"God's Hands and Feet in the World." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

"God's Hands and Feet in the World"

Mark 10:35-45

The twelve disciples had been going around with Jesus for some time.  He’d been teaching them about the way of self-giving love.  But they don’t seem to get it.  Mark tells us that James and John “come forward” to Jesus, pushing ahead of the other disciples. 

            “Teacher,” they say, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”

            Jesus says to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?”  And they say, “When you come into your glory, grant one of us the privilege of sitting at your right hand…and one at your left.”

            Now, some people dismiss the Zebedee brothers.  They see them in this conversation, at least, as pushy, ambitious seekers of a place of honor and power. 

            But I think it’s obvious that James and John had great faith in Jesus.  They believed in him, and their personal hopes were completely woven into his destiny.  They loved Jesus.   But what Jesus is trying to teach his disciples about being a suffering servant is hard!  It’s hard to understand-- and harder to live.

           

            One of the reasons that the Christian message has been twisted and distorted and misunderstood—is that it’s so paradoxical.  The Christian paradox is that our Lord and Savior came as a suffering servant to save us… and to show us the WAY.

            Jesus defines greatness very differently from the ways we’re used to thinking about it.  When we follow Jesus, as his disciples, we need to struggle with the paradox that—in God’s kingdom—we gain by losing.  We become great by serving.  And we get to be first by being last.  In the kingdom of God, things look very different than they do in the world.

            “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be a servant.”  This teaching is so critical to understanding Jesus’ ministry…and such a key to being a disciple—that the gospels record it no less than eight times.

            What does it mean for us to follow a servant savior?  

            Among other things, it means setting aside self  in order to take up the cause of others.  It means serving our neighbors.  It means living out our faith in terms of kindness, openness, empathy, and compassion.    Never perfectly, never fully—for we’re not capable of perfect servanthood.           

            As part of Christ’s body, when we’re at our best, we are a servant church.   When we’re not at our best, we’re an organization filled with people each trying to get their own needs met…  trying to get something out of church… and trying to get the church to be the church we want it to be.

            When we’re being the servant church, we’re feeding the hungry, calling on the sick…visiting the home bound.   We’re serving those in the community who are needy and hurting, through friendship and practical kinds of help.  When we’re being the servant church, we share in Christ’s ministry in the world by generously supporting the mission of the church with our tithes and offerings.

           

            Today has been designated as Bread for the World Sunday.   This Tuesday is World Food Day. 

            This is a time when we who have plenty to eat are reminded that many people don’t… and many of those who are hungry or food insecure are children.  On Bread for the World Sunday, we are challenged to consider some facts about hunger.  More than 41 million Americans, including 13 million children, lived in households that struggled to put food on the table in 2016. More than 40 million Americans lived below the poverty line in 2016; 1 in 3 were children. [1]
 Many of these children have parents who have jobs and work hard, but their wages aren’t high enough to cover the high costs of rent, transportation, and utilities and daily meals.[2]
About two-thirds of SNAP recipients are children, elderly, or disabled.[3]

            Our federal government’s feeding programs serve as a lifeline for vulnerable children and families. Because children are hit especially hard by the effects of hunger and malnutrition, nutrition programs aimed at children are particularly important. 
            A healthy start in life — even before a child is born — pays off for years-- not only for individual children and families, but for communities and our nation as a whole.

Locally, and in the short term, we are helping to alleviate hunger as we contribute to Blessings in a Backpack…when we give to the Presbyterian Hunger Program through our Cents-Ability Offerings… when we support Church World Service…when we support the mission of the Open Door…or Zaman…or  Gleaners.

            But we also need to work on the systemic causes of hunger.   Only one out of every 20 grocery bags that feed people who are hungry come from church food pantries and other private charities.  Federal nutrition programs, from school meals to SNAP (formerly known as food stamps), provide the rest.   Our government’s child nutrition programs serve millions of children each year.  It’s one of the ways we work together as a society to care for those in need.
            In the toolkit for Bread for the World’s Offering of Letters, I read about Stephanie Rice, the mother of four boys ages 3 to 10 in Ohio.   Stephanie and her husband have always had to plan carefully as they raised their family on modest wages.
            Early in their marriage, James worked at Babies R U and made $7.25 an hour. Stephanie earned $9 an hour as a cashier at Wal-Mart. The Rice’s were raising James’ daughter from a previous marriage and had a baby on the way. There just wasn’t enough money to put food on the table. They applied for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to fill in the gaps.
            “If that had not been there, I wouldn’t have been able to pay the bills,” Stephanie said. It was a situation where every penny had to be accounted for. Even the slightest interruption in food stamps would have completely upset the balance.”
            SNAP is just one of many anti-poverty programs funded by the federal government. Other programs include the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, Children (WIC), and school meals.
            These food assistance and child nutrition programs are a lifeline to millions of Americans every year.   How the federal government decides to spend taxpayer money has real-life consequences.
            It’s common for families receiving food assistance to have one or more adults earning a paycheck. Most benefits go to the working poor.
            Stephanie and James are doing better than during their hardest times, like the winters when they couldn’t pay the gas bill and their gas was shut off. Or the time their car was stolen and it took them a year to recover from the loss.
            These days, James and Stephanie’s family doesn’t need as much food assistance, but Stephanie is worried about potential cuts to food assistance to others in need. She’s majoring in social and political science, and has a goal of one day running a nonprofit for homeless people, giving back to those in need--just as she received help when she needed it the most.
            In the meantime, on her to-do list is calling her members of Congress. She says she has her senators and representative “on speed dial,” so she can tell them what it’s like to have a hungry family and receive temporary help to put food on the table.[4]

            Bread for the World is a faith-based education and advocacy organization that I’ve belonged to for some years.  The reason I support Bread for the World is because, over the years, they have had a remarkable record of helping win passage of bipartisan legislation that addresses hunger.   As a result of this advocacy, children in the United States receive vital nutrition.   Emergency food reaches refugees from famine and conflict in Africa and elsewhere.  Agricultural development is enabling hungry people in various parts of the world to grow enough food to feed their families.

            In the Hebrew scripture passage we heard today, we heard God speaking through the prophet Isaiah, “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making  widows their prey and robbing the fatherless… [5]

            The scriptures teach us that God loves justice and requires us to do justice and love kindness.[6]  Our individual actions and societal structures should enable all to share in God’s provision. Deuteronomy commands, “do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor.”[7]

            In Exodus 16:13-19, God instructs the Israelites not to take more many each day than they need. In Leviticus 23:22, the Israelites reserved a corner of their fields for those who needed food. Jesus spoke of the importance of justice as an element of faithfulness: “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God. It is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others.”[8]  

            The community in Acts 2 “had all things in common. They would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” In Matthew 25, Jesus taught that the nations would be judged according to how they treated “the least of these”-- those who are marginalized and in need.

            When we support Bread for the World through our donations, when we call or write our elected representatives to advocate for those who struggle to feed their families, we are living out our calling to do justice.

            As Teresa of Avila famously put it, "Christ has no body now on earth but yours… no hands but yours…  no feet but yours.  Yours are the eyes through which God’s compassion will look upon the world.  Yours are the feet with which God will go about doing good.  Yours are the hands with which God will bless others now."

            We are called to serve—to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world.

When we respond to Christ’s call and work together, we can help to change the conditions and the policies that allow hunger to persist. 

            We are called to share our bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into our house… to care for basic needs of those who are marginalized.

            Speaking through the prophet Isaiah, God promises us that we will not have to do this alone.  When we call, the LORD will answer.  When we cry for help, God will say, “Here I am.”[9]

            And that, my friends, is good news!

 

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

October 14, 2018

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   [1] Income and Poverty in the United State: 2016, U.S. Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2017/demo/P60-259.pdf 
 

   [2] Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. http://www.cbpp.org/research/ policy-basicsintroduction-to-the-supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap



[3] USDA, Women, Infant, and Children Program Participation and Costs. http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/ les/pd/wisummary.pdf
 

[4] bread.org/ol

[5] Isaiah 10:1-2.

[6] Isaiah 61:8; Psalm 99:4; Psalm 33:5; Micah 6:8; Amos 5:22-24.

[7] Deuteronomy 15:7-11.

[8] Luke 11:42.

[9] Isaiah 58

"Blessed Are the Peacemakers." A meditation for the Interfaith Prayers for Peace" at Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

Some of the leaders and participants at Interfaith Prayers for Peace at Littlefield Presbyterian Church, 2018.

"Blessed Are the Peacemakers"

Matthew 5:1-16

         The verses we just heard are from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.” We heard Jesus speaking what we call the Beatitudes:  "Blessed are the poor in spirit...  the mourners...  the meek... the merciful...   Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you....  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven."^[1]

            Blessed are you who mourn. 

            For those of us who long for a better, more peaceful world, this is a distressing time. There are so many things to mourn.

            More than 400 children who were separated from their families at the southern border are still separated from their families.

            The mass shootings happen so often that we don’t even hear about most of them.

            People struggle to deal with the ways trauma from assault changed their lives, and the hashtag #Why I didn’t report is trending in social media.

            The list could go on and on…

            There are so many things to mourn.  Like poverty and injustice, in our communities, in our nation, and in the world.

            In the United States of America--one of the richest countries in the world. children remain the poorest age group. According to the Children’s Defense Fund, nearly one in five children--12.8 million in total-- were poor in 2017. Over 45 percent of these children lived in extreme poverty at less than half the poverty level.

            3 million children in the U.S. live in families surviving on $2 a day per person.[1]

            The federal poverty threshold is $12,140 for individuals and $25,100 for a family of four. One in seven people in the United States live below the federal poverty threshold. That’s 13.9% of the population, or 44.7 million. According to this federal threshold, a single adult making $12,141 is not poor, though they are considered “low income.”   The wealthiest 1 percent of American households own 40 percent of the country’s wealth, which is more than at any time in the past fifty years. [7]
            When we look around and see all the injustice and need, it can feel overwhelming and despairing.  But we don’t have to work alone.  I find myself mourning all this violence and need, and longing to do something. 

            So, what can we do? 

           We can begin by praying together and forging bonds of friendship and solidarity… getting to know one another better… opening our hearts and minds to one another… and finding ways to work together to change the world. 

            Sometimes, it’s a matter of seeing a need and working together to relieve suffering and let people know we care, like the time a group of interfaith friends gathered needed items for Syrian refugees and got together in somebody’s basement in this neighborhood and packed them for sending them.  People of different faiths work together with Project Dignity to feed desperately poor people in Detroit and address the needs of women and children through Zaman International.

            More than fifty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. declared in his famous speech “A Time to Break Silence” that, “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

            Last May, on the Monday after Mother’s Day, in our nation’s capital and in state capitals around the country, people who are committed to work for a fairer society gathered to launch the first phase of a new Poor People’s Campaign. This is an interfaith movement, made up of older people and younger people, Jews, Muslims, Christians, people of other faiths and people of goodwill who aren’t part of a religious community. It’s a movement that gives voice to people who are directly impacted by poverty and injustice, that brings people together in solidarity as we work together in a series of actions to try to change the conversation in our nation about systemic injustice.

            There’s hard work to be done.   But we can work together to make a difference.  There are values our faith traditions hold in common—values that have to do with love and justice and peace. 

            For all people of faith and goodwill, this is a time for us to find ways to come together and work for a better, more peaceful, merciful, and just world--for everyone.
            As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “We must learn to live together as brothers [and sisters] or perish together as fools."

            Our commitment to peace and justice and reconciliation, and our love for our own children, demands that we provide a better inheritance for them.” There’s hard work to be done.   But we can work together to make a difference.

             After worship, we invite you to stay for a time, to enjoy some refreshments and conversation.   We hope you’ll make a new friend today.  Talk with one another about your families—especially your children or grandchildren and about what kind of a world you want to leave for them.

            Talk about what teachings from our various faith traditions inspire and challenge you…and about what common ground you see in our various traditions. Talk about the people who inspire you and challenge you in your commitment.

            Let’s renew our commitment to change the world-- beginning today. 

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

September 23, 2018

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[1] Child Poverty, at Children’s Defense Fund website:  https://www.childrensdefense.org/policy/policy-priorities/child-poverty/

      

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[1] Child Poverty, at Children’s Defense Fund website:  https://www.childrensdefense.org/policy/policy-priorities/child-poverty/

"Faith and Fear." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church. Mark 9:30-37.

"Fear and Faith"

Mark 9:30-37

In last week’s gospel lesson, Jesus traveled to the region of Tyre and then to the Decapolis.[1]  In today’s text, he’s back in his home territory of Galilee, but “he did not want anyone to know it.”  The reason he didn’t want anyone to know he was there? He had some important teaching to do with his disciples.

            Some very important things have happened in the meantime.  In Caesarea Philippi, Jesus had asked his disciples, “Who are people saying that I am? Who do you say I am?” Then he began teaching the disciples about what awaits him in Jerusalem and about the cost of following him. Peter, James, and John had seen Jesus transfigured on a mountain.[2]  Later, Jesus cast a demon out of a boy.

            Now, as they’re passing through Galilee, Jesus is trying again to avoid being noticed while he continues to teach his disciples, saying, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”  But the disciples didn’t understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Maybe they don’t want to understand. This is a hard teaching about a Messiah who suffers and dies.

            I wonder what the disciples might have asked if they had not been afraid.  Are we really very different?

            I agree with David Lose that it’s important to ask good questions. But our fears can get in the way. What fears pursue you during the day and haunt you at night? What worries weigh you down so that it’s difficult to move forward in faith?”[3] Our fears have a way of sneaking into our very being, and robbing us of the abundant life Jesus came both to announce and to share.

            Did you notice? The disciples don’t ask Jesus any questions in response to his prediction of his crucifixion because they’re afraid. And the next thing you know they’re talking about who was the greatest, who was going to have a place of privilege and power in the coming kingdom.

            Fear can do that. It can paralyze you. It can motivate you to look out only for yourself.

            This isn’t the only time Mark contrasts and faith and fear. In the fourth chapter of Mark, after Jesus stills the storm that had terrified the disciples, Jesus asks them, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” As he was restoring Jairus’ daughter, he tells the distraught father, “Don’t be afraid. Only believe.”[4]

            The opposite of faith is not doubt--but fear.  The kind of fear that can paralyze you… distort how you perceive reality… and drive you to despair.

            The disciples didn’t understand what Jesus was saying and were afraid to ask him.

            In the house in Capernaum, Jesus asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way? But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.

            He called the twelve and said to them, “whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.  Then he took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms, and he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

             

            Now, in ancient times, a child was regarded as a non-person, or a not-yet-person, the possession of the father in the household.   When Jesus held up a child as an emblem of living in God’s household, and perhaps even as a stand-in for Jesus himself, he was challenging the social norms of the day.

            This child was as important to Jesus as the vision on the mountain. Jesus wanted his disciples to see the child…and welcome the child.  Not because the child is innocent or pure or perfect or cute.  No. Jesus wanted them to welcome the child because the child was at the bottom of the social heap.  In Mark’s gospel, children aren’t symbols of innocence or holiness. More often, they are the victims of poverty and disease. Jesus brings the child from the margins into the very center.

            But, surely, we want to think, we are different.  We value children in our churches and in society. And yet…

            In the United States of America--one of the richest countries in the world-- children remain the poorest age group. According to the Children’s Defense Fund, nearly one in five children--12.8 million in total-- were poor in 2017. Over 45 percent of these children lived in extreme poverty at less than half the poverty level.  Nearly 70 percent of poor children were children of color.  The youngest children are most likely to be poor, with 1 in 5 children under 5 living in poverty during the years of rapid brain development.

            Child poverty hurts children. Child poverty hurts our nation’s future. It creates gaps in cognitive skills for very young children, puts children at greater risk of hunger and homelessness, jeopardizes their health and ability to learn, and fuels the inter-generational cycle of poverty.

            Ponder this: 3 million children in the U.S. live in families surviving on $2 a day per person.[5]  I hope you’ll take that statistic home with you and consider what $2 a day per person would buy and what it wouldn’t.

            Something else to ponder:  More than 400 children who were separated from their families at the southern border are still separated from their families.

            These are moral issues that reflect how we are living our values in our society. When we look at the federal and state budgets and see actions to limit access to medical services for lower income Americans including children, or cut-backs in nutrition programs for children, we need to see how these actions affect children’s lives.

            Do we see the children? Do we welcome them?

           

            Joyce Ann Mercer suggests that Jesus’ treatment of children shows his “struggle and resistance to the purposes of empire.” The politics of empire favors relationships of power and privilege, while the politics embodied of the kingdom of God lifts up the lowly, and those with no power or privilege. [6]

            Jesus came to live among us, full of grace and truth.[7]  He proclaimed the reign of God, preaching good news to the poor and release to the poor and release to the captives…teaching by word and deed and blessing the children.[8]

            Do we see them? Do we welcome them?  If we don’t, what are the fears that hold us back from fully welcoming them?

           

            Jesus called his followers to live out gospel values. He calls us to extending hospitality to those who were considered little more than property.  He healed when he wasn’t supposed to, touched people he shouldn’t have touched.  He taught that all our ideas about greatness mean nothing if we don’t stoop down low enough to see the little ones in our midst.

            That day in Capernaum, Jesus held a little child in his arms and brought the words of heaven down to earth. I imagine Jesus whispering in the child’s ear, “You are God’s beloved child.”[9]

           

            The good news is that God has named us all as beloved children and calls us to welcome children in Christ’s name. This isn’t as simple or limited as it might seem. It means caring for children-- not only our own children and grandchildren, but children of migrant workers and asylum-seekers, children of poverty in our cities and impoverished rural areas.

            The good news is that Jesus has promised to be with us always and has given us the Holy Spirit to lead and empower us.  In this broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.[10]

           

            Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!  Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

September 16, 2018
 

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[1] Mark 7:24-37

[2] Mark 9:2-8

[3] David Lose, “Faith and Fear,” at his blog In the Meantime. https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1619

[4] Mark 4:40; Mark 5:36

:

[5] Child Poverty, at Children’s Defense Fund website:  https://www.childrensdefense.org/policy/policy-priorities/child-poverty/

[6] Martha L. Moore-Keish, Theological Perspective, in Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 4: Season after Pentecost 2. Location 3408.

[7] John 1:14.

[8] “A Brief Statement of Faith” of the Presbyterian Church (USA), 1991.

[9] I’m grateful to the Rev. Dr. Barbara K. Lundblad for this image in “A Hopeful Fanatic.” http://day1.org/4049-a_hopeful_fanatic

    

[10] “Brief Statement of Faith.”

"Waiting for the Power." A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Ascension Sunday.

"The Ascension" Icon by Andrei Rublev (1408)

"Waiting for the Power"

Luke 24:44-53; Acts 1:1-11

In churches that follow the liturgical calendar, we’re coming to the end of Eastertide, the season when we focus on celebrating the Resurrection.  The third major festival of the Christian year, the celebration of the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, comes next Sunday.  Before we get to Pentecost, we celebrate the Ascension, and we hear the part of the story that Luke/Acts places between Easter and Pentecost. 

            One part of the story is that Jesus has ascended to glory with God.  The glory of the risen and ascended Christ is good news-- something to celebrate. But the other themes in the story invite us to look at the Ascension from a very human perspective, the disciples’ point of view, which is where we stand.   

            Up until now, Jesus has been the chief actor in the gospel drama.  From his birth to his death, it’s Jesus who keeps the story moving.  In the forty days following the resurrection, the risen Jesus appeared to his followers a number of times and continued to teach them about the kingdom of God.  

            But they’re still living under Roman occupation. Things are still not right in the world.  So, when Jesus tells his followers to wait in Jerusalem, where they would be baptized by the Holy Spirit, they asked, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom?”

             Jesus answers, “It isn’t for you to know these things. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses.” Then they see Jesus lifted up and out of their sight.  

             

            Now what?  What are Jesus’ followers supposed to do?       

            Sometimes, do you want to just shout, “How long, Lord?”  “Is this the time you’re going to make things right in the world?  We want to know what the plan is. We want to know now.

            Lord, is this the time?

            Hear what Jesus says: “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.”   

            Christ’s charge to them comes with a promise: “You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit...  You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

            Luke tells us that the disciples worshipped the risen and ascended Christ.  They returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

            In the verses following the passage we read in Acts, Luke tells how the disciples returned to Jerusalem and went to the upper room where they were staying, where they and certain women were constantly devoting themselves to prayer.  On the day of Pentecost, disciples were gathered together in one place when the power of the Holy Spirit came upon them from on high. 

            The first disciples were called to wait during times of transition--with trust and hope…with eagerness and expectancy.

            When the first disciples couldn’t see where the future would lead them, when they couldn’t see where the future would lead them, they remained focused on the drama of God’s salvation story, and worshipped God with great joy.  Their joyful worship as they waited helped to center themselves in God’s gracious, powerful promises

            As the first disciples were called to wait with trust and hope and to live with eagerness and expectancy, so are we.  We are witnesses.

In our words and in our lives, we are witnesses of God’s love. 

            In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. launched the Poor People’s Campaign. After he was assassinated, thousands of broken-hearted Americans marched from the neglected shadows of the nation and gathered in Washington, D.C. as a “freedom church of the poor.” They erected “Resurrection City,” their encampment on the National Mall, to demand that their government address bitter poverty in the wealthiest nation in the world. 

            They were there to confront fundamental questions about America’s moral and Constitutional vision for all of its people, regardless of their wealth, race, gender, or national origin. “They demanded attention to the hungry children and inadequate schools from Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta to the devastated inner cities across America.”  They made moral witness against America’s war in Vietnam, and tried hard to be heard as they carried their testimony forward into public life….”[1]

            Fifty years later, “The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival” is calling our nation to see the predicaments of the most vulnerable among us.  We turn to America’s history and to the realities of our own time and seek to redeem a democratic promise enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. When thousands of people gather tomorrow in Washington, D.C. and 30-some state capitols around the country, they hope to remind our nation what values we hold dear and to make a new moral witness.

            Our faith teaches us that all persons are made in the image of God and are beloved children of God. So, as people of faith, the day-to-day struggles of the poor and dispossessed need to matter to us.  When we hear the voices of “peoples long silenced,” we become more aware of how many people are hurt by systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, and the war economy. More than 40 million Americans subsist below the poverty line. Nearly half of our population cannot afford a $400 emergency. The devastation cuts across race, gender, age, and geography.[2]

            The Monday rallies around the country during the forty days are meant to hear the voices of people who are directly impacted by poverty, to focus on their stories and magnify them. The clergy and various other activists will be there to stand with poor and marginalized people, in solidarity, and to give witness that their lives matter, to draw attention to their needs, and to call our nation to a moral revival.

            Do we believe God can use us to transform the world?   Do we believe that we can do all things, through Christ, who strengthens us?      How many of us want to believe these things?       

            I believe God has the power to work miracles, and that God wants to use us to change people’s lives.

                           

            As Jim Wallis has pointed out, the biblical prophets always begin in judgment, in a social critique of the status quo, but they end in hope—that these realities can and will be changed. 

            The Civil Rights movement in the United States grew out of the African-American church… and then others joined in—people who chose to hope in a society in which there is justice for all. We’re still waiting and hoping for the fulfillment of that dream. 

           

            We are called.  Christ has given us a Great Commission. He says, “You shall be my witnesses.” We have Christ’s promise:  You will receive power…

             

            Like the first disciples, we have the promises of God to cling to, even in times of sorrow and anxiety.   These promises are ours, even at times when it seems that Christ has vanished.

            So, let us cling to God’s promises and rejoice in them. There will be accomplishments and setbacks, joys and sorrows. In the midst of it, we can trust that God is with us, comforting, celebrating with us, accompanying and strengthening us, even when we can’t see it. We can give thanks that God is preparing us to live with less fear and more generosity, preparing us to look out for the rights of others, and to work for a more merciful and just world.

            Thanks be to God!

           

           

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

May 13, 2018

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[1] https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/audit/

[2] https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/audit/