Rev. Kate Layzer of Winthrop (UCC)

Inspired by the Inauguration 2009 Sermons and Orations Project of the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center, the Globe invited local clergy to e-mail the texts of inauguration-related sermons and prayers for posting here on the Articles of Faith religion blog. You can find all of the submissions by clicking on the Inauguration Sermons category in the blog’s right rail.

Sermon, titled "A New Opening," by the Rev. Kate Layzer of Union Congregational Church, a United Church of Christ congregation in Winthrop:

When I heard the Sunday forecast as I was getting ready for worship yesterday, I told myself we were going to have church today even if it was just me and the Holy Spirit!

Last week’s church closing coincided with a reading from our Sunday lectionary which I simply can’t bring myself to skip: the baptism of Jesus as told by Mark, the earliest gospel. So today we’re playing catch-up, sharing the story of that baptism together while less snow-challenged Christians move on to John’s story of the call of the first disciples. And because we’re playing catch-up, we’re exploring that story together on this very special Sunday in American history, the Sunday before the Inauguration of one of the more gifted leaders to emerge on the American political scene in our lifetime—a leader of maturity, breadth, and judgment, with a listening ear, an inclusive approach to governance, and that rarest of visions, where American politics are concerned: a vision of the common good. Add to that picture the worst economic crisis in 80 years, and the fact that the leader happens to be African American, and it is impossible not to see this as an extraordinary moment, one that tears asunder our notions about America and race and the presidency.

Our nation is at a turning point. You don’t have to line up with Barack Obama or his party to recognize that as an historical reality. Old systems are breaking down, old ideologies have stopped resonating, alliances that have held for generations have begun to come apart. It is a moment for people of faith, whatever their political affiliation, to watch for the movement of the Spirit at work, tearing down and building up, calling forth new forms and ideas and approaches from the remains of the old order. It’s a chance to give religious imagination free play, and allow ourselves to dream God’s dream of a freer, more generous, more just society, one in which, to echo the president-elect, what unites us is more important than what divides us. God’s dream, God’s vision. Does it exist only in the mind of God? Or can it come to earth? Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we pray every Sunday, but do we really believe the kingdom can become real for us? Are we prepared to be a part of shaping it?

It’s with these kinds of questions in mind that we open our Bible today to the story of Jesus’ sudden arrival on the scene in Roman-occupied Palestine in the year 30 or so. Notice how Jesus’ story begins in Mark: no genealogy tracing his lineage back to David or Abraham; no angels; no young woman surprised at her work; no socially awkward pregnancy. Just this: “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And immediately he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit descending on him.” “Opened”? HA! The Greek word is schizoménous—torn asunder! Torn open! The heavens are torn open! And so it begins: a river, a prophet, crowds, and suddenly Jesus is there too, and the curtain of separation between God and humankind is torn asunder, and the Holy Spirit is plummeting earthward, alighting on this newcomer, merging with him, so that from that moment, every times he speaks or heals or forgives, we know he does so in the power and by the authority of the Holy Spirit.

This is the beginning, the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry. Schizoménous! The word suggests an almost violent rending of the present to make room for something new, like the rending of childbirth, which marks and changes the one through whom the child enters the world—

A rending that will continue as Jesus continues his passage through that world, disrupting religious customs and boundaries, challenging hierarchies, calling disciples to a life of radical openness to God.

Water, Jesus, Spirit, God—new birth. This is Mark’s nativity story. No shepherds, no magi, just a great big tear in the curtain of separation between God and humankind, a tear that can never be mended, and which therefore is still there, brothers and sisters, a portal between heaven and earth, a place to look through to glimpse a new vision, God’s vision.

A tear in history. A tear in the status quo. God come to earth in Jesus Christ, a shocking irregularity, a serious breach of divine etiquette, a violation of all known categories, an act of outrageous trespass. A moment of disruption that becomes an opening into healing and new life for all.

Sometimes God builds and plants and nurtures. And sometimes God shakes up, uproots, and overturns—like the scene in the Temple which Mark will be telling us about later, when Jesus overturns the tables of the money changers. All those neat stacks of sheckles, sent flying across the temple paving stones, to say enough to paid sacrifices, enough money exchanged for the shedding of blood, enough religious burdens on the struggling poor! That sudden overturning of tables really starts today with Jesus’ baptism, doesn’t it, with God’s disruptive entry into the world, claiming Jesus, claiming all of us, as beloved children, God’s delight! Not to be exploited; not to be pushed to the margins; not to be treated as untouchable, unredeemable, or too low for respectable society.

To follow in Jesus’ steps is to follow Love’s path of disruption through the world, under skies torn wide open to the power of God at work, our eyes open to the beauty and brokenness all around us, because the veil that clouded them has been torn asunder, and we can no longer not see what God sees.

This is how Jesus’ ministry begins. This is its inauguration: a rending, a disruption, a tear in the fabric which will never be mended. An opening for new life and new hope.

What about this other Inauguration which is coming on Tuesday? Through what new eyes will our incoming leaders see—or will they? What disruptions to business as usual will they bring? What are your hopes or fears as this community organizer turned constitutional scholar turned public servant takes up the reins of power on Tuesday? What dreams might God be awakening in you, now that you know just how suddenly and how utterly things can change, beyond any possibility you had ever imagined?

Think about the fall of the Berlin wall, and the coming apart of the Soviet empire. Think of the sudden, peaceful dismantling of apartheid in South Africa.

Think about the civil rights movement, and the man whose birth we honor today. Think of the transformation he helped to awaken because he dared to dream God’s dream out loud, and live it openly, and call others to live it with him. “I have a dream today,” he told us. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. I have a dream today.” Do we have a dream? Does God have a dream for us?

This could be our inauguration too. A moment of new beginning and commitment for the people of God, a chance for us to claim our baptism—as Jesus did, as Martin Luther King did, as Barack Obama and so many others have done and are doing. What might God be inaugurating in your life? What might the Holy Spirit be tearing down or building up in you, at this living moment?

When we come to our prayers of the people, I will ask each of you, one by one, to stand and offer God your dream for America, or for the community of nations to which America belongs, or for the earth which is our home. I realize not all of us here love speaking up in public, and that’s okay—you don’t have to say much. A word, a phrase, an image. Just make your voice heard. I’m going to share with you some of what I’ve been dreaming, but I’m just one voice. Perhaps as I talk, the Spirit will be stirring dreams in you too.

I have a dream that the best traits of the American character, the traits for which we are known and loved around the world, will prevail over our worst traits, our shadow side. That warmth and generosity, openness and respect for human dignity will prevail over arrogance and military might, and we will take our place at the global table as a partner and friend of nations.

I have a dream of a public life that rises above partisanship, ideology, and competing interests to focus on the common good. I dream of a politics in which lies, scare tactics, and hate have no place. I dream of ordinary people caring enough to get off the sidelines and participate in building schools and community centers and playgrounds and clinics and libraries and art galleries and daycare centers and job training centers. I dream of a society where old people care about schools and young people care about senior centers, where people not only know their neighbors but find time to look out for each other and help each other.

I have a dream that we as Americans will begin falling out of love with violence, and begin falling in love with the power of reconciliation. I dream of a day when we take greater pride in the skill and integrity of our diplomatic corps than the size of our military arsenals. I dream of a time when gun ownership is no longer equated with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—when children are no longer shooting each other on the streets of our cities, killers are not finding their way into schools armed with automatic weapons, and family disputes are not being resolved with bullets.

I have a dream of a time when nurses, social workers, and teachers receive even a tenth of the respect and compensation we award to CEOs and athletes. I dream of a society in which working parents don’t have to struggle to provide for their kids, in which education and training are available to anyone who wants to learn, in which sick people can go to the doctor without being asked “How are you going to pay for this?” I have a dream today. A dream, a longing, a hunger and thirst for righteousness.

What about you…? What do you see, when you gaze through the tear in the veil between heaven and earth? What does God’s kingdom look like to you…? Think about it. Let your imagination work… What new future might God be inaugurating in you today, as you follow in the disruptive steps of Jesus…?

“In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.”

May God pour out God’s Spirit upon you, old and young, women and men, and may God bless your dreaming, your living, and your growing. Amen.