{"id":3400,"date":"2022-08-21T11:00:10","date_gmt":"2022-08-21T15:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=3400"},"modified":"2022-09-08T12:23:24","modified_gmt":"2022-09-08T16:23:24","slug":"let-your-shoulders-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2022\/08\/21\/let-your-shoulders-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Let Your Shoulders Down"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

Luke 13:10-17<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear just the sermon<\/a><\/p>\n

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Her name was Mozelle Cogman Goins.\u00a0 She was born in Macon Georgia in 1902.\u00a0 As was the norm in some parts of the south.\u00a0 Education for African American students ended at the eighth grade so that a woman could join the domestic work force.\u00a0 Not one to follow in the steps of convention Mozelle applied to the incoming class at the University of Detroit Law School entering in either 1919 or 1920. She arrived for her first day of class and came into the office to register and was met with a \u201cdeafening silence\u201d a direct quote from her grand-daughter Pat Rencher.\u00a0 Nevertheless, they allowed her to attend class.\u00a0 After her first year she was told that some of her papers were not up to par.\u00a0 Not to be deterred she rewrote and submitted those papers, and the Law School allowed her to advance to complete her second and third year.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The Detroit Free Press published the 1923 graduating class from the U of D Law School and Miss Cogman was among the graduating class.\u00a0 However, the story didn\u2019t end well.\u00a0 A week after the picture was published, she was called into the office and told she never completed her assignments from her first year and therefore they would not confer her a law degree.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She later married, owned a dress shop, worked for social service agencies and remained active in community affairs.\u00a0 After a conversation with Pat this week we realized that Mrs. Coins and my grandmother Eunice Gunther Lowery were friends and very active in the Detroit African American community.\u00a0 My friend Pat recalls the law books that were in her grandmother\u2019s library and how people would stop by the house for consultation and advice.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Detroit attorney Leslie Graves tried in the 1980\u2019s to petition U of D Law School to grant her law degree.\u00a0 The school only gave a commendation but no degree.\u00a0 Currently The Hon Kathey Gilforf is leading an effort to confer the degree for the class of 2023 which is the \u201cYear of the Woman.\u00a0 Mrs. Coins passed way in 2002 at 100 years old.\u00a0 A pioneer and a trailblazer whose story deserves to be lifted up and acknowledged.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Cole Arthur Riley writes in her new book \u201cThis Here Flesh\u201d. You cannot tell the story of injustice without telling the story of power. Injustice has survived by cowering behind the guises of morality and ethics. And that power, which is stolen, malformed, or inequitable will, no matter how well intentioned, always cast its weight in the wrong places. This is rarely accidental. Injustice has survived by cowering behind the guises of morality and ethics. She goes on to quote the Civil Rights activist Bayard Rustin \u201cWhen an individual is protesting society\u2019s refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his every act of protest confers dignity on him.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>I don\u2019t know if the expression \u201cwe made it through\u201d is an apt description to describe this historical event.\u00a0 However, there are still people who to this day generations later who are still figuratively carrying the weight of the world, the weight of daily injustices and micro-aggressions, the weight of grieving young people, the weight of this week trying to get to your job on-time if your only options are to get to work in the Orange and Green line trains.\u00a0 What I do know is that people will always come together in the face of injustice, to support each other, cook for each other, hold each other, cry with each other, hold space for each other when on some days that was all that is all we can offer.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is love and an awareness that no one should have to shoulder anything alone that keeps them together.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>If you\u2019ve been here or have listened the past several Sundays, you know that our Hebrew Bible readings have been proclaiming harsh and judgmental words from the likes of Amos and Hosea, from Isaiah, and this morning from Jeremiah.\u00a0 While this morning\u2019s reading describes the call of Jeremiah to be God\u2019s prophet (despite Jeremiah\u2019s protests that he is too young for the job). Jeremiah himself describes that job given by God (which will unfold in the coming chapters of the book named for him) this way: \u201cSee today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and pull down, to destroy and to overthrow\u2026.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Please notice something else in this morning\u2019s reading from Jeremiah, the last phrase. \u201c\u2026to build and to plant.\u201d We sometimes forget that the prophets in their harsh language were calling the people of Israel back to lives faithful and responsive to the will of God. Using Jeremiah\u2019s imagery, we must remember that \u201cplucking up\u201d, \u201cpulling down\u201d or even destroying and overthrowing in God\u2019s Garden are actions that need to happen before new growth that Jeremiah talks about can occur.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>I want us to try something this Sunday.\u00a0 You know they say that when we are tense, we tend to hold our shoulders up near our ears.\u00a0 So, try this, hold your shoulders up to your ears in a tense position.\u00a0 Then try to move your head to the left, now to the right.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard right?\u00a0 Now try and move your body, to the left, to the right. It\u2019s hard.\u00a0 Now let go with an exhale.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>There is an expression \u201che \/ she\/ they look like they are carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders.\u201d What we just did was an example of that statement.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When you are carrying the weight of the world it is hard to move.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>We don\u2019t know what weight the bent over woman was carrying: perhaps she was the victim of some sort of oppression, perhaps her binary pronoun did not match their non-binary authenticity, perhaps she was the victim of domestic abuse.\u00a0 If it wasn\u2019t for the fact, she was bent over she would just have been another woman going on with her day-to-day activities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>But Jesus noticed that she was carrying the weight of the world and had been for so long that people assumed that she had an infirmity.\u00a0 But Jesus sees her suffering and he heals her on the Sabbath.\u00a0 Notice here that Jesus approaches the woman.\u00a0 Not the usual healing stores of the infirmed approaching Jesus for healing.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the second half of the Gospel the woman recedes from the narrative, and we move into Jesus\u2019 encounter with the leader of the synagogue. It\u2019s not the healing that concerns the leader of the synagogue, it\u2019s that Jesus heals on the Sabbath day.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Sabbath was meant to be a complete day of rest as God had rested on the 7<\/span>th<\/span> day.\u00a0 No work was to be done, no farming, no fishing, no shopping, no cooking, no healing.\u00a0 The leader was caught up in the when\u2019s and the where\u2019s of the letter of the law by pointing out that this was not the day.\u00a0 Pick another day to heal.\u00a0 But Jesus saw the same law much differently.\u00a0 The law did not trump God\u2019s action when it came to God\u2019s children especially this child of God, the daughter of Abraham.\u00a0 From where Jesus stood, what better way to honor the Sabbath than by setting a captive free?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>This is why he came after all.\u00a0 Early on in Luke\u2019s Gospel Jesus made know his work in the world as he read the words of Isiah:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.\u00a0 He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord\u2019s favor. Luke 4:18-19.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The invitation that Jesus gave the woman who was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders is the same invitation he extends to us today.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus says: Stand up!\u00a0 Breathe and let your shoulders down with whatever the weight of the world that you are bearing.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>He invites us to stand up and be transformed, and to be released from the things that leave us bent over, feeling low and less than, to be released from whatever bondage messes with our self-worth and our self-esteem.\u00a0 We are invited to come from out of the shadows and valleys, and into the light of God\u2019s amazing and healing love.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>So many times, we try to put our best foot forward and never let on how burdened we may really feel.\u00a0 Some of us come into a place of worship with our brokenness and we feel that if we keep a smile on our faces and pretend that everything is alright no one will ever know the weight that we are facing.\u00a0 Once inside places where we think we are safe we still are unable to look up and see the world around us.\u00a0 We may feel alone or forgotten.\u00a0 We may struggle to see and remember that God is present.\u00a0 But like the woman who stood tall in the synagogue that day, we are the children of a loving and caring God.\u00a0 God\u2019s grace working among us and through us helps us to stand up straight.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>This summer I served as a delegate for The Episcopal Churches 80th General Convention.\u00a0 A triennium convention that was delayed for a year due to COVID.\u00a0 A convention which historically been held over eight days was compressed into four days of legislation and as a self-described church nerd I was so to speak in my element.\u00a0 There were two important and moving highlights from General Convention.\u00a0 The first was the expedition of the late Right Rev. Barbara C. Harris, the first female bishop in the Anglican Communion and who served as Bishop Suffragan in the Diocese of MA. It was moved that Bishop Harris who passed in 2020 be included in the episcopal calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts.\u00a0 The historical significance of this is that General Convention usually doesn\u2019t add people until 50 years after their death.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The other important piece of legislation was the creation of a fact-finding commission to research the denominations\u2019 role in the federal boarding school system that separated generations of indigenous children from their families and cultures in the 19<\/span>th<\/span> and 20<\/span>th<\/span> century.\u00a0 These actions come as U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland kicks off \u201cThe Road to Healing,\u201d a national listening tour in which the secretary will hear from survivors of boarding schools in the United States.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Convention members heard testimonies from clergy who had officiated at funerals for children whose remains had been repatriated from the former Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania.\u00a0 Others spoke of pushing the city of Albuquerque to acknowledge that children had been buried beneath a public park constructed on the former site of a Presbyterian run boarding school.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Still others shared their experiences as survivors themselves, or descendants of survivors.\u00a0 Ruth Johnson of the Navajoland Area Mission attended two boarding schools \u2013 an experience which is still hard for her to speak about.\u00a0 She spoke about being ill and being beaten and she ended with \u201cI could have easily been one of those who didn\u2019t make it home.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>To quote Bishop Mark Lattime of the Diocese of Alaska, \u201cThis is important work, and it\u2019s for all of us.\u201d \u201cYou might think your diocese doesn\u2019t have a history with boarding schools with Indigenous people, and \u2013 while that might be true- there isn\u2019t a diocese in this church that doesn\u2019t have a history with Indigenous people.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>I want to tell you: there is no day, week, hour or moment that the God who formed and created us does not see our plight or hear our cries.\u00a0 Our God energizes us and gives us hope no matter what trail, burden, or injustice we might face.\u00a0 And God gives us one another to share in that hope.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>I would like to stand before you and preach that we are beyond being bent over carrying the weight of the world but we all are aware that recently we have witnessed firsthand the actions of the weight that is being pressed down on innocent children, the weight being pressed down on those who feel that they are not heard, the weight of families whose loved ones have died as a result of guns violence.\u00a0 We are never in a position in God\u2019s eyes to oppress another, belittle another, scare or gaslight another or to act like another is less than.\u00a0 That thought that it doesn\u2019t happen here, it won\u2019t happen here, it doesn\u2019t apply to me disconnects us from the love of God and from our neighbor.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Like so many prophets known and unknown, past and present, like Jesus himself, we have been put on this earth so that we might find a way to ease one another\u2019s pain and release from bondage and set them free, to raise up people and children who will stand tall knowing that they are precious children of God and worthy to share in God\u2019s love.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>It was a Sabbath day when the bent over woman was told to stand and stand she did and she praised God.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With God\u2019s help, any day is a good day to help others to stand.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Amen<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Benediction:<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

God loves you.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Beloved people of God, forth from this place and share God\u2019s love with others. And now may God\u2019s grace, peace, joy and love abide with you now and forever. Amen<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

-The Rev. Dr. Karen Coleman, University Chaplain for Episcopal Ministries<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service Luke 13:10-17 Click here to hear just the sermon Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.\u00a0\u00a0 Her name was Mozelle Cogman Goins.\u00a0 She was born in Macon Georgia in 1902.\u00a0 As was the norm in some parts of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3400"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3403,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3400\/revisions\/3403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}