English Language Sermon – May 11, 2008

“Garland for Ashes” (Isaiah 61:1-4)

May 11, 2008 – Mother’s Day/Easter 7

Jocelyn Wilson, Student Intern

In the gospel of Luke chapter four Jesus is in Nazareth at synagogue where he is presented with a scroll to read aloud. Christ stood up and read the words we just heard from Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he as anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (v. 21).

This is the Good News.

Last Sunday I looked up at the baptismal and the portrayal of Christ and I interpreted this image within the context of Christ’s proclamation in Luke 4. Christ, arms open and outstretched, is surrounded by the suffering – the oppressed, the spiritually blind, the captives – he had come to bring them good news. I looked at this image and saw that the people are suffering so much that they do not even have the strength to stand. They are gripping and they are clinging to Christ as he stands strong in their midst.

What the Good News gives to them is hope for a new day. They are gripping and they are clinging to hope.

Hope. It seems so simple but in a world in which we will inevitably suffer, hope is powerful. The gospel kind of hope let’s us know that God is with us when we suffer, God is on our side when we are oppressed, and God seeks to give us sight when we are the oppressor. Now it can make us feel uncomfortable to say that God takes sides but God most assuredly is not neutral. Christ did not come to make the powerful more powerful or the rich richer. Christ while forgiving, receiving, and reconciling himself to all wants to be black-and-white about what he stands for. So as he proclaims in Luke 4 and as we see here in this image, Christ takes a stand in the midst of the suffering who grip and cling to him. This is not to say that the powerful and the rich and the oppressors do not suffer or that Christ is not with them also, but only that when they receive the Good News which fills them with hope they have to be willing to stand with the poor and the oppressed as Christ did.

James Cone, a theologian whose offerings to the Christian faith often get overlooked because of the controversy of his popular character, has said “no one can be liberated until all are liberated.” We cannot escape God’s grace but lack of liberation effects how we interact as participants in community locally, globally and everywhere in between. When we unite as a liberated people who speak out against any powers that attempt to oppress in any form then we are able to come together in reconciliation, in love, and in peace. But when we attempt to unite as a powerful people together with an oppressed people we are unable to have genuine reconciliation with one another. Ultimate power possessed by any one person, or one group, or one country, always, always, always means that someone else is getting oppressed. The only way ultimate power can be ascertained is by stealing it and maintaining the system that enables it to be stolen and hoarded. This is oppression.

Right now in Burma a cyclone has devastated an already devastated region and people. A U.S. diplomat has recently estimated that the death toll could reach as high as 100,000; 100,000 human beings. The response of the military junta in power has been slow and lacking. Lack of clean water, the risk of epidemic disease, and food shortages aggrievated after the cyclone destroyed crops has only piled suffering on top of suffering for the people in Burma. In the meantime, the military junta is attempting to move forward with a constitutional referendum which would make permanent the military government which has oppressed the people of Burma for many generations.

Paw Naw, a Karen woman who worships with us and whom has given me authority to share her story, was one of many oppressed by this military government. Poe Clee and I went to visit Paw Naw one afternoon. It was raining that day and almost immediately after I sat down Paw Naw began to share the story of the birth of her daughter:

It was raining in the refugee camp the day her daughter was born. The military government attacked their camp that day forcing the entire camp to uproot and to run. Paw Naw told me that as they ran, literally, as they ran she gave birth to her daughter. She delivered the baby herself. She said she knew what to do because she had delivered her previous children and she explained to me with the expertise of a nurse the birthing process of a child. After the baby was born, and she was born healthy, they continued to run. I asked her how long she ran. I was thinking a few days maybe but Paw Naw said that they ran not for two days but for two months. For two months Paw Naw, her newborn daughter, her other children, and the rest of the camp ran from the military government. Everytime it rains Paw Naw remembers that day.

So today I do not feel uneasy saying that God takes a stand with the oppressed. God is not the force leading the military government to oppress the people. God stood with that camp the day Paw Naw and her children ran giving them the hope to keep running for two months. I can imagine that they could barely walk from their suffering like the people in the image above the baptismal but they kept moving forward with Christ gripping and clinging to the hope they had in him; hope for a new day. Maybe they remembered his words, “The Spirit of the Lord … has sent me … to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (v. 18). This is brilliant. That Christ would transcend into eternity but leave us with the irresistible presence of His Holy Spirit. This is brilliant because in our gripping and clinging to this irresistible presence when we are suffering, when it feels we can do nothing else but grip and cling to this presence, we move forward into that future into that hopeful eternity that Christ has promised to us. “Today,” Christ said, “this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (v. 21). This is brilliant because we have to do nothing else but cling to Christ.

The Spirit of Truth likely stood with the military government those two months as well but it was likely urging them to transform and to take a stand with the oppressed. The Spirit of Truth was offering them sight. As Christ said, “I have come to give sight to the blind.”

And today – on Mother’s Day – as we honor and uplift the women in our lives, we all remember that women as a community also have been oppressed and abused in the past and we all know that women continue to be oppressed and abused today by governments and powers for sure but also, and unfortunately, by those within their own homes.

The prophet Isaiah says in chapter 61 verse three “the spirit of the Lord God has anointed me … to comfort those who mourn in Zion—to give them a garland instead of ashes.” Today, as Eh Kalu Htoo and Ngwe Kyi sing the hymn of response, Dear Mom, I invite you to come forward and pick up your garland, your hope for a new day, and to leave your ashes here at the table. If you don’t feel you have any ashes to leave behind, then I invite you to take a stand for someone else who is suffering.

So today as we honor and edify women, and today as we remember the people in Burma, and today as we remember our own suffering and the suffering of others, we don’t suppress our suffering as the military government of Burma suppresses the suffering of the people. The military government of Burma maintains its power by denying and suppressing the suffering of the people. If we interpret that image of Christ through the eyes of the military government then we would not see a Christ standing with and in the midst of the suffering, but a Christ who blindly walks through and over the suffering to get more power. It is our joy that we know a Christ who although he is sovereign and the possessor of all genuine power gets glory through the destruction of our fetters; from our triumph, through suffering by way of hope, to a new day.

But we do not stay in the suffering either. Today we recognize that it is important to acknowledge the suffering and to take a stand with those who suffer but then, but then we celebrate.

We celebrate the Good News. We celebrate the irresistible Holy Spirit that gives us the hope we need so much right now; that Spirit of Truth that whispers to us in the midst of our suffering and in the midst of our oppression:

“Yes, you can”

“Don’t give up”

“Today is a new day”

So as we come forward to retrieve our flowers we acknowledge the suffering, we take a stand against the oppression, and we celebrate a God who would trade us garland for ashes.

So now I invite you to come forward as Eh Kalu Htoo and Ngwe Kyi sing Dear Mom , retrieve your flowers and leave behind your ashes. If you do not have any ashes to leave behind right now, I ask that you, as you are able, would stand up while others retrieve their flowers and stand with those who do suffer and who do mourn.

Sermon for the Installation of Rev. Rony Reyes, Sunday, March 30, 2008

GOD’S HOLY MOUNTAIN

Rev. Dr. David Andersen

Pastor Emeritus, First Baptist Church of Greater Toledo

Galatians 3:23-29, Isaiah 25:6-10 (Other references: Isaiah 56:1-8, 2:2-3, 9:9)

The first time I visited Chicago as a college student looking at seminaries to attend, I fell in love with it. Never has that love for this city faded. I chose Northern Seminary, partly because of its proximity to Chicago; I worked at Marshall Field’s part time as a student; and I met my wife in Chicago.

The first church I served after graduating from seminary was in Joliet, Illinois, which enabled continued forays into the city. I then served churches in West Virginia, Michigan and Ohio, but because my wife’s family lived in Chicago, we continued our visits to the city, and always when updating my personnel profile, sent by the denomination to search committees of churches looking for a pastor, I included Chicago as a geographic preference.

Nothing ever happened, but here I am today in Chicago, preaching at the installation service for Rony Reyes, my young former associate at the last church I pastured before retiring. Rony is living my dream. How did this happen? It is like the son fulfilling the dreams of the father, and I am overjoyed, but it is not just because Rony is living my dream, it is because I believe there is no better fit in heaven than what has the potential for being in this new relationship between a pastor and a church. It is as though God has played matchmaker in bringing you together and I am delighted this morning to serve as one of the groomsmen, a witness to the formalizing of this unique bond between pastor and people.

Rony needs the challenge this church will give him, and this church needs the love and sensitivity Rony will bring to you as your pastor. And I am blessed to know that somehow that dream I dreamed as a young man was perhaps not all whimsical fantasy but helped in the end to connect me to a bigger dream, God’s dream that we on earth give form to His kingdom in heaven. You as a church and Rony as a minister have in each of your lives separately incarnated this dream of God and now, together, you can expand upon it and grow it.

And what is this dream? Isaiah, almost more than any other Biblical writer, is able to visualize this dream of God’s. He dreamed God’s dream. He saw what God intended and willed to be for all creation, and Isaiah knew that nothing could separate us from this dream, dreamed by God for His creation, the dream that we might be one even as God the Father and God the Son are one.

Some have called the Book of Isaiah the fifth gospel and it has been as such for me. Next to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, it has had the greatest influence upon my life as a Christian and understanding what it is to be a member of Christ’s Kingdom. If you were to ask me what is it Christ enables to be through is life, death and resurrection, I would answer it is the fulfillment of the dreams and vision Isaiah records over and over in his book, visions revealed to him by God, waiting to be fulfilled in the last time but even now breaking in upon us because of the generosity of Jesus Christ who when we accept Him makes all things new and shows us a new creation.

And what are the particulars of this dream that can’t wait and is even now coming to be and we are privileged to see, concretely, in the life and work of this congregation right here at North Shore Baptist Church? Let me repeat in for you in the words of Isaiah.

It is a dream of a Holy Mountain. It is a dream where people of all nations gather together. It is a dream where the shroud that has blinded people from truly seeing one another has been lifted and we see each other as we really are, children of God. It is a dream where all the tears caused by injustice, war, hunger, disease, and prejudice are whipped away. It is a dream where we no longer hurt one another. It is a dream where the Lord Himself will be our host and He will prepare for all of us a feast of rich food and well-aged wine.

This is the dream and Isaiah, repeats it over and over throughout his book, reaching for one image and then another to help us understand its fullness. In one version of it he writes about the foreigner who comes to settle with the people of God but fears, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people,” but the Lord says, “No, I will bring you to my holy mountain and make you joyful in my house of prayer.” No one is to be left out.

But the eunuch, the one excluded from the Temple worship because of how his sexuality was perceived says, “I am just a dry tree.” But the Lord says, “No, I will give you in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give you an everlasting name.”

On this Holy Mountain nations are brought together, differences that use to divide now become diversity that is celebrated, and all those who once felt themselves left out are now given an everlasting name more precious than any other name. They are to be called sons and daughters of God.

The vision of Isaiah is the vision of things coming. It is the vision of God’s intent for all creation. But, and this is important, it is not just a vision of what will be for already we see it coming to pass and it is happening in our midst and we see it here, we see it now, we see it among the people of North Shore Baptist Church.

When I was a student in seminary and so in love with the city of Chicago, the American Baptist church that most connected to my cosmopolitan sense of the city was the North Shore Baptist Church. To me it epitomized the metropolitan church in the city. I was struck by the majesty of your architecture, so stately and strong. I absorbed the sense of your storied history and looked in admiration upon those who were your pastors. It was for me a grand church in a grand city, but through the decades as your own history has evolved, what I began to see was something even grander. What I began to see was not only a church in the city, but a church that mirrored the kingdom of God.

I see in you Isaiah’s vision coming true. I see in your multiple congregations an early incarnation of what awaits us in heaven. I see what awaits us at the end of all time. I see in you a living visualization of God’s Holy Mountain where all people, all nations are given a name above all names that unites us to one another, the name of son or daughter of God.

How did this happen? How did you become this one people encompassing so many people from so many different lands and nations? How did it happen that even before the time when God will be all in all that I see God’s kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven? It has happened because of Jesus. What was a vision for Isaiah has become possible in Jesus Christ. In His word and in His Spirit dwelling in us what was far off is no longer so distant and what once seemed only a like a dream has become a reality as week by week, an Anglo congregation, a Japanese congregation, a Hispanice congregation, a Karen people, a Afro American people gather in one place to worship one and the same Living God.

Jesus makes it possible and from the day the church was born at Pentecost, in ever widening circles, beginning first in Jerusalem and then in Samaria, and then to the Gentiles, including an Ethiopian Eunuch and a Roman centurion named Cornelius, and then to the farthest reaches of the world, in an ever widening fellowship we have come to know what Paul meant when he wrote in Galatians, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” It is enough to make a Baptist shout “Amen.” Amen?

And now, today, to help lead you closer to that Holy Mountain, you are installing Rony Reyes as one of the pastors of North Shore Baptist Church.

Why am I so enthused about this new relationship between a pastor and a people? It is because from the first day I met Rony it seems to me the vision of Isaiah is what has radiated through his life and now he comes to join a people who share the same vision.

The first day I met Rony was in an interview at First Baptist Church of Greater Toledo where I was pastor. He was applying for a position in our church. He sat in the room in a coat and tie and answered questions from the committee. He was from a Pentecostal background. We were an American Baptist congregation. He was from Guatemala. Our heritage was Anglo. Yet, at the end of the day, after interviewing all the candidates, it was Rony we were drawn to.

Over the next two years Rony and I had many long discussions, we worked together, and eventually Hope joined the staff as well, and we prayed together. Early on I remember one discussion in which Rony spoke of the similarities in Pentecostalism to the Orthodox Church and its focus on the Holy Spirit. I was impressed and thought to myself this is not the narrowness I had associated with Pentecostalism and realized I was the one with the narrower view. Rony has an inquiring mind that has led him not only through the corridors of evangelical scholarship, but down pathways carved out by liberationist theologians and into an exploration of his own heritage in the study of Mayan spirituality. I am sure this inquiry mind and questing spirit will flourish in Chicago.

At the center of his self, in his spirit, Rony has a pastoral nature that places healing and caring above judgmentalism and condemnation. He bridges the divide between ethnic groupings, social classes and theological diversity. In short, Rony is in his person what North Shore Baptist seeks to be in its mission, worship and fellowship as a church.

It is to me more than coincidence that has brought you together. It is, I believe, a match made in heaven, and in the relationship I have shared with Rony, the bond between us, transcending barriers of age and ethnicity and theological persuasion, and when I look at this church, incarnating so much of Isaiah’s vision, I realize as well, heaven is not so far away. Rays of light are shining through and that light is in this church.

God is not quiet, but even while we await His final coming, already we see his appearing in this church and daily as we pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” our prayer is being answered, Isaiah’s vision fulfilled, our oneness in Jesus Christ revealed.

I see it in this church, and I see this same spirit in Rony Reyes and I am delighted, overjoyed, God has brought you together.

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory of our oneness in Jesus Christ. Amen.