#TheStruggleIsReal
Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
Benediction
Hear these words from Maya Angelou, from her poem, On the Pulse of Morning:
Give birth again To the dream. All genders, all ages, Take it into the palms of your hands, Mold it into the shape of your most Private need. Sculpt it into The image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts Each new hour holds new chances For new beginnings. Do not be wedded forever To fear, yoked eternally To brutishness. The horizon leans forward, Offering you space to place new steps of change. Here, on the pulse of this fine day You may have the courage To look up and out and upon me, the Rock, the River, the Tree, your country. …Here, on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your friend’s eyes, into Your neighbor’s face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
July 22, 2018
This past Thursday a friend posted the following:
“What happened to all that outrage about kids in cages?!?
Oh...Russia.
Don't think you aren't being told what to care about.”
What if there’s just a boatload of things to care about? What if we really are like sheep with no shepherd, going to and fro from one heartbreaking event, issue, policy wounding human lives to the next frustrating, mind-boggling, overwhelming one? What if those whom we are resisting are counting on us sinking under the waves of “liberal tears”? The struggle is real.
Brené Brown in her book Daring Greatly, wrote “...we're sick of feeling afraid. We all want to be brave. We want to dare greatly. We're tired of the national conversation centering on ‘What should we fear?’ and ‘Who should we blame?’”. That book was published in 2012. We forget how long we’ve been having this conversation, what now feels a shouting match, long before 2012, and the heat beneath it has been slowly increased each year, with each event, like that frog in the boiling water.
I woke up at 1 a.m. on Friday morning with my body covered in hives. Later that day I also developed some intestinal trouble and a stuck feeling at the base of my sternum. Most likely it’s due to some new food allergy, but I think David nailed it when he said I’m allergic to BS and I’ve hit my threshold. The struggle is real.
What if we’re the ones who need healing in mind, body, and spirit? Do we ever wish we could just touch the hem of whatever Jesus is wearing and feel that power flood through our bodies, our lives? What if we’re the ones who need to go to a deserted place and rest for a while?
And yet to follow Jesus is not only to serve the stranger but to become the stranger, the alien, the foreigner, the immigrant, the person needing safe refuge—vulnerable and defenseless—seeking sanctuary, hospitality, and the true humanity of others, to meet them where they are. Eugene Peterson puts it this way in The Message, in the gospel of John: “The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.” Jesus came not to be fed, but became holy food and fed others with his life.
In between the deserted place and the boat ride and the crowds who came for healing, the people follow Jesus and stay so late that it’s time to eat. The disciples want to send everyone away to get their own food, but then Jesus says my favorite line of his: “You give them something to eat.” But all they can scrounge is five loaves and two fish. The disciples see scarcity, but Jesus sees enough. Not abundance. Enough. As in, “You are enough”. As in, “Trust me”. As in, “You are worthy, all these people are worthy, even in the face of this present uncertainty.” And then Jesus uses words from the Eucharist, the Last Supper: Taking, blessed, broke, gave. We hardly ever think of that small meal that we share with each other once a month as scarcity but as enough.
Later Jesus sends the disciples off in a boat while he goes off to pray. The text reads that the disciples strained at the oars against an adverse wind. The struggle is real. When the disciples see Jesus on the water they are terrified but Jesus tells them to take heart and to not be afraid. He gets in the boat with them and the adverse wind ceases. Mark pairs feeding stories with water miracles as reminders of the exodus, when God parted the Red Sea, fed the people and provided water for them in the desert. And yet Mark reports that the disciples didn’t understand about the loaves because like Pharaoh, their hearts were hardened.
Sometimes our hearts are hardened too. Or as Peterson puts it, sometimes what Jesus has to teach us hasn’t penetrated our hearts. Like the fact that we’re enough. Like we can trust ourselves, trust Jesus, maybe even trust each other. Like we’re worthy even though the way we are is flawed and imperfect and some days a real hot mess. Or that other people are enough and worthy just the way they are and that they are doing the best they can with what they have, just like us. The struggle is real.
However we need to remember that most of us come at this from a place of privilege: white, straight, cisgender, the wide range that is the middle class. Those who are marginalized, oppressed, discriminated against, or otherwise invisible to us are the stranger, the alien, the foreigner, the immigrant, the person seeking safe refuge every single day of their lives and they do what they have to do regardless of whether they believe they are worthy or enough. Their struggle IS real. There isn’t just a boatload of things to care about, they are in the boat in that adverse wind 24/7 and they need us to get in the boat with them. They need not just to be given what they need to get food but for us to give them something to eat and break bread with them. And by doing so, we all will be healed. We will have touched the power of Jesus.
To do this we need to take care of ourselves, to believe that we are enough and worthy of rest, to take time away and then to come back to it wholeheartedly. We need to do what we can because we can’t do it all. And it won’t always feel good. Sometimes we will strain at the oars. Sometimes it’s just hard. But we can’t allow the hard to convince us that we don’t have what it takes, that we’re not enough, that we aren’t brave. 39 years ago this church was started by wholehearted, brave people, who believed they were enough and worthy, and when you walked through those doors or served at Hope Dining Room or volunteered at the Empowerment Center or spent the night at Code Purple or walked for Friendship House or sang in the choir or taught Sunday School or took on a leadership position or served on a committee or prayed for someone or brought a meal or gave a hug, you became one of them: a wholehearted, brave person.
Being the Church means being vulnerable to our lives and the lives of others, no matter who they are or how we find them; it means we stop trying to live up to others’ expectations of what it means to be who we are and accept we are enough and worthy; it means we cease equating emotions with weakness; it means we can admit to one another “Me too, friend, me too”. Brené Brown defines vulnerability as emotional risk, exposure, and uncertainty. Yuck. That struggle is definitely real. But these are also what make us brave. And they also sound a lot like Jesus, whose struggle was real. And so was he. We can be too.
Amen.
This past Thursday a friend posted the following:
“What happened to all that outrage about kids in cages?!?
Oh...Russia.
Don't think you aren't being told what to care about.”
What if there’s just a boatload of things to care about? What if we really are like sheep with no shepherd, going to and fro from one heartbreaking event, issue, policy wounding human lives to the next frustrating, mind-boggling, overwhelming one? What if those whom we are resisting are counting on us sinking under the waves of “liberal tears”? The struggle is real.
Brené Brown in her book Daring Greatly, wrote “...we're sick of feeling afraid. We all want to be brave. We want to dare greatly. We're tired of the national conversation centering on ‘What should we fear?’ and ‘Who should we blame?’”. That book was published in 2012. We forget how long we’ve been having this conversation, what now feels a shouting match, long before 2012, and the heat beneath it has been slowly increased each year, with each event, like that frog in the boiling water.
I woke up at 1 a.m. on Friday morning with my body covered in hives. Later that day I also developed some intestinal trouble and a stuck feeling at the base of my sternum. Most likely it’s due to some new food allergy, but I think David nailed it when he said I’m allergic to BS and I’ve hit my threshold. The struggle is real.
What if we’re the ones who need healing in mind, body, and spirit? Do we ever wish we could just touch the hem of whatever Jesus is wearing and feel that power flood through our bodies, our lives? What if we’re the ones who need to go to a deserted place and rest for a while?
Later Jesus sends the disciples off in a boat while he goes off to pray. The text reads that the disciples strained at the oars against an adverse wind. The struggle is real. When the disciples see Jesus on the water they are terrified but Jesus tells them to take heart and to not be afraid. He gets in the boat with them and the adverse wind ceases. Mark pairs feeding stories with water miracles as reminders of the exodus, when God parted the Red Sea, fed the people and provided water for them in the desert. And yet Mark reports that the disciples didn’t understand about the loaves because like Pharaoh, their hearts were hardened.
Amen.
Benediction
Hear these words from Maya Angelou, from her poem, On the Pulse of Morning:
Give birth again To the dream. All genders, all ages, Take it into the palms of your hands, Mold it into the shape of your most Private need. Sculpt it into The image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts Each new hour holds new chances For new beginnings. Do not be wedded forever To fear, yoked eternally To brutishness. The horizon leans forward, Offering you space to place new steps of change. Here, on the pulse of this fine day You may have the courage To look up and out and upon me, the Rock, the River, the Tree, your country. …Here, on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your friend’s eyes, into Your neighbor’s face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.
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