Douglass Church - Douglass Blvd Christian Church

"For too many people in our culture, being Christian means obsessing about what average people do with their genitals, while ignoring what wealthy people do with their checkbooks. "It means embracing people who say 'Merry Christmas,' while ignoring babies born into squalor and poverty. "Christianity, for too many people today, means 'saving souls for Jesus,' while often despising those same souls until they have the decency and good sense to become more like you." Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: [ web][1] | [ doc][2] [1]: [2]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a1-oNydfWk0EkbXM4q7KCiNMCWv6Ch2H/view?usp=sharing

We live in a world where the deck has been historically and consistently stacked against those who haven’t had the power to protect themselves and their children. Racism, huge disparities in wealth and opportunity, xenophobia, misogyny, vast repositories of prejudice against LGBTQ people and the disabled. These are wrongs that can’t be fixed with well-intentioned expressions of regret. Sometimes, when things are bad enough, historically entrenched enough, systems need to be dismantled and rebuilt. Jesus called such a dismantling and rebuilding “the reign of God.” According to Isaiah, according to the Gospels, when “sorry” isn’t enough to fix the old world, we need a new world. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: [ web][1] | [ doc][2] [1]: [2]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rpnXixjkxujXlsu0JaAeaHavTCFNXKN-/view?usp=sharing

The temptation is to believe that if you’re doing the right thing for all the right reasons that you should win everyone’s approval. How can anybody be mad at you? You’re just trying to do the right thing? But that’s not how it works. Sometimes doing the right thing can get you fired. Ask Jesus, sometimes doing the right thing can get you killed. I want to say to folks who claim that Jesus makes everything better: 'Have you ever actually met this Jesus? I don’t know about you, but every time I bump into him he’s stomping around in steel-toed boots, busting up furniture and smashing the good dishes.' Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: [ web][1] | [ doc][2] [1]: [2]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ua7KulBL-8ayPxM9IV_zpYG9iAzL9cf6/view?usp=sharing

The circle of the beloved community isn’t wide enough until the poor and the powerless get to sit at the same table with the rich and the powerful. It isn’t wide enough until that corner of the lunch room where they sit has been moved to the center, and the kids who’ve never had a voice get to sing like angels.

A new power has been unleashed against the powers and principalities—a new reign of justice and peace, a confrontation of the powers who, at worst, punish those who are broken and cast off, and at best, ignores them. And all it takes are a few ordinary people willing to stand up by the power and name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth to the rulers of this world and offer true healing. A few words can make a lot of noise. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: [ web][1] | [ doc][2] [1]: [2]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vtZxyfuIL_apXRRsPQUrODfZ3V8ykJ5t/view?usp=sharing

Easter is God's unwillingness to abide a future defined by loss and grief. Easter opens up a new horizon where oppression and exploitation no longer rule, where the machinery of the state no longer serves only the powerful and the wealthy, where hope is no longer mindless dreaming but the promise of a new world built on love and justice. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: [ web][1] | [ doc][2] [1]: [2]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/172c6wARb5pMvjq0eHFORQkxLCzKqDktc/view?usp=sharing

In other words, when structures and organizations, when systems and laws, when policies and procedures are put in place to make sure the people in power stay in power while simultaneously making sure that the people who are 'supposed' to stay on the outside stay on the outside, the Holy Spirit shows up and starts making trouble. Every time. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: [ web][1] | [ doc][2] [1]: [2]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aLd4zXtmFfCyfaxMlpb42YiPf6huo5OP/view?usp=sharing

Isaiah also seems to think there’s more to see. We’ve lived with a vision of reality that includes the clutching, grasping, irresistible pursuit of Death—not only the death of the body, but the threat of death that makes us hate and fight and fear. But Isaiah sees more. Isaiah sees a world where God reigns on a holy mountain. And on this mountain Death no longer calls the shots. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: [ web][1] | [ doc][2] [1]: [2]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JTzIztGx5cJQmgTRpv10f4LysenyznO3/view?usp=sharing

Pilate represents a king who rules the masses through fear and intimidation, a king who’s quick to unleash violence upon those who might question his reign. Surrounded by the engines of war, this king demonstrates his weak hold on power, knowing that if he lets down his guard for even a moment, if he lets any slight go unanswered, the oppressed will rise up against. But Jesus, he’s a ruler 'who will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem.' Jesus, riding on the back of a donkey, promises a political alternative to the blood and cruelty of Caesar—a promise of peace to the nations—a release from governments that oppress and destroy the weak and the vulnerable. Two different parades going on simultaneously—one that sought to maintain the power of the state to crush the powerless, and another that gathered the voices of the powerless to challenge the oppressive power of the state. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: [ web][1] | [ doc][2] [1]: [2]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wEqoE3doO7jUXQJauSKk5oLjKttdEWaa/view?usp=sharing

There’s no room in the economy of God for self-promoters and glory hounds. It's easy to think that it's all about me, about what's in it for you-know-who. So when I come looking for Jesus, what I see still surprises me. In Jesus, the powers and principalities behold God’s countering of this world’s glory with glory of God’s own. Because God doesn't always see glory in the things that we we value, in the people we hold up as 'winners.' Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: [ web][1] | [ doc][2] [1]: [2]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YY5U8-pCE9Inj5YHpES-Tw1JjrNs810_/view?usp=sharing