"Change is Possible", February 27, 2022

 Change is Possible

By Rev Jamie Green Klopotoski
Based on Matthew 2:1-12
February 27, 2022
First Baptist Church, Gloucester, MA

Watch here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/476126755790467/permalink/4896368630432902/

I have to be with honest with you. I had an entirely different sermon prepared to preach for today.

Today is Transfiguration Sunday, the day when Christian churches read stories of transfigurations in the bible, including the one I read today from the Gospel of Luke about the time when Jesus’ appearance was changed by the radiance of God’s light. Some also read the story of when Moses went up Mt. Sinai, entered into the presence of God, received the 10 commandments on stone tablets, and came back down the mountain with his face shining, transfigured, because God’s face had shown on him. 

Transfiguration is all about transformation, about change, not just a change of physical appearance, but a change of the inner self. I had planned to talk to you about change by telling some stories from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” and the Broadway musical “Wicked”. And maybe some other day, I will tell you these stories. But it didn’t feel right today. Because on Thursday morning, Russian forces launched a devastating assault on Ukrainian territory — the largest such military operation in Europe since the end of World War II. Missiles rained down on Ukraine's cities and columns of Russian troops began streaming into the countryside. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have left their homes in search of safety, some sleeping in subway tunnels that have been turned into bomb shelters. Russia's barrage has already killed at least 130 Ukrainian civilians and wounded 300 others, with many many more deaths and injuries predicted. 

  

It sounds trite to say that my thoughts and prayers are with the people of Ukraine, but I’m not sure what else to do about what’s happening in a country almost 5,000 miles away. I feel the powerlessness in the fact that most of us will be unable to directly influence Vladimir Putin or the course of this war. But I don’t want to do nothing, and prayer feels like something I can do, something we can do. But what are we supposed to say or feel when we pray for Ukraine? What do these prayers achieve? And how will these prayers be answered? 

Especially in times like these, I find comfort in something a few of my favorite theologians have said about prayer. C.S. Lewis, a 20th century British theologian (also known for writing the Chronicles of Narnia), once said, “I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. Prayer doesn't change God. It changes me.” This is a rephrasing of something Soren Kierkegaard, a 19th century Danish theologian wrote 100 years earlier, “Prayer does not change God, it changes the one who offers it.”

In other words, we pray not because prayer changes God, but because prayer changes us. A deep, heartfelt, meaningful, prayer can do so many things to promote change within us. Prayer can open our hearts and minds. Prayer can align our thoughts and feelings and actions with God’s. Prayer can awaken in us a sense of intense compassion for the victims of war. Prayer can move our hearts to action. Prayer can inspire us to work for peace and reconciliation in our own lives. Prayer can give us hope that our daily words and deeds will inspire others and have a ripple effect across all of humanity, so that our desire for peace will one day be the world’s desire for peace.   

Prayer doesn’t change God, prayer changes us. This is transfiguration. We must believe that change is possible, and we must believe that thoughts and prayers really can create change. 

The Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Baptist Churches, the largest Protestant community in Ukraine, with over 2000 churches and 113,000 adult members, has been motivated by prayer into action. They are turning church basements into refugee centers, stocking up on supplies, and readying members who have medical backgrounds. Volodymyr Nesteruk, pastor of Regeneration Baptist Church in Rivne (Reev-ne), Ukraine, said, “We very much hope that our house of prayer will not be needed to shelter people, but we are preparing so that people can come here, if necessary, to find safety and shelter.”

Last week, at Grace Christian Church in Kyiv, Ukraine, over 1,000 people gathered to pray for the unity, peace, and blessing. They prayed for wisdom and courage, they prayed for Ukrainian citizens, the national army—and even the enemies of Ukraine, that their hearts and minds may be transformed. 

Rev. Mikhail Myshchuk of the St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church in 

Watervliet (Water-vleet), New York echoed this desire, saying, “We pray for peace so that those who have dark and evil desires, like escalating war, can change their mind.”

As Christians, we believe that God’s mercy, forgiveness, salvation, restoration, and peace are available to all. We believe that all people can be redeemed, all people can be forgiven, all people can be transfigured, all people can change. People can change from something closed down and locked up into something wide open and accepting. People can transform from something shadowed and secret into something truth-telling and filled with light. People can be transfigured from numb to feeling, from selfish to generous, from narcissist to other-centered, from wounded to healer, from war-monger to peace-maker. Cardinal Pietro Parolin said this week, “We believers do not lose hope for a glimmer of conscience in those who hold the destinies of the world in their hands.” 

On this Transfiguration Sunday, may we be filled with hope that change is always possible, and may we use prayer to help us make the change. Please join me now in a spirit of prayer:

Holy One, Keep the faces of our Ukrainian neighbors always in our view. We pray that this conflict will be short-lived, casualties will be few, justice will prevail, wounds be will be healed, suffering will be relieved, and peace and prosperity will overflow within Ukraine. 

For world leaders and all of humanity, including ourselves in our daily lives, we pray for an end to insecurity and mistrust. May we build trust with others on the basis of our shared humanity.  May past harms be acknowledged, and new partnerships envisioned. 

For world leaders and all of humanity, including ourselves in our daily lives, we pray for wisdom and courage to take small, verifiable, and independent steps toward peace, inviting others to reciprocate.  May we work hard on conflict resolution and cooperation.

For world leaders and all of humanity, including ourselves in our daily lives, we pray for peace and love. May we be peacemakers. Give us the courage and the strength to cry out against wickedness that dares to harm others made in your image. In your holy, loving, and peaceful name we pray, Amen. 

"Loaves and Fishes", February 6, 2022

Loaves and Fishes

By Rev Jamie Green Klopotoski
Based on Luke 9: 12-17
February 6, 2022
First Baptist Church, Gloucester, MA

Watch here: https://www.facebook.com/100000138252260/videos/311169240978193/

In the 2004 movie “Millions”, directed by Danny Boyle, who also directed the 2008 hit movie, "Slum Dog Millionaire”, the main character, a 7 year old boy named Damien, is visited by St Peter, who tells him a bedtime story of the Loaves and Fishes. St Peter tells the story this way: “One day I was with Jesus. And he went up into the mountains. And thousands of people followed him. This kid comes up to us with these loaves and fishes, and Jesus blesses them, puts them on a plate, and passes the plate around. Now the first person he passes it to passes it on; he doesn’t take anything, he just passes it on, because he had a piece of lamb hidden in his pocket. And as he’s passing the fish, he sneaks a bit of meat out, and pretends he’s taking it off the plate. And the next person, exactly the same story. Every single one of them has their own food, and every one of them is keeping it quiet, looking after number one. But as that plate went round, they all got their own food out, and started to share. And that plate went all the way around back to Jesus, and it’s still got the fish and the loaves on it. Jesus was a bit taken aback, and he says to me, what happened? And I just said, “Miracle!” And at first, I thought I’d fooled him. But now I see it was a miracle, one of his best. After this little kid had stood up, everyone’s heart there just got bigger. That kid wasn’t planning on doing a miracle. He wasn’t planning anything, except lunch. Something that looks like a miracle turns out to be dead simple.” 

I love this interpretation of the story, that the miracle wasn’t 5 loaves and 2 fish being magically turned into heaps of food, the miracle was the generosity of the crowd, the changing of selfish people into generous people at the touch of Christ, the birth of love in grudging hearts. I don’t believe that this version makes the miracle any less miraculous. While it is a miracle to have power over the physical world, I think it may be even more of a miracle to have the power to change the hearts of human beings. Thousands of human hearts were transformed in that place that day. They had just spent hours listening to Jesus preach. And in the meal that followed, they lived his message.  I imagine the people in that crowd being moved by the compassion and healing they saw Christ demonstrate, the teachings of love and charity they heard, and the example of the little boy who stepped forward to share his lunch. They were so moved that they shared the little that they had, no one hoarded what they had or took more than they needed, and that resulted in those five loaves and two fish feeding 5000 people. Whether or not you think this is what actually happened in the crowd that day, this is an important, biblical, and quite simple, message: To take only what you need, and share what you have.

When I was the minister of a church in Groton, I solicited questions from parishioners that they would like me to address in my sermons. One was, “if God provides for us, why are there hungry people in the world?” It’s a valid question-- We hear it time and time again that God provides for our needs, God gives us our daily bread, so why are there hungry people? It is true that God has provided more than enough to sustain our world, but only if we share. In order to be good stewards of everything God has provided, we need to learn how to share. We have a plentiful planet, with trees and fruits and vegetables and animals and sunshine and rain, resources for our every need. The problem isn’t that the God hasn’t provided for us; the problem is we have taken too much, we waste too much, we hoard too much, we do not share. According to “Feeding America”, each year 108 billion pounds of food is wasted in the United States. That equates to 130 billion meals and more than $408 billion in food thrown away each year. All this food goes in dumpsters and landfills, while 38 million people, including 12 million children, go hungry. 

God has given the world enough food to feed the hungry, enough resources to provide for our every need. A better distribution is necessary, a deeper realization of what our needs really are, a greater solidarity and sharing with the world: therein is the solution. Therein is the miracle.

God has provided for us a bountiful meal, Jesus blesses it, and it is a miracle when we share it.  The act of sharing is at the root of distributive justice, the fair allocation of resources. We can hold tightly to our resources, to our abundance; we can hoard it away and take care not to share them at all. Or we can give even the little we may have and have faith that God will make it more than enough. Although no one in the crowd of 5000 that day might have individually had what could be called a surplus, under any stretch of the imagination, all of those small portions, when added together and shared, were not only sufficient to feed everyone present; there were leftovers — baskets of leftovers. A little bit from a lot of people can go a long way.

I once heard a real life example of the Loaves and Fishes story. Father Joseph Constant was a volunteer with a group called the Micah Project in Haiti. One day, he and the volunteers prepared enough food for maybe 50 or 60 children, but a crowd of 120 desperately hungry children waited in line to be fed. The children knew how many were in the crowd and how hungry they were. They knew in their young bones how to live the miracle of receiving, giving thanks, breaking into smaller pieces, and sharing with those in need. The adults watched as the first children through the line were taking small portions and leaving leftovers, so that all the children in the line would eat that day.

Sometimes our response to need is to panic and hoard. During the pandemic, people panicked and hoarded toilet paper. During winter storms and hurricanes, people hoard bread and milk. This hoarding prevents all people from getting what they need, only a few get way too much, and others get nothing. But instead of panicking and hoarding and only looking out for ourselves, maybe we can be more like that crowd of 5000, or that line of 120 children. Take only what you need, share what you have. 

I believe that the Kingdom of God is being advanced through us, that we are God’s hands and feet and arms and legs in this world. I believe that God will use us to provide for the world’s needs. I believe that God will use us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger. God has given to us abundantly – wealth, resources, skills, talents, love. May we share from this abundance, and be the miracle that this world so desperately needs. Amen.