Breaking and Entering
Unexpected Sermons for an Unfinished World
Elizabeth Goodman
Foreword by Hannah Fries
Breaking and Entering
Unexpected Sermons for an Unfinished World
Copyright © 2016 Elizabeth Goodman. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
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They Asked, “Who’s My Neighbor” by Jan Wesson © 1982 The Hymn Society (Admin. Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188). All rights reserved. Used by permission.
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Dedicated to my own personal trinity,
Jesse on whom it all depends,
Tobias who let loose my love,
and Jack who routinely blows the roof off.
As it turns out, it’s fun sleeping beneath the stars.
Foreword
At the crack of dawn the women go to the tomb, bringing spices to anoint the body. They are surprised, when they arrive, to find the stone rolled away: instead of death, an empty space. The sun comes up over the horizon, breaks through the opening, illuminates that space, filling the emptiness.
God breaks in.
Present tense: God breaks in, then and now. Is breaking: present progressive, ongoing. In the midst of terror and grief, in the midst of the banal everyday, God breaks in. It is sudden and slow, powerful and peaceful, awesome and simple.
Clearly, we aren’t talking about petty crime here, though you’d be excused for thinking of “breaking and entering” as an act of violence and a disregard for law or boundaries. When it comes to God, however, Reverend Liz Goodman will likely dissuade you of the former . . . but perhaps not the latter. “This is a god who upsets social convention, preferring instead the freedom of eternal life,” Goodman writes. “This is a god who breaks down human culture, preferring instead the Kingdom of Heaven.” Think of Jesus, breaking religious law and healing on the Sabbath, breaking bread with all manner of unsavory people, making the authorities uncomfortable.
Break is a word that surfaces a lot in these sermons. In it is the possibility for a grand, divine shakeup that startles us out of complacency and moves us always toward renewal and redemption. Jesus’s message of peace is a “radical break” from what’s come before; God’s grace does not come at some final end time, but is “breaking even now, breaking in even here.”
And that is a good thing—a very good thing, according to Goodman. Because it means another world is within our grasp, within the sight of our imagination. We can reach beyond intolerance, violence, injustice, and greed; we can see the Kingdom of God among us.
Yet this kingdom is not defined by power as we know it. It is quite a different kind of power, rising from within and spilling out in the form of “self-emptying love.” The reign of God comes “not as an imposition from on high, but as the leaven slowly causing the dough to rise” or as a weed “breaking out” in our midst, “undermining, choking out the good fruits of civilized culture”—that is, the “civilized” culture that still runs on the sweat of exploited workers, that still harbors racism, that still makes outcasts of the poor and sick.
Goodman sees a flawed and wounded world, yes, but one that is still being formed. In this ongoing act of creation, each of us is called to participate, to be co-creators. While visioning and re-visioning this world-in-progress, Goodman returns again and again to the cross as the model of radical self-giving love by which we may know the god we are to follow. Her sermons thirst, palpably, for justice and brim with compassion for the world we have been given; her vision is one of wholeness.
You will not find in these sermons easy answers, quick judgments, or comfortable platitudes. Such things would be impossible with the intellect and curiosity at work (and play) here—Goodman is too comfortable with discomfort. Underneath the expected interpretation is often another perspective, a surprising twist. Behind language and words themselves lurk layers of meaning and opportunities for reinvention.
What you will find in this book is a conviction that God’s love is both unsettling and transformative—and larger and more inclusive than we can comprehend. It is here among us, always already breaking among us, and it is reason for joy.
Hannah Fries
Author, Little Terrarium, a collection of poems
Member, Monterey United Church of Christ
Monterey, Massachusetts
Shows What a Preacher Can’t Do
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:19–31)1
We’re about to accept into membership of this congregation several new people, eight, maybe nine. Given that we currently have twelve formal members, this is a seismic jump—and we’re making headlines for it. The Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ is featuring us in its email weekly blast called “Spotlight” and in its slightly longer-form blog.
But think about it for a moment. What does this mean, to be a member? What does this mean especially here? Because, as I understand it, people very quickly feel a part of things among us, or they don’t. Without any formalism, beyond any formal mechanism for joining, free of any fetters that might come with institutionalism and its attendant committee structure and resultant Robert’s Rules of Order, this congregation has a mysterious way of enfolding into involvement and active participation new “members” all the time, really on any given Sunday. If some congregations thrive on planning