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August 12, 2018 by lscholl

The Woman Clothed with the Sun (one year after Charlottesville)

A sermon by Lia Scholl

In preparation for this sermon, I read two texts. One helped, called Woman Clothed with the Sun and written by Joyce Hollyday. The other, which I accidentally read, was the Matthew Henry commentary which describes the woman clothed with the sun like this:

“The weaker part of the world, who only has righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Having put on Christ, who is the Sun of righteousness, she, by her relation to Christ, she is invested with honourable rights and privileges, and shines in his rays.

She “only thinks of things that are in heaven, where her head is, with a crown twelve stars, gives glory to the twelve apostles”

To hear Matthew Henry tell it, this is the story of a weak woman, a woman with no value of her own.

If that were true, she wouldn’t be one of the Fierce Women of the Bible.

Instead, our text is a “beautiful portrait of a woman empowered. She is clothed in sun, upheld by the moon, crowned with stars, swathed in the power of Creator and creation. Her womb is brimming with life, vibrant with possibility. The world is hers.” (Hollyday)

She is a woman of power.

And she is fighting a dragon.

One year ago today, I was standing in the parking lot of First United Methodist Church Charlottesville, peering over State Police with riot gear, watching what used to be called Lee Parknow called Emancipation Park EXPLODE.

Midway through the day, my phone died. My charger was in my car, about 5 blocks away from our safety zone.

My dear friend Pastor Robin Bolen Anderson and I decided to brave our way to the car. We were in clergy dress, black shirts and collars. It’s not subtle. We had already been snarled at because of it.

We began walking towards the car, through a densely packed, residential neighborhood, with postage stamps for yards, no driveways, and street parking.

Suddenly, Robin pushed me into a yard. “Get down!” she demanded, and physically pushed my shoulders down. And I found myself crouching low on the ground.

I looked into the street and saw a white pick up truck, bed packed with young men and guns, driving up the street.

Fear gripped me.

And then I noticed that Robin had hidden us behind bushes…

Sparkling new tiny little fairy bushes, no more than 18 inches high.

I’m hiding behind a miniature bush.

And I’m shaking and shaken.

The truckload of white supremacists passed, and we hurried to the car, and on our way back, we found two men to walk with and hurry back to the safety zone.

I am not one of those women of power. But I know we’re fighting a dragon. It’s the dragon of white supremacy.

I learned on that Saturday in August that things are a lot worse than I thought they were. I learned it when I saw a young man in a white polo shirt and khakis toss his backpack into the head of a counter-protester and watched her fall to the ground, bloody. and the police officer standing by did nothing.

I learned it when I watched the Virginia State Police and the Charlottesville Police standing by—not going after men who had discharged their guns.

I learned it when President Trump said, “I think there is blame on both sides.”

I learned it again two weeks ago when Portland police were “heavy-handed” with people protesting a rally by extreme-right demonstrators. The police stood with the alt-right rally, instead of against them.

I learned it again yesterday when President Trump tweeted “I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence.” When we all know that there’s only one type of racism.

Things are a lot worst than I knew. Racism is a dragon.

And it’s a beast.

Just this week, our dear sweet young friend, an 8-year-old girl, had one of those moments that happen at summer camp, a misunderstanding that escalated. A young boy threw a ball and hit another boy, but the second boy thought she threw it at him. The boy yelled at the little girl. And when he did, he used a racial slur.

She came home to ask her mother: why did he do that? It’s the first time someone has used her race against her to her face.

Her mother called me crying. “I had to have ‘that talk’ with my baby. I didn’t think I’d have to have it so early.”

Racism is a dragon.

And in our text, the woman clothed with the sun is attacked by the dragon.

Hollyday tells us that the dragon is a monster so large his tail can take out a third of the stars in one swipe. He stands there, by her side, jaws open and ready to devour the thing she loves most:

Her son, the one who is to rule by the power of justice. But her son is snatched away, by the bearers of children to God. He is safe. The woman is safe, too… but in the wilderness, far from all that is comfortable and known.

But the dragon is not through… He pursues the woman. This time, she is given the wings of an eagle to soar away and back to the wilderness.

She soars in “glorious freedom and creativity” in the end.

You know, the woman clothed with the sun may be Mary.

But the woman clothed with the sun may also be the Church.

And if she is the church, we know her. We know the joyful agony of giving birth to something, whatever it is we are bringing to life, whatever our longing and labor. And we all know that the monsters lurk, threatening to devour our creativity, our confidence, our life.

But in the end the dragon loses.

The woman soars in glorious freedom and creativity.

In the end white supremacy loses.

The church soars in glorious freedom and creativity.

How do we defeat the dragon?

We do it with love.

We do it like Rose says in The Last Jedi, “Not fighting what we hate. Saving what we love.”

We love little girls like our friend, and we create a new world where she doesn’t grow up hate herself because someone has called her a racialized slur, a new world where she grows up knowing that she can be woman clothed with the sun, and defeat the dragons, and fly away to creativity and freedom.

We do it by thinking of our church as a movement for people—not a place with walls, not a gathering that happens on Sunday mornings, not just a community of people, but a people with a mission—to slay the dragon of racism, to be such a strong community that we raise little Black girls into strong Black women, to be such a strong community that we build friendships people different than us, strong friendships, that help people who are lonely, people who are broke and broken, people who are in need of a community around them, people who are longing for connection—and remembering that togetherness fights the fascism that we only got a glimpse of in Charlottesville a year ago.

We do it by loving people so well, that they understand that God loves them like crazy. That God is carrying their baby book around in her pocketbook.

You see, we are the woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under our feet, and on our head a crown of twelve stars. God bears us up on wings. And we soar with God.

Charlottesville tried to break me, y’all. For months after, I had violent dreams. In every one of these dreams there was an expectation that I would fix all of this. That this was my fault, and that fixing everything was my responsibility, too. I woke each day heavy, with a burden in my heart, because I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to fix everything.

And still, a year later, I don’t know how to fix everything.

But I do know how to love, and I can take a little girl into my arms and teach her that she is worthy of every good thing, that she is good and strong and worthy of love, that she is a fierce woman in the making.

I can teach her that racism doesn’t have to change who she is, and that white people have no right and no ability to make her any less than who God has called her to be.

And maybe that will be enough, for now.

Will you join me?

August 1, 2018 by lscholl

Beating Back the Wild Beasts, a sermon

A sermon by Lia Scholl

The Story of Rizpah:

Rizpah was the daughter of Aiah, and one of Saul’s concubines.

After the death of Saul, Abner, one of Saul’s lead soldiers, was accused of sleeping with Rizpah, resulting in a quarrel between him and Saul’s son and successor, Ishobeth. The quarrel led to Abner’s defection to David, who was then king of the breakaway Kingdom of Judah. This incident led to the downfall of Ishbosheth and the rise of David as king of a reunited Kingdom of Israel.

A famine lasting three years hit Israel during the earlier half of David’s reign in Jerusalem. This was believed to have happened because of “Saul and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.” The Gibeonites were not Israelites, but the remnant of the Amorites, which Saul pursued from within Israel. David inquired of the Gibeonites what satisfaction they demanded, and was answered that nothing would compensate for the wrong Saul had done to them but the death of seven of Saul’s sons.

David accordingly delivered up to them the two sons of Rizpah and five of the sons of Merab, Saul’s eldest daughter, whom she bore to Adriel. These the Gibeonites put to death, and hung up their bodies at the sanctuary at Gibeah.

2 Samuel 21:10-14.

¹⁰Then Rizpah daughter of Aiah, the mother of two of the men, spread burlap on a rock and stayed there the entire harvest season. She prevented the scavenger birds from tearing at their bodies during the day and stopped wild animals from eating them at night. ¹¹When David learned what Rizpah, Saul’s concubine, had done, ¹²he went to the people of Jabesh-gilead and retrieved the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan. …¹³So David obtained the bones of Saul and Jonathan, as well as the bones of the men the Gibeonites had executed.

¹⁴Then the king ordered that they bury the bones in the tomb of Kish, Saul’s father, at the town of Zela in the land of Benjamin. After that, God ended the famine in the land.

These are the words of Octavia Butler, an African-American science fiction writer:

All that you touch
You Change.

All that you Change
Changes you.

The only lasting truth
is Change.

God
is Change.

Rizpah wasn’t someone you would have suspected of being able to change anything at all. A concubine in King Saul’s court, she was, essentially, a slave.

Perhaps as an act of defiance against Saul, Abner laid with Rizpah, and when he was accused by Saul’s son, did not deny that he had been with Rizpah, just acted as if he was owed her.

When King Saul died his violent death, Rizpah should have been moved into his son’s harem, but she wasn’t, because of Abner.

Years pass.

Famine comes into the land, and then-King David asks God why it has happened.

God says that the famine has come because of Saul’s sin of killing Gibeonites. So David summons the Gibeonites and asks how they can be appeased. The Gibeonites say, “Let seven of Saul’s sons be handed over to us, and we will execute them before the Lord at Gibeon, on the mountain of the Lord.^”

So King David does as they ask, and two of the sons he hands over are Rizpah’s.

The Gibeonites execute the sons, and toss their remains where the wild beasts and the carrion birds can pick at them.

All that you touch, You Change.

Even as she was, marginalized, powerless, enslaved, Rizpah changed all that she touched. She changed the trajectory between Saul and Abner, which caused Abner to support David, which caused David to be king.

She changed history.

All that you Change, Changes You.

Abner’s abdication of Saul changed Rizpah’s situation. She was no longer protected in Saul’s harem. No longer protected as Saul’s family. She couldn’t trust the people around her to take care of her.

I wonder who she blamed.

But then, I think, at this point, surely Rizpah has to begin telling the story of her life differently. I would think that standing out in a field, fending off wild animals and carrion birds, she would have to have stopped blaming victim of others, begun to see that she changed things. And not just that, but that she had made decisions that helped create the spot she was in now.

There’s an advice column on the web called “Ask Polly.” This week, Heather Havrilesky (Polly) answered a woman whose letter went something like this:

“My life is totally scrambled. My husband left me 17 months ago after 11 years together. At the time we had a 2 year old son, and I was on medication for postnatal depression.

“I owned my own business. My ex was out of work for about 18 months, so I invited him to join my business, where he worked for six months. Four days before he left me, he talked me into signing documents making the business ownership fifty-fifty. In the divorce, he won total rights to the company.

“I feel abandoned. And sad. I still think about my ex all the time and wonder how I can possibly get him to change his mind. Sometimes I think maybe I should try to be friends with him, but I know it’s actually about getting back together, and it will be too devastating when he inevitably meets someone else and moves on.

“Sometimes I feel venomous hatred toward him, but I also really think that’s covering this deep sadness.”

She signed the letter, “Scrambled,” and made her husband sound like the good guy.

Polly responds…

“Your husband… left you when your son was 2 years old and you were struggling with postpartum depression. He worked for your business for all of six months, then manipulated you into making it fifty-fifty with him KNOWING HE WOULD BE LEAVING, then TOOK THE WHOLE gosh darned COMPANY.

This isn’t just abandonment. This is cold, calculated, self-serving thievery.

“No wonder you can’t imagine starting over! No wonder you can’t quit dating! No wonder, no wonder, no wonder!

“The world beat in your kneecaps with a tire iron, then handed you a scented candle and said, “Believe in your dreams!” So this is why you’re stuck. You’re trying to process this pain without looking at the full truth of the pain.

“I’m not asking you to stop feeling sad. I’m asking you to start feeling EVERYTHING. Your fear of your anger is blocking all the joy. Feel it.”

Can’t you imagine that THIS is what Rizpah discovers sitting out in the open air, day and night, running off wild beasts and carrion birds?

That not only had she thought herself a pawn

in someone else’s game,

that maybe she was seeking to forgive,

and maybe she was blaming herself,

and that ultimately, Abner, the secret lover, was a jerk???

That somehow “the world beat in her kneecaps with a tire iron…” and wanted her to accept the whole thing? Can’t you imagine, that beating back the wild beasts and carrion birds, Rizpah felt everything?

The only lasting truth is Change.

Now the truth is, not all change is like the change that Rizpah experienced. She is in the midst of experiencing soul-crushing change.

Change that makes food taste bad in your mouth.

Change that makes you bone weary.

Change that makes you feel physical pain.

Change that breaks relationships.

Change is hard, isn’t it?

I’m always tempted to list out all the changes that have been happening in our lives, but why don’t you do it? Tell me about the changes in your life?

[At this point, I asked the congregation what changes they were going through. Some mentioned changing relationships—between parents and children, children and parents, others mentioned divorce, another mentioned a death that feels both sad and full of relief. Still another mentioned a journey with an alcoholic, and learning that they cannot control others.]

So let me ask you…

How does it make you feel if I say, “God is Change?”

Adrienne Maree Brown believes it makes sense. She believes that the nature of the world is change… when there was nothing, change happened, and then planets and stars appeared. Then some change happened and magic and miracles happened. Change, change, change… Amoebas, tadpoles, whales. And we are not the end of this journey. How could God create that much change in the system and not embody change in God’s self?

And if God is change, what does that mean to Rizpah?

It means sitting in the dark…Accepting what has happened and feeling it.
It means trusting that other change can come, and that not all change is bad. Rizpah brought about restoration of Saul’s place in the history (and tomb) of his family, along with her sons.
It means we’re not alone in the change. God is right here with us.
It means that God is not shaken by change.

Oh friends, change is gonna come. Accept it, trust that it is not all bad, believe you are not alone, and believe that God has got this.

All that you touch
You Change.

All that you Change
Changes you.

The only lasting truth
is Change.

God
is Change.

Here’s a little prayer from Michael Leunig, an Australian poet.

God help us to change.

To change ourselves and to change our world.

To know the need for it.

To deal with the pain of it.

To feel the joy of it.

To undertake the journey without understanding the destination.

The art of gentle revolution.

Amen.

August 30, 2017 by lscholl

How Can We Know the Way? a sermon by Pastor Lia

Today’s sermon is based on John 14:1-7.

Today seemed like a good time to talk about preparing a dwelling place and where you’re going because the Fall Semester is starting here at Wake Forest University. Many of you have entered a new dwelling place this week, right? New dorm rooms. New house.

But as I sat to write this sermon this week, I had all the things running through my head. All. The. Things. I had to make sense of ALL. THE. THINGS.

Things like Charlottesville, White Supremacist rallies, the pardoning of Sherriff Joe Arpaio. Missiles in North Korea. Hurricane Harvey pounding the Southern coast. Worrisome things.

And also wonderful things, like the total eclipse of the sun—I was the doubter who just wanted to stay home, and instead we drove to Winnsboro, South Carolina, and watched it with physics nerds from Davidson College who created a solar system models and help little children keep their safety glasses on. For one minute and 21 seconds, when the world went that eerie color, I was floored by my own insignificance in the Universe, and yet I found a sense of camaraderie with my fellow humans.

There are other things, too. Things like new beginnings, which so many of you are experiencing today, at a new university, in a new stage of your life. New jobs. New places to live. New experiences. New friends.

I wanted all of you to feel good when you leave here, and to know that there is work to do. I wanted to figure out a way to say, “Welcome to the next phase of your life. Honor the ways you got here. Be proud of yourself and grateful for those who brought you here. And finally, smash the patriarchy and dismantle white supremacy!”

I could think of no better thing to do than to look to the poets for guidance.

I started with David Whyte, who, in a 2017 TEDTalk explains that who we are is somewhere between everyone’s expectations of us and our expectations of others. Your first task, as a first year student in college, is to spend time in that middle ground. To try new things, to discover new passions, and to figure out what you dislike, too. In every new stage of our lives, we must answer the question, “Who am I now?”

We have to work to rid ourselves of some false truths. We must make peace with the fact that we are vulnerable, and not immune to all the difficulties, illness, and losses of life. We must reconcile ourselves to the knowledge that we will have our hearts broken. And finally, that must become comfortable with the fact that we cannot see the future from where we stand. We live in vulnerable bodies, with vulnerable hearts, and we cannot see into the future.

David Whyte says in another interview, “The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, … how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance. Our choice is to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully, or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant, and fearful, always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter, never wanting to risk ourselves, never walking fully through the door.”

In our text, Jesus is inhabiting that vulnerability “Let not your hearts be troubled,” he says. Jesus knows what’s coming—that his body is vulnerable, even to the cross, that his heart will be broken by his friends, like Peter’s denial, and that even he doesn’t know exactly what will happen. It’s the human condition. This is his goodbye speech. “Let not your hearts be troubled,” he says.

And it’s important that we started with the incarnation in the earlier text, John 1:1-5. “In the beginning was the Word… The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t overcome it.” David White calls incarnation, “becoming visible in the world.” And it’s a work we do all our lives. “To be human is to become visible while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.” Throughout our lives, we become more and more visible—and our gifts become bigger.

Knowing these limitations, we must still ask the question, “Where do I want to go?” And getting there—getting to the place we want to go—takes deliberate steps, but also flexibility. Things will work to dishearten us. Things will take too long, be too hard.

So then, what do you do?

Well, you construct a community. If you haven’t already, you can do that here, in this space, with these folks. Or with your new roommates, or with a group of likeminded folks on campus. Maybe you organize a community around your loves—music, nerd-stuff, politics or pizza. If you haven’t already heard, Barbecue is a religion around these parts, and ACC basketball, too. Maybe you organize a community around your hopes for the future.

David Whyte writes:

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the

conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

And once you know who you are, and have a community around you, you find a purpose. My purpose is offering love—and is centered around the belief that acceptance is the greater part of love. I found my purpose doing of things I liked, and a whole lot more things I didn’t like.

I don’t know what your purpose is. Maybe it’s to cure cancer. Maybe it’s to write the next Hamilton. Maybe it’s to be the next Serena Williams. Maybe it’s to build at business that at one time creates incredible wealth and solves major issues in the world. Maybe, just maybe, it’s to smash the patriarchy. But maybe it is going to Mars.

And speaking of Mars, here is a poem written by Nikki Giovanni is called We’re Going to Mars. I believe it speaks to finding our purpose.

We are going to Mars for the same reason Marco Polo rocketed to China,

For the same reason Columbus trimmed his sails on a dream of spices,

For the very same reason Shackleton was enchanted with penguins,

For the reason we fall in love,

It is the only adventure.

We are going to Mars because Perry could not go to the North Pole without Matthew Henson,

Because Chicago could not be a city without a Jean Baptiste du Sable,

Because George Washington Carver and his peanut were the right partners for Booker T.

It is a life-seeking thing.

We are going to Mars because whatever is wrong with us will not get right with us so we journey forward, carrying the same baggage

But every now and then leaving one little bitty thing behind: maybe drop torturing Hunchbacks here, maybe drop lynching Billy Budd there, maybe not whipping Uncle Tom to death, maybe resisting global war.

One day looking for prejudice to slip,

One day looking for hatred to tumble down the waste side,

One day maybe the whole community will no longer be vested in who sleeps with whom.

Maybe one day the Jewish community will be at rest, the Christian community will be content, the Muslim community will be at peace

And all the rest of us will get great meals at holy days and learn new songs and sing in harmony.

We are going to Mars because it gives us a reason to change.

Find yourself. Create a community. Live your purpose. And always remember: The light overcomes the darkness. Amen.

June 23, 2015 by Susan

The Light Shines in the Darkness

Sermon by Kim Christman

WFBC, June 21, 2015

When I was little I was afraid of the dark, especially the monsters that were lurking under my bed and the huge spiders that would crawl out of my closet as soon as my parents turned out the light. I would call out to my mom and dad to come and look under the bed for me because I was too afraid to do it myself. And they would come and help me go back to sleep and feel safe. They were the presence of God in Psalm 27; they made a refuge for me, a refuge of love and protection. While these childlike fears are just a normal stage of development, the fear of the dark can be much more serious. We learn from an early age in all kinds of fairy tales to fear the dark, the dark forest, the dark castle, the dark cave. Modern tales use the imagery of darkness all the time. Think of Harry Potter and the dark forbidden forest and the Dark Lord, The Lord of the Rings has the Land of Shadow, and in Star Wars there is Dark Side of the Force.

Modern news stories are full of accounts of violent crime that happen in the darkness of our city streets and our country neighborhoods and the darkness of family lives. We were all catapulted into a dark place Wednesday night with the news of a mass killing inside a Charleston, SC church, what is supposed to be a sanctuary, a safe place, a place of light. The mystics talk about the Dark Night of the Soul, a time of great anguish and terror. Maybe that’s why we turn to the Psalms that deal with the fears of the night and darkness like Psalm 23, “Ye, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” And, “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” Perhaps that’s why we sing so many hymns about light—because we need them. We sing “Send the Light,” and in “Joyful Joyful” we sing,“Melt the clouds of sin and sadness, Drive the dark of doubt away. Giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day.” There is “Immortal, invisible, God only wise, In light inaccessible, hid from our eyes.” Light is the beginning of creation, it is wonderful, it helps us see, it gives us life, gives us the hope of a new day.

The writer of Psalm 27, probably David, wrote about light, perhaps because he knew the darkness of vulnerability, loneliness and fear. And, thanks to God, the Psalmist reminds us that our ability to trust is not dependent on our own human ability, our discipline or even our desire. It comes from God. We love because God first loved us. We trust God because God is trustworthy. We have faith because God if faithful. And there is more encouragement in that as we don’t have to compare ourselves or our faith to others. We can all lean on the same source and remind each other to do so without fear.

And we need to remind each other. Sometimes we need to do the reminding, and other times we are the ones who need reminding because we all face times when our world threatens to steal that trust and faith away from us. That is the deepest threat, more than the real dangers of our world, the fear of losing our confidence in God maybe even the fear of losing God. We need to be reminded that God is present. We need to repeat the Psalm. We need to read it again and again, particularly in the midst of the loss of 9 faithful brothers and sisters. I want to say their names.

Clementa Pickney

Sharonda Coleman-Singleton

Cynthia Hurd

Tywanza Sanders

Susie Jackson

Myra Thompson

Ethel Lee

Lance Daniel L. Simmons

Depayne Middleton-Doctor

We look for, we plead for God’s presence. And we remember with great sadness that this is not the first time someone has been killed in a church. In 1963, four girls were killed in 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmigham, Alabama. In 1974, Dr. Martin Luther King’s mother, Mrs. Alberta Williams King was murdered while sitting at the organ. In 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero was killed while celebrating mass in El Salvador. In the Bible, Zechariah was killed between the altar and the temple. And so we plead for God to protect us because we recognize that there is no place safe from danger, no secure place on earth, save in the depths of our innermost souls.

Perhaps that’s why I believe this Psalm is one Psalm and not two because we live in a back and forth space of darkness and light, confidence and fear, gratitude for past deliverance and pleading for deliverance now. We can respond to frightening things with trust and pleading at the same time. And so when we are overwhelmed with tragedies, with losses, with fear, we need to be reminded that somewhere there is a light that shines in dark places, when all other lights go out. This is a quote from JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and it accompanied a gift of a glass that held the light of the Elves’ most beloved star. I imagine that as a child I would have slept better if I had had one under my pillow. But we really have it. We have it in our hearts. It opens to me the possibility that God’s light is present inside of us even when our surroundings are completely overwhelming. When we can’t see any light at all—in times like this week—we remember from John’s Gospel that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it, cannot overpower it, cannot put it out.

On Wednesday night, Stan and I were watching the movie Selma. In the film, when King goes to visit the father of Jimmy Lee Jackson who was murdered, he says, “There are no words. But I do know this—that God was the first to cry.” On Wednesday night, God was the first to cry.

The Psalms are a book of songs that are meant to be sung more than once. I remember a friend of mine gave me a cassette of poetry and I listened to it and then started to give it back to her and told her that I had heard it. She said, “Just once?” I said, “Yes,” The way she looked at me I knew I had just begun to learn that poetry. I began to really listen to it again and again, and the poetry began to do its work. The same with the Psalms. We read and sing them more than once. Not just to enjoy them but because we need to be reminded of what they say, particularly ones like Psalm 27. I need reminders not to be afraid because too often there are too many things to fear in this world. In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Lucy is having a session with Charlie Brown and tries to identify his fears and goes through a long list with him. Finally leans over getting very close to him and asks, “Do you think you have pantophobia?” He asks, “What’s that?” “The fear of everything.” Then, after a moment Charlie Brown shouts at the top of his lungs, “THAT’S IT!!!”

So whatever your fears or anxieties, whether one thing or everything, you can put them right in the middle of this Psalm. Write it in because they can fit right in, whatever they are. Whatever your dark place is when all other lights go out, that is where God is. If it’s a terrible tragedy, fear not. If it’s a long time struggle, fear not. If it’s just a really bad day, fear not. And whether or not the enemies encircling you seem to prevail, fear not. Remember that the real battle of fear is inside ourselves. And that my friends is the place where God’s refuge is secure, where nothing in this world can touch or take away, where the light shines no matter what. Fear not to have hope, to carry on, to get up, because you never get up on your own. It is God who pulls you out of the fear and sets you high upon a rock.

Sometimes I need to remember the stories I love to help me face my fears and say, “If Sam and Frodo can climb Mt. Doom to destroy the Ring, then maybe I can do somethings small for God.” If Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and John Lewis can stand up for racial justice in the face of all kinds of fears and terrors, maybe I can stand up and speak up when I need to. And if the families of the slain worshipers of the church in Charleston can go to a courtroom and offer forgiveness, then maybe I can get up in the morning and take part in a meeting that I dread and seek to find a way to bear some kind of small witness to the transforming power of love of God. If Jesus could climb Calvary’s hill and not lift a finger in his own defense, maybe I can at least slow down my tendencies to be on the defensive and to be right all the time. And if Jesus can die and come back to life, then maybe I can face any day of trouble and see it as an opportunity to practice resurrection.

My dad’s final days were in the category of “days of trouble.” And it took me a while to engage all the emotions that surrounded us during that time. Sometimes it felt like and army surrounding me ready to devour me. But when we found ourselves in your company, when I spoke to several of you on the phone, saw you at Salemtowne, when Lia came to be with us, when so many of you came to the funeral, when Woody and the choir provided such beautiful music of consolation, when you said your own personal words of remembrance, peace and comfort, and when so many of you prayed for us with deep love, we were and are sustained. You were and are the presence of God that is in Psalm 27. When I was particularly sad and afraid and not able to see the light, you held the light for me, reminded me that it still did exist in the midst of my fears and grief. You reminded me that the light still shines in the darkness when all other lights go out. You gave me the courage to lean onto God’s presence, onto the strength of this community of faith through which I have continued to be blessed.

Many of you know that Stan and I have recently returned from almost a year in Cuba. There are many people there who prayed for us during the time of my dad’s illness and death. I want to mention our sister church in a small village called La Vallita. My sister Carolyn and I put some sea shells and rocks on my dad’s grave because he loved the beach. The pastor of our sister church named Sila has a granddaughter named Ruth Vivian. She found a special rock that she gave me to bring back and put on my dad’s grave, to remind me that they prayed for us and are still praying for us. This rock that reminds me that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out.

Most of the time we understand Scripture to day that darkness is something to be endured, to overcome, to get through. However, what if there is something more to darkness? What if darkness is more than just a place to be feared? What if darkness has something to contribute to life? Our bodies need the dark. The earth needs the dark. Plants need the dark. Seeds need a dark place in the earth to be reborn. Without the dark, there is no rebirth. Could the dark be another place of trust without fear, a mysterious place of new life?

Wendell Berry wrote this:

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark,

go without sight

and find that the dark too blooms and sings

and is traveled by angel feet and angel wings

Maybe Jesus can be the light of the world and the dark of the world. Maybe the darkness can be a place of rest, mystery and rebirth. Perhaps we need not fear the darkness after all. Neither do we need to fear the light. We need not fear the mystery. We need not fear at all.