Birds

June 22, 2020, 3 Pentecost

St. Barnabas, Falmouth, Massachusetts

The Rev. Nancy E. Gossling

 Jesus said, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

Last week, I preached about fear and faith, about invisible enemies like systemic racism and COVID 19, and about the prevalence of violence throughout our nation. Today, the gospel passage from Matthew tempts me to talk about slaves and masters, maligning people and telling secrets, the division in our families and the destruction of our bodies. We yearn for peace, and yet the gospel says that Jesus came with a sword. Instead, I decided to talk to you today about birds.

In February of this year, my son gave me a bird feeder for my birthday. It was a creative and thoughtful gift that he had personally made out of wood and plexiglass. And I’ll tell you a secret. Although our last names are Gossling, like the baby birds of Mother Goose, and the members of our family are all birds of the same feather, we don’t always fly together in the same direction. Actually, occasionally, one of us goes rogue. We are uniquely created, and so we make different choices about how we live, what we think, what we do, and what we say. Every day we have new opportunities to make better choices. 

I attended a webinar this past week offered by the Rev. Richard Blackburn of the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center outside of Chicago Illinois. I had attended a clergy clinic there on leadership development a few years ago and one on mediation skills training. Using the Bowen theory, we reflect upon our relationships and churches from a family systems perspective.

As a visual aid, imagine my birdfeeder. Some birds come alone; others come together. Some are willing to share their space; others are not. The sparrows, birds of the same feather, will be eating when suddenly the crows descend upon their group. Cawing their way to the table, clearly larger in size than the sparrows, they take over, like CHOP in Seattle. Might makes right, they claim; and then we suddenly hear the blue jays, noisy and conspicuous, aggressively scolding these predators with their harsh calls. Squabbles routinely break out between and among the species of God’s beautiful creatures!

When the squirrels arrive there is another shift in power. Their cousins, the chipmunks watch from a distance, waiting for their turn at the table. Occasionally a brilliant red cardinal, a red-winged blackbird, or a yellow finch will appear, adding splashes of color to this beloved community. Finally, when everyone has gone back to their nests, the gray mourning doves come for the cleanup. They coo quietly and peacefully, both in the morning and vesper light.

Our family loves the image of geese flying south for the winter. We imagine ourselves flying together as a unified and peaceful family unit, just like we do in our church communities, and in our nation, right? Flying in the proverbial V for victory, with one leader in the front, the goslings go together, honking their encouragement to one another, just like our political parties and the news media today.

If one bird is injured and drops out of formation, falling to the ground, like the hairs on our heads, another goose will accompany the injured party. On the ground, this goose will remain with the injured bird, until they both can fly again, or the injured bird has died. We call these birds our first responders. After health has returned, or the injured bird has died, one or both of these geese return to the flock. The flock, however, is different but similar to the one they knew before.

As human beings we are wired for togetherness, for making connections with other people, even virtually. We want our relationships to be meaningful, peaceful, and united. We want to know that there is a purpose to our lives and that who we are and what we do matters. We want to feel as if we are flying in the same direction with other birds; and we want opportunities to participate, to succeed, and to make a difference by our contributions.

I learned in this webinar that making connections with other people is important in three ways: Individually, relationally, and collectively. First, we need at least one person in whom we can confide intimately. Second, we need to share good times and bad times with our family and friends. And third, we need to be part of something larger than ourselves, finding a purpose greater than our mere existence. We want to connect with a transcendent power, and a community, that uses its energy for good.

I found Deb Gemma’s choice of songs today delightful. We are all destined for the same end, and yet, as Christians, we believe that “Christ is raised and dies no more, and that a new creation comes to life and grows, as Christ’s new body takes on flesh and blood.” These are words from our closing hymn today. We acknowledge, and do not deny, that people can destroy both our bodies and our souls, and so we put our trust in God. Some of us decide to follow Jesus as the gospel hymn proclaims, and from the Wild Goose Resource Group, in the offertory hymn Jesu asks, “Will you come and follow me, if I but call your name?”

I also found some statistics interesting. Data reveals that we can escalate our dying process based upon various factors. Air pollution will raise our odds of death by 5%, obesity by 20%, alcohol abuse by 30%, and loneliness by 45%. COVID 19 is a dangerous and loneliness disease, and each day we make choices about how we will respond to it. In fact, loneliness accelerates our aging process; and it can make us more demanding and critical of others, enabling conflict to erupt in our relationships.

Although we have been living year round in a condo in Cambridge, where a birdfeeder is not a possibility, Paul and I moved to Orleans on April 1st because of COVID 19. I put my bird feeder on the back deck of our family home, where we delight in watching the birds come to eat. At first, frustrated by the interference of the squirrels, we now laugh at their gluttony, and their lack of fear when we attempt to shoo them away. We cheer when the sparrows arrive in numbers, and marvel at the cooing sounds of the mourning dove.

I didn’t know that there are seven varieties of sparrows. The house sparrow nests in any sheltered cavity and avidly seeks out handouts in parks. These sparrows clearly like the Gossling handouts! The chipping sparrow is a common summertime resident, which is what Paul and I were before COVID 19. The American tree sparrow forms loose flocks often near trees and, like many of you snowbirds, they head south for the winter. The swamp sparrow is found in wet marshes or around pond edges, like we find here on the Cape, while the field sparrow resides in weedy fields.

I love to listen to the songs of the birds on the Cape, something that I don’t hear in Cambridge. The white-throated sparrow sings year round in a high clear whistle, not to be confused with a dog whistle, while the song sparrow often sings from the top of a bush. Of surprise to me was the appearance of the mourning doves. In fact they made me a little nervous; for they are a common species of suburbs and cities, rather than the beach. What on earth is the mourning dove doing here? I wondered; for you see, the spelling of “mourning” is not the word “morning” that describes the beginning of a new day. Rather it’s the word “mourning” that denotes sorrow and death. (Backyard Birds of New England, David Allen Sibley)

I think the mourning dove’s song is like the psalmist’s prayer for us today. We have much to lament and grieve. “Bow down your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and in misery. Keep watch over my life; save your servant who puts her trust in you. Be merciful to me, O Lord, for you are my God; and I call upon you all the day long. Gladden the soul of your servants, for to you, O Lord, we lift up our souls. For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, and great is your love toward all who call upon you.”

We are birds of a feather who flock together in Christian community, and statistics reveal that people who attend worship services regularly extend their lives by 25%. You see, Jesus tells us that even if we fall to the ground, God is the One who falls with us. God is our constant Companion, who accompanies us, whether we are flying high or lying low, whether we are singing or crying, whether we are breathing or not.

Jesus reminds us that God cares for all of God’s creation, counts every feather on our wings, and every hair on our heads. Jesus reminds us that God values us more than many sparrows; and so no wonder, countless people love the song, “My Eye is on the Sparrow.” No wonder people of black and brown color have sung it for centuries when feeling devalued, abused, and oppressed.

Throughout our lives, we may feel discouraged and down; and yet we can always remember that God is not only a member of our choir but also our choir master. There is great hope that we can find in the words of the Song, “My Eye is on the Sparrow.” “Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home, when Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He: His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me; I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free, for His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.”

Sing today, like a sparrow. Sing today because you’re free. Sing today because God’s eye is on the sparrows; God’s eye is on you and me.

Genesis 21:8-21

Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17

Romans 6:1b-11

Matthew 10:24-39

Gospel Hymn: Lift Every Voice And Sing # 136 “I have decided to follow Jesus” Offertory Hymn: “Will you come and follow me?” Closing Hymn: 1982 Hymnal # 296:“We know that Christ is raised”

Fear or Faith? Reacting and Responding

2 Pentecost, St. Barnabas, Falmouth                    The Rev. Nancy E. Gossling

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.

“Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness and minister your justice with compassion.” So, Church, how do we do that? As my aerobics instructor often says, let’s break it down!

First, we are a household. We are family! Just like the Sledge Sisters sang in 1979. We are a church community of diverse people created by God, united by Jesus, and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Now, if you’re like my family, or the various households I’ve seen, and the communities to which I’ve belonged, our ways of living and moving and having our beings are not all “sweetness and light” as my father used to say. We like to hang out with people who agree with us, see life from our perspective, and don’t drive us crazy. Maybe, we’re a little bit afraid of the strangers who appear on our doorsteps.

Perhaps like your households, our Church has some guidelines for behavior. Outlined in our baptismal covenant, we make promises to God and to each other to continue to gather as a community, to resist evil and when we fall into sin to repent and return to the Lord. We promise to proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ, to seek and serve Christ in all people, and strive for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every human being. We promise to care for God’s creation. Tall orders, aren’t they?

My twin grandsons are at that age when they have “stranger anxiety.” For a few months in the first years of life, most babies are fearful of strangers, even the doctors who are there to help them. This anxious period eventually passes but most parents continue to teach their children about fear, how to stay away from harmful things like guns and drugs and violent people. Parents of black and brown children decide when they’ll have that “Talk” with their children, teaching them how to respond in frightening situations. In fact, we have those kinds of “talks” with our children all the time. And after certain ages, they have those talks with us.

There was, and still is, a time when our churches were offering training in case someone with a gun came into our gathering. We became overly suspicious of strangers and backpacks. I remember a time in Boston, during the Women’s MeToo March, when wearing masks in our cathedral was prohibited, because they suggested an affiliation with a terrorist organization. Now most of us wear masks, fearing COVID 19.

Today there is a great deal of physical, social, political, emotional, and spiritual unrest and pain in our nation. There is much to be feared, and yet we can react in fear or respond in faith, as the story of Abraham and Sarah reveals. Sitting at the entrance to his tent, Abraham saw three strange men standing near him. And how did he react? He ran, like the Prodigal Father, to meet them. He bowed down before them. He begged them to stay, washed their feet, gave them water to drink and cakes to eat. Then he “took curds and milk and the fatted calf and set it before them, standing by them under the tree while they ate.”

Sarah, on the other hand, remained inside the tent. Aside from the cultural norms for women during these times, maybe she was afraid that these strangers might harm her, or that Abraham might offer her to them. Sarah was old, and maybe she was fearful for her own health, that these strangers might be carrying a disease that could kill her. We also know that she was deeply sad, consumed by disappointment and grief, recalling what could have been if she were only younger, and times were different. In despair, she laughed when she heard the stranger say that she would have a son. Sometimes we laugh when we really want to cry because we've known broken promises and unfulfilled dreams. We are afraid to hope.

Fearful people often react quickly. Triggered, we say and do things that we later regret. It is tempting for us to despair when we’re afraid that things will never change, when we think we’re on a hamster wheel of dysfunction. When we react in fear, the way Sarah did, rather than responding faithfully, the way Abraham did, we lose our agency, to live fully and freely as God intended. Instead, we hide in our tents. We fail to keep our baptismal promises. And so I asked myself recently, what exactly am I afraid of?

I was scared this past month when two of my married best friends, one with cancer and the other with asthma, were diagnosed with COVID 19 and hospitalized. They struggled to breathe with the knee of this virus on their necks. I was also scared for family members and friends suffering with mental illness and addiction, afraid that the darkness of these diseases would overwhelm them. I fear for my daughter who works in a hospital in Minneapolis, and my grandsons whose premature births compromise their lungs.

Despairing for our nation and our world, I am afraid of the increasing violence, and the destruction of goodness in the midst of this chaos. Bottom line for me? I am afraid of losing everything and everyone I love. I am afraid of rejection for speaking the truth, and of dying in pain or alone; and so I am tempted to hide in my tent, not out of self-care, but out of fear.

How about George Floyd? I wondered. He must have been afraid when he was murdered for trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. Crying out for his Mama, harassed and helpless like a sheep without a shepherd, he begged for mercy from a fearful white man who had his knee on George's neck. George did not die alone; he was surrounded by fearful people. Three other policemen were afraid to challenge their veteran officer, while fearful people stood by and watched.

Imagine if the other policemen took their knees off George’s back, or actually pulled the veteran off George’s neck. Imagine if the bystanders intervened as well. Instead of filming this cold-blooded murder on their phones, walking away or remaining silent in fear, maybe they could have responded in a different way. Maybe, together, they could have pulled the officer off George’s neck. Fear, like COVID 19, like systemic racism, is another invisible enemy that contributed to George’s death.

We have every reason to be fearful these days, and when we’re angry and fearful, bitter and resentful, we are tempted to justify our bad behavior and our hate-filled words. We will hide in our tents of privilege, power, and prestige, relying upon our own power to save us. And yet St. Paul’s letter to the Romans reminds us that we are justified by our faith in God. Instead of laughing in despair, we can find hope “boasting in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.”

We are drinking from a fire hydrant of feelings these days, but rather than drinking from fountains that say “whites only”, or living in fear as many people do, let’s drink from the waters of our baptisms. Let’s speak and act with love, or as the prophet Amos once said, let’s make “justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:24)

St. Paul reminds us that it is through grace that we can speak and act with love. For grace is God’s steadfast love that is unmerited, undeserved, and without conditions.This grace enables us, in fact this grace empowers us, to proclaim God’s truth with boldness, and minister God’s justice with compassion. Grace means that we have agency to live freely and fully, to use God’s power for the common good and to transform our world.

We are family, living in a church community with household guidelines, in which we believe that we are all equally beloved children of God. So Church, what are we to do? For if we speak without action, our faith is dead. And if we hide in our tents, nothing will change. Instead, like Abraham, we can respond faithfully, running to greet the stranger, feeding and serving others, and standing by them in times of need.

 In his book, The Compromise of Color: the Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism, Jemar Tisby argues that systemic racism gradually grew over time because of compromises made out of fear. He encourages us to educate ourselves about our history, so that we can acknowledge the parts that we’ve played in building faulty systems, and determine how we can build anew. Our mission strategy in this diocese invites us to act: to embrace brave change, to reimagine our congregations, to build relationships, and engage our world.

So, today, I remember this story about Abraham and Sarah with you; for it is a message of faith and hope. I invite you to talk about your fears and name the injustices that you know. Welcome the strangers both inside and outside your tents, even the ones who speak and act badly, as if they are messengers from God. And spend some time in prayer; consider what you fear, and how you can respond faithfully rather than fearfully. Consider how this church community, this household of God, can proclaim God’s truth with boldness and minister God’s justice with compassion. The time is now to restore our relationships, to rebuild our systems and our churches, and to fight those enemies with the Way of Love. Amen

Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7)  Psalm 116:1, 10-17  Romans 5:1-8    Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23)

Genesis: A Rainbow Coalition

Trinity Sunday, June 7, 2020

The Rev. Nancy E. Gossling

Genesis: A Rainbow Coalition

In the beginning, everything that God created was good. That is until we humans took control and put ourselves at the center. “You gave me free will,” we say to God, “and I want what I want when I want it. I have my rights!” And then the winds of chaos blew around the globe, creating formless voids of darkness, and in that darkness, volcanoes of violence and hate erupted.

I know something about chaos, violence, and hate. I know something about oppression and injustice. I know about rage; and I confess to murderous thoughts. I know fear and disrespect. I have been spit upon and followed by a man with the intention to do me harm. I have had “the talk” with my kids about many things. But unlike my brothers and sisters of color, I have also enjoyed untold privileges by growing up white in America.

While my particular experiences are not yours, and my truth may not be yours, I suspect we share some common feelings about the viruses of COVID 19, systemic racism, and what happened to George Floyd. We share the common ground of our genesis when God created us and blew God’s breath into our dry and dusty beings. We were made in God’s image and became God’s beloved children; and yet we are not treated equally, fairly, or justly. No wonder there is no peace.

When Cedric Malcolm, former Celtics star, praised the current black men on this team for speaking up about their experience of systemic racial injustice, he spoke truth. He also praised the peaceful protests around our country. “I just don’t think things are going to happen overnight,” Maxwell said. “It’s going to take conversation. It’s going to take work. It’s going to take opening up people’s minds. But I think a good part about these protests was that if you looked at the crowds, especially most of the peaceful crowds, it was decorated like a rainbow. There were all kinds of colors.”

In twelve step communities, we learn that we are responsible for our attitudes and actions, and not what others are or are not doing, can or cannot do, or what others should or should not be doing. I know that I can be critical and judgmental. I know that I can be prejudiced. I know that I have privileges and power; and yet I often feel powerless when I listen to the news. The serenity prayer reminds me to ask God to help me to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. It takes courage to change!

The beauty of God’s original creation is often marred by violence and masked by hate; but our diversity is most beautiful when we are unified in doing good. And while the uncontrollable winds of chaos continue to blow around our globe and within our own hearts, in the end, I believe that God’s power will ultimately save us. In the beginning, God said, “Let there be light. And there was light.”

The Trinity is God’s Love:  revealed to us in creation, shared with “the other” in our relationships, and given through courageous actions of word and deed. United in the diversity and goodness of our creation, walking in the Way of Love, we can reveal God’s original blessing through the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s up to you and me, for the sake of our world, to be part of that Trinity.

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness. So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Genesis 1: 1- 28