Spiritual Resilience:
Dreaming and Dancing toward Justice & Joy
Luke 9:28-36
Lyndale UCC- March 16, 2025
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel

Holy One of brilliant light and deepest, warmest darkness—both of which hold and guide, teach and heal us. Touch my mouth and all of our hearts, that we, with our kindred, Peter and James and John, might encounter you. Amen.

He said he could still remember all the details. A 25-year-old John Lewis had recently gotten out of the hospital after having had his skull fractured by Alabama State troopers as he and 600 people knelt to pray on Selma’s Edmund Pettus bridge on what became known as Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965. So much had happened in the two weeks since then. They were still mourning the deaths of Jimmie Lee Jackson, the young Black civil rights protestor killed by police and Rev. James Reeb, the White Unitarian pastor beaten to death by white supremacists for being in Selma and working with them on voting rights. There had been so much fear, so much grief. 

And now, as they marched from Selma to Montgomery, they did so with the protection of Federal troops. And each day, their original number grew by the thousands. Interviewed decades later, John Lewis said he could still remember all the details as they finished the march with over 25,000 people filling the streets of Montgomery. With people of all races and classes literally embracing one another, singing, dancing, chanting as if with one voice. “We’ll walk hand in hand… we’ll walk hand in hand…. And We shall overcome, some day”…He said he could remember every word spoken at the rally in front of the State Capitol over which Gov. George Wallace, a staunchly white supremacist, presided but who could not contain the joy, the power, the transfiguration of the Civil Rights movement, and indeed, the nation, that day. He could still hear Dr. King’s words, “How long? Not long!”

I can still remember all the details—a hotel ballroom in downtown Atlanta. The summer of 2004. 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 and watched as his countanence glowed. I don’t know if we invited any kind of a cure. But we, together, transfigured and healed him.

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 and Elijah, symbols of God liberation and prophetic calling, and the foretelling of all that had come to pass.

***

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 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. It is Third Space that gives of glimpses of another world that is possible and help us dream and imagine how life ought be.

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. 

And it is especially close to my heart this Lent. 

I don’t have to tell you that we seem to be in a collective national journey of crucifixion at the hands of Empire. We seem to be on an eerily parallel journey to our siblings Peter and James and John as they accompanied Jesus through Roman Occupied Judea with far too many Religious leaders cowing and capitulating to Empire’s rule. It seems eerily parallel to me. And the grief, fear, and anger sometimes threaten to overwhelm. 

How are we to stay grounded in hope? How are we to root ourselves in the power of the Holy Spirit? How are we to practice Spiritual Resilience?

I think Jesus knew that Peter, James, and John would be overwhelmed with grief… and fear… and anger, too. And so he took them to the Mountain Top. Jesus either created or recognized the Third Space and invited Peter and James and John into it. Jesus seems to be saying: see Moses and Elijah? See these symbols? Remember the ways in which God led our ancestors out of bondage and through the wilderness for forty years, feeding and guiding us? Remember that in the face of death, God spoke through a still small voice to our ancestor Elijah, never forsaking him? 

Jesus seems to know that Peter and James and John, and all of us, need to visit Third Space to both re-member God’s love and liberation, and dream and vision for what and how God’s justice and love look like in our midst, in this moment, today.

What Transfigurations have you experienced that have helped you dream and vision and hope?

I just heard from a dear seminary friend whose father died two years ago this week. He posted a picture of his holding his father’s hand as he died. And he described being with his dad that whole last day of his life and how even though they never fully understood one another, he felt a transfiguration and forgiveness like he had never known.

I thought about sitting in Elly’s garden and singing hymns with her as she allowed us to accompany her in her dying. I particularly remembered about fifteen of us singing How Can I Keep From Singing? on a day that Elly was well enough to sing along and she sat next to Kathy with a smile on her face.

I thought about Audrey’s memorial service when Don got into her empty mechanical wheelchair, re-embodying and transfiguring it as he drove and danced her into life eternal.

What moments of Third Space, of Transfiguration remind you that our God is a God who makes a way out of no way? That our God transfigures even death into new life?

The coming days will not be easy. We cannot be naïve. We are living amidst a brutal First Space. But neither can we despair. Jesus took Peter and James and John together, none of them alone. Thankfully, there is abundant evidence of Second Space. The resistors and the interrupters of violence. Just this week, this congregation embodied Second Space as twenty five of us from Lyndale met to talk about how we can be community for one another and witnesses and doers of justice and love in the world. We talked about what makes for spiritual resilience.

One answer is that in order to practice Spiritual Resilience we must seek out Third Space. We must put our bodies with other courageous people and march over the Edmund Pettus’ bridges in our lives, believing that it won’t be long. We must gather in worship and song and be a space that lays on hands of healing and transfiguration. We must sit with our dying elders and hold their hands and sing with them into new life. 

We must allow ourselves to touch, if only briefly, that world that is possible and allow it to place an irrepressible, revolutionary hope that no American Carnage can contain. 

Amen.

Care, Grieve, Protest… Write, Dance, Create
a sermon preached at Lyndale UCC using Luke 4: 21-30 on February 2, 2025 by Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel
 
I am open, and I am willing, for to be hopeless would seem so strange, it dishonors those who go before us, so lift me up to the light of change. Holy One, light of change, touch my mouth and all of our hearts. Amen.
 
I have to be honest that I have been all over the map in these last two weeks. Tears, rage, exhaustion… I’ve felt them all. And I’ve heard from many of you that you are feeling the same thing. And that is by design. So how can we hold each other in our authenticity, our honest feelings, our fears … and also be prophets and healers- to each other and for our world? For, I believe that is what being followers of Jesus is all about.
 
I don’t pretend to have answers. But I want to invite us to pray together on the message: care, grieve, protest… write, dance, create… care, grieve, protest…write, dance, create.
 
The Executive Orders began on Day 1 and they keep coming…
 
Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government…
 
Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling…
 
And the lies that are the heart of any authoritarian project:
As President Trump said on Thursday, the horrible crash at DCA was because, “the FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative…”
 
And I’ve found myself reeling and thrown back to the 1980’s when I was a newly out lesbian in Ronald Reagan and George Bush’s America. It was a time when so much of what was said about me and my community were hate-filled lies.
 
In 1987, Reverend Jerry Falwell famously said “God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah primarily because of the sin of homosexuality. Today He is again bringing judgment against this wicked practice through AIDS.” In the mid-80’s Sen. Jesse Helms often said “Homosexuals are weak, morally sick wretches.” In 1992, 36 percent of Americans believed AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behavior.
 
Dan Savage, a gay writer and activist has also been thrown back to the 1980’s. Last week he remembered, “During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for. It didn’t look like we were going to win then and we did. It doesn’t feel like we’re going to win now but we could. Keep fighting, keep dancing.”
 
Grieve, Protest, Dance. Out of remembering how he and so many LGBTQ+ people navigated the Reagan and Bush years, comes hope for resistance and resilience now.
 
Shonda Rhimes, the African American producer, director, and actor, has also been thrown back in time these last ten days. She is remembering Toni Morrison words in the wake of regressive racist laws of the early 2000’s. Rhimes shared Morrison’s words, “This is the time when artists go to work. Not when everything is alright. Not when it looks sunny. It’s when it’s hard. And I thought about all those people who wrote in prisons, in Gulags, under duress. They were doing it… [Morrison continues] There is no place for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. This is how civilizations heal.”
 
Grieve, Protest, Write, Dance, Create… Grieve, Protest, Write, Dance, Create. That’s how civilizations heal.
 
Our scripture reading for today comes from one of the most powerful chapters in the entire newer testament. Luke 4 begins with Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness in which the devil attempts to delude Jesus three times with power, authority and wealth. With each temptation, Jesus responds that his life is rooted in relationship with God, and real authority, power, and meaning come from spiritual clarity.
 
Luke Chapter 4 continues with Jesus, fresh from his resistance to a distorted sense of power and purpose, returning to his hometown of Nazareth and entering into the synagogue where he is handed the scroll of the prophet ISAIAH. Like our lectionary, synagogues in Jesus’ time read through the scroll from week to week. The portion that Jesus reads isn’t something he chooses, it was given to him to read. And what is that portion of scripture?
 
“The Spirit of God is upon me,
    because the Holy One has anointed me
        to bring good news to the poor.
The Holy One has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
        to set free those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of God’s favor.”
​
And then we get our reading from Luke 4:21-30: Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth…[but then] he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in their hometown. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah…  yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
 
There is a lot in the fourth chapter of Luke, there’s a lot in this story of the early part of Jesus’ ministry. And there are so many parallels to today. The temptations haven’t really changed much. It feels like we’re awash in the siren’s call of power-over, domination, and money. The assignment still stands the test of time: proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of God’s favor.
 
I sometimes forget it, but the preparation is also the same and it pours over us: The Spirit of God is upon us, because the Holy One has anointed us…
 
And, just as Jesus fulfilled the scripture in his day, we, too are invited to fulfill it in ours. Make no mistake, we are awash in distorted and false prophecy… the lies can threaten to overwhelm. The horror and the violence and the death are very real. When we reject the temptation that power-over, domination, and greed whisper and shout, when we name clearly that others have fallen prey to that temptation, we will anger some in our hometowns, our families, and our kindred in society. We may even be threatened and pushed to the brow of the cliff. But we are invited to remember that we, too, are rooted in the Holy Spirit. And maybe that will allow us to walk back from the cliff’s edge and proceed with our ministry.
 
In a few minutes, we will come to the communion table together. And, thinking about that sacred meal, UCC theologian and pastor Mary Luti wrote a piece this week. She starts by quoting the gospel of Luke
 
He took bread, and after giving thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And he did the same with the cup after supper…
 
“When Christians talk about Communion, we say it’s a remembrance of Jesus, a memorial. Which is true, but also potentially misleading, as if what we’re doing at the table is reminiscing, like you would maybe at a wake.
“But in the gospel’s original Greek, the word for remembrance is stronger, edgier, more demanding—anamnesis—literally, “against amnesia.” It turns out that remembering Jesus in Communion is oppositional, like standing up to something, an adversary. Remembering at the table is not reminiscence, it’s resistance. It’s refusing to forget.
 
“There are forces around us and within us that want us to forget what they’ve been up to for eons, wreaking havoc, taking up all the breathing room, squeezing the life out of everything for ego, profit, supremacy, and power. Killing for sport. 
 
“They’re still at it, night and day, trying to fog over all traces of Jesus’ love revolution in the world and in our hearts. They hope we’ll lose his trail, his story’s thread. They hope we’ll forget we ever knew him. 
 
“For if we forget, we’ll be putty in their hands. If we forget, they can tell us anything they want, and we won’t know they’re lying. In the vacuum of forgetting, injustice has it easy, violence rules the day. 
 
“Communion is dangerous memory, it’s our uprising. At the table we take a stand. We remember God’s gifts and mighty deeds. We remember Jesus. We remember each other. We remember everyone and everything hate erases. We refuse to forget.”

When I posted Dan Savage’s words on my Facebook page this week, Barbara Johnson responded. (You might remember Barbara as the woman who, in 2012, was denied communion by a Catholic priest at her own mother’s funeral because she is lesbian.) In reading Dan’s words Barbara said, ‘I just burst into tears. I remember every second of the AIDS crisis. But we need to add "and we bathed and fed our friends dying in hospice rooms.’ We took care of one another when no one else would. We must take care of one another now.”
 
My friends, we are in times of great peril, violence, and fear. It’s OK to be reeling, to be sad, to be exhausted. AND, we are invited to remember. To remember our queer kindred who cared, and grieved and protested and danced. To remember our artist ancestors who go to work when it is hard. To remember our teacher Jesus who still leads a love revolution.
 
Care, Grieve, Protest… Write, Dance, Create.
 
May it be so. Amen.

But Not…
II Corinthians 4: 8-9
Lyndale UCC- November 17, 2024
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel
 
There is a balm in Gilead, to make the wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead, to heal the struggling soul.
 
The Apostle Paul writes to the community in Corinth:
 
We are afflicted in every way,
       but not crushed;
           perplexed,
             but not driven to despair;
               persecuted, but not forsaken;
                                                                                                                struck down, but not destroyed…
 
As I read and prayed over this passage this week, I kept returning to three things:
 
The starting place for this passage is a bearing witness to and allowing ourselves to feel, really feel the grief.
 
We are afflicted. We are perplexed. We are persecuted. We are struck down.
 
We, as a nation, have chosen a sexual abuser, a fraudster, a con man, a racist, a billionaire horder as our president. And, already, the alleged child sex trafficker, Matt Goetz, is up for Attorney General. The Christian Zionist who says the West Bank does not exist, Mike Huckabee, is up for Ambassador to Israel. The science-denying and vaccine conspiracy theorist, RFK, Jr is up for Health and Human Services Secretary.
 
With Project 2025 as the roadmap, Steven Miller is already at work on plans to denaturalize as many citizens as possible and deport as many undocumented people as they can. And criminalizing health care for women, targeting LGBTQ people, overturning same-sex marriage rights, and implementing a whole host of Seven Mountain Mandate work in order to empower White Christian men to rule in all areas of society.
 
Lives are at stake.
 
We are afflicted. We are perplexed. We are persecuted. We are struck down. And the grief, affliction, perplexion, persecution, struck-down-ness isn’t evenly felt. Some of us are closer to the pain and oppression. Our undocumented and immigrant siblings, our trans and non-binary kindred, our BIPOC beloveds, our Palestinian and Ukrainian neighbors are in the cross-hairs in particular ways.
 
We are right to pause and name the grief and affliction and bear witness to it. And we ought not move too quickly away from the grieving. Since Nov 5th, I’ve been thinking about the October of 2001 edition of the Women Against Military Madness newsletter. It carried the headline, “Leave us to Grieve in Peace.” It was right after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Bush Administration was hell bent on revenge and retribution. The saber-rattling was palpable all around. And the authors of the WAMM article, grandmothers all of them, talked about the importance of allowing ourselves to grieve and mourn, weep and wail.
 
They well knew that part of staying human, and I would add, part of staying faithful, was to recognize the importance of grief. Without grief, our hearts become hardened and set on vengeance. And we can strike out for the sake of taking control of something in a space that feels powerless. But grief helps our hearts stay open, and soft, and allows us to hear the voice of revolutionary love.
 
I was at Howard University’s Chapel service this past Sunday and Dr. Michael Eric Dyson preached a word. In the heart of the historically black university from which Kamala Harris graduated and at which she gave her concession speech, Dr. Dyson reminded us that grieving keeps us human and helps us remember what we hold dear, even when it feels lost.
 
But even as we bear witness to the affliction, the perplexion, the persecution, the struck down-ness… we mustn’t let the first part of the sentence be the last… Dr. Dyson called our attention to God’s movement in the conjunction between the two parts of the sentence. Pay attention to the BUT NOT. Don’t forget the BUT NOT. Look for God in the BUT NOT.
 
If we are able to bear witness, if we are able to grieve with soft, open, and vulnerable hearts, if we are able to remember what we hold dear that has been lost… we can see the BUT NOT…
 
We are afflicted in every way BUT NOT crushed.
 
We are perplexed BUT NOT driven to despair.
 
We are persecuted BUT NOT forsaken.
 
We are struck down BUT NOT destroyed.
 
On the Wednesday after the election, about a dozen Lyndalians met over Zoom to hold one another and share things that helped get us through tough times. Rev. Monica Powers shared a post by Dan Hix.
 
Hix starts by quoting Wendell Berry in his work called Remembering. Berry says, "But that an argument was losing did not mean it should not be made. It had already been made and it would be made again, not because he would make it but because it existed, it always had, and he belonged to it. That it was losing did not mean it was beaten." 
 
And then Monica read the rest of Hix’s post:
I’m pretty sure Calvary looked like losing
No doubt, Calvary looked like losing
So did dark threats deep in [a] Birmingham jail
I’m pretty sure Bethlehem’s stable looked like losing
So did Lincoln’s sparse log cabin start
I’m pretty sure Mother Teresa's slums looked like losing
So did Bonhoeffer on Flossenberg gallows
I’m pretty sure Egypt’s slavery looked like losing
So did “Middle Passage,” then evil grueling beyond
I’m pretty sure "three smooth stones" looked like losing
So did [the] knee to Floyd’s neck in Minneapolis street
I’m pretty sure Robben Island looked like losing
So did Selma’s bridge and Jordan’s Koinonia Farm
Yes, I’m pretty sure Calvary looked like losing
No doubt, Calvary looked like losing
But worst thing isn’t last thing
No, worst thing isn’t last thing
Light shines, still shines in darkness
Mercy isn’t through. 
            (he continues…)
Persevere friends 
Pray, pray always, and don't lose heart 
Breathe, take long, take deepest breath
Listen quiet, so quiet, listen closely
Then closer still
Listen beneath, around, listen above
Hear?
Hear that?
Last word, yet to be spoken 
Last word’s never ours.
[pause]
 
In the 1980’s, amidst the terrible violence in El Salvador in which thousands of children, spouses, beloveds were “disappeared,” a group of Mothers of the Disappeared would meet and grieve together for all they had lost. And they would weep and cry and wail. They called it desahogarse… they undrown themselves. They never skipped this step… always shared grief, always un-drowning themselves first. And this grieving allowed them to see God’s BUT NOT…
 
And this is the third piece from our scripture this morning. When we allow ourselves to grieve, to bear witness to all that is lost… when we can lay claim to God’s BUT NOT… we can be resurrection people.
 
(I need to say one thing as an aside. I don’t believe that electoral politics is liberation. And we need to be very careful about wedding our faith to any political party. AND, electoral politics are one way we can make manifest our values and our faith. And electoral politics, economics, and state violence are often the arena in which evil is experienced. So, electoral politics are about harm reduction even if they are not liberation.)
 
In her concession speech, Vice President Kamala Harris said “on the campaign I would often say ‘when we fight, we win’. But here’s the thing, sometimes the fight takes a while. That doesn’t mean we won’t win. The important thing is don’t ever give up. Don’t ever stop trying to make the world a better place.”
 
That’s the third part of this scriptural passage. We are indeed struck down BUT NOT destroyed. Crucifixions have happened and will happen and we must grieve these deeply. But after the Mothers of the Disappeared undrown themselves, after they lay claim to the fact that they were not destroyed, after these crucial steps, they marched, and they stood in front of presidential palaces, and they tore down the structures of evil.
 
No doubt, Calvary looked like losing
But worst thing isn’t last thing
No, worst thing isn’t last thing
Light shines, still shines in darkness
Mercy isn’t through. 
 
May we be given to cast our lots with mercy. Amen.

​What Is Power For?
Mark 10:35-45
Lyndale UCC- Oct 20, 2024
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel
 
'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free, 'Tis the gift to come down where I ought to be;
And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained, To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed; to turn, turn, will be my delight. Till by turning, turning we come round right. Amen.
 
For the last five weeks, since my mom fell and was taken to the emergency room at Regions hospital, I have spent a lot of time watching how she has been cared for and how different people treat her vulnerability—both her decreased cognition and her physical needs.
 
Two weeks ago, after my mom was at the end of her stay at the Transition Care Unit at Episcopal Church Homes , a nurse from the TCU stopped Maggie and told her, “you know we see a lot of so-called caregivers who work with some of our patients and they aren’t always caring. But Marguerite’s Visiting Angel, Kari is one of the most genuinely loving caregivers I’ve ever seen.”
 
As an only child seeking to support my mom, who is also an only child, when much of the work and decision-making responsibility is on me and Maggie, I can’t tell you what a gift from God Karin is. That Karin has chosen to use the power that God has given her to advocate for and support my mom in her moment of deepest vulnerability touches me beyond words.
 
A week ago, as I was driving, I heard Rev. Dr. Naomi Washington-Leapheart on the NPR show, Reveal, in which she was talking about the exponential increase in a movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation and its roots in a theology known as Christian Dominionism. She said, “the idea is that Christians and specific Christians should take complete control over these seven pillars for the good of the whole society. So we want all of our business leaders, [our political leaders, school boards, education leaders, and leaders in all areas of society] to believe in Dominionist ideologies.” At the heart of Christian Dominionism is the believe that Christians are called to re-establish the proper hierarchies of dominance and submission that God-ordained in creation. God rules over humanity, Men rule over women, and White Christians rule over everything, including other humans and the natural world. As several Christian Dominionist leaders have said, this is necessary in order to extinguish the so-called “enemies of Christ” and bring about the Second Coming.
 
As I sat in the car, finishing listening to the Reveal episode and feeling sick to my stomach, I couldn’t help being struck by the contrast between Kari’s use of power and the vision of how the Dominionist movement envisioned the proper use of power.
 
Two days later, I sat down to read the scripture assigned by the Lectionary for today.
 
So Jesus called them and said to them, “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 is not so among you; instead, whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,  and whoever wishes to be first among you must be servant of all. For the Human One came not to be served but to serve and to give his life to liberate many.”
 
I’ve been praying on this scene between James, John, Jesus, and the other disciples since. And I keep being brought back to the question, what is power for? For us as individuals, for us as spiritual communities, and for us as a nation. What is power for? 
 
My grammie and her sisters all worked as domestic servants in Inverness, Scotland after their father died. My grammie was fourteen when she started this work. And she told so many stories about the humiliations that her employers tried to visit on her because she was their servant. She got fired for refusing to wipe the butt of the daughter of the house who was her exact same age. And she narrowly escaped sexual assault.
 
I share this because I think it is important to approach the question of how Jesus deals with power with some degree of complexity. When we think of servanthood, we ought do so out of a place of reflection and study.
 
The Adult Ed class is reading a book by biblical scholar and theologian, Walter Wink entitled The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium. One of Wink’s central arguments is that Jesus lived amidst Roman Empire and a Domination System and that we continue to live amidst a Domination System. And the central way in which power is used in Domination systems is for power-over, for enrichment of the few at the expense of the many. In order to maintain domination, power is used to humiliate, to force into submission those from whom things are wanted.
 
In our scripture for today, James and John seem to be operating out of this understanding of power and they want to make sure they are on top. “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you… Appoint us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”
 
But Jesus’ vision is a complete transformation of systems of domination. Wink argues that Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount/Plain (depending on if you’re reading Matthew or Luke) gives us a powerful vision of a transformed world, one in which we are called into radical sharing of power for the flourishing of all people and all of life.
Jesus proclaims that in the face of the pull to hold and use power over others, Blessed are the poor…Blessed are they who mourn…Blessed are those that get angry at the right time for the right reasons…Blessed are they who hunger and thirst…Blessed are the merciful…Blessed are the clean in heart…Blessed are the peacemakers… Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

These shall be comforted, inherit the land, receive the kin-dom of heaven, be filled, receive mercy, see God, be called children of God.
 
I experience this call of Jesus as central to the gospel and at the center of our calls as students of Jesus (for that’s what disciple means, to be a student). How am I, how are you, how are we using our power WITH others and with creation in order to hearken the kin-dom of God here and now?
 
In this light, servant is not putting myself in the position of humiliation and power-under, instead, servant is recognizing that of God in the other and in all of creation, knowing that we have the spark of the Divine in all of us. It asks of me, and of you, to notice the Karis of the world and find ways to give care in the same ways. And, if we have believed the lies told by the Domination system that are not worthy, or that we are somehow outside the love of God, or somehow unclean, then Jesus’ invitation is to know ourselves blessed, comforted, held, children of God.
 
Jesus’ vision also has implications for politics, too. We are living in a time rife with the forces of domination. And Jesus’ name is being defiled to champion hatred, oppression, and violence. But Jesus said to them, “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 is not so among you; instead, whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be servant of all. For the Human One came not to be served but to serve and to give his life to liberate many.”
 
Amen.

​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.