Boko Haram and Mother's Day

Mother’s Day Sermon

The Acts of the Apostles is one of our primary windows on the first generation church, the church even before they were calling themselves Christians. The apostles referred to themselves as “the Way,” the way of following Jesus and being like Jesus, which is at the center of our covenant still today.
Both the Dover Church and the United Church of Christ, the denomination we are part of, fall into what is known as the Reformed Protestant branch of the Christian tree. Reformed Protestantism is one of the traditions that broke with the papal hierarchy in Rome in the 16th century over questions of theology, church practice and governance, and scriptural interpretation. That's the Protestant part. We also believe that every generation is a reformation generation, that each generation has something new to learn in God's word, a new way of being as the social and cultural settings in which we find ourselves evolve. That's the reformed part. We are the reformed church that is always reforming. While we value tradition, continuity, and sound teaching like other Christian traditions, we seek to see those things with fresh eyes and reinterpret them in live giving ways in the paths of life in which we find ourselves.
To some people, this might sound like a recipe for chaos, heresy and schismatic idiosyncrasy. Done according to the original intent however, we always and only move forward by looking back, back to the Bible and our beginnings. We don't make things up out of thin air or from something we saw on TV. We turn to sources like The Acts of the Apostles, for example, for guidance about how to be church. The circumstances are quite different, but the emphases, the important main points, are universal and eternally relevant.
In this morning’s lesson, Luke, who wrote both the gospel bearing his name and Acts, gives us what have come to be known as the four marks of the church – the four things that church if it is truly being church – does. As Reformed Protestants, we believe that God invites to think about these four marks and figure out how we are going to do them as the church in this time, in this place, with this gathering of saints. The marks, as you just heard are 1) diligent attention and study of the apostle’s teaching; 2) fellowship; 3) breaking of the bread – observation of the sacrament of communion; and 4) prayer. As you also heard in our reading, out of this way of being church flowed an outpouring of loving service to neighbors and an energy which drew outsiders to want to join.
Sometimes the obvious needs to be pointed out or we miss seeing the forest for the trees as the saying goes. Well, the name of the book about the first generation church, the name of the book we Reformed Protestants take most seriously as our inspiration and guide for being the church in this place at this time, was called the Acts of the Apostles. Luke didn't call it the Meetinghouse of the Apostles, the Order of Worship of the Apostles, or anything else of the Apostles. This book about being the church is a story of what the church did, specifically "the wonders and signs" the apostles were doing that amazed their neighbors, as a result of the Bible Study and prayer, the fellowship and life sharing, the worship and inspiration. If we, Reformed Protestants that we are, seek to be the church according to the original apostles' intent, and we worship here, learn about God in Jesus here, become good friends here, draw close to God and each other here, and that's it, we are missing the point. The church came together to serve the world.
A case in point. Hundreds of girls were kidnapped by religiously motivated extremists in northern Nigeria, who later this week shot and burned up another neighboring village, killing hundreds more people. I refuse to call Boko Haram Islamist militants, because no mainstream Muslim would call their violence religious at all. Even Al Qaeda distances itself from Boko Haram. Their religion is bad religion, about death and violence rather than life and love.
The truth which many of you may already know is that women and girls live in situations ranging from extreme peril in many developing countries to relatively limited opportunity compared with boys in countries like ours. I’m not going to go into statistics about rape, sex trafficking, honor killings, infanticide, exclusion from education. Nor am I going to point out how women here in the US do not earn equal wages, do not have equal political access or power, are excluded from religious leadership in many traditions, and live in a culture of sexual harassment, assault and rape on our college campuses and in the mlitary. The hard truth is much of the violence, discrimination and devaluation of women and girls in our world is religiously motivated. People misreading or selectively reading their sacred texts and then believing that God created women less than men and to be abused.
"that's not us," you might say. If it's not us, we need to say so, loudly, and explain why it's not us, why our faith abhors these things, and then do things to promote our faith based view of women and girls. If we do nothing and say nothing, not only do we allow the lunatic religious folks to hold the floor, but we also encourage people to think that maybe we think the same things, but are only too polite to say so publicly.
Our Bible lesson tells us that the apostles did amazing things because of their prayer and worship, their bible study and fellowship. Reformed Protestant churches like ours helped stopped slavery, worked to emancipate women, stood up with minorities for civil rights, and every cause that is consonant with a diligent study of the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. I strongly encourage you to dig into women and girls issues, read a book called Half the Sky which Marie-Laure presented to you a couple of years ago. Half the Sky describes both the problems and the transformative work being done around the world. I have 20 copies with me this morning if you want to start today. Go to the Half the Sky web site, the address is in the announcements, and find organizations that are working against sex trafficking, forced prostitution, sweatshop labor, promoting education, violence against women and girls in the US, and support them. That would be something worth doing this Mother’s day.