The Whisper of Hope

Why do many churches celebrate Memorial Day during Sunday morning worship? It doesn't seem to belong there. Maybe it has something to do with sacrifice, the presence of God, and hope...

Memorial Day is a day when Christianity and the ways of the world crash headlong into one another. We cannot escape the reality that at the heart of Memorial Day is war: violent, bloody, and destructive. On the other hand, at the heart of Christianity is Jesus’ way of peace. The two simply don’t fit together. That’s why many churches don’t give Memorial Day even a nod during their worship on this last Sunday in May. Memorial Day isn’t a church holiday. It has nothing at all to do with Jesus. And Christians already have a day when they remember the saints who have gone on to glory: All Saints’ Day, which we celebrate on the first Sunday in November.

Why, then, include Memorial Day in our worship? It’s a good question. Christians are called to renounce violence in all of its forms; and Memorial Day recalls some of the worst bloodshed in human history. Names like Chickamauga, Flanders Fields, the Battle of the Bulge, Midway, and the Tet Offensive send a chill up our spine. But even as we remember those names and deplore the violence that is associated with them, we also recall the sacrifices that were made during those bloody conflicts. The men and women that we remember on Memorial Day laid down their lives for a cause that was far bigger than they were.

Some of you may be familiar with the letter that Major Sullivan Ballou of the 2^nd Rhode Island wrote to his wife Sarah before the first battle of Bull Run. Filmmaker Ken Burns highlighted this very letter in his epic series on the American Civil War. Here is what Major Ballou had to say: “Indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps to-morrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battle-field for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged; and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution; and I am willing, perfectly willing, to lay down all my joys in this life to help to pay that debt.” Millions of other men and women have echoed his sentiments; and on Memorial Day, we give thanks for their willingness to sacrifice their lives on behalf of others whose names they would never know.

But where is God in all of this violence? The ancient Israelites had an answer. They were convinced that God not only went to war with them, but also fought on their side! You heard what Deuteronomy has to say about that in the scripture reading this morning (20:1-4). “When you go to war, don’t worry when your enemy outnumbers you and points their weapons in your direction; because God is right there fighting with you!” I’m not so sure that they're completely right about all of that. After all, everyone who goes to war believes that God is fighting on their side! Abraham Lincoln wrestled with that very issue during our American Civil War. His opinion was that, “In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. My concern is not whether God is on our side. My greatest concern is to be on God's side.” Are we on God’s side? That is a tough question to answer; and one that we should always be asking ourselves, especially when we engage in armed conflicts. Regardless of the answer, though, I am certain that God is there whenever a man or woman offers himself or herself as a soldier or a sailor or a pilot – whenever anyone puts himself or herself in harm’s way for the sake of others. The ancient Israelites got that absolutely right! Whenever someone is willing to die for others, God is certainly there, giving courage and comfort and the deep peace that comes from knowing that you are doing the right thing, no matter what the cost may be.

God is there with something else, too. God is there with hope. Oh, certainly the hopes that you will survive the battle and that your side will be victorious. But these are very human hopes. I believe that God puts another kind of hope into the hearts of those who are at war: the hope that soon, humanity will realize that war is not the answer to our problems. It is the hope that maybe the next life that is sacrificed will be the very last one. Sometimes that hope is only a whisper, especially in the heat of battle; but it is a whisper that cannot be silenced. That hope was whispering amid the musket fire at Bunker Hill. It whispered as the wind blew away the smoke from the cannons during Pickett’s Charge at the battle of Gettysburg. Hope whispered in the mud-filled trenches of World War I, and as the men waded ashore on Omaha Beach on D-Day during World War II. It whispered amid the napalm and Agent Orange in the tropical jungles of Vietnam; and it is still whispering on the dry, desert wind of Afghanistan.

Hope will never be silenced; and one day, its whisper will grow to be a thunder as men and women from every nation, region, and ethnic group demand that war stop, and with it, all of its sacrifices. There will be no more “might-have-been”s as the potential of young men and women are cut short. There will be no more grieving mothers and fathers who have to bury their children. There will be no more lonely sons and daughters who grow up with only the picture of a parent who was killed in a faraway place when they were infants. We look forward to what God promised through the prophet Isaiah: “No more shall the sound of weeping be heard, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime… for they shall be blessed by the Lord.” (Isaiah 65:19, 20, 23) We cling to that whisper of hope, not knowing when it will be a reality. And while we wait for God’s promise to come to fulfillment, we pray three things: may God protect those brave women and men who are putting their lives at risk for our sake right now; may their courage and unselfishness fill us, too; and may God’s kingdom of peace come soon. Those are my prayers. On this Memorial Day, I invite you to make them yours, too.

The Spirit's New Creation

My sermon yesterday focused not on the fire that danced upon the heads of the disciples on that first Pentecost, but on the wind that filled the room before the fire appeared. What was that wind, anyway?

The disciples assumed that everything was about to be resolved. After a shameful death on a cross, their Lord had been resurrected; and they had seen him with their own eyes! His resurrection proved that Jesus was God’s Messiah, so surely he would now restore Israel’s political power. That was, after all, what everyone expected the Messiah to do. But when Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?” he answered, “Don’t worry about that. You just sit tight and wait for the Spirit.” (Acts 1:6-9)

The disciples must have been very confused! One minute, the resurrected Christ was standing in their midst; and the next minute, he was ascending into heaven without taking any political power at all. In fact, he had only given them some vague instructions about waiting for “the Spirit.” What did that mean, anyway? What were they supposed to do now? Wait… on what? All they could do was to get together and try to understand what had just happened. They probably wondered how they could possibly go on without Jesus to lead them, and teach them, and inspire them? And then the wind blew in (Acts 2:1-4).

Imagine, for a moment, that you have just settled into the porch swing on a fine summer day with the morning newspaper, ready to tackle the daily crossword puzzle. The newspaper is in your lap and the pencil is on the table in front of you as you take one last sip of coffee. But before you can start with “1 across,” a wind kicks up. It comes out of a clear, blue sky, with no warning whatsoever: a gusty wind that sends your paper, your pencil, and your plans flying into next week. This wind isn’t just a summer breeze that fans your cheek, gently rustling the leaves on the trees. Oh, no – this wind is powerful! That’s the kind of wind that blew in on that first Pentecost.

We know that wind! We’ve seen it before. That same wind blew over the waters of chaos when the cosmos was formless and void, and God called creation into being. That wind blew into the dry bones that Ezekiel saw in a vision, and all those bones came rattling to life. Many years later, that wind blew into the womb of a young girl in Nazareth, and the Messiah was conceived. This wind is the wind of God’s Spirit; and it blows away old things and creates new ones! When it gusted into the house where Jesus’ disciples were gathered, it blew away all their expectations that Jesus would set up any kind of political kingdom. Instead, it created a new kind of community that was based not on the power of oppression and fear, but on the power of love.

That community is still with us. It includes people of every race, gender, language, and culture. Its people care not only about themselves, but about every other human being. And the only power that counts in this kingdom is the power to help others to become who God intended them to be! We call it the Church of Jesus Christ: created by God, redeemed by Jesus Christ, and re-created through the power of the Holy Spirit. And thanks be to God! The wind of the Spirit that blew the Church into existence is still blowing! It blows into old, stale congregations and breathes new life into them. It blows people out of established careers into the ministry of Jesus Christ. It blows the love of others into hearts that have cared only for themselves, and sets those hearts on fire for mission. The Church is a brand new kind of community based on love: God loves us, and through the Spirit, God has given us the ability to love one another. What a miracle this day has brought! Let’s all celebrate that miracle on this day of Pentecost!

Footnotes

It is an unhappy truth that most women who have influenced the church during its nearly 2,000 year existence are still historical footnotes regardless of their accomplishments. This sermon that was written for our annual Gifts of Women Sunday explores that fact, beginning with a woman who was nearly erased from the New Testament altogether! If you are interested in her story, read on...

Paul’s Christmas card list must have been enormous! Look at how many people he says “hello” to in the few verses of Romans that I just read (Romans 16:1-7). Just these seven verses include four women and three men; and his list goes on for a total of sixteen verses! He eventually greets nearly 30 men and women. They are all leaders in the church of Paul’s day: deacons, people who host worship in their home, church workers of various kinds, and even two “apostles.” This morning, I want to focus on just one of those people: Junia, who is mentioned in Romans 16:7. I’ve singled out Junia not because we know a lot about her. Actually, we know very little about her. Just about all that we do know is that Junia had been Jewish before she became a Christian; that she became a Christian even before Paul did; and that she was imprisoned for her Christian activities. Oh, and that she was a woman. That little bit of information has caused all kinds of problems because Paul refers to Junia as an “apostle.” Listen again to what Paul says about her: “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.”

Hmmm… That doesn’t sound right. Nobody named Junia – or Andronicus, for that matter – are listed among the twelve apostles. But that can be explained. There were more than just twelve “apostles” in the early church. An “apostle” is a technical term for someone who saw the risen Christ and then did mission work for the early Christian church. The word “apostle” literally means “someone who is sent out.” Although there were only twelve “Capital A Apostles,” there were many more “Small A apostles” who helped to spread the good news of Jesus Christ all over the Roman Empire! Junia was apparently one of these. So, what’s the problem? The problem is that Junia was a woman. That didn’t seem to bother the early Christian church at all. Christian art found in the Roman catacombs dating from the first century shows women leading worship and presiding at the sacrament of Holy Communion. But it didn’t take long for those women to be erased from the scene. By the third century, the church fathers had decided that women weren’t permitted to preach or to lead worship; and they certainly couldn’t officiate at Holy Communion!

But what were they to do with Junia? There she sat, fat and sassy, in the book of Romans, with Paul himself calling her an “apostle.” She was a real thorn in the sides of all the men who wanted to deny women a leadership role in the church! So the church fathers came up with a really creative solution. They decided that Paul must have written down the wrong name! Instead of “Junia,” (a woman’s name), he must have meant “Junius” (a man’s name). Now, there isn’t a single man named Junius in all the ancient Greek texts that exist, and there are tons of women named Junia! But that didn’t stop church leaders from removing the woman Junia from the book of Romans, and replacing her with the man Junius. And that was the way that things stayed for another 2,000 years. Junius was in, and Junia was out! Fast forward to today. Modern biblical scholars finally took a good look at Junia, they decided that she might belong in the book of Romans after all; so a footnote appeared in some Bibles (although not all) that said, “This name might be Junia instead of Junius.” Nowadays, many Bibles restore Junia to her rightful place in the book of Romans; but she still drags along a footnote at the bottom of the page that reads “the name might be Junius.” I look forward to the day when Junia has no footnote attached to her name at all. Paul clearly says that she was an apostle, and she should get the credit that she deserves for doing such an important job!

So I ask you: why has it been so hard to admit that a woman could have been a leader in the early Christian church? If history is any indicator, women have been vital for the growth of the church over the centuries. We seldom hear about them, though. They have themselves become footnotes in history books; and although their leadership has led to some great things, we almost never recognize them for what they have done. Let me give you just two examples of important women who have become footnotes. How many of you have heard of Katherine Haack? She was the first woman to be ordained as a deaconess in the Evangelical Church (one of the ancestors of our own United Church of Christ) back in 1889. She was ordained to organize and train women of the St. Louis area to care for poor people who needed medical care. A wealthy widow donated funds to rent and renovate a large home in the city. Women from all over the area helped to get that home ready to receive patients. It became the very first Deaconess Hospital. Today, Deaconess hospitals all around the country serve the needs of those who are ill – and all because of the leadership of Katherine Haack and the generosity of the women who helped her.

I’ll bet that you’ve never heard of Mary Webb, either. Mary was a member of a congregational church (another of our UCC ancestors) who lived in Boston in the early 1800s. Her heart was in mission; and she didn’t think that the church of her time was doing enough of it. So she got some women together and organized the Boston Female Society for Missionary Purposes. They were inspired by the gospel story of the widow who put one tiny coin called a “mite” into the poor box in the Temple; so each woman decided to save one cent each week to donate to missions. Pretty soon, women all over the area were joining “female cent societies” to raise money for missions; and they did! They raised lots and lots of money; and every cent went to mission work! The women of our own United Mites Fellowship are their spiritual daughters.

Maybe it’s time to move Junia, and Katherine Haack, and Mary Webb, and hundreds of women like them out of the footnotes of history. We know about all the contributions that men have made to the Church; and it’s past time that we heard about the women, too! The reality is that women and men have worked together for 2,000 years to do the work of the church. If the women flew under the radar, it was because they had to; but despite their being considered incapable or unworthy or unacceptable, women have used their gifts in service to Jesus Christ from Junia’s time until today. This morning, I invite you to give thanks for our mothers in the faith, whose love and compassion and hard work have made them far more than footnotes in the kingdom of God. Their faith is the foundation of ours.