Rev. Dr. Barb Doerrer-Peacock
Luke 6:17-26
Good morning! I bring you
greetings from your partner
churches in the South West Conference – UCC.
I’m happy to be able to discover
this far SE corner of our UCC
Conference – be with you!
I appreciate being able to lead
yesterday’s session-
being able to teach
congregations the boundaries
learned by clergy –
It’s the bad news-good news of
Community life.
Bad news: as human beings and
human communities – we can
make mistakes and create
dysfunctions…
Good News: there are tools and
guidelines to help prevent our
normal boundary crossings
becoming painful,
destructive violations.
Really excellent for you to be
familiar with clergy/congregation
boundaries – BEFORE you
call a new minister.
That’s REALLY Good News!
So – today, the Gospel of
Luke gives us a no-nonsense
Version of Jesus’ Good News
– Bad News message.
He doesn’t mince words.
There are blessings and woes
in this life. We all know that…
But – wait – are they what we
think they are?
“So, now, I’ve got some good
news and some bad news for
you.
The good news is: YOU ARE BLESSED… yes indeed, you are blessed!”
Well – Okay! Alright!
We know this!
Let’s count our blessings!
How are we blessed?
Let’s think about this…tell me…what are our blessings?
(Home….loving family…
friends….church…)
But, here’s the twist:
“No,” Jesus says…
“I mean the real blessings.
You know…the fact that you were
just diagnosed with cancer,
for instance…or have a
chronic illness that seems to
have no relief and no end.
Or, that you lost a lot of money
in your pension or savings
when the economy plummeted.
Or, your car is on the fritz,
Or your teenage son or your
granddaughter is addicted to
drugs.
Or, you’ve recently lost a loved
one, and wondering if the tears
will ever stop.
You know, THOSE BLESSINGS.
And, look around at all these truly blessed, blessed people…you know—
• the ones that don’t go to church, and never want to.
• Those that seem stingy and
Irresponsible with money,
• Those who seem incompetent,
uneducated, unemployed
• Those who seem wishy-washy, and self-absorbed
• Oh, and of course – those with
no home in this winter season, and all those migrants and asylum seekers at the border, those that are incarcerated-justly or unjustly.
Yes indeed, that IS the good news! So many blessings!”
Hmmm. What the heck?
Those aren’t blessings!
Those are horrible, awful things!
“Oh, no,”says Jesus…”that’s the
GOOD NEWS.
“The BAD NEWS is this:
• that new job you or your son or daughter just got…Bad news.
Loads of trouble ahead.
• The upswing in the economy? Bad news.
• all the comfort and good health you are enjoying now in your life…
• all your hard work and
responsibility…
• all the safety and security,
• the good food,
• the good relationships,
• a nice home…
• all that stuff you mistakenly
think of as your blessings…
Huh-uh… Curses, woes,
trouble…BAD NEWS!”
Whaaat? What in the heck?
That can’t be what Jesus is
saying!
Exactly the reaction Jesus
meant for his listeners to have.
We know he frequently used
these kind of theological
reversals…
turning common beliefs and
perceptions
inside out and upside down.
He had to jar their sensibilities
enough to smash open the
traditional understandings
that boxed in and limited their
understandings of God.
We need at times to be jarred
by paradox and discomfort in
order to see in new ways.
I believe that the interim time in a
church’s life is exactly that.
It’s a time of grief and wondering,
a wild and wilderness season
when things don’t work the way they
always have.
People leave,
systems break down, and
fears and confusions can rise.
Jesus, I think would say…
Blessed are you!
Blessed are the times when
you are out of control…
when you don’t know your
future,
when you are diminishing,
and wonder if you’ll survive.
What wonderful good news!
But woe when you are
comfortable, think you have everything under control and
managed…when you are popular
and thriving and strong!
You have nowhere to go but
down.
Jesus knew people were in the
most spiritual danger when
they were comfortable.
So – they were most blessed at times when…well…there was no
where to go but up…
and no one to turn to but God,
and no power but God’s power.
The bad news? Well, when
everything is going great,
when you think you’ve got it
made, when your life is
comfortable and successful.
It’s those times when we least
turn to God, when we get
complacent in our faith, and begin to trust ourselves and
our own abilities more than
God.
Look out. Lots of trouble ahead! Bad news.
One of the most painful
Good News – Bad News
experiences of my life
happened…
where do you think? CAMP!
Now, being the staff resource for
our SWC week of camp is part
of my job…now. At 62 yrs.
Still in love with camp.
I spent a lot of time at camp when
I was growing up— and into
adulthood.
Was UCC camp director for 5 yrs,
now staff resource person.
In early years – an unwritten law:
always someone in tent or
cabin who is an outcast.
Bad news.
When I first started going to
camp, it was always someone
else – Good news!
We’d pick on them, talk behind
their backs about how stupid or
weird they were.
One year, I was going into eighth
Grade…the cabin outcast
the geek, the strange one, was me.
For FIVE WEEKS I was picked on, by one girl in particular,
but then eventually by all her
friends and the rest of my cabin.
(Now, granted, I WAS kind of weird that
year)
It was awful.
Every time I went into the cabin,
or went to a meal – high stress
time.
It got to the point where everyone
was so tense, it was absolutely
miserable.
It climaxed one day at the end of camp. It was our rest hour in the cabins,
I was in my sleeping bag
pretending to sleep.
Carla kept throwing things at me,
pencils and paper etc.
I was getting angrier and angrier,
but staying in my sleeping bag.
They kept goading me, hitting
me, throwing things at me,
until finally I jumped up and
stood over Carla.
Now, she was shaving her legs,
she had a razor in her hand
and held it up as she leaned
back, still laughing.
I was so furious, I was shaking.
I told her to cut it out.
I took my hand and tried to knock
the razor away.
As it fell down and it cut her on
the leg and me on the hand.
It scared both of us to see how
far anger could go.
That night, with the help of our
counselor, we tried to work out
our differences.
It was a horrible experience,
it was BAD NEWS.
But, do you know what?
There was no where to go…
but up.
The GOOD NEWS is that God
used that experience to change me.
For the many camp years after
that, I never picked on anyone
in my cabin again.
After that painful experience in
my youth, I knew how much it
hurt to be an outcast, rejected,
made fun of for who you are.
Now – we don’t have cabin
outcasts. We work hard at
showing EVERYONE what it
Is like to be unconditionally
accepted.
The Good NEWS – is that God can use our painful experiences.
• Those times when we may fall
short, we make mistakes…
• When our boundary crossings become
violations,
• During our interim, transitional times facing
unknown futures
and confusions,
• The times when we might act
badly to each other – perhaps
out of ignorance, or out of our
own pain and fear.
God uses those bad-news times to mold us, shape and transform
us through them into
Good News people,
Living the Good News
life of Jesus. Amen.
Copyright 2019 Rev. Dr. Barb Doerrer-Peacock