"How the Pilgrims Were Wrong" - A Sermon for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

A Sermon for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
Pilgrim Sunday / Stewardship Sunday
Isaiah 65:17-25; Luke 21:5-19

By The Rev. Matthew Emery
Preached at Second Congregational United Church of Christ, Rockford, Illinois
November 18, 2007

(It must be noted that in my congregation, the Sunday preceding Thanksgiving is observed as "Pilgrim Sunday", a remembrance of the 'Pilgrim heritage' of the Congregationalist tradition.)

A few years ago, May of 2000 to be exact, I had the opportunity to stand where the Pilgrims once had—literally. I was on a European concert tour with the Men’s Glee Club from Michigan State University, a tour that began with a week in the Netherlands. On our very first day, we were driven to Leiden, a university city not very far from Amsterdam. In Leiden, there still stands Pieterskirk, St. Peter’s Church. Stepping inside, you can see the beauty of the gothic architecture, take in the noble vastness of the space, and perhaps even hear some melodies from one of Pieterskirk’s two pipe organs. What you can’t do, though, is actually attend church there, as the building was deconsecrated as a church some years ago. But, as you continue your walk around this grand building, you’re likely to happen upon the reminders of some of the people who once did attend church there. You might see a plaque with a hauntingly familiar-looking boat on it, memorializing one John Robinson. Intrigued, you take a closer look and read the plaque:

In Memory of
Rev. John Robinson, M. A.
Pastor of the English Church Worshipping Over Against
This Spot, A. D. 1609 - 1625, Whence at his Prompting
Went Forth
THE PILGRIM FATHERS
To Settle New England
in 1620
- - - - - - - - -
Buried under this house of worship, 4 March, 1625
[At the age of] [49] Years.
In Memoria Aeterna Erit Justus.
Erected by the National Council of the Congregational
Churches of the United States of America
A. D. 1891”

Indeed, this John Robinson was the pastor of the congregation of Puritans that left England for Holland in 1609 to worship without persecution, the same congregation from which some 35 people (which was actually only a minority of the congregation) set sail for the new world on the Mayflower in 1620. And this Pieterskirk where we find this plaque is the church in which that congregation worshipped.

Knowing what I know now, that I would find myself standing in a Congregationalist pulpit, I am honored that I had the opportunity to place my feet in the very church where the Pilgrim’s feet had trod, to reflect on the Pilgrim pastor—the one who told them as they left that there was “yet more light and truth to break forth from God’s word”—glad to imagine that faithful community at worship in those walls, to glimpse a little piece of their story. And, had I known what I know now, I probably would have taken better pictures.

It is a right and good thing to remember and celebrate the heritage from which we come, whatever that may be. But in honoring our heritage and reflecting on our tradition, we only do so faithfully when we remember with a critical mind, a willingness to recognize that what our forebears did may not have been right, or at least not be the best thing for us to do today. It’s the difference between tradition and traditionalism.

The reason I bring this critical memory thing up today is this: as I’ve been thinking about the Pilgrims alongside the two scripture readings for this morning, the topic—the sermon title, if you will—that keeps popping up in my head is “How the Pilgrims were Wrong.”

I think the Pilgrims may have been wrong because they didn’t quite dream big enough. Now, yes, yes, I understand that understand that leaving everything behind to set sail for a relatively unknown land thousands of miles across the ocean is rather a big thing. So I do not mean to imply that they did not risk a lot—in fact, the Pilgrims risked far more for their faith than most of us here today have had to risk, quite possibly more than many of us might be willing to risk. But my question is not about what they risked, but what did they dream? What was their vision?

In this piece from the last section of Isaiah, God offers a vision, and not just some small vision, but a pretty darn big one. The Israelites have come back from exile in Babylon, and they’ve found out that life is not the rosy walk in the garden that they thought it would be. The city of Jerusalem was still in ruins, they weren’t a self-sufficient kingdom led by someone from the line of David, and even the temple itself was still a wrecked mess. They still vividly remembered their people being plucked from the land they toiled over, driven out of the houses they labored to build. But even as the people despaired and began loosing their vision, God was not done. God had a new vision for them, actually a new vision for the whole creation. “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things”—that is, the despair, the humiliation, the exile—“shall not be remembered or come to mind.” God is going to create a new Jerusalem, a new city on the hill that would be a light to the nations.

When we hear these promises, this vision, I think it’s hard for us today to really have a sense of how big this is. Sometimes I think it’s maybe easier to think about some heavenly paradise. Ah, yes, in some far away place in some far away time, there’s this place of wonder and peace. I can limit God to heaven and believe that God has some pie in the sky awaiting us. That’s easy. But it’s that ‘new earth’ part of the vision that makes it big, I think. This is a vision about real infants that die too young and real labor that seems in vain. If I were to imagine this vision in today’s terms, it would have something to do a new creation for the very real children we know who grow up in dangerous neighborhoods or maybe the mentally-ill woman I see a few times a week walking down the middle of the street past my apartment, yelling at the traffic that goes by her. Dreaming God’s big dream about this real world is not easy. I mean, come on, that whole wolf and lamb thing—we all know that wolves and lambs don’t go together, and when they do only one of them is get out of it alive… and usually it’s the wolf.

For the Pilgrims, though, in the midst of their struggles with fellow Puritans and the Anglicans and the Catholics, they seemed to have trouble too. They set off to the Americas to create their own city on a hill, their own New Jerusalem. It is as though they lost sight of God’s vision and promise that the New Jerusalem was God’s work, work they were invited and called to be a part of, but still God’s creation in the end. It doesn’t seem as though they had a sense of God’s vision encompassing everyone, all creation and all peoples. And like I’ve said, I think the hard part about this vision is that it is a vision about this world, a promise from God that the very people and land and cities we know will be transformed. And yet, for the Pilgrims, they decided that they had to separate from the church and the world that they knew—they were even called Separatists by other Puritan groups, even by the Puritans that would join them in Massachusetts only 10 years later. From all across the witness of the Bible, we see again and again the promise that God is not done with this world—even to the very end in the book of Revelation, where in the second to last chapter, the loud voice from the throne proclaims “See, the home of God is among mortals. [God] will dwell with them, and they will be [God’s] peoples.” So, looking back at the Pilgrims I think it is fair to question their decision to separate themselves from the rest of the church and from their society.

On the other hand, it is only fair to look back with the critical eye on the Pilgrims if we are willing to turn that critical eye on ourselves as well. Are we too guilty of not dreaming big enough? Often I think yes. When most of us hear the kind of big vision that God has through Isaiah’s words, well… we have trouble dreaming that that kind of radical transformation is possible in our world… and, even if we thought it were, for many of us we have too much at stake with the way the world is now that we don’t want to dream that. We don’t want to be too intentional about engaging with the real practices of Christianity and the church, because then we might just start seeing the world differently. We might start having big dreams. And besides that, if we started being intentional and committed about church and discipleship and Christian practices, then we’d be different—we’d be weird.

Well, friends, the gospel is weird. The gospel says that the world doesn’t belong to those who have money or power, rather it belongs to God. Pretty weird. God not as some hard-nosed distant despot, but rather the gospel speaks of the God loved all of us and all the world enough to come as one of us to be a part of it. Pretty weird. Death as not the final word. Pretty weird. A God who still comes to us through real, concrete, this-worldly things like spoken words, water, bread and wine, communities of real, less-than-perfect people. Pretty weird. God invites us to dream big and then to live as though those dreams were already happening. Pretty weird.

You know, that’s actually one of the good things about the Pilgrims, one of the things they did right that we can learn from: the Pilgrims were pretty weird, too. They weren’t afraid to be known for their faith. They weren’t afraid to let their faith—to let God, even—affect every part of their day-to-day life. They weren’t afraid to engage in practices of faith that made them distinctive as Christians. They weren’t afraid to give everything—their money, their talents, their lives—in response to God, to give thanks for all God’s work. (There, for those of you who were expecting a stewardship sermon today, that sentence was for you.)

What can we do in response to all God has done for us? What’s the biggest, craziest, most lavish vision we can dream of what God is doing in the world? And what’s the weirdest thing we can do, the weirdest people we can be, living out that dream?

Amen, weird dreamers, Amen.

"Through the Waters" - A Sermon for the Baptism of Christ, Year C

“Through the Waters”

A Sermon for the Baptism of Christ, RCL Year C
Isaiah 43:1-7 & Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

By The Rev. Matthew Emery
Preached at Second Congregational United Church of Christ, Rockford, IL
January 7, 2007


I don’t think Phil was very happy with me. When I finally happened to see him yesterday--after probably more than three weeks of no contact--he was looking a little down... Not at all perky... The zest of life zapped right out of him. No words were exchanged in our brief little encounter yesterday, but none were needed. After all, Phil’s appearance alone said it all: “look at me... when you forget to give me water for this long, what do you expect a little guy like me to do but turn all wilt-y and brown?”

Of course, “Phil” is my houseplant, a philodendron that I’ve owned for not quite two years now. And, I must confess that I am not very good about keeping him watered. Maybe it’s because he sits off in an area of my apartment that I don’t necessarily walk by every day. Maybe if I had more houseplants--something I’ve thought about, as I think they would make a nice addition to my apartment--maybe if I had more than just one, then I’d be more likely to think about it. Maybe if I kept some sort of watering can out on my kitchen counter, maybe that might remind me.

Well, anyway... Observations about my houseplant gardening skills aside, what happens when we forget about the water? Now, I think it wouldn’t be too likely for us here in this building to forget about water. I mean, in just the four-and-a-half months I have been here, we’ve had a pipe burst that flooded our dining room and a roof leak here in the sanctuary that damaged part of our pipe organ. So there’s been water to think about a plenty.

But, then again, I wouldn’t think that the Israelites would forget about the waters either--the people who God led out of Egypt and through the waters of the Red Sea, God’s chosen people whose promised land lay across the Jordan River. Surely they wouldn’t forget about their journey through the waters and covenant God made in carrying them through. But, years later, we hear The Prophet preaching to them after they had forsaken that covenant. The new life they were given as they passed through the waters now stands withered away, brown leaves on dead branches.

But The Prophet proclaims the promise, God’s vow offered anew. ‘Cross the rivers, and I will be with you. Wade through the waters again, and I will raise you up. You may not know whether they are the floods of trial and terror or the pathway to freedom, but do not fear, for I have redeemed you.’ So The Prophet reminds the Israelites in exile of the message that the waters carried all along: ‘new life’, ‘the promise of the covenant’, ‘you belong to God.’

[pause (slight)]

Even with our recent overabundance of water flowing around this building, I believe that ultimately we too need reminding of the waters. We need to taste the cool sip of a refreshing drink in the desert heat. We need to feel the strange tingle of droplets, like that fine mist on a spring morning, like that touch that the baby coo-s at when the pastor’s wet hand comes near. We need to remember how good it is to wash ourselves off, to watch the sweat and muck of our lives disappear down the drain.

We need to remember that in the end the waters don’t depend on us. The faucet will pour forth water no matter who it is turning the spigot. The rain will come no matter how dirty or clean your car is. Even the prisoner--or perhaps especially the prisoner--is given water to drink. Are you old? These waters have washed over you. Are you young? In these waters, you too have passed through the river to the promised land. Are you rich? Are you poor? Are you white? Are you black or Latino or an immigrant? Are you gay? Are you straight? Are you a pastor? Are you a lay person? Are you differently-abled? Guess what--it doesn’t matter, the promise still calls out from the waters, for you too are baptized.

But there is something more here. We remember the waters, yes. But we also remember who is in the water with us. Glistening wet, hair dripping onto the sand, we find Jesus, right along side us and all the people. We remember and tell again this story from Luke, the account of Jesus being baptized, not only because we need to remember the waters, because we want to recall the fact that we are baptized. No, rather we tell the story--this story--of the One who wades into the water with us. John the Baptist warns of one who comes with power and might, Spirit and fire, and instead we find Jesus joining the ranks of the sinners who have come in repentance. The one who is supposed to come as our judge is the one who joins with us in our journey through the Jordan.

This is the “dirty little secret” that we have to share with the world. Jesus has stood beside us and all the people. When we pass through the waters, God will be with us. The Beloved One has chosen us. All humanity belongs to God, the One who calls us by name and loves us. And over this river of living water, the voice of God’s promise still rains down from heaven.
So, I think it’s a good thing we have this ‘watering can’ right here, so we don’t forget about the water.

BLESSING AND HONOR, GLORY AND POWER BE UNTO GOD, NOW AND FOREVER. AMEN.

Sermon Copyright © 2007, Matthew C. Emery. All rights reserved.