From those we otherize and judge…
The Rev. Jennifer Gregg
 
“Come closer to me.” [1]
I am not your enemy. 
Stop otherizing me
and thinking of yourself as better or different.
This is where it begins,
where hate starts,
where friends or strangers slowly turn into enemies,
through what we “think” we know.
 
It’s not the big things. 
It’s in the little things.
Mustard seeds of misconceptions:
the judgment about my weight,
the clothes I wear,
my addiction,
how I got to this place in my life.
 
My story is complicated.
Yours is too.
I didn’t always ask for the things that shaped me. 
Your aloofness, 
the subtle things that tell me,
“We are different”
hold me at a distance and
help me build this wall around my heart.
It cements the wall around your heart too.
You don’t have to tell me how you feel. 
I can see it. 
I can feel it.
There are many parts of me that are broken.
My actions that infuriate you are a sign of healing,
 I often don’t even know I need.
What I do know is this: 
I want to be seen.
I want to be heard.
 
You know me now, don’t you? 
You know my name even when it’s said with irritation,
makes your blood boil and
gets under your skin.
So, bring me closer,
maybe not physically, 
not yet. 
We both need to feel safe.
Start with your prayers. 
Start here.
 
Prayer is like the warmth of the sun.
It begins to melt the calcified layers within.
Something within you and within me needs to be loosened, 
softened,
made more malleable.
Hearts of stone to hearts of flesh. 
So, Spirit can breathe into the spaces of anger and ill intent.
 
Begin simply by saying my name.
Even if it is done under your breath,
with pursed lips,
and a clenched jaw.
It’s a start.
 
Let your jaw loosen first. 
Your breath expand around my name.
Then, when you are ready, ask:
What do you want in your life for your family and friends?[2]
 
Might you imagine I want it too?
To know myself as beloved.
To be able to be brought to my blind spots.
To be forgiven for them.
 
May this be the place we begin,
together,
and
let God do God’s work from there.


[1] Genesis 45:3-11, 15
[2] Grateful to The Rev. Francie Hills and our conversations in the last months of her life around this question as we wrestled with how to pray for those whose decisions and ways of being in the world we do not agree with. 

“Tears, Snot and All”
All Saints Sermon
The Rev. Jennifer Gregg
John 11:32-44
November 7th, 2021
 
I wish I could tell you how many times I have heard people say,
“I just feel really awful.” -or-“I am going through such a hard time right now.”
AND
“I can’t cry in church.”
Too many to count.
Maybe you are one of these people or maybe you think this,and  haven’t said it.
Crying is giving ourselves permission to let go.
To let go of the grief of the world, of our laments, of our fears, of all the ways the world breaks our hearts open.
It is normal and it is healthy.
And I think there is still this notion that when we come before God, we want to be all cleaned up: to be at our “Sunday best.”
We may not be wearing fancy hats or our best dress or suit and tie.  Those days for most New Englanders are long gone. Emotionally though, we button up.  Put on our finest smile, psych ourselves up. Hoping that if we convince others we are “good”, we might just convince ourselves. 
Let me be clear,                                                
You do not have to have it all figured it out or be at your Sunday best.
Sometimes our Sunday best is just the fact that we mustered enough energy to roll out of bed and show up….
Sometimes our Sunday best is letting ourselves land here exhausted and overwhelmed, as we weather a difficult season in our lives….
Sometimes our Sunday best is finding a safe place where we can lament and be angry in the presence of a pastor, a friend, a pastoral care provider, who will listen with us long enough that we can see a situation differently or point us in the direction of resources…
Sometimes our Sunday best is giving ourselves permission to not be at our best and letting whatever comes…..come.
And this my friends, is enough.
So, if the tears come, let them.
And as they do, we as a community of faith, do not have to be too quick to jump up and get the tissue box.
We might ask how this reinforces the desire to be at our “Sunday best,” to be all “cleaned up”?
You and your tears are holy and beautiful.
Jesus came into the world to meet us where we are and to enter our reality: in our tears, in our questions and frustrations.
And today, we are given the opportunity to meet Jesus right where he is – as he weeps.
As Mary approaches Jesus, she is beside herself.
Her brother Lazarus is dead. She is angry, lamenting (and I paraphrase), “Dagnabit Jesus!  If you had been here my brother would not have died.Where were you?!”
The news of Lazarus death coupled with Mary’s emotions, moves Jesus.
Jesus did not stifle his tears, swallow the lump in his throat. He let the lump rise, allowing his own memories of Lazarus to come, allowing in Mary’s distress. He let his tears spill over and run down his face.
Jesus did not jump over this moment, even if he knew what was possible or what would come next.
He honored it in himself and in others.
He knew that this ground, the place of weeping, was just as holy as the next.
It is being in this place of grief and of tears, that allows for new life to come.
And it needs its own space.
 
We live in a world right now where grief is layered upon grief.
And there is not a good outlet.
700,000+ lives lost in the last two years.
There are no words.
Jesus weeps.
While we weep.
And as we do, a great cloud of witnesses who are both known and unknown gather around us. Saints, who have weathered the pain and turmoil of this world in their own day and time.
And just as they may have prayed for us and encouraged us on our way while they were walking with us on our earthly pilgrimage, might they just be doing the same now?
Earlier this week I read a sermon by Brother Curtis Almquist from Society of St. John the Evangelist who speaks to this question.  He writes:
“There are reasons why we may be attracted to particular people, and there are reasons why we may be attracted to particular saints. But I would say it’s two-sided. We may be attracted to particular saints because they are attracted to us, this “thin divide” between earth and heaven, between this life and the next.
The most ancient of the church’s creeds, the Apostles’ Creed, affirms that “we believe in the communion of saints” (that’s our communion with the saints), the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” (1) There’s something real about the communication between this world and the world to come, a kind of communion between saints and souls and sinners that spans the gulf of time.  It is not just we who are praying, but we are being prayed for by a great cloud of heroic witnesses…”[1] 
“We are being prayed for by a great cloud of heroic witnesses…”
How might this knowledge comfort you in your moments of grief, that those you love and long for are just as close as your very breath?
While we find our way through this time, what a gift to recognize that we are being prayed for by those we have loved and lost, who are still rooting for us in all the same ways that gave us strength when we could see them face to face.
The saints were not people who had it all together and were all cleaned up.
Their “Sunday best” came with all the ebbs and flows that we have in our own life.  And they continued to show up even in the times that were difficult with transparency and honesty.
This is where their beauty lies.
And so as we sing a song of the saints of God, “who were patient, brave and true, who toiled and fought, lived, wept and died….for the Lord they loved and knew.”
May they help us to be present to our life, in this moment, too.


[1] To Read Br. Almquist’s entire sermonThe Saints, Our Heroes, please go to:  https://www.ssje.org/2014/11/02/the-saints-our-heroes-br-curtis-almquist/