Called In: City
Mark 5:21-43

“Who touched me?”

This summer we are exploring the idea of calling.  More specifically, we are attempting to pay attention to the ways we are being “called in” by focusing on a series of concentric circles leading us ever more inward.  The last three weeks we considered how the “world” was calling to us, how the world calls to others with different faith traditions, and how the Divine is calling to us through the holiness of the other no matter how distant they seem.  We were inspired by Ginny Nussbaum’s de-centering banner that both forced our attention as wide as the cosmos while also pulling us inward. 

Likewise, today we are blessed by a new banner depicting our move toward the next concentric circle, the city.  Created by local artists Shannan and Jason Anderson, this piece utilizes images and figures from our fair city to create the shapes you see here.  Some of these images you might recognize, others may seem vaguely familiar, and still others might seem completely foreign; which, I think is a perfect way to think about how we are called in to our community.  At some point over the next few weeks, I invite you to come closer and discover the intricacies of this work. 

You can read more about this piece of art and the Andersons in the bulletin, but I wanted to call your attention to something they wrote about what they have made for us.  Drawing on the title they gave to the banner, “Common Threads,” they write, “The message we share with you is that we are all connected in this universe even in a busy, vibrant, city like Columbus, we are all held together by a common thread.”

As we move more and more inward in these concentric circles, these common threads…

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Romans 8:18-25

“The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork.  Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.  There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”

This is how Psalm 19 begins, with a grand declaration of the ways that the natural world reveals God’s glory and God’s handiwork.  And this happens not just in secret messages here and there for those with the right knowledge or skills to be able to decipher them, but day to day and night to night creation uses “words” in a language all its own to reveal God.

Another common passage of scripture that is called upon when thinking about creation revealing God to humanity is Psalm 148 where all of creation is invited to praise God together.

“Praise God, sun and moon; praise God, all you shining stars!
Praise God, you highest heavens, and  you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord, for God commanded and they were created.
God established them forever and ever; God fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.
Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling God’s command.
Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars!
Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!”

The psalmist paints a picture of all of creation, both living things and non-living alike effusively praising God the Creator, calling out our admiration and worship with words, with deep bellows, with rustling wings and cackling chirps, with booming thunder and blooming silences.  This psalm is called up to help us realize that while all Creation praises God in its…

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/20180603sermon.mp3

Texts: Mark 2:23-3:6

I’m not sure what to think of the fact that on the final day before a summer Sabbath from church life, the gospel lectionary is about Jesus misbehaving on the Sabbath.  It’s gotta be a sign.  Not so sure yet how it affects our Sabbatical itinerary.  Or maybe this has to do with your Sabbatical itinerary.  We’ll soon find out.

Having a clean, although temporary, break like this feels like a good time to do some reflecting on where we’ve been together.  It’s been five years now, almost exactly, since you called me to Columbus Mennonite.  It’s enough time to have a few stories.

As a continuation of last week’s sermon, this is Called In, Part II.  The idea of calling has a long and rich history.  Calling is something that beckons us in, to what some have simply referred to as the Great Work.  The Great Work lifts us out of our small ego selves and into the collective work of healing and justice and community.  It’s what Jews often call Tikkun Olam, The repair of the world.

Called in” is a phrase we’re borrowing from SURJ, Showing Up for Racial Justice.  It’s a bit of a play on words.  Anytime you have a group of people sharing life and work together there can be a tendency to call people out for their shortcomings.  Calling people out usually results in shame and blame.  Calling each other in has a different energy behind it.  It’s the kind of call that matches up with the Spirit of Jesus when he invited folks to Come, follow me.

Today’s gospel reading presents a pretty spot-on framework for what following Jesus has meant for us.

The reading is composed of two stories that Mark puts back to back, held together by the theme of Sabbath.  Held…

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/20180527sermon.mp3

Texts: Isaiah 6:1-10, John 3:8

I first heard the phrase “Called in” about two years ago.  It was right here, so hopefully some of you heard it too.  It was during our year-long focus on antiracism and racial justice.  Several of those sermons were in the format of an interview.  I would sit down with someone engaged in this work and do my best Terry Gross or Krista Tippet impression.  This particular Sunday our guest interviewee was Rev. Lane Campbell, one of the pastors at First Unitarian Universalist, just up High Street.  She has been a leader of a group called Showing Up for Racial Justice, SURJ.  Early on in the conversation she mentioned one of the core values of SURJ: “Calling people in, not out.”

It’s a value that acknowledges the difficulty of the work – the courage it takes to confront racism and the many ways our lives have been consciously and unconsciously racialized.  There are opportunities at just about every turn to call people out for their failures and blindness, historical and present day.  For our failures and blindness.

But calling people in.  That’s a different approach.  That’s a different kind of call.  The very phrase feels like it offers a fresh space.  The work is no less difficult and courageous, but now we’re able to enter it in a new way.

Called in.

Sometimes you come across a phrase that won’t quite leave you alone, and this has been one of those for me.

About a year after we first heard it, a year ago, I was pondering what might serve as a good theme for an upcoming Sabbatical – or, to be more specific and honest, what might serve as a good theme for a Sabbatical grant.  This was the phrase that pulled it together: Called In, followed by…

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/20180520sermon.mp3

Texts: Romans 8:22-27; Acts 2:1-8

The records don’t show who he was speaking to, but Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said this: “You are being baptized today as a Christian. All those great and ancient words of the Christian proclamation will be pronounced over you, and the command of Jesus Christ to baptize will be carried out, without your understanding any of it. But we too are being thrown back all the way to the beginnings of our understanding. What reconciliation and redemption mean, rebirth and Holy Spirit, love for one’s enemies, cross and resurrection, what it means to live in Christ and follow Christ; all that is so difficult and remote that we hardly dare speak of it anymore. In these words and actions handed down to us we sense something totally new and revolutionary, but we cannot yet grasp it and express it.” (Written while imprisoned in Tegel, 1944).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor and theologian in Germany in the 1930’s and 40’s.  He was one of the few voices in the German church who spoke out against the rise of Hitler and the persecution of the Jews.  He helped found the Confessing Church and an underground seminary which resisted Nazi rule in the name of Christ; He was eventually forbidden to print or publish, was arrested, and in 1945, was executed, only a month before Germany surrendered to Ally forces.

In other words, he had a strong sense of what he was talking about when he said that these Christian ideas of reconciliation and redemption, rebirth and Holy Spirit, love for one’s enemies, add up to something so totally new and revolutionary they lead us to the edge of our understanding.  He knew these things were so difficult and seemingly remote that we hardly dare speak of it anymore.

But there he was,…