our way. As we have moved through 2020, I have done my best to offer messages that speak to where we have found ourselves. I don’t know how successful or helpful they have been. There are times I have thought it would be simpler to ignore what has happened this year, but that would be an unfortunate course of action.
My goal in this particular message is not to get into the politics of all that has taken place this year, but to ask the deeper questions of how we can learn to better understand one another, how we can fear one another less, and how we can bridge the divides that have grown so greatly between us.
Our Scripture text for this morning is one I often use at funerals and memorial services. It comes from II Corinthians 4:6-9. Follow along with me as I read that passage –
6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;
9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
I like the image that Paul uses of a jar of clay. Such a container is fragile and easily broken. It makes an apt metaphor, then, of our lives. We are inhabitors of a very fragile vessel – the human body – and it is one that is easily damaged and broken. Sometimes that damage and brokenness heals over time. A broken bone, for instance, can not only heal, but become stronger after it has healed. In other instances, however, healing might struggle to take place. When the fracture is emotional, spiritual, or psychological, that fracture is very difficult to heal, and can stay with us for the rest of our lives.
We also inhabit the larger body of humanity, and it too is a very fragile vessel. The vessel that comprises our community, our state, and our nation, had already been showing cracks, and now those cracks are beginning to pull further apart this fragile vessel we inhabit. As we have lurched from one crisis to another, we have become a tinderbox that seems to be one match away from a raging flame.
We must work to prevent further cracks in that jar of clay. If we do not, the jar becomes further diminished, and increasingly broken, until it is less able to hold the treasure given to us by God.
In thinking about all that has happened, here is what I have to offer –
1. Stop yelling at one another and start listening to one another.
So many conversations today quickly turn into exercises in division. People immediately go to their respective political, social, and religious corners and begin yelling or dismissing one another. Whether in person or on social media, we seem to be mostly yelling at one another, demonizing one another, or talking past each other. Too many people seem more concerned about scoring points by putting down someone else, or by criticizing them, or by telling them how little they know or how foolish they are. After only a few moments, we begin talking past one another, over one another, and then dismissing one another.
We need to listen to one another. We need to stop telling others how they feel or how they should feel. I cannot speak for the experience of another person, so I must listen when they seek to tell me what they have experienced in their life. I need to hear it as their experience, not as a threat to me, or to my way of life, or to my beliefs.
Time after time, Jesus listened to people. He did not lecture them or dismiss them. He did not tell them how they should be feeling. He listened. He listened to their stories of pain, of loss, and of heartbreak. People loved Jesus for many reasons, and one reason was because he listened to them.
What if we chose to stop our knee-jerk judgments of one another and instead became still, and listened? As has been said, God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason – he wants us to listen twice as much as we speak.
When we fail to listen, the jar of clay that is humanity begins to crack a bit more, and the treasure held within begins to seep out, spilling into the ground, and becomes increasingly difficult to recover.
2. Put down our pointed fingers and open our arms to embrace one another.
There is so much anger in our world now, and I understand that there is a great deal about which to be angry. If we aren’t angry about the things that are taking place in our world today, we are not paying attention, or worse, we don’t care. But the anger that is so ubiquitous today is one that is far too often misplaced. It is an anger that is turned towards one another rather than the problems that we face.
People are living within systems that too often perpetuate injustices, trapping people in difficult lives and dehumanizing them. Instead of working to reform those systems, we too often turn on one another and blame one another. We focus our anger on those who we believe are out to take something from us, and that anger is now eating us alive.
The symbol of our times is, increasingly, a pointed finger or a shaking fist, but what if it was instead that of arms open wide in a willing embrace? Imagine if we opened our arms, our lives, and our hearts to one another. Imagine if, instead of yelling in anger at one another, we simply stood, with arms open wide, ready to embrace one another, no matter how different we might be?
Every parent knows there is a time to embrace their child. When a child falls down and suffers an injury, we wrap our arms around them and hold them. We don’t yell at them, we don’t lecture them, and we don’t scold them, because that is not what they need in that moment. We comfort them. We reassure them. We tell them it will be all right.
Jesus opened his arms in an embrace of all people. He wept over the city of Jerusalem, saying through his tears that if you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes(Luke 19:41-42). We still do not seem to know what will bring us peace. We too often believe that violence will bring peace. We have opposing groups in the streets, armed with weapons, as though such weapons could ever bring peace.
The only weapon to use against violence, anger, and hatred is the loving embrace of one another. It is neither an accident nor happenstance that Jesus was crucified with his arms stretched open wide. The Romans might have seen that as a more effective way to inflict suffering, but what they did not know was the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross was a perfect symbol for his life, his ministry, and his death.
When we fail to embrace one another, the jar of clay that is humanity begins to crack a bit more, and the treasure held within begins to seep out, spilling into the ground, and becomes increasingly difficult to recover.
3. Stop attacking one another and start attack the problems.
We too often fail to understand that others are not the enemy. It is, sadly, a tragedy that our language increasingly expresses our belief that others are indeed the enemy. In politics – and even in religion – we hear people talk of the need to defeatothers, or of the need to vanquishthem, as though they were an army of invaders rather than our brothers and our sisters. We are all God’s children, which make us one family, and yet here we are in these times, seeing one another as enemies. Lest we forget, Jesus told us we are to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44), and when we love our enemies, it is impossible for them to remain so defined. But in political halls and even in pulpits across our land we hear words of attack on one another rather than upon the problems we face.
The systems of power pit us against one another, in ways that we do not always realize or understand or even see. The systems of power, and economics, have created neighborhoods where people are deemed as suspicious simply because they live there. Sometimes, we ask why people don’t move from those neighborhoods, but we do not realize the way that economic systems trap people in neighborhoods and in the problems those systems have created.
When we attack one another, rather than our problems, the jar of clay that is humanity begins to crack a bit more, and the treasure held within begins to seep out, spilling into the ground, and becomes increasingly difficult to recover.
4. Stop fearing one another and start loving one another.
We are told to be afraid of those who will take away what we have, or to be afraid of those who will keep us from getting what we want. We are told to fear those who look, think, or believe differently from us. Those false proclamations about others seep into our hearts and minds, so much so that when we see those who are different from us, we react instinctively in fear. We cross the street to the other side to avoid them and stay away from certain neighborhoods, allowing that fear to widen the chasms between us. Without realizing it, our fears, spoken or unspoken, are passed on to succeeding generations, allowing fear to transmit like a virus even more threatening than the one that has enveloped our world. The end result is that we become too far apart to see just how alike we really are.
Why are we so afraid of those who are different from us? Why must we insist that everyone become as we think they should be? The truth is, we might look, think, and believe differently, but we all love our families. We all want to be free. We all want to pursue a life that will allow us to provide for our families. But when we begin to close the chasms between us, those forces of fear intervene, themselves fearing that if we see how much we are alike, they will no longer be able to exploit us for their own gain.
When we fail to stop fearing one another, and begin loving one another, the jar of clay that is humanity begins to crack a bit more, and the treasure held within begins to seep out, spilling into the ground, and becomes increasingly difficult to recover.
On Wednesday, Tanya and I received a card in the mail from a friend. The card is printed with an excerpt from the final words of Congressman John Lewis, titled Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation. Congressman Lewis was also an ordained minister, and his words carry the cadence of a great sermon.
Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.
When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21stcentury, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.
Let us pledge that we will be people of reconciliation as Paul charged us to be (II Corinthians 5:18-21); let us pledge to be people of peace and love, as Jesus charged us to be; and in so doing, may the jar of clay
created by God contain fewer cracks and thus hold tighter to the treasure that God has placed therein, and in doing so, fix what is broken.
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