Keep Your Lamps, In Fight Mode and Slavery is not of the Creator: A Sermon on my #SummerSupplyPreachingTour
Grace and peace to you,
My sisters,
Brothers
And
Siblings
In Christ
In Love
In Faith
And
In the fight
Towards
Transformative
Gospel rooted
Holy Spirit filled
Justice,
(pause)
That impacts
All of those
victimized
By oppression
Marginalization
And violated
Because of the systems
And the systemic racism
That has invaded
And impacted
The ways in which
We should intentionally
Without question,
Follow Jesus Christ
(pause)
Jesus, who calls to us
To love one another
As Creator
And as the Risen One
Loves us,
(pause)
Jesus,
Modeling how to express righteous rage
To flip over tables
Disrupt the toxicity of the Empire
That seeps into the hands of church leaders,
Staining everything they touch
and to dismantle
the cycles of hatred
so that we,
become
grace-giving
mercy filed
communities
Amen.
(pause)
Good morning
Wicker Park.
I am thankful
To be among you
Once more,
To share a Word
From the Triune God,
To commensurate
In our common fears,
Worries
And yes
Even anger
To gather at the Table,
To be fed
Forgiven
And then,
To actual do the work
That Jesus Christ,
Our Savior
And
Lord
Left for us.
(pause)
That’s what it means,
In that spiritual
To keep our lamps
Trimmed
And
Burning,
Because there is still a fight
Before us
(pause)
Jesus knew
Things were about to get
Beyond messy,
Because we still cannot grasp
That when Jesus called for us
To go and make disciples
He didn’t mean grow our church membership,
So, we could have country club activities,
And a shiny new organ.
(pause)
Jesus meant for us,
To take the excesses in our lives,
Bring it to the places we gather,
And feed and care for those
Who have been shut out of abundance
When sustainability is theirs by right
Simply because they too,
Are beloved of God
(pause)
Jesus knew
Humanity’s existence
Was about to be severely
Broken,
Because we are too strung out,
On what the Empire
Has been pushing into our very being
This idea,
That the only way to glory
Is by selling each other out,
Creating systems of inequality
Divisiveness
We manipulate the Word,
So that then the Creator is fashioned
Into our ideals,
Our standards,
And that we are the receivers
Of God’s reward
As 1%ers
(pause)
Jesus came,
Because humanity
Is
imperfect,
No, instead
(pause)
I think humanity,
And in this context,
Christians,
That with access to power,
With Christianity often seen as the religion of the state
Or claimed as the core of a nation
Christians,
Take on the moniker,
Of favored
And
Spoiled.
(pause)
Ironically,
When you point out in these Scriptures
What the Creator expects
Of us continuing the flow of divine harmony,
Of mirroring what prophets,
Teachers,
With what Jesus spoke to the disciples
The reality that everything in this life,
Does not belong to us
That we are called to be generous
Welcoming,
Sometimes,
The world,
And even us
Experiences the ugly part
Of those who claim to be followers
Of Jesus Christ
(pause)
They respond in defiance
Throwing tantrums
On a massive scale
Using policies to deport people en mass
While whitewashing various cultures
As a form of amusement
(pause)
There are unfortunately those,
Who when Jesus says,
“Follow me,”
Their response is
They like their status of power
They are above and beyond everyone else,
They are safe
Delusional in thinking that,
These tangible things
Will keep them
Free from experiencing
Life,
Even with all its difficulties
So all of the things that matter,
They hoard
And store up treasures
In the form of gated communities
Deforestation of lands turned into status symbols
Of opulent houses
Investing in stocks
Instead of people,
Robbing Creation of life
Especially our oceans and seas
So that they can feast and be filled
That,
That is where their bloated hearts lie
(pause)
This past week,
I joined over a thousand or so
Lutherans
As we gathered to do the work of the wider expression
Of the Church,
Of the ELCA,
And sometimes
Even that work,
Makes a soul weary
And the lamps
That are our souls
Are dying embers
Barely recognizable
(pause)
Yes,
Our Church did indeed
Speak to the issues
Of white supremacy
And
Racism,
That have been an issue
Inside are walls,
By a Declaration of Apology
To Peoples of African Descent,
To my Ancestors
And we,
Their descendants
That the ELCA has been complicit
In its silence,
Of not speaking clearly
Boldly
About these
Grievous sins.
That the wider breath of the Church,
Has ignored
Jesus’s one commandment
Of loving one another
Regardless of who we are,
Our culture
Or
Our language
And
history
(pause)
Yes,
The ELCA
Has declared itself,
A Sanctuary Denomination
Fighting
And working towards
Being that safe and sacred space
For those of our siblings,
Who are fleeing violence
And persecution,
Even when
That persecution
Is coming
From the same country
That claims
This is a place
Where the tired,
Poor
Masses
Can rest
And
Be
Free.
(pause)
And yes,
The ELCA has adopted
A strategy
Towards authentic diversity
In this Church,
So that those of us,
Who are Persons of Many Descent
Who love beautifully and differently
Are uplifted
As leaders
Whose presence
Is valued
And whose witness
And
Testimony
Is sorely
Needed.
(pause)
But,
These social statements
And declaration
This,
Public display of unity
In front of company,
Who is observing
And watching
And hoping that
We collectively keep our word
(pause)
These words on paper
Do not end
The problems we tackle daily,
(pause)
As people of faith
That does not mean,
We shift to being careless,
Banking on this
5 minutes of feel good fame moment,
That we hope will turn into
A PR Campaign
And suddenly
Just because we have put on a pristine mask,
That people will flood into these church buildings
And join us,
Because we have made our Words
Almost
Perfect
And
Blameless.
(pause)
The mistake of the wider expression of the church
As institution
Is that they allow their lamps,
Their fire
Their drive
To go out,
Simply because they feel
They have done enough.
(pause)
We passed a resolution,
Regarding a Feast Day of Repentance
Regarding the Emmanuel 9
There are people in this church,
Who think we will create the liturgy,
They will gather on June 17th
They will lament and pray,
And that will be it.
(pause)
This Church,
The ELCA
Refused to sign onto
The Poor People’s Campaign,
Oh, they don’t know!
(pause)
When I have been among you,
And I do the words of institution,
I tell you
Now that you have been fed,
LIVE OUT YOUR FAITH
DO SOMETHING.
(pause)
We cannot get weary,
When the wider Church allows those lights to flicker
And die,
We cannot get weary,
When people are afraid to do the work,
BECAUSE THEY HAVE SEEN OUR LAMPS BURNING
BECAUSE WE ARE SUPPOSED TO REVERBERATE THE HOPE
That Jesus Christ gave us all,
When He GAVE HIS LIFE!
(pause)
And because He gave of Himself,
So that we would always be eternally bonded
To the Creator God,
Dear Church,
There is WORK to be done.
Jesus prayed, taught and then did the work
So, why is the Church always against us doing the same
We gather and pray,
Before we march
Before we express our righteous rage
Before we advocate
For ALL
And not this world’s chosen few?
(pause)
We are to keep our lamps
Trimmed and burning
But not
As
Slaves.
We
Are
Not
Slaves.
Slavery is mired in violence
Degradation
Disrespect for our lives.
(pause)
As a Pastor in this Church
As your Sister in Christ
This is not how God sees us,
Therefore we as humanity
Should have never
Should ever
Treat one another as less than
As 3/5ths of a human being.
(pause)
When our lamps are flickering
In danger of going out
That is when we,
Children of God
Because of the love poured into our lamps,
We should in turn,
Fill up one another’s lamps.
(pause)
Thanks be to God
