​Mardi Gras Sunday
Matthew 17: 1-9
Lyndale UCC- February 15, 2026
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel
 
Touch our mouths… touch our hearts… may we laugh and dream your reality here and now, O God. Amen.
 
The last six years have been hard. The last year has been hard. And the last three months have been excruciating. Covid, the Uprising in response to the murder of George Floyd, Trump 2.0 and now Operation Metro Surge. It’s been a hard few years… few months…
 
It is important for us to acknowledge that these are perilous times. And many of us are weary. Many of us are triggered and hypervigilant. Many of us are numb. It is a lot.
 
But as I prepared for Mardi Gras Sunday, I went back and read a number of pieces about laughter and creativity and dancing – particularly amidst difficult times, particularly that Joe Bunce has sent me over the years. (Blessed be your memory, Joe!)
 
And I was reminded that one of the most powerful tools that colonizers and oppressors and would-be authoritarians use is despair. When people are so mired in the pain and misery of the present, they cannot dream of a future of liberation. When we are so focused on feeding our neighbors in hiding, and grieving the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and protecting trans and non-binary siblings who have come here for sanctuary, and defending gender affirming care for our children, we can become despairing and exhausted and unable to resist.
 
But one of the things that we know from many liberation movements is that one of the most powerful tools of resistance is laughter and dance and celebration. There is a deeply revolutionary spirit and power that is unleashed when we laugh and dance and celebrate. For when we are laughing, we are breathing deeply of the spirit. And when we are dancing, we are claiming a joy that may be in the future, but we are also claiming it in the here and now.
 
Theologians have this fancy word called eschatology. Eschatology is the study of hope. It is the study of the future. It is the study of time. And the thing about laughter and dancing and celebrating is that they can be a radical claiming of God’s hope and love and joy and justice—all of which may seem like they are far off in the future. But we can make them real in the here and now—if only for a few moments—when we laugh and sing and dance.
 
Through laughter and dancing and celebrating, those experiencing colonization can break the power-over dynamic by claiming their full humanity manifest in joy, now. Through laughter, they invert the bad to make it comical or playful. They can use the farcical for a dead-serious purpose, embodying that colonization’s defeat is already real because they are fully alive and free.
 
It was Christmas morning in 1987, and I was in the remote, mountainous Salvadoran village of Santa Marta as part of a small delegation of North American Christians and Jews representing the Accompaniment Movement. We awakened, disoriented, to the ground shaking. Quickly, an older man who was a leader in the community explained that the Salvadoran government was dropping bombs nearby to scare and intimidate the residents of Santa Marta. The contrast between the ground-shaking bombs and the early Christmas morning was lost on no one. With such a backdrop, we heard more about the village’s history, including the killing of this elder’s daughter, who had been pregnant with her first child, and the murder of his childhood friend, who had been attempting to defend his own family. The elder described in detail the ways in which colonization targets real bodies with torture, pain, and death.
 
But the story made a sharp turn when, after describing the history, we sat in silence and prayed. Then he said, “Do you know how I can tell which North Americans are going to last here with us?” After a pause in which no one answered, he continued, “The way I know that anyone is going to last here is that they know how to laugh, to sing, to dance, to experience joy . . . because the work we are doing is so difficult, we have to claim the promise of how the world is going to be, now. We have to live the promise. That’s what our faith teaches us.”
 
I have been thinking a lot about that Salvadoran elder’s wisdom. I’ve come back to it for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that this ICE occupation has made me think a lot about my experience in El Salvador amidst the Civil War there. The weapons, the tear gas, the federal government turning military might against its own people, the parallels are haunting.
 
But the Salvadoran elder has been speaking to me. And I have been so inspired by all of us: Singing Resistance in the streets…  the Powerderhorn Park Ice Sled rally filled with silliness and satire… the luminaries on Lake Nokomis spelling: ICE Out of Minnesota for planes landing and taking off at MSP… the ubiquitousness of sambusas made by Somali aunties and shared like a banquet at the Good and Pretti memorials.
 
And Reinhold Neibuhr has been speaking to me, too. He’s the author of the Serenity prayer that so many alcoholics and addicts pray, who also suggested that “[h]umor is a prelude to faith, and laughter is the beginning of prayer.”
 
I have to tell you that I have been experiencing this so much here in the Twin Cities. The joy of the resistance, the creativity, the art… I am so in love with us… and it is leading me deeper into faith and prayer. How about you?
 
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.
 
The story of the Transfiguration that we read this morning 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.
 
So, laughter and joy, humor and jokes are both the practice and sign of God’s liberation.
This claiming of a future promise in a present joy is one of the most powerful tools to defeat authoritarian attempts and movements of supremacy and hatred. They are also powerful tools for the more intimate and personal times of suffering and difficulty. Joe has been such a mentor to me in this… his last few years, and particularly his last year, was filled with a lot of pain and he didn’t shy away from naming that. But he also regularly shared with me his jokes and memes… laughter transported him into third space, and he brought me with him whenever we connected.
 
My friends, these are hard times, perilous times. Individually and collectively, we are journeying with a lot… And we are invited to be like Joe Bunce… we’re invited to follow Castor and take joy in simple things and maybe a little gamification… and we’re invited to sing to ICE agents and slide down Powderhorn hills in silly sleds.
 
And may God continue to bless us with Transfiguration moments that we might continue to live and act in love and justice. Amen.
 
 
 

​Come Follow Me
Matthew 4: 12, 17-23
Joint SpringHouse Service-January 24, 2026
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel
 
Come follow me…Come follow me…
 
This morning, I was supposed to share a bit about our justice ministries over the last year. But instead, I want to share a few reflections about the last three days.
 
The core of our scripture for this morning is this phrase: Come follow me. It is such a simple invitation on its surface. But, unlike the disciples who follow Jesus not knowing how the story ends, we know where Jesus’ path of radical love, solidarity, and healing takes him. Come follow me, Jesus invites us… come and share bread and life with one another… come and be healers… come and bear a softness of love…and use this shared bread, this healing balm, this softness of love as we, together confront Empire’s death-dealing.
 
Come follow me…
 
We had whistles, they had guns… Come follow me…
 
We are living through a moment in which the implications of being called into followership of Jesus are quite clear. And the juxtaposition of true followership and the distorted and diseased Christianity that is baptizing ICE’s violence is truly stark.
 
I was here for most of the day yesterday after Alex Pretti was murdered by ICE. SpringHouse was opened as a medic station, warming place, and a space offering pastoral care. There were several pastors, lots of food and warm drinks, street medic kits, and warm clothes for anyone to take. One young person with whom I spoke came in shaking and cold. They had witnessed the shooting and had been teargassed. They kept saying, “I can’t believe they killed him.” We gave them water, charged up their phone and just asked what they needed to tell us. After a while, they felt settled enough to gather their things and head out. As they were leaving, they said to me, “I don’t go to church, but I see why people come here, you all are so kind and it’s so hospitable.”
 
Not fifteen minutes later, one of the people in charge of the medic station came to T Michael, Susie Hayward, and me and said she didn’t know if her transgender child was safe as he had been among the protestors. She couldn’t get a hold of him and asked us to pray with her. With permission, we all laid hands on her and breathed together. Our hands and our breath were our prayer.
 
As I drove home, I passed an armored vehicle just a few blocks east of here and then, the rest of the drive was filled with thousands of candles lining the streets.
 
This is the juxtaposition: Alex Pretti bending to help his kindred human being and being murdered in cold blood;
 
This is the contrast: ICE brutally kidnapping mothers of three month olds and fathers of five year old’s wearing spider man backpacks and neighbors bringing food and keeping each other safe;
 
This is the choice: state violence or kindred washing the tear gas from one another's eyes.
 
My friends, Jesus’ invitation to followership of shared bread and tender love and healing balm may feel ridiculously naïve in the face of Empire’s guns and brutality. But it isn’t an individual call. Though it comes to each of us, and we must all make a decision, the invitation to collective response. What Empire fails to recognize is that when we follow Jesus’ call together… we become an unquenchable, an irrepressible power for collective liberation.
 
Come follow me… may we say yes… and may we go together. Amen.

This is My Child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased
Matthew 3:13-17
January 11, 2026- Lyndale UCC
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel
 
For the past five weeks, ICE agents have sought to terrorize our Cities with Operation Metro Surge… they have attempted to kidnap our neighbors… and this week, they murdered 37 year old Renee Good, a legal observer, right in front of her wife and the family dog. It has been five week of capricious cruelty.
 
In response, so many of us have delivered food, raised money, accompanied school drop off and dismissal, have protested and prayed with our feet. Since Wednesday’s murder of Renee Good, I’ve joined with many of you in the streets…
 
How are we to be in this moment? What are we to do as Christians?
 
Our scripture for this morning declares: And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
 
This is my child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased…
 
On Thursday, as I was walking along 34th street coming toward the memorial for Renee Good, I saw a Somali woman, Sophia, with a tray of food standing immobilized in the street. When I asked if I could help she said she was afraid of falling on the ice but she was trying to bring food to the mourners. Another person and I walked out into the street and we all linked arms and walked to 34th and Portland. As we did so she shared that she took the day off to cook in honor of Renee Good because she wanted to honor the white woman who died trying to protect her Somali community. When we got to the memorial, Sophia handed out sambusas. It felt like holy communion to all of us.
 
Then, as I left the memorial, I stopped at the corner of 34th and Portland where baracades had been constructed by the community and there were two fires and a table filled with food. A man stood calling to people to come warm themselves and get something to eat...
 
In the face of capricious cruelty, what are we to do? We choose community, connection, communion, and love as our tools of resistance.
 
Earlier on Thursday, T Michael and I joined clergy colleagues organized by Jewish Community Action in solidarity with secular organizers at the Whipple Building. We were organized into three groups to interrupt business as usual at 3 exits where ICE vehicles were leaving to terrorize our neighbors. I stood with colleagues as we spoke to ICE and CBP personnel and said, you have a choice.. you don't have to cooperate with evil. Our mandate is to love God and love our neighbor...several of the Latinx CBP folks thanked us for treating them like human beings...the moral injury was present in their eyes. We asked them why they were terrorizing our neighborhoods and asked them to leave...These, too, are God’s beloved…
 
On Friday, clergy were asked to be present at the Renee Good memorial site because there were threats that agitators were going to show up as our Muslim colleagues were sharing in Jumaa prayer. As I stood in the crowd, a white man approached me and asked if he could talk with me. He said he thought he probably was on a different side of the issue but he traveled from St Cloud to learn about what happened because he thought his social media feed wasn't telling him the real truth. He asked me to tell him what happened and why I was there. I shared what I knew and thanked him for taking the time to come and have face to face conversation. It felt like a moment of genuine connection and exactly the kind of antidote to the lies, disinformation, and violence.
 
This is my child, the beloved…
 
Yesterday, many of us marched with thousands of kindred Minnesotans in the ICE Out of Minnesota March. I was blessed to do so with beloved movement Chaplain colleagues. We split into pairs and sought to be a non-anxious presence amidst the crowd. That included being asked to help a woman who had fallen on the ice and likely broken her ankle. As a group of six folks attended to her, I helped get a car to drive her to the hospital. The whole group were strangers to each other but drawn together to help where there is harm. Because that's what we do here...
 
The crowd stretched for blocks and blocks carrying signs that declared "radicalized by human decency," "everybody deserves to live," "Minnesota stands for Good," and “ICE out for Good." There were puppets and rosaries, there were neighbors sharing sambusas, and hundreds of hand and toe warmers.
 
Today’s text declares "this is my child, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased." And I am so struck by the contast between the capricious cruelty of this moment and how so many are resisting by refusing to let go of their own and others' belovedness...
 
This is the only way...only love can cast out fear and death. Only love.
 
My friends, hear these words, You are my child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased… may we go and do likewise. Amen.
 

Public Testimony to the Metropolitan Airports Commissions in Opposition to Deportation Flights and to Demand Safety for Immigrant Workers at the Airport
December 15, 2025
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel
 
My name is Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel and I am a pastor at Lyndale United Church of Christ.
 
We are in the midst of a moral crisis. “Operation Metro Surge” began by the President calling Somali Minnesotans “garbage.” A big influx of ICE agents, driving in unmarked cars, are detaining our neighbors. Some of those detained include citizens, targeted because they appear to be Somali or Latinx. One man was detained from his minivan, his two small children left behind alone, crying. One student was detained at Augsburg, and the staff and fellow students demanding to see a judicial warrant had guns pulled on them. One white woman serving as a legal observer was detained for five hours, her wedding ring cut off. ICE agents berate legal observers or those seeking to protect their neighbors (including derogatory remarks to women about their bodies or obnoxious promises to “dedicate my next arrest to you”), tackling Minnesotans in the snow, using tear gas on observers.
 
This is happening at MAC, too. Immigrant workers are being abducted from MAC property and deportation flights are happening at MSP.
 
Much of this is done in the name of a distorted and diseased Christianity. As a Christian pastor, I cannot sit by. I cannot let this happen. Not in my name. Particularly in this season of Advent, when we as Christians are called to give birth to compassion and justice, to welcome the stranger and stand against oppression, I am compelled to witness today. In my own life, Somali and Latinx neighbors are helping to keep my 90-year-old mother with dementia alive through their care. Our Somali and Latinx neighbors bear the image of God.
 
My friends, now is the time for all of us to stand up. Now is the time for all of us to do whatever is in our power to do the right and moral thing. We must act with compassion and courage.
 
For example, in King County (WA), ICE flights are live-streamed and a list of flights is published. Why not here at MSP? As MAC commissioners you can expose the actions of the federal government happening right here in our airport. You have the moral obligation. Use the power you have and, please, ACT. I promise you that we will stand with you.

WCCO TV did a pretty good story about it here: https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/immigration-enforcement-metropolitan-airports-commission/?intcid=CNM-00-10abd1h
​
 

Ancestral Heirlooms
Luke 1:39-55
Lyndale UCC- December 14, 2025
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel
 
Holy One, God of liminal spaces and teacher of songs, be with us here in this moment. Pause our hearts and open our spirits, that we might hear you even as we await your coming in joy. Amen.
 
This morning as we mark the third Sunday in Advent, I would like for you to consider with me ancestral heirlooms, gifts that have been passed down to us, songs that have been given us. Ancestral heirlooms, gifts that have been passed down to us, and songs that have been given to us.

*******
 
I have to admit that I am feeling like I’m swinging from emotion to emotion these days. Last week marked the thirteenth anniversary of my dad’s death. And Friday would have been Joe Bunce’s 73rd birthday. We also keep getting word about another ICE abduction or the fact that Marco Rubio ordered the font changed at the State Department so as to be less accessible to people with disabilities…the cruelty keeps coming.
 
But at the very same time, so many Minnesotans are showing up for our neighbors in visibly faithful and non-violent ways, like gathering at the Karmel Mall in support of Somali neighbors and kindred holding a noisy protest outside a Bloomington Hilton where ICE officials are staying so they can’t sleep. And so many have already donated monies and grocery cards to support neighbors who are being targeted by ICE. It is a lot of joy and sorrow mixed together.
 
And it feels very Advent-y to me, this chaos and sorrow, joy and hope all mixed together.
 
All of it stirs in me the question of how am I, as a Christian to live in the mix of it all? How are we as a faith community to act? How are we to ground ourselves in the hope and the joy, even as we grieve?
 
Amidst all these questions, I was at Panera and getting ready to leave. As I was packing up, I took a couple of paper napkins I hadn’t used and folded them up and slipped them in my fanny pack. I do that everywhere I get the chance because my mom needs them to blow her nose when we take her out on Sundays. You see, Pizza Luce where we always go uses cloth napkins.
 
As I folded the paper napkins, I found myself in a liminal space: I heard the story that had been told to me so many times of how, after I was born, my mom used to take me to visit ninety-six year old Auntie in the nursing home and how I’d crawl around as she did her hair or read to her.
I also heard the story of how Grammie and my three-year-old mom rode on the Queen Mary in 1939 to spend six months in Scotland with Grammie’s mother who was dying. How my mom rode her bike all over as Grammie bathed and cooked and spent time with her mother. And how Grammie was devasted to have to leave but they had to and they landed in New York just days before the start of World War II.
 
This liminal space opens up for me every time I fold those paper napkins and put them in my fanny pack. And it happens when I pull them out on Sunday afternoons and hand them to my mom…
 
This caring for our elders in big and small ways is an ancestral heirloom that I can almost hold it feels so real, almost like a jewel that’s been handed to me.

*******
 
When Mary hears from Gabriel and consents to be a partner with God in the birth of Jesus, I imagine her to be a bit overwhelmed. And even as I hear her say, yes. I don’t hear it as a resounding yes. And I think it’s important that between her visitation from Gabriel and her Magnificat, Mary travels to her cousin Elizabeth’s house. I think she needs to be held and reminded of her belovedness before she can sing out. Before she can embody her prophetic partnership with God, which is admittedly pretty dangerous- because being unmarried and pregnant could be punishable by death in her culture- she needs the love and support of Elizabeth who greets her and loves on her. It is then that Mary is able to sing her song. And what a song it is!
 
“My soul magnifies my God
     and my spirit rejoices in God my Liberator,
  …the Mighty One has done great things for me,
    and holy is God’s name..."
 
And what about us? One of the promises of Advent, especially in northern climes, is that this period of holy darkness is a time for all of us to gestate what God has planted in each of our hearts and minds and bodies. Each of us is invited to give birth to God’s presence anew. For us, this isn’t a physical pregnancy but rather a sacred birthing of the creativity that each of us is called to incarnate.
 
What has God given to you to give birth to in this season? In the midst of the Domination System under which we are living?
 
I think there are at least three things to lift up about the power of the Advent story.
The first is the invitation to listen for the Gabriels in our lives who come and visit us in our dreams, and in quiet times, in the liminal places where our ancestors speak to us and remind us that God is seeking our partnership to be born in particular and specific ways in the world.
 
Where and how is your Angel Gabriel visiting you?
 
A second important part of Advent is finding the Elizabeths in our lives who can wholeheartedly greet us… especially when we’re feeling overwhelmed or scared by what our dreams or the quiet is telling us. We need those people who can say, blessed are you among people and blessed is the gift you are called to bring forth.
 
Who are your Elizabeths? Are you visiting them and seeing your blessedness reflected back to you?
 
And then the third part of Advent is the invitation to sing forth your Magnificat. How is your soul making God’s presence in the world bigger and louder? How is the part of God that you are giving birth to going to help topple the domination system and bring about joy and justice?
 
As I have been seeking to pay attention to the Gabriels and Elizabeths and how I’m supposed to sing my Magnificat, I find myself on Signal chats and with multifaith colleagues who are seeking to give birth to radical solidarity. One of those beloveds is Rev. Susie Hayward who is the pastor for justice at Creekside UCC. She posted this slightly long testimony this week that’d I’d like to share.
 
"Hey Beloveds… I want to offer a glimpse what we’re experiencing in Minneapolis for those outside, bc I honestly have no idea how much is being reported.
What the federal government is calling “Operation Metro Surge” began about a week ago, inaugurated with multiple racist, dehumanizing remarks by President Trump about Minnesotans (calling Somali Minnesotans “garbage” for example.). We then saw a big influx of out of state ICE agents arrive on our streets. They drive in unmarked cars throughout the city and into the suburbs beginning at about 6:30am every day until well after dark, detaining our neighbors. Some of those detained include citizens, targeted because they appear to be Somali or Latinx. One man was detained from his minivan, his two small children left behind alone, crying. One student was detained at Augsburg, and the staff and fellow students demanding to see a judicial warrant had guns pulled on them. The ICE agents did not produce a judicial warrant but took the student anyway. One white woman serving as a legal observer was detained for five hours by ICE, her wedding ring cut off. I see video footage throughout the day of ICE agents violating traffic laws (esp dangerous on our current snowy streets where coming to a quick stop is hard), berating legal observers or those seeking to protect their neighbors (including derogatory remarks to women about their bodies or obnoxious promises to “dedicate my next arrest to you”), tackling Minnesotans in the snow, using tear gas on observers. Two days ago, an ICE agent pointed a high-powered green laser pointer toward the cars of observers. There are multiple laws regulating the use of these laser pointers in the US bc they can cause retina damage. It’s clear these ICE agents are poorly trained. Yesterday, Blackhawk helicopters joined the operation. Many of those disappeared by ICE here are not listed on their website of detainees. The majority of those arrested do not have criminal backgrounds. Minnesotans are feeling terrorized by our federal government.
 
"Thursday night was the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Catholic churches with a high number of Latine members held celebrations throughout the night. Faith trumped fear. Non-Catholic Minnesotans patrolled outside the churches to protect those inside. Friday, mosques held jummah prayers and non-Muslim Minneapolitans (some of whom aren’t themselves religious, but are sure displaying faithful action) signed up to be a protective presence outside every mosque in the city. This too is religious freedom activism.
 
"Local democracy is coming alive here. Neighborhoods have organized school patrols, meal deliveries, rides for immigrant neighbors. Local elected leaders are coordinating closely with residents. The city government is strengthening ordinances to ensure federal agents cannot use city parking lots to stage their operations. Workers at the airport where deportation flights operate and US postal service workers are rallying in opposition to the use of their facilities to enable Operation Metro Surge. City police officers have shown up to protect community members from federal agents. Faith leaders are organizing spiritual support and care for the hundreds of people out on the streets all day long who are protecting neighbors and documenting illegal ICE actions, those who are making sure we know about every person taken to ensure nothing happens in the dark.
 
"And then on Sundays, those of us who are practicing Christians go to church and we hear the Advent message about a holy light shining in darkness, the promise of God’s arrival even - especially - in a world full of suffering and chaos. This Sunday, the scripture is Mary’s Magnificat, in which she sings praises for God’s ability to “cast down the mighty from their thrones.”…
 
"So to put it simply: It is awful here, what is happening. We are tired, afraid, anxious, angry. And, there is beauty in how the community is responding to care for each other. This is the immanent presence of God, Emmanuel, also known as Love."
 
There’s one other piece I’d like to lift up about Mary’s song. Mary didn’t create the song she sings. When you look at scripture, the words Mary’s sings are very close to the ones that her ancestor Hannah sang. The melody and the music of liberation and God’s radical healing and love that Mary proclaims are from a liminal space. She is connected to the ancestral cloud of witnesses who sing with her. In many ways, her song is more than a melody, it is a harmony she sings with the ancestors.
 
And that’s the fourth piece of Advent… Mary’s song is an invitation to receive a kind of ancestral heirloom… it is an invitation into that liminal space and sing in harmony with the ancestors—in big and small ways. We’re invited to sing with ancestors and gather napkins for our elders, and make noisy protest so oppressors can’t sleep unbothered, and put our bodies between kidnappers and neighbors…
 
My soul magnifies my God. May it be so. Amen.
 
 

Faith: Surrounded, Held, Persevering 
A weaving of portions of Hebrews 11 & 12 and contemporary scripture (included at the bottom)
Preached on August 10, 2025 at Lyndale UCC in Minneapolis, MN

 Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a soul like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found, was bound but now I’m free. Amen.
 
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen
 
The second anniversary of our family’s car accident is coming up in about three weeks and it has gotten me thinking…
 
I spent twelve days on the trauma unit at Regions Hospital mostly getting surgeries and doing initial recovery. But then I moved to Episcopal Church Homes for a month of rehab. Early on in my time in rehab, I had a TLSO clam shell to support my broken back, I had an immobilizer on my right leg where they had done a muscle flap in place of my knee cap, and my left leg was taped and bandaged. I still needed help to get in and out of bed.
 
It was then that I started intensive physical therapy with Chan. Every day, he would come and get me out of bed and walk with me using a walker. And early on, he started me doing small steps. There is a video from that first week of me doing 10 steps up onto a very small wooden block. In it, I am sweating profusely and breathing heavily as Chan patiently and calmly counts the steps… first foot up, second foot up, first foot down, second foot down… ONE.
 
By the second week, he had me doing stairs, first in the rehab room and then in the stairwell.
 
Every day, he was there, calmly, kindly, patiently working with me. Some time at the end of the second week of rehab, about a month after the accident, I asked him what he thought my prospects for healing were. And he said, if you keep at it and do these exercises, by Christmas you will be walking unassisted.
 
And he was absolutely right.
 
Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen…
 
I have to tell you, one of the most powerful things about our accident and my healing process was the experience of the faith that Chan had and the ways in which his and all the other PTs, OTs, nurses, doctors, all of my caregivers’ faith in the healing process completely grounded and inspired me. I had a few moments of anxiety and fear in those first months. But by and large, I was held in faith and love and healing. And I still am processing the power of that experience.
 
In retrospect, I could have been scared and despairing, it would have been so easy. (In fact, I found out later that some friends who came to the house to help Maggie prepare for my coming home packed up all of my exercise clothes and put them on the top shelf of the closet because they didn’t think I would ever have use of them.)
 
But I wasn’t scared or despairing. That really wasn’t about me, it was about how I was held in faith. This is the first piece from our scripture this morning that is speaking to me: Faith isn’t a solitary practice. We hold each other in faith. And sometimes, when one of us can’t find the faith, we come together and sing and pray each other back to faith, to assurance, to conviction.
 
But, that isn’t the only part of this text that is important.
 
As I consider the world in which we are living… the genocide in Gaza, the starvation in Sudan, the slow dying of democracy, the disappearing of immigrants, the hatred directed at trans and non-binary people…. You know the list, you know the world we are living in… the words of the writer of Hebrews have me pausing and praying and going deeper.
 
How are you, how am I, how are we to live in faith… assured of things hoped for… convinced of things unseen in times like these?
 
I think the second piece the writer of Hebrews shares with us is about ancestors. Directly following the definition of faith, the text calls out our ancestors.
 
What is faith, the writer seems to be saying, well, look at Abraham and Sarah and Hagar… look at Rahab and Shifra and Puah… look at the disciples… if you are struggling with how to be faithful, remember that you are not alone, you are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.
 
Whew, this really resonates for me right now. When I look around and feel myself being pulled into despair and anger and a kind of existential dread, it isn’t only being held in faith by my community in the present moment, it is also this ancestral cloud that is surrounding us all, too.
 
And that leads to a third piece to highlight. What do we learn when we encounter the story of so many of our ancestors? One of the things we encounter is a different sense of time. Our call, and the call of our ancestors was to faithfulness, not immediate success.
 
Our text says, yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised… as our prayer of confession says, “we plant the seeds that one day will grow.  We water the seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.  We lay foundations that will need further development.  We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities… we are prophets of a future not our own.”
 
So much of our ancestors’ faithfulness was allowing themselves to be part of generational projects. So many of them, as our Hebrews text says, “though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised.” But they prayed and dreamed and created and worked in the knowledge of the seventh generation and the twentieth and the hundredth generation.
 
My partner Maggie was born in Rapid City, South Dakota. Every time we are there visiting we take the time to go to see the Crazy Horse memorial and attend the presentation by Indigenous cultural workers. And each time, Maggie comments on the generational work of the project. There is the generation who dreamed and started the work, there is the generation that is working now, and there will be the generation who will finish the project. Maggie is always most powerfully impacted by this middle generation—the one that neither dreamed the project, nor will experience its completion but works every day, nonetheless in the hope and promise of what they were given by the previous generation and what they will pass to the next generation.
 
Now, I don’t want to suggest that faith precludes grief and lament. Or that faith is somehow devoid of despair. The kind of faith described in Hebrews and modeled in our ancestors is one that faces squarely into all the realities of life. We are not called to hide from the violence and growing fascism in our country, nor turn away from the suffering of the world. Rather, we are invited to join our ancestors who faced squarely into the attempted crucifixions that Pharoah and Rome and Babylon and all the manifestations of Empire and oppression sought to build.
 
Instead, many of our ancestors turned toward, turned into, the injustice and suffering in the world in order to act with love and justice. A Greek LGBTQ poet named Dinos Christianopoulos characterized it well when he wrote, “What didn’t you do to bury me/But you forgot that I was a seed.”
 
Amidst so much crucifixion and intentional cruelty, we are called to a resurrection faith: a faith in healing that meets every brokenness; a faith in life that meets every death that Empire perpetrates; a faith in creativity that meets every narrow or rigid space; a faith in abundance that meets every greed-induced scarcity.
 
Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen…
As a way to consider how we might help each other practice this kind of faith, I’d love to do two things:
 
Could you think about what ancestor in faith is surrounding you like a cloud of witness? And could you think about a hymn that helps remind you of what faith is and looks like in the world?
 
Then, could you call out the ancestors and T Michael and I will light a candle in their honor. And then we’re going to sing the first verse of 3-4 hymns that you name.
 
[names and hymns]
 
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us
 
Amen.

 
Portions of Hebrews 11 and 12 woven with modern scripture:
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible…
 
By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household…
 
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going… By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, Rebecca, and Jacob, Rachel, and Leah, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For they looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
 
…These died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them…
 
By faith Moses was hidden by Shifrah and Puah and his parents for three months after his birth, because they saw that the child was beautiful; and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called a son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God.. .By faith he left Egypt, unafraid of the king’s anger; for he persevered as though he saw the One who is invisible…
 
By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land… By faith the walls of Jericho fell after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace.
 
And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets… Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured… Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment [and death]...
 
And what of Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, of John Brown, Frederick Douglass, of Eleanor Roosevelt, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, of those that gave birth to the liberation movements for queer, Black, Latinx, women, poor people, those with disabilities… of those seed keepers, and pipeline resistors…
 
All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them.
 
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.

Broken-Hearted, Soft-Hearted, Open-Hearted Disciples
Luke 8:26-39
Lyndale UCC- June 22, 2025
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel
 
You do not carry this alone. No, you do not carry this all alone. This is way too big for you to carry on your own. So, you do not carry this all alone.
 
Last weekend, seven of us from Lyndale were gathered with about 200 UCC folks from around the Minnesota Conference for Annual Meeting. It is a place and space I’ve been to for almost thirty years and it holds many, many beloved colleagues and friends. On Saturday morning, as we were in a plenary session, we began to get news that there had been a shooting in Brooklyn Park. And then, a member of Robbinsdale-Parkway stood and shared the news that Melissa and Mark Hortman had been killed and that John and Yvette Hoffman were in critical condition. We all sat in stunned silence while many wept openly. T Michael and Monica Powers and Victoria Wilgocki and I just laid our hands on each other’s shoulders as the tears flowed.
 
I could feel my heart breaking as I let in the news and I was overcome with grief.
 
I’ve felt my heart break a lot this last week: as Kathy Hayden and I laid flowers and notes on the memorial for Speaker Hortman at the Capitol… as I gathered with several thousand folks on the steps of the Capitol for the candle vigil and the Minnesota Orchestra played How Great Thou Art and Amazing Grace: “through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come…” as I heard the story that Melissa carried a copy of the prayer of St. Francis in her wallet, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love…” and then saw a copy of the prayer that had been laid on the memorial…
 
As I’ve spoken with others, broken hearted is how so many of us are feeling.
 
This morning, I’d like for us to consider the sacred task of letting our hearts break. I’d like for us to consider the spiritual work of grieving and mourning and keeping our hearts softened and open.
 
Our scripture for this morning comes from Luke’s gospel, a portion of the eighth chapter. There is a lot that can be said about this text. And I need to say one word of caution before I engage with it.
 
Texts like these and others that speak of demonic possession have far too often been used to abuse and oppress people living with mental illness or who are queer or have physical disabilities. There has been an equation between mental or physical disability or queerness and demon possession. This kind of equation is wrong. It is scriptural abuse. It’s also just bad biblical scholarship. Scripture should never be used as a weapon.
 
Instead, this text is a story about resistance, healing, love, and the power of a broken heart. It is at once a pastoral story and an allegory of Jesus’ struggle against Empire. Let me talk about the allegory part of the story first.
 
The horde of demons possessing the Gentile man are called “legion.” This is an odd name until we understand that legion is the name of a Roman fighting unit comprised of about 6000 soldiers. Interestingly the Roman 10th legion was based in Syro-Palestine (the region in which this story takes place) and had a wild boar as the insignia on its standards and seal. What is more, historian Josephus alleges that during the Jewish revolt that Vespasian sent Lucius Annius on a raid against Gerasa, this city in which this story takes place, where the city and surrounding villages were burned and destroyed.[1]
 
This story of the Gerasene man possessed by a demon is found in all three synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) with almost the same language. Many liberation and post-colonial biblical scholars point to three things in the story to argue that it is an allegory about Jesus’ resistance to the Roman Empire. First, the possessed man identifies himself as “Legion.” Second, the recent history of the Roman destruction of Gerasa. And, third, the way the story has the legion of demons enter the pigs and the fact that the Tenth Roman legion that was based in Syro-Palestine had a wild boar as its insignia.
 
So, this story is very much the story of Jesus and his confrontation with, and ultimately liberation from the violent colonization of the Roman Empire.
 
But, those same scholars are quick to note that Jesus is deeply pastoral in this story, too. The fact is that the violence of Empire has deeply possessed and colonized the mind, body, and spirit of this man. He is unable to live in community, he is hurting himself and others. He is being tormented by his possession.
 
Jesus sees this and his heart is broken by the man’s pain. He has empathy for the man. Because of his broken hearted empathy, Jesus confronts the demons, heals the man, and restores him to community.
 
There is so much more I could say about this story. But this morning, I want to talk about Jesus’ empathetic, compassionate ministry and the hard-hearted Empire moment we find ourselves living in.
 
We’ve talked some here at Lyndale about the ways in which Project 2025, the New Apostolic Reformation, and the Seven Mountain Mandate movements are all overlapping and how they are simply modern re-articulations of the Doctrine of Discovery. At their core, they posit that only White Christians are human beings deserving of dignity and respect. The Seven Mountain Mandate explicitly talks about calling for White, Straight, Cisgender, Able-bodied, Christian men to be in charge of the seven areas of society.
 
Furthermore, these movements lift up the notion of “toxic empathy” and the “sin of empathy.” They say that true Christians need to turn away from Satan as he tempts Christians to feel empathy, particularly for queer and trans people, for people seeking reproductive health care, for people of other religious traditions, for immigrants. When people feel empathy for these people, it is sinful or toxic and it is a temptation from Satan.
 
Additionally, like with the Doctrine of Discovery, if violence is necessary to keep domination in the hands of white Christians, then there is God’s blessing for this.
 
As more and more emerges about the shooter who assassinated Melissa and Mark Hortman and shot John and Yvette Hoffman seventeen times, it is becoming clear that he was deeply rooted in the New Apostolic Reformation.[2]
 
In much the same way as Pharoah’s heart was hardened, the shooter’s heart was hardened. As he dehumanized queer people, people seeking reproductive health care, Democrats, immigrants, non-Christians, his heart became hardened and his mind became more and more colonized by the lies of the New Apostolic Reformation.
 
But hard-hearted dehumanizing is not what we are called to do and be.
 
My dear friend and colleague, Jessica Intermill, wrote: “Walking through this week as a Minnesotan, my heart is broken. But I'd rather it break 10,000 more times than let it harden. That is our work.”
I see in our story of the Gerasene man, a Jesus who lets his heart break- both at the brutality of the Roman legion and at the suffering that Empire possession causes- in the man and in those he attacks. And out of his broken heartedness, Jesus liberates the man, defeats Empire’s legions, and restores the man to beloved community.
 
My friends, we are living in a time of Empire’s possession. We are living in a time when too many of our kindred are possessed by hard-hearted cruelty. ICE raids, legislation that would take health care away from over 10 million people, the military turned on civilians… and assassins who are possessed by an unrecognizably desecrated Christianity.
 
And it isn’t just out there, it is in our individual and family lives. I don’t know about you, but I have felt the desire for retribution and revenge rise up in me. I feel the siren call of hard-heartedness.
 
But as ones called to be followers of the Jesus way, we are called to stay broken-hearted, soft-hearted, open-hearted. For that is the way that makes for love… and compassion… and empathy… and peace. And I know that the only way I can return to my heart is by hearing from Jessica and others. None of us can do this alone. We need each other to help us stay in our broken and soft hearts.
 
Before he left, T Michael asked that we hold him and the seventy male-identified folks he has been with this week. They are, as we speak, in their closing rituals. T Michael asked for these prayers amidst a conversation about Melissa and Mark’s murders. He said the work that he and his kindred are engaging is the quest for a spiritually mature and soft-hearted masculinity. He said, in this moment that is filled with the siren calls of toxic masculinity, he and his companions are doing the spiritual work of vulnerability, and broken-heartedness, of empathy and compassion.
 
This is particular work for male-identified people right now. But it is work for all of us. How do we stay present to and honoring of, our broken hearts? How do we stay vulnerable and soft-hearted?
 
But I think there’s one other piece to name.  Paying attention to our hearts, allowing them to break, following them as they lead us toward one another isn’t just about grief and sorrow. It’s also about joy and claiming the world we want to build. It’s how we get free.
 
Yesterday, I had the honor to be with Jae and Micah Louwagie, lux knutsen cowles, Max Brumberg-Kraus, Kelly Waterman, Seth Anderson-Matz and about fifty others as we participated in a trans flag raising. Now, that might sound like a weird thing. And I honestly didn’t have any idea what it was going to be. I went because people I love asked me to be there. And I was overwhelmed by how much I needed that space and the medicine of the joy, connection, and creativity.
 
With a brass band, about a dozen people, all carrying different flags, marched down the block toward the small park where we stood. When they got to us, we took about 45 min to hear from the artist and story-teller. They had interviewed trans and non-binary people from ages 14 to 80 and asked them about their lives, their loves, and their values and dreams. Out of that, the artist created different flags to claim the power and joy of each of their lives. As each flag was presented to be raised, the artist read about its meaning. At the end, the artist said, I did this project, especially in these times of such pain and hardship for non-binary and trans people, because my heart told me to. We need to claim joy, it is the only way we’re going to survive and thrive.
 
My friends, this, too, is our work right now. We are disciples of a broken-hearted liberator. We are followers of an empathetic healer. We are co-conspirators of an Empire-dismantling prophet. We are members of a heart-following, joyous community.
 
We are not alone. We are deeply connected. Thanks be to God. Amen.

 


[1] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2017/04/post-colonial-interpretation-mark-51-20/

[2] https://www.wired.com/story/christian-nationalist-roots-suspected-minnesota-assassin/

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.