​Sabbath Practice
Exodus 20: 8-11 and a portion from The Sabbath by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
August 4, 2024-Lyndale UCC
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel
 
Breathe on us Breath of God, fill us with life anew, teach us to love as Thou wouldst love and do as Thou wouldst do.
 
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work.  But the seventh day is a sabbath to God; you shall not do any work—you, your children, your slaves of any gender, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days God made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore God blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
 
Have you seen the meme of Vice President Kamala Harris in which she quotes her mom saying, "You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you."
 
I love this because it resonates deeply with my sense of the world. Context and history matter. None of us just fell out of a coconut tree. Or, as my Grammie would say, “you didn’t emerge from the head of Zeus!”
 
So, what is the context and history that shapes how you hear our scripture from this morning? How do you relate to keeping the Sabbath?
 
[pause]
 
Let me share a bit about my context and history that impacts how I receive our readings for today.
 
As many of you know, I was raised in a multi-generational household which included a lot of time with my Scottish immigrant grammie. I was greatly influenced by her: in my faith, my patterns of living, my values, and my politics. And in 2016, when I was at Standing Rock, I was asked by several Indigenous leaders “where I was coming from?” By that, they were asking who my people were and whether I’d learned to “walk in a good way.”
 
That experience at Standing Rock sent me to learning more about Grammie and the people and context that shaped her, and therefore me. Every time I’m in Scotland, I go to the Highland archives and learn more about the Highland Clearances which forced my family off of the Isle of Skye and other parts of the Highlands and into the city of Inverness and into deep poverty. And I learn more about the story of how my grammie, valedictorian of her sixth grade class, could not afford to pay for any more schooling and became a domestic worker at age twelve.
 
When I knew her, she would sleep from 2 am to 6 am. She worked outside the home five and a half days a week as an accountant for the Nickelplate and later, Norfolk & Western Railroad. She volunteered with the Scottish Lodge and for Bethany Presbyterian Church. She did activist work with the Gray Panthers and Keenagers. In short, she was a living poster for Max Weber’s book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
 
In addition, she was raised in a household in which keeping the Sabbath was “dour” (pronounced do-er). It was humorless, furrowed brow, controlled silence, and deeply fear-based. In other words, an obligation that felt a lot like a kind of work.
 
Given this context and history, I have to say that I think Calvinists and capitalism have deeply damaged Sabbath for me. But as I struggle with my own exhaustion and work-a-holism, I have looked to our Jewish kindred for wisdom on the subject. And there is no one better than the rabbi of blessed memory, Abraham Joshua Heschel.
 
“Shabbat comes with its own holiness; we enter not simply a day, but an atmosphere. My father cites the Zohar: the Sabbath is the name of God. We are within the Sabbath rather than the Sabbath being within us. For my father, the question is how to perceive that holiness: not how much to observe, but how to observe. Strict adherence to the laws regulating Sabbath observance doesn’t suffice; the goal is creating the Sabbath as a foretaste of paradise. The Sabbath is a metaphor for paradise and a testimony to God’s presence; in our prayers, we anticipate a messianic era that will be a Sabbath, and each Shabbat prepares us for that experience: “Unless one learns how to relish the taste of Sabbath … one will be unable to enjoy the taste of eternity in the world to come.” It was on the seventh day that God gave the world a soul, and “[the world’s] survival depends upon the holiness of the seventh day.” The task, he writes, becomes how to convert time into eternity, how to fill our time with spirit …”[1]
 
Our Jewish colleagues also understand the Sabbath to be the merging of a time and space in which good food, deep community, deep connection with creation, joyous worship, good sex, and deep dreaming are all celebrated.
 
I don’t know about you, but this both deeply draws me in and completely upends so much of the worldview that has embedded itself deep in my mind and spirit.
 
How about you? What is your context and history as you hear about Sabbath? How do you respond to this?
 
But even as it upends everything I’ve been taught and modeled, I know this understanding of Sabbath to not only be necessary for my thriving but it also is necessary for the survival of the planet.
 
The picture on the front of the bulletin is of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Selma. Rabbi Heschel’s life was a powerful example of his (and his father’s) understanding that: “the Sabbath is the name of God. We are within the Sabbath rather than the Sabbath being within us” and “’[the world’s] survival depends upon the holiness of the seventh day.’ The task, [Heschel’s father] writes, becomes how to convert time into eternity, how to fill our time with spirit.”
 
For me, the question becomes, how do we relate to God, not as a Calvinist task-master who requires of us hard work in order to be worthy of love; but rather what would it mean if we lived within God whose name is Sabbath? If we lived within God whose name is Sabbath and whose desire for each of us, and all of us, and the entirety of creation is a time and place of delicious food, and shared community, and abundance, and joy, and good sex if we are led to it, and laughter, and love upon love.
 
Rabbi Heschel escaped the Holocaust and lost many family members to it. His was not a naïve understanding of living within God whose name is Sabbath. He knew in his very bones the danger of theologies of domination, extractive capitalism, and supremacy. It was precisely because he sought to live within God whose name is Sabbath that he responded to Dr. King’s call. There is, throughout Heschel’s life the connection between practicing Sabbath and moving in the world with love and justice.
 
As we gather week after week together, I wonder might we do so, not out of obligation or some dour requirement, but as a way of living within God whose name is Sabbath? Might we rejoice in laughter, in a shared, sacred meal, in music and prayer, in accompanying each other? Might we practice a foretaste of eternity and act together so that God’s love and justice is more palpably visible in the world?
 
The other person in the photo on the cover of the bulletin is my partner, Maggie’s uncle Jim. He was a newly consecrated bishop when he got a call from Dr. King’s lieutenants asking him to come to Selma. Apparently, Jim said that they should ask so and so Cardinal, and they responded, we’ve already asked them and they said no. Well, then you should talk with so and so bishop. Yea, we already asked them and they said no. This went on for a while until Jim said, well, of course I’ll be there.
 
After being at Selma, apparently Jim spoke of the power of the experience of being with Dr. King as transformative in his life. But he also talked about being with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and the palpable power of his spirit.
 
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy… the Sabbath is the name of God. We are within the Sabbath rather than the Sabbath being within us.
 
May it be so for us, too. Amen.


[1] Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath
 

Your Heart Needs Your Attention Right Here
Mark 10:46-52
Lyndale UCC- July 28, 2024
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel
 
Do you hear? Yes, we hear. Do you hear? Yes, we hear. Your heart needs your attention right here. Do you heal? Yes we heal. Do you heal? Yes, we heal. We’ve got all our medicine right here. Said, we’ve got all our medicine right here. Yes, we’ve got all our medicine right here.[1]
 
There’s a haunting story that one of my mentors, Mab Segrest shares in her book Born to Belonging. Mab is a white woman who has done a lot of racial justice work and the orientation of her life has always been toward healing and wholeness amidst the world’s injustices. She has a chapter in Born to Belonging that’s called the Souls of White Folks in which she’s trying to help those of us who are white come back into relationship with our hearts and souls. And in order to do that, she tells the story of what we are up against. The story Mab tells is about Mary Boykin Chesnut.
 
Mary Boykin Chesnut was married to a man who served in Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ cabinet and Mary was a passionate supporter of the Confederate cause. In her diaries, however, she articulates the psychological and spiritual impact of slavery on her. Her testimony dramatically illustrates that colonization has soul-crushing implications for all—including those who benefit in material ways. Upon witnessing a slave auction, Mary reports the “tragedy” she observes, writing:
 
“A mad woman taken from her husband and children. Of course she was mad, or she would not have given her grief words in that public place. Her keepers were along. What she said was rational enough, pathetic at times, at times heart-rending. It excited me so I quietly took opium. It enabled me to retain every particle of mind or sense or brains I have, so quiets my nerves that I can calmly reason and take rational views of things otherwise maddening.”[2]
 
In the midst of the brutality of chattel slavery, Chesnut chose not to respond with empathy for the woman who was being torn from her husband and children. She clearly understood and felt the horror of bearing witness to such agony, calling it “heart-rending.” But she chose the path of passive non-resistance and pays the price. She must practice addiction, using opium to crush her empathy and her passion for connection and “calming” her in ways that restore “reason” and “rational views.”
 
Your heart needs your attention right here.
 
This morning, as we gather for worship, I invite us to consider the state of our hearts… the state of our hearts.
 
They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside.  When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.”  So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.”  Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.
 
There is a lot to say about our text and I will share a number of things, but I want us to continue to consider it all through the lens of the state of our hearts. So, hold on to that…
 
But first, let me set some context for this story.
 
Our text for this morning is set on the way out of Jericho. Now, Jericho is the final stop on the pilgrimage road. Jewish pilgrims who are on their way to the Temple in Jerusalem only have fifteen more miles on their pilgrimage. In other words, they are almost to the center of political, economic and religious life. But there’s another piece about geography that the writer of the Gospel of Mark uses. Throughout the story of Jesus, Mark tells us that Jesus is “on the way.” And, in many ways, Mark’s gospel can be seen as Jesus and the disciples’ journey from the hinterlands, ministering amongst those who are marginalized, and journeying toward a confrontation with those in power. Each healing is a step closer to the final confrontation to which he is “on the way.” So, the geography of the story is important.
 
Second, the placement of this story in the arc of the gospel is also important. The story right before our reading for this morning has James and John, two brothers, saying to Jesus, “grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” And Jesus, clearly disappointed by them, flatly refuses. And he calls all the disciples over to him and says, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it cannot be like that with you. Anyone among you who aspires to greatness must serve the rest; whoever wants to rank first among you must serve the needs of all.”
 
Our story of Bartimaeus and Jesus follows this rebuke of James and John and it is the final healing in the gospel of Mark. The juxtaposition of Bartimaeus and James and John is pretty stark. And then, with both the rebuke of the brothers and the healing of Bartimaeus fresh in our minds, the next scene in Mark’s gospel is Jesus entering Jerusalem, his last step “on the way” toward his final confrontation. It is known as Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and it’s the text that we read for Palm Sunday every year.
 
This geographic context and the placement in the larger story are both important to help us get a better understanding of what the writer of Mark is trying to teach us.
 
As Jesus is on his journey “on the way,” who is he rebuking and who is he healing?
 
Bartimaeus is similar to many of those with whom Mark’s Jesus ministers. Bartimaeus is an outsider who doesn’t have friends to assist him. He is pushed to the margins of society. Yet he takes bold initiative and is commended by Jesus, “your faith has made you well.” Bartimaeus reminds us of the unnamed woman with the flow of blood and the many other outsiders in Mark’s gospel who are received or empowered by Jesus- the Gerasene demoniac, the Syrophoenician woman, the blind man at Bethsaida and the little children. These are the ones who receive Jesus’ attention, these are the ones whose agency Jesus responds to and heals.[3]
 
But like other stories of healing in Mark’s gospel, the story of Bartimaeus makes us reconsider who is sick and who actually needs healing.
 
Which brings me back to the state of our hearts.
 
This past Wednesday, the Sacred Reckonings Steering Committee met here at SpringHouse to do some strategic planning around our shared reparations work in white churches. And we talked about the fact that the orientation of Sacred Reckonings is that of Liberation for All and Open Heartedness. We also talked about just how difficult it is these days to move in our world with Open Heartedness, especially as we seek to engage both personal and systemic change.
 
I don’t know about you, but when I read about Project 2025 or watch a video with a politician being downright cruel, I find my heart hardening. Or, when I hear a story about another massacre in Gaza or Ukraine or Sudan, I find myself overwhelmed with compassion fatigue. I’m not in the place that Mary Boykin Chesnut was… I’m not taking opium, but I recognize how numbing out and engaging in addictive behavior is a response that many of us grapple with. Passive non-resistance to the forces of oppression and injustice is a kind of hard-heartedness that is very alluring…
 
What is the state of our hearts?
 
When Bartimaeus realizes that it is Jesus who is near him he yells and shouts “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And then the text tells us “Many sternly ordered him to be quiet.”
Who were these folx who were seeking to silence Bartimaeus? Were they the disciples who, just moments before, Jesus had rebuked and told them of the radical equity in God’s realm? Were they pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem? Whoever they were, they seemed to be suffering from same hard-heartedness that Mary Boykin Chesnut was.
 
The story goes on describing Bartimaeus, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.”  So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 
 
Scholars have pointed out that unlike James and John who, in their heart-sickness, are longing after power, Bartimaeus throws off his cloak, his only means of income, to come to Jesus. The faith that Jesus tells him has made him well, is a clearness of heart. Bartimaeus understands that which will make him whole. And as further evidence of this, Bartimaeus, after receiving his sight, remains with Jesus “on the way.” He allows himself to stay open-hearted and commits to join the journey toward confronting the political, religious and economic systems that harden too many hearts.
 
I want to say just a word about disability and ableism. Clearly in this story, it is Bartimaeus’ marginalization, his isolation from community that is named as the problem. Jesus respects Bartimaeus’ agency and his desire to receive his sight but Bartimaeus’ blindness is not the problem. A community that would silence the marginalized and whose hearts long for power and prestige instead of humanity and equity, that is the sickness to be healed. Jesus is “on the way” to create God’s new order, an economy of open hearts.
 
To emphasize the point that Bartimaeus is not the one who needs to be healed, his crying out “Jesus, Son of David” is the first time in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus is named as in a lineage of rulers. But, clearly Bartimaeus sees and understands that Jesus’ embodiment of power is for soft-hearted liberation, not economies of hard-heartedness.
 
So what is the state of your heart right now? Can we take just a moment to put our hands on our hearts and breathe in? How is your heart right now?
 
The problem with protecting our hearts, especially in a country where hard-heartedness is often a kind of cultural heirloom, is that protecting our hearts too often leads to heart-sickness and hardening.
 
Your heart needs your attention right here.
 
Can we give our hearts the attention they need? Can we hear the challenge from Bartimaeus and the cautionary tale of Mary Boykin Chesnut?
 
And hearing these, can we cry out, “Jesus, soft-hearted liberator, have mercy on us?” And might we hear, “come, your faith has made you well?”
 
Amen.
 
 [1] Song by Deirdre Smith

[2] Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mab Segrest, Born to Belonging: Writings on Spirit and Justice (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 140.

[3] Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV- Year B, Brueggemann, Cousar, Gaventa and Newsome, Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993, pp. 564-565.

The following is my sermon from the 4th of July weekend. I share it here in the midst of Project 2025 and in the wake of the political violence at the former president's rally on Saturday, July 13th.

Faithfulness and Patriotism
Mark 6:1-13
Lyndale UCC- July 7, 2024
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel
 
Gathered here in the mystery of this hour, gathered here in One Strong Body, gathered here in the struggle and the power, Spirit draw near.
 
For the sermon time this morning, I am going to share some context and a few brief reflections and then I’m going to invite us into a few minutes of conversation together around the theme of faithfulness and patriotism.
 
In our scripture reading for today, Jesus has just been travelling around the region where he has been performing exorcisms and healings. And now he has returned to his hometown synagogue where he stands up and starts teaching. But, instead of excitement about the hometown boy who has done them proud, Jesus’ hearers are more like, “who does this upstart think he is? He thinks he can tell us what to do? Give me a break!”
 
The text tells us: Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown and among their own kin and in their own house.”  And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.
 
Jesus’ message falls on barren ground and closed ears. It is from that place that Jesus then moves to call the disciples.
 
This is the first point I would lift up in our conversation this morning: faithfulness, prophetic ministry, being invited into following Jesus is not the same as success.
 
OK, so back to the passage: Jesus’ message has fallen on barren ground and closed ears. From this place, he calls the disciples. Our text says:
 
Then he went about among the villages teaching. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over the unclean spirits…  So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
 
Every time I read about Jesus’ ministry of exorcism, I have a visceral reaction. I think, particularly as a lesbian, the specter of too many of my queer elders, and frankly, queer contemporaries, experiencing literal exorcisms as well as attempted psychiatric ones makes me deeply suspicious of that word. And today is no different. But, as I’ve shared before, I have been greatly helped by Ched Myers’ commentary on Mark’s gospel called Binding the Strong Man.
 
Myers encourages us to recognize a lot of symbolism in Mark’s gospel. In particular, Myers says about Mark’s gospel, “From the moment he strides into a Capernaum synagogue, it becomes clear that Jesus’ Kingdom project is incompatible with the local public authorities and the social order they represent. A ‘demon’ immediately demands that Jesus justify his attack upon the authority of the [political and religious] establishment; Jesus vanquishes this challenge and commences his ministry of healing.”
 
In other words, in order to be about the constructive ministry of genuine healing, love, justice, and peace, Jesus must also be about the deconstructive ministry of exorcizing the status quo of some people having most of the power and stuff, and others being outcast, impoverished, and oppressed.
 
And this is the second piece I’d like for us to consider: Jesus’ call to the disciples, and to any of us who would be followers, or, as the word “disciple” means, students of Jesus, we are invited into the interconnected work of deconstructing the status quo of some having most of the power and stuff and others being outcast, impoverished, and oppressed AND healing and building a world where love, peace, and justice are alive and well.
 

• Faithfulness is not the same as success by the world’s standards
• Discipleship is about deconstructing things that harm many and benefit a few AND discipleship is about healing and building a world of love, peace and justice.

 
We just got back from Ireland and Scotland. We were in Inverness, Scotland the night of the presidential debate and we were in Hacketstown, Ireland last Tuesday night having dinner with Maggie’s cousins, all of whom are practicing Catholics and one of whom spent twenty years as the chief architect of retiring Ireland’s national debt. As we sat at dinner, they asked really, really good questions about the rise of white nationalism here in the US and, in particular, Project 2025. And they also reflected on authoritarian Victor Orban in Hungary, the recent European Union parliamentary elections where far-right representatives from both Germany and France were just elected, and today’s election in France, where far-right, fascist candidates look to be poised to win. And they asked us what we, as Christians, are going to do?
 
[pause]
 
One other thing from our scripture passage that always touches me is that Jesus doesn’t send the disciples out alone, they go with a partner into ministry. And almost all of Jesus’ ministry is done in the context of community.
 
I don’t honestly know how to fully answer Maggie’s cousins’ questions. But I do know that part of the answer is that we are given to each other in beloved, deep community, here at Lyndale and in thousands and thousands of other spiritual communities of people seeking to be students of the Way of love, justice, and peace.
 
So, on this Fourth of July weekend, amidst the global rise of white nationalism and threats to our democracy, what does your faith lead you to do and be? What does the relationship between faithfulness and patriotism look like for you?
 
I’d love to invite you to turn to one or two neighbors and share your responses and thoughts about these questions. We’ll take about ten minutes to talk to each other. And then, I’d love to hear a few of your reflections.
 
[sharing]
 
I return thanks to God for this community and for being students together of the Way of love, peace, and justice. Amen.

In the re-launch of the Nurture the Soul webinar series, Rev. Traci Blackmon invited me on to engage in a wide-ranging coversation about the work of White Settler-Colonizer folx in doing reparations. Listen here for the powerful, painful, and, ultimately, liberative work of truth-telling, relationships of followership and solidarity with BIPOC leaders, spiritual practices, political solidarity, and wealth surrender that White Settler-Colonizer churches are invited to engage. 

Here are some of my reflections on Transfiguration, Third Space and the invitation to practice interbeing. These were originally shared at Lyndale UCC on March 5, 2023.

I can still remember all the details—downtown Atlanta. The summer of 2004. Walking around town, the backs of my hands were sweating—something I’d never experienced before. It was my first time with The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries—the Pentecostal, African American, LGBTQ movement- and I was transfixed. In particular, I can still close my eyes and see the moment when a young man with full-blown AIDS walked into the ballroom and Bishop Flunder stopped everything else we were doing. She had been told that he was very, very sick and had boarded a bus in St. Louis the day before and taken it overnight to be with us because he was gay, had been rejected by his family and he knew he needed a healing. When he was invited into the middle of the gathered church and we were invited to lay on hands and pray, I felt a power of the Holy Spirit like I’ve never felt in my entire life. Amidst tears and shouts, we prayed him back into love and community. I don’t know if we invited any kind of a cure. But we, together, healed him.
 
I can still remember all the details—inside the sanctuary of Christ Lutheran Church on Capitol Hill. It was a Wednesday night in early May of 2013. It was raining outside, but not too hard. It was warm inside as over 800 people packed in for the joyous, multifaith service the night before the Minnesota House was to vote on the Marriage Equality legislation that was before them. Rabbi Latz and members of Shir Tikvah held a chuppah and talked about the sacred blessings he had bestowed upon so many couples underneath its cloth. Pagan leader, Robin Mavis cast a circle which sought to protect us all from that which wished harm and welcomed all in who sought to celebrate love. And the entire congregation sang, from floor to rafters, “And God will rejoice when we are creators of justice and joy, compassion and peace. Yes, God will rejoice when we are creators of justice…. justice and joy.” And then all 800 of us walked in the rain across the street to leave paper hearts with our messages of love on the steps to the Rotunda so that legislators who would vote the next day might enter the Capitol along a path of open hearts.
 
I imagine that Peter and James and John could remember every detail of that time on the mountaintop, too. I imagine that the experience of a kind of power and connection they had never known before was something that lived on in their cells as a palpable memory. The dazzling light that I imagine they could close their eyes and see for years to come. The sight of Moses, the listener to burning bushes, and Elijah, the discerner of still, small voices. I imagine Peter and James and John would look at mountaintops and bushes differently from that day on. And I imagine that the connection with the ancestors and the foretelling of all that had come to pass were experiences that shaped them since that moment.
 
***
Indigenous and African American activists talk about First, Second and Third Space. First space is the conditions of oppression and violence that mark much of daily life. Second space is the resistance, the knowing that something isn’t right, the refusal to settle for First Space. And Third Space are those experiences and times when, if only for a moment, or a day, or a collection of days, an experience of liberation, of healing, of wholeness of deepest connection that is free of oppression, happens.
 
It is those moments of Third Space that fortify and encourage our living in Second Space in order to resist First Space.
 
The story of the Transfiguration is a story of Third Space. It is a story of Peter and James and John being gifted by Jesus with a vision of the future that will be but also already is. And it is not coincidence that Jesus allows them this experience of Third Space as a way to fortify them for the journey they must accompany him on through his arrest, trial and execution. He knows they need it to have any chance at holding on to hope amidst their despair.
 
This question of how we hold on to hope in a world that provides us with so much evidence for despair is one that has gripped and guided me most of my life. It is especially close to my heart each year during the Lenten journey.
 
On this second Sunday in Lent, as we consider our Lenten theme of Practicing Interbeing, I am drawn to this reality of First, Second and Third space. We are living amidst a lot of things that could cause us to despair—both personally and collectively. I think about the second year of Russia’s war on Ukraine, of Israel’s attacks on Palestinians, the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, the assault on trans+ kindred in Florida, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and many other places, the assault on truth itself through the censuring of accurate historical truth-telling about our country’s history of racism and violence… there is a lot which could cause despair.
 
And, throughout my life—in Lent and at other times (hot, humid summers and rainy Springs)— I am always drawn into worshiping with kindred souls seeking hope. Collective praying, communal singing, shared eucharist, public acts of healing and love. Sometimes they are experiences whose every detail I remember that literally transport me toward that promised future that is already here. But sometimes they strike me as regular or even mundane or boring. But the practice of setting aside time and gathering together so that small and large Transfigurations might happen is what I feel called to this second Sunday of Lent.
 
There is another thing about the Transfiguration and its Third Space that seems important to name here as we ponder what “Practicing Interbeing” might mean for us. Interbeing is marked by a deep sense of interdependence: I am because you are. Interbeing is the reality that power is mutual; and reciprocity is how we relate: to our kindred humans and to all of creation, including our animal and plant kindred. Interbeing is about realizing that our very bodies are made up of the same matter that make up the stars and the planets and the company of all creation. Interbeing reminds us that we are not separate or individuated parts, instead, we are deeply connected.
 
The trees breathe in our carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen which we breathe in. Then, we breathe out carbon dioxide which the trees breathe in. We live in a relationship of reciprocity with the trees. These relationships of reciprocity are repeated throughout all of creation. That which is harmful to one is medicine to the other. And it is only together that we are able to live. Together, we can metabolize and transform that which is harmful into that which is healing.
 
But Jesus knew he had to bring Peter and James and John to the mountaintop because far too much of his world was in First and Second space. Living under Roman Empire, there wasn’t a lot of mutuality and shared power. Instead, power-over and violence were the rule of the day. Executions of those who resisted Rome’s rule were common. Crucifixion was the punishment of those who were seen as a threat to Roman Empire power. And often, the victims of Rome’s violent crack-downs were left hanging on the cross along the road in order to scare others into obedience.
 
But the Jesus way is the way of interbeing. Jesus was trying to help Peter and James and John, and all of us, see that his life and ministry is about second and third space. Just like Moses resisted the power of Pharoah, just like Elijah called forth prophetic justice, Jesus’ ministry is one of reciprocity, of deep connection, of sharing and justice and, most importantly, of love.
 
And in the Transfiguration, Jesus reminds us that Third space and mountain top time, are critically important for all of us. We have to have places and spaces where we experience the deepest connection and our belonging to one another and all of creation.
 
Naomi Shihab Nye describes one such moment of interbeing & Third Space in her poem Gate A-4
 
“Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement: "If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately."
Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just
like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing.
"Help," said the flight agent. "Talk to her. What is her problem? We
told her the flight was going to be late and she did this."
I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.
"Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-
se-wee?" The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly
used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled
entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the
next day. I said, "No, we're fine, you'll get there, just later, who is
picking you up? Let's call him."
We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would
stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to
her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just
for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while
in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I
thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know
and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee,
answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool
cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and
nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the
lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered
sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.
And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two
little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they
were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend--
by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag,
some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradi-
tion. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This
is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that
gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—seemed apprehensive about
any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.
This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.”

I am very excited to share that Sacred Reckonings: White Settler-Colonizer Churches Doing the Work of Reparations is complete! Sacred Reckonings was written and compiled through a grant from the Louisville Institute by Jessica Intermill, Esq and me. It is rooted in deep listening and relationship with Black and Indigenous elders, and with BIPOC and white settler-colonizer colleagues and friends. 

It is designed for Christian congregations that are predominantly white settler-colonizer to engage the sacred work of reparations through a lens of Liberation for All and Open Heartedness. And, we hope its primary feel and invitation is one of deep work that leads to healing and joy. The central work of Sacred Reckonings is the Reparatory Eco Map which leads congregations through the crucial work of Truth Telling, Relationships of Solidarity and Followership, Political Solidarity, Spiritual Practices, and Wealth Surrender.

We are still building out the trainings and support, but here is the curriculum. Please let us know if you are interested in using it in your congregation. 

I had the amazing opportunity to be present at the White House for the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act on December 13, 2022. I share a few reflections in this blog post for the national United Church of Christ website. You can find it here and below.

​As I waited for my Lyft driver to arrive to take me to the White House (there’s a phrase I didn’t know I’d ever write), I called my friend Rev. Harry Knox. When he answered, I immediately got teary.
 
It was nineteen years ago when Harry was working at Freedom to Marry that he called me and asked if I, as Interim National Coordinator of the UCC Coalition for LGBT Concerns (The Coalition), would consider applying for a grant to work on marriage. I went on to be the Faith Work Director at the National LGBTQ Task Force and he the Religion and Faith Director at HRC. Our two organizations didn’t always get along, but he and I were true friends. He often quotes the wisdom that “you can get a lot done together if you don’t worry about who gets the credit.” And, in that spirit, he and I were privileged to work with hundreds of pro-LGBTQ spiritual and religious leaders on justice for LGBTQ communities. Harry wasn’t able to be at the White House for the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act, but I carried him with me.
 
I carried a lot of other folx, too. Like Rev. Jan Griesinger. Jan died last week. She was the first person I ever came out to. Jan and Sam Lolliger were long-time Co-National Coordinators for The Coalition. When I became the interim National Coordinator, years after I’d come out to her, she was very kind and loving (her gruff exterior belied her very tender heart) and offered me sage advice on strategy.
 
These were the things on my heart and mind as I stood on the South Lawn of the White House, amidst a crowd of beautiful drag queens and Marines, of priests and politicians and parents, of children and interns, of ambassadors and press secretaries: it was generous collective action and genuine friendships; it was kindness and badass strategy; it was love, and love, and love that brought us to this day.
 
It seems somehow fitting that the Respect for Marriage Act was signed into law during Advent with its themes of waiting, incarnate/Incarnate love, and preparation. Because there’s been a lot of faithful waiting. And there’s been a lot of strategic preparation. And there’s been a lot of incarnate love and Love: just in the people with whom I stood and talked. Incarnate love in Ambassador Michael Guest who was the second out gay ambassador; Karine Jean Pierre, the first Black person and the first openly LGBTQ person to be White House press secretary; Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart, Director for Faith-Based and Interfaith Affairs for the city of Philadelphia; Rev. Neil Thomas, Senior Pastor at Cathedral of Hope UCC; Jon Hoadley, former Michigan State Representative; Fred Davie, Senior Strategic Advisor to the President at Union Theological Seminary; Sunu Chandy, Legal Director at the National Women’s Law Center.
 
The Respect for Marriage Act is not liberation. There is much work to be done. And there is, yet, much to be celebrated. Love is love is love. And for its incarnation, we return thanks to God!

Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel and Karine Jean-Pierre, White House Press Secretary

I want to begin by saying again how grateful I am for the time of sabbatical that Lyndale granted me. It will take me many more sermons and writing to explore all that I’ve learned this summer, particularly as I’ve worked on the Louisville Institute grant on reparations. But know I return thanks to God for Lyndale and all this community is. Thank you.
 
Besides the grant work, my sabbatical also included a month-long trip in which Maggie and Shannon and I spent time in Ireland and Scotland on our ancestral lands, exploring our histories. As I read about the interaction between Jesus and the ten people with leprosy, I was struck by the importance of truth-telling for the process of healing.
 
Truth-telling for the process of healing. What do I mean by that?
 
Maren Tirabassi recently wrote a reader’s theatre piece about the story of Jesus and the ten people with leprosy in which she explores why the nine people didn’t turn back.[1] In her exegesis, many of those whom Jesus healed don’t turn back and thank Jesus because they wanted to bury the past. They wanted to cover up the memory.  They wanted to forget what happened to them.
 
When we were in Scotland in August, the primary task was to inter the ashes of my grammie’s younger sister, Christina MacKenzie Russell. There is a family plot in the Tomnahurich Cemetery in Inverness where my great grandmother, Jessie Johnstone MacKenzie and some of her children are buried and since my Aunt Chris died in 2006, I’ve been holding her ashes until they could make their way home. We were able to bury her there on August 26th.
 
On the 28th, we took a trip north of Inverness, through what is known as Ross and Cromarty. Now, I’ve never spent time in Ross and Cromarty, but I’ve certainly known about it and I’ve talked about it with my cousin’s wife, whose name is Jan Cromartie-Voelkel. So when we were in Scotland and in Ross and Cromarty, I texted Jan to let her know. Just after I texted her, our tour stopped at Dunrobin Castle, ancestral home of the Earl of Sutherland. As we pulled up, our driver suggested that this was Scotland’s answer to Disney. And he wasn’t kidding. The towers and the estate looked as if they could have been the model for the Disney logo. The wealth and opulence were overwhelming, so much so that all three of us took the short cut to the exit.
 
As the bus pulled away from Dunrobin, our tour guide then shared with us that it was the Earl of Sutherland who, in 1831, had decided that the 1500 families who lived in Ross and Cromarty weren’t making him enough money and that he wanted to have sheep instead. He decided to clear the families off the land. Many of them, he tricked into going to a port near Dunrobin where he had several ships onto which he loaded them and sent them off to North Carolina.
 
Our tour then stopped at the statue whose picture is on the cover of your bulletin which was put up by the Highland Clearances Commission. In it, one of the 1500 families that was cleared off the land is pictured, starving and desperate as they are forced out of their country.
 
Right after I took that picture and got back on the bus, a text came from my cousin, Jan Cromartie-Voelkel. Oh, yes, she said. The white family that owned her ancestors in North Carolina were Cromarties but when she wrote them to ask about her people who they had enslaved, they didn’t write her back.
 
When I read Jan’s text to Maggie and Shannon, we could hardly take it all in. How could people who experienced the brutality of being dehumanized, cleared off their ancestral land in order to be replaced by livestock, starved and lied to, shipped to another country all in the name of greed, turn around and own other human beings?
 
Did the process of burying the past happen right away? Did those families from Ross and Cromarty change the spelling and pronunciation of their name right away? Did they start lying about their past when they got off the boat, or did it take a while?
 
A couple of weeks ago, Lyn Pegg, Nancie Hamlett, Jonathan Stegall, Craig Simenson, Pam Meyerhoff and I attended a book reading at First Nations Kitchen with Elaine Enns and Ched Myers of their book, Healing Haunted Histories: A Settler Discipleship of Decolonization. It was a powerful evening and there were many things that moved me.
 
In particular, they argue that the Doctrine of Discovery creates and demands of white people a state of agnosia (similar root of the word agnostic… like I don’t know). By agnosia, they mean socialized ignorance, a state of denying and dissociating. In white settler culture, we don't know and we don't want to know. But when we live in a state of buried truth, of socialized ignorance, we are dissociated and haunted by the ghosts of that history....everywhere we walk, there are stories that the land holds...of violence that we can't ignore.
 
When the tenth person who’s been healed of leprosy turns back and thanks Jesus, the act of turning back is rooted in acknowledging his history. He owns the truth about who he is and where he comes from. While all the others are healed in body, he is able to be healed in heart and soul as well as body because he, first, acknowledges the truth of all that’s happened to him. And in owning the truth, he is released into gratitude.
 
One of the people I interviewed over my sabbatical was Macky Alston, a documentary filmmaker who’s just finishing a film on reparations that focuses on his mother’s family who were enslavers in Georgia. I asked him a lot about what drew him into making this film and about working on reparations in general. And one of the first stories he told me was about when he came out to his parents after they had moved from Georgia to New Jersey. Their reaction was a lukewarm, well that’s OK, but you must never tell your grandparents because it will kill them.
 
Macky paused and said, “they literally were saying that the truth would annihilate my grandparents. And I think that’s the fear in all this reparation work, too. That the truth about our pasts will annihilate us.”
 
But, he went on to say. “At some point, I chose to ignore my parents fears and I went to Georgia and came to my mamaw and she was not only unfazed but celebrated me. And I learned that, in fact, the truth could, indeed, set you free.”
 
My friends, we live in a world where buried truths haunt us- individually and collectively. Our pains and traumas fester when they are covered up. And we can lash out and perpetrate the very trauma that was visited on us. As Bishop Yvette Flunder often says, “hurt people hurt people. And healing people help heal people.”
 
When Jesus greets the tenth person who tells the truth about his past and is released to gratitude, he says, go… your faith has healed you. What healings do we need? What truths are we invited to name so that we might be released into gratitude and healing? What faithfulness are we being called to?
 
Today we will partake at the communion table, like we do every month. And each time we consecrate the bread and the cup, we repeat the words from scripture, Do This in Remembrance of Me. Truth-speaking and memory are sacred and holy things. They are the first step toward healing and liberation.
 
Amen.


[1] https://giftsinopenhands.wordpress.com/2022/10/03/where-are-they-readers-theatre-sermon-or-other-occasion-the-ten-lepers-luke-17-11-19/?fbclid=IwAR07WZTlqbihFMm-CLDI9xD4fYOrOuw3gyvCnhFrahJB3l90srCpiRZnl-k

This morning, Governor Tim Walz signed an Executive Order doing all in his power to block the torturous practice of "conversion therapy" in the State of Minnesota. It isn't enough, and we all affirmed that. But it is a step in the right direction. I was one of those on stand-by to speak. I didn't get to speak these words, but here is what I have been praying about in this moment:

Good morning, my name is Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel and I am the justice pastor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Justice at Lyndale United Church of Christ.
 
I stand before you today as a Christian pastor. I have to tell you, being a pastor is one of my greatest joys in life. Because of my role, I have been invited into some of the most sacred spaces: I’ve seen in the delivery room as babies were being born, I’ve been in hospice rooms as folx have taken their last breath and crossed over the River Jordan, I’ve sung and prayed and preached and communed in some of the most powerful worship services, I’ve marched and been arrested witnessing for the gospel of love and justice. Being a pastor is one of the greatest joys of my life.
 
But my identity as a pastor is also a source of deep sorrow, shame and anger when I consider the violence done in the name of Jesus. My identity as a Christian pastor causes me to weep and rage when I consider the ways in which bad theology has been used to abuse. And there are far too many examples of bad Christian theology. In the last two months, we’ve heard of story after story of indigenous children’s bodies being discovered at so-called boarding schools. The latest one just this week on an island in Western Canada run by the Catholic Church. Bad theology distorts a gospel of love and liberation into a tool of violence, torture and death.
 
And when that happens, the only faithful thing any of us can do, but certainly the only faithful thing a Christian pastor can do is confess, repent and work toward reparation.
 
This morning, I am greatly honored to be standing with Gov. Walz and Lt Gov Flanigan as they ban so called reparative therapy. This practice is not any kind of therapy and is, instead, a technique of torture. It is a clear example of twisted, perverted theology. Conversion therapy is a tool for imbuing self-loathing. It creates life-long wounds that far too often lead to suicide.
 
I stand before you as a Christian pastor to confess that far too many Christians have used this torture technique against the LGBTQ community. I stand before you to call all of my Christian kindred to repent of this blasphemous practice. And I stand before you today in deep gratitude for Gov Walz and Lt Gov Flanigan and this Executive Order. May it be one step in the work of healing and repair for all Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer beloveds.