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CLAMORING FOR DIGNITY

5/25/2025

Sunday, May 25, 2025
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

John 5:1-9

After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The ill man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am making my way someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.  Now that day was a Sabbath.

I had some business in New York City last week and so I decided to make a day of it.  I enjoyed a $25 tuna melt, saw a couple of exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum, visited the old neighborhood where we used to live, and walked a total of eight miles.  It felt just like the good old days, except, of course, for the next day, when my knees and hips were killing me.

And as always, the streets of New York were full of beautiful people and busy people and stylish people… and desperate people.  And there was one man who seemed more desperate than the rest.

This man wasn’t loud or aggressive.  In fact, I might have missed seeing him altogether, because he was out of most people’s field of vision.

This man was on the sidewalk, literally.  Through what I assume was a birth defect, the man had no legs.  And while he had arms and hands, they too were deformed.  He did not call out to passersby asking for change.  He was not holding a sign saying that he would work for food.  Instead, he just sat there, up against a building, eyes downcast.

I don’t know what was going on in that man’s mind.  But I do know what was going through mine.  And it was this simple question: how can you have any dignity when you live on the ground?  How can you have any dignity when no one looks you in the eye?

That was the story of the man Jesus met at the Pool of Beth-zatha or easier said, Bethesda.  He too was on the ground and had been for thirty-eight long years - more than the average life span back in Jesus’s day.  Imagine that – a whole lifetime spent in the dirt.  And, like the man on the sidewalk in Manhattan, this man also had a place where he positioned himself every day, perhaps hoping for the kindness of strangers, some food, some change.

And he wasn’t alone.  John says that many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people gathered at pool of Beth-zatha, maybe because of its name: Beth-zatha means House of Mercy or House of Pity.  Maybe they went there because that’s what they needed.

This pool was famous because it was rumored that once a day an angel of the Lord would disturb the waters, and the first one in the pool after those angelic ripples would be healed.  You can imagine the mayhem that happened every day when someone would shout, “Look, the waters are moving!” and all those desperate people would clamor to get in.

I wonder why, of all the people there, Jesus was attracted to that man on that day?  Whatever the reason, Jesus knew that this man had been on the ground for a very long time.  And so, he walked up to the man and asked him what seems to be an obvious question: “Do you want to be made well?”

The obvious answer is: “YES!  I want to be made well!”  But life on the ground has a way of taking away your dignity, your agency, your self-determination.  Life on the ground makes it hard to articulate what you actually need.  And so, instead, the man spoke about the broken healthcare system and how unfair it all was.  He said to Jesus, “Sir, I have no one to help me get into the water once the angel stirs it. Someone always beats me to it.”

And that response revealed everything.  The man wasn’t only broken in body.  He was broken in spirit.  He had lost his sense of self.  And it wasn’t just his body that was on the ground.  It was his dignity.

So, Jesus gave him what he really needed.  Notice that Jesus doesn’t commend the man for his faith, saying something like, “Your faith has made you well.”  And he doesn’t speak of the man’s illness at all.  Instead he speaks to his lack of dignity.

“Stand up,” Jesus said.  And by God, the man did.  For the first time in thirty-eight years, he did.  And when he did, his whole view of the world changed because he was on the same level as everyone else.  He had regained his place in society.

Then Jesus said, “Take your mat.”  And by God, the man did.  He bent down – something else he had not done in thirty-eight years.  And he picked up his mat and tucked it under his arm and folded away his shame.

And then Jesus said, “Walk.”  In other words, chose which way you want to go.  Walking is not just about ambulation.  It is about self-direction.  It is about agency and freedom and dignity.

So, yes, Jesus healed the man’s body that day.  But he healed far more than that.  In the commands to “Stand up” and “Take your mat” and “Walk” Jesus restored and healed the man’s his dignity.

This weekend, we all pause to remember the war dead, and in that remembrance, to give them their dignity.  That means that this weekend is not primarily about the unofficial start of summer.  It’s not about shopping all the sales.  It’s not about an extra day off.  And it most certainly is not about partisan politics.  Instead, this is an opportunity for us to do what Jesus did, to pause long enough to see human suffering, and dare to look at broken bodies and shattered mind. It is a solemn moment of thinking about all the empty seats around dinner tables and the broken hearts of those left behind.

My grandfather, Staff Sergeant David Campbell, died during the D-Day Invasion.  Like so many others, my grandfather is buried at the American Cemetery in Normandie.

Some years ago now, Marcos took me there, to visit his grave.  I was, and remain, the only member of my family to ever do so.  It was a profoundly moving experience.

When the French people who work in the visitor center understood that David Campbell was my grandfather, we were all treated with greatest of dignity.  They put us in a jeep and drove us to the grave.  They handed me an American flag and a French flag to place on the grave.  They rubbed sand from Omaha Beach into the letters of his name, so they could be more clearly read.  And then they left us alone.  And then Marcos and our traveling companion left me alone – to meet the man I never knew, to pay my respects.

I won’t tell you what I said to my grandfather that day.  But when I finally walked away, I knew that I had given him the dignity and the respect that our family owed him; that our nation owes him.

The world is full of people who no one seems to see: the forgotten, the inconvenient, the poor, the sick, the despised.  But we who claim the name of Jesus have it in our ability to give them exactly what they need: the dignity of being seen.

And here’s the miracle in all of that.  In that seeing, they are healed.  But in that seeing, we are healed too, of our selfishness and our callousness.  And together, we stand up, roll up our shame, and walk.

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LIFE IN THE BIG TOP

5/17/2025

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Sunday, May 18, 2025
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

Acts 11:1-18

Now the apostles and the brothers and sisters who were in Judea heard that the gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners, and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

In March of 1956, a young man named Richard Cushing joined this church.  On May 5, 2025, that same Richard Cushing passed from this life into the life to come.  In all the intervening years, Richard lived his life and had a career and made friends and was a faithful member of this congregation.

By the time I arrived here in January 2018, Richard, who used to sit right over there, was elderly and not well.  Part of his struggle was a difficulty in speaking.  Despite that, he liked to participate in the Joys and Concerns, and he used to write me notes and leave me voicemail messages.  Sometimes I understood him.  Sometimes I struggled.   But there was one phrase that Richard was fond of and which, when he said it, was always clearly understood.  And that phrase was “sound doctrine.”  It was very important to Richard that the preachers of this church would always preach and teach “sound doctrine.”

And lest you think that Mr. Cushing was simply an outlier in that regard, you should know that my job description charges me to “Communicate the Word of God in worship services through clear, compelling, and doctrinally sound sermons.”

So, the idea of sound doctrine is built into the very DNA of this church.  But what, you might be wondering, does that phrase actually mean?  And how do you decide if what I am preaching is sound doctrine?

This is an especially complicated issue in a non-creedal church like ours.  In the Congregational tradition and in the United Church of Christ, we receive the historic creeds of the church as testimonies of faith, but not tests.  No one signs on the dotted line.  We receive the traditions of the church, but are free to make new traditions.  And as for the Bible, yes, we honor it as containing the Word of God, but how you interpret it and how I interpret it may be two very different things entirely.

Because of all of that, the United Church of Christ is often accused of not having any theology at all.  And that misperception makes us the brunt of jokes by other Christians who have much firmer boundaries than we do.

I once overheard a group of Episcopal priests titter when one of them said that the initials UCC actually stand for “Unitarians Considering Christ.”  I have also heard that that UCC stands for “Utterly Confused Christians” or “Upper Crust Congregationalists” or, my personal favorite, “Upset Christian Cynics”.

But those jokes are based on a misunderstanding.  Because we do have theology in the United Church of Christ.  And it’s very rich.  But we also live in a very big tent.  In when you live in a big top, the three ring circus can sometimes appear as chaos.

But here’s the thing: it always has, and not just in the UCC.  Despite what some people claim about the so-called uniformity of church history, trust me when I tell you that the church has been chaotic since the beginning.

That’s exactly what we read in the book of Acts today: Holy Spirit chaos!  Remember that the Jesus movement started as a reform movement of Judaism.  It was for the Jewish people and by the Jewish people and about a Jewish rabbi.  But soon enough, the Spirit began to blow this nascent movement in new and unexpected directions.  And lo and behold, the Gentiles began to accept the message about Jesus.  So old St. Peter paid those unclean outsiders a visit.  But more than that, he sat down and ate their non-kosher food.

Well, the elders in Jerusalem, who were charged with keeping sound doctrine, were none too pleased.  And so, they called Peter back to Jerusalem to give him a good talking to about proper boundaries, as defined in Scripture and tradition.

Now, I suppose, that upon hearing those accusations, Peter could have argued with them and tried to convince them to see his point of view.  But don’t we all know that arguing with anyone rarely wins them to your point of view.  But telling a story might.  And that’s what Peter did.  He told them a story about what happened to him when the Holy Spirit came to call.

Peter said that while he was in Joppa, he had a vision, a strange vision, of a large sheet being lowered down from heaven by its four corners.  And on that sheet were all kinds of things that a good Jewish man would never eat.  But a Voice from heaven said to him: “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.”  Of course, Peter resisted.  He knew the rules.  He knew that this food was forbidden.  But the Voice said, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”  Someone should put that on a bumper sticker: What God has made clean, you must not call profane.  And, then to drive the point home, this strange vision repeated itself two more times.

Just then, three men from Caesarea arrived and invited Peter to go to the home of a Gentile named Cornelius.  And Peter went, because, as he said: “The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us.”  So he went.  And much to his surprise, the same Holy Spirit that inspired his strange vision, was poured out on these outsiders.

This story is actually told twice in the book of Acts: first in chapter 10 and then again in chapter 11. Why?  Because this was the precise moment when the entire course of church history was changed.  And the Jesus movement, which might have remained a sect of Judaism, was instead sent to people like us.  And here we are, all because of Peter’s willingness to challenge the boundaries.

Now this kind of talk scares some people.  And they wonder: what are the limits between being flexible and malleable and being a heretic?  It’s a good question.

The great 20th century German theologian, Helmut Thielicke, wrote about this fine line in his book entitled, The Trouble with the Church: “… it is easy to remain orthodox and hew to the old line. But (the one) who speaks to this hour's need and translates the (Gospel) will always be skirting the edge of heresy.  Only (the one) who risks heresies can gain the truth."

And what is the truth that is worth that kind of risk?  What is the unifying principle around which we dare not turn?

I think you already know.  It’s actually found in the Gospel lesson appointed for this day, but which we did not read.  Jesus said to his disciples: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

And here’s the thing about that kind of love: it will always push us right to the edge of heresy; right up to the line of what others think is acceptable.  Because to love is to always choose compassion over blind obedience, and mercy over the most hallowed traditions, and human stories over human rules.

Long before it was so commonplace for LGBTQ people to be in the pews and in the pulpit, the pastor of an expatriate Baptist Church in Jerusalem was called on the carpet because he allowed an openly gay couple to sing in the church’s choir.  The denominational officials dressed him down, and quoted the Bible at him, and accused him of disregarding tradition.  The pastor listened to their concerns, and when it was time for him to speak, this is what he said: “When I stand before the judgment throne of God to give an account of my life, if I have been wrong, I would rather err on the side of compassion than on the side of judgment.”

Mr. Cushing was right, you know.  Sound doctrine is important.  And this is how you know it: sound doctrine is as sound doctrine does.  And the bottom line of any creed worth following is LOVE.

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STITCHING TOGETHER THE RESURRECTION

5/11/2025

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May 11, 2025
The First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

Acts 9:36-43

Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. At that time, she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.” So, Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.

On this Mother’s Day, we rightly turn our attention to those women who birthed us and nurtured us and fed us with their bodies and loved us into this world.  Some are here.  Some are gone.  But all are close on this day.

So, of course, I think of my own mom, still perking along and working in her garden at 88.  I hope I got those genes!  And think of my mother-in-law today, although more than two decades have passed since she died.

Marcos’s mother was a remarkable woman, who had a very difficult life, yet maintained a deep and abiding faith.  By the time I met Dona Conceição, she was already older, but still quite formidable - so much so that I was a little intimidated by her in the beginning.  But over the years, as we stayed with her in Brazil and she stayed with us in New York, she and I became quite fond of each other.

My mother-in-law had many gifts, but she was especially skilled at needlework.  Some of her pieces are now in our house: a beautiful crocheted table runner, a colorful knit blanket.  She also used those needlework skills to make clothes for the poor.  She would collect scraps of material that no one else wanted, and stitch them together as shirts and coats and dresses to be given to those who had nothing.

I’ve always loved that part of her story because, in part, it reminds me of this story about someone else’s mother and mother-in-law - a woman named Tabitha.  Tabitha lived in Joppa, which is modern day Tel Aviv.  And one day, she became ill and died.  As was the custom, those who loved her lovingly washed her body and then laid her out in an upstairs room – keeping the kind of intimacy with her in death that we have sadly lost.

Then her friends did what we do when death comes to call – they sent for the preacher.  They asked Peter to come without delay.  And so, he did, and was immediately taken upstairs to see the body and to pay his respects.

The room was full of widows, implying that Tabitha was a widow too; that these were her people.  And these widows showed Peter all the clothing that Tabitha had made, and which, like my mother-in-law, she used to give to the poor.  But now she was dead.  And in addition to the hole in their hearts, there was a hole in the social fabric that provided for the poor.

Then Peter did an odd thing: he cleared the room.  Maybe he was remembering how Jesus had done the same thing just before he raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead.  Or maybe he was afraid of what was being asked of him, and he needed some time to screw up his courage.

When the room was empty, Peter knelt beside the gray, lifeless body and began to pray.  Now, I, too have prayed over dead bodies, but I never prayed for them to do what Tabitha did.  When Peter said, “Tabitha, get up!” the color came back into her cheeks, and her eyes fluttered open, and she looked at Peter, her face full of questions.  Peter took her by the hand and helped her to sit up on the edge of the bed.  And then he threw open the door and said to the crowd: “Come and see for yourselves what the Lord has done!”

Well, the news spread like wildfire.  And because of it, many people believed in the Lord.  Well, no kidding.  If I raised someone from the dead, this place would be packed to the rafters!

So, what are we to make of this story?  Well, first of all, it fits the pattern of the book of Acts, which is a history book of the earliest church.  In the stories of Acts, one idea is underscored again and again and again.  And it’s simply this: the Resurrection of Jesus Christ changes everything that we thought we knew, even our concepts of reality itself.

Now, some people get all tangled up in whether the story of Tabitha is a factual report or a powerful metaphor.  It’s an interesting question and faithful people have all varieties of opinions about it.  But I don’t get too caught up in that anymore, remembering that the miracles of the Bible are rarely not the main point of the story.  Instead, the miracles get out attention long enough for us to understand the main point.  Miracles are signs and pointers to something else that is profound.  As I said on Easter Sunday, it’s the truth that’s underneath the Resurrection that really matters.  So, what is the truth that matters here and what does it mean for us?

Well, let’s rewind to the time before Tabitha died.  Her claim to fame was “that she was devoted to good works and acts of charity.”  In other words, this was a good soul – a woman who spent her time and her resources helping others.  And we’ve all known people like that.  Many of you are people like that.  The Tabithas of the world are kind-hearted and quiet and devoted.  Without any fanfare or need for attention, they make meals for the poor and work in food pantries and tutor children and write letters to Congress and pick up trash along the highway and teach Sunday School.  They are, like their patron saint Tabitha, devoted to good works and acts of charity.

And according to the book of Act, that made Tabitha a “disciple.” Now that may not seem like much to the casual reader, until you realize that this is the first and only time in the entire New Testament that a woman is called a disciple; that the feminine form of the Greek word is employed.  And the explicit message is two-fold: 1) that Tabitha was equal to any of the male disciples.  And that was an astounding, revolutionary claim in the ancient world.  And 2) that her ministry of making clothes for the poor was as vital a sign of Resurrection power as anything the men folk did - including preaching and teaching and even raising the dead.

The great Tabitha of Tel Aviv stands as a witness to this transformative Easter truth: that every act of goodness and kindness and generosity and selflessness has the power to raise us and other from death itself.

Tabitha did that by making clothes for the poor. She was devoted to it.  But what about you?  What are you devoted to?  How do you make the Resurrection a reality?

It doesn’t need to be complicated, you know.  You don’t have to stand in a pulpit or wear a fancy robe to do it.  The great preacher Barbara Brown Taylor writes in her marvelous book, An Altar in the World, that there are as many ways to show forth the Resurrection as there are people.  And here I quote: “To make bread or love, to dig in the earth, to feed an animal or cook for a stranger—these activities require no extensive commentary, no lucid theology.  All they require is someone willing to bend, reach, chop, stir. Most of these tasks are so full of pleasure that there is no need to complicate things by calling them holy. And yet these are the same activities that change lives, sometimes all at once and sometimes more slowly, the way dripping water changes stone.”[1]

The Resurrection didn’t just happen once.  It is the divine design of the Universe.  It is God’s master plan for the whole creation.  And it happens all the time – in any of us who are willing.  All it takes is willing hearts and hands.  It’s Resurrection in the everydayness of our lives… moment-by-moment, person-by-person, deed-by-deed, drop-by-drop, stitch-by-stitch-by-stitch.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World

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CLAMORING FOR DIGNITY

LIFE IN THE BIG TOP

STITCHING TOGETHER THE RESURRECTION

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