GEROUS WORDS
Preached by: the Rev. Dr. Sandra Olsen
First Church of Christ in Unionville, CT
February 2, 2025
Luke 4: 21-30
Though we often romanticize the past as the glory days, the truth is the past was not always so glorious. We think, for example, that fake news in politics especially is new, but it has been around for a very long time. Consider the American election of 1796, when John Adams, a Federalist was running for President against Thomas Jefferson, a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. Newspapers, in those days, were owned by political parties, and the one owned by the Democratic-Republicans claimed Adams wanted to be king of the United States by trying to marry off one of his sons to a daughter of English King George III, a move said to be blocked by George Washington who intervened just in time to stop it: Fake news. Those against Jefferson asserted that if he were elected President “murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will be openly taught and practiced,” that the country would be “soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes.” Also, fake news. Although the words fake news were not used, if someone did not like or approve of what the other candidate said or represented, it was not uncommon for outright lies to be printed. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
In today’s reading from Luke, we are not exactly dealing with fake news, but we are dealing with words that became dangerous, because of how they were heard or interpreted. The people of Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown, were initially delighted with his return. They marveled at how well he read the scripture from the prophet, Isaiah, because, well, wasn’t he just a hometown boy, the son of Joseph. Initially, they were impressed. But notice what quickly happened when Jesus began to preach, that is interpret the words of scripture, which is what preaching is all about. We should notice the irony that Jesus had returned to his hometown after his sojourn in the wilderness, where he had to face Satan, and the temptations Satan threw at him. While he conquered Satan, he could not do the same thing with his hometown. They took immediate offense when he reminded them that a prophet is not without acclaim except in his hometown.
And then he reminded them of two stories about foreigners, who were helped by two prophets, Elijah and Elisha. The first story is about a gentile widow, who is starving, because there is a terrible famine across the land. And Elijah feeds her, but not the other Israelite widows. And then there is the story of the Syrian general, Namaan, who is suffering from leprosy, and Elisha, a protégé of Elijah, heals Namaan, but not all the other Jewish lepers in Israel. Perhaps in our day, such stories about helping foreigners, while leaving the locals to their own troubles, would elicit the outcry, Fake news, but if not heard as fake, at least such stories are understood to be dangerous. Why else would the townspeople have wanted to push Jesus off a cliff?
Indeed, words have consequence, and sometimes words become dangerous when people hear what they don’t want to hear. The hometown people in this story did not want to be reminded that outsiders, gentiles, non-Jews, were helped when their own kind was not. And why should that be? Jesus doesn’t attempt here to answer that question, but we do know that Jesus moved outside Jewish circles---not often, but he did go into gentile territory, where he taught and even healed, and Luke is the only gospel which has the story of the Samaritan, who was a good neighbor to a beaten and left for dead Jew, who was ignored by other Jews who walked by him. So, it seems the locals did not like what Jesus was selling---a God, who does not always behave in the way that favors the locals. And so, they wanted to get rid of him. They considered his words dangerous, reminding them of something they did not want to be reminded of that God’s love and mercy extend beyond the locals.
Are any of us really surprised by this? We shouldn’t be, because it recently happened right before our very own eyes, during a prayer service at the National Cathedral, when the Washington D. C. bishop, Mariann Edgar Budde, looked the President of the United States in the eyes and asked him to be merciful as she reminded him that there were many people who were fearful---gays and lesbians, trans-gendered, illegal immigrants, working at jobs, trying to hold their families together. Their children, she said, are afraid they would come home one day from school and find their parents gone. And for this---for speaking truth to power---which is usually part of the ordination pledge in most denominations---for this she has been verbally assaulted and even threatened with death by people, who felt she had no right to say such things. This occurred a few days after the nation celebrated the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr, who definitely was in the habit of preaching truth to power. In fact, when people complained that his preaching was too political, he said, “When you are silent about injustice and the suffering of others, you are not simply being non-political and non-partisan. You are being unbiblical, because, whether you like it or not, whether you are comfortable with it or not, the bible is filled with calls for justice and mercy. And such words can be very dangerous, indeed.
Preached by: the Rev. Dr. Sandra Olsen
First Church of Christ in Unionville, CT
February 2, 2025
Luke 4: 21-30
Though we often romanticize the past as the glory days, the truth is the past was not always so glorious. We think, for example, that fake news in politics especially is new, but it has been around for a very long time. Consider the American election of 1796, when John Adams, a Federalist was running for President against Thomas Jefferson, a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. Newspapers, in those days, were owned by political parties, and the one owned by the Democratic-Republicans claimed Adams wanted to be king of the United States by trying to marry off one of his sons to a daughter of English King George III, a move said to be blocked by George Washington who intervened just in time to stop it: Fake news. Those against Jefferson asserted that if he were elected President “murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will be openly taught and practiced,” that the country would be “soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes.” Also, fake news. Although the words fake news were not used, if someone did not like or approve of what the other candidate said or represented, it was not uncommon for outright lies to be printed. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
In today’s reading from Luke, we are not exactly dealing with fake news, but we are dealing with words that became dangerous, because of how they were heard or interpreted. The people of Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown, were initially delighted with his return. They marveled at how well he read the scripture from the prophet, Isaiah, because, well, wasn’t he just a hometown boy, the son of Joseph. Initially, they were impressed. But notice what quickly happened when Jesus began to preach, that is interpret the words of scripture, which is what preaching is all about. We should notice the irony that Jesus had returned to his hometown after his sojourn in the wilderness, where he had to face Satan, and the temptations Satan threw at him. While he conquered Satan, he could not do the same thing with his hometown. They took immediate offense when he reminded them that a prophet is not without acclaim except in his hometown.
And then he reminded them of two stories about foreigners, who were helped by two prophets, Elijah and Elisha. The first story is about a gentile widow, who is starving, because there is a terrible famine across the land. And Elijah feeds her, but not the other Israelite widows. And then there is the story of the Syrian general, Namaan, who is suffering from leprosy, and Elisha, a protégé of Elijah, heals Namaan, but not all the other Jewish lepers in Israel. Perhaps in our day, such stories about helping foreigners, while leaving the locals to their own troubles, would elicit the outcry, Fake news, but if not heard as fake, at least such stories are understood to be dangerous. Why else would the townspeople have wanted to push Jesus off a cliff?
Indeed, words have consequence, and sometimes words become dangerous when people hear what they don’t want to hear. The hometown people in this story did not want to be reminded that outsiders, gentiles, non-Jews, were helped when their own kind was not. And why should that be? Jesus doesn’t attempt here to answer that question, but we do know that Jesus moved outside Jewish circles---not often, but he did go into gentile territory, where he taught and even healed, and Luke is the only gospel which has the story of the Samaritan, who was a good neighbor to a beaten and left for dead Jew, who was ignored by other Jews who walked by him. So, it seems the locals did not like what Jesus was selling---a God, who does not always behave in the way that favors the locals. And so, they wanted to get rid of him. They considered his words dangerous, reminding them of something they did not want to be reminded of that God’s love and mercy extend beyond the locals.
Are any of us really surprised by this? We shouldn’t be, because it recently happened right before our very own eyes, during a prayer service at the National Cathedral, when the Washington D. C. bishop, Mariann Edgar Budde, looked the President of the United States in the eyes and asked him to be merciful as she reminded him that there were many people who were fearful---gays and lesbians, trans-gendered, illegal immigrants, working at jobs, trying to hold their families together. Their children, she said, are afraid they would come home one day from school and find their parents gone. And for this---for speaking truth to power---which is usually part of the ordination pledge in most denominations---for this she has been verbally assaulted and even threatened with death by people, who felt she had no right to say such things. This occurred a few days after the nation celebrated the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr, who definitely was in the habit of preaching truth to power. In fact, when people complained that his preaching was too political, he said, “When you are silent about injustice and the suffering of others, you are not simply being non-political and non-partisan. You are being unbiblical, because, whether you like it or not, whether you are comfortable with it or not, the bible is filled with calls for justice and mercy. And such words can be very dangerous, indeed.
February 4, 2025
Dear Friends,
February 1 was the first day of Black History Month, and in Middletown, where I live, there was a special event, marking the history of Black people in our town. The name of Rapallo Ave, jutting off Main Street in downtown, was changed to Prince Mortimer Ave. A city ordinance was passed, allowing honorary street names, and so Prince Mortimer became the first such street in Middletown.
No one, except for a few serious history buffs, knew anything about Mortimer, who was kidnapped off the coast of Guinea in the early 1700’s and brought to Middletown. His enslaver was a man named Philip Mortimer, a wealthy Irishman and rope factory owner. Prince worked at the rope factory for decades, and he also served officers during the Revolutionary War, including George Washington for whom he ran errands.
Philip Mortimer died in 1794, and his will promised freedom to Prince, whom he said had served him so well. Sadly, his son in law, George Starr, decided to challenge the will in court, and he won. I have no idea on what grounds he won, but we can guess that White people were almost always victorious over the petitions of Black people. And so, tragically, Prince was never freed. In 1811 George Starr accused Prince of placing arsenic in the chocolate he was serving, and George wasted no time in going to the authorities. And so, Prince, at the age of 87, was sentenced to life imprisonment in Old Newgate Prison in East Granby, CT, considered at the time to be one of the worst prisons in America. In 1827 it was closed, and Prince found himself in a new prison in Wethersfield, CT, where he was incarcerated until the year he died, 1834, at the age of 110.
You can visit the Solomon Welles House in Old Wethersfield that was once the state prison, and its cemetery lies nearby. A majority of the cemetery “residents” are convicts, but there are also two victims of typhoid buried there. The fear of typhoid was great enough to place their graves among the friendless convicts. There are no markers noting any of the graves, but the graves do overlook a scene of great beauty, which although doing the dead no good, do offer visitors an uplift. This is Prince Mortimer’s final resting place----small comfort to one whose life was cruelly abused. Whether or not his enslaver behaved kindly or cruelly toward him, nonetheless, slavery is one of the great crimes against humanity, and in our own nation, it required a civil war to defeat it. Though we cannot remake the past, we can at least give it the dignity of memory. Black History Month is one way we remember and celebrate the stories and contributions of Black people. And it is also the way we mourn the injustice and cruelty suffered by people, who did nothing to deserve their fate.
I had never heard of Prince Mortimer, and that is undoubtedly true for most of Middletown’s citizens. He could so easily be forgotten, as most people are when they die, followed later by those who remembered them. And then the memories are gone. But Prince Mortimer now has a street in Middletown named after him, and his story can be learned and passed on. Memory does not change the history that has happened, but it does alter our relationship to the past. When we know something that once was ignored or denied, the past becomes more real to us and in remembering it, we grant it a kind of dignity.
Some years ago, when working as a chaplain in a hospital, I met a German woman, who told me that ten years after her father died, she learned from her aunt, her father’s sister, that he had been a Nazi and had helped to round Jews up for deportation. “For years,” she told me, “I tried to hate my father. But I never succeeded, because to my brother, sister and me he had been a good father and to my mother he had been a good husband. My mother had pre-deceased my father, so I never could talk with her about this painful truth, but I did speak with my aunt, who admitted to me that the entire family was really very anti-Jewish. When I asked my aunt why she told me my father’s story, she said it was one way she could repent for her own anti-Jewish thoughts and feelings. She never turned anyone in, or so she said, but she admitted to me that she thought she was capable of doing so, if the right circumstances had arisen. She did not think of herself as better than my father; the opportunities of history just presented themselves so differently to each of them., and for such stark honesty, I was grateful.
When I asked the woman if she would have preferred her aunt to keep silent, she said, “Well, at first, I thought so, but in time I realized that somehow the truth was working in me in a way that was positive in the sense that I felt I had been made a part of history that should not be denied. And it helped me to confront the painful reality that we human beings are terribly complex creatures. How could my father, whom to me seemed so gentle and kind, be a Nazi, a hater of Jews? I never heard him utter antisemitic statements, but my aunt did not lie to me. Of that, I was sure. And so, though I still loved my father, I loved him with a reality that was deeper and more honest than before. And it gave me an insight into the love of God, which we find in Jesus Christ. God never stops loving us, even when we do things that are despicable, completely against God’s commandments. And it is a great mystery what that love does to us and for us.” And to that we can say, Amen.
Yours in Christ,
Sandra
Dear Friends,
February 1 was the first day of Black History Month, and in Middletown, where I live, there was a special event, marking the history of Black people in our town. The name of Rapallo Ave, jutting off Main Street in downtown, was changed to Prince Mortimer Ave. A city ordinance was passed, allowing honorary street names, and so Prince Mortimer became the first such street in Middletown.
No one, except for a few serious history buffs, knew anything about Mortimer, who was kidnapped off the coast of Guinea in the early 1700’s and brought to Middletown. His enslaver was a man named Philip Mortimer, a wealthy Irishman and rope factory owner. Prince worked at the rope factory for decades, and he also served officers during the Revolutionary War, including George Washington for whom he ran errands.
Philip Mortimer died in 1794, and his will promised freedom to Prince, whom he said had served him so well. Sadly, his son in law, George Starr, decided to challenge the will in court, and he won. I have no idea on what grounds he won, but we can guess that White people were almost always victorious over the petitions of Black people. And so, tragically, Prince was never freed. In 1811 George Starr accused Prince of placing arsenic in the chocolate he was serving, and George wasted no time in going to the authorities. And so, Prince, at the age of 87, was sentenced to life imprisonment in Old Newgate Prison in East Granby, CT, considered at the time to be one of the worst prisons in America. In 1827 it was closed, and Prince found himself in a new prison in Wethersfield, CT, where he was incarcerated until the year he died, 1834, at the age of 110.
You can visit the Solomon Welles House in Old Wethersfield that was once the state prison, and its cemetery lies nearby. A majority of the cemetery “residents” are convicts, but there are also two victims of typhoid buried there. The fear of typhoid was great enough to place their graves among the friendless convicts. There are no markers noting any of the graves, but the graves do overlook a scene of great beauty, which although doing the dead no good, do offer visitors an uplift. This is Prince Mortimer’s final resting place----small comfort to one whose life was cruelly abused. Whether or not his enslaver behaved kindly or cruelly toward him, nonetheless, slavery is one of the great crimes against humanity, and in our own nation, it required a civil war to defeat it. Though we cannot remake the past, we can at least give it the dignity of memory. Black History Month is one way we remember and celebrate the stories and contributions of Black people. And it is also the way we mourn the injustice and cruelty suffered by people, who did nothing to deserve their fate.
I had never heard of Prince Mortimer, and that is undoubtedly true for most of Middletown’s citizens. He could so easily be forgotten, as most people are when they die, followed later by those who remembered them. And then the memories are gone. But Prince Mortimer now has a street in Middletown named after him, and his story can be learned and passed on. Memory does not change the history that has happened, but it does alter our relationship to the past. When we know something that once was ignored or denied, the past becomes more real to us and in remembering it, we grant it a kind of dignity.
Some years ago, when working as a chaplain in a hospital, I met a German woman, who told me that ten years after her father died, she learned from her aunt, her father’s sister, that he had been a Nazi and had helped to round Jews up for deportation. “For years,” she told me, “I tried to hate my father. But I never succeeded, because to my brother, sister and me he had been a good father and to my mother he had been a good husband. My mother had pre-deceased my father, so I never could talk with her about this painful truth, but I did speak with my aunt, who admitted to me that the entire family was really very anti-Jewish. When I asked my aunt why she told me my father’s story, she said it was one way she could repent for her own anti-Jewish thoughts and feelings. She never turned anyone in, or so she said, but she admitted to me that she thought she was capable of doing so, if the right circumstances had arisen. She did not think of herself as better than my father; the opportunities of history just presented themselves so differently to each of them., and for such stark honesty, I was grateful.
When I asked the woman if she would have preferred her aunt to keep silent, she said, “Well, at first, I thought so, but in time I realized that somehow the truth was working in me in a way that was positive in the sense that I felt I had been made a part of history that should not be denied. And it helped me to confront the painful reality that we human beings are terribly complex creatures. How could my father, whom to me seemed so gentle and kind, be a Nazi, a hater of Jews? I never heard him utter antisemitic statements, but my aunt did not lie to me. Of that, I was sure. And so, though I still loved my father, I loved him with a reality that was deeper and more honest than before. And it gave me an insight into the love of God, which we find in Jesus Christ. God never stops loving us, even when we do things that are despicable, completely against God’s commandments. And it is a great mystery what that love does to us and for us.” And to that we can say, Amen.
Yours in Christ,
Sandra
ALL ARE WELCOME --
NO EXCEPTIONS!
|
Welcome to the church with a heart, in the heart of Unionville. Whether you are a curious visitor, looking for a new church home, or somewhere in between, we invite you to join us for worship. We value faith and fellowship within our congregation, and service to the larger community. Regardless of race, color, gender, national origin, age, beliefs, creed, physical ability, mental health status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, everyone is invited to participate in the full life and ministry of the church. No matter who you are, or where you are in life's journey, YOU ARE WELCOME AND ACCEPTED HERE!
Open and Affirming |
In addition to in-person worship, we continue to broadcast our services via Zoom. Click here to be directed to the service:
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To access Sermons and Reflection Letters, please go to the Pastor's Page.
PLEASE JOIN US FOR REFRESHMENTS IN THE SOCIAL ROOM AFTER WORSHIP SERVICES.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89507308253?pwd=NUt4QktqUVg0a3NidWVHV0JmS0hQdz09
To access Sermons and Reflection Letters, please go to the Pastor's Page.
PLEASE JOIN US FOR REFRESHMENTS IN THE SOCIAL ROOM AFTER WORSHIP SERVICES.
Annual Congregational Budget Meeting
We will be holding our annual church-wide meeting to review and vote on the proposed 2025 budget directly after the Worship Service on Sunday, January 19. Potluck to follow.
If you are unable to attend and wish to vote on the budget, please contact the church office.
If you are unable to attend and wish to vote on the budget, please contact the church office.
