"And Are We Yet Alive?"

These are the words we will sing together to begin our worship Sunday. Why? Because these are the words sung at the start of each Methodist Conference since the time of John Wesley.

I find them apropos for Sunday, because for many, it feels like a fatal blow was struck to our United Methodist Church this week at the A Way Forward General Conference when the global church voted by a slim majority to pass a “traditional plan,” punishing any Methodists who prayerfully choose to ordain our called LGBTQ siblings and marry faithful same-gendered couples.

Overwhelmed with emotion, I invited the congregation to come Wednesday night to a time of pizza, prayer, and processing. Forty (40) of you arrived on a moment's notice. We agreed together that "we" may be in somewhat different places…some of us are hurt or angry enough to step back or break away from the church and others are revved up enough to want to organize and mobilize for change. So, we first listed out all our emotions in our hearts followed by all our thoughts, questions, plans, etc, in our heads. Finally, we wrote out the prayers of our souls.

Interestingly, the words most used in describing your feelings were confusion and concern, followed by anger, embarrassment, and scared. All of these are so real, and I feel them with you.

The word used most for prayers was love, followed by live, hope, and courage. Why am I not surprised the top word was love?! You are a people who have chosen to be “the heart of God in the community,” and you are just that in countless ways each day! And all the frequently used words describe qualities of true prophets, followers of God who recognize the pain and brokenness of our world and respond by rooting themselves in God’s fierce love for us and hope for the world.

Noteworthy to me, emotions were shared while ideas for how to respond individually and communally varied. I know not how you and I are each individually called to respond. How will we best care for our LGBTQ siblings? How will we respond to the denomination and work for justice for ALL? How / what will we change so that we can most faithfully reach out to and love the beautifully diverse community of Capitol Hill? All are unanswered questions at the moment. But what I know for certain is that God will help us come together to discern as a community God’s call on CHUMC. You have done this many times (Reconciling; Growing Heart’s Campaign; Marriage Policy; Housing Justice Ministry; God’s Heart, Our Home campaign; etc.) and exemplify Scripture’s command to embrace the value and importance of each member of our body. And if you would like to serve on the CHUMC team who helps lead us through this discernment, please let Pastor Alisa know.

For this sermon, we consider passages from the law, the prophets, and the gospels. In Exodus, try to imagine such a face to face conversation with God? What would you say today? What is on your heart? In Isaiah, picture the feast the prophet describes, and come hungry to our open communion table where all are fed and we receive God’s grace together. In Luke, we see Jesus shine brighter than any light we have known before and try to imagine the path God is lighting for us as we go into this unknown future with the known, felt, and revealed love of Christ our Savior.

In times of ambiguity, I turn to the prophets - those who help us look forward to God’s vision for us. In this sermon, we will conclude our series exploring Dr. Martin Luther King’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech. Together, we consider what he refused to accept and why. Then we will ponder what he holds tight to and why.

We encourage you to hold tight to all we have learned from the PROPHETS this series. A prophet is grounded in scriptural hope and courageous love, discerning with a tough mind and loving with a tender heart, persistently knocking on the door for another’s need, and social engagement led by the Spirit and the Word.

Nathan talks about Our Daily Bread Breakfast Ministry

“How Should a Christian View Communism?”

That’s the question Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. posed to his congregation in a sermon from 1963. What do you think? How should a Christian view Communism? Capitalism? Socialism? You name the ideology?

As we continue in our A Prophet for Today sermon series, we are going to ponder, why did Dr. King and other Christian pastors including CHUMC’s founding pastor, take on Communism and other social issues? Were they living into the scriptural prophetic tradition or blurring the lines between faith and politics? What do the practices of these proclaimers of old tell us about our voice in the public sphere and our role today in secular and political movements? And is there a more perfect weekend for such a sermon than President’s Day Weekend?

We will enter this conversation through Scripture, including Amos 5:24, the verse for King’s sermon on Communism. You’ve heard this word proclaimed many times: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” With this sermon, take a moment and imagine: if justice were to roll into our community today, what would that look like? What’s one policy, process, or practice that would change?

On what doors are you knocking these days and why? And when are you knocking on them?

Continuing in our sermon series, A Prophet for Today, we are going to explore Christian Persistence through Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sermon, “A Knock at Midnight.” Through the somewhat confusing parable in Luke 11, we will consider whose door should we be knocking on for healing, for nourishment, and for justice. And we'll consider who may be knocking on our door, as individuals and as a church, and how are we called and equipped to respond?

Part of what I love about the parable is that the man did not come knocking in the bright peak of day, but rather the dark of night. If you feel like it is “midnight” in America or in your life or even in the United Methodist denomination, then this sermon especially is for you.

The power of this parable is in the promise that midnight, our darkest hour, will be interrupted. Even in the dark of night, we’re not alone. Instead, a friend comes calling, inviting us to help another.

Information about the grant we received from the Wesley Innovation Hub to help us reach young adults.

Who loves the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? I always have. Ieven proposed these names to Chris for one of our boys (clearly I did not win that one!). They were prophets of their time. After all, a prophet is one who sees things as they are (dangers and all) and speaks to how God would want it to be. These men fully understood the danger of ego-centric leaders but refused to conform to their unfaithful demands even though that meant facing death itself.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. puts it this way:

"The courage of three Hebrew boys-Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is still a challenge to us today. The King Nebuchadnezzar had ordered that all were to bow down and worship the golden image. But there stood in the midst three Hebrew boys who were determined not to bow down, and they said to the King, 'If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, but f not we will still not bow.' Who today can stand up and refuse to bow in a crowd where everybody else is bowing?"

Is there anything you are bowing to today? Or is there simply some space in your life where you need courage?

If so, come to this sermon as we continue our series A Prophet for Today, and explore Christian courage through Daniel 3, Romans 12:1-2, and Dr. Kings sermons’ "Transformed Nonconformist" and "Creatively Maladjusted."

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Are you tough or tender?

In this sermon, as we continue our series, A Prophet for Today, we will explore additional qualities of a prophet. (In our last sermon, we defined a prophet as the mouthpiece and messenger of God’s will and ways). In our Gospel lessons for Sunday, Jesus sends out his disciples with clear directions including, “Bbe wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” Dr. King calls this a command to develop and keep a “Tough Mind and a Tender Heart.” In his sermon of that name, which I highly recommend you read, Rev. King explains, "Not ordinarily do men achieve this balance of opposites. The idealists are not usually realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self-assertive, or the self-assertive humble. But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony….” Then referencing Matthew 10:16, King continues. "It is pretty difficult to imagine a single person having, simultaneously, the characteristics of the serpent and the dove, but this is what Jesus expects. We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.”

So, what antithesis is God calling you to hold together right now? Grief and Hope? Righteous Anger and Mercy for all? Email me ([email protected]) with any supposed “duplicities” God is working on with you.

What if the Apostle Paul came to Washington, DC today and stopped by CHUMC. Imagine that on his way home, he wrote to us like he did Corinth and Philippi. What do you think he would say to you and me? What would catch his eye? Where would he see God? Where would he need to challenge and redirect us?

With this sermon, we begin a new sermon series entitled, A Prophet for Today. For six weeks, we will explore what it takes to be a prophet, a mouthpiece of God’s word and justice work, through sermons and writings of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Here, we start with Dr. King’s 1958 sermon entitled “Paul’s Letter to American Christians.” Please read over the Scriptures, and ponder both your definition of a Prophet and what Paul would write to American Christians in 2019.