Smuggling Grace

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This sermon was preached at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Dearborn Heights, Michigan and was focused upon Mark 5:21-43. The audio recording is above and a written manuscript is below.

Mark 5:21-43

Desperate, Jairus fell at Jesus’ feet.

Jairus was likely overwhelmed to the point of exhaustion and helplessness, but he kept going and kept pleading because he was desperate.  His precious little girl – only 12 years old – was in his words, “at the point of death.”  We only hear two sentences from Jairus, but they’re packed with desperation. “My little daughter is at the point of death.  Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”  Just two sentences.  But perhaps we can imagine the urgency in Jairus’s voice as he spoke to Jesus, because the story also tells us that while he was lying on the ground at Jesus’ feet, Jairus was begging Jesus repeatedly.  Jesus had compassion at the first word, but we can imagine the desperation in Jairus’s voice.  Perhaps he repeated himself and begged again and again, just to feel a slight amount of confidence, like he was making something happen.  Sometimes silence can feel very scary in times of great need.  Or perhaps as he kept speaking in urgency, his sense of panic and anxiety grew even stronger like a fearful refrain.  We don’t really know.

But we do know this: Jesus noticed this desperation and had compassion on Jairus and the little daughter he had yet to meet.  We don’t know what Jesus said to Jairus, but we can imagine that Jesus’ was moved with love and care.  The story says it simply. “So he went with him.” Jesus entered Jairus’s need and went with him.

Jairus was a person of prominence in his town and in his religious community. As the leader of the synagogue, he was revered as a person of significance and honor.  But even people of privilege can be reduced to desperation when death is so near, especially when a child’s life is in danger – something that should never be, something more frightening and heartbreaking than just about anything else we can experience.

Jesus noticed.  He was present to Jairus’s desperation. Jesus went with him.

But things did not go smoothly or according to plan.  Desperation was rising in other places too.  There was a woman.  There was a woman whose identity had been reduced to mere nothingness.  In her experience, it wasn’t as though she were simply ignored.  That would be a difficult reality for sure, but it would be simpler than the one she was living.  She wasn’t simply ignored.  She was isolated.  Others feared her.  She had a difficult hemorrhaging disease which caused her to bleed continuously, and under the law at the time, that made her continuously ritually unclean.  She couldn’t worship in the public spaces.  She couldn’t come into contact with anyone else.  Because if she did, she would make others ritually unclean too, at least until they performed the essential rituals to become clean again, rituals that would allow them worship freely and publicly.

But she didn’t have that option.  The bleeding never stopped.  She had done everything she could imagine to be healed of this disease, everything in her power to become ritually clean once again, but nothing worked.  She had spent all her money, everything she had on doctors who couldn’t heal her.  Now she was not only sick but financially destitute.  She had nothing, and she had no one.  She had been isolated for twelve years of her life.  Socially, she was a nobody.  She had no prominence, but she too was desperate.

And as the saying goes, desperate situations often lead to desperate measures. She had heard about Jesus, and she came up with an audacious plan.  She said to herself, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”  In all of her experience so far, every typical avenue for healing had not worked.  It would be easy to doubt this plan, but she seemed so convinced and convicted.  What a shocking and offensive plan it was!  If she touched Jesus, she would make him ritually unclean under the law and render him incapable of laying hands on anyone else for healing.  She could hijack his ministry, at least for a while.  How offensive this was!  But she was convicted and she trusted this plan.  It went from an audacious idea to an offensive action.  She put the plan into place.  She touched Jesus.

On one hand, what confidence.  . . She had confidence in Jesus.  She believed she could simply touch his robe and she would be made well. And maybe. . just maybe, I wonder if she had confidence  — even just a little bit – that she had worth as a human being made in the image of God. She needed this healing.

I wonder if she thought this action would be insignificant to Jesus. .  . perhaps because another part of her believed that she was insignificant herself, a nobody.  She could just touch him. No one would notice! After all, no one else seemed to notice her pain.  No one else seemed to see her as the human being she was. This would be easy.  She could be healed, and it would over.  Simple and done.

But things did not go smoothly or according to plan.

Jesus noticed.

In the midst of a crowd that was pressing in on every side, Jesus noticed.  When the woman touched his robe, he felt that power had gone out from him.  And he asked a seemingly ridiculous question: “Who touched my clothes?”  The disciples were perplexed by this question.  The crowd was so large and intense, that the people were pressing in on them, likely making it difficult to keep moving ahead with Jairus to meet his daughter.  “You see the crowd pressing in on you,” they said.  “How can you say, ‘Who touched me?” But Jesus pressed on with his question, turning around to see who had done this.

Then the woman, who thought she would be invisible, could not avoid being noticed.

Jesus noticed and loved her.

Desperate, the woman fell at Jesus’ feet.

We don’t know what this woman said to Jesus, but we can imagine the desperation in her voice.  The story tells us that as she lay there at his feet, she told Jesus the ‘whole truth,’ – the truth about her condition and the truth about her audacious plan.  She must have expected great condemnation, first from Jesus who was now ritually unclean because of her choice and also from the crowd who was admiring him and pressing in on him the entire way.  She must have expected a terrible ending to this attempt at healing, just like all the other attempts.

But things did not go smoothly or according to her expectations.  Jesus was overcome with compassion and was in awe of her trust and conviction. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

Daughter. . . What an amazing word!  What an amazing thing to say to a woman who had been robbed of all her dignity.  This woman was no less worth healing – she was no less worth noticing – than the little daughter Jesus was on his way to save.  Jairus’s little girl was twelve years old, at the point of death, and this woman, who had been bleeding continuously for twelve years, was always at the point of death. This woman was also a daughter, a person of great faith, a person of worth to God.  No sense of desperation could ever take that holy birthright away.  In the moment, she was healed of her disease.  But she was also healed of her invisibility.  She was seen and noticed as the person of worth she was.

But then tragedy struck.  Some people came from Jairus’s house and said, “Why trouble the teacher any further?  Your daughter is dead.”  These were the words that Jairus had dreaded and feared.  They had been delayed too long, in large part, by this audacious woman.  What could be done now?

Surprisingly, Jesus could not be deterred in his determination to accompany Jairus in his own pain.  Jesus noticed, saw Jairus in need, and saw more possibilities than could anyone else could imagine in the moment.  Jesus, who was now technically ritually unclean, marched into a scene with mourners who were weeping and wailing, and he said, “The child is not dead but sleeping.” How audacious that was.  If he but touched the girl, she would be made whole, and she would live.  And that is what he did.  “Talitha cum!  Little girl, get up!” And this precious daughter of Jairus and this daughter of God was made whole, restored to life.

In life and in death, we belong to God.  That is a conviction we voice together. We say it in our creeds and confessions.  And we hear it in the words of scripture, written by the Apostle Paul.  In life and in death, we belong to God. This is good news for us today.

This is good news for us every day of our lives because we too know desperation, and we live in a world where people are experiencing desperation greater than anything we can easily imagine.  In life and in death, we belong to God.  We are God’s people, and God desires to heal us.

This is good news for us today because we can take such a conviction with us when times get difficult.  We do need healing.  We have weathered forms of sickness from which there has been no cure.  We have also known death.  I wish I could preach from this passage and tell us that every disease will be healed in this lifetime and that even when little children die, they can be raised to life again if we will just take them by the hand.  I wish I could say that.  But we have seen difficult situations.

But here is some healing truth: Jesus notices.  Jesus enters our pain and transforms it, and he will not let us go.  He will not let disease or death or any other kind of tragedy separate us from the love of God.  He will not let anything separate us the worth we have as God’s human beings.  He will always accompany us.  And he will heal us in a myriad of ways along the journey.   We can have peace in the midst of great difficulty. That is a real form of healing. 

And in just a little while, we will experience this kind of love and healing in a very tangible way at the table, where we will take our need, and we will bring it to Jesus who says, “I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.”  So we invite one another: Come in audacious faith.  Come and see him.  Come and know the Holy God who will walk with you toward healing – toward faith, toward peace, toward confidence, toward worth.  Come.

–Renee Roederer

[1] I found this image here. 

It all started with a dream.

In the middle of the night two summers ago, Ben Johnston-Krase received one of the best ideas of his life. At the time, he was a pastor in Southeast Wisconsin, but while he slept, he dreamt he was traveling to a new church to become their pastor. Once he arrived, he was surprised to discover that the church was. . . a farm.

When he awoke, a good feeling lingered. He realized there might actually be something to this vision. . . At 3:17am, he was suddenly awake with a flurry of ideas: What would it be like to worship in a barn? What if Sunday School involved children caring for chickens? What if all resources on a farm could be leveraged to address hunger? In homes, in prisons, in nursing care facilities?

He wondered, “Is anyone doing anything like this?” He started Googling, and he couldn’t find anything like it. He went to GoDaddy.com to see if FarmChurch.org was available. It was, and he bought it on the spot.

And that’s when the dream got bigger than Ben’s ideas alone.

The next day, he called Allen Brimer, a seminary classmate and close friend who had been a farmer before becoming pastor. After talking to his family, Allen responded right away, “I’m in.”

The flurry of conversations continued. A third family joined too, and  the Johnston-Krases, Brimers, and Werts were all in agreement: They were actually going to dream, create, and launch Farm Church. They decided to take a great deal of personal risk. They quit their jobs to pursue this vision with their full attention and energy.

And that’s when the dream got bigger than their ideas alone.

The vision spread, and people around the nation began contacting them in the hopes that they might bring Farm Church to their town. The pastors, their partners, and their kids all entered a discernment process to figure out where they should move. After a lot of prayer and consideration, they decided upon Durham, North Carolina.

And that’s when the dream got bigger than their families alone. 

These families made a commitment to follow every thread of conversation once they arrived in Durham. As a result, vital partnerships emerged. Within a year, they received land to farm right within the city, and SEEDS, a local non-profit, gave them space to hold worship services. Most importantly, people of all ages have caught the vision and made it theirs too. Together, they are embodying it. Together, they are embodying church.

And the dream will clearly get bigger.

Farm Church considers ‘church’ to be a reality much larger than a building or central location. They don’t even want a building. Church is not something they go to. It’s something they are.

This is truly a community on behalf of a larger community. They are purposefully embodying church, and together, they will leverage all resources of their farm to feed hungry bodies.

It’s beautiful.

We can catch this vision too. Please consider donating, and allow yourselves to be inspired by this video below.

–Renee Roederer

In the season of Pentecost, I am creating blog series that spotlights communities, organizations, and churches that are pursuing creative, new ideas. See also. . .

• Creative Change Educational Solutions (Ypsilanti, MI)
  Changing the Story of Education
  

• Motor City Mission Corps (Detroit, MI)
  Why I Believe in the Motor City Mission Corps
  
  

[Photo Credit: Spencer Irvine, July 19,2003]

Last week on social media, I was pleased to announce a major project that has been underway for more than a year. A wonderful team of people from the Presbytery of Detroit has designed a new opportunity for young adults to move Detroit, where they will experience a year of mission and service, intentional community, spiritual direction, and vocational discernment. This new program is called the Motor City Mission Corps.

I’d like to tell you more details about the Motor City Mission Corps and share why I believe so strongly in this program.

What is the Motor City Mission Corps?

The Motor City Mission Corps is a new service endeavor initiated and supported by the Presbytery of Detroit which invites young adults (ages 19-30) to live in the city and serve a year in mission. Through an intentional community model, young adult participants will live together, explore spiritual formation and vocational discernment, and work alongside four excellent site placement partners that are reducing blight and poverty in Detroit:

1) Cass Community Social Services,

2) Motor City Blight Busters,

3) Presbyterian Villages of Michigan, and

4) Westminster Presbyterian Church of Detroit

Our program will forge even greater connections between these four organizations and will provide formative experiences for young adults, shaping their faith and service for many years to come.

We Need Help to Launch This Program

For a year, we have worked on this project as partners, and we are ready to put our plans into action. But in order to launch the Motor City Mission Corps, we need to secure start-up costs: This funding will provide housing, utilities, food, insurance, and a monthly stipend for young adults and will allow us to hire a Site Coordinator, the staff leader who will recruit and mentor young adults in our program.

To do this, we have started a GoFundMe Campaign to launch the Motor City Mission Corps into action. Please visit the link, and if you are able to do so, I encourage you to give. Even small gifts go a long way when a number of people give collectively.

Your financial giving will lay a strong foundation that will ensure the vitality and sustainability of the Motor City Mission Corps into a long and healthy future.

Why I Believe in the Motor City Mission Corps

Without question, the Motor City Mission Corps is on the short list of projects I am proudest to have helped create. Our team is strong, and we believe in our vision.

This is why I believe in that vision:

1) I believe in Detroit. There are many economic and infrastructure challenges in Detroit, but there are also resources of ingenuity, strength, and longevity. Our program will practice Asset Based Community Development. We believe that Detroit’s residents will be the best teachers and mentors for young adults, and we honor the gifts and perspectives they will bring to solve problems in their own communities.

2) I believe in young adults. I have had a lot of experience working with young adults over the years, and I celebrate the energy, questions, and vitality they bring to organizations and opportunities for service. We will recruit young adults who are eager to learn and grow; they will do this through relationships with site placement staff members, local residents, and their cohort of young adult peers.

3) I believe in community ownership. We believe strongly in this program we have dreamed together, but it is not ours alone. In fact, it is not fully realized. It needs the vision and support of the wider community.

Though we need funding to make all of this happen, I am not merely talking about finances. We need individuals, families, congregations, and community organizations to add their perspectives, ideas, and encouragement to this great dream that is emerging among us.

This is why I believe in the Motor City Mission Corps. I hope you will add your encouragement and support to this dream too.

– Renee Roederer

Seventeen years ago, Jim Foster, my grandfather, died just a matter of days before Memorial Day. He was a Navy veteran, and his years of service during the Korean War had a big impact on his life. The camaraderie and sense of belonging he experienced in the Navy impacted him in meaningful ways. But the losses he witnessed and experienced personally caused pain in the years that followed.

We loved him, and I want to honor his life today.

When I remember my grandfather and think upon his life, I also ponder the life of a man neither he nor I ever knew. That man was my great-grandfather, Kay Foster.

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This post is from a recent sermon at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, based on Jeremiah 29:1-14. A written manuscript is below, and a recording is above.

This morning, our scripture comes from the Book of Jeremiah, and I’d like to put it in some context before we hear it.  Jeremiah is a large book in the Hebrew Scriptures, and it contains the words and teachings of its namesake, Jeremiah, who was one of the major prophets in the 6^th century BC.  Early on in the book, Jeremiah experiences a deep sense of call, and he’s sent to speak words of God to people who are experiencing an absolute crisis.

It was a physical crisis. At this point in Jeremiah’s story, the King, the queen mother, the court officials, the artisans and skilled workers — basically, all of the people with clout or leadership or responsibility in Israel’s Kingdom of Judah — were captured in war by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.  Babylon was the world power of the time, and the people of Judah were uprooted and taken to live in Babylon in exile. All of this happened in 597 BC.  But the worst was actually yet to come.  In 586 BC, Babylon came back for rest of the people who were left behind.  They destroyed Jerusalem, the temple of God was burned to the ground, and others were taken into captivity.

All of this was a spiritual crisis too.  The exiled leaders and the people left behind in Judah found themselves grappling with this terrible reality, wondering if God had completely abandoned them.  How could this possibly happen?  The audience of this book knew a level of fear, disappointment, and displacement that we can only begin to imagine.

So I want to frame our reading today with that history.  And now I invite us to listen, so we can hear God speaking to us today us through these words:

Jeremiah 29:1-14

Jeremiah wrote the exiled leaders an unexpected letter, and it wasn’t the one they wanted to hear. The letter was filled with unexpected challenges and instructions for the people.

It’s hard for me to imagine what their daily lives must have been like because we’re so distanced in time from that period of world history.  They were in a new, strange land – a place where people didn’t speak their language, where different gods were worshiped, where different customs were followed as if they were the only customs that existed, and where different foods were eaten. This would be hard for any of us, but they weren’t just world travelers on a vacation experiencing culture shock.  They weren’t even immigrants, though I imagine that today’s immigrants and refugees experience similar hardships like these.  They were prisoners of war who had been uprooted from their families and neighbors.  They lost their home — not just the physical home, though that’s true. They lost their entire way of life.  They weren’t just separated from their home. Their home now ceased to be. It was deeply unexpected and deeply unsettling.

And then they receive this unexpected letter, and it tells them to settle. Settle down? Here? In this place?  In this experience? How can you possibly tell us to do that?

That’s what Jeremiah tells them: “Thus says the Lord. . . Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.” Settle down in Babylon.  Be my people even there, God says.

I imagine it was heartbreaking to hear that news because the exiled leaders wanted to go home. And if they couldn’t return to what they lost, they at least wanted to rebuild. Instead, God tells them to rebuild home right where they are.

And then there’s this interesting phrase too: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare, you will find your welfare.”

Somehow, in a way they can’t understand, God is telling them that their welfare is still ahead of them, but it’s in a place they didn’t expect. It’s in a place they didn’t want. Jeremiah’s letter wasn’t the one they wanted to receive or hear or even believe, but amid the bad news, there is good news too: God is with them, caring for them, dreaming for them, and hoping for them. “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you.” God will bring home to them – in worship, in community, in family, and generations, and someday – yes, someday – God will bring the exiles back to their own land.  They will rebuild home, and it will be different, and perhaps it will even flourish in unexpected ways because the exiles settled in a strange land and strange reality, because God found them there.  Yes, even there.

None of us have experienced what these exiles experienced 26 centuries ago, but we’re no strangers other forms of exile. Many of us have experienced situations of being uprooted and suddenly placed in a different reality, one we didn’t expect, and one we didn’t want. It came upon us, and we felt separated and distanced from what we once knew. When the tough diagnosis comes or when we age, we can easily feel exiled from our own bodies. . . When we immigrate to a different country, and our routines and ways of life change so dramatically, we can easily feel exiled from our own heritage. . . When the rejection letter comes. . . when the company downsizes. . . when the relationship ends. . . when the pregnancy take a difficult turn . . when unexpected violence turns our world upside down. . . we experience a sense of exile.

And the news we want is the news that things are going to return to what they once were.  But sometimes, that’s not the news we receive. Sometimes, we’re met with unexpected challenges, and it’s just not going to be possible. It makes sense to grieve and to grieve strongly –- to feel sadness, or anger, or confusion. We can give ourselves grace in that entire process, and we can be present to one another in that experience.

But there is good news in the unexpected news too: God is with us when we are exile. There is absolutely nothing we can do or feel that would take away God’s presence in our heartache. Because whether we know it or not, and whether we feel it or not, God is determined to be present with us.

This is what we believe about Jesus. We believe that God was so determined to be with us in our pain, that God became one of us in Jesus and lived among us. Jesus didn’t live in some ivory tower, separated from human suffering. Instead, he befriended the downtrodden, lived as a healer, and loved so deeply that it changed everything. And in Jesus, God even experienced death with us, even death on a cross.  God was present with us in death, our ultimate exile, and God’s presence in Jesus transformed it. Even death cannot separate us from God or from one another.

A question lingers for us today: Where is your place of exile, and how is God with you in that?  You might notice that Jeremiah never told the people that their exile was somehow good.  “Come on, get over it already, and move on! It wasn’t that bad. . .”  No, Jeremiah’s letter was much more profound than that, and the exile really was exile. It was unexpected and difficult. But God says, settle down into this experience – nurture it, nurture yourself and nurture one another in the midst of it – not because it is good, but because you will find me even there, because wherever you are in pain, I am with you there.  I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. God is with us and with you in exile. So build houses and plant gardens. Even there, God’s love changes everything.

–Renee Roederer

[1] I found this image here. 

My title pretty much gives away the goal of this post.
Yes, I am going to make an ask.

Intentional support for seminarians can create a meaningful ripple effect.
It can initiate an economy of giving,
launching gifts of
time,
discipleship,
innovation,
justice,
service,
spiritual formation,
connection,
healing,
solidarity, and
advocacy
into the world.

This month, students are graduating from seminaries and divinity schools all across the country. These institutions of higher learning are affiliated with a variety of church denominations.

I wonder, do you personally know a graduating seminarian?
Would you consider gifting them with a check out of the blue?

As you likely know, these graduates are completing their studies at a time when many congregations are experiencing natural decline, and religious demographics are changing rapidly. This is not all bad news, of course. Within it, people at all levels of church involvement (including no involvement) are asking big, beautiful, innovative questions about the commitments of Christianity and future forms of spiritual community.

Seminary graduates have passions they want practice and share in the world:

– Some are called to congregational life, even as budgets and membership rolls are shrinking. Many churches are transitioning to part-time positions, and pastors struggle to pay their bills.

– Some are called to ministries of justice and advocacy. In solidarity, they seek to live at similar economic levels with those they hope to empower. But in order to live this way, they also need health insurance.

– Some are called to organize uncharted forms of ministry that have never been created before. They want connect with people in new ways. But in order to this, they must be freed from their educational debt.

None of these leaders are in this for the money. Far from it. But they do need financial security to live as the leaders they have been called to be.

– and –

None of these leaders want to do this alone. We are not simply throwing money at seminarians to do ministry for us.

We are inviting their leadership so that we may all be empowered to do the very same things,
launching our own
time,
discipleship,
innovation,
justice,
service,
spiritual formation,
connection,
healing,
solidarity, and
advocacy
into the world.

So. . . do you personally know a graduating seminarian?
Would you consider gifting them with a check out of the blue?

–Renee Roederer

Please see these posts also, as they all address similar challenges and opportunities:

1) David Derus considers a variety of funding strategies for ministry in a new context:
3 Structural Alternatives to Bi-Vocational Ministry

2) Drew Downs is honest about the frustrations young pastors feel when they ponder bivocational ministry:
What a Young Pastor Hears When You Talk about Bivocational Ministry

3) Layton Williams argues that ministry positions outside of parish settings are just as valuable as those connected to congregations:
A Pastor By Another Name

4) I believe we should create a movement of Neighborhood Chaplaincy:
We Need Full-Time Neighborhood Chaplains? How Might We Support That?

 

 

 

These days, public schools are facing great disparities in funding, and teachers and students continue to struggle with high-stakes testing. In some places, teachers face these realities with the awareness that their salaries could be reduced or eliminated. It is complex and deeply challenging.

In the midst of all of this, however, there is a story of educational success that you need to know. In fact, the nation needs to know this story, because it could change the ways we design curriculum, evaluate student learning, and empower our students to affect change in their own communities.

This has all taken place in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Susan Santone is the Founder and Executive Director of Creative Change Educational Solutions. She and her excellent team of fellow consultants work with educators in public schools. They help teachers and administrators restructure their curriculum so that students gain academic mastery while they learn about human needs on local and global levels.

On their website, Susan Santone addresses an educational dilemma in this way:

“What do you do if you’re a teacher, and everything you’re passionate about is largely absent from the curriculum?

“This is the dilemma I faced more than 20 years ago when I was teaching in the public schools. I was immersing myself in learning about global issues such as hunger and human rights, and desperately searching for a way to bring these issues into education. I envisioned classrooms as places where students learned to solve the problems affecting their futures and communities. To bring this about, I founded Creative Change in 2002 built on the values of equity, democratic education, sustainability, and research-based practices. Since then, our mission has been to help educators with curriculum transformation for better schools, more impassioned teachers, and fully engaged students.”

So let’s hear the success stories from Ypsilanti Public Schools in her own words. Susan Santone recently gave a Tedx talk about them:

In her Tedx talk, Susan Santone describes the ways that Creative Change Educational Solutions helped teachers redesign an ancient civilizations course for middle school students. “What could be less relevant to a seventh grader than the aqueducts of Rome?” she asks.

To transform their learning, teachers turned stories of the past into lessons about the future of Ypsilanti. Along with their students, they pondered which conditions and practices of the ancient past led to the rise and fall of civilizations.

While learning this material, students turned their attention to local and global questions of sustainability, and as a culminating event for the class, students organized their own Community Sustainability Summit which was attended by the mayor of Ypsilanti, township supervisors, and leaders from public health and public safety. Students learned academic material and created change in their own communities. The academic scores on their pre- and post-test rose by 40%.

Susan Santone says that their second project had even more remarkable results. She and her team helped teachers redesign their U.S. History course so that students could delve into the studies of institutional discrimination, racism, and the struggle for equality. Students began to wonder why Ypsilanti’s population is 30% African-American, but the makeup of Ypsilanti Public Schools is 70% African-American. This opened up opportunities for students and teachers to analyze segregation, white flight, and the U.S. policies  of the past and present which have enabled these trends.

The academic results were astounding. Scores of a rigorous pre- and post-test rose by 95%. Students became engaged in their studies, and they began to create connections between their curriculum, opportunities for change, and their own leadership.

It is clear that Creative Change Educational Solutions has much to teach us.

Please visit their website to learn more, and you can follow them on Facebook and on Twitter.

–Renee Roederer

[1]

This sermon was preached at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Dearborn Heights, Michigan and was focused upon Romans 5:1-5.  The audio recording is above and a written manuscript is below.

Romans 5:1-5

This opening paragraph of the 5^th chapter of Romans contains many powerful, evocative words. And very likely, if we reflect on them, we’ll notice that these words usually have stories attached.

There are words like faith, peace, grace, endurance, character, hope, and love.

These words weave their way through the letter Paul is writing, and as we connect to them personally, there are probably stories attached. . .

There are moments in our lives when we’ve felt our faith was deeply rooted and connected to the faith of others. . .

There are moments when we’ve felt a deep and abiding sense of peace. . .

There are moments when we became suddenly aware of the grace of God and the ways it impacts our lives. . .

There are moments when we’ve lived stories of endurance, character, hope, and most especially love. Or at the very least, these are the stories we want to live, don’t we?

We want to live stories of endurance, character, hope, and love,
and these are the stories we want to share.

Certainly these words are a part of our collective life together also — not only our individual life – but these words involve the very life that God is weaving through all humanity. These words are the stories God wants us to live.

Yet I also notice in this passage there is a challenging word too. It’s an honest word, and it is a word that likely has stories attached also. The word is suffering. There are moments in our lives when we have experienced deep suffering –

moments of loss, illness, confusion, and isolation,
moments when we began to question whether we were worth very much,
moments when we questioned whether our life has value and meaning.

Our world knows suffering too, including communities that surround us right now. We live in a world where poverty, racism, and classism all exist, along with the many divisions we create to separate some from others, declaring worth and value upon some while viewing the rest as ‘less than.’ The word suffering has stories attached too.

Interestingly, Paul says, “We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us. . .” Why? “. . . because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

So many times, well-meaning people have looked at stories of suffering and tried to make them better than they really are. We have so many ways of speaking trite expressions, trying to make the suffering better in some way, but without recognizing the pain that is found within ourselves, our friends, our neighbors, and our world. We say things like,

“God will never give you more than you can handle.”
But we know that some bear burdens that do feel absolutely unbearable.

Or we say,

“Everything happens for a reason.”
This can make our pain seem as though it is somehow necessary,
like it is some crucial sacrifice toward an amorphous, future good coming into being.
Goodness does often come into being, but it doesn’t make our pain necessary.
It doesn’t mean it is God’s plan, hope, or desire for us.

I don’t think Paul is talking about any of these platitudes when he says, “we boast in our sufferings.”

Let’s hear that sentence again. Paul says, “We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us. . .” Why? “. . . because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

I think Paul is saying that God’s love is the final word, and God’s love is weaving its way throughout our lives — so much so that it is even present in the suffering. Perhaps, it is known most intimately in the suffering, not because God needs us to suffer to discover it, but because God loves us so deeply, that God will be with us right there. God will love us always, and God’s love will be revealed in and through even the stories of suffering.

And that brings us to other words found in this passage. They are tiny words, and on the surface, they seem insignificant, yet they reveal God’s posture toward us.

Words like with.

Have you ever thought about how amazing that word is? Paul says, “We have peace with God.” With.  God seeks to be with us. God shows up, including the deepest stories of suffering. As God is with us, we feel peace, and sometimes we feel this beyond our deepest understanding. The word with reveals God’s posture toward us.

Or how about the word through?

Paul says we have this peace with God “through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand.” Through. We have received God’s love and mercy through Jesus Christ. We are reconciled through his very life. This word reveals God’s posture toward us.

Or how about the word into?

Paul says, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” Into. This love comes into our very being, and the Holy Spirit dwells with us. Into. This word reveals God’s posture toward us.

In the midst of the season of Pentecost, today is Trinity Sunday. This is a day in the Christian calendar when we ponder the love of the Triune God. We don’t just do this solely with our thinking, working really hard in some way to wrap our minds around the reality that God is somehow three and one at the same time –One God, Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is not some game of mental gymnastics.

This is a day when we can ponder the Triune God with our hearts and our very lives.
This is a day when we ponder the Triune God with our very life stories.

And perhaps we could say,
this is a day when we ponder not only the Iove of the Triune God,
but the loves of the Triune God.[2]
These loves might just transform how we see our stories.

When we say that God is Triune, and
when we say that God is one in three persons,
we are saying that at the very heart of God —
at the very heart of Who God Is —
lies the existence of community.
God is one, and
God exists in a community of relationships,
as love is shared and expressed between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And here is one of the most beautiful truths about this revealed vision of Who God Is:

God wants us to join the community of these loves.

It’s not that we become God,
but each of us and all of us
are invited truly to an experience of the life of God.

This Triune vision reveals God’s posture toward us,
so we know when we suffer,
we are never alone.
We are surrounded by God.
We are surrounded by a community of loves –
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit –
and we are invited into the community of loves that exist around us
in our own relationships,

in this community of faith,
in this entire world
where God can be found
around every corner,
under ever rock,
and revealed in and through every human life,
each one infinitely filled with worth and value.

These are the loves that surround our lives.
These are the loves that transform our stories.
So let’s hear Paul’s words one more time:

“We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

These are the loves of God for the people of God.

Amen.

–Renee Roederer

[1] Image: Andrei Rublev, public domain.

[2] My thinking on ‘the loves of God’ was strongly influenced a Trinity Sunday sermon preached by the Rev. David Nelson Roth at St. John United Presbyterian Church in 2006.

Today, I’d like to share an unfolding story with you. It’s about a new community we are organizing in Southeast Michigan:

We are Michigan Nones and Dones.

In the last year, I have been privileged to participate in a variety of new projects and community endeavors in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and metro Detroit, and this community has become my greatest passion.

You may be asking, who are Nones and Dones?

Nones are religiously unaffiliated with any particular faith tradition, though many are interested in spirituality. Dones are those who have maintained their religious identity (many of them are Christian), but have left established, institutional religious settings like churches. In our community, Nones and Dones are coming together to talk about spirituality, and we are finding a deep sense of meaning and calling together.

And we’re just at the beginning of this unfolding story. I can’t wait to see where this goes, and I hope that others will join us in the creation of new communities like this one.

Presbyterian Outlook, a national magazine of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) featured a story about us in their recent Pentecost edition (pages 23-24). And today, they published an electronic version of our story. Please check it out: Nones and Dones Find God-Breathed Belonging.

I invite you to visit our Facebook Page and give us a ‘like.’ Then you can receive regular updates on your newsfeeds about what we’re doing. Thanks, as always, for your love and support.

–Renee Roederer

Yesterday, I spent some quality time with my local college town. I meandered through our downtown district, noticing what was happening in and around our shops and restaurants. Then, I wandered through our local campus. Most students have left for the summer, so it feels emptier. At the same time, with a less busy atmosphere, more can be noticed and appreciated in specific ways.

I did not intentionally eavesdrop, but while walking, I naturally overheard some conversations. One person articulated to a colleague her grand strategy to achieve the ideal schedule. She went through all the safeguards she will eventually put into place so that she is no longer juggling everything to an absurd degree (her words) and will finally have time with her family.

That is an expression of the challenges my neighbors often face in this university town with its demanding culture and the internal pressures of the impostor’s syndrome.

But as I walked along, I encountered other kinds of struggles as well. At one point, I sat with a friend of mine. It’s been a while since I’ve seen her, but she was back in a space she frequents from time to time. She and her husband come here to panhandle on both sides of the street. They struggle to have shelter, but today, they have a different concern. Her husband’s mother has died, and they need to get to Toledo to be with the rest of the family. I listened and said a prayer with her.

In the midst of all these moments, I pondered the gifts and needs that people carry here. Then suddenly, I had a thought which filled me with a sense of recognition and rootedness.

“I want to be a chaplain for this town,” I thought.

The idea resonates with recognition because it taps into my sense of calling.
The idea resonates with rootedness because I love this place.

In many ways, that’s already who I get to be functionally. It’s a great gift to live like a chaplain in the midst of two towns — Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, Michigan. Though I’m not making a living this way, I hardly feel more alive than these moments when I get to be in the neighborhoods, visiting with people, learning from them, and speaking spiritual meaning alongside them.

This thought stayed with me when a friend sent a text a few hours later. She’s a seminary student taking a class to explore the practice of ministry in a post-congregational context. She mentioned that this class will be important, as she and her fellow students will need to engage ministry and community development differently than pastors who have come before them.

That’s good language for the transition we’re in, I found myself thinking later. We are moving into a post-congregational culture, and in some ways, we are already there.

I don’t think this the end of Christianity, and
I don’t think this is the end of spiritual community.
They aren’t ending, 
but they are definitely changing.

Local congregations are not suddenly irrelevant without any meaning or mission to offer their neighborhoods. But at the same time, neighbors aren’t connecting with congregations in the same ways they did decades ago. There are disconnections and cultural changes taking place both within and beyond local churches, and they are creating the shifts we are watching. At the same time, some congregations have practiced exclusion and poor ethics, and that has sent some leaving quite deliberately, perhaps without a new home to practice their spiritual life.

In a similar way, congregational pastors are not suddenly irrelevant without any meaning or mission to offer their neighborhoods either. Many of them want to be present with people beyond the walls of their own congregations. In fact, they long to have time for it. But as their congregations are declining, there are simply more pastoral and administrative needs on the inside. How can congregational pastors have the time to connect broadly with people beyond their own church contexts? It is definitely a challenge.

For all of these reasons, I wonder. . .

What if we could call people to serve as chaplains for particular towns and neighborhoods, organizing spiritual life and community connections in uncharted ways?

What if we actually did that?

What would be needed, and what obstacles would have to be cleared, in order to create such roles?

What if some of our seminarians could serve in this way upon graduation?

I’m a realist, knowing it would take a lot of financial support and creativity to form these kinds of roles, but the shifts we are seeing in spiritual demographics are already necessitating them.

So what are your ideas?

How could this actually be done?

–Renee Roederer