Sermons

…and We Won’t Be Silent Anymore!

Well, first things first, Happy Epiphany to you all. Now, even in church, the twelve days of Christmas are over, and we enter a new season, a new liturgy. So we begin with a story from early in my 12-step recovery: I met India, a young woman who seemed to have it all figured out — the steps, the slogans, the secret to staying sober and growing up without completely losing your sense of humor. She would throw out these pearls of wisdom like: 

* Keep Coming Back. * It Works If You Work It. * Progress, Not Perfection. * Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes. * First Things First. 

I was impressed. She sounded like a sage — or at least like someone who had cracked the code. And I was desperate to crack the code, so I would have coffee with her and learn what I could. 

Later, she confessed, with a grin, that these weren’t so much spiritual revelations as they were… bumper stickers. Literal bumper stickers. That was her whole method. Keep it simple, she said. Ten years clean and sober, powered by bumper sticker theology. 

I laughed, but honestly? I get it now. 

Some people have mantras. Some people have meditations. I have those, and I also have… memes. 

I collect them, I send them out as texts, and on a good day, I might unleash a flurry of five in a row. (I have a library on my phone) This past week, though, the meme muse has been quiet. Like many things in life — if you give memes, you get memes — and the energy just wasn’t circulating. I am pretty sure why. Yet I had this on in my library from right after Christmas. It was a drawing of the classic Three Kings on camels following Yonder Star, and it says… 

“Civil disobedience lies at the heart of the Epiphany story. The Magi receive an unjust order from a vindictive tyrant. Instead, they defy him. May we do likewise.” 

They arrive in Jerusalem asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” That question lands like a spark in dry grass. King Herod, who already sits uneasily on his throne, hears it as a threat. He calls the magi in secretly, feigns interest, and tells them, “Go and search carefully for the child; when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 

The Magi set out again, the star guiding them to Bethlehem, where they find Mary and the child. They bring gifts, and as they are leaving, they are warned in a dream not to return to Herod; they take another road home, an act of defiance. Herod, realizing he’s been tricked, responds with rage. He orders the destruction (Murder) of every boy under two in Bethlehem in a desperate attempt to extinguish a light he cannot control. 

The magi disappear from the story, their mission complete. But their part in it lingers — travelers who followed a star, recognized truth when they saw it, and refused to obey a tyrant. Epiphany isn’t just about stars and gifts. It’s about seeing clearly and having the courage to act differently once you do. 

What has happened in my hometown of Minneapolis has left me grasping for a new word, something between being heart sick and enraged. Early this week, I was sure the Norwegians must have one. I just don’t speak Norwegian. The murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis happened less than half a mile from where I lived for over ten years. It was my neighbourhood, and Rennee Good and her family would have been part of my community if we had lived there at the same time. So her murder, the murder of Keith Porter in Northridge, Los Angeles, CA, at the hands of masked ICE agents, has left me with all sorts of feelings. I am heart-sick, grief-stricken, rageful, disillusioned, grasping for solidarity. It is a brew that feels like a holy ache in my bones. Later on, I remembered that the biblical narrative gives it to me, the word is Lament. 

In my life, I have had some real dark nights of the soul, those 3 am moments when you are up, walking the rooms of your home, knowing that something is being called from you and agonizing over what it might be. What I have done, and what I have left undone. I have never moved past those feelings without bringing them into my trusted community, into the light of day, and holding them in lament with others. 

With my friend India and her bumper stickers, I was able to talk about the reasons that I misused drugs, including alcohol. She helped me figure out a way to apply 12-step principles to reshape my world. Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes. It was in community that I could be more real, less myopic, and less self-centered. Perhaps you have seen that for yourselves. 

The baptism of Jesus that we hear gives us the theological underpinnings of true community. It is the first, clearest, and most explicit revelation of all three persons of God together, we have Jesus, that fleshy, very human divine person on earth. We have the holy spirit dove showing herself above Christ and God’s voice booming out in all its Godness. God works in community, and we are called to it as well. That is why we circle around this altar, why we eat and drink together, hoping for that touch of the divine spark to fuel us for another week. Hoping that the weight we carry of lament, of joy, is always better handled together. 

Jesus is called Beloved, and we are too. We are called to continue naming the broken things in the world for our community and other communities, and to stand in solidarity. Like the protest song by Yaa Allen. It’s a call and response. 

Somebody’s hurting my brother & it’s gone on far too long. 

Gone on far too long, gone on far too long. 

Somebody’s hurting my brother & it’s gone on far too long. And we won’t be silent anymore! 

Our foundation is a story of going against unjust powers, standing with the stranger, and calling out brokenness. It is what Jesus does in our testaments; it is what the kings did for him, it is what this season of Epiphany is for, and if we claim to follow all of that, we can be silent. We must show up, we must make calls, we must pray, we must pray with our feet, and not be idle in the face of an admin who is putting untrained, armed men on the streets, kidnapping people. 

“Civil disobedience lies at the heart of the Epiphany story. The Magi receive an unjust order from a vindictive tyrant. Instead, they defy him. May we do likewise.”