Category Archives: Sermons

A Beautiful Thing

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Rev. Craig Jan-McMahon
Windsor UCC: 9/19/2020
Funeral Homily; Erin Mackay Harvey Blasinski
Isaiah 40:27-31; Psalm 121; Mark 14:3-9
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A woman appears, as if out of nowhere.  

Though we remember her and tell her story, she remains nameless, which is fitting in its own way, for the story we tell to remember her fits the lives of others who add beauty to our lives, who are known for doing the best they can, and who like her upset those who think she should pipe down and stay in her place.  

The story, Jesus says, will be told in memory of her for as long as the good news is preached.

Let us pray:  May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts this day, be pleasing in your sight, O Lord our God, our Rock, our Redeemer, our Comforter.  Amen.

Before the advent of screw-on caps for jars and bottles, costly perfumes and ointments were put in sealed glass containers, the glass container could be safely broken open but could not be resealed and the aroma could not be contained. 

And to those there that day, it smelled like death and memory, for perfume such as the nameless woman breaks open was used to anoint bodies laying in family tombs, the perfume strong enough to overpower the smell of death, allowing families to visit their beloved as long as the perfume allowed.

The aroma of the perfume emanating the room causes many to remember their own beloved, their own grief; some respond with anger and scold her, they say, for squandering money, and in this way they cover their own grief with self-righteous judgment of her; in this way, they seek to hide their own vulnerability by exposing hers.

‘Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.’ 

The smell of the perfume working into their clothes, their hair, their memory, impossible to escape, too strong to avoid, unasked for, uninvited.  

But Jesus praises her.

She has done a beautiful thing to me. …  She has done what she could.

She has done a beautiful thing to me, he says,   She has done what she could, he says

The stories we heard today and the stories we tell in the days ahead, are of stories beautiful things, the ways Erin was extravagant with herself and those she loved, totally engaged in everything she did, appearing as if from out of nowhere, not waiting for later, not holding back, but breaking open what she had to give and looking in her own way to anoint us, to add beauty to our lives.

Jesus praises the woman who breaks open her bottle of perfume to helps us see the extravagant gift of good souls such as Erin, who ceasely do all they can, and refuse to slow down and wait for the a better time later, who erupt onto the scene and disturb polite people who are too upset or too embarrassed or too disturbed by her extravagance to see her beauty as God sees it, as we whose eyes are open by love are able ourselves to see it.  

Erin was an extravagant soul who loved beautiful things, a cat purring, voices united in song, dew on a spider’s web, the foggy mist over wetlands in fall as the weather cools, the silence of a night blanketed by snow, 

And then there were all those ways she did little thoughtful, unexpected things, personal loving things, that those who she loved remember now, and which cling to memory the way perfume clings to clothes, a blessing, an anointing. 

We have also to look at those who scold the woman for her extravagance, who see her beauty as wasted, who are perhaps embarrassed because she upsets their sense of order or what is right, but we might see these people with a degree of compassion, because, after all, the woman reminds them of their own griefs, their own losses, and rather than see her beauty and extravagance as a gift, they feel exposed by it, made vulnerable by it, and so they close their hearts and minds to the good news Jesus preaches and we celebrate when we open our hearts to beautiful souls such as Erin Mackay Harvey Blasinski.

Jesus says: 

She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.’

I am sorry our numbers have to be so limited today, because I have been hearing stories of Erin from the members of the church, and I know they are all praying for you gathered here today, Erin’s closest family and friends.  

I am quite sure our choir would have loved to sing for you, and our people would have loved to prepare a meal for you all so we could sit together and share stories of Erin’s beautiful way of doing the best she could.

And I know for sure we are aching to hug and hold one another here today, and that the congregation grieves with you, and longs to be able to express its love for you and Erin. 

There is in the grief of this day, a sense of regret, of what could have been, of what is being missed.

But there is beauty here today, in this moment in time, on this brisk day outside at Erin’s family home, accompanied by the sound of cars at the new stop sign, but also by the sounds of birds and surrounded by the landscape that formed her and shaped her lovely soul.

Wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.’

This is that wherever, and this is part of God’s world, and we tell stories in memory of Erin, and the body of people who loved her and were loved by her, the church body who cannot join with us physically today, this body of people who loved her and raised her up when she was a little girl and celebrated her and took care of her, this body is anointed beforehand and prepared for this day; 

Like a perfume it pervades, it clings to us, it reminds us ….

It reminds us of the power of love, too strong to avoid, inescapable, unbidden and uninvited, and yet pervading and enduring; we are all vulnerable to it, we all connected by it. 

This is what we remember, and this is how the gospel is preached, as we remember her, as we open our hearts to the power and beauty of love, as we accept that Erin did what she could do, and so did we.

This is the good news friends, and this is the gospel. 

God saw only beauty in Erin’s life, and God welcomes her into eternal beauty with the glorious company of Saints in Light, for she did all that she could do, and so did we.

And as you, Erin’s closest family and friends do what you can do in the coming days, the beauty of God will surround you, will fill you, will help you to remember, and in remembering, honor the gift and blessing of Erin’s extravagant life, and in time beauty will heal your souls, for God dwells in beauty, God’s beauty pervades, and God’s beauty never ends.  

God Bless you Friends. Amen.  

Marching

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8th Sunday after Pentecost; 7/10/2016:
Amos 7:7-17; Ps 82; Colossians 1:1-14;  Luke 10:25-37
Marching (pdf sermon manuscript)

Vacations are a lot of work.

The week before you leave on vacation, you have to work double-hard to get everything ready to go, and yet when you come back it often seems that your work has multiplied like rabbits while you were away.  On a short week like this week, with the 4th of July holiday on Monday, it seems no matter what you do you are hopelessly behind and unable to catch up.

This has been one of those weeks for me only more so…by the time Friday rolled around, I had a list of things to do–laundry, grocery shopping, errands here and there and everywhere….

In all of this busyness, I did not miss the tragic news from Baton Rouge on Tuesday, but I purposely didn’t watch the video of it.  Neither did I miss the tragic news from St. Paul on Thursday, but again I avoided watching the chilling video.  Then on Friday when I started the day and looked at the news and read of the tragedy in Dallas, I found myself looking at the video, heartbroken, and then I looked at the other videos I had been avoiding…

And then I made list of “things-to-do” for the day–sometimes small, everyday tasks are a balm for the soul, but there are times when our souls are troubled for good reason, when to avoid trouble is unfaithful.

I will confess to you that I was troubled about this moment we share today; what you all might be thinking and feeling today, what Good News I can share as a preacher and teacher of the gospel on this day after this tragic week?  What would I be saying if I remained silent and did not speak of Baton Rouge, St. Paul, and Dallas?

After I finished my grocery shopping, I saw I had a Facebook message from one of my fellow UCC pastors in the Quad Cities.  She told me that there was to be a Black Lives Matters march from the Police Station in Rock Island, across the Centennial Bridge, to the Police Station in Davenport.

I finished my errands, put in my laundry, started my cleaning, and began to think…

Should I go on the Black Lives Matter march?

Should I use the church Facebook page to announce the march and invite you all to join me?  What are my responsibilities, as a pastoral leader, as a father, as a Christian?

And if I didn’t go, would I be like the priest and Levite to walk right past the wounded and suffering soul on the road? Would I be one of those Amos’ plumb line would show to be out of true, my sense of righteousness unaligned with my deliberate and active care for the poor and needy?

I suppose the matter would have been easier to decide if I were black, or if I had black children or grandchildren, or if I had police officers in my family, and yet there is that part of the Good Samaritan story that says that the Samaritan was moved by pity–his passion moves him to act: isn’t pity–compassion–a form of spiritual imagination?

And doesn’t the commandment to love our neighbors require us to extend ourselves to meet our neighbors?

Aren’t we as Christians supposed to be people who are known for our commitment to imagine the pain and suffering and grief of others and who like the Good Samaritan don’t simply pass by?

I have a confession to make: I wasn’t feeling it.  I was exhausted from my busy week and had lots of stuff to do, but then I finished my list of to-dos and had nothing planned for the evening–no excuse really.

An hour or so before the march, I talked about it with a neighbor.

The conversation we had was like conversations we all have, about whether marches are productive of anything, of whether to march is to say the police are the problem,  about whether the problem is broader and deeper, whether it is about poverty and prisons and racism and politics, or about whether we as a society expect police to be social workers and therapists and call on them to intervene rather than building social systems to care for people in crisis: abstractions really, merely abstractions.

Our conversation was not animated by pity or compassion but we found ourselves rehearsing the same talking points we have heard all of our lives….until we started talking about how we were talking, until we realized how privileged we are to talk about these matters in the abstract, about all the choices we have that others do not have and how very easy it is for us to choose to do nothing at all.

When the time came, I decided to join the march.

The leaders of the march talked to us in Rock Island, spoke about the need for the march, the hope of bringing about change so that what happened in Baton Rouge, St. Paul, and Dallas does not happen in the Quad Cities, and emphasizing that it was to be a peaceful march.

After the talking was done but before the march began, a pastor invited us to pray.  Hats came off, heads were bowed.

We said “Amen” and then set off together to cross the bridge.

At every turn, there were police officers protecting us.  What were they thinking and feeling I wonder?

As marchers passed by them, they greeted the officers, “Thank you for your service; thank you sir; we are grateful for you.” Many of the marchers reached out and shook police officers’ hands as they passed by–I wonder who was the Samaritan in these exchanges, and who was the poor soul suffering in the ditch.

About half way across, Pr. Mason Parks, the pastor of New Journey AME church just down 7th Ave here in Moline, a neighbor church, came along beside me and said “hello.”

I met Pr. Mason a year ago, after the Mother Emmanuel Massacre in South Carolina.  I was glad to see him but felt embarrassed about having failed to maintain our relationship.  I wondered if all of this sadness would be different if people like me took the time and saw the importance of maintaining relationships.  It is pretty hard to love our neighbors if we don’t take the time to get know them.

On the march, leaders were leading chants, and people were following along: hands up! don’t shoot!  What do we want? Justice! When do we want it. Now! What do we want?  Change! When do we want it, Now!

I did not raise my hands; I did not chant.  I felt out of place and uncomfortable, and I found myself feeling it would be dishonest somehow, untrue if I did.

In the crowd I saw two people marching side by side who were wearing shirts that say “Love thy Neighbor,” Thy black neighbor, thy white neighbor, thy Muslim Neighbor, Thy Gay Neighbor, thy straight neighbor.”

They were joining in the chants and hand raising with the leader; I didn’t have a chance to talk with them, but I expect they would say that marching and chanting was honoring the commandment written on their shirts.

Love is not an abstraction; it is an action.

As we crossed the bridge, people driving in the other direction slowed down to look at us.

Many of them whipped out their cell phones to take pictures.  Some of them honked and cheered us on.  Most of them simply passed by.

One fellow on a Harley hollered at us, “All Lives Matter” and then revved his engine loudly to drown out our chants.

When we got into Davenport, a few young men were laughing and hooting at us: Kill the Police they said, and laughed.

A little later a father riding bikes with his daughter yelled, “you’re wasting your time marching; why don’t you do something about it?”  His daughter, riding behind him, was laughing–what else could she do?

To end the march, we gathered in a parking lot in Davenport for speeches: I looked around and saw people of all kinds, rich and poor, black and white, young and old.

I saw many black parents holding hands with their little children, and I wondered what those parents must be feeling; white parents brought their children, too, and I wondered if I would have done the same.

Police officers stood off at a distance watching over us, expressionless.

The speakers encouraged us to stay involved, to pay attention, to vote and hold leaders accountable; they praised police officers who serve with honor and called for justice for those who violate their oath to protect and serve.  Many people were crying.  Some were holding up signs. Others were shouting amen.

The final speaker asked us to look around at our neighbors, to notice how different we were from one another, and to remember that we are in this together, that by working together as neighbors, we can bring about lasting and real change.

The event concluded with prayer; all of us joining hands together as one. As we prayed, police officers looked on.

I have been at pains to say often and repeatedly that God loves us not because of what we do but because of who we are.  I have said often and repeatedly that God’s grace is given to us as a gift which can neither be earned nor can it be lost.  But as the prophet Amos reminds us, God’s judgement is given to us as well.  This judgement, says Amos, is a plumb line measuring whether our worship of God is in true with our care of the poor and needy, whether our actions are in true with our prayers.

And Jesus teaches that to love God means to be moved by pity and compassion to take action on behalf of those whose pain and suffering has been ignored and overlooked and distorted and silenced.

As people of faith, as followers of Christ, as a congregation who listens to the words of prophets of old asking how we might square our prayers with our actions, we must look for hope not by accepting the abstractions and arguments that dismiss and excuse us from action, but we must exercise spiritual imagination.  We must allow ourselves to be moved by pity and compassion, by the suffering of others.  We must open ourselves to the judgment of God, which is now and will always be merciful and forgiving, but which now and always demands that we ask how we ourselves have been untrue so that the we ourselves can choose how to love kindness, to do justice, and to walk humbly with our God.

May our every prayer be an action that brings healing, hope, and reconciliations to a broken and hurting world.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

Our Time Has Come

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5th Sunday After Pentecost, 7/5/2015: Ezekiel 2:1-5  Mark 6:1-13

On the third Sunday after the Charleston Massacre, on the day after the 4th of July, we read Ezekiel’s call story and the story of Christ returning home, where he is rejected by his own people and can do no deeds of power among them.  And this was the first Sunday after Bree Newsome, an African-American woman, shimmied up a flagpole in Charleston, South Carolina, and took down the Confederate flag, quoting the 27th Psalm and the Lord’s prayer on her way down, where James Tyson, a white man, waited to help her get over the fence.

We read from Bree Newsome’s statement, Our Time Has Come (Bree Newsome’s complete statement), asking what God is calling us see and do through her prophetic words and her prophetic act.  We emphasize our belief that responding to God’s call to us as individuals and a church is a choice; and we remember that call is ineffective absent community.

NOTE: In the sermon I refer to an interview with Bree Newsome and James Tyson in which they note that black groundskeepers were required to raise the flag that they had taken down.  The interview video is here, the image appearing at about about the 1 minute mark.

Our Time Has Come (pdf sermon manuscript)

Desperate for Healing

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5th Sunday After Pentecost, 6/28/2015:    2 SAMUEL 1:1, 17-27  | Mark 5:21-43
Desperate for Healing (pdf sermon manuscript)

This was again an important Sunday for churches across America.  We came to church for the second Sunday with Mother Emanuel heavy on our hearts, and only a few days earlier the Supreme Court made Marriage Equality the law of the land.  On a day that combined celebration with mourning, the theme of our texts brought us to the the connection between desperation, grief, and healing.

For My Daughters

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Here are the first 3 paragraphs of my sermon last Sunday.  I wrote this for you to share with your friends who are hearing a lot of nonsense about the church and religion and Christians, and they are again hearing preachers quoting the bible to hurt others. You know better, but a lot of your friends don’t:

David, not yet a king, mourns the death of King Saul and his son, David’s beloved friend, Jonathan, of whom he says: …”Greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women” (2 Sam. 1:26b), not a text quoted by those claiming their religion and their gospel is under attack because the Supreme Court at last made Marriage Equality the law of the land, but then cowardly and unfaithful people have long resorted to religion to justify bigotry.

If I am offending anyone, I do not apologize, for I believe that in time, when you have a child or grandchild, a niece or nephew, a dear friend or loved one who is born to love differently than you love, then your love will move you to advocate on their behalf, and though it may take you awhile, you will remember and appreciate this day, this Sunday, when many join with me in saying “Praise God for this victory on behalf of all God’s children,” and you will join me in praying that Christians like us would raise up our voices to show the world that those who take to the airways to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit do not represent the God of love we serve.

Love is love.  God is love.  Jesus Christ revealed God’s love, and religious people of his day killed him for it.  I stand in, with, and through Christ, and I say, “Praise God for that the United States of America has dignified all love as equal.”

More than a Song

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The media is playing President Obama’s singing of Amazing Grace in his eulogy for the Rev. Clementa Pinkney.  But the President’s eulogy offers much more than  this song: he calls us to express God’s grace today, in our world; he tells the truth about racism in the United States–about the Confederate Flag, Gun Control, the prison system, poverty–all within the context of faith.

I invite all of my friends: those who have not lost their faith in the church and who seek to express God’s grace with their lives; those who have left the church because it has worshiped its own traditions, because has been too slow to engage the movements for human dignity and justice of our age, because it has loved comfort and feared conflict; and those who see faith as weakness and belief as a sham; I invite all of my friends to watch the entire video of President Obama’s eulogy, or download the full text ( .pdf  |   .docx ): the President puts into words what I believe and what Christians in my life see as the heart of faith.

Slinging Stones for Mother Emanuel

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4th Sunday After Pentecost, 6/21/2015: Mark 4:35-41  1 SAMUEL 17:32-40

This was an important Sunday for churches across America.  Four days earlier, Rev. Clementa Pinckney was assassinated and eight parishioners were massacred during a bible study at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.  The story of David and Goliath provides a way view of how we as people of faith will slay the giant of racial terrorism.

I am indebted to Malcom Gladwell’s recent book, David and Goliath.  Gladwell’s reading of the story is available as a TED talk: The Unheard Story of David and Goliath.

Slinging Stones for Mother Emanuel (pdf sermon manuscript)

Anointing

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NICOLE SMITH FUNERAL HOMILY

We remember the story of the unnamed woman who pours perfume on Christ’s head. While others call her wasteful, we know that she was extravagant and beautiful.  As the unnamed woman annointed Christ for burial, so we were anointed by Nicole’s extravagance and beauty.

Of Marshmallows and Temptation

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LENT 1B, 2/22/2015:  GENESIS 9:8-17  MARK 1:9-15

What is your wilderness and what is your marshmallow?  How do we give up and give in? How do we distract ourselves?  And how do we nibble a little bit?

Homily: John Klossner Holstein Whisperer

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John Klossner

John Klossner, October 8, 1993 – August 12, 2013

Holstein Whisperer
Luke 15:3-7

A few years ago, a movie came out called “The Horse Whisperer.”

The lead character’s name was  Buck—no surprise there.  The movie told the story of Buck’s special connection with horses, a connection that was rooted in who he was: his way with horses was a view into his soul.

It seems to me that a movie called “The Holstein Whisperer” could be made

The movie would open with a little boy playing at home with one of those farmyard play sets—a freckle-faced farmer with a hat wearing bib overalls, a tractor, several barnyard animals, a fence to lay out, and a barn with a door that would go “moooo” when opened.

As the scene opens, the little boy’s back is to the camera; he is hunched over working at something.

What is he working at?

Slowly, the camera rotates around to the front; the little boy’s mouth is set in concentration; as the camera zooms in we see that the boy has a bottle of White-Out and black Sharpees; he is changing the black and white patterns of the Holsteins, because, of course, the markings of Holsteins are as individual to them as fingerprints are to us.

The next scene would be the little boy in church wearing bib overalls and bright yellow barn gloves; his Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.

As he grows, there would been countless scenes of him playing the barn and alone in the pasture with cows.  There would be scenes of the boy leading calves around and playing with them because they were his friends.

He would constantly ask question about Holsteins and remember everything he was told.  His family would celebrate and nurture his gift; he would work along side his father milking and feeding and caring for the herd;  his mother would encourage him to develop his gifts; older brother and sister would be delighted by his fascination with Hosteins.

He would go to Dairy Expos and Dairy Bowls and win too many honors and awards to name.

In time, he would begin to share his gift with others and help them along, as glad to see them learn and succeed as he enjoyed winning himself.  When he saw in other boys and girls that gift that he himself had, he would help them in every way he could, not only because this is what he had been taught to do, but because to help them was good for the breed.

There would be an intensity about him; a focus borne of lifetime of loving Holsteins.  He would know just how to “dial it in” so that would never come in “DFL.”

You all can write the script for this movie because you knew John.

Everything I know about showing cattle I learned by talking with the Klossners the last few days.  I know that part of showing and breeding is about confirmation—how well a cow conforms to the standards of the breed.  But it seems to me that there is something more to it, something that I hear is essential to the gift John was given.

It is about relationship.

John had a way of relating to Holsteins that was an expression of his very soul.  He was nice and kind and gentle.  His cattle felt comforted with him; safe in the hands of a young man who related to each individually, who understood each cow’s personality, who could read each movement.

And of course, the cows knew him as well as he knew them.  They had heard him singing to them when he did his chores; they felt his love and commitment to them in his touch.  When it came to showtime, they gave him their bovine trust because he had loved them from the time he had a bottle of White-Out and a black Sharpee marker.

You can’t fake relationship.  It develops over time.  It is about commitment; it is about trust.

You would need to talk with a Holstein expert, of which there are many here today, but I believe I can say with confidence that the breed had not yet been developed in ancient Palastine when Jesus told stories about God’s love to his disciples using sheep as an example.

Jesus talked to shepherds, not dairymen, so he told stories about sheep, not cattle, but what he says about God’s love for us makes sense in times like this.

Jesus tells stories to help us to trust our relationship with God.

The story might bear updating for today.

If you have a hundred head of cows, and one of them goes missing, you leave the 99 to go looking for the lost one.

God’s love for us is like that; it searches for us each individually when we are lost or in need or in pain or in sorrow.

Today, we are the 99 and John is the one.

He is the one lost to us but is found by God, who blessed John with special gifts, loved him from the beginning, and loves him in the end.

We have lost John, but God has found him.

But we are also the one today.

We are the ones who need to call on God and trust that he will find us, we are the ones who need now to trust our relationship with God, we are the ones who have questions to ask and fears to tell and frustrations to relieve.

And so we pray for faith in the coming days, that God will lead us, show us tender care, feed us and heal us, for we belong to God, and we can trust that God’s love will always find us, most especially when we feel lost and alone.

Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.  And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’

So [Jesus] told them this parable: ‘Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.