Author: gracesmuggler

This sermon was preached with Covenant Presbyterian Church in Southfield, MI and was focused upon Luke 6:17-26. A written manuscript is below. 

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God…

Mother Teresa used to say, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to one another.”

We long for peace… Peace of every kind…

And we do belong to one another… but have we forgotten?

How easy it is to forget… And yet God is always beckoning us back into this belonging, this Sacred Belonging rooted in connection with God, with our neighbors, and with the earth. God calls us to this again and again. And we find blessedness there — Blessedness in this larger form of Belonging.

As Jesus traveled around Galilee and Judea, he was surrounded by crowds. Large crowds. Sometimes, the crowds were so big and so pressing in their needs, that they began to press in upon him. There were times that he would find creative ways to step aside just a bit and work with nature so that he could address them collectively — getting into Simon Peter’s boat and pushing it out into the water, climbing up the Mount of Olives and letting it serve as a natural amphitheater, or here, coming down from a mountain where he and his disciples had been praying and standing on a level place to address the people.

In all of these moments, Jesus spoke to them all at once, and I wonder… As the members of these crowd stood or sat side by side, listening in the same direction, breathing in the same direction, and dreaming in the same direction… I wonder… did they remember once more that they belong to one another? Did they experience an invitation into that larger, Sacred Belonging? With God? With neighbors? With the earth? Did Jesus step away just a bit and turn them toward one another? Did he turn them toward a larger vision? A vision that could invigorate their own lives?

Biblical scholars call this section of the Gospel of Luke, The Sermon on the Plain. It’s very similar to the Sermon on the Mount, which is found in the Gospel of Matthew, but in Luke, it has its own unique telling. It’s possible that Jesus gave the same address, a very memorable one in his life and teaching, and Matthew and Luke recorded it differently, at the Mount of Olives and here, on a plain, and with different nuances.

But it’s also possible that these teachings of Jesus were a frequent address as he traveled. These teachings might have been one of his primary stump speeches, so to speak. He may have spoken them many times to different crowds, and as the disciples traveled along with him, they may have come to internalize these words. They may have come to a recognition that they belonged to the vision within them.

The Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain both begin with words of blessedness. We might remember the opening words in Matthew which we called the Beatitudes —

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted,

and many more words of blessings.

But here, in the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus is much more direct:

Blessed are you who are poor —

not blessed are the poor, but blessed are you who are poor; not blessed are the poor in spirit, but blessed are you who are poor, poor right now —

for yours is the kingdom of God —

not for theirs is the kingdom of God, but for yours is the kingdom of God — yours, yes, right now.

These blessings are direct and for the people who seek belonging into this vision. They are present for those who find themselves suddenly held within the belonging of this vision.

And here, in the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus is much more direct with something Matthew does not include. He has a list of woes:

But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.

Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what the ancestors did to the false prophets.

These might be… harder to hear. And yet, do they cast some people —perhaps some of us — out of this larger Sacred Belonging? With God? With neighbors? And with the earth? Or…. do these words also call us right back in?

What is Jesus doing here? Of course, we can’t fully know, but I wonder if we might consider a few things. Jesus grew up as a recipient of scriptures from the Hebrew Bible which today are often called apocalyptic literature. These include scriptures from the prophets that speak about final things… about a sacred, final future when God will cosmically and dramatically liberate the poor and disenfranchised, destroying their enemies and every single force that seeks to oppress them. These scriptures are written from the perspective of those who are abused and humiliated, who need to proclaim the strength of a truly Liberating God toward a liberation that is truly longed for and deserved.

It is a Great Reversal of fortunes. Is that what Jesus is lifting up here?

Maybe.

But I also notice that these woes don’t really have cosmic, dramatic judgment attached. They don’t say, “Woe to you who are rich, for the moon will turn to blood and you will have fear and trembling on the great, final Day of the Lord.” They don’t say that.

No, they say things like, “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.”

You sought riches, and you gained them on the backs of others, and you have them. And they make you impoverished in a totally different way.

They’ve separated you — or they give the illusion of separation to you, perhaps also giving the illusion of superiority to you, and from there, perhaps turning you against your neighbors so that you oppress them, and they do not have what they need.

You sought riches, and you’ve received your consolation.

You’re not living in alignment with this better vision, this transformative vision of the Kingdom of God.

The sun, moon, and stars are not falling out of the heavens here, but we shouldn’t underestimate these words of woe.

As Mother Teresa used to say, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten we belong to one another.”

The Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke have their different nuances here in these words of blessing. But there’s one thing in common, one thing we could easily miss. I missed it for many years when I read these passages: In the midst of this great crowd — in both the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain — Jesus doesn’t begin by addressing the crowd as a whole. Instead, he addresses his disciples directly while the rest of the crowd watches.

He seems to make a division, and he puts an emphasis of the disciples. It isn’t the kind of separation that turns the gathered body against one another, Instead, it is a separation that invites. It is a separation that calls. It is a separation that beckons to us, saying,

“Come over here. Come to this blessedness. Come this Sacred Belonging. Come to your neighbors. Be gathered into this fullness. Follow me into this way of life. This is the way… not your riches, or your full bellies, or your too often shallow laughter, or your great reputations. Leave your trust in these. Come over here where there is life… where God is transformative, where neighbors matter and belong and have what they need — including from your riches. Come over here into a vision where the earth is filled with flourishing people and all of creation is transformed. Come over here.”

This is Sacred Belonging. This is our invitation.

The Great Reversal is likely much more than a flip-flop of fortunes. It is an invitation to remember again that we belong to one another — yes, right this moment –and we’re invited into the very blessing of that vision.

–Renee Roederer

The Michigan Sasquatch is REAL!

Mother Teresa used to say, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to one another.”

This is wise and true. Injustice cannot be solved by one simple sentence or one simple framework. But it seems that our belonging, worth, and interconnection are central, crucial forms of recognition.

–Renee Roederer

I’m a big fan of the Enneagram. I’ve found it to be a helpful tool to gain greater understanding of myself, relationships, and whole teams of people. I especially like that it’s dynamic. It doesn’t just tell you, “You are like this,” or “this person is like this” — period. It’s a tool for growth, and we can use it to gain greater alignment with ourselves, our strengths, and our values. It’s also a tool that teaches us about our stress points.

Sarah Jane Case of the podcast “Enneagram and Coffee” created this list on Instagram this week (image above, text below). Whether we know our enneagram type or not, we might want to watch out for any of these signs in ourselves. These are indicators that we’ve reached our stress limit or are in a difficult place with our mental, emotional, and relational health. By type,

1 — Constant jaw pain

2 — Resentment

3 — Loss of motivation

4 — Dreaming of another life

5 — Not knowing who to tell you’re having a hard time

6 — Constantly complaining

7 — Not enjoying the present moment because you’re planning the next thing

8 — Hospitalization

9 — An outburst of anger

Good, good care for these. It’s okay to get here, though this of course, feels unpleasant. We’re all under immense, collective stressors, plus anything we are facing personally. We’re not alone in the stress, which also means we’re not alone — and now I’ll say, period. 🙂

Good, good, good, good care for these.

–Renee Roederer

This week, Nathan Chen set a new world record in the men’s figure skating short program. You can watch that moment here.

I went to the doctors’ office today for a routine visit. A few months ago, the office made a location change, and their new building is a total glow up. In addition to noticing that broadly, one particular detail caught my eye as soon as I walked in, and it really moved me. In the waiting area, there were chairs of various sizes. They weren’t all the same. That meant there was comfortable space for people of all body sizes. That meant there was space for a parent and child to sit together in the same seat.

There is frequently a lot of fatphobia in medical settings. And research and personal anecdotes alike tell us that people with larger bodies often avoid doctors’ offices and other medical settings because they have been shamed, misdiagnosed, undiagnosed, and/or discriminated against.

It was beautiful to see this space, both as a a tangible accommodation and as a symbol of a different set of commitments. I definitely noticed. Equality and equity are not the same. With this setup, Packard Health demonstrated the importance of the second with intention and care.

–Renee Roederer

We were talking about the Olympics — what events we’ve watched so far and which ones are our favorites. Two people in the group began talking about memorable moments from Winter Olympic games in past decades. We learned that the phrase, “Do you believe in miracles?” came from the U.S. hockey team upset in 1980. We talked about figure skating moments that the whole country seemed to watch at once.

“There’s something lost now. Back then, everyone was watching at the same time. Now you have to have Peacock TV, and people just watch things piecemeal. We’re really missing those communal rhythms.”

And this turned our conversation in a deeper direction.

“We don’t have as many communal moments anymore. And some other versions of them feel overwhelming, like election nights.”

“Yeah, when you think about these last 6-7 years, one of the primary communal rhythms we’ve had is shared trauma. Election nights, insurrections, a pandemic.”

That is a sad thought that we all shared together.

And we also committed ourselves to cultivating the communal rhythms we’re able to make.. The ones that feel life-giving. The ones that bring a sense of connectedness. The ones that feel restful. The ones that are hilarious. Even if it’s only small circles of people at the moment, we need this way of life.

–Renee Roederer

This sermon was preached with Covenant Presbyterian Church in Southfield, MI and was focused upon
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 A written manuscript is below. 

“And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

‘Love’. It’s a simple word, and we use it all the time. . . But ‘love’: Maybe it’s not such a simple concept. And then there’s this passage – familiar, familiar, familiar – read at a million-and-one weddings, but maybe it’s not so simple and straightforward either. There’s much to hear again — to hear anew. There’s much to challenge us. There’s much to invite us to sit back and reflect, much to move us to gratitude. And there’s much to invite our questioning: I mean, what is love, anyway

I wonder, do we ever really ask ourselves that? It’s definitely a worthwhile question. When’s the last time you’ve asked yourself that question? What is love? And other than that Night at the Roxbury song with the same name, when’s the last time you’ve heard anyone ask it? My hunch is that we might not verbalize the question very often — even to ourselves — but I bet we’re asking it with our lives all the time. And we can ask it this morning too: What is love?

So how do we begin to ask that question? I guess we could try to ask ourselves as objective investigators. We could try to take a step back from love, this object of our study, and pull out a couple of dictionaries or a Wikipedia article to try to come up with a definition. But I have a feeling that we’d step away unsatisfied. Because the truth is that there’s much more at stake about love than a definition. We aren’t simply objective observers. We don’t even want to be! We don’t want to be removed from love in some way; we want to be immersed, surrounded, caught-up, nurtured, and found in love. We don’t want to be researchers. We want to be participants.

But just for the heck of it, did you know that there actually is a Wikipedia entry for love? Who knew? Here it is: “Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment. The word love can refer to a variety of feelings, states, and attitudes, raging from generic pleasure (i.e. “I loved that meal”) to intense interpersonal attraction (i.e. “I love my boyfriend”). This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even when compared to other emotional states. An abstract concept of love usually refers to a deep, ineffable feeling of tenderly caring for another person. Even this limited conception of love, however, encompasses a wealth of different feelings, from the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love to the nonsexual closeness of familial and platonic love to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love. Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships, and owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.” Well, there ya go. Good ol’ Wikipedia.

As Wikipedia states, love is unusually difficult to consistently define.

And you know what? I’m glad.

How boring would life be if love was stuck on paper — if it was narrowed down into some stale, crusty, written-in-stone definition? If we confined love to paper — to some dictionary definition — do you know what we’d do? I feel confident that we’d find a way to keep the definition entirely too narrow. We’d nail it down into some paradigm, and then we’d chastise all the other wonderful, creative, imaginative, out-of-the-box expressions of love that wouldn’t meet that definition to a tee.

I’m glad that love can’t be buckled down like that.

I’m glad that love is unusually difficult to consistently define.

I’ll tell you one thing I love about this beautiful passage that the apostle Paul wrote millennia ago to a church in Corinth. Our translation this morning reads: Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is x, y, and z, but in the original Greek test, without fail, every single description of love is a verb. Think about that! That kind of love isn’t narrowed down to an ‘is’ kind of definition. That kind of love acts. Here’s a stab at what a verb-filled translation might sound like:

“Love lives long-hearted in adversity. Love practices kindness. Love envies not. Love boasts not. Love swells-up not. Love does not act unbecomely, does not seek the self, does not provoke to anger, does not calculate evil, does not rejoice upon the injustice, but rejoices together with the truth. It covers all things, entrusts all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never perishes.”

That kind of love is active! It can’t be narrowed down to some definition on paper! It’s active – in here, living in this community; out there, transforming our world; beyond us, swirling about and working in ways we can’t begin to comprehend! We’re not love research scientists. Thank God! Love is verb-like. We’re participants.

We’re also recipients. The scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are honestly asking different questions than Wikipedia. Our scriptures aren’t ultimately asking, what is love, but Who is Love? Who is Love? Who is God, this One-Who-Loves, this One who is Love — and how does this Loving-One love us? Who are we when we are found in this Who – this Who, who loves? Love is active. And love is personal! Or to get away from the ‘is’ entirely – love acts in and through a personal, grace-filled God — Who does immerse, Who does surround, Who does catch, Who does nurture, Who does find us. We’re held fast and secure in the One Who is Love. We’re recipients. And we’re participants — acting on that love toward others, spreading its influence.

And this God, this One Who Loves, reveals love to us in a myriad of ways that are beyond definition. How have you experienced love in your life? What are the tangible forms it has taken? Who did God use to reveal it to you? How did you realize it? How are you still realizing it? For that matter, how did love act for you — this week? How is love acting for you right now in this moment?

Love is active. It shows up in specific forms — in particular actions. Isn’t that how we’ve all come to know love? Just think about children. How do they begin to understand love? Someone once sent me an e-mail that has circled around a bit. I’ve read it several times over the years, but it’s always fresh because it speaks of love so well. The e-mail gives responses of children who were asked our question, “What is love?” Here is how love has acted for them:

Billy, age 4, says, “When someone loves you, the way they same your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.”

Karl, age 5, says: “Love is when you go out to eat and give someone most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.”

Danny, age 7, says: “Love is when my Mommy makes coffee for my Daddy, and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.”

Noelle, age 7, says: “Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.”

Bobby, age 7, says, “Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.”

Mary Ann, age 4, says “Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.” And some answers are just plain funny. . .

Karen, age 7, says “When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.”

And Emily, age 8, says: “Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss.”

What are the concrete expressions of love that have come to hold you up? And where can you find them in the coming days? Who knows? They tend to emerge — to act — sometimes when we aren’t looking for them. Love might be found right here today in the God Loves You Food Ministry when someone is handed some produce that will support a family throughout the week. It will certainly be found in the wisdom of the recipients who come here, who have so much to teach us. Love might be found as you get to know one of PPC’s Young Adults today, as you learn names, as you invite them into your lives. Love might be the laughter that happens over coffee as we gather on the patio in just a little while.

Where will love find us? Who will it act in patience? In kindness? In relationship?

This week, let’s look everywhere for it. And let’s live in gratitude that it’s finding us, even now.

–Renee Roederer

I took these photos over the weekend at Parker Mill County Park and the Hoyt G. Post trail in Ann Arbor. The scenery is gorgeous after a lot of snow this week.

–Renee Roederer

Today was a very snowy day in Ann Arbor, and while I’d choose a return to California and February beach days any time, there are also things I love about the snow. Most days, I go for a walk in my neighborhood in the late evening, winding down for bed and reflecting on the day. It takes on a whole different character in the snow, though. The sensory quality is boosted: the soft crunch and squish of snow beneath my feet, the distant thrum of a snowblower, tiny shivers of ice when a few bits of snow fall down the side of my socks, small lights that I’d never notice in someone’s yard until the beams reflect threefold on the blanket of shiny ice…and everywhere the dulled sound of a world muted by layer upon layer of soft snow

But I think my favorite parts are all the little asynchronous signs of humanity. It’s footprints that were placed at different points in the day, the edges of some softened by hours of additional snowfall, others sharp and icy from another evening walker just a little ahead of me. It’s varying degrees of “shoveled-ness” on different patches of sidewalk: some houses haven’t touched it all day, others have been shoveling consistently so there is just a thin layer of snow remaining, still others have crisp lines with tell-tale tire tracks on either side of the sidewalk and I know it’s a fancy house with a machine to do the work.

It’s a weird display of the American obsession with private ownership, crossing the property lines of each home and noticing the differences in how and when each household cleared the snow, but there’s also something lovely in it. I notice that the change in shoveled-ness (is there a better word?) often doesn’t exactly line up with a fence or property line. Many of the more diligent snow-clearers shovel a few extra feet, offering their neighbor a bit of grace for their own snow-clearing process. But no more than a few feet—your back starts to hurt and the gesture seems like enough (I say from experience). As I pass each house, I wonder about what thinking went into each of those extra inches or feet of shoveling grace. It’s the Matthew 5, “go a second mile” dynamic, but with a little winter-time apathy thrown in. It’s cold. Snow is heavy. Who can blame us?

On these cold days, when it’s hard to get much further than your own sidewalk, I’m thankful for the little glimpses of humanity that the snow freezes in time. (But I’ll also take a ticket back to California any time, then I’ll wax poetic on how the sand doesn’t hold its footprints for very long).

Hannah Lundberg is a Presbyterian minister serving in her first call at First Presbyterian Church, Ann Arbor. She graduated from Union Theological Seminary in New York City last May, and was ordained in October, when Renee served as part of her ordination commission! Hannah was born and raised in Southern California and is reluctantly learning to appreciate the beauty of “real” winter in Michigan.