The slow evolution of courage

 

Romans 8: 26-39
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
July 26, 2026

Photo of a cement sidewalk with a few dandelions growing in the space in between segments.

“Tell me about a complicated man”. This is how Dr. Emily Wilson translated the opening words to “The Odyssey”, Homer’s epic poem about Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, a general and war veteran and the tale of his long journey home. Dr. Wilson’s translation is the first by a woman and the most recent translation, the one used by Christopher Nolan in his latest film.



Dr. Wilson’s choice of the word “complicated” has generated a lot of buzz. In other translations, the Greek word polytropos, which literally means “many-turned”, has been translated as “tossed to and fro by fate” or “adventurous”. It all depends on how the translator interprets the character of Odysseus. Is he passive or active? Is he making choices or are choices being made for him? Is he motivated by doing the right thing or are there other forces at play? How does one define courage when one’s motives are complicated?



At the heart of this story, this hero’s journey, is a Greek concept known as Zeus’s Law, what we know as the Golden Rule. In Greek culture and mythology, guests and strangers were to be treated with the utmost care and respect, because one never knows if the most wretched street person is Zeus or one of the other gods in disguise. There’s a city in Ohio named with the Greek word for this concept: Xenia, which is translated as “hospitality” or “guest-friendship”.



Odysseus was not only a brave warrior, he was a king, but he broke Zeus’s Law when he invaded Troy with the gift of a wooden horse. He was a loving husband and father but an absent one, away from his home for 20 years, forgetting his family life on the island home of Calypso, who kept him with her for 7 years. He commanded 600 men in the Trojan War but returned home alone, having lost every one of them. Odysseus wasn’t courageous or a hero because he survived the many turnings of fate, or choices imposed on him. He was called a hero because he managed to survive all the bad choices he made due to his hubris, his ego, his grief, and through facing his remorse and regret, became more true to himself.



Fast forward about nine centuries to the apostle Paul writing to the Jesus people in Rome, one of the most dangerous places to be a follower of Jesus, to be a community of Jesus people. Along with Paul, these Jesus people are on their own hero journey but one of another kind. They are banding together to survive choices imposed on them by empire—affliction, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword; death and all that life can dish out, angels and rulers, things happening now and things to come, powers beyond their comprehension. Not only for their own survival, but also offering solidarity and safe haven to those empire casts out and destroys.



Paul implores his readers to remain true to themselves, to each other, to Christ, and to God, reminding them that nothing, absolutely nothing can separate them from the love of God. He writes to them in their grief and pain, their exhaustion and fear, most likely writing from his own similar feelings. Like most preachers, he is giving voice to the words he needs to hear himself, so that he will remain true and faithful to these communities he helped to initiate.



The courage that Paul is calling forth is for these Romans to meet their grief and their pain with the force of their souls, to open themselves to it with sighs, with groanings too deep for words. He reminds them that all things work together for good, all things including grief and pain, exhaustion and fear, because it is out of what is past that new life can come. Loss and failure are part of the creative process because they connect us to all that is. Is it scary? You bet it is. But courage is doing the hard things even though they scare us to death, even though we might lose.



Fast forward to now. We still break Zeus’ Law when it suits our purpose. Strangers are disrespected, deported, treated as less than human. There are days it feels like courage is in short supply. Nations and leaders are not only loathe to face up to the harm done in the past, but are also dishing up more suffering and pain in wars and in laws and policies that limit anyone who isn’t a corporation or a cisgender straight White man who owns property. We rage rather than feel our grief, but then anger is often a cover for pain.



Empire is when humanity turns in on itself. Homer could’ve just as well opened with “Tell me about how complicated humanity is.” We look to our leaders, local and national, to be better than we are, to show us what moral courage looks like, but we can’t even get someone to verify whether a senator is alive or dead. It only took a year to normalize ICE killing multiple unarmed people in a single week. Folks in Wilmington who were evicted from Christina Park were told they could stay at a local motel for 90 days with case management but were kicked out after only a month.



Earlier this week a colleague was lamenting with me by text about how local churches that minister to people experiencing homelessness have to deal with not only backlash from neighbors but also city governments actively working against them. Places like Wilmington, Dover, and Ocean City, MD. I texted him, “Where is our moral courage?” To which he replied, “Oof, what moral courage?” I admitted I was making an assumption, but I also said that I think it’s possible. Because we have witnessed it before, it is in our history.



The death of Jesus could’ve been the end of the movement he was building. More than likely that’s what Rome was counting on, that his disciples and followers would be so terrorized and demoralized that they wouldn’t dream of carrying on what Jesus started. But because of Mary Magdalene’s witness and declaration—“I have seen the Lord”—people's lives would never be the same again. Because resurrection had already happened, so much more was possible, because they knew God was with them. What God had begun in them, God would bring it to completion.



This church lives and moves and has its being in that same evolution of courage. Without knowing what the future would hold, faithful people stepped away from established congregations to do church differently. Not long after the United Church of Christ voted to become Open and Affirming, the New Ark United Church of Christ voted to become the 44th ONA church in the UCC. This church purposefully did not have a building for the first 18 years of its existence. Then in 1997, after a long process of discernment, the congregation purchased this building from the city of Newark, which has been our home even since. We currently host the Newark Empowerment Center as well as many other rentals, from a Black church to a Buddhist meditation group, a 12-step group, and a coven. Now we are embarking on an affordable housing building project at a time when our congregation is aging and perhaps wondering do we have what it takes to dream, to envision, to make yet another future real?



The other day I came across this quote: “Lighthouse people don’t stop the storm. They stop you from believing the storm is all there is. They remind you the shore still exists even when you can’t see it.” 

Rough drawn cartoon of a figure standing on a storm wave holding up a brightly lit lantern. Poem in Courier typeface: "lighthouse people don't stop the storm/they stop you from believing the storm is all there is/they remind you the shore still exists/even when you can't see it."

Right now, I think that’s what resurrection looks like. That’s what moral courage looks like. We are a lighthouse people. We aren’t called to fix all the problems. We grieve, we rest, we gather up our courage, we do what we can, we make a soft place for people to land, and we keep that light shining, especially for those who know nothing but the storm. Together we are able to create the hope we need, to create the courage we need by being faithful to what we have been called to do. We trust that God who began a really good work in us will help us bring that work to completion.



May it be so. Amen.

Benediction – enfleshed.com


Go forth convinced that
neither life nor death,
neither the present nor the future,
neither height of joy nor depth of despair,
nor any powers of destruction,
can separate us from the Sacred Interdependent Love that is our birthright, that we co-create with our lives.

Amen.