Denver Community Church

September 13, 2020: The Scattered, Holy Stones – Del Phillips

When hard times hit nothing is at is should be. This is the point of this fourth elegy. Here we see a description of all that has befallen the city of Jerusalem as a result of it being utterly razed. Nothing is as it should be - even children who are a gift, now are seen as a burden. The priests and the anointed, those who once had the confidence of the people are no more. And they are the very ones who through their evil, were the cause of this calamity.

And the one who caused the calamity? Well that was God. Which raises the question, is this how God works? Does God really punish us for the bad things we or others do? Does it work the other way, where God blesses us for the good things we or others do? It is this hope that we find at the end of the chapter - that it won’t be this way forever in Judah. But for Edom, it will happen to them for the evil they have done. This can make God sound like a finicky deity who rewards and punishes based off what we do or fail to do. Is this really what God is like?

September 6, 2020: The Good and the Hard – Michael Hidalgo

In this poem a geber shows up on the scene. A man (what kind of man and exactly “who” this man is has been the subject of much conjecture) who has experienced the pain, the suffering and the exile firsthand. He then launches into a description of what he has befallen him: his skin and flesh grow old, his bones have been broken, he has been besieged and surrounded with bitterness and hardship, he dwells in darkness like those long dead, he has been walled in, and weighed down with chains. When he calls for help his prayer is shut out, his way has been barred  with blocks of stone, his paths have been made crooked, he was dragged from the path, mangled and left me without help, he was the target of arrows, his heart was pierced, he was a laughingstock of all the people, they mock him all day long, he is filled with bitter herbs, has only gall to drink, his teeth has been broken with gravel, he has been trampled in the dust, deprived of peace, he has forgotten what prosperity is and now says, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.”

His response to all of this? The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. W.T.F.? Seriously? How can this be? How can one name all that has befallen them and then turn to the one causing all the heartache and express trust? O’Connor writes, “When you meet the geber, you meet someone with tangled theology. Hope and horror stand side by side. Hope and honesty stand side by side. Hope and contradiction stand side by side.” And that’s the thing about hope - it doesn’t ignore the crap and the hard circumstances. It stands right beside them.

Many have been told that hope is to the exclusion of the raw emotions expressed by the geber - you either have hope, or you succumb to your circumstances. Here, however, is someone who has hope, and sits with humiliation, deprivation, suffering, bitterness, and the horrors of what he’s witnessed. Isn’t this how it often is? That hope is near to all these other circumstances? It’s possible to say in the same breath, “God is good” and “This is hard and it hurts and I’m getting screwed all in the same breath.”

August 30, 2020: Prophets of Rage – Scott Oppliger

The second elegy speaks toward anger. God’s anger with the people of Judah, and the anger of the poet toward God - one who is almost an enemy of the people. This is so necessary, because many have been taught to hold it in, to not speak to God this way, to keep our “emotions in check” and to not let them “get the better of us.” But that is not what we witness here, not at all. And why wouldn’t the poet be angry? How angry would you be if no one listened to your cry, to your wailing because of the pain and the hopelessness of your people? How angry might you be with God when you cry out and its seems God ignores you?

It’s likely the anger over the pain would well up, and eventually it would spill out, and it should spill out. Especially toward and before God. As Miroslav Volf rightly observes, unattended rage should be dropped at the feet of God. Why? Because God can handle it. More than that, naming and seeing our anger - allowing it to flow can be a gateway for us to see and name that which is causing our anger. Anger, can actually be a first step toward healing, toward speaking truth. And speaking truth is, after all, what prophets do. As Kathleen O’Conner points out, when we name what is wrong, when we lament, when we open ourselves to grief and anger - we expose the conditions that cause God’s good world to get out of order; we name them, and in doing so, open make them and us visible for remedy.

August 23, 2020: This Feels Impossible – Michael Hidalgo

Jerusalem is destroyed, flattened. It’s in habitants hauled away into exile. The city is “shamed by her destruction.” How do you even begin to speak about this? An impossible situation in which it seems no one cares and there is no one to listen - not even the Divine? In this elegy, the poet uses the picture of a woman - a widow who is alone. Saying things like, “there is no one to comfort her” and the widow saying, “No one is near to comfort me, no one to restore my spirit.” And the isolation only seems to grow. Because Jerusalem is destroyed no pilgrims come to celebrate the feasts, “The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to her appointed festivals.”

 

This is perhaps the hardest, most intense of the five poems. It finishes without hope, only a request; without light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, only a hope for some sort of revenge. What do we do in these kind of moments? We cry out. We lament. We lay it all out there, even if we are not wholly sure God is listening.

August 16, 2020:Holding Back Tears – Michael Hidalgo

We live in the midst of a country that believes “might makes right.” We are a country and culture that extols power, winning, strength, victory and conquering. More than that, we seem to have an aversion to suffering and pain of any kind. So we rush through it, we numb it, we deny it, we ignore it … anything to not have to sit in it and with it. This arrogance and unhealthy pursuit of a good time is crippling our souls.

Learning to lament has the power to liberate us and others. It gives us the chance to name what hurts, what’s wrong, what’s unjust, to acknowledge our weakness and move into the pain (which is the only way we will ever move out of it). In this, we can discover that lament has the potential to be prophetic in that it sheds light on the truth and holds that up to the light.

August 9, 2020: The Weightier Matter – Jasper Peters

Jasper Peter joins us for our final season of teaching "Sermons from the Heart" and speaks about compassion and what it looks like to live a life that reflects love. 

August 2, 2020: Holding Steady – Scott Oppliger

This week we will talk about how life has a way of shaking us up, especially right now in our world. One of the reasons we look to the Bible for insight and help is because the writers speak to our human experience. We relate. We know what the writer is talking about. King David shares his experience of being confused, anxious, fearful, and disoriented in Psalm 62. He declares that God is his rock and he won’t be shaken. What does this mean? What can we learn from David’s experience that could help us today? How can we be connected to God in ways that center and ground us in the midst of a tumultuous world?

Spiritual Formation Gathering – Confronting Systemic Injustice

As a faith community, we must continually challenge ourselves to follow the way of Jesus.  Included in this is educating ourselves about racism and engaging in the difficult work of dismantling systems of oppression that impact our BIPOC brothers and sisters.  Our process must include both personal contemplation and action. 

This recording is from our Spiritual Formation Workshop on the theme of “confronting systemic injustice”. This was a time to help us grow in our understanding and practice of the necessary internal work that we can do to support our advocacy. 

July 26, 2020: Hungry for Joy – Bekah Stewart

In this teaching, we will look at John 6 – the feeding of the 5000 and then Jesus saying "I am the bread of life." We will explore what it means to "taste and see that the Lord is good" through the practice of gratitude.

July 19, 2020: Follow the Leader – Nick Elio

We'll explore the process of discipleship by diving into the model that Jesus used with his disciples, exploring the great commission, and thinking about what it looks like for us to both have someone in front of us we are following and someone behind us we are leading.