Unity, inclusion and remembrance - Ephesians 2 - Proper 11B

Unity, inclusion and remembrance 

Tony E Hansen

Sermon based upon Ephesians 2:11-22

Opening prayer 

The letter to Ephesus states “ you are no longer strangers and aliens but you are fellow citizens with the saints “

Why this is important is because we were separated from God once ourselves as aliens and “strangers to the covenants of promise…”

This is a call to unity, to be inclusive, as well as to remembrance.

Unity is a word that folks throw around when people wants others to simply fall in line. Yet unity is not just everyone think the same or talking the same. Unity is an essence of people that seeks to identify who we are , what we do , where we live and what we wear.

People do this all the time but instead of unity folks use such to divide into camps - us vs them - you vs me. That division then separates more than just people but communities, schools, families and yes churches . 

Rather than finding what is common and good in us people seek to identify what is different and then use that as a wedge to get further apart.

The result can be and has been catastrophic, holocausts and destructive.

This letter to Ephesus wants to unite a fractured and divided church and a divided community- much like what we witness today.

Our community is divided so much that people admonish And prepare violence in order to settle disagreements. Some like the shooter at the rally see violence as the only means to solve this division.

Rather than allowing people to have different opinions or ideas, voices tell us to de-humanize and belittle them instead of learning from them.

Yes, our community is divided with monster barriers rising to make it even more difficult to see the people on the other sides. We have many ways to exclude whether by class, immigration, status, race, orientation, or gender or make up any reason and make it stick.

Yet, God made all of us children with rights and privileges. God wants us to celebrate those uniqueness  not use them against each other. 

For love is blind to differences because love is a gift from God. We must lean into our faith that God know the plan better than we think we do.

Who among us can say otherwise and be truthful?

So yes, Paul calls upon us to remember our history. Times when people struggled to be included or to be a part of the community.

God calls us to remember the gifts we have been given and for us to share them - rather than to hoard them or exclude.

For people speak many languages, have unique cultures,- look different, dress different, and express love in unique ways. These are beautiful expressions of God and of God’s love.

I see this so well in the faces of the youth and the mentors of Dream Team, of volunteers of UBFM as well as the people we serve on the streets. I hear the beautiful expression from the voices of the Gay Men’s Chorus and witness the inclusive welcome in the Interfaith Alliance.

That is because in each of these is a place where people can be the beautiful expression that God has given them. Each of these is a safe place for that expression to flourish , to reveal the gifts they have been given - so that we might also learn from them for how we might use our gifts.

This is also a remembrance - for those who came before us- those who were denied and told not today- those who were deprived of love because broken human baggage.

The letter to Ephesus is an acknowledgment that history has had moments that did not show humanity at its best- where God’s love seemed distant. Yet that is not a reason why we today ought to continue such distance from grace. 

The remembrance reminds us that people picked up and grew together despite obstacles, hills to climb or prejudices. People grew together as a church and as a community when we become more than division- when we include - that is unity. 

The remembrance then is also to keep that in mind when we look forward.

We are no longer aliens from each other but fellow citizens and children of God.

That is…

Thanks be to God

Should I Forgive - Mark 5 (w 2 Samuel 1) - Proper 8B

Should I Forgive?

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Reflection based upon Mark 5: 21-43, 2 Samuel 1:1-27

Opening Prayer

The lesson today involves two different woman with few details other than their particular conditions. 

First, a young daughter who is sick and dying and her family has some privilege to be able to call upon Jesus for help. Second is a woman who has a condition that causes her to be isolated from society and questions whether to even try to ask for help.  

Of the second, we know this because the purity laws of the time discarded people with disease to the outskirts of civilization. People were ignored, forgotten, isolated and yes discarded for nothing more than have a health condition, like hemorrhaging. 

There is an action by this woman, who I am sure has a face, pretty hair, soul-full eyes and laughs (when she could) with “can-do” attitude.

“If I but touch his clothes…”

This act of reaching is truly faith that something good will happen. 

The response is to bless and to acknowledge that faith has made her strong and well.

Of the first, people around the young daughter say she is gone, lost and should be discarded. Jesus shouldn’t be troubled. Yet Jesus goes to her, reaches to her. 

Jesus brings life into being both by faith to simply touch and despite the lack of faith that can (often does) surround people.

For us there are questions that rise from these. 

1) Who in our lives do we cast aside, forget, isolate, push away, discard, whom deserve something else?

2) Who in our lives should we forgive that deserve our forgiveness and why? 

3) Who in our lives should we forgive where we have been hurt and torn and why should we forgive?

These are questions for us to consider of the people we see around us (familial, friends or passing by on the street). These are questions for us to consider for the people we have met, the people in our lives, relationships that have gone amuck even when pain or heartbreak has been, or is the current, the result.

Of that, a wise Master once gave me a rule about relationships that I think works here: “Shame me once, shame on you; shame me twice, shame on me.” He followed that up to say we can and should be willing to forgive, just as Jesus teaches.  

Yet, if the folly persists, we have not learned, we have not understood, we (as in I) have let boundaries drop that should have been kept. Yet in these instances, one should not allow the self to be made fools again. Even then, we can forgive, but our actions from there must change because we should not live with more folly. 

Learn from our mistakes unless we mean to be more a fool.

We can stand in witness to the power of two people that rise to immense challenges and find purpose with each, like in the story of David and Jonathan. Their bond is so powerful and intense. This funeral eulogy in 2 Samuel that David gives is heart wrenching but beautiful expression of love.

That story is characterized depending upon how one wears glasses the day they read it. Clearly to me, this bond is love, and one that cannot be denied. This love should (and does) give people hope, especially those whom celebrate “pride” this weekend. 

Many (I personally) have wishes for such love.

It is proposed by Midrash writers that David’s decision-making is profoundly impacted by the loss of Jonathan as David attempts to fill that. 

Who can deny someone’s pain and loss because we all know grief? How can we help those around us also in grief so that they are not isolated, alone or withdrawing?

Loss doesn’t just happen when a person dies, but when something happens that blows up “perfect” relationships into shattered pieces of heart as well as painful torments. 

Standing, looking at the pieces of once beautiful idea and work but now,  trying to figure out the path forward.

A question one might consider is whether we loved the relationship or the person.  

If we love the person, then what we could do to repair might be considered - if the other person will repair as well. Does pain, or ego, prevent reconciling damage? Does pain or ego prevent our understanding of what happened or what should be done next?

You cant avoid truths or pain - all emotional / physical pain take time to heal. Work and faith are needed when trust ruined and boundaries smashed.

Ego is rarely reliable helper making decisions. Further, decisions with pain or doing so with haste make bad situations worse (exception where emotional and physical safety is threatened.)

Yet, these women along with David and Jonathan provide perspective.

Are there people around us that feel isolated and hurt? I guarantee yes. What can you do? Let the spirit guide you.

Do I forgive? Jesus tells us, not just once, twice or seven times, but 70000 times -> Always. 

Our hearts must be willing to forgive always for that allows the spirit to work in us, to heal us that are hurting, and to help find options going forward. As long as we are listening to the still-speaking spirit, listen for that path. 

As one mentor described, that response may be a “holy no,” but it is truthful worth considering. Take time, digest what has happened and know that one does not have to do this alone or hastily.

The courageous act of a faithful woman tells us there is possible; there is a blessing to have.

The courageous act of faithful family to be with Jesus brought possible into being, despite the naysayers. 

The story of David and Jonathan tell us that love is love: a powerful force between people.

Then, that is, with Jesus, possible is possible, and with faith in Jesus’s love that possible is powerfully possible. 

Thanks be to God. 

What Does the Kingdom Look Like - Mark 4 - Proper 6B

What does the Kingdom look like

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Reflection based upon Mark 4: 26-34, Psalm 92, and Ezekiel 17:22-24

Opening prayer

Jesus asks, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God?” He tells us about the life of a mustard seed that grows from such a tiny seed into a tree that is the greatest of all. 

And so it is with God, to scatter seeds and wait in patience for the garden and shrub to rise.

For me as a gardener, the parables illustrate an aspect of God’s vision, or plan, and the attitude that God conveys.

Let me start first with the attitude. 

I threw seeds in a part of my garden and waited an entire year before anything besides weeds grew. Yet, this year, I go out and find the mix of wildflowers. 

I have planted roses and watched a couple struggle. With diligence, love and care, the roses made it, and they produce vibrant colors today.

This year, we have a guest family that decided the bottom of our shed was a great new home. They have decided to help themselves to some newer plants. Hopefully, I will see plants come back, and maybe, the rabbits find new homes.

This patience, this hopefulness, this caring, this diligence and this labor of love are part of this attitude. The gardener, God, has this for you, me and even the people we disagree.

The vision.

I as a gardener, usually have a vision. It may be loose for something’s like the wildflowers or more specific like the roses. That plan has to be fairly flexible, given not all weather is great, not all seeds grow the way I want and, of course, homemaker rabbits.

I have to think this is similar for God, although I don’t what the actual plan is. Yet from Genesis to beyond, God set forth something universal, mystical and full of love with hope beyond our comprehension.

Thing is that God wants our participation. Not just throwing seeds. There is desire for community and love in us. 

It is said that forests will communicate with each through roots and the soil. All mechanisms to help foster grow of community of trees and plants as well as people and animals. Yet, we as people and animals can use our voice and our expression of the God-given love and presence with family, friends and yes even enemies.

That is a root of the Ezekiel passage and the teachings of Jesus in Mark. The first shall be last, the last shall be first. “I will dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. “

Even a cat can share some of God’s grace, and our house thanks Marquis for all that he demonstrated of that. 

Jesus’s parable invokes a measure of pain and loss with the images of the sickle in harvest. I submit that is because to live is not avoiding pain but understanding that life involves pain and suffering. 

This may be what the Buddha invokes in the Four Noble Truths. Life may, itself, be suffering, and the fact that we feel means we can, and should, respect all life and the emotions that come with living. 

There are paths beyond suffering and pain through how we live and how we pray.

Yet, life is not just about suffering, and suffering is definitely not a reward for abuse. 

Although as mortals, we cannot escape suffering. There is no amount of alcohol, drugs, withdrawal, violence we inflict or complaining we do that can change that. Struggles and suffering happen. 

We can live and help others to live through those struggles. There, we can see past our own lives of privilege and blessings to help others around us find some for themselves, whether youth needing direction, a homeless mother, a queer adolescent looking for identity and safe space, or American Native hoping for simple respect. 

With God, there is hope - beyond the struggle - for you - a seed that has been planted. There is an attitude and a vision for you as one of those seeds.

I often hear people talking about this “vision-plan”, and I will admit, I don’t know what exactly God saw when planting us. Yet, I disagree with folks saying that anyone with a cheap prayerbook might screw up this design. 

I know that having my father in my life was grace even though I endured suffering and pain of his loss. Perhaps, it would have been better to not endure the loss of my cats, Mr Snuggles and Marquis (or any pet), but life was/is so much the better with them being in our lives.

“I could have missed the pain, but I’d had to miss the dance.” (Garth Brooks)

It isn’t about what I want (or what pain I could avoid). It is much bigger than myself. It is about what God gives us and what we do with it.

God, the gardener, has more than a vision, but desires for those involved to share their colors, their unique aspects, their life as family and children of God. God wants to see us flourish with these gifts of love, compassion, and justice. 

We flourish by sharing those gifts. For those who hoard grace, wealth and privilege are certain to lose it. 

Thus, this “kingdom” is not about power and privilege. It is not about honor seats at the table.

God’s kingdom is for all God’s children because “All truly are welcome here.” 

Give thanks!

When you give thanks and sing praises to that sacred Name, remember your part. Your family and neighbors, far and close, also deserve that. 

That love and devotion is for you and for me to grow and flourish together.

So Beloved, Is that the kingdom you were looking for ?  If so, step this way…

Thanks be to God