A Sermon for Holy Cross Day ( Numbers 21;4b-9; 1 Corinthians 1:18-24; John 3:13-17) Look up! Moses says to the snake bitten children of God. Look up and live! You are being poisoned by a false memory. The scars of the lashes of slavery are still with you, yet you want to remember the grimaces and call them smiles. Look up, cries Moses, look up at the truth. The truth of God’s provision, the truth of walking in freedom, the truth of hope – these truths are indeed a new landscape, but your eyes can adjust. Your body can adjust. Your breath can adjust. But for these truths to do their healing work, you must look up. Lift your eyes to the one who heals you, past the medicine in its curious form. Look to the One whose power is over you, whose love is around you, whose Divine desire is for your healing. Tell them to look up, says the Lord to Moses, to look up from their pain, to turn away from lies, to want healing as much as I, the Lord, want t...
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. - Hebrews 13:8 In every conversation about societal change, people who seek wisdom from the Bible turn to this phrase. Maybe not every person, but these words show up in each argument. Once this phrase appears, the person using it has shut down. They’re no longer open to holy imagination, reason, or even (eyeroll) the devil’s advocate. They’re done. Bear in mind, please, that people used these words to justify the chattel slave trade, the subjugation of women, the forcible removal and attempted extermination of Native peoples, the right to “subdue” the land without thought for renewal or regeneration. The sameness of Christ has been invoked to support antisemitism, racism, LGBTQ+ shaming and harm, marginalization of those with mental illness, harm to neurodivergent folks, people who are divorced, people with physical illnesses, and the list goes on and on. There is no one reading this who has...