[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Welcome to the collective table where we celebrate the intersections of Jesus, justice and joy.
This podcast is brought to you by Oceanside Sanctuary Church. Each week we bring our listeners a recording of our weekly Sunday teaching at Oceanside Sanctuary, which ties scripture into the larger conversations happening in our community, congregation and even the podcast. So we're glad your here and thanks for listening.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: I have a dream.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: That one day on the Red hills of Joy.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: The sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a drink.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: That one day.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: My four little children.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: Will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream to make.
[00:01:48] Speaker C: Well, good morning.
My name is Janelle Coker and I'm one of the co lead ministers and we are here on Advent talking about peace. Talking.
[00:02:03] Speaker C: And I couldn't imagine.
[00:02:08] Speaker C: A more powerful statement than Dr. King's speech, his dream for a world without oppression.
On that day in 1963, Dr. King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and offered a dream for our nation.
A dream of justice, a dream of equity, a dream of dignity, and ultimately a dream of peace. Because there is no peace without justice.
There is no peace without equity.
[00:02:52] Speaker C: And his words specifically, just that moment where he dares to dream in the face of so much oppression.
I don't know about you, but it gives me chills. I don't know if watching shakes you to the core.
[00:03:14] Speaker C: Because it's such a human thing for us to have dreams.
[00:03:20] Speaker C: For us to dare to dream about peace for our world, for our kiddos.
[00:03:28] Speaker C: For our family, for generations to come.
[00:03:33] Speaker C: And before Dr. King was up giving speeches to millions, he was giving speeches and sermons in his church.
[00:03:48] Speaker C: And his dream echoed dreams that we see throughout the Scriptures.
[00:03:56] Speaker C: And this morning during Advent, we follow the common lectionary. And a lectionary is just simply a suggested group of passages that we might read on any given Sunday. So throughout churches all over the world, the passage that I'm going to read today, Psalm 72, is being read.
And Psalm 72 is what I am going to propose is King David's dream speech.
[00:04:33] Speaker C: It is King David's dream for his son Solomon, who is going to be taking over the kingdom after David has become very old and frail and it's time for a new king.
[00:04:50] Speaker C: But as he moves into this psalm and writes this psalm, he begins to build a dream for the nation of Israel that will go on throughout the world.
So let's go ahead and read that together. We're just going to read the first seven verses of David's dream.
[00:05:16] Speaker C: Give this king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king's son.
May he judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice.
May the mountains yield prosperity for the people and the hills in righteousness may he defend the cause of the poor of people, give deliverance to the needy and crush the oppressor.
May he live while the sun endures and as long as the moon throughout all generations.
[00:05:55] Speaker C: May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth in his days. May righteousness flourish and peace abound until the moon is no more.
Let's pray together.
[00:06:17] Speaker C: God of peace, we are here.
[00:06:23] Speaker C: Considering what that looks like for us in a world that doesn't always feel peaceful.
[00:06:31] Speaker C: Help us to understand our place this morning in the manner of things.
[00:06:40] Speaker C: Be with us in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:06:46] Speaker C: Jason and I have lived in Oceanside for, I don't know, I think it's about 15, 16 years. And back in 2013, we had the opportunity to buy a home. And our home is on a hill. And a good portion of it is pretty steep hillside. When I'm working out there and pulling weeds, I don't quite have to strap myself into anything. But I will say that my pride, the hill has gotten my pride several times as I've slid all the way down and had a sore rear end a couple of times throughout my time and working on that hill. And the hill's honestly not great for much.
It's pretty steep. We're not going to be playing bocce ball out there.
[00:07:40] Speaker C: We're just weeding it all the time. Weeding it.
And when we first got there, there's this giant stump on the hill, giant tree that had been cut down. Our house was built in the 1930s. I don't know when the tree was cut down and.
[00:08:00] Speaker C: Has this stump, but then it has these, I mean, roots. Y' all, like roots that just go in and out throughout the hill and sucker bushes that just come off the roots all over the hill. It, I'm sure, is a fire risk.
[00:08:17] Speaker C: And our neighbor gave one of the most prophetic words I've ever gotten in my life. He said, you're going to hate that stump.
[00:08:29] Speaker C: And I did.
[00:08:32] Speaker C: The one Thing about being on a hill is that we have a view and these sucker bushes come off of this stump like you would not imagine. They turn into these giant bushes, birds build their nests in there. It totally ruins my view.
I know. It's all about me.
[00:08:50] Speaker C: And so we are constantly cutting it down, chainsawing it, sticking Epsom salt, and as we drill into it. And we had an arborist come out and he said, oh, oh, this is a Brazilian pepper tree.
And I went, okay.
[00:09:15] Speaker C: You'Re not going to kill this thing.
[00:09:20] Speaker C: It's here, it's been here, it's going to be here. I mean, we could come in. We don't like access to our hill. Is not, not. It's not like they can drive big trucks back there.
We can come in and for tens of thousands of dollars, we can try to dig out all of the stumps, but I can't make any guarantees.
[00:09:48] Speaker C: For 13 years, I feel like I've come full circle. And now I have this great reverence for the pepper tree.
[00:09:59] Speaker C: It has eternal life.
[00:10:02] Speaker C: It's going to be there well after I leave.
It will be there until the sun and the moon shine no more, at least in my mind.
[00:10:17] Speaker C: And I think that.
So now I know that this pepper tree, I believe that the roots are actually holding up our hill.
I believe the roots are probably holding up our house. And so while I do clip it down so that I have a view, I'm done trying to kill it.
[00:10:38] Speaker C: I am a little bit in love with it.
[00:10:43] Speaker C: David's I have a dream psalm for his son Solomon and for ultimately Israel and the world was much like my pepper tree. He wanted a kingdom where the poor were taken care of, held by a very root system of a righteous king.
[00:11:12] Speaker C: One where the mountains were full of everything that anyone would needed. There was no more oppression.
[00:11:22] Speaker C: No more.
[00:11:25] Speaker C: Some being left out that all would have enough.
[00:11:31] Speaker C: And he imagined this coming through his son Solomon, who unfortunately, like all kings, all human kings.
[00:11:45] Speaker C: Didn'T do so well, forgot how to rule righteously, was corrupted by power.
So then, as time has gone on, we begin to read Psalm 72 with more of a messianic view. One where, okay, now this must be a foretelling of Christ, and it makes sense.
This is much the way that Christ brought his own ministry forward.
We sing it in our songs today. It's about caring for the oppressed, making sure that there is equity and inclusion.
[00:12:33] Speaker C: But Jesus arrives on the scene. He is actually from the line of King David.
[00:12:41] Speaker C: But it's so watered down. He arrives in Nazareth by an unwed young woman.
Even in the scripture, it says, what good could come from Nazareth?
He did not rise up with a direct descendant to the throne.
When he started his ministry in his 30s, he started to collect people.
He could have started an army.
He could have spent time with all of the political mucky mucks of his time.
But instead, he found himself on a hill preaching to the poor, to the outcast.
He was healing the sick. He. He was hanging out with all of the wrong people if he was going to truly be the king, the king of kings, the prince of peace, the one that Psalm 72 dares to dream about.
[00:13:50] Speaker C: And while I think David's dream for a kingdom where everybody had enough.
[00:13:59] Speaker C: Is so much part.
[00:14:02] Speaker C: Of the heart of all of our dreams here.
[00:14:07] Speaker C: Jesus didn't come as an ordinary king. He didn't come in the ordinary ways of power.
[00:14:17] Speaker C: He said to the poorest of the poor, you are blessed.
[00:14:24] Speaker C: He said to those who sought mercy, that they would receive mercy.
He said to those who mourn, you will be comforted.
He healed the sick who had no ability.
[00:14:43] Speaker C: To be productive in society.
[00:14:48] Speaker C: He spent time healing them.
Those who were tax collectors on the wrong side of the tracks, those were the folks he spent time with, not anybody who is going to lift him up to great power.
And as he preached, his I have a dream speech was the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.
[00:15:18] Speaker C: Or dare I say a peppercorn.
[00:15:23] Speaker C: It's planted in soil and grows underneath the ground.
It pops up in places you'll never expect, will become huge.
[00:15:39] Speaker C: And for those who don't appreciate it, insidious.
[00:15:46] Speaker C: Just when you think it's gone 10ft from the root, another sprout comes forward.
[00:15:57] Speaker C: Christ imagined power not through a great throne, but through our own hearts.
[00:16:11] Speaker C: When I listened to David's speech.
[00:16:19] Speaker C: I can't help but think that sometimes, as we're in this moment of anticipating Christ coming back, the symbolic time of Advent, where we're considering the Christ child coming anew in our hearts, that we're not looking for that same type of king that David imagined.
[00:16:42] Speaker C: One that would come and through just his very own power or her very own power, just take over.
There'd be no sprouting required, one big strong trunk that would provide shade for everyone.
[00:17:04] Speaker C: Don't we bicker about, if this next president came, we would have peace.
If only there was a different kind of CEO in this medical.
[00:17:19] Speaker C: Billing group that would allow for peace for all medical bills to be taken care of. We just need better leadership. And we do. We need better leadership.
But we are not going to find lasting peace through just a couple of decent leaders.
We all can be corrupted by power.
[00:17:46] Speaker C: We're only going to find peace when that mustard seed grows within our own hearts.
[00:17:56] Speaker C: Listen. Dr. King gave a movement his voice.
[00:18:03] Speaker C: But the people gave it strength.
They were the shoots rising from the ground everywhere.
Like my pepper tree, they refused to die.
Thousands of ordinary lives rooted in love and justice, sprouting up in city after city.
They are the reason the movement grew.
[00:18:31] Speaker C: It was the moms who.
[00:18:36] Speaker C: For 381 days refused to ride segregated buses.
It was the teenagers who sat at the lunch counters and faced down hatred day after day with quiet courage.
It was the children who marched in Birmingham, Alabama, when their parents were too afraid.
It was the church ladies who packed lunches for protesters.
It was the men and women who opened up their homes and churches for organizing.
And it was the volunteers who registered voters in towns where doing so put their lives at risk.
[00:19:24] Speaker C: Dr. King was a great leader, but he understood that it was people that brought legs to the movement.
[00:19:34] Speaker C: I believe Christ is saying that to us today.
[00:19:40] Speaker C: I believe that Christ came in a grassroots way when he was born through Mary's body.
[00:19:52] Speaker C: He was conceived by the spirit for the betterment of the world.
[00:19:59] Speaker C: As a symbolic.
As we symbolically wait for the Christ child this season, I'd like you to consider.
[00:20:08] Speaker C: That hope, peace, joy, love, they all have to be conceived in your own hearts.
[00:20:18] Speaker C: We have a month to consider Advent.
Are you pregnant with peace, hope, joy and love?
[00:20:31] Speaker C: Are you taking this time to ask.
[00:20:36] Speaker C: Where do I sprout up in unusual places and be the dream.
[00:20:46] Speaker C: Be the dream of Christ.
[00:20:49] Speaker C: Be the dream of Dr. King.
[00:20:55] Speaker C: We don't talk about.
[00:20:58] Speaker C: Sin here a lot. We don't talk about our own failings.
[00:21:05] Speaker C: But here's the truth. We can sit around and say we're waiting for just exactly the right leader to come in and make change, or we can make change ourselves.
And I believe this is the kind of leadership, this is the kind of kingdom that Christ calls us to.
[00:21:28] Speaker C: To sprout forward and bring change.
[00:21:33] Speaker C: So this morning, do not let Advent pass you by.
Do not let just a small prayer of peace.
[00:21:43] Speaker C: Go by and go on and continue your life.
[00:21:48] Speaker C: You come here, you sit here on Sunday mornings.
So take this month, take this time and ask yourself, where can peace be born in you?
Where can you rise up and be the leader that you're looking for?
Amen.
Amen.
I'm gonna let the band come on back up and let's pray together.
[00:22:27] Speaker C: God we come here this morning and as we symbolically wait for you, the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, to be born again.
[00:22:43] Speaker C: In our hearts, in our minds, in our community.
[00:22:49] Speaker C: In our world.
[00:22:53] Speaker C: God, we know that.
[00:22:57] Speaker C: Peace is born in us as well.
[00:23:03] Speaker C: Be the God that changes us from within.
[00:23:08] Speaker C: Be the God that brings us purpose.
[00:23:13] Speaker C: Help us remain in you and sprout up making change and holding up.
[00:23:22] Speaker C: The very fabric of peace.
We thank you for your example, your love in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: Thank you for joining us for this Sunday teaching, no matter when or where you're tuning in.
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