The Widow and the Judge
Category: love
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 9-4-19
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 9-4-19
One of the hottest topics at FCC Granby has to do with the question, “How do we reach new people?” My first response “I don’t know.” Those of you know me will know that that’s a bit of a joke. The fact is that I was put on this earth to help people connect to God. It’s the one thing I seem to be able to do. But, a key to reaching new people is starting in exactly this place of “not knowing.”
Each person is unique and is in a different place on their spiritual journeys. In order to reach that person who is right in front of us, we start from a place of complete openness and not knowing. “Who are you?” “What makes you tick?” “What are your loves?” “What are your fears?” “What do you long for?” Now, you wouldn’t necessarily ask these questions to a complete stranger. They would think you’re weird or inappropriate. But in our minds and attitudes that’s where we begin. Great spiritual teacher Shunryu Suzuki calls this “beginner’s mind.” It is a mind of love, of radical compassion, and limitless possibility. An expert already knows the answer. A beginner is a friend who shares your questions and is excited to search with you for the answers.
This is very different from charity. I have found that in UCC churches, we confuse “reaching new people” with charity. We call it “outreach.” “We do tons of outreach,” people tell me. We feed homeless people at the shelter and collect food for the foodbank and donate diapers to the womens’ shelter. All of these are worthy causes. A helpful way to think of them is as “mission to.” We have a “mission to” the homeless community or a “mission to” victims of abuse or a “mission to” refugees. We offer them a service, but we don’t usually put the future of our church in their hands.
Charity–at least as congregations practice it–tends to have a “mission to” approach. By contrast, reaching new people requires a “mission with” approach. A “mission with” approach seeks to make spiritual connections with people for the purpose of helping all of us connect to God. It is sharing your faith with your neighbors. It is inviting your friends to a church barbeque. It is starting a lunch time Bible study in your office or in your home. It is praying with a family member. It is attending community events and supporting community initiatives. It is asking town leaders, “If you were to create a church from scratch, what would it look like?” And then designing worship, program, building, staffing, everything around not what we would prefer but around what the community truly needs.
Beginner’s mind is a humble mind that admits that perhaps we are declining as a congregation because we don’t know how to do church as well as we think we do. A beginner’s mind is willing to consider that perhaps instead of trying to convince people that they should come to us, we should go to them.
Today I had a touching conversation with Robin, whose son owns the Village Cork and Keg. She’s stressed out working multiple jobs and helping out her son at his business. I offered to pray for her. We had a profound moment of spiritual connection right there in the package store. That’s where we were. That’s where we met. Reaching new people means reaching people where they are. When we reach out to others with a beginners mind and the intention of being in “mission with” them rather than doing a “mission to” them, we might find, to our surprise, a divine presence reaching back.
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 8-28-19
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 8-27-19
Part of transition work is working with staff transitions. In congregational life, staff, including clergy, come and go for all kinds of reasons. What is true for us on a personal level is also true on a professional level: none of us is permanent. Everyone, no matter what their title or role, is temporary. Staff relocate. They take other jobs. They resign to attend to personal or family matters. Sometimes the congregation has to reduce its staff because of finances. Sometimes the staffing needs of the congregation have changed because the congregation has changed. Sometimes staff that were hired to “maintain” the congregation “as it is” do not have the skills to engage in a transition process. Sometimes there are performance issues. Sometimes staff retire. These transitions are almost always messy, but they create opportunities for congregations to reflect on mission, vision, and values. What do we really want? Is what we’re doing now actually going to get us there?
At FCC Granby we are navigating two staff transitions. In December 2018, Rev. Dr. Ginny McDaniel retired after serving seven years as Senior Minister. This past Sunday, Rev. Rebecca Brown retired after serving four years as Minister for Children and Youth. Each minister has been honored by the congregation for her service. Each minister has made a lasting difference for the good of the congregation. We are grateful for who they are and what they’ve done. Ginny has gone through a process of leave-taking following the United Church of Christ “Ethical Guidelines for Ministers Departing from Congregations.” Rebecca is currently in that process. It is a multi-layered process that involves public liturgy, compiling and handing over work product (such as lists of pastoral needs, event calendars, contact information, meeting notes, etc), participating in an exit interview, dealing with the administrative details of changing employment status with the denomination. All of these are steps in a larger transition that involves a change in identity: from pastor to former pastor. This change in identity is attended by a shift in how former pastor and former congregation relate to each other. The “Ethical Guidelines” are intended to ensure that this transition happens and that it happens in a healthy way.
Here’s a refresher on transition and change: transition and change are different. Change is situational. Transition is psychological. Change is some new guy is doing the preaching now. Transition is letting go of one pastoral relationship and building another. William Bridges in his book Managing Transitions writes, “It’s not the change that will do you in, it’s the transition.” Transition “is a three-phase process (letting go, chaos, new beginning) that people go through as they internalize and come to terms with the details of the new situation that the change brings about.” As a congregation, we are definitely still “internalizing” and “coming to terms with the details” of shifting from a settled minister to transitional minister, from a minister for youth and children to a new staffing configuration for Christian Education which may, at some point, involve a partnership with South Church.
On some level, for each of us, transition involves building a new identity. For example, I am no longer the Transitional Senior Minister of FCC Stamford. As much as I love the people there, I’ve had to let those relationships go so that I can be fully present to my new call as Transitional Senior Minister of FCC Granby. Without letting go, there is no new beginning. In a similar way the members of FCC Granby are no longer Ginny’s or Rebecca’s parishioners and Ginny and Rebecca are no longer FCC Granby’s pastors. It’s not that those relationships are ended. Cut off is rarely helpful. But there needs to be a release. I’m a Gen-Xer, so my popular culture reference for this is Sting’s song, “If you love somebody, set them free.”
It’s natural for this shift in identity to generate resistance, but that’s the reality of congregational life. Identity shifts also generate grief to which we all need to tend carefully. Ginny’s circumstance is special given her health circumstance. Linda Betsch will be coordinating care for her. But the fact remains: none of us is permanent; everyone is temporary. Which makes our time together all the more precious. Now, for better or for worse, we belong together–transitional minister and congregation. Let’s make the most of the time we have. Time passes swiftly. Opportunity is lost. And God has big plans for us.
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 8-6-19
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 8-6-19
Three days ago, Saturday morning, August 3, a gunman opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing at least 20 and injuring many more. A manifesto thought to be written by the killer declared his intention to kill as many Latinos as possible. The Cielo Vista Mall Walmart is one of the busiest in the country. It is near the border with Mexico. It welcomes customers from both El Paso and Cuidad Juarez, which lies just across the border in Mexico. El Paso is a majority Latino city and one of the safest cities in the U.S. The gunman drove 9 hours from his residence in the Dallas suburbs to commit this heinous act of violence. Echoing hateful language that is poisoning our political discourse, the gunman wrote that he was responding to “the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
13 hours later a gunman in body armor opened fire at a bar in the Oregon District of Dayton, OH, killing 9 including his sister–this carnage despite the fact that police were able to respond and kill the shooter in 30 seconds. The amount of death he was able to inflict was likely due in part to the fact that he was armed with an automatic rifle and a 100 round barrel magazine.
An El Paso leader summed up the situation well: “We have a gun problem, and we have a hate problem.”
I know that at FCC Granby we have a diversity of opinion on these issues. This much was evident in the conversation at the “Thank Goodness it’s Friday” social supper just hours before the first shooting. It so happened that the topics of both race and guns came up, and there was disagreement on both issues. This was also evident Sunday morning during the sharing of joys and concerns. Some prayed for a change in gun laws. Some prayed for access to mental health services and social “connection.” I suppose in this way we are simply a microcosm of the country as a whole.
While any and all of these may or may not be helpful responses, it seems to me that as followers of Jesus we are called to respond to acts of violence and the trauma they cause. As James Baldwin wrote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed unless it is faced.” As a follower of Jesus, it seems to me the height of immorality to turn away from the suffering we are inflicting upon each other with these repeated mass shootings. We must face who we are and what we are doing because what we are doing has to change. I can’t believe that this is the world God would want us to create.
We have a gun problem. So fix it. Stop blaming others. Start taking action. I’m not a legislator. I’m not a policy expert. I’m not interested in excuses. I’m interested in results. Don’t tell me what won’t work. Show me something that will. I stand with the people of Dayton who are calling on their governor to “do something.”
We have a hate problem. This goes much deeper. It goes to the heart of our history as a nation that has committed genocide against Native Americans and enslaved Africans. Our ancestors laid the groundwork for hate based on the Doctrine of Discovery and the false ideology of white supremacy. It is what theologian Jim Wallis calls America’s “original sin.”
Both of these shooters were not only white but also men. Why are the perpetrators of mass shootings predominantly men? I wonder whether patriarchy–the idea that men are entitled to priviledged status–could also be a factor. I do not believe that men are inherently more violent than women. I believe that men in our country are socialized in such a way that for too many, violence is seen as a legitimate form of resolving differences and expressing feelings.
Pinning all of this on “mental health” is not helpful. Yes, by all means provide better access to mental health care. By all means enact red flag laws. But many factors make treating mental illness difficult. A big challenge is stigmatization. And putting the blame for mass shootings on mental illness, only further stigmatizes those who already feel the stigma of their mental health status. It also allows us to dismiss those who commit violence as somehow fundamentally unlike us “sane” people. In this way we are conviently let off the hook from examining the roots of hatred and violence in our own hearts.
While I am not a legislator or a policy expert, I am a Christian who has, despite spectacular and ongoing failures, committed himself to the way of love. And I believe you, my fellow members of FCC Granby, despite our differences of life experience, political opinion, social location, economic class, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression, country of origin, race, ethinicity, etc., are also committed to the way of love. We can do something about this hate problem right here and right now. We can extend love. We can have honest conversations about difficult things. We can repent. We can mourn. We can be instruments of peace. Remember what Dr. King said, “Darkness cannot overcome darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot overcome hate. Only love can do that.”
Spiritual Goal–Sermon for 7/28/19
Rev. Dr. Todd Grant Yonkman, Transitional Senior Minister
First Congregational Church of Granby
Sermon Series: Favorite Scripture
28 July 2019
Text: Rev. 22:16-20
Spiritual Goal
What’s our purpose as Christians? As a church? That’s the question behind today’s favorite Scripture. It comes to us from Nancy Dow. When Nancy told me that her favorite Scripture is Revelation 22:16-20, she said, “I think it’s important that we focus on the end.” What I understood her to be saying is that we as Christians should not lose focus our purpose. What is our goal? What are we working toward? It reminds me of the sacred conversation Ann and I had last week in which she explained that when you’re plowing a field, you can’t look back. You need to keep your eyes on the horizon. Revelation 22:16-20 is very much focused on the horizon. This text contains the last words of the last chapter of the last book of the Bible. Last words carry special power. When someone dies, we often give their last words special significance. When I write a sermon I put a lot of focus on the end, the last paragraph, the last sentence, the last word, because that’s what people are most likely to remember.
In today’s Scripture the most repeated word is “come.”
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming
soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
The word that rings through this passage is “come.” It’s not a “come if you’d like to” invitation. It’s a “get over here. We want you. We need you” invitation. At the center is the water of life. The image I see is a gathering at a well or maybe at the beach. There’s an old folk song that goes, “I went down in the river to pray, studying about that good old day and who shall wear the robe and crown, dear Lord, show me the way. O brothers let’s go down. Let’s go down. Come on down. O brothers let’s go down, down in the river to pray.” When we look to the horizon, what do we see? An invitation. “Come.”
The whole of our purpose is invitation. It’s helping people, help each other connect to God. Martin Luther famously said that Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. And there are a lot of hungry people out there. Our own Rebecca Brown has proven that. She came here four years ago as a lay minister for children and youth. When she arrived there were eight people in the youth group. Now there are over forty. How did she do that? Invitation.
Some of you may think that means Rebecca did all the inviting. That’s not the case at all. She engaged step by step in a very methodical process. The first thing she did was tell the group that their job was to grow. This message was met with resistance. There were some in the group who did not want to grow. They didn’t want “outsiders” messing things up. This was their group made up of people they were comfortable with. What if they didn’t like the new people? Rebecca held her ground, and the people who didn’t want to grow left the group. Now she was down to four kids.
Rebecca took those four kids and poured everything she had into them. She went to every event, every game, every concert, every party. Every opportunity she had to embed herself in the lives of the youth of this town, she took. She didn’t sit in the church and wait for youth to come to her, she went to them. She met youth on their terms, in their space. She made herself the guest. Instead of setting herself up as someone with the answers, she made herself a student of youth culture. She invited them to teach her. She showed up for them. Then they started showing up for her.
According to Rebecca, it only took about a year of networking and showing up before word about the youth group at FCC Granby started to spread. In other words, the youth themselves became the inviters. There wasn’t any fancy advertising. There weren’t any splashy events. It was all word of mouth. The reason I mention this is that this is consistent with other stories I’ve heard about church growth. My office manager in Stamford was a member of Grace Church in New Canaan for many years. Today Grace Church has thousands of members in a multi-million dollar campus that was featured in the New York Times because of its award-winning architecture. She told me she remembered the church went it was a group of people meeting in the pastor’s back yard. I asked her what was the secret to their growth. She said, “It was all word of mouth.” In terms of our FCC youth group, the eight that then became four has increased 10-fold to a group of over 40 kids. What if our church membership increased 10-fold? We would have a whole new set of problems. Good problems. Let everyone who hears, say, “Come.” Let everyone who is thirsty come.
The other thing that’s significant about our youth group is that it focuses on the spiritual needs of youth. The numbers only tell part of the story. Rebecca calls it “breaking into the hearts of our kids.” She describes her program as “No fun. No games. No food.” It’s the real stuff: honest, spiritual conversations about things that have direct relevance to their lives as teenagers, conversations, friendships, experiences that they can get nowhere else. If they could have these conversations elsewhere, they probably would. Rebecca sees her task as creating a safe container where young people can let down their pretenses, open their hearts, and be vulnerable. In other words, youth group is about getting real. It’s about authenticity. And, yes, sometimes they have food, fun, and games. Granby youth have spiritual lives and spiritual needs that aren’t being met anywhere else. I wonder if this is also the case for Granby adults?
Every one of us is here because someone else brought us whether it was a parent, grandparent, neighbor, or friend. Maybe it wasn’t to this particular church. Maybe you were one of the increasingly rare types who will just show up at church because it’s something you already value. But how did you come to value it? Because at some point somehow somewhere down the line someone said, “Come.”
Jesus didn’t wait for us to come to him. Scripture says, “5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
The world is hurting. How can we be satisfied huddling together inside these enjoying each other’s company when there are so many longing for a heart connection? The goal of the spiritual life is the joy of extending oneself to welcome the other. How do you expect to grow if you won’t stretch? And stepping out beyond our familiar and comfortable walls into the world to engage people where they are is an endless opportunity to stretch. The Spirit says, “Come.” And if we indeed are the spiritual people we imagine ourselves to be, we say with every fiber of our being, “Come. We want you here. Let’s learn together how to heal this world.”
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 7-23-19
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 7-22-19
This week’s favorite Scripture comes to us from Nancy Dow. Revelation 22 is the last chapter of the Bible, and the last chapter concludes with the refrain “Come”:
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:17, 20).
Nancy chose this Scripture because, she says, “It’s important for us to focus on the goal,” which I take to mean the goal of the spiritual life.
When I hear the word “come” in this context I imagine a posture of welcome, accepting everything, facing everything, rejecting nothing. “Come” speaks to me of God’s posture toward the universe and our faithful response. The goal of the spiritual life is an ever deepening posture of welcome toward all that is.
There’s a receptive aspect to this divine welcome. I experience the receptive aspect in meditation. I sit in resolute silent stillness and receive whatever arises. The deep listening I try to practice in conversation with others is also an expression of this welcome. And there are other ways this welcome manifests. It’s the welcome articulated by the prophet Isaiah: “Those who wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength.” Or by Jesus: “I am the vine. You are the branches. Abide in me and you will bear much fruit.”
I began meditation practice over 20 years ago not only for myself but also for the congregations I serve. I noticed that churches in transition tend not to be particularly receptive. Passive, yes. Receptive, no. One can be passive while turning away from difficult truths, like, for example, “our church is dying.” The receptive welcome that is the goal of the spiritual life faces reality as it is without judgment so that we can engage reality as it is in effective and helpful ways.
We welcome reality as it is in order to meet reality as it is. Engagement is the second aspect of divine welcome–an aspect that declining churches tend to struggle with. We can feel the urgent joy of this welcome in the repeated call to “come.” The Revelation image is of the universe calling to itself. I imagine a parent bending down to embrace a child and lifting her up in his arms. “Come to me. I want you here!” It’s active, urgent, compelling.
Every church I’ve ever served has told me that it is “friendly.” And for the most part it’s true, but what they mean is, “We are friendly to each other.” How many times have I noticed worship guests sitting alone in a pew or keeping their own company at coffee hour? Too many. But even if we’re conscientious about guests, the welcome tends not to extend beyond our walls.
A parishioner has said this to me on more than one occasion in more than one church: “Here ‘friendly’ means, ‘You’re welcome if you come.” This is a far cry from Jesus’ parable of heaven in which the host for the wedding feast sends out his servants into the highways and byways. The host instructs his servants to approach everyone they meet and “compel them to come in.” In other words, the attitude of divine welcome is not “you’re welcome if you come,” but “we want you here! How can we change so this will be a safe and relevant space for you?”
Or better yet, flip roles. Instead of taking the role of host, be a guest. Learn the culture. Show up for others without any expectation. Just make yourself and instrument of divine love. God will do the rest.
I realize this is a scary challenge especially with all the obnoxious evangelists out there, but in my experience, while you may get some “no thank yous,” most people are just waiting to be invited. And–good news!–we will have an opportunity to be trained by an expert in reaching new people, Rev. Paul Nickerson, September 13-14 at First Church in Windsor.
The goal of the spiritual life is the joy of extending oneself to welcome the other. How do you expect to grow if you won’t stretch? And stepping out beyond our familiar and comfortable walls into the world to engage people where they are is an endless opportunity to stretch. This simple but profound spiritual practice unites spiritual growth, social justice, and church vitality. It’s what Jesus made us for. It’s what we’ve been waiting for. It’s past time we do it.
Funeral Sermon Lt. Cl. Gerald Dickerson 12/3/1932 –6/30/2019
Rev. Dr. Todd Grant Yonkman, Transitional Senior Minister
First Congregational Church of Granby
Funeral for Gerald Dickerson
13 July 2019
Gerald A. Dickerson was born in Dickinson, ND December 3, 1932. He on June 30–just over a week ago–after an 8 year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Jerry grew up poor in rural Montana. He and his brother were raised by a single mom who worked tirelessly to provide for her boys. Life was hard. Opportunities were few. Corrine commented that it was a miracle Jerry and his brother Dale didn’t end up in jail. Work provided the structure Jerry needed to move forward in his life. He was hardworking, high energy, and had a love baseball. In fact, he was a top pitching prospect until pleurisy, which he developed while working at a dry cleaner, ended his baseball career.
Jerry graduated Brooklyn High School, Brooklyn, OH, Class of 1940. After that he went to Baldwin Wallace College where he joined the Reserve Officers Training Corps. After graduation from college, Jerry was commissioned as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. He served in the USMC for over 20 years until his retirement in 1992. After his retirement, he worked with The Hartford Insurance Company and then Farmers and Trader’s Insurance Company in insurance sales and as a general manager.
Jerry is remembered as a fun and intelligent man, if not always super handy around the house. For example, one time he purchased a new lawn mower. He brought it home, got it out of the car, set it up in the lawn, and yanked on the pull cord ‘til his arm was sore. Frustrated, he called the place where he purchased it. They sent a service guy out to see what was wrong with the brand new mower. The service guy looked it over. Nothing wrong. Then he turned to Jerry, “Did you put gas in it?” You know what happens next.
Jerry had a large, loving family. His wife, Corrine. Five children, 11 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren, who will miss him very much.
Earlier in the service Brenna read to us from Ecclesiastes. It’s a relatively well known piece of Scripture as far as Scripture goes. My guess this is due primarily to Pete Seeger, who wrote the song “Turn! Turn! Turn!” based on this text back in the 1950s, which the Byrds then covered and made it into a hit.
What is it about this text that we love so much? It seems so matter of fact. No earth shattering truths here. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance . . .” and so on.
For me, what this text does is invite us to be present every moment to this very moment, to face whatever it is we’re facing, to feel whatever it is we’re feeling, to accept whatever gift the universe is offering us and embrace it as our life, our one precious life, to drink deeply, to live fully, to love completely, and then let go trusting that whatever season we find ourselves in–whether its a season of joy or grief of building up or breaking down, or planting or plucking up, of living or of dying, it is in this very season that we will find God.
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 10 July 2019
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 7-9-19
This Sunday will feature the first in a “My Favorite Scripture” worship series. We’ve invited individuals in the congregation to identify their favorites Scripture texts and share what makes them their favorite. Then I design a worship service around that text.
This week’s favorite Scripture, Psalm 121, comes from Nancy Rodney. Nancy chose Psalm 121 in part because of a revelatory experience she had with the text. Nancy went to high school at Northfield-Mount Hermon School, an idependent boarding school in the Berkshires. At that time Scripture study was included as part of the curriculum at NMH. When she first encountered Psalm 121 at NMH, Nancy understood the famous first two verses of the Psalm as pointing in the same direction: God.
“I lift up my eyes to the hills–
From where will my help come?
My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.”
The conventional reading, the one Nancy learned in high school, goes something like this: A person is wandering alone in the wilderness looking for help. Perhaps she is discouraged or downcast. She looks up and discovers that her help is found in God.
But later in life, Nancy learned another reading. She made a tour of the Holy Land led by a group of pastors. While on the tour she saw with her own eyes the Judean hill country: barren wildnerness hills not unlike the ones the Psalmist might have looked to for inspiration. She learned from one of the pastor-guides that in ancient days the indigneous people of this land would set up shrines to the various local deities on the tops of these hills. She learned that another, more historically informed reading of Psalm 121, might be an anitphonal one that points in two different and contrasting directions.
One voice says, “I will lift up my eyes to the hills–from where will my help come?” This voice is pointing the reader to the hilltops where the local deities reside: the conventional gods of the day, the familiar places we turn to and the small comforts we cling to for security and help. Our 401k, the cup of coffee in the morning, the voices from our phones, TVs, and computer screens that reinforce our political and cultural biases, our job titles, our Instagram feeds, our social circles. The question: “From where will my help come?” The answer: Not here! There’s a note of despair: look at these hills surrounding me on all sides, more than I can count, stretching to the horizon, each one with its little god dancing on top, begging for my attention and loyalty and not one of them can help me! Not one can heal the depth of the wound in my soul.
The second voice (maybe another voice in the same person’s consciousness?) shifts the gaze from the hills and their small, ultimately powerless, idols and toward God, who is God not only of the high places, but of the low as well and every place in between. Question: “From where will my help come?” Answer: The Creator of heaven and earth who is not limited to this place or that, to this group or that one, to this political party, to that nation, to this religion, belief system, lifestyle, tribe, race or tradition. Either God is God of all or no God at all.
New York Times columnist David Brooks recently gave an emotionally vulnerable TED talk about what he describes as a “time in the valley” following his divorce in 2013. During that time he went through many changes and developed some profound insights into what he calls “the lies our culture tells us about what matters.” These include: 1) Career success is fulfilling; 2) I can make myself happy or “the lie of self-sufficiency”; 3) the “lie of the meritocracy” or you’re worth more if you accomplish more. I imagine these lies and others as those idols dancing on the tops of those ancient Judean hills tormenting the Psalmist to the brink of despair. As an antidote to our culture’s lies, Brooks proposes devoting oneself to deep, authentic relationship. He calls folks who do this sacred work “weavers” and has founded an organization called “Weave” that supports this kind of holy community building.
In this time of tribalism and disaffection when people cast about for this silver bullet or that one, this savior or that numbing drug, when powerful corporations and noisy political leaders have unprecedented power to capture our attention and sell our identities, I wonder what would happen if we shifted our gaze from the “high places” to the every day places. I wonder what would happen if we devoted ourselves to our neighbors–the real flesh-and-blood people who live right next door or just down the street? I wonder what would happen if we took up the unglamourous work of looking closely, listening deeply, and making a genuine, human connection. My guess is that we would find the maker of heaven and earth right now, right here.
No Looking Back–Sermon for Open and Affirming Sunday 2019
Rev. Dr. Todd Grant Yonkman, Transitional Senior Minister
First Congregational Church of Granby
Sermon for Open and Affirming Sunday
30 June 2019
Text: Luke 9:51-62
No Looking Back
Many of you know my story. But for those who are new I’ll do a quick refresher. I was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. My family and all our relatives belonged to a conservative Christian denomination called the Christian Reformed Church. I went to Christian schools and graduated from a Christian college. On the surface we were a model family. Dad had a good job. Mom stayed at home and raised us kids. We went to church twice on Sunday. We lived in a nice, new house in a nice new subdivision. Mom and dad led Marriage Encounter weekends during which they coached other couples on how to make their marriages more loving, healthy, and intimate. Years later, after my dad came out as gay and my parents divorced, one of my high school friends who knew my family well put it this way: “The Oscar for best performance in a marriage goes to Bill and Jayne Yonkman.” Open and Affirming Sunday is many things to many people, but for me it’s this: Be out. Be proud. The only Oscars any of us should get are for the work we do in Hollywood, not the lives we live at home or in the church.
Open and Affirming originated with a 1985 resolution to the United Church of Christ General Synod that the denomination encourage all of its member churches to welcome LGBTQ people into all areas of congregational life including lay leadership and ordination. Since then 1400 UCCs have become Open and Affirming. Other denominations have followed the UCC lead in welcoming gay people including the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Disciples of Christ, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, some Baptist denominations, some Pentecostal denominations, the United Church of Canada, and other denominations in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Same sex marriage has been legalized throughout much of Europe, in some Latin American countries, and here in the U.S. Much has changed since my dad was growing up gay and shamed in 1950s rural Michigan. Open and Affirming Sunday celebrates the progress we’ve made as Christians and human beings on this planet to embrace our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. It also recognizes how fragile this progress is and how far we have to go.
Open and Affirming is the UCC’s way of recognizing what the gay rights movement calls “pride.” The modern gay rights movement began at 1:20 am on June 28, 1969, when the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in NYC. This was a common occurrance at the time because New York, like most places in the U.S. at the time, had laws against almost any type of gay expression even in private. The affect, if not the point, of these laws was to shame LGBTQ people.
In order to be gay in 1969, you had to sneak. And what does sneaking do to the soul? What did the “Saint of Dry Creek” tell his son? “If you sneak, it means you think you’re doing the wrong thing, and if you run around your whole life thinking you’re doing the wrong thing, you’ll ruin your immortal soul.” In 1959 the Saint of Dry Creek told his son to be proud of himself and not to sneak. On June 28, 1969 the patrons of the Stonewall Inn resisted the police raid on their safe and sacred space, and out of that resistance, the modern gay rights movement was born. When an entire culture is set on shaming you, how do you resist? With pride. You resist shame by stopping sneaking and stepping into the light.
That was the power of the first “gay liberation march” organized a year after the Stonewall uprising in June of 1970. Several thousand LGBTQ people marched from the Stonewall Inn 51 blocks up 7th Avenue to Central Park in the middle of the day with signs and flags and chants–during the day. Even then, many felt like they had to wear masks in case their employers found out and they would be fired. In Central Park, they had a “gay-in.” It was basically a gay version of a “be-in, which was a hippie way to make a political statement by hanging out and be visible in this case as gay people. Every year since 1970 the NYC Pride parade and the LGBTQ rights movement has grown. Now Pride is worldwide. In many places around the world homosexuality remains a crime often punishable by death. Nevertheless, people once forced to live in the shadows are stepping out into the light risking their lives and livelihoods because they know that hiding, while it might preserve your privilege and in some cases be necessary to preserve your life, ultimately ruins the soul.
Open and Affirming in the UCC begins with the recognition of the negative effects that Christian teachings and behavior have had on LGBTQ people. We’ve been telling LGBTQ people to sneak when Jesus clearly invites all people to be true. You can’t do anything if you can’t be honest about who you are. To my LGBTQ brothers and sisters I want to say on behalf of the church that I’m sorry.
Unfortunately many of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world continue to ruin souls by telling people–particularly LGBTQ people–that God wants you to sneak. So what do we say to those people?
In 2013 my wife and I had the opportunity to join Marriage Equality Rhode Island in bringing marriage equality to the state. As a part of that effort, I testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The testimony lasted through the day, into the evening, and on into the early hours of the next morning. Many people spoke both for and against marriage equality. Amont those against it, I heard some of the many of the vile and hurtful slanders against gay people that I thought we as a society had left behind. But there they were, people shaming and dehumanizing other human beings in public in the name of Jesus. Needless to say, it was disturbing.
When my turn to speak came in the wee hours, I sat across from a state senator whom I knew personally, who was a Christian, and who himself said many of the hurtful things others had been saying. I shared my family’s story. I share my message to him with you as something you can say to Christians who do not share our Open and Affirming values. Here’s what I say: “I am a Christian. That means I follow Christ. Not Paul. Not Moses. I follow Jesus. And Jesus gave Christians one command: love everyone, period. You can’t both love someone and call them an abomination at the same time. If you are telling people that loving someone of the same sex is sinful, you are not loving them, you are shaming them, and in shaming them, you are not saving their soul, you are destroying it.” The result of that hearing and the work of many in the Marriage Equality Rhode Island coalition is that we won marriage equality for Rhode Island!
My family gave me the opportunity to experience the devastating effects of LGBTQ shaming up close and personal. I can say from my own experience that when you shame an LGBTQ person, when you demand that they sneak in order to survive, you commit spiritual malpractice not only against the individual but also against their families and everyone they love. The shame runs deep, and it takes a lifetime to heal. I’m still trying to heal from having a shame-filled dad who spent two-thirds of his life sneaking.
The good news is that healing is possible. And the irony is that I have found healing in the very Christianity whose institutions shamed my father and hurt my family. I had to leave the church of my childhood, but I’ve found welcome in the UCC, and for that I’m grateful. And a part of my ministry in the UCC is creating truly open and affirming spaces for LGBTQ people.
Jesus said, “No one who puts their hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” I am grateful Jesus has called me to this work of creating open and affirming congregations. I have put my hand to the plow. I am not looking back. I have left the small, comfortable world of my childhood where we pretended LGBTQ people didn’t exist. I’ve stepped into God’s wide world of love. And I hope you will, too. There is no place for shame in God’s house. That’s why it’s so important that we stand together as a faith family–gay, straight, and in-between–and take pride. Let’s raise the rainbow flag and step into the light with pride. There’s no looking back.
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 7-1-19
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 7-1-19
Growing up I attended Christian schools. Every morning we would stand by our desks, face the American flag hanging from a bracket on the wall, put our hands over our hearts, and recite the pledge of allegiance. I’m sure there were other morning rituals–taking of attendance, prayer, announcements over the intercom–but I remember most clearly reciting the pledge while facing the flag.
My education was intended to reflect a Christian worldview. English, math, social studies, science, phys ed–none of these subjects were beyond the purview of God, and, therefore, of the Christian faith. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like we looked for hidden spiritual meanings in times tables or the condensation cycle. At times there were explicit Christian connections, for example, in learning about evolution as a “theory” incompatible with the Biblical teaching of creation, but most of the time the teaching was implicit: the logical beauty of math reflects the order of God’s good creation, the creation of art is humanity’s appropriate response to our Creator, history is the story of God’s hidden plan of redemption. What was the implicit Christian teaching behind our unquestioned ritual of honoring the American flag every morning?
Looking back as an adult, I would say the teaching around the flag was twofold: 1) that one can be both a patriotic citizen and a faithful Christian; and 2) a Christian’s highest loyalty is to Jesus and his teachings. Full stop. The practical result is an approach that honors every single one of my fellow American citizens as a child of God no matter our disgreements while at the same time critically assessing our nation’s history and current policies in the light of Jesus’ one commandment: love.
Many years of theological education at some of the finest learning institutions in the world have taught me to call this stance critical or “prophetic” engagement in public life. While I have left behind many of the beliefs of my childhood–denial of evolution, uncritical acceptance of whitewashed U.S. history, nearly complete obliviousness to subversive themes in art and literature–I carry with me the prophetic engagement that I was (perhaps accidentally) taught in my Christian upbrining.
Which brings me to the issue of the American flag and it’s place in church. Personally, I don’t need to have the American flag in church. It’s my view that we Christians show our faithfulness to our fellow Americans by being the kindest, most loving people we can be. No other expressions of patriotism are needed. Nevertheless, I take seriously the feelings some of my fellow Christians and fellow citizens have about the flag as a symbol of the sacrifice they and others have made in military service to our country. I also take seriously the feelings of those for whom the America flag is an irredeemable of symbol of colonialism and oppression. This seems to be how symbols in general function: they have the potential both to draw us together and tear us apart.
So at FCC Granby we have done a very church-like thing: strike a compromise. On Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Veterans Day we will display the flag in the meetinghouse. The rest of the year it will be displayed in the narthex along with the Christian flag (which is another article for another time.)
Despite the attempts of some to weaponize the flag for culture wars, I continue to humbly respect the sacred sacrifce of those who have served while unflinchingly examining with clear eyes the full range of our past and present as a nation–from racism, slavery, and genocide to dignity, equality, and human rights. My faith tells me three things about America: 1) We are a a human creation and therefore temporary. We had a beginning in 1776, and we will have an end; 2) Like most human creations we are a mix of good and bad; 3) Like all things on this earth we are not beyond the healing power of God’s love.
Todd Grant Yonkman 