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Summer Guest Series: Reverend Kimberly Scott - June 14th, 2020
Foundry's Summer Guest Series starts with a guest sermon from Reverend Kimberly Scott
For Such A Time As This-
I. It is indeed and privilege and honour that I stand before you today…For Such a time as time…A few months ago, I could imagined I’d preaching for you today Foundry…The Day following my Ordination as an Elder in Full Connection of the Desert Southwest Conference….Had some one told 10 years ago that would be standing in a virtual pulpit/ anyone virtual pulpit today I wouldn’t have believed…
Preaching, teaching and being a leader CHURCH in the was never on my bucket list church….But God, has been up to something for such a time as this….
A time in which so much of our lives have been put on hold due to COVID 19 PANDEMIC ….A time in which LGBTQIA folks in the UMC are faced with the reality that their promise land has seemingly disappeared over the horizon, and in now out of site…
AT a time such as this that our history, our past has seeming become our new or a renewed reality……. I know this your PRIDE SUNDAY, but it would be socially irresponsible to NOT
You see I understand that there are some of you, who you assumed you’d lived through worst season of racial tension, discrimination, injustice and inequality in this country…
I recognize that some of lived through the Jim Crow era, the Civil Rights, Woman’s Lib and Gay and Lesbian Right Movement…
AND there is at least one, generation of persons gathered here today who truly grew up believing they lived in a color blind society…
Some of us thought systemic racism and homophobia was dead in this country with the election of Barack Obama,
AND then there’s unfortunate reality that some gathered here today have seen the CHURCH at war with itself all your life due issues of colonialism, racism, sexism and homophobia….
In other words, some of us have been waiting for TRANSFORMATION to come in in our streets, in the church and our world for way too long…
We are sick and tired of being sick of creating new hash tags…
So what is our call as faithful followers of a Jesus Christ who died so that all might be set FREE?
What is our call as those who claim to serve a Jesus who died to set the oppressed free and so that through his Body humanity might live into the reality of the REALIZED Kin-dom of God?....
I don’t have all of the answers but today text situates us in life of Esther to aid us finding our way forward…For Such A Time as this
II. The text: For Such a time as this
Although most of us have heard or are familiar with the famous quote for such a time as this, from the book of Esther..
Due to the fact that Esther rarely makes the lectionary many don’t know the full or context that makes that statement so profound.
So let us start with who Esther is…
She is a young Jewish woman, orphaned due the death of her parents. Fortunately, she is adopted by her cousin Mordecai.
Mordecai serves as a courier within the Kings royal court…
At this time in Bible History the Jews, God’s chosen people, are in exile. Jerusalem was conquered, its people taken in chains into Babylonian captivity.
So the Jews of the diaspora have, settled and made their homes in Susa, and they are living as a recognized religious minority in the heart of the powerful Persian empire….Thus living on the margins…
Thus, as an orphan and a Jewish female, Esther is a nobody among nobodies in this minority community.
With her true identity kept secret, Esther first appears in the story as one of the young virgins brought into the king's harem, by her cousin Mordecai to be a possible replacements for Vashti, the banished wife of the Persian King.
After a year living in the harem being trained, Esther pleases the king and is eventually crowned queen.
Remember All this takes place while Esther keeps her Jewish identity thus her relation to Mordecia secret (Esth 2:10, 20).
Meanwhile Mordecai he has won favor by serving the king faithfully and even preventing an assassination attempt.
Somehow Mordecai’s Jewish heritage becomes known to an enemy by the of Haman. Haman is also a favored member of the King’s royal court.
Yet, he is jealous of Mordecai and his standing with the king.
Mordecai get into a power struggle with a Haman Mordecai refuses to bow before Haman, and this so infuriates Haman.
Haman decides not only to put Mordecai to death, but also to slaughter his entire people. And he secures the king's permission to do this.
Our text today in Esther 4 picks up right after Mordecai has learned of Haman's plot and he is distraught.
In this distraught state, weeping, and dressed in sackcloth and ashes he shows up at the palace gate wanting to inform Esther of what’s taken place.
After going back and forth with a messenger, Eventually Mordecai reveals Haman’s plot to exterminate all the, Jews…
And pleads for Esther to beg for the Kings mercy to spare her people’s lives
As was read in our text…When Esther first learns of Haman's plot and the threat to her people, her reaction is one of reluctance, helplessness and hopelessness.
She tells Mordecai she could not approach the king without being summoned, and she could possibly face death,
and besides the king has not summoned for me in thirty days, implying that she has fallen out of favor.
Yet, Mordecai's is persistent and send on one last plea:
“Esther, ‘Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the Jews.
For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish.
And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?’” Esther 4:13-14 (NASB)
III. What is this story about…
Well right away we learn that the leaders of the Persian empire/ Haman, had an agenda… A racist agenda to exterminate all the Jews.
We might now a little bit in this country about racist agenda to exterminate a group of people…
We know a little bit AS Methodist about homophobic agenda to exterminate queer people from the church….
So we should be able to place ourselves inside this story…
FOUNDRY….I need you to place yourself inside this story….
FOUNDRY….I need you to place yourself inside this story….
Foundry…ESTHER…
Esther you are facing the genocide of yourself your people…You are being given a difficult task…..
1. To choose action or to choose to be SILENT when your people needed her the most.
2.Esther you’ve got to choose rather to confront your husband/spouse, the King, the power be,
risking death simply by entering a room without being asked or to do nothing and continue to live a plus life as the Queen Esther.
3. Esther you can choose to plead with your husband/spouse the king, to stop this ethnic cleansing or to do nothing.
4. Esther you can save yourself and your people or you can do nothing.
So secondly this is narrative about choice and free will?
God always give use Choices right……Since the beginning….
Now..When we reflect on Esther’s life, who she was, where she had come from and then read 13-15 it can easily come across as Mordecai scolded her focus self-preservation
In others words we might take it as MORDECAI calling her out for being selfish..…
But listen….Let’s read the text again…
Do not think that because you are in the King’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish.
More than any other thing the word that sticks out to me…Is the phrase…For if you remain SILENT time this….For if you remain silent this time
HERE Mordecai catches ESTHER’s attention by clueing her in to the bigger picture…the broader context of who she is..
He essentially say her, although it feels LIKE you have arrived-
You have not made it to your promise land because your in the King’s palace living a lavish life
DON”T forget …You are still a JEW..….
Mordecia is saying…Esther your LIFE is not simply about YOU…But about us……
You did not make it to this PALACE:
for yourself
or by yourself
or because of yourself..
So, don’t to comfortable yet…WE-a collective WE are not arrived at your promise land..
If you remain silent at this time and focus on yourself…Eventually relief will come to our people by you and your family will die….
In speaking these words to Esther…Mordecai draws her away from the needs of self and self-preservation
to a sense of connectivism and into to the UNBUTU spirit..
I am BECAUSE you are…
You are BECAUSE I am
He reminds her she had been CHOSEN for this TIME to set ASIDE her own interests, goals and desire
to let go of her own ambitions, and face their common foe full-on.
And how does Esther reply…
him.
With that message Esther is inspired….No she is compelled to take control…To act quickly in this crisis to save her people in the midst of the threat of death…
She is obediently, faithful.. she is a team player….Eshter goes on to be the savior of her people….She was indeed call for Such a time as this….
She was called to risk her life and her legacy with no guarantees of a positive outcome. Just on faith and Goodwill…
That’s the “for such a time as this” Mordecai challenged Esther to accept.
And that’s the “for such a time as this” God also sets before you and me… So what do we learn from Esther?
So what is Esther teaching here?
First, this is call to not be SILENT when a CRISIS arise amongst our people..When we see harm being done..When injustice in present…In our world…In our churches…
Over the last week, we’ve all heard the stories about people all over the world reacting with protest, riots and marches due to the George Floyd case….
AND to BE quite I honest I really wrestled with my own response the first few days because quite frankly I was scared…
I was scared about being hurt, arrested, being in the wrong place at the wrong time….
Pause…
And then across the screen flashed on a protestors sign….
Silence = Violence…. Silence = Compliance… …Riots are the voice of the unheard…..
And then the kicker…In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of FRIEND…
I instantly felt convicted like I should be doing something…I took it as my call to stop sitting on the sidelines and to become a part of the solution….
So wrapped up in Esther’s is a call, is Esther teaching us to use our voice to
…To give encourage us …To give us courage AND The power to speak FREEDOM for the captive…For the oppressed…
-Freedom is the call to a protect LIFE of via the ACT of love,
TO SPEAK words of FREEDOM is to BRING ALL TO A PLACE OF wholeness and abundance…
---The call to speak of freedom and speak freedom into EXISTENCE for others ,
challenges evil, destructiveness, oppression, violence, decay, and defeats death…..
AND this INDEED Good news!
So
-How do we speak of freedom in a world suffering?
- We must be A voices for the voiceless…To speak NEW truth to power..
Because next in our text, There ESTHER’s story models for us how to live OUT OUR CALL AND to put the community
and God’s Kin-Dom building work ahead of our self-seeking ambition..Imagine that…
God has given each of us a job/careers, resources, education and influence….
God has opened doors and given each of us opportunities for God’s Kin-Dom purposes.
God didn’t create us to just sit back and live a lavish life not focused on the world around us.
The more resources and privilege we have the more WE have that belongS to God…
As Luke 12:48 teaches to whom much is given much is required…
BECAUSE God placed us where we ARE today to literally be apart of building UP a NEW WORLD…
PAUSE
I had the privilege of attending the Iliff School of Theology at time when the late Dr. Vincent Harding was there…Dr. Harding assisted in the writing of many of Martin Luther King Jr. speeches….
IN his experience walking beside and working with KING he was inspired to write a song sung to the tune of we are climbing Jacobs ladder, titled…We Are Building Up A New World….That is the song I lead in with today before the prayer…
VINCENT HARDING charged us at Iliff to take seriously our responsibility at Building Up A New World…To take seriously our Kind-Dom building responsibility…
THUS…Today we are in the midst of KinDom battle…The enemy would love to have it’s way by distracting us and
having us be continue to be inwardly focused on the all things that matter to us…But God didn’t build us that way…
GOD BUILT us to BE IN COMMUNITY….
Esther could have easily continued to live the lavish LIFE in the King’s palace and let whatever happen to her people just happen…
But she would have most certainly have missed her Kin-Dom Calling and an entire nation would have been lost…
Instead an entire nation was grateful for how Esther responded to Mordecai’s REQUEST. Their lives were spared.
How many lives matter to you? Who’s lives truly manner to you… How have you shown it….
I answered my call to ministry at a time I was mad at God the church for all the harm I had a experienced and openly queer lay person who faithfully served the church….
But God said kin stop whining and crying about how horrible the church has been to you and God and be a part of changes the church, because are not the only one who has been harmed or being harmed by the church….
.And that’s how convinced me of my first for such a time as this moment…. To leave behind, my church, my family and my career…
You see as school counselor for 10 in las Vegas, NV I had witness LGBTQIA youth being harmed by due to the LDS, BAPTIST, CHURCH OF GOD upbringing to name a few.
I saw countless numbers of students in and out of treatment center, some end up runaways and others victims of suicide….
I know It is no mistake that the first Sermon God laid on my heart, An Untimely Commissioning to Speak, Just Might Save the Life of Nation or A People…With that sermon based on Moses calls story ..God was calling me new life of work….To save I believe a generation of LGBTQIA young people of Faith…….
FOUNDRY it’s not just by chance that less than a year AGO today I met your PASTOR and we would do some really HARD, UGLY, GRIMEY work together in our fight LGBTIA liberation in the UMC…..
It is not just by chance that the day after my ordination God has placed me an An openly QUEER/MARRIED, African American in before and placed it in my spirit to preach to proclaim For Such A Time as this because to the TIME IS Now….The time is NOW…My life, my ministry has been filled with taking risk…
Foundry you are being called to LIVE as IF your loved ones lives are AT RISK..
You are being CALLED to live as if you loved lives are at risk…
As if those nearest and dearest to you are the ones facing extermination …Extermination from the church because they are LGBTQIA….
As if those who are nearest and dearest to you are the one being fed the crumbs from the table of a crumbling church…
You are being CALLED to live as if you loved lives are at risk…
As if those nearest and dearest to you are facing or EXECUTION in the street because of the color of their skin..
So many black and brown lives could spared in the world today if today if we’d ALL choose to step up to service, to speak out against racism and police brutality And to fight for legislative and policy changes even if it involves sacrifice, of our money time, gift and talents…
So many QUEER and TRANSPERSONS lives and MINISTRY could be speared more of us would choose to step up the mic and SPEAK out,
Us their resources and political influence to find a way FORWARD to CREATE the church that JESUS died to build…
Finally…. Esther is teaching us here that our call to act is on God’s watch…God’s time not ours…
Esther got the call for Mordecai and responded urgently.. Was the call timely?
NO…In fact, it didn’t make human sense to Esther I’m sure.
She was sure she had finally arrived.. She was sure she had finally become SOMEBODY..Of high stature esteem and respect………
Yet Esther was obedient to the call… She used her privilege ..She sacrifice herself for the sake of others…For the sake of her people…
How many times have received a call to be apart of something that would have caused you to make a sacrifice and you said…
Oh no, not this at moment, this is terrible timing?
….Or perhaps this is not my time… OR I’ve done all that I can do…I’ll leave it to the next generation to figure out…
…We are just prolonging our collective suffering….We are prolonging the the Kin-Dom reality the God so desperately wants us to experience…
We are prolonging bringing an end to SUFFERING, INJUSTICE and OPPRESSION..…
We have been called to be the ones to free the oppressed recover sight to the blind..…
AND to bring about love, peace, and justice today for the transformation of the WORLD today in the hear now… Who are WE waiting ON to do our work for us?
Let us not delay the Kingdom building any longer….
We have been called….For such a time as this. Because the time is now……
Let us pray….
….We stand in awe of your timing, yet we have gathered together today embracing it…
Because as the song goes, all we have is now; To be faithful, To be holy And to shine lighting up the darkness.. For Such a time as this we were placed upon the earth
to hear the voice of God And do God will will…
For such a time as this we stand in awe Oh God for how you’ve readied us for your service , for how you commission us for your service at your pace.
… Oh God although the mystery of your timing seems to evade us, God in your timeliness and in your way you brought us here together from places near and fear, through many dangers seen and unseen, from many different life experiences, paths, cultures and social location and united as the Body.
Yet, we must also confess oh God we have left much undone…We have not adequality to proclaimed good news to the poor.
We have not adequately proclaimed liberty to the captives and allowed the blind to see,
We have not adequality free oppressed,
Continue to equip us in YOUR of work of Kin-DOM building…
Help us oh God continue to build your kingdom of justice, peace fueled the passionate love of you oh God, self and neighbor.
Empower us to see through your eye the inequalities of the world and in holy frustration be the change we want to see in our world.
Let us no longer allow for injustices and evils that that rob so many of their future.
Eternal God And above all, fill us with your Spirit and your Holy boldness…. That we might look to hours, days, and years ahead with hope, determination for such a time as this, because the TIME is NOW!
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Foundry's Summer Guest Series starts with a guest sermon from Reverend Kimberly Scott
For Such A Time As This-
I. It is indeed and privilege and honour that I stand before you today…For Such a time as time…A few months ago, I could imagined I’d preaching for you today Foundry…The Day following my Ordination as an Elder in Full Connection of the Desert Southwest Conference….Had some one told 10 years ago that would be standing in a virtual pulpit/ anyone virtual pulpit today I wouldn’t have believed…
Preaching, teaching and being a leader CHURCH in the was never on my bucket list church….But God, has been up to something for such a time as this….
A time in which so much of our lives have been put on hold due to COVID 19 PANDEMIC ….A time in which LGBTQIA folks in the UMC are faced with the reality that their promise land has seemingly disappeared over the horizon, and in now out of site…
AT a time such as this that our history, our past has seeming become our new or a renewed reality……. I know this your PRIDE SUNDAY, but it would be socially irresponsible to NOT
You see I understand that there are some of you, who you assumed you’d lived through worst season of racial tension, discrimination, injustice and inequality in this country…
I recognize that some of lived through the Jim Crow era, the Civil Rights, Woman’s Lib and Gay and Lesbian Right Movement…
AND there is at least one, generation of persons gathered here today who truly grew up believing they lived in a color blind society…
Some of us thought systemic racism and homophobia was dead in this country with the election of Barack Obama,
AND then there’s unfortunate reality that some gathered here today have seen the CHURCH at war with itself all your life due issues of colonialism, racism, sexism and homophobia….
In other words, some of us have been waiting for TRANSFORMATION to come in in our streets, in the church and our world for way too long…
We are sick and tired of being sick of creating new hash tags…
So what is our call as faithful followers of a Jesus Christ who died so that all might be set FREE?
What is our call as those who claim to serve a Jesus who died to set the oppressed free and so that through his Body humanity might live into the reality of the REALIZED Kin-dom of God?....
I don’t have all of the answers but today text situates us in life of Esther to aid us finding our way forward…For Such A Time as this
II. The text: For Such a time as this
Although most of us have heard or are familiar with the famous quote for such a time as this, from the book of Esther..
Due to the fact that Esther rarely makes the lectionary many don’t know the full or context that makes that statement so profound.
So let us start with who Esther is…
She is a young Jewish woman, orphaned due the death of her parents. Fortunately, she is adopted by her cousin Mordecai.
Mordecai serves as a courier within the Kings royal court…
At this time in Bible History the Jews, God’s chosen people, are in exile. Jerusalem was conquered, its people taken in chains into Babylonian captivity.
So the Jews of the diaspora have, settled and made their homes in Susa, and they are living as a recognized religious minority in the heart of the powerful Persian empire….Thus living on the margins…
Thus, as an orphan and a Jewish female, Esther is a nobody among nobodies in this minority community.
With her true identity kept secret, Esther first appears in the story as one of the young virgins brought into the king's harem, by her cousin Mordecai to be a possible replacements for Vashti, the banished wife of the Persian King.
After a year living in the harem being trained, Esther pleases the king and is eventually crowned queen.
Remember All this takes place while Esther keeps her Jewish identity thus her relation to Mordecia secret (Esth 2:10, 20).
Meanwhile Mordecai he has won favor by serving the king faithfully and even preventing an assassination attempt.
Somehow Mordecai’s Jewish heritage becomes known to an enemy by the of Haman. Haman is also a favored member of the King’s royal court.
Yet, he is jealous of Mordecai and his standing with the king.
Mordecai get into a power struggle with a Haman Mordecai refuses to bow before Haman, and this so infuriates Haman.
Haman decides not only to put Mordecai to death, but also to slaughter his entire people. And he secures the king's permission to do this.
Our text today in Esther 4 picks up right after Mordecai has learned of Haman's plot and he is distraught.
In this distraught state, weeping, and dressed in sackcloth and ashes he shows up at the palace gate wanting to inform Esther of what’s taken place.
After going back and forth with a messenger, Eventually Mordecai reveals Haman’s plot to exterminate all the, Jews…
And pleads for Esther to beg for the Kings mercy to spare her people’s lives
As was read in our text…When Esther first learns of Haman's plot and the threat to her people, her reaction is one of reluctance, helplessness and hopelessness.
She tells Mordecai she could not approach the king without being summoned, and she could possibly face death,
and besides the king has not summoned for me in thirty days, implying that she has fallen out of favor.
Yet, Mordecai's is persistent and send on one last plea:
“Esther, ‘Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the Jews.
For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish.
And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?’” Esther 4:13-14 (NASB)
III. What is this story about…
Well right away we learn that the leaders of the Persian empire/ Haman, had an agenda… A racist agenda to exterminate all the Jews.
We might now a little bit in this country about racist agenda to exterminate a group of people…
We know a little bit AS Methodist about homophobic agenda to exterminate queer people from the church….
So we should be able to place ourselves inside this story…
FOUNDRY….I need you to place yourself inside this story….
FOUNDRY….I need you to place yourself inside this story….
Foundry…ESTHER…
Esther you are facing the genocide of yourself your people…You are being given a difficult task…..
1. To choose action or to choose to be SILENT when your people needed her the most.
2.Esther you’ve got to choose rather to confront your husband/spouse, the King, the power be,
risking death simply by entering a room without being asked or to do nothing and continue to live a plus life as the Queen Esther.
3. Esther you can choose to plead with your husband/spouse the king, to stop this ethnic cleansing or to do nothing.
4. Esther you can save yourself and your people or you can do nothing.
So secondly this is narrative about choice and free will?
God always give use Choices right……Since the beginning….
Now..When we reflect on Esther’s life, who she was, where she had come from and then read 13-15 it can easily come across as Mordecai scolded her focus self-preservation
In others words we might take it as MORDECAI calling her out for being selfish..…
But listen….Let’s read the text again…
Do not think that because you are in the King’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish.
More than any other thing the word that sticks out to me…Is the phrase…For if you remain SILENT time this….For if you remain silent this time
HERE Mordecai catches ESTHER’s attention by clueing her in to the bigger picture…the broader context of who she is..
He essentially say her, although it feels LIKE you have arrived-
You have not made it to your promise land because your in the King’s palace living a lavish life
DON”T forget …You are still a JEW..….
Mordecia is saying…Esther your LIFE is not simply about YOU…But about us……
You did not make it to this PALACE:
for yourself
or by yourself
or because of yourself..
So, don’t to comfortable yet…WE-a collective WE are not arrived at your promise land..
If you remain silent at this time and focus on yourself…Eventually relief will come to our people by you and your family will die….
In speaking these words to Esther…Mordecai draws her away from the needs of self and self-preservation
to a sense of connectivism and into to the UNBUTU spirit..
I am BECAUSE you are…
You are BECAUSE I am
He reminds her she had been CHOSEN for this TIME to set ASIDE her own interests, goals and desire
to let go of her own ambitions, and face their common foe full-on.
And how does Esther reply…
him.
With that message Esther is inspired….No she is compelled to take control…To act quickly in this crisis to save her people in the midst of the threat of death…
She is obediently, faithful.. she is a team player….Eshter goes on to be the savior of her people….She was indeed call for Such a time as this….
She was called to risk her life and her legacy with no guarantees of a positive outcome. Just on faith and Goodwill…
That’s the “for such a time as this” Mordecai challenged Esther to accept.
And that’s the “for such a time as this” God also sets before you and me… So what do we learn from Esther?
So what is Esther teaching here?
First, this is call to not be SILENT when a CRISIS arise amongst our people..When we see harm being done..When injustice in present…In our world…In our churches…
Over the last week, we’ve all heard the stories about people all over the world reacting with protest, riots and marches due to the George Floyd case….
AND to BE quite I honest I really wrestled with my own response the first few days because quite frankly I was scared…
I was scared about being hurt, arrested, being in the wrong place at the wrong time….
Pause…
And then across the screen flashed on a protestors sign….
Silence = Violence…. Silence = Compliance… …Riots are the voice of the unheard…..
And then the kicker…In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of FRIEND…
I instantly felt convicted like I should be doing something…I took it as my call to stop sitting on the sidelines and to become a part of the solution….
So wrapped up in Esther’s is a call, is Esther teaching us to use our voice to
…To give encourage us …To give us courage AND The power to speak FREEDOM for the captive…For the oppressed…
-Freedom is the call to a protect LIFE of via the ACT of love,
TO SPEAK words of FREEDOM is to BRING ALL TO A PLACE OF wholeness and abundance…
---The call to speak of freedom and speak freedom into EXISTENCE for others ,
challenges evil, destructiveness, oppression, violence, decay, and defeats death…..
AND this INDEED Good news!
So
-How do we speak of freedom in a world suffering?
- We must be A voices for the voiceless…To speak NEW truth to power..
Because next in our text, There ESTHER’s story models for us how to live OUT OUR CALL AND to put the community
and God’s Kin-Dom building work ahead of our self-seeking ambition..Imagine that…
God has given each of us a job/careers, resources, education and influence….
God has opened doors and given each of us opportunities for God’s Kin-Dom purposes.
God didn’t create us to just sit back and live a lavish life not focused on the world around us.
The more resources and privilege we have the more WE have that belongS to God…
As Luke 12:48 teaches to whom much is given much is required…
BECAUSE God placed us where we ARE today to literally be apart of building UP a NEW WORLD…
PAUSE
I had the privilege of attending the Iliff School of Theology at time when the late Dr. Vincent Harding was there…Dr. Harding assisted in the writing of many of Martin Luther King Jr. speeches….
IN his experience walking beside and working with KING he was inspired to write a song sung to the tune of we are climbing Jacobs ladder, titled…We Are Building Up A New World….That is the song I lead in with today before the prayer…
VINCENT HARDING charged us at Iliff to take seriously our responsibility at Building Up A New World…To take seriously our Kind-Dom building responsibility…
THUS…Today we are in the midst of KinDom battle…The enemy would love to have it’s way by distracting us and
having us be continue to be inwardly focused on the all things that matter to us…But God didn’t build us that way…
GOD BUILT us to BE IN COMMUNITY….
Esther could have easily continued to live the lavish LIFE in the King’s palace and let whatever happen to her people just happen…
But she would have most certainly have missed her Kin-Dom Calling and an entire nation would have been lost…
Instead an entire nation was grateful for how Esther responded to Mordecai’s REQUEST. Their lives were spared.
How many lives matter to you? Who’s lives truly manner to you… How have you shown it….
I answered my call to ministry at a time I was mad at God the church for all the harm I had a experienced and openly queer lay person who faithfully served the church….
But God said kin stop whining and crying about how horrible the church has been to you and God and be a part of changes the church, because are not the only one who has been harmed or being harmed by the church….
.And that’s how convinced me of my first for such a time as this moment…. To leave behind, my church, my family and my career…
You see as school counselor for 10 in las Vegas, NV I had witness LGBTQIA youth being harmed by due to the LDS, BAPTIST, CHURCH OF GOD upbringing to name a few.
I saw countless numbers of students in and out of treatment center, some end up runaways and others victims of suicide….
I know It is no mistake that the first Sermon God laid on my heart, An Untimely Commissioning to Speak, Just Might Save the Life of Nation or A People…With that sermon based on Moses calls story ..God was calling me new life of work….To save I believe a generation of LGBTQIA young people of Faith…….
FOUNDRY it’s not just by chance that less than a year AGO today I met your PASTOR and we would do some really HARD, UGLY, GRIMEY work together in our fight LGBTIA liberation in the UMC…..
It is not just by chance that the day after my ordination God has placed me an An openly QUEER/MARRIED, African American in before and placed it in my spirit to preach to proclaim For Such A Time as this because to the TIME IS Now….The time is NOW…My life, my ministry has been filled with taking risk…
Foundry you are being called to LIVE as IF your loved ones lives are AT RISK..
You are being CALLED to live as if you loved lives are at risk…
As if those nearest and dearest to you are the ones facing extermination …Extermination from the church because they are LGBTQIA….
As if those who are nearest and dearest to you are the one being fed the crumbs from the table of a crumbling church…
You are being CALLED to live as if you loved lives are at risk…
As if those nearest and dearest to you are facing or EXECUTION in the street because of the color of their skin..
So many black and brown lives could spared in the world today if today if we’d ALL choose to step up to service, to speak out against racism and police brutality And to fight for legislative and policy changes even if it involves sacrifice, of our money time, gift and talents…
So many QUEER and TRANSPERSONS lives and MINISTRY could be speared more of us would choose to step up the mic and SPEAK out,
Us their resources and political influence to find a way FORWARD to CREATE the church that JESUS died to build…
Finally…. Esther is teaching us here that our call to act is on God’s watch…God’s time not ours…
Esther got the call for Mordecai and responded urgently.. Was the call timely?
NO…In fact, it didn’t make human sense to Esther I’m sure.
She was sure she had finally arrived.. She was sure she had finally become SOMEBODY..Of high stature esteem and respect………
Yet Esther was obedient to the call… She used her privilege ..She sacrifice herself for the sake of others…For the sake of her people…
How many times have received a call to be apart of something that would have caused you to make a sacrifice and you said…
Oh no, not this at moment, this is terrible timing?
….Or perhaps this is not my time… OR I’ve done all that I can do…I’ll leave it to the next generation to figure out…
…We are just prolonging our collective suffering….We are prolonging the the Kin-Dom reality the God so desperately wants us to experience…
We are prolonging bringing an end to SUFFERING, INJUSTICE and OPPRESSION..…
We have been called to be the ones to free the oppressed recover sight to the blind..…
AND to bring about love, peace, and justice today for the transformation of the WORLD today in the hear now… Who are WE waiting ON to do our work for us?
Let us not delay the Kingdom building any longer….
We have been called….For such a time as this. Because the time is now……
Let us pray….
….We stand in awe of your timing, yet we have gathered together today embracing it…
Because as the song goes, all we have is now; To be faithful, To be holy And to shine lighting up the darkness.. For Such a time as this we were placed upon the earth
to hear the voice of God And do God will will…
For such a time as this we stand in awe Oh God for how you’ve readied us for your service , for how you commission us for your service at your pace.
… Oh God although the mystery of your timing seems to evade us, God in your timeliness and in your way you brought us here together from places near and fear, through many dangers seen and unseen, from many different life experiences, paths, cultures and social location and united as the Body.
Yet, we must also confess oh God we have left much undone…We have not adequality to proclaimed good news to the poor.
We have not adequately proclaimed liberty to the captives and allowed the blind to see,
We have not adequality free oppressed,
Continue to equip us in YOUR of work of Kin-DOM building…
Help us oh God continue to build your kingdom of justice, peace fueled the passionate love of you oh God, self and neighbor.
Empower us to see through your eye the inequalities of the world and in holy frustration be the change we want to see in our world.
Let us no longer allow for injustices and evils that that rob so many of their future.
Eternal God And above all, fill us with your Spirit and your Holy boldness…. That we might look to hours, days, and years ahead with hope, determination for such a time as this, because the TIME is NOW!
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