for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of
self-discipline. --2 Timothy 1:7 NRSV Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received ... but only what you have given: a full heart, enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice, and courage. --St. Francis of Assisi Did you hear the big news announced in Sunday’s worship service? Helen Wright left Park Hill Christian Church her house--her house! Helen died near the beginning of 2020, and after a lifetime of giving to her community and to her church, she gave the church her house which means after all the necessary fees were paid for the church received around $283,000! That’s nuts! Two Hundred and Eighty Thousand Dollars! Among other things, this money will enable the church to come close to paying off its remaining mortgage. We will only have around $20,000 remaining to pay off, and when that is gone around $20,000 every year will go into other ministries that is currently going towards the mortgage. One doesn’t just arrive at a decision to give away a house overnight. Helen’s gift was the capstone of a lifetime of service and generosity. Helen supported PHCC through faithful giving of money, time and even serving as an unpaid staff member. She started a food pantry out of her home for hungry people in our area. It grew and moved to our church building. Then it kept growing and is now the Southern Platte Emergency Assistance Coalition (SPEAC) which serves hundreds of families every month who are food insecure. The gift of the house was only the end of a long list of giving; it was a lifestyle rather than a one-off event. I know most of us are not in the financial situation to give away a house (although more in our church and most churches could do so than one might think), yet all of us, myself included, think too small and too safe when it comes to giving. We spend our days thinking about how little we have and how much more we want rather than thinking about how much we have that we don’t need that others with less than us could use. Helen Wright is an exception to the giving patterns of most Christians, but she shouldn’t be. Each of us is capable of giving in ways that are extravagant and in ways others might think are a bit crazy. When I felt called to be a local church minister decades ago, I thought I was called to be a part of God’s great plan to change the world for the better. I expected to be a part of churches that did amazing things for their communities with the power of Christ flowing through them. What I found instead was a soul-deadening journey of working with churches who were afraid of not having enough money. Usually those church folks with the capacity to give the most actually gave the least, but that didn’t stop them from complaining at board meetings and budget votes about how we didn’t have enough money to do the stuff that should be priorities for churches. I’ve spent so many hours listening to church people complain about how little the church had to give. After bellyaching about it for so long, they didn’t give anything to change the world around them for the better, and then they wondered why people didn’t want to come to their church? Churches are big on pulling a bait and switch. We tell you about a God who created everything and how this Creation has enough for everyone. We teach about a Jesus who fed thousands with a few loaves of bread and a few fish. We talk about faith, trust, hope, love and grace. Then once you get in the door and get involved, we act as if none of that is true. We are afraid because we believe there is never enough. We think small rather than trusting God and dreaming big. We cut back and cut back until we can’t cut back any more. We cut back our ministries, our staff, and our outreach until none of us can remember why we were giving and who we were giving to in the first place. We bring people into church promising a God who does signs and wonders, but then we live as if we don’t believe any of that stuff, at least not enough to risk anything. Helen Wright didn’t buy into that kind of “play it safe” Christianity. She gave in ways others probably thought were crazy. If only more people were crazy like her, then our church would be a different church and our community would be a different one and so would our world. The Apostle Paul wrote, “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice,” but you can’t tell it from the state of most churches today. Thank God, Helen lived out “the spirit of power” Paul describes in that verse. Helen believed in Park Hill Christian Church, believed God wanted to do great things through this church, believed enough to give her house to it. Her generosity raises the question of whether the rest of us believe in our church like she did? Who is next to follow Helen’s example and live out God’s crazy generosity?
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36When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed
and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matthew 9:36 – 38 Compassion is the hallmark of love. Without compassion we cannot fully love another person. Jesus had compassion because He loved the people. He saw their despair. Even in the first century worry was a daily part of life. We tend to think it was a simpler time and less harried, but in truth, it wasn’t much different. People worried about food, housing, jobs and whether or not they would make it another day. Just like us they faced momentous decisions that affected the wellbeing of their entire family. They faced illness, loss of income, loss of control over their own lives. Jesus saw them, “harassed and helpless”. In our world of the 21st century, things move much faster, but the basic concerns remain. It is what ties us in with every generation that has come before. And just like those living in the first century, we are “harassed and helpless”. The good news is we have a shepherd to guide us if we accept His leading. The gospels are full of the images of Jesus showing us the way. It is a popular thing right now for the shaming term “sheeple” to be used as a derogatory description for people following one ideology or another. But here in the text, being called sheep is not derogatory, rather it is a term of endearment. For Jesus is the great shepherd and He fully intends to lead us to the peaceful valley. When we set our sights on Jesus, we will find peace and hope that will help us face the world we live in today. Just before these verses, Matthew tells us: 35Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. Matthew 9:35 In other words, Jesus was about His work on Earth and when He looked upon the people He was teaching, healing and leading to God, He saw their distress. Isn’t it exciting to see Jesus fully comprehending the plight of the common man? Isn’t it refreshing to know that He has mercy on us in our every circumstance? Through the Holy Spirit we have the power of Jesus in our lives today. He is teaching us, spreading the Good News and healing our sickness. More to the point He has called us to be His hands and feet in the world today. It is discouraging when we look around. Just as then, today the “workers are few”. But God’s mercy through Jesus is mighty and the few become strong enough to spread the Word to all people. Yes, it seems today as if we are fighting a losing battle as church membership dwindles, but maybe church membership isn’t the measure we need to be using. Jesus says: “38Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Matthew 9:38 What does it mean out into His harvest field? Certainly not the church. We must stop looking inside the walls of our building and begin to see what God is doing outside the house of worship. The harvest field is ready to be gathered in, but that does not mean it is going to always look like what it has in the past. Today worship can happen anywhere. Today we can bring people to Jesus without a building or a study series or an improved program. Right now, today, we can meet people where they are and give them the good news. We can do it in the workplace, at the school, at the laundry mat or any other place where two or more are gathered. We must break away from the building and reach out to people where we meet them. And we cannot be afraid of rejection. When Jesus said to ask for more workers, He did not mean just in the Sanctuary, He didn’t even say, build up the church membership, His order to build the church was not a command for grand cathedrals, but a call to build the body. The body of the church comes in small towns, offices, playgrounds and even on the corner. It is the place where we share the wonderful news that God has begun His kingdom building work in the world today. Yes, the workers are few, but with Jesus at as our guide, we are mighty. Kathy Hendrix He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that
someone took and sowed in his field; --Matthew 13:31 NRSV I’m pretty sure my neighbors are mad at me. My front yard currently looks like I have chosen to grow a field of dandelions. I’m not talking about a few of them but rather my whole yard is overrun by them. I just know my neighbors are shaking their heads at the disreputable state of my yard, and I have to admit it looks rather bad, but I really don’t care enough to do much about it. I think lawn care is the biggest scam out there. I grew up under the demanding eye of my father when it comes to lawn care. He grew up a poor cotton farmer in West Texas, so I always felt his perfect lawns were somehow a reaction to trying to grow cotton in the unforgiving soil of Fisher County, Texas. Our lawns were always the envy of the neighborhood. When I became big enough to mow the lawn, my dad would check it over as if he were the groundskeeper of a PGA golf course. If I so much as missed a blade of grass, then I was sure to hear about it. My dad is a pretty easy going guy, but not when it comes to lawn care. My feeling about lawns is that it was shared delusion of the post-war suburbs of the 1950’s. The makers of lawn mowers, hedge clippers and fertilizer knew a good market when they saw one and suckered everyone into making their front yards look like botanical gardens. The amount of chemicals my neighbors spray on their yards can’t be a good thing for the planet, and looking at nearby creeks around my house shows that the runoff of those chemicals and fertilizer is killing life all around my neighborhood. I’d rather save the water and the money spent on chemicals and let my yard turn back into prairie. That brings me back to the dandelions and the inevitable stern letter I’m going to get from the neighborhood association. If there’s anything good to come out of my sorry-looking front yard, it’s that I’m understanding better how Jesus described the Kingdom of God. He said it’s like somebody sowed mustard seeds in a person’s field. The small seeds produced mustard plants that ended up taking over the entire field. I’ve never really looked closely at a mustard plant, but I’m here to tell you that if it’s anything like a dandelion then it spreads fast and shows no mercy. It sneakily spreads until that’s all there is to see. That’s a heck of a way to describe God’s activity in the world. Despite our well-ordered plans that make us think we really are in control of things, reality keeps forcing us to admit we are not gods. The good news is that God’s plans end up being better than our own. God keeps working in ways we may not realize until we look out one day and see that God’s love shows up in the most unlikely places. God is sneakily sowing love, grace, blessing and joy that can’t be stopped by our misguided attempts to find these things in materialistic junk that can never provide them. Even when we blow it, God’s seeds keep sprouting and releasing the new life God desires. When we admit the emptiness of doing things in self-serving ways, we discover God has been busy preparing for us a world of beauty and wonder to enjoy. In the same way I woke up one morning to a front yard full of dandelions, we have moments of clarity which reveal the never-ending majesty of God’s presence in our world. Sort of like a weed, God defies our best efforts to diminish and destroy what God is up to. Despite all the bad news we take in non-stop in this internet age, Jesus declares that all appearances to the contrary God’s love is not only still spreading but it will inevitably take over everything. I wonder if my neighbors will believe that I let my front yard go to seed in order to teach my church about the Kingdom of God? Nah, I’m pretty sure they won’t buy it. Grace and Peace, Rev. Chase Peeples On Tuesday, the CDC Director stated that “fully vaccinated” people who wear masks can safely attend many indoor events including worship services. “Fully vaccinated” means you have received both shots (if necessary) of a vaccine and for two weeks after the last shot have had no COVID symptoms. Masks remain essential, as does social distancing, but the good news is that vaccinations are making things much safer for people who get them.
Attending an indoor event with a large group of people still remains risky, but our spaces are large enough that we can spread out and meet in a safe manner. For now, masks, hand sanitizer, social distancing, no congregational singing, no bulletins or other handouts and taking communion sitting in pews with provided communion sets remain necessary. People who have not yet been vaccinated or who refuse to get vaccinations are still at the same level of risk as all of us were over a year ago. We have not reached herd immunity, and it remains unclear how great the risk is of vaccinated people still passing the virus on to unvaccinated people through physical contact and close interaction even with masks on. The same principle still applies: Love your neighbor by wearing a mask. Even though the same precautions will be in effect that have existed since we returned to in-person worship services, this new declaration by the CDC means fully vaccinated people can feel safe coming back to worship. Some people, however, who have compromised immune systems due to a health condition or other reasons should still exercise caution and consult their doctors about whether coming back to church is safe. We will continue to stream worship services online via the church web site, YouTube and Facebook Live. This will always continue even long after the pandemic is over. My hope is that our time apart over the last year will make us commit more than ever to worshipping together in person. The importance of seeing the faces and speaking in person to folks in your faith community matters just as much as it always has. Be present in our beautiful church sanctuary, hear the music live and enjoy the gift of being in the same room with your fellow believers. What the writer of Hebrews had to say centuries ago still applies today: And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. I encourage you to make participating in the worship of God an essential and non-negotiable part of your weekly schedule. I understand all too well the demands upon people’s time and energy in our present culture, but if we claim God is the most important part of our lives then our actions should include making that time to worship each week. Now that vaccinations are making it possible to do so safely once more, let us make our worship service a central part of our life together as a church. Grace and Peace, Rev. Chase Peeples P. S. If you’d like to read more about what the CDC Director said about attending worship services, here is a good article: https://religionnews.com/2021/04/27/cdc-director-masked-fully-vaccinated-people-can-attend-worship-indoors/ Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. --Isaiah 43:18-19 NRSV Recently I listened to an episode of NPR’s Planet Money about the 1980 movie 9 to 5 starring Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. If you are old enough to remember the movie, I bet the theme song by Dolly Parton is already running through your head! I remember seeing it in the theater and numerous times on TV and video. This podcast episode told the back story behind the movie and I was shocked. Since I was a child, I didn’t really understand what the movie was about. I didn’t understand that the term “sexual harassment” hadn’t really been invented yet. Nor did I understand that the movie demonstrated what was the truth at the time (and is sadly still the truth in many companies today) that women held all the clerical and lower office jobs while only men were in management. I had no idea that many of the scenes in the movie were not over-the-top comedic situations made by Hollywood but real stories of women being chased around the office by their male bosses, forced to run menial errands by their male bosses that had nothing to do with their job descriptions and sexist and sexually suggestive comments and actions were the norm. Then and now, women were penalized at their jobs for taking time off for pregnancy, childcare issues and family emergencies. Of course there is also the drastic pay gap between men and women for the same work—even the optimistic ending of 9 to 5 demonstrated that sad reality would never change. While 9 to 5 may have demonstrated the plight of White women of its day, it noticeably did not demonstrate the difficulties faced by non-White people of either gender. The Planet Money podcast stated there was only one non-White character who even had a speaking part in the movie. As bad as the office situation was for White women, non-White people weren’t even in the office at all. I’m middle aged now, and I’ve begun to tell my children and remark to others about how things were ‘back in my day.” I have to remember that my nostalgia doesn’t make up for the suffering experienced by people who didn’t look like me. White folks have told me all my life about how great the 1950’s were without realizing that time was only good for them—Black and brown people did not share in those good times. I’ve realized I’m in danger of having the same kind of myopia. As much as I might look fondly back on the 1980’s, things still were quite difficult for women, non-White people and LGBTQ people. When I speak about the “good old days,” I must remember that a lot of things might have been good for me which were not shared by most other people. History and tradition matter, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking everything in the past was good. God has been at work in the painstaking efforts for equal rights for all people not only in the past but also today. If we aren’t careful, our discomfort with change causes us to miss the work of God in the present along with the future God intends where all God’s children have equal value in our society. These words may come back to haunt me someday, but I hope as I age that my cherished memories of the past won’t blind me to God’s saving work in the present and future. I hope I never get so nostalgic for the “good old days” that I stop working for a better future that all can share. Grace and Peace, Rev. Chase Peeples Thus says the Lord God,
who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered. --Isaiah 56:8 NRSV Last week I saw the headline “There’s Room For Everyone In The Church Of Brandi Carlile” and I simply had to read the article. I can’t turn away from a sentence that includes the words “everyone” and “church.” I read the piece about the Grammy-winning Country star and I heard a story both familiar and new to me. Carlile’s music defies categories. The list of Grammys she has won reveal this truth: “Best Americana Song,” “Best American Roots Song,” and “Best Country Song.” Her success in Nashville’s music industry which is dominated by heterosexual male music is groundbreaking since she is a married lesbian. Her embrace of faith despite organized religion’s rejection of her is remarkable. She has a new memoir which reveals the complexity of her music and her person. Here’s the paragraph in the aforementioned article by Elamin Abdelmahmoud that stood out to me: One of the book’s most painful points is Carlile’s description of her botched baptism when she was a teenager. With all her friends and family gathered in church, a man she only names as Pastor Steve asked her if she “practiced homosexuality.” When she answered in the affirmative — something Pastor Steve already knew — he declined to baptize her. It was humiliating and life-altering for Carlile. She writes about how this moment pushed her further into music. (For days after, she could only lie in bed and listen to Jeff Buckley’s version of “Hallelujah.”) This kind of story is familiar to me because I have heard countless tales of people being rejected by churches, especially LGBTQ people. It’s new to me, because I’ve never heard about such a rejection occurring at the moment of baptism—the symbol of both Christ’s and the Church’s acceptance of a person. I have no words for this kind of cruelty. Stories like this make me want to cuss, quit my job as a minister and never walk into a church ever again. But then, Carlile defies categories again, and instead of pointing the finger of judgment, she offers grace even to the minister who rejected her. Humiliation like this could be anyone else’s supervillain origin story. But not Carlile’s. Her description of the episode urges restraint before judgment. I told her it read as almost protective, as though she were holding up her hand and begging the reader not to judge the pastor. Her face softened again, and she said, “No one but me saw his face. I saw what he was going through.” She means that in her deepest hurt, she allowed the inflictor to be fully human. Grace offered to the one who hurts you is truly Christlike. It is a sad irony that the people rejected by the church so often are more Christlike than the Christians who reject them. The history of Christianity is one long list of people doing the wrong thing for what they believe are the right reasons. As a minister, I’ve spent most of my time in churches struggling to be more inclusive and less of the rejecting sort with more failures than successes, so I wonder if I’ve missed out on what’s been happening all along outside church walls among the church’s outcasts. In Brandi Carlile’s case and apparently many other cases too, God has been gathering together all the outcasts for a different kind of church—one where there’s room for everyone. It’s as if God got tired of waiting for church as we have known it to catch up with what God has been doing all along: gathering the rejected and outcasts to create a community where none are turned away. At the conclusion of this article, its author Abdelmahmoud describes the ending of a concert by Carlile at Nashville’s sacred Ryman Auditorium. Knowing Carlile’s history of rejection makes her moment of triumph in this cathedral of Country Music all the more sweet. This is the kind of church I want to go to, a place where the rejected ones take center stage to praise God. That January night at the Ryman, Carlile ended the show and wrapped up her encores and the lights went out. But just before she disappeared backstage, she darted back to the center of the stage like she forgot to do the most important thing in her life. In total darkness, her silhouette visible only by cellphone lights, she stretched out her arms. Without a microphone, she started belting out “Amazing Grace.” Her hands invited the crowd to sing along, and soon, the Mother Church was glowing with uplift and tenderness. Carlile closed her eyes, lowered her voice, and let a choir of thousands take over. Grace and Peace, Rev. Chase Peeples We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with
our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. --1 John 1:1-3 NRSV Each Sunday at PHCC, I finish my sermon, say “amen,” go sit down and then I get to experience my favorite part of worship at our church: an elder giving a call to offering. I love this part of the service, because church members share about, well, whatever they want to share about. Sometimes it is about giving faithfully to God’s work in our church and other times it is about something God revealed to them during the preceding week. I love it, because it is honest, often vulnerable and therefore real AND most of all, it is not me saying these things! I’m deeply humbled to preach and lead worship, but I often feel like there is an unspoken understanding that I’m supposed to say these things since I’m the minister. Yet, when laypeople share in front of the congregation, they don’t really have to do this. I believe what church members share in worship often has a much greater impact than what I say as minister. In many churches, it is common for laypeople to offer testimony to what God is doing in their lives. Sometimes this can be meaningful, but other times it can be someone who likes the spotlight getting attention only for themselves (the same thing can happen with ministers too). Sometimes there may be some questionable ideas shared, but other times there are moments of authenticity and vulnerability. There are risks in letting “just anybody” share in worship, which is why many denominations, including ours, have tended towards limiting this occurrence. I grew up Southern Baptist where “testimony time” was a regular happening in worship, especially on Sunday evening worship when the pastor hadn’t had time to finish a second sermon for that week. (Yes, we were expected to go to worship twice on Sundays and the minister was expected to preach two distinct sermons each week) Often the testimonies were just the same people who liked to talk enjoying attention, although every once in a while something genuine might be shared. I’m well aware of the risks of the testimonies of laypeople turning into a shallow time of show and tell. Churches that limit laypeople sharing their faith, however, make an equally erroneous mistake. When it’s only the “professional Christian” in the form of the minister speaking, a very clear message gets sent--regular people don’t have anything to say about God’s activity in their lives. Between the two extremes of sharing too much information and sharing too little, I think the latter is probably worse. What could be more damaging for the church than the idea that Christians have nothing to share about God? I suspect one of the reasons the so-called “mainline” or non-evangelical churches have declined is because laypeople got the idea that they had nothing worth sharing about God. That’s the minister’s job and not ours! It’s a small step from thinking it’s not okay to share one’s own experience of God to believing one doesn’t actually have an experience of God at all. Personally, I regret that in the Disciples of Christ the role of elder is largely determined by who is willing to speak or pray in public. Folks who don’t like to speak in public or feel they have nothing to share never do so. The entire church is impoverished because it doesn’t hear from all of its members--I guarantee you those who feel anxious about speaking in public still have something worth sharing which would benefit all of our faith journeys. I am really grateful to hear what our elders have to say, but I long to hear about what God is doing in the lives of all PHCC’s members. Here’s an assignment for you. Spend some time praying, thinking and meditating on what you would want to tell your church about your faith journey and what God is doing in your life. Maybe speaking in public is too big of an ask, but what if you could write it and we shared that with the congregation? What would you share with your church? I’m dying to know. Grace and Peace, Rev. Chase Peeples Today is Earth Day, and if you’re like me, you want to make a positive difference for the environment but yoy feel the problems we face seem larger than what any one person can solve. Beyond doing things like recycling and buying local, what can one person do? It can feel discouraging. If you can afford it, you can choose to drive a hybrid or electric car or even put solar panels on your home, but not everyone can take those steps.
What about what we can do together as a church? One of the reasons we create Christian community together is so we can make the world a better place. Pooling our efforts to make a positive environmental impact accomplishes several goals. Among those goals are making a greater impact together than we can do on our own, and building relationships with people in our community who share those values (Who knows? Some of them might even need a faith community). It can be difficult to know where to start, but thankfully our denomination, The Christian Church, Disciples of Christ has us covered in that respect. The Disciples motto is “a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world.” What better way to live that out than by caring for God’s world which God has entrusted to us? The Green Chalice program was created to help congregations become good stewards of the earth and to recognize them for their good work. Its steps are simple, but their impact can be great.
2. Sign the Green Chalice Covenant As children of God and followers of Christ Jesus, we covenant to: Worship God with all creation and pray for the healing of the earth. Study the climate crisis and engage others in climate solutions. Repent and forgive for the harm we have inflicted on the earth that sustains life. Advocate for ecojustice public policies and witness by living sustainable lifestyles. Rest in God’s good creation and invite others to delight in nature. 3. Make 3 Changes (some of these we already do) Examples: Get an Energy Audit, Start or Enhance a Recycling Program, Use Real Dishware, Stop using Styrofoam and disposable dishes, Changing to efficient light bulbs, Install programmable thermostats, Start a community garden, Serving local foods, Plant Native Species plants, Plant Trees in the community, Participate in the Disciples Coffee Program, Purchase Eco-Palms for Palm Sunday, Weave Creation into worship in prayers, hymns, liturgy and sermons, Use Eco-Friendly cleaning products, Provide Eco-Tips in Newsletters, Install Rain Barrels for watering, Host a Farmer’s Market, Have a Green VBS theme, Partner with Local Organizations for Advocacy, Do a creation care study series, Observe the Sabbath. That’s how you start. There’s even more a church can do, of course, and becoming a “certified” Green Chalice congregation is relatively easy. Most Disciples congregations, however, haven’t taken these easy steps. In the Greater KC Region, only two congregations (St. Andrew’s Christian in Olathe and Lee’s Summit Christian) have done so. Many of these changes not only help the earth but also help the church’s bottom line—an energy audit can lead to energy efficiency that saves lots of money. A United Church of Christ congregation in the Northland (Bethel UCC on Parvin Rd.) has space on their land like PHCC does. They installed solar panels outside their building taking advantage of generous incentives and not only have they cut their utility costs but they provide energy back to the grid which earns them money! It doesn’t take much for a church to get started making positive environmental changes that can make a big difference. All it takes are a few individuals who care enough to make it happen here at PHCC. Are you one of them? You can find out more by looking at Green Chalice on www.discipleshomemissions.org. Grace and Peace, Rev. Chase Peeples O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest. --Psalm 22:2 NRSV Not quite a year ago, PHCC folks showed grace to me. The Sunday after George Floyd was killed by a police officer who kneeled on his neck for over nine minutes cutting off his air supply, I just had to share with you some of my pain from the pulpit. As an interim minister during the Covid pandemic, I wanted to keep my sermons on relatively non-controversial ground, but as the father of two black sons I couldn’t stay in “safe” territory. First, I shared my fears of being misunderstood. I shared my fears of being misunderstood as hating all police officers, judging all police by the bad actions of only some, saying the wrong thing which would shut down dialogue rather than creating opportunities for understanding and leaving people feeling judged. Then I shared my pain that every time I saw video of a black man getting killed by police I could only see my sons. I asked if there was enough room at PHCC to share my fear and pain as the white father of two black teenage boys? You responded with a gracious “yes.” Today I still have the same fears: fears of being misunderstood and fears for my sons’ lives. Not quite eleven months later, the officer who killed George Floyd has been convicted of murder. I feel relieved for the verdict but no less afraid for my sons. Each day seems to bring news of another black teenager shot by police. Each day still seems to bring news of a traffic stop over something inconsequential leading to a dead black man. Both of my sons will soon be driving on their own, which is scary enough for any parent, but I also think about what if one or both of my sons does something stupid or reckless or nothing at all and ends up shot and killed. I’m grateful for the guilty verdict in the case of George Floyd’s murderer, but I’m no less afraid for my boys than I was yesterday before the verdict was announced. So, I’m asking you again if there is room at PHCC for me and my fear? Can I share it without folks jumping to one side or another, repeating the arguments of cable news pundits? Can I share my fear of being a white man ill-equipped to prepare black sons for the conscious and unconscious prejudice they will face? Can the parents of white children imagine what it would be like if their kids were judged the same way black kids are judged? Is such a space even possible in our day and time? I wish I could speak authoritatively about systemic racism in our culture, but the more I learn as a white man about the white privilege I was raised with, the less I know for sure. My own sense of what safety and security mean in our culture goes out the window when I think about what might happen to my sons. I don’t know much for sure other than fear. So, I name that fear before you in the hopes you can hear it for what it is and the hopes you won’t judge or condemn me for what it is not. This morning Chalice Press, the Disciples of Christ publisher, sent out the following prayer. It seems like a good one for me to pray. I invite you to join me. O God, Creator of each and every one of us, We pray for justice. We pray for the family of George Floyd. We pray for those who fear each day they will be the next George Floyd. We pray for those taking to the streets—to acknowledge justice served, to protest and work where injustice remains. For all, we pray for their safety. We pray for those who argue this verdict and hope they will someday see the error in their ways. We pray we will all learn how to repent of the sins of racism: where we see it in others and where it lives in us, the sin we commit knowingly and the sin we may never recognize. Above all, we pray and work for peace. Always, always peace. Amen. Grace and Peace, Rev. Chase Peeples He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your mind.’ --Matthew 22:37 NRSV Earth Day is coming up, so let me share some of my ecologically-minded musings with you. Sometime long in the past, I can remember reading an essay by a Christian social justice advocate who was also a mom. In her essay, she complained about the amount of plastic present in the packaging of the snacks she had to bring for her kids’ soccer games. When it was her turn to be the parent providing snacks, for safety reasons she had to make sure each was individually wrapped by its producer. Rather than buying one large bag of oranges and slicing them up on her own, she had to purchase individual plastic cups of orange slices sealed with even more plastic. I remember agreeing with her about plastic waste but also thinking, “Who cares about packaged orange slices when there are giant corporations dumping toxins all over the place?” Fast forward more years than I want to admit, and I’ve been thinking about all the plastic my family uses. Is this something that happens to people when they have children and reach middle age? I made dinner last night and all of the food came in some kind of plastic packaging, even the organic healthy stuff, and most of it was of a sort that can’t be recycled. I just stared at the packaging for a moment in amazement. I think like most people I don’t want to pollute the environment, and I think like most people I feel sort of powerless to make change on a large enough scale to matter. When you live in a state where your politicians hold safe seats in Congress and in the state legislature AND they routinely deny climate change is real, you can write all the letters to them you want but you are just wasting paper—paper they probably won’t recycle! I’m well aware of the good modern plastics provide for us. I’ve seen the commercials made by the plastic companies. Plastic helps save food from spoiling and waste. Plastics help save lives with advanced medicine. Plastics can be recycled. Etc. Etc. I’m also aware that most plastic we use never gets recycled but rather goes in landfills where it will take 10,000+ years to break down. Ever since China stopped importing our recyclables some years back, the market fell for paper, cardboard, and plastic leaving recyclers with nowhere to sell the stuff we throw in the recycle bins each week. Almost daily, more news appears about the amount of microplastics in our rivers, lakes, oceans and even the air we breathe. All of this leaves me staring at the amount of plastic involved in my family’s average meal and wondering if that meal was worth the amount of plastic that will take 10,000+ years to break down? We recycle and even wash the food particles off our plastic, because food contaminates plastic making it non-recyclable. We compost food waste, and we try to reuse plastic whenever we can. Yet, none of it seems like enough. As a Christian, I’ve been taught all my life that the second greatest commandment is loving others as I wish to be loved. It comes right after the first commandment to love God. So many Christians envision a future that ends with a fiery cataclysm which could come any day, but those of us who reject such a view are left with an indeterminate future. This means the command to love others includes more than just people alive now but also others in the future. Decades ago, I read a book by a Christian ethicist named Robert Parham titled Loving Our Neighbors Across Time. I’ve forgotten what the book said—probably the same stuff most environmentally conscious Christians say—but I’ve never forgotten the title. People I will never meet will live in the far future with the plastics I use every day for the most ordinary things. Jesus commanded me to love them too. It doesn’t seem very loving to leave them my mess. If you’re reading this, maybe your reaction is like mine was years ago when I read a Christian mom’s lament over plastic-encased orange slices. You have more pressing things to worry about. Maybe sane people don’t look at their groceries and think about their neighbors centuries in the future or maybe we are all insane not to do so. Grace and Peace, Rev. Chase Peeples |
AuthorWe're Park Hill Christian Church in KC MO. We seek to follow Jesus by praising God, loving those we meet and serving the vulnerable. Archives
June 2021
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