Sunday, November 13, 2016
Biblical Text: Hebrews 10:23-25; 32-36
Again, this Sunday in your mind’s eye I want you to envision a strong bird, whose body is moving in one direction and whose head is turned backward. The bird’s head is turned backwards, because it is gazing at the ground it has already covered. This powerful, majestic bird is moving forward, but looking back gathering the seeds of wisdom in its mouth. These seeds will give hope and direction for its future. This powerful bird is the Sankofa. And today, as we celebrate 130 years of ministry, we are being called by the Holy Spirit to cultivate anew a Sankofa Spirit.
This means we will remember our past, celebrate our present, and envision a future that is beyond our wildest imaginations. The teaching of the Sankofa is simply that we cannot move forward into the future, without first going back to our past—understanding it, and embodying all of the joy and struggles of the past as seeds of wisdom for the future.
Today our task to look back on our more than a century of ministry and discover within it the shared story of wisdom that is needed for our future.
Now that we have come this far by faith, the central question is What is God’s VISION for our church for the future? What are the CORE VALUES that will guide our ministry? What MISSION is God calling us to extend in the world?
In other words, what will our future be?
Will we join with the United Church of Christ in becoming a congregation that welcomes the rich diversity that we see in our community—diversity in gender, age, ethnicity, education social class, sexual orientation, and ability?
What will our future be?
Will we join with the United Church of Christ in becoming a congregation that lives a progressive theology—where ‘God is still speaking’ and we, as the called out community of God are attentively listening for the voice of God?
What will our future be?
Will we join with the United Church of Christ in becoming a congregation that dares to be the called out people of God, embodying prophetic justice, seeking peace, and caring for the earth?
Move IA – The Congregation in Hebrews has a history of Ups and Downs
To help us wrestle with what kind of future church we shall be, and how our Sankofa Spirit can help us do that, today, we shall use the biblical text drawn from the book of Hebrews. This text concerns a church that is facing a congregational crisis—a defining moment in its history. They are a people who have been united in the faith, they are baptized believers having everything in common with one another; they are a family of faith that has been united for many years. Their history is strong—and their name in the community is known because of their strong and robust legacy:
…when they gathered for worship
—the community knew they were giving God thanks and praise;
…when they gathered for fellowship
—they provoked (meaning they stirred) one another toward love and good deeds;
…when they gathered to do community work,
—they did works of justice & equality.
They cared for the marginalized.
They opened their hearts to prisoners.
They put their necks on the line and we glad to do it.
But, as we look in on them today, they are a community in traumatic crisis—they are a congregation that is stumbling and faltering. Some of the members are on the verge of dropping out of the faith race. They want to throw up their hands and holla. As a Mexican boxer did one day, they want to throw in the towel of life and holler—No Mas—I give up.
Anyone here ever felt like giving up? You have served the best you know how and everything around you seems to just keep falling apart. Anybody here ever felt like giving up? You are a church leader and folk say we’re with you and then don’t show up. The kids will not listen to wisdom, and your spouse does not appreciate your labor. You are doing okay but your relatives are in chaos. The neighborhood is going down and City Hall is not listening. You had made progress, then along comes the devil again, trying to trump God. The doctor comes with bad news and you get a pink slip. The world is in turmoil, and leaders are pouring gasoline on the fire. Anybody here ever felt like giving up?
Just then, the preacher says, recover your strength, by remembering what you have been through, endure, and remember what has been promised to you.
A people who have become lax in their attendance of worship,
A people who have become lax in offering their gifts of sacrifice,
A people who are drifting upon the seas of uncertainty, are called to the sacred art of remembering!
They are called to remember the Lord their God.
They are called to remember the promises, miracles and healings:
The promise made to Abraham
The parting of the Red Sea
The water that flowed from a rock in the desert
The surprising gift of life in the womb of Sarah and Hannah
The queen who saved her people
The young ruddy shepherd who wrote the psalms
The promise of a King—who would be their Emmanuel
And on this our Church Anniversary, I want us to know that we are called to remember too.
We are called to remember a Savior who set captives free.
We are called to remember the blood stained cross of Calvary.
We are called to remember the gift of salvation that has come to us:
We have been bought with a price.
So enter into his gates with thanksgiving…even in times like these.
Bought with a price.
So enter into his courts with praise….even in times like these.
Bought with a price.
So hold fast to the faith that makes us one people…even when others do not.
Bought with a price.
So love other with the love of Christ…even when others do not.
Bought with a price.
So be the hands and feet of Christ…even when others will not!
As we remember what Christ has done for us, we can show our love for Christ by doing what it ways in verse 24. When we explore this verse in Greek—we discover the word PAROXYSMOS being used. That word has been translated to mean stir up, or spur each other on. However, that word is actually much stronger than a mere stirring or spurring of one another—that word is actually better translated as to PESTER or DISTRUB one another.
PAROXYSMOS – to PESTER.
PAROXYSMOS – to DISTURB.
PAROXYSMOS – to PROVOKE.
PAROXYSMOS – to AGITATE.
The Biblical writer has offered us today, on our 130th anniversary, our vision for the future, using our Sankofa spirit. What is it? To stir up one another to love and good works.
We have to stir up one another, INSIDE THE CHURCH, to love one another and do good works. You have to pester some Church folk to love and do the work of the church. You have to disturb some Church folk to get them out of the Lazy Boy recliners and back on the battlefield. You have to pester some folk to stop complaining and start doing good works.
We have to stir up one another, INSIDE THE CHURCH, to love one another and do good works. Why? Because we have to get ourselves together to face the world.
There are some folk out there who hate us. So, we have to be stirred up to love!
There are so folk out there who are not interested in justice or mercy.
These are folks who have to be pestered to do the right thing!
It’s hard to get some folk to see that all lives matter—black lives, Muslim lives, women’s lives too.
These are folks who have to be disturbed and we have to pester them to do the right thing!
The text is not just saying that we must be stirred up to love one another, but we have to be stirred up to do good works.
The church is thereby:
To disturb those who are mistreating the vulnerable.
To pester those who are determined to harm the least of these.
To agitate those who are evil toward righteous living.
To help the church being discussed here get its act together, in the thirty-second verse of the text we find the writer recalling the former days of faithfulness by this congregation. But the writer is careful not to paint the past with rose-colored glasses. No, the writer is clear that there were good days, when the congregation rose to its best self, and there were days when the congregation suffered. Verse thirty-two says, “…you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution, and sometimes being partners with those so treated…”
Christian Fellowship, I know that we have had some painful seasons…
…when the church first burned to blacken ash in the early 1900’s.
…when the Church Mother and Rev. Shavers closed the doors of the church in Logan Heights for the last time, and a highway was laid where our church once sat.
…when the church was homeless and didn’t know where it would gather to worship.
…when the church was set ablaze in the middle of the Advent season; and the congregation was left to sift through ashes at Christmas.
…when the church was homeless for the second time.
…when a young pastor split and divided the church one Sunday morning.
…when in the midst of “Reaching for Heaven” and doing a financial campaign, a thriving congregation experienced the loss of its pastoral leadership.
Our feelings of despair and hopelessness have been real…
Mirsoslav Volf writes in his book, The End Of Memory, That as Christians we must continue to develop a framework for remembering.
It matters not if our memories are of joy or sorrow, when we bring these memories to mind, “we are also recalling God’s promise as the reality of own future…
In other words, when we remember where we’ve been, no matter how high the mountains, and how low the valleys, we remember, who brought us through.
It matters for this church and for us to have a SANKOFA SPIRIT, a framework by which we are able to look back over life—and realize that God was/ is working for our good. It matter to have a SANOKFA SPIRIT the power of God that is at work within you—reminding you that something better is on the way because of your service.
We remember the pain of the past, not simply to dwell upon our darkest day with angst and dismay, but we look upon those days with a SANKOFA SPIRIT—to instruct and teach us that our best days are yet to come!
We recall the pain of the MAAFA:
Bring stolen from our Motherland and sold on auction blocks is dark memory;
But with our Sankofa Spirit:
We look back, gather wisdom, and move forward with God!
Having our language taken, our history hidden, and being made 35ths of a person, is a painful memory.
But with our Sankofa Spirit:
We look back, gather wisdom, and move forward with God!
This church has known some pain and our people have known some pain. We do not have to look back too far.
We recall the pain of this year’s election cycle:
Our Voting Rights protections were further eroded
We heard racist dog whistles being blown through the campaign.
We were told our lives didn’t matter and that movements by our millennials did not matter.
We were told that we were monolithic and lived in inner city hell holes
We watched as our country was cast in the blazing red dye of the confederacy
But with a Sankofa Spirit: We look back, gather wisdom, and move forward with God!
Look back and remember that we have been here before. We as a people made the arduous journey during reconstruction; when black folks were seated in political positions of power and authority….
Then had those advances yanked away as tightly as the ropes that held our ancestors swinging in popular trees….
Then arose more freedom fighters lead in the fight for the right to vote and freedom for blacks in the south; marching in Selma and witnessing the signing of protective legislation….
We’ve been here before. We’ve been here before. We’ve seen back lash and the white lash.
So we cannot allow this trumped up so-called presidency to hold us hostage. We cannot spend the next four years gripped by lament, sorrow and fear. We must, in the words of architect Vertner Woodson Tandy, “Fight till hell freezes over, and then fight on the ice” if we want to fashion the kind of world that embodies:
The Love of God
And transformational justice that sets captives free.
We must know the truth of the story—the fantasy must be removed; the rose colored glasses must be taken off—and the complexities of humanity must be contextualized and excavated for deep meaning.
And, our memories of the past even the our most recent past, must be sifted for living-wisdom for the living of these days—the kind of wisdom that will usher in new hope and new possibilities.
In her book, Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil, Emilie Townes, now dean of the Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville offers insight by noting that the “sites of memory [S-I-T-E-S] are the places where memory crystallized and secrets itself…archives, museums, cathedrals, palaces, cemeteries and memorials…they exist to help us recall a past which helps us live in our contemporary world in meaningful ways…they exist to help us recall the past in ways that help us live in the contemporary world in meaningful ways”; ways that might even morph into a religious, political and social revolution rooted the Good News that Jesus preached when walked in to the synagogue and said “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because God has anointed me to preach good news to poor, God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the (political) blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
This year we placed a stone along the political path of this country, the same way that our Hebrew Bible text tells us that Samuel placed in the stone the path—and called it Ebenezer—hitherto have the Lord helped us. But this year we also chiseled into the stone the image of the SANKOFA and vow to remember our history and what happens if we do not stand against xenophobia, islamaphobia, misogyny, racism, sexism, genderism and every other ism that seeks to separate, divide and wall off the community of God.
When we look back, we can see 129 stones each marking another year’s journey. But this year, we chisel into the stone, the image of the SANKOFA, the beautifully strong bird—because while we are moving forward, we too are looking back, carrying the seeds of wisdom from the past that will open us into a powerful future with God.
These seeds of wisdom will bloom in to a community of faith that can sing, I Ain’t go let nobody turn me around.
These seeds will bloom into a community of faith that is able to pray with their feet: I shall not be, I shall not be moved…. I shall not be, I shall not be moved. Just like a tree, planted by the water, I shall not be moved.
These seeds will bloom into the ekklesia (the called out community of God), in the heart of San Diego’s African-American community. These seeds will birth a church that says, our doors are open, come, come—for your diversity make us a richer more dynamic community
—bring your ethnicity and race
—bring your age and gender,
—bring your diversity in class and education,
—bring your sexual orientation,
—bring your diverse family background,
—bring your physical ability and your disability!
There is room for you, there is room for all—
in this blooming called out community of God.
These seeds will bloom into a political revolution in San Diego in which we participate to tell the White House and the world, we are not going back because America’s greatest days are not behind us, but before us. We will not be held back, we will not be held down, and we are not afraid!
In the spirit of Sankofa, I say, happy anniversary. We’ve been up and we’ve been down, but after more than 130 years, we are still here.
In the spirit of Sankofa, I say happy anniversary. We are the people God is calling for at such a time as this. We can show California and the world, how you stand the storms—and discover a new strength within them.
In the spirit of Sankofa, I say happy anniversary. And I thank God for the opportunity to pastor people, led by the Spirit of God, who have gained wisdom from their past and plan to use it, and with every fiber of their being, to make the Kingdom come on earth and it is in heaven. Because we know that through such work, we will reap the rewards. And, we will receive our greatest reward on the Lord’s Day.
Amen.
