Sermon Archive

Rachel is weeping.
Can you hear her?
She weeps for her children
her children who are no more
children who are forgotten
children who have no home
children who the church deems as unworthy
children who the church has told are not welcome
children who do not believe that
God’s promises are extended to them.
For the church
we weep
that is more concerned with its own self-preservation
than it is with the children that are lost because of its own sinfulness.
All the children
we weep with Rachel.

Rachel weeps with the widows
as they clean Tabitha’s dead body
confused, angry, grieving
for the disciple, Tabitha, who invited them into the church
for the disciple who deemed them worthy,
even though others in the church disagreed
for the disciple who believed in them
they wailed for her
with each other
as they laid her in the upper room
that is too reminiscent of the place
where Jesus took his disciples
the last night
when he was betrayed.

Over Tabitha’s dead body
Rachel joins the widows
The widows who had no place to go
before Tabitha let them in
before Tabitha cared for them
before Tabitha showed them God’s love
that triumphs against a world who didn’t want the widows
against a world that deemed them unworthy
against a world that was more concerned with its own self-preservation
than with the children that are lost because of its own sinfulness.

In my work with Presbyterian Welcome
I have had the honor and privilege to visit many wonderful churches, like Rutgers.
I appreciate so much Rutgers’ commitment to
education and mission and am
thankful for God’s welcome made real.
In my visits I search for the places, for churches, for pastors
where Rachel’s children would find safety
where Tabitha’s widows would be welcomed
churches that are less concerned with their own self-preservation
and more concerned with Jesus’ commandments to
love our neighbors as ourselves
and love the Lord our God with all our hearts and souls and minds.

One example of where
I have found
inspiration
hope for our dying denomination is at
First Presbyterian Church, Jamaica, Queens
a gracious hospitality and welcome extended to me
a great respect for their ministry I hold.

The building of First, Jamaica is as
big and beautiful as Rutgers Church
with ministry alive and engaging.

Coffee houses and poetry slam nights for young adults
a clubhouse and bowling alley
where kids
hang out after school,
do their homework,
talk with each other in safe spaces,
asking hard questions.
Vibrant Worship that is as diverse as their church community
worship as an opportunity to reach people who may not ever
come to church.
A senior center with
computer classes, quilting circles, fellowship.
A real community center reaching the needs
of the people.
The Spirit is moving and working and blowing
there, at First, Jamaica, Queens,
Rachel finds hope for her future
and her children gather again around her
there, the widows celebrate when they find
Tabitha raised from the dead.

It is not a place without problems
for sure
because every church, every institution has its problems.

But they have been on a journey to
move away from the typical,
traditional
Presbyterian
committee structure
and instead move to a framework
intentionally engaging in:
worship
evangelism
discipleship
fellowship and
ministry.

This new model, focusing on Jesus’ commandments and example
focusing on the need to welcome Rachel’s children home
after they have been told there is no place for them at the inn
this new model
transforms the conversation from
“what are the rules” and
“this is the way we have always done it”
and moves towards,
“how does this possibility further our understanding of God’s calling to us?” and
“how does our ministry bring God’s promise of unabashed hospitality to those who need it most?”

This change in conversation
keeps in focus our call as a church to minister with the
disenfranchised
and those on the
margins
recognizing and understanding
how we are all marginalized by a church and a world
that rarely wants us to live life honestly and truthfully.
This change in conversation takes us away
from what Rev. Anna Taylor Sweringon from First, Jamaica calls
a “private family chapel mentality,”
the frame of mind that makes us
obsessed
with buildings and
tradition and the
power of a
few people in the center.

This change in conversation forces us to ask
Who is on the margins?
Who is dying on the margins?
How can we tell them that
God loves them
and that they can
find a place here
that really
supports them and
cares for them and
empowers them to
be all that God has created them to be?

To move away from a
“private family chapel”
mentality forces us to be
uncomfortable,
forces us to evaluate how we extend welcome.

To move away from a
“private family chapel”
mentality forces us to be
church.

With all the important, critical and life-giving ways that
churches like Rutgers
have given sanctuary to gay and lesbian people
have provided gay and lesbian people with acceptance and love
I still challenge
our welcoming churches, our presbytery, our denomination
to resist the temptation
to be a private family chapel
inviting those in who look like us and act like us
while we say we invite everyone to join us.

Now, don’t get me wrong.
I love my private family chapel,
I love knowing all the Presbyterians
I love the small community of Presbyterian Welcome churches
and Presbyterians in general
knowing all the rules and regulations of how to work my way through the system
what I can say and what I can’t
and all the unspoken rules and regulations of how I am to behave myself.
It gives me comfort.
It makes me feel like I am in the “in-crowd.”
But a private family chapel is not what Tabitha began with her widows.
It isn’t about comfort.
It isn’t about an in-crowd and an out-crowd.
Tabitha, Jesus’ disciple, went to those who were the least of us
and invited them in
just as they were.

When I spend time at the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community center in Greenwich Village
or when I go to the doctor at the Callen-Lorde Community Medical Center,
or when I go to lesbian bars,
or when I walk around Chelsea,
I am confronted with the margins
those who are not members of our private family chapel
those who Rachel cries over,
her children who are no more,
the sons and daughters
who have given up on religion
who know about the contradictions of the church
and refuse to be hurt again.

I am blown away at the variety and diversity of our community.
I am reminded of the thousands of people who have found community at
The Center
or at the bars
or on sports teams
who are finding more support there
than they would ever think they would find
inside a church.
And I think of Rachel’s children for whom she weeps

When I am in these places I pray for our church,
that it may some day, and some day soon extend to them
a place
where they may enjoy God’s love for them
through worship and fellowship
where they may cultivate and empower who God has created them to be
as the disciple Tabitha did for her widows who wept over her.

I pray just as much for all of those who are
thankfully touched and reached by places like the Center,
and those who are not reached by anyone right now
but are struggling in despair and drugs and alcohol and sex and suicide,
those on the margins of the margins.

When I am there I think to myself,
“wow, we have some work to do.
The church is not reaching these people
what we are saying and doing simply isn’t
relevant to them.
We are not giving them places and ways to be
community,
we are not going to them but are
hoping that they may find us,
and if they do find us I am just
not sure if they will actually find a
group of people who will accept them and their
lifestyles
and their
questions.”

I am also reminded of how our denomination,
our presbyteries
our churches, have
missed the boat
how because of fear
and the desire to be a
private family chapel
we have kept ourselves from offering a relevant and liberatory
world to communities who need it most
and I grieve, I weep over
this
as we struggle
to move beyond talking in the dichotomous terms of
gay and lesbian to include
queer, bisexual and transgender people
terms that frankly are
passé these days.

You see young people are bursting open
boxes
of sexuality and gender,
challenging me,
challenging all of us to live in the
fluidity and
complexity
of our sexual and gender expression.
They are living in confusing times and struggle, like we do, confused about
relationships
commitment
politics
money
violence and
sin.

But I rarely find our private family chapel
honestly talking about
relationships
commitment
politics
money
violence
and sin.

And then I begin to dream of the day when Amendment B is removed from the
Book of Order
and we are able to
serve freely
without having to
prove ourselves
because of our sexuality,
where what we do in bed is not given nearly as much thought as our
faithfulness,
our skills,
our calling,
our caring,
our relationship with God.
I dream of this day,
and I do believe that this day is indeed coming.
But when it comes,
I pray that this church be a place where
gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people,
and all of us who fit somewhere in between and
outside of those categories
will want to belong to and serve.
I pray that this denomination be a
place where the diversity of our community is
welcomed and accepted.

So we need to begin,
as welcoming churches who I am certain the
Spirit is ready to move through.

How do we begin, we ask.
We return to the model First, Jamaica sets for us
abandoning committees for the sake of having committees
but instead recognizing and naming the need around us
not just within our community
but communities that have not yet come to us.

We give up our concern for self-preservation
and believe that God is the One who preserves us.

We release our private family chapel.

We keep faith and remember the promise
God made to Rachel
that there is hope for the future
there is hope for the denomination
for me found in First, Jamaica
for me found in Presbyterian Welcome,
a community of which you are so critical to our survival
Presbyterian Welcome that asks
churches
to engage with us in the work of denominational renewal
the basis of which is truth-telling, honesty, healing
from the wrongs of systemic violence our denomination and churches engage in.

We believe in the grace of God, that when we fail at a project it does not mean that
we should not try again.

We take risks.

We grow comfortable with discomfort,
because then we know we are growing.

We name our fears,
we ask questions,
we worship in ways we never could have imagined,
in ways that reflect what it may look and feel like if the future were here today.

We are honest about our strengths and our failings.

And as William Sloane Coffin, theologian, preacher, pastor and activist said:
We believe that “this tarnished but still glittering wonder of God’s creation [the church] is worth fighting for.” Coffin believes that
“Kindness that seeks at all costs to avoid trouble is not Christian…
God must afflict the comfortable before he can comfort the afflicted.”
Coffin asks “Why then, we may ask in God’s name, is the Church in this country
placating, entertaining, reverently rearranging minutiae
when knowledge for salvation for a confused, inert, and frightened people
has been put into the [Church’s] mouth to proclaim?
And all the hands are needed to save this sinking ship,” Coffin continues.
“Let Christians not quibble about commitments to Christ.
Let all those who want to keep civilization civilized—
put quality into culture, humanity into business, life into the millions who are now drifting—
let them all be drawn to the cause and then if they will,
let them find Christ as the leader who can achieve it.”

Come, together, all of us,
Welcome to the journey
Weep with Rachel for the children we have lost
to a church that is fearful
Believe in a church that believes in the future so much
that we make the future the present
Get in touch with your pain and your sorrow so that
you can relate with empathy and understanding to the
pain and sorrow of those not in this sanctuary.
Get in touch with the places you experience joy and happiness
so that you can share that with
those not in this sanctuary.

Weep with Tabitha’s widows
the outcast who we have cast out from our midst.
Gather around her and believe that she will be raised
from the dead
Just as God raised Jesus from the dead
because he believed so strongly in life.