Using our Imagination

Rev. Dr. DeWayne L. Davis

This Week at Plymouth, October 25, 2024

“If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor” —Deuteronomy 15:7.

Whether one reads the Bible literally or metaphorically, it is undeniably imaginative. The imagination of the biblical witness challenges us to recognize and anticipate, despite evidence to the contrary, the movement and intentions of the Divine amid failure, scarcity, and barrenness. The Divine imagination looks beyond our current struggles and failures, continuously creating and re-creating us, even when the world insists that all hope is lost. When Moses confronted God about the suffering of his people in slavery, God unleashed this divine imagination, proclaiming that God sees, hears, and knows their suffering and has come to deliver them. God is close and present, deeply affected by pain and suffering. In response, God imagines how to bring justice to those in need.

How do we respond to desperate human needs? Many of us donate generously our time, talent, and treasure in hopes of making a difference. But what would expanding and broadening that instinct and practice nationally look like? Even when our national conversation turns to how to respond to poverty, inequality, and injustice, some people quickly remind us about scarce resources or warn about fraud and waste. But in God’s divine imagination, there are no qualifications. There is no discussion about the cost of forgiving all debts. There is no debate on how to eliminate the need. There are no talking points about poor people’s worthiness to receive forgiveness, remission, and liberation. No lobbyists argue that such measures would undermine the freedom of the most privileged, who claim their success is due to initiative and industriousness alone. The directive remains clear: “There will be no need among you; do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted when you see a need.”

Unfortunately, our God-talk has been domesticated and downsized, so the realm of the possible now reflects the limitations and conventional wisdom of our political rhetoric, bureaucratic hassles, and lack of imagination. The world needs people of faith to see, hear, and know the suffering, to lay out a vision for what’s possible, and to inspire people to imagine again what justice looks like. I invite us to exercise our imaginations to reclaim justice in our own time, inspire a new generation of disciples to embody God’s radical love and grace, and enlist a new vanguard to practice community and neighborliness. We, those close and present to suffering, who see, hear, and know, will answer the world with forgiveness, remission, and liberation. We will be that faithful remnant using our imaginations to break business as usual by daring the world to let there be no need among us. May it be so.

When Hope Is Our Best Answer

Rev. Dr. DeWayne L. Davis

This Week at Plymouth, October 18, 2024

“It is the work of the church to engage in hope that is neither optimism nor a notion of progress, but a confession that God’s resolve for a new heaven and a new earth is not precluded or hindered by the power of death” —Walter Brueggemann, “Resisting Denial, Refusing Despair.”

I recently attended the funeral of a friend’s mother. It was one of those Black church funerals I grew up attending, filled with gospel choir music, ecstatic praise, and celebration preaching. But more than the familiar sights and sounds from the church of my youth were the powerful articulations of hope, the overwhelming sense among even those with tears flowing that they knew that something else better would emerge beyond this moment. In their loss, grief, and pain, the family and the church community testified to their enduring hope for life, victory, and overcoming. In their hopefulness, they did not avert their gaze from what they had lost. They knew, as Walter Brueggemann described, that “the loss . . . is a runup to God’s newness that is beyond our capacity” to evoke relying on their own will and steam.

Earlier this year, so many of my friends despaired about the radicalization and illiberalism of our politics, finding it hard to be hopeful about the future. Conversations about the latest bizarre attack on immigrants and LGBTQ people or the most recent norm-busting outrageous act often turned into talk about leaving the country or fears about life imitating art with our nation becoming some version of The Handmaid’s Tale. But something shifted when we began naming what we feared would happen to us and allowed ourselves to face it. We started to think about the life we desired and the liberation we fought for. And I remembered the testimony of the old saints in the church of my youth who testified that God didn’t bring us this far to leave us. Truth opened our eyes and filled us with courage. Hope was reborn because we remembered that whatever stands against us cannot stop what God has in store for us.

I hope we sing and pray for our hope even as we confront our loss and fear. My prayer for us is that when we come to the end of our endurance, and we think that we can’t go any further, when we find ourselves looking for life in places of oppression and domination, when we find ourselves unable to imagine a life of blessing and abundance beyond the current malaise, that we will remember that the promise of our faith is newness. We confront our fears and anxieties, combining truth-telling about our loss, failures, and weakness with hope-telling of our trust in God’s faithfulness “to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine” (Eph. 3:20). Hope is our best answer to despair, and with God, it won’t be disappointed. Amen.

Choosing Love . . . Over and Over Again

Rev. Dr. DeWayne L. Davis

This Week at Plymouth, October 11, 2024

“Love is more than a feeling. Love is a form of sweet labor: fierce, bloody, imperfect, and life-giving—a choice we make over and over again” —Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger.

Last week, Plymouth Church was a stop on activist and filmmaker Valarie Kaur’s Revolutionary Love Project Bus Tour. Using stories, music, and wisdom from the Sikh tradition in which she was born and raised, Kaur takes the audience on a journey through the origin stories of her faith, inviting us to see the humanity, courage, and path of love of her ancestors and discover within our own stories similar experiences and resonances. Surrounded by her family and colleagues, Kaur paints vivid pictures of ordinary people and their heroic acts of compassion and liberation, holding the audience in rapt attention and breaking open our hearts with narratives of revolutionary love.

What surprised me most about the experience was how those stories about the sages of the Sikh tradition mirrored the stories that my family told about Black people’s struggle for freedom in the American South. Faced with the uncompromising refusal of powerful forces to recognize the humanity of those they oppressed, vulnerable people responded with love and faith, refusing to give into hate and despair and sacrificing their lives and bodies to create their world anew. It took work to love, to refuse to see your opponent as an unredeemable stranger, to tend to the wound of rage, and to reimagine how to resist and subvert injustice in all its forms. The power of their love inspired others to join in the work. Kaur refers to this love as a choice to act: “If love is sweet labor, love can be taught, modeled, and practiced.” Behold the power of those who choose to love over and over again.

Before attending the Revolutionary Love Project event, I underestimated the adjective “revolutionary” as a qualifier of love. How can love be revolutionary? Perhaps we often underestimate what is possible when we choose to love because within the human condition lies the instinct to return hate and violence with hate and violence. Some part of us fear that love is neither strong enough nor big enough to counter the worst instincts and behaviors of humanity against humanity. I hope we do not labor under the misguided notion that love is just a feeling. What if we operated with the understanding that “revolutionary love is the choice to labor for others, our opponents, and ourselves?” Our times of polarization and radicalization call for something different from us than doubling down on seeing our opponents as enemies to be utterly destroyed. So many people we admire and follow—King, Baldwin, the Apostle Paul, and Jesus come to mind—prophesied about the power of love to transform us and the world. I pray we heed their witness and choose love over and over again. May it be so.

A Spiritual Crisis?

Rev. Dr. DeWayne L. Davis

This Week at Plymouth, October 4, 2024

“Alienation is one manifestation of the spiritual crisis in American society; the deprivation of meaning and purpose in every aspect of daily life. So deep is the crisis that we are no longer able to recognize it — it seems to be built in to the structure of “reality,” a basic fact about the way things are.”

—Michael Lerner, Spirit Matters

In the years I worked in politics in Washington, DC, on occasion, someone would say, in response to several public policy issues and challenges, that we are dealing with a spiritual crisis. That phrase always raised my suspicion that they were offering a justification for the lack of will or courage to make change. However, as I got older and went deeper into ministry, I understood that a spiritual crisis does not mean that there is no nameable crisis. Spiritual crises manifest in many tragic and harmful policies, behaviors, and societal failures that can be recognized and confronted. I fear, along with Rabbi Michael Lerner, who called out “the deprivation of meaning and purpose” that flows from spiritual crises, that we may adjust ourselves to the spiritual malaise, giving up on meaning and purpose and failing in moral imagination. We must remain alert and prime for faithful action amid despair and hopelessness in these tense times.

Indeed, the spiritual crisis is manifesting in disturbingly apparent ways, including in the rise of Christian nationalism, faltering democratic institutions struggling to respond to deep polarization, an increasing abandonment of organized religious collectivities, and a growing number of those who have abandoned religious practice or identity. The crisis is also visible in an epidemic of loneliness, isolation, and disconnection, the rise of political violence along with the uninterrupted proliferation of guns and gun violence, and an appreciably worsening climate crisis with little will to respond with concrete measures to reverse the trends. How do we respond constructively and hopefully to the current manifestations of a collective spiritual crisis?

The church, our traditions, and the Bible have been helpful to us and our forebears in making meaning and responding to tense times of crisis. Unfortunately, the theological categories I am most familiar with and find nourishing and hopeful are contested, unreliable, unrealistic, and unhelpful for a current generation of people who have not known the grace and connection of the church. This heightens the spiritual crisis. I don’t believe people are more venal, more individualistic, more anti-religious, more nihilistic. People have not given up on making meaning, seeking community, relationships, and connections, and finding their call and purpose. Perhaps we have exacerbated the spiritual crisis because we have not been curious enough, humble enough, or generous enough to sit with questions that don’t reflect or reinforce the theological categories we know. Maybe we can start to address the spiritual crisis by addressing the alienation people feel and invite them to imagine and create with us a future filled with newness and possibility. May it be so.

 

The Incorruptible Beauty of Humanity

Rev. Dr. DeWayne L. Davis

This Week at Plymouth, September 27, 2024

“The words we use mean something—they can spell out life or death for those among us who are most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation . . . I’d urge the public and the media to retire the use of sensationalizing, stigmatizing, and misleading imagery and rhetoric surrounding immigration.”

—Daniella Prieshoff

As soon as I heard the insidious, dehumanizing lie about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, at the last U.S. Presidential debate, I worried that, in this political moment, there would be no galvanizing force of decency, truthfulness, and compassion to quail it. I even warned on a post-debate virtual panel discussion that we should be careful not to allow the resulting comedic social media memes to distract us from the dangerous narrative those lies would create for Haitians, endangering their lives and livelihood. It appears that many have forgotten the spike in violence against Asian-Americans after references to COVID-19 as the “China virus” quickly spread on social media. Such lies are familiar, an intentional defamation of immigrants and a doubling down on a politics so chaotic and dysfunctional that it stokes a toxic, nihilistic “us vs. them” political environment, leading many people to believe that they can only survive if they destroy others.

One can disagree with current immigration policy or oppose any immigration into the nation without using rhetoric that ignores the humanity of others. A political party can work to close the nation’s borders to migrants, refugees, and immigrants and still see their humanity and avoid any characterization that could compound their suffering. As Daniella Prieshoff, an attorney who works with immigrant survivors fleeing gender-based violence, said, “The words we use mean something—they can spell out life or death.” As of this writing, there has been no physical violence perpetrated against Haitian immigrants in the aftermath of the lies told about them. Still, the town of Springfield has been coping with more than 30 bomb threats against schools and government buildings. I fear that if we don’t push back on these lies, if we don’t insist on affirming the dignity and humanity of our Haitian neighbors, someone is going to get hurt.

Our political discourse has gotten so ugly one may need to remember that our biblical and religious tradition consistently encourages the faithful to welcome the stranger, the sojourner, and the immigrant. The biblical witness begins with the idea that all of humanity is made in the image of God. The ancient church elder, Gregory of Nyssa, said it so beautifully, “You alone are made in the likeness of that nature which surpasses all understanding, the image of incorruptible beauty, the impression of true divinity, receptacle of blessed life, seal of true light.” I pray that we lean into the best of our biblical witness and religious tradition to counter the malicious defamation of our immigrant neighbors. May we see the incorruptible beauty of all humanity. Amen.

 

Exploring the Meaning of Our Call

Rev. Dr. DeWayne L. Davis

This Week at Plymouth, September 20, 2024

“Seldom are callings straightforward or without suffering. We don’t resolve them easily or early or all at once. Discerning an inner voice or hearing a higher call from outside ourselves is hard work.”

—Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Follow Your Bliss and Other Lies about Calling

I admit I still wrestle with the meaning of a calling. I was relieved when I recently read Bonnie Miller-McLemore’s assertion that it would be a mistake to assume that a calling describes “a one and only” purpose in life. On the contrary, “calling involves bliss and sacrifice” because for every call that seems ideally claimed and the source of meaning in one’s life, there is also a calling that can be missed, blocked, conflicted, fractured, unexpected, or relinquished. The pursuit of our call requires much grace.

In a recent sermon, I delved into our church’s call, pondering, “What are we meant to be? What are we meant to do?” As I asked these questions, I realized that Plymouth Church’s history is a testament to a complex, nonlinear journey to the present. Our success and achievements didn’t stem from a perfect understanding of our calling but from a brave navigation of desires, expectations, interests, and obligations in pursuing a covenanted community open to God’s revealing presence. Our predecessors discerned and followed their call in the being and doing of church. It’s easy to romanticize the idea of calling. Ordained ministry often prompts us to share a call story, but we seldom dwell on the inconvenience, frustration, or failure in following a call. And yet, a sense of calling follows us throughout our lives.

Perhaps the more significant challenge to understanding the meaning of our call is the commitment to it, even when it’s not the blissful experience we’ve been led to believe. Miller-McLemore wondered, “How do we remain true to our callings when they are often plagued by mistakes, disappointment, overload, oversight, and conflict?” While she has devoted an entire book to exploring that dilemma, I found solace in the image of the potter found in the book of Jeremiah. The prophet Jeremiah sees God as a potter, an artist, a shaper of nations and peoples. In this role as potter, God is willing to change and reconsider the divine response to the creation so that we may find our way to our work and purpose. God is not rigid, and God’s plan is not fixed, so why do we assume we should be? When our path is unknown, our purpose seems undefined, and what we thought we were supposed to do seems blocked or fractured, we can take comfort that our calling is in the loving hands of God (or love, universe, a higher power). This approach can make the journey more meaningful and hopeful even as we endure it. In relationship and community, we can bear the disruption and uncertainty that attends to anyone seeking to remain faithful to their call. Amen.

 

Drawing the Circle Wide

Rev. Dr. DeWayne L. Davis

This Week at Plymouth, September 13, 2024

“Any religious tradition that makes its peace with harming people is to be feared. And any religious tradition that fails to grow and respond to the ongoing work of the Spirit will stagnate and die.”

—Christopher B. Hays and Richard B. Hays, The Widening of God’s Mercy

When I decided to go to seminary, my biggest fear was rejection. For years, I watched churches refuse to accept LGBTQ people and fight to prevent them from fully participating in communities of faith. I assumed that many of my colleagues believed that my being and identity were outside of the grace of God, incompatible with the biblical understanding of sexuality and, thus, the moral vision of faithful discipleship. To protect myself, I decided I would form no relationships with them because I assumed that’s how they wanted it. While I was surprisingly overjoyed to be wrong about my colleagues, many of whom showed me love and hospitality beyond my wildest dreams, I will never forget reading The Moral Vision of the New Testament by Richard B. Hays in several classes. In this widely read and regarded book, Hays argued that because the Bible expresses “unqualified disapproval” of homoerotic activity, LGBTQ people are “a broken people, alienated from God’s loving purpose.” It became the go-to authority for Christian churches that objected to the presence and ministries of LGBTQ people.

For a long time, I have debated, wrestled, and fought the assertion that LGBTQ people were morally unfit to live into their calls to ministry, encountering many who relied on Hays’ book for that perspective. But now, things have changed. Hays has joined his son in rethinking those previous conclusions about the place of LGBTQ people in our communities of faith. The authors have come to understand that the Spirit is never a source of harm for God’s people but rather the driving force behind God’s ever-widening mercy. Just as I was mistaken in assuming that my seminary colleagues would not fully accept me into their community of faith, I am happy an author whose work did so much unintended harm opened himself to the movement of the Spirit to reconsider old beliefs.

I inevitably cry when we sing “Draw the Circle Wide” at Plymouth Church. Declaring our intent in the song that we will ensure that nobody stands alone fills me with the feeling of being held safely within a community of trust, beloved and included without doubt or question. More and more people who have left the church are now testifying to the ways the church has harmed them, including how often a narrow view of God’s mercy, creativity, and hospitality foreclosed the possibility of God’s prerogative to work in and through those on the margins we have deemed unfit. But, shaped and inspired by the love and hospitality of God, we can be “visible signs of God’s mercy,” drawing the circle wide for all God’s children. Amen.

 

Embracing the Grace of Beginning

Rev. Dr. DeWayne L. Davis

This Week at Plymouth, September 6, 2024

“Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.”

—John O’Donohue, “For A New Beginning”

It’s hard to escape the experience of new beginnings during September. Earlier this week, the first day after Labor Day, the yellow school buses started rolling again, greeting hesitant first-time bus riders going to a new school as their families looked on with pride and nervousness. Parents have been filling their social media feeds with pictures of children transitioning to middle or high school or settling into college dorms. Even the weather seems to sense a turning of the page, clocking in at cooler temperatures when meteorologists offered excessive heat warnings only days ago. The feeling of new beginnings is flooding Plymouth Church, too. We opened our beloved community to welcome three new staff members, and the church is abuzz with activity, preparing for our Rally Sunday celebration when we welcome everyone back for the official start of the program year.

The priest and poet John O’Donohue, in his blessing for a new beginning, prayed that we would awaken to the spirit of adventure within us and that we would hold nothing back in pursuing the promise of our future when we find ourselves at the start of some new opportunity, experience, or adventure. I share this sentiment and his optimism about the grace of beginnings. He helps us reimagine what a new beginning can be for us, describing it as grace. What a comforting thought to see a new beginning as kindness or benevolence, a gift that seems to extend beyond this moment of starting to include promise and possibility. Of course, the promise of a new beginning doesn’t mean we don’t feel the fear, anxiety, or insecurity that comes with starting a new job, moving to a new city, or attending a new school. Yet, there is no denying a little excitement in starting anew.

I’m feeling the excitement about a new season at Plymouth Church. Life in a beloved community, in which graced people embrace the power and blessing of covenant, means we do not let an unclear destination cause us to doubt the promise of the grace of beginning. We remain alert and watchful, looking for the signs of Divine action and presence as a harbinger of a new, exciting time that anticipates a new reality for us and the world. It is a life lived in anticipation and excitement at the opportunities to enact our hopes and dreams. Though our destination remains unclear, this moment in our life together has been ordained, and we “can trust the promise of this opening.” Let us unfurl into the grace of beginning. May it be so.

The Confounding Power of Joy

Rev. Dr. DeWayne L. Davis

This Week at Plymouth, August 30, 2024

“Discovering more joy does not save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak . . . we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily too. Yet as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters.”

—Archbishop Desmond Tutu

At a recent Presidential nominating convention, party officials and convention organizers were pleased with the display of joy from the candidates, delegates, and operatives. Joy was more than just the background of cheers, signs, and slogans to accompany the usual party and campaign business. Every speaker testified to the joyful posture of their nominee and the delight they felt in the possibilities for a better future. They rejoiced in the infectious expressions of hope, unity, and excitement and committed to maintaining that joyful countenance as a critical part of their campaign strategy. Even the Rev. Al Sharpton, leaning more into his role as clergy than political activist and commentator, quoted the Psalm in his speech, leading the audience in a call-and-response chant of “Joy comes in the morning,” eliciting a reaction of more joy.

But the emphasis on joy confounded the political press and pundits. The idea that a political party would be motivated by an unmeasurable, primarily inward feeling did not make much sense to them. One New York Times columnist stated in his article that “joy is not a strategy.” He wanted something more concrete, a sure-fire, familiar strategy that translates into votes. Ironically, political prognosticators have always noted the power of fear to inspire and suppress votes, often pointing out the effectiveness of negative campaigns in driving the vote. The fear of the other, of the unknown, or of being replaced has been recognized as the source of realignment. Why not joy? Can’t joy inspire action? If not a strategy, the intentional expression of delight and gladness in pursuing an inclusive campaign can attract others, encouraging them to participate.

Joy is confounding. When we look at the world and the human condition, joy is not the first thing that comes to mind. Our hearts have been broken by the scenes of death and destruction in the Middle East, especially of innocent people caught in the middle of nations and terrorists battling each other. We lament the poverty, inequality, and exploitation of the weakest people in our communities. But joy is not a denial of sadness, hardship, or horror. Joy is not a pretense that everything is okay and nothing is wrong. Joy does not mean that you will never have another negative thought. Instead, joy is about being mindful of the beauty, goodness, and possibilities of a better future; recognizing the love and connection with partners, friends, and family made possible when we have a shared vision for the future; being intentional about giving in to that which creates beloved community; and appreciating the good things that come to us unexpectedly. Oh, what joy!

The Answer Is Justice

Rev. Dr. DeWayne L. Davis

This Week at Plymouth, August 23, 2024

“My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice.”

—Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

One of the most influential pieces of wisdom that has stood with me came from Bryan Stevenson, the attorney who started the Equal Justice Initiative to help death row inmates get their death sentences overturned. In his national bestselling book about his efforts, Just Mercy, he said, “The opposite of poverty isn’t wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice.” That assertion inspires me, especially when I read the sacred texts. And it occurred to me that God’s answer to just about everything that goes wrong is justice. Even when humans seek to usurp God’s prerogative in response to one thing or another, when the human imagination fails, and people resort to the narrowest, most unfair, most violent responses, God always responds by doing justice and commanding justice. When the human imagination fails, the Divine imagination always calls for forgiveness, remission, and liberation.

Whether one reads the Bible literally or metaphorically, many readers widely acknowledge that it is a source of imagination. The biblical witness challenges us to envision and anticipate the movement and intentions of the Divine, even in the face of failure, scarcity, and barrenness. The Divine imagination continually shapes and reshapes us, defying the notion of hopelessness and loss. This Divine imagination comes into play when God acknowledges, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings” (Exodus 3:7). This closeness of God to human suffering provides comfort and assurance—God sees, hears, and understands. God is present and affected by pain and suffering. In response, God envisions how to bring justice to those in need.

The world is crying out for people of faith to recognize and address the suffering of others and to inspire a vision for a more just world. If we want to reclaim justice in our own time, if we’re going to inspire a new generation of disciples to embody the radicality of God, if we’re going to enlist a new vanguard to practice community and neighborliness, we begin by exercising our imaginations. We try to see, hear, and know and then act to ensure no need exists. In every prayer we utter, every hymn we sing, every social justice campaign we support, every contribution we make, every person we feed, every prisoner we visit, every LGBTQ person we embrace, every religious minority we respect, every homeless person we shelter, every person in recovery we tend, every immigrant we welcome, we demonstrate that we are proximate and present to the most pressing need for justice. We commit to using our imaginations to break business as usual by daring the world to respond and remove the need. That is justice.