Fishers of People, Part 4

 

Eastern Parkway United Methodist Church

 

 A warm welcome to each worshipper today. We celebrate you and offer you our friendship and love. We are a congregation of people who seek to grow spiritually, to become more like Christ in His compassion and acceptance of everyone while growing more aware of what it really means to be Christians today.

 

As a Reconciling Congregation, EPUMC affirms the sacred worth of persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities and welcomes them into full participation in the fellowship, membership, ministries, and leadership of the congregation.

 

943 Palmer Avenue, Schenectady, NY 12309 / 518-374-4306 epumc943@gmail.com / www.easternparkwayumc.com

                                    Welcome to Eastern Parkway United Methodist Church

February 27, 2022

10:00 a.m.

*You are invited to stand in body or in spirit

 

Prelude                 

 

Greeting and Announcements

 

Mission Statement:

We are a faith community striving to be, to nurture, and to send forth disciples of Jesus Christ.

 

Call to Worship

The Abingdon Women’s Preaching Annual, Series 2, Year C, compiled and edited by Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, (Abingdon, 2000), 52-53.

 

We come together today in awe and wonder before the God we worship.

We also come burdened down with the worries of the world and the struggles of our individual lives.

But in the midst of the worries and the struggles is God, our radiant source of love and hope.

We worship together today in awe and wonder to worship the God who transforms our lives.

 

*Hymn                     O Wondrous Sight (v 1, 4, 5)                       #258

 

Prayer of Confession:

Lord, you call us to draw near, yet we fail to hear your voice.
We sleepwalk through life, ignoring the needs of people all around us and worrying about our own desires.
Forgive us: when we shut out the call to climb into your presence; when we make excuses to put off that journey. Hear our pleas, O God, and lift us to newness of life. Amen.

Assurance

We worship a forgiving God, whose mercy is never ending, whose heart abounds in steadfast love. Because of the love of Jesus Christ, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Amen.

By Shelley Cunningham

Anthem

Scripture Reading              Luke 9: 28-36

The Transfiguration

²⁸ Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus^[a] took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. ²⁹ And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. ³⁰ Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. ³¹ They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. ³² Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake,^[b] they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. ³³ Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings,^[c] one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—not knowing what he said. ³⁴ While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. ³⁵ Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen;^[d] listen to him!” ³⁶ When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

Sermon                       Fishers of People, Part 4

 

Good morning, friends.

 

Today we have the fourth and final installment of this sermon series I put together and called “Fishers of People”. We’re looking at one more relatively early story from Jesus’ earthly ministry. Alongside these stories of our emerging young rabbi, I am honoring Black History Month and sharing the hidden stories of people of color from yesteryear who illuminate the lessons Jesus taught us.

 

I’m ending this sermon series the way I began it, with local history: today’s story is about a woman named Shirley Chisholm. Born on November 30, 1924 in Brooklyn, Chisholm’s parents were immigrants from Barbados seeking the American dream. It was a very hard road to success. Chisholm was the oldest of four children, and both of her parents worked to support their large family. Her mother, in particular, struggled greatly with balancing work and raising children, so when Chisholm was five, her parents sent her and her siblings to live with their maternal grandmother in Barbados. Chisholm and her siblings stayed in Barbados for a total of five years, attending a one room schoolhouse under the supportive care of their grandmother. Chisholm spoke lovingly of her grandma for the rest of her life, and attested that she became the woman she was because of her grandma: “Granny gave me strength, dignity, and love. I learned from an early age that I was somebody. I didn’t need the black revolution to tell me that.” Chisholm’s time spent living and learning in Barbados was extraordinarily formative; she credited the school for teaching her a strong work ethic and excellent speaking and writing skills, and her grandmother for shaping her spirit. Though she came back to the United States after five years and stayed there for the rest of her life, she considered herself a Barbadian American.

 

Growing up in Barbados also shaped Chisholm’s heart toward the passions she would devote her life to. She watched her friends and neighbors protest against colonial control of their island. Back in the States, Chisholm supported workers and trade unionists in fighting for fair labor practices. She attended Brooklyn College, graduating cum laude in 1946, having devoted her time in college to the study of sociology, politics, and Spanish. She protested for the integration of black and white soldiers during the Second World War, and advocated for more classes in her school highlighting black history.

 

Throughout the early 1950s, Chisholm worked as a teacher and a day care provider, but became increasingly more pulled in by the political realm until it became her focus. She became involved with several Brooklyn-based political organizations, and helped them lobby for women’s rights, voter rights, worker’s rights, and anti-segregation laws. 1964 became a pivotal year in Chisholm’s life, when a man she supported for public office chose not to run for election again, and Chisholm decided that if the men were going to chicken out then she was going to have to run for office herself. She won, and served on the New York State Assembly from 1965 until 1968. Having found her calling in life, she ran for the US House of Representatives in 1968, announcing as she declared her candidacy, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is fighting Shirley Chisholm coming through.” She won, and became the first black woman to serve in Congress.

 

All told, she stayed in Congress until 1983, and spent those fifteen years championing for the poor and oppressed. Initially asked to work in agricultural districts, Chisholm bolstered the food stamps program, and offered crucial support to the WIC program, which provides nutritious food for expectant mothers, babies, and toddlers living in poverty. She advocated for government-subsidized childcare, but was blocked by conservatives who thought her plan was too expensive and not important enough.

 

On January 25, 1972, Chisholm decided to rage against the machine even harder by declaring her candidacy for President of the United States, running under the Democratic Party ticket. She became both the first woman, and the first African American, to run under a major party for President.

 

It was not a successful bid, and ultimately George McGovern received the party nomination to run against Richard Nixon. But Chisholm ran as long as she could, stating, “in spite of hopeless odds…to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo.” Chisholm received little support from her political colleagues for her candidacy, and faced multiple death threats made against her until a secret service detail had to be assigned for her protection. She declared of her candidacy, “I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women’s movement of this country, although I am a woman and equally proud of that. I am the candidate of the people and my presence before you symbolizes a new era in American political history.”

 

Though she ultimately lost in her race for the Oval Office, Chisholm refused to despair, and worked even more aggressively in Congress for the rights of the marginalized. In her later years she focused on land rights for Native Americans, a living wage for working Americans, education reform, healthcare reform, and greater access to social services, especially for those living in inner cities. She opposed the Vietnam War and the draft, fought for the Equal Rights Amendment, and became an important advocate for intersectional feminism, challenging white feminists to not allow their protests to simply become white supremacy in heels.

 

Facing a resurgence of Republican opposition in the Reagan Era, as well as declining health, Chisholm retired from Congress in 1983. She dedicated the last years of her life to teaching, local politics, public speaking engagements, and sticking it to the Man. She died on January 1, 2005. At her funeral her pastor professed: “She showed up, she stood up, and she spoke up.”

 

Can we learn to do the same?

 

We can start by following her example, and by rooting ourselves in the love ethic of Jesus.

 

This last Sunday before the Lenten season begins is “Transfiguration Sunday”. Today we hear Luke’s account of the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration, this mysterious holy moment that I would expect to terrify the three disciples present beyond all reason. I’d like to say that if I had been there that day, to climb that mountain with Jesus, a dude who was showing more and more of his Divinity but who I knew to be just one of my close friends, and I saw him suddenly shinier and whiter than the teeth in a toothpaste commercial and standing next to two long-dead patriarchs, Moses and Elijah, that I, like Peter, would be overwhelmed with gratitude and offering to make tents for everyone. But I’m terrible at making tents, and I would have shrieked like a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert. It turns out I don’t have to be too hard on myself for that. Jesus didn’t appreciate Peter’s over-enthusiasm to help anymore that James and John cowering and hiding, he was indifferent to their reactions. The moment wasn’t for creating fear, nor was it for setting up camp and hanging on to forever and ever. It was short and brilliant, like a comet, and gone sooner than the disciples knew what happened. And then, Luke says, Peter, James, and John didn’t want to tell anyone what they saw.

 

I’ve always thought of this Transfiguration story as a lesson about what life is like, especially a life of faith. We want to believe that finding the “right church” will solve all of our doubts and make faith simple. We want to believe that if we say, do, and believe all the right things, that being a follower of Christ won’t be that hard. We want to believe that our sheer conviction that our beliefs are important, righteous, loving, and moral will be enough to protect our hearts and spirits from pain.

 

But after we have one brief, shining moment—a wonderful Sunday, an excellent choir anthem, the best sermon ever, an amazing moment of fellowship, a mission project that really helps someone—we have to come down from that mountain. We can’t set up camp and hang out up there forever. It’s not in the cards. When we come down, Russia has invaded Ukraine, and our government is trying to choke off the oppressor with severe sanctions. Families cower in fear. Innocent people are dying. And we could end up in a larger-scale war. We climb down from the mountain of black history month tomorrow, and step into a world constructed around institutional, cultural, and personal racism. We climb down from the mountain of generosity and selfless love, and go back to a world that cages immigrant children, refuses to mask in a pandemic, and teaches “me first”. We step down from the mountain of idealism, and face real life. How do we protect our hearts from despair, and how do we protect our souls from giving up and giving in?

 

Several years ago at my friends’ seminary graduation, I heard renowned theologian Renita Weems speak. She said, among many brilliant things: “Faith is living between the last time you heard from God, and the next time you hear from God. And it can be years between the last time, and the next time. But you have to preach like you just heard from God last night.” Obviously, she said that to a room of clergy, but there are many more ways to preach than from a pulpit. In the words of Saint Francis of Assisi, “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words when necessary.”

 

We need to harness the energy the Spirit gives us in those Transfigured moments, in those glorious, joyous, wonderful moments. And then we have to run off of it for as long as we have to. We have to face the valley with the same dreams we saw on the mountain. And we, like Shirley Chisholm, have to dedicate ourselves to fighting for justice and equality when we see the people around us aren’t stepping up. We fish for people, as Jesus commanded us, when we inspire others to similar justice-seeking action. Like Chisholm running for President against two white men in 1972, one of whom won in a landslide, we have to refuse to accept the status quo despite hopeless odds. Jesus commands that we follow him, and learn the way from people like Chisholm. We need to show up, stand up, and speak up.

 

Amen.

 

     

*Hymn                                     Grace Alone                                    #2162

                                 Led by the Front Porch Rockers

 

Offertory          

*Doxology

*Prayer of Dedication

 

Time of Prayer and Lord’s Prayer

 

Holy and loving God - whose nature and ways are far beyond our understanding, we thank you for the gift of your Son Jesus - who lets us see your face in his, who shows us your love in his actions, your grace in his manner of being. In him too, O God, we see ourselves as you would have us be and as your power is able to make us. Make us more like him now, we pray... Lord hear our prayer......

 

Lord - we often find ourselves weary, tired out by a load of care, a heap of responsibility and concern. We hunger and thirst, and often fail to stop to eat and drink at the table you have prepared for us. Lord, we are here now - and we ask you - grant us a glimpse of your glory - fill us with your spirit - refresh us and make us new ... Lord, hear our prayer.....

 

Loving God, we pray that your glory may fill your church and give to your people everywhere the energy to shine wherever there is darkness, disunity, persecution, or despair... Lord, hear our prayer....

 

Father, we pray for those we named in our sharing time and for all those whose names are upon our hearts. Grant to them health and wholeness, peace and joy, strength and hope... We remember before you:

(intercessions and petitions as shared in sharing time)

 

..... Lord, hear our prayer....

Give us all, O Lord, a greater love of your holiness, a greater delight in your mystery, and a greater joy in seeking your presence. We ask it through Christ Jesus, who revealed your will to us and who taught us to pray to you as one family, saying…

 

Written by John Maynard, and posted on Richard Fairchild’s Kir-shalom website. http://www.rockies.net. Reposted: https://re-worship.blogspot.com/2012/01/prayers-of-people-transfiguration.html.

Our Father, Mother, Creator God, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever. Amen.

 

 

*Hymn                               Be Thou My Vision                                #451

 

Benediction

Postlude            

_____________________________________________

Staff

Natalie Bowerman               Pastor

Betsy Lehmann                     Music Director

Joe White                               Custodian

Cassandra Brown                 Nursery Attendant