@EUCC Sermons

Hughes’ opening question, “What happens to a dream deferred?” has been echoing in my head daily since the Shelter In Place Order was announced:

What happens to a dream deferred? What happens to a child who doesn’t have a digital tablet at home, a WIFI connection, and sufficient bandwidth to participate in distance learning classes, or who doesn’t have their own study space to focus on their studies?

What happens to a dream deferred? What happens to a child who misses meals because his school is closed or her parents don’t have a car or gas money to drive to a food pantry?

What happens to a dream deferred? What happens to a child who is confined to a bedroom for days on end, because someone in the house is in isolation? What happens to children who are left without adult supervision, because their parents have to choose between work and homelessness?

What happens to a dream deferred? What happens to a high school graduate who is admitted to a selective university, but whose family has to choose between rent and tuition? What happens to a cosmetology school graduate who can’t open a shop because of COVID-19, and what happens to a university graduate who got all A’s but can’t find a job in the down economy?

What happens to a dream deferred? What happens to a DACA student--a “Dreamer”--who is repeatedly subjected to the bully talk and the bully walk of our nation’s president, who scapegoats them in an effort to rally his base for the general election? What happens to asylum seekers whose cases are frozen in court, who can’t get public benefits or apply for a job because they don’t have a Social Security number?

This past Friday morning, a reporter on NPR interviewed a panel of educators, doctors, and child welfare specialists exploring what they thought would be the impact of the pandemic and economic losses on the children who are growing up in the midst of this pandemic.

The responses ranged from mixed--depending on a variety of social factors--to very grim. One educator in particular expressed the concern that those who are children now might one day be labeled “the lost generation,” as a result of suffering the downside of social disparities related to their race, class, nation of origin, health status, and special needs.

It doesn’t take any effort to feel discouraged or to worry in these times, even if we are not among the “extremely vulnerable” groups in this pandemic.

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“While it isn’t pleasant to think about God as an opponent, if each of us is truthful about our spiritual journeys, we can probably think of a time when we at least wondered whether God was for us, or against us, in a particular struggle.

Modern psychologists add a further layer of interpretation to Jacob’s story by exploring several psycho-social possibilities for understanding what this wrestling match was all about. Perhaps you can relate. Maybe Jacob was wrestling with his feelings about Laban who had tricked him, sort of like how Jacob had tricked his twin brother, Esau.

A further possibility is that Jacob was wrestling with unresolved guilt about cheating his brother, and harboring all of those icky feelings in his heart for the past 20 years.

No matter which interpretive lens we peer through, or how many lenses we employ, in the end, perhaps we agree that Jacob not only survived his twenty-year ordeal, but he was changed by it.“

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What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done for love?

My oldest and dearest friends won’t even blink. They’ll tell you without hesitation that the craziest thing I ever did for love was to fall for someone who was about to leave for Indonesia for two years--and I told her that I’d wait for her.

So that the GenZs in the congregation can better appreciate how crazy this move was, I will explain that I made this decision before modern technology had come to rural East Java where Stephanie lived. That’s right: there were no phones, no TVs, no Internet, no Facebook, no Snapchat, and no Zoom. Imagine that!

Stephanie and I wrote letters to each other using real paper and ink pens, not texts or emails. I bought aerograms in packets of 30. Aerograms are pre-stamped, self-mailing letters made of light blue paper with dark blue and red trim.

I made sure that I always had enough in stock to write at least one letter every day. Nowadays, I can’t even think of when the last time was that I wrote a letter. (Neither can my mother.)

Twenty-eight years ago, by comparison, I wrote Stephanie as many as seven aerograms a day. She kept everyone of them, including the aerograms that she sent to me. I called them “love letters.” She calls them “field notes.” (She’s a cultural anthropologist.)

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My favorite Chinese proverb goes like this: “If you want to hear God laugh, make a plan.”

I’m a big fan of planning, and I have the resume to prove it. I discovered the merits of planning at a young age, when planning proved to be helpful in keeping me on track as I was striving to overcome some personal hardships and better myself and my family's situation.

In high school, college, and especially in graduate school, I received formal instruction in planning, and experienced first-hand that sound planning was critical to success.

In the early days of my career, I was fortunate to staff planning committees in two different congregations and work with experts in the field of organizational design.

I have applied these habits and skills in the practice of ministry over the years, and have helped every organization that I’ve served to develop and implement strategic plans. In some cases, I have been an architect of more than one strategic plan.

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Many of us were led to believe that doubt is incompatible with the Christian life, but I disagree. In fact, I believe that doubt—even apathy—can be a beneficial--perhaps even essential part--of a mature faith.

I believe that character whom we have come to know as Doubting Thomas has been largely misunderstood, and inappropriately maligned by many preachers who have presented him as a flawed apostle.

While it’s easy to understand how eyes and hearts gravitate toward this negative view of Thomas, several leading New Testament scholars argue that John had a larger purpose in mind when he put these words on Jesus’ lips: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

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