The wind was blowing today. Not outside. It was a sunny and comfortable day way up here in the north. They’ve had below average temps for a month now, but when the preachers arrive it warms up. No comment about the collective hot air please. I’ll do the jokes.
No, the wind that was blowing today wasn’t a physical breeze, but a Spirit presence that lifted all of us higher. Well, me anyway. I have to begin this report by commenting not on the preaching (I’ll get to that, don’t panic), but the worship. It began last night, but continued all day today, a profound experience of worship that simply overwhelmed me. Maybe it was because I didn’t have to plan it and choose the words myself. Maybe it was because this is a kind of worship we don’t do at Southport and it fed a hunger in me that I’d forgotten I’d had. I don’t really know. What I do know is that I spent significant portions of the services with tears in my eyes as I sang or listened when I couldn’t sing as the people of God called for justice in a broken world, called for light in a dark time, called for hope in a time of despair. And then the day ended with a concert that felt like worship from Peter Mayer, who is a guitarist with Jimmy Buffet (and no, he didn’t bring Jimmy along) but he did bring his son Brendan and a violinist and cellist and some original music that I knew and some that was new and few tunes from his time with Jimmy and a couple of Beatles hits just for spice. He finished the evening by moving them all from the chancel in the huge sanctuary down to the middle aisle (including the cellist and her chair) and sang his song “God is Loose in the World” mixed with “All You Need is Love” that had all us aging baby boomers singing along.
But that’s the end of the day, let me go back to the beginning. It was a beautiful day, as I said, and we gathered for worship this morning to hear our preacher the late Rev. William Barber II, president of Repairers of the Breach and Co-Chair of the Poor-People’s Campaign. No, he isn’t dead, he was late. Got stuck in traffic or something, so we sang some extra songs, did the worship out of sequence and finally he arrived. And climbed into the pulpit and preached, just like that. Like he hadn’t been delayed, like he hadn’t been frustrated, like he hadn’t been limited. Like he was filled with the Spirit and came to share it. Barber is an icon in civil rights preaching, his resume is awe-inspiring. But he preaches to set all people free. He called for a Moral Pentecost, to let the wind of the Spirit blow through our nation again and right the wrongs. He knew his facts, the color-blindness of poverty and the spread of greed, the systemic divisiveness of racism the scapegoat-ing of immigrants and above all the emptiness of words when unaccompanied by actions. Let the wind of Pentecost blow proclaimed Barber, and then, reading from Acts 2, told us preachers it is time to get out of the upper room and out into the streets.
He was followed on the chancel by the return of Dr. James Forbes, who continued his message from the first night and also managed to sneak in a homily about Jonah, telling us that when we find ourselves in a fish, it just might be a God thing and we should give thanks and then listen to the new direction.
Listening to God was also a theme from Otis Moss III, Pastor, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. He brought an Easter message declaring that “It’s Too Early.” All the stories of the Easter event declare that it was very early in the morning that the women went to the tomb, but that the rest of the disciples didn’t believe them. His conclusion is that we often quit when it is too early. God is still at work, give it some time, be persistent, keep working, keep proclaiming. Don’t give up on the church, it’s too early.
After lunch I went to the other venue, Westminster Presbyterian Church. Worship began that afternoon with the Fleshpots of Egypt. No, not a pagan ritual, but a bluegrass music group singing gospel hymns. Our preacher was the Rev. Anthony Bailey, Lead Minister, Parkdale United Church of Canada in Ottawa. Bailey invited us to risk upsetting the status quo by provoking in love those with whom we disagree or differ. His sermon was titled “Imagine That: Provoking Diverse Communities.” But the chief revelation was Bailey’s conviction that God has a favorite preposition. If you look, he told us, at the 23rd Psalm in Hebrew, the word right in the center of that psalm is “with.” How often does God say with? It’s even in one of the names we use for God - Emmanuel, which is “God with us.” God demands, no God encourages, or even better God is a community, one in three and three in one, and the model for Christian life is with, a life with.
He was followed by a United Methodist, at last. Retired Bishop William Willimon, always an entertaining but provocative speaker. His lecture was on “The Comedic Moral Imagination of the Pastor.” Comedic? Well, yes, argued Willimon. If you follow Jesus, or proclaim Jesus, you’re going to sound funny to the rest of this broken world. Our challenge is to laugh at ourselves, even while we take Jesus seriously. As outrageous as He was. For example, Willimon told us about a sermon he preached on forgiveness, 70 times 7, outrageous forgiveness. After the sermon, Willimon was approached by a woman who said, “do you mean to tell me that Jesus wants me to forgive my abusive husband who I finally got the nerve to leave after a decade of being physically and emotionally degraded by him?” Like all us preachers, Willimon when confronted by that wanted to say “hey, I was only preaching, I didn’t mean anything!” He hemmed and hawed around for a while, only to be forced back to the text and to stutter out, well, it kinda sounds that way. To which the woman replied, “Right. I was just checking.”
We shouldn’t try and protect people from Jesus, he declared from that encounter. But let Jesus do what He does and tell the truth. Amen Bishop. By the way, as Willimon began his lecture, he referenced the called General Conference and simply said, “hey, Episcopalians! Don’t say we never did anything for you!”
Today I heard for the wind of the Spirit to blow, the church can’t stay as it has been, but that God isn’t done with it yet. May it be so.
Shalom,
Derek C. Weber
#Homiletics2019
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