64 // Looking Back // Jacqui Lewis

CF: My name is Christina Fleming and I am the Communications Director at Middle Collegiate Church. We are excited to be talking to the Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis today and looking back at the last few weeks of her preaching and what has informed that and how she has created this powerful series. Jacqui, will you take us back to the last few weeks and talk about your intentions and how you have balanced both whats going on in the world and what people are going through personally. I see you doing that in such a masterful way. Can you break that down for us? JJL: Christina, I am amazed at the words that have been coming out of my mouth for the past few weeks. I think our listeners know that my Mom has been struggling with lung cancer for the last seven years and she finally past away on April, 25. On the way to Palm Sunday and Easter, on the way to our Revolutionary Love Conference, not only was I feeling a kind of a nondescript, diffuse grief about what is happening in the world but I was grieving the certainly, imminent death of my Mom. And I think it got me in touch with a real vulnerable place in myself. A kind of stripped bare place in myself. Where quite frankly, I wasn’t thinking is this politic or I wasn’t thinking is this the right answer? I wasn’t thinking will people love this sermon. I was just in the prayer closet, so to speak, with my God. I felt like there was a power pouring into my heart. From what direction, I don’t know. Up? In? Out? But almost a palpable, direct power source that was giving me the space to grieve, permission to be unsure, and at the same time, certainty that God is God. And so I felt like in a way Middle was overhearing a conversation I was having with God. And the conversations were as much for me as for anybody else. And the message was, “Though there might seem to be evidence to the contrary, I am here. You (you plural) are loved, beloved. You are powerful. You are my partners, We can, together, You-Jacqui, humanity, Me, all of us, the Universe, we can make this different than it is. And I just, I don’t know, tried to channel that truth. But,I also felt bold to claim revelation. “God is still speaking.” I felt that God was speaking to me what I need to hear right now. And people at Middle Church seem to really need to hear. We are grieving, forgive the colloquial, “It kinda sucks” and together we can Do something about it. CF: What would you say to ministers who are in vulnerable places in their own lives or congregants who are hearing this and they can feel their own vulnerability? When you are feeling pretty vulnerable, how do you center yourselves, Jacqui? Suddenly we have a persona, a false self a patina between us and God and us and them. But the true power and maybe the best thing to idealize. Scripture that says: 2 Corinthians 12:9 “My strength is made perfect in your weakness.” I think the humanity that we own, the nature of our selves, is that we feel deeply. We have pathos, we have sorrow, we have joy, we have laughter. And to be real, is to be the best gift to give ourselves and the congregation. I think the aim is to be real. Vulnerable pastor, show your vulnerability. Show the truth to people helps them to be true. And in terms of people who might be listening for devotion. What have you got to lose? If you are honest with your God, or your friend, your partner, your lover? It takes too much energy to mobilize a front for yourself. Losing my Mom, has made me want more ferociously, to be honest, to be clean, to be true. When your Mom dies your priorities are ordered for you. What is important? What is important is honest relationships. That includes The Holy. The death of a parent makes you grow up. Maybe we put to death childish theologies or less grown-up ways of viewing the world. What if we have a grownup relationship with at grownup God? That is what I have been preaching this season.