a different kind of suffering

A Different Kind of Suffering

 by Rev Dr Durrell Watkins

People often associate Lent with suffering. Our modern ears hear “suffer” and usually define the word to mean “pain.” But “suffer” also means “to allow.” Jesus said, “Suffer the children to come unto me,” that is, ALLOW the children to come to me. And we’ve all heard the phrase that one doesn’t “suffer fools gladly,” meaning, one doesn’t welcome (or wish to ALLOW) foolishness. As we approach the Season of Lent, let’s focus on allowance rather than pain.

At Sunshine Cathedral we don’t encourage you to make yourself miserable for a few weeks. We don’t ask you to give up chocolate or soda or to refrain from eating meat on Fridays. Of course, neither do we suggest that you eat pounds of chocolate, drink gallons of soda, or feast on meat without vegetables; after all, we want you to be healthy! But Lent isn’t about missing Snickers bars for a few weeks. Lent is about “allowing” yourself to grow spiritually, to learn, to experience more hope and peace in your life. It is a season of spiritual reflection.

Traditional Lenten disciplines include being intentional about weekly worship, being a bit more generous (“almsgiving” they used to call it), and daily prayer and meditation. And those are good practices, but they aren’t “tasks” that one performs begrudgingly out of duty. They are joyful practices meant to help you “allow” yourself to feel the presence of God within you.

So, this Lent at Sunshine Cathedral, you won’t hear about guilt and sin and shame and self-denial, but you will be encouraged to allow yourself to shine, to be your best self, to be happy and hopeful and full of life.

Suffer the Sunshine Cathedral to rejoice! That is to say, this Lent, may we who make up the Sunshine Cathedral allow ourselves to experience the joy of self-celebration and spiritual growth. Amen. 

A Progressive View of Lent

Lent is a reminder that Spring's a-comin' and with it warmth, beauty and renewal. It may not be here yet, but the promise that it's on the way gives us hope and comfort in the meantime. Lent isn't about guilt, shame or self-denial; it's about focusing on the infinite possibilities the future offers and choosing to move forward toward those possibilities.

We Need a Little Easter Now (Ash Wed 2014 sermon)

We Need a Little Easter Now

Rev Dr Durrell Watkins

Ash Wednesday 2014

In the play and movie, Auntie Mame, Mame decides that Christmas needs to come early and so she and her nephew and staff celebrate Christmas when they need all that it offers, all that it represents, rather than waiting for when the calendar says it’s time.

I like that. The miracle of Christmas is available whenever we need it. When we need hope, joy, celebration, togetherness, seeing sparks of possibilities in the midst of despair, then it’s time to “haul out the holly” and “deck the halls.”

But just as Christmas is about the hope of liberation being born in the midst of empire, marginalized shepherds hearing angel voices and far away strangers finding holiness after a long journey, Easter, too, is a symbol of hope that breaks forth in spite of seeming hopelessness.

Easter is life that death can’t keep from expressing.

Easter is freedom from entombment and stones of limitation being removed.

Easter is knowing that tragedy strikes but shouting Hallelujah anyway because life is a never-ending story and so the hope for healing and restoration is always real.

I don’t think it serves us to make Lent a forced time of gloom, sacrifice, or feigned sadness. Bad things happen often enough without our needing to pretend a moment is less joyful than it could be (e.g., hangings in Iran, anti-gay legislation in Nigeria and Uganda, attempts to halt progress on LBGT rights in the US, etc).

Let’s make Lent a time of celebrating Easter early, a time of affirming life, a time of expecting the best, a time of choosing to be more generous, more joyful, more optimistic, more committed to justice, more excited about the possibilities of life right now and always.

Tonight, of course, is Ash Wednesday.

Whenever I hear Ash Wednesday I remember a sunken area outside on the campus of the seminary where I earned my doctorate. The school was smoke free indoors, and so the smokers would gather at that sunken area outside to smoke and visit. Since it was the smoking area, and since it was a sunken sort of pit, they affectionately called it the Ash Hole.

Ash Wednesday begins the Season of Lent. Lent is a time of preparation leading to Easter. During Lent we are encouraged to be especially faithful to spiritual disciplines such as meditation, study, prayer, worship, and sharing. It is, therefore, a time of spiritual renewal.

Renewal, isn’t that what Easter is about?

Lent isn’t holding off on joy; Lent can be about rehearsing for unending joy. Let’s not wait. Let’s get the party started now and call it Lent!

Traditionally Ash Wednesday calls us to consider our mortality and redeem our fear of it, but it can also challenge us to heal many of our attitudes and commit to living in the power of hope.

Sister Joan Chittister  says this about Lent:

“Lent is about becoming, doing and changing whatever it is that is blocking the fullness of life in us right now.

Lent is a summons to live anew.

Lent is the time to let life in again…”

Live anew? Let life in again? Sounds like Easter! Maybe Lent isn’t Easter delayed but Easter come early!

In our reading tonight, the Apostle Paul said, “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”

NOW is the time. Why wait?

Easter isn't something that happened once long ago, nor is it something that may happen in 7 weeks; Easter is a reality we can acknowledge, embrace, and live into at any time.

Easter, actually named for the Saxon spring goddess Eostre, represents life that cannot end.

Winter can cover our lives with snow and ice and darkness but the cold must give way once again to the life that Spring calls forth. Life doesn't go away; it is actually being nurtured in the darkness of winter so that it can flourish in the Spring and be forever strong and bountiful.

So, we aren't making Spring happen and we aren't hoping that it will happen, we are choosing to know that it is a reality that cannot be kept from us, so even when winter seems dark and gloomy, it is really just providing the rest needed for never-ending renewal. Life will prevail. Winter is part of life. Lent, then, can be part of Easter. We are always Spring people, people alive with divine Life, Easter people, Resurrection people. Why pretend otherwise simply because tradition says its Lent?

Tonight we aren't just contemplating mortality; we are redeeming it. Life must live and isn’t limited by physical conditions. Life isn’t physical, it is energy, spirit, and while we experience it in our bodies, it is in no way limited to our bodies. We are choosing to remember that Life is indomitable, omnipresent, eternal; and to remember that is to experience Easter. We can have a little Easter right now. And not only do we trust that life is eternal, we also trust that we can make the most of it by being intentional, deliberate, faithful on our life-journeys.

We make mistakes, but we also learn from them.

We experience suffering, but we also overcome it.

We face uncertainty, but we have the power to hope even when certainty evades us. Easter blessings are always at hand.

I have friends who are giving their last Facebook post between now and Easter (but reminding the world they are nevertheless available via email and Twitter). Really? Why bother?

Give up chocolate for 40 days? Why? If it’s bad, give it up forever. If it’s good, why give it up for even a day?

Oh, there are things I would encourage us to give up, but not because it’s Lent, but because useless baggage that weighs us down should be jettisoned whenever we have the opportunity to get rid of it!

Give up the idea that you were born a sinner. Of course you make mistakes, but you can also learn from them and heal from them and wind up better than before. But making mistakes doesn’t make us a mistake. We are God’s miracle and not God’s mistake!

Give up self-loathing.

Give up false guilt and needless shame.

Give up fear of the unknown.

Give up regret over what can’t be changed.

Give up anxiety about what hasn’t happened yet and may never happen at all.

There are many things to give up that could make a big difference. Sodas and chocolate and Facebook, however, do not make it very high on that list.

This is as good a time as any to challenge ourselves to be more generous, more hopeful, more reflective, more open to possibilities, but this is not a time give up anything other than whatever is stealing our joy.  

I have a friend from seminary, a heterosexual, married with children, Baptist minister in Los Angeles. He’s in trouble right now because he married a lesbian couple in a state where same-sex marriage is legal. He opened his church to interfaith groups for dialogue and he welcomed humanists, agnostics, and atheists to the discussions. Most recently, and apparently this was the final straw, he published a letter in a local paper advocating for lesbian and gay rights.

My friend has given up a lot as Lent approaches. Not movies or texting or sodas after sundown. He’s given up security for the sake of those who never had it. He’s given up privilege for those who had been hurt by it. He’s given up knowing if he will have job tomorrow because he’d rather stand on the side of justice that profit from oppressive theologies left unchallenged.

I’m not opposed to giving up things for Lent, but does the giving up make a difference? How easy it is to pat ourselves on the back for not chewing gum for a few weeks! But wouldn’t a more meaningful sacrifice be to speak out on behalf of undocumented workers, to show kindness to someone suffering from depression, to affirm the validity and sanctity of transgender people and the families they create, to oppose war, and to work to end poverty rather than punish people for being poor?  

When I hear of people congratulating themselves for abstaining from scratch off lottery tickets or pasta for a few weeks, I think of the prophet of Isaiah who imagined God saying, “What do I care about the number of your sacrifices?...Instead, make justice your aim, redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.”

That’s what my friend in Los Angeles has done. Instead of sacrificing things that won’t matter if he enjoys them or not, he has taken up the cause of justice to help those he could have chosen to ignore. But with the heart of a pastor and the soul of a prophet, he chose to believe in the sacred value of all people and give up anything that might hinder that life-giving good news.

Traditionally, the ashes on Ash Wednesday represent finality, but remember, it’s from the ashes that the Phoenix will rise. No matter what has happened, believe in your goodness and choose to have hope for the future.

If you think you watch too much television then watch less, but don’t call it a religious discipline. If you want to eat healthier, see a nutritionist or a trainer or join Weight Watchers…it will work better and last longer than trying to give up carbs for Lent. But if you want to experience more joy in life then give up beliefs that make you feel badly about yourself, and once you believe in yourself, you will be better able to be an agent of positive change and healing in the world.

NOW is the time of God's favor; now is the day of salvation (wholeness, liberation, true happiness). We need a little Easter now. Let’s start the Easter celebration tonight and build on it throughout Lent so that on Easter Sunday the joy and the energy and the hope will be so strong it will be like an atomic blast of grace and goodness, and Sunshine Cathedral will be ground zero. THIS is the good news. Amen.

Lenten Message from Pastor Durrell

Lent is a "penitential" season, that is, it's a time to reflect on what needs healing in our lives and to make the changes ("repentance") necessary to achieve that healing (or growth, or improvement, etc.).

Of course, we need not limit our efforts to improve our lives to the Lenten Season. And, we don't need to confuse self-evaluation with guilt, shame, or self-hatred. At Sunshine Cathedral you don't hear a lot of talk about sin. Sin is "missing the mark" and we don't "hit" the mark by focusing on mistakes, failures, and regrets. What we focus on we drift toward and what we believe in we are likely to experience, so why would we ever call ourselves sinners or spend too much energy focusing on sin?

I've said over and over (as Bishop John S. Spong has said for decades) that we never fell from perfection; we are still evolving toward it. Lent isn't for me a time to focus on sinfulness but on our innate goodness. We don't need to be saved from ourselves; we need to grow into our divine potential.

I don't understand the divine to be punishing, harsh, demanding atonement, or keeping a record of rights and wrongs.

The divine Presence, in my understanding and experience, is that universal power of Love which spins worlds into being, which connects and flows through all life, and that is best honored by our joy, our compassion, and our goodwill (not by our shame, guilt, and fear).

For a couple of years now I have been working on my attitudes toward food and exercise, my belief in my physical goodness, and my divine right to feel good in and about my body. It's been a slow process, but I have lost 27 pounds, I've lost 3.5 inches in the middle, 2 inches in the neck, and I've gained inches in my chest, shoulders, biceps, calves, and thighs (lean tissue, not fat). In the process, my overall health has also improved (better cholesterol, better sleep, more energy, etc.). I made changes (I "repented") in my attitudes and habits, and I didn't give up when progress was slow, and as a result, things started to improve.

What I am achieving in my body we can all achieve - not just with our waistlines or blood pressure, but with our relationships, our finances, our mental health, our spiritual growth...whatever needs healing or improvement, if we will dare to examine it and make healthy changes, we can make a positive difference in our lives and in the lives of others.

Improvement can be done without guilt, shame, fear, or cowering before a tyrannical image of a cosmic Being. This is a season, not of guilt and self-flagellation, but of hope, encouragement, positive thinking, and healing. The repentance (change) can be positive, nurturing, and joyous.

I invite you to allow Lent to be a time of growth and healing. Worship, study, pray, give...not to appease an angry God, but to allow the Love we call God to flourish in our life and to bless us abundantly. And may our shared Lenten journey bring us all to Easter joy! Amen.

8 Points of Progressive Christianity: A Sunshine Cathedral Lenten Study

GOOD FRIDAY Service at Sunshine Cathedral: 7:30 pm
EASTER SUNDAY Services at Sunshine Cathedral: 8 am, 9:30 am, & 11 am

Ash Wednesday
We Are Followers of Jesus.
We have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus.

The Church has so successfully made Jesus into a sacred symbol, it has often failed to adequately challenge its membership to follow Jesus’ example. Instead of being legalistic in Jesus’ name, we ought to recall how Jesus challenged religious legalism and affirmed those who legalism had excluded. Instead of taking the easy road of merely praising Jesus, we ought to follow his example of touching the untouchables, loving the unlovable, seeing the light of God in all people. We honor Jesus best not by what we say about him, but by following his example of working for justice, showing compassion, and being the love of God in action in our world. As progressive Christians we have found the life and teachings of Jesus to be the way of giving body to the presence of divine Love in our world.

Prayer Treatment
I am embracing and expressing the goodness of God as I follow Jesus’ message and example. Amen.


First Sunday of Lent
We Affirm Religious Pluralism.
We can be faithful within our tradition even while respecting that other traditions are valid for those who are faithful within them.

We need to remember that the Christian tradition is diverse. It has never been an ideologically unified movement, and as the years/centuries/millennia have rolled on, the movement has become ever more diverse. As the Jesus movement began as a Jewish movement, we have obviously borrowed from Judaism (our “Old Testament”, the celebration of Pentecost, the messianic concept, etc.), but we have also borrowed from other traditions (some common Christian beliefs were borrowed from Persian Zoroastrianism; celebrating winter/Christmas and spring/Easter festivals were borrowed from European paganism; the “Logos” was borrowed from ancient Greek philosophy, etc.). And, as science has advanced, we’ve had to negotiate with, incorporate, and re-examine our stories and traditions in the light of scientific discoveries. Christianity is an evolving movement, touched by the cultures it has touched, borrowing from other traditions even while developing and reinterpreting its own. Faithfulness to our tradition doesn’t mean being intolerant of others; in fact, we owe much of what we are to other traditions. We are Christian not because there is no other way to be in relationship with God, but because we have found that the path leading to God that best meets our needs is the path we find demonstrated by Jesus (who taught, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”). We wouldn’t want people to condemn us for our faith; and so as followers of Jesus, we don’t condemn anyone else for theirs.

Prayer Treatment
I can be faithful within my tradition while loving and respecting others who are faithful within their own. Perhaps, we can even learn from one another. Amen.


Second Sunday of Lent
We Are Eucharistic.
We understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus’ name to represent God’s feast of unconditional love for all people.

At Sunshine Cathedral we practice an “open” Communion. We invite everyone to participate in Holy Communion regardless of who they are. One need not be a member of our church or any church to receive the sacrament. All are welcome, regardless of their beliefs or doubts, to participate in our symbolic feast of unconditional love. We share the one loaf and the common cup not because we all believe the same things, but because we are united in love. “God is Love and WHOEVER lives in love lives in God and God lives in them” (1 John 4.16).

Prayer Treatment
God is Love. Showing kindness is the way we recognize and honor the divine Presence in others. In the name of God, we celebrate an open Communion where all are welcome and all are loved. And so it is.


Third Sunday of Lent
We Are Inclusive.
We invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become exactly like us. This inclusion applies to believers AND agnostics, conventional Christians AND questioning skeptics, women and men, those of ALL sexual orientations and gender identities, those of ALL races and cultures, those of all classes and abilities, and those who hope for a better world as well as those who have lost hope.

At Sunshine Cathedral, what holds us together isn’t a doctrinal statement or creed, but our willingness to support one another as we each follow our own path and grow at our own pace. We acknowledge the divine Spark in every individual and we affirm the sacred value of all people. Our unity isn’t based on what we oppose nor is it based on an unwillingness to think critically. Our unity isn’t a uniformity of opinion; our unity is the divine Love that dwells in every human heart. Beliefs come and go, but our commitment to practice love and kindness can sustain us throughout our lives. We are lovingly diverse and that is our strength.

Prayer Treatment
As we treat others the way we would like to be treated, we are recognizing and affirming the dignity and sacred value of every individual in our wonderfully diverse community. And so it is!


Fourth Sunday of Lent
We Are People of Action (Actions Speak Louder Than Words).
We know that the way we behave toward one another and toward others is the fullest expression of what we really believe.

Beliefs change. As we learn new information, meet new people, and have new experiences, our opinions evolve. At Sunshine Cathedral, we do ask people to believe in their own sacred value and in the sacred value of all people. But more than holding an opinion, what we are really asking is that we learn to treat ourselves lovingly and that we learn to treat others lovingly. When we give time, talent and treasure to our church and other good causes, when we show kindness, when we forgive someone, when we try again after a failure, when we use our voice, our vote, or our resources to promote fairness…we are living what we really believe. Progressive Christians live lives of hope, joy, fairness, and compassion…those faith actions do more for our world than mere theological opinions ever could.

Prayer Treatment
As I live joyously, love abundantly, and work for justice in my world, I am expressing my deepest, truest faith…a trust in the goodness of life and a desire for life’s goodness to be experienced by all people. Amen.


Fifth Sunday of Lent
We Are Seekers & Students of Truth.
We find more grace in the SEARCH for understanding that we do in dogmatic certainty – more value in questioning than in absolutes.

Jesus said, “Seek and you will find.” As progressive Christians, we aren’t afraid to ask questions, nor are we arrogant enough to believe that any one tradition, book, or institution has a lock on truth. Dogma might help us feel secure, but it can also keep us from experiencing the joy of new discovery, new learning, and new revelations. Jesus, we will recall, challenged the leaders of his religious tradition and he offered new insights to the tradition itself. In fact, some people even considered Jesus to be a heretic. Heresy comes from a Greek word that means “act of choosing.” Jesus freely chose what he believed and how he would celebrate his beliefs. Followers of Jesus today also are free to choose. Others may call us heretics, and we can simply smile and agree. We can use reason, a variety of interpretations of scripture and tradition, as well as science, sociology, psychology, and our own creativity to explore the depths of the mystery of life. For the progressive Christian, the questions are more important than the answers, because there may always be new answers to discover and consider. We aren’t here to mindlessly obey what others claim to have discovered; we are here to fearlessly and honestly seek for ourselves and to enjoy our own discoveries.

Prayer Treatment
My honest questions are leading me to new discoveries all the time. I value the search, and I give thanks for the journey. Amen.


Sixth Sunday of Lent
We Are Called to Do Justice, Love Mercy, and Live Humbly (Micah 6.8).
We are a community dedicated to equipping our fellow members for the work we are called to do: striving for peace and justice among ALL people, protecting the environment, and offering hope to those Jesus called the “least” of his sisters and brothers.

Progressive Christians are followers of Jesus’ example. Jesus challenged the status quo. He loved the unlovable and touched the untouchables. He stood up to religious hypocrisy and he so empowered the marginalized that the imperial government saw him as a possible threat. His message of loving the enemy, forgiving offenders, and caring more for human dignity than for religious traditions or hierarchies and his understanding that the whole of scripture could be boiled down to loving all people and treating others the way we would like to be treated is the message we try to embrace and live out as Progressive Christians. More than venerating Jesus as a sacred symbol, we endeavor to follow Jesus’ example of justice-love. When we confront misogyny, racism, heterosexism/homophobia and when we work for peace, economic fairness, universal access to quality health care, child safety, elder care, peace, and environmental justice, we are the incarnation of the spirit of Jesus’ life-changing and world-changing message.

Prayer Treatment
God, in, through, and as each one of us is working to bring peace, hope, goodwill, and justice to our world. And so it is.


Maundy Thursday
We Are Generous.
We recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege.

Jesus’ Golden Rule was to treat others as we would wish to be treated. There is a Jewish tradition that says when a rabbi was challenged to teach the entire Torah while standing on one foot, the rabbi accepted the challenge, saying very simply, “What is hateful to you, do not do your neighbor. This is the message of the Torah. Everything else is simply commentary.” Leviticus 19.18 says, “love your neighbor as yourself.” Over and over, the message is clear: the spiritually mature are never concerned only with personal comfort, but with well-being, justice, compassion, and opportunity for all people. Whether people have been injured by poverty, homophobia, sexism, racism, unjust wars, abuse, neglect, or natural disaster, the progressive Christian responds with generosity, compassion, and goodwill.

Prayer Treatment
All people have sacred value. As a follower of Jesus, I recognize the holiness within each person as I endeavor to treat all people the way I would wish to be treated. Amen.


The Sunshine Cathedral is affiliated with The Center for Progressive Christianity (www.TCPC.org), whose mission is:
- To reach out to those for whom organized religion has proved ineffectual, irrelevant, or repressive, as well as to those who have given up on or are unacquainted with it.
- To uphold evangelism as an agent of justice and peace.
- To give a strong voice both in the churches and the public arena to the advocates of progressive Christianity.
- To support those who embrace the search, not certainty.

Join us for Good Friday and Easter services at Sunshine Cathedral.
1480 SW Ninth Ave, Ft Lauderdale, FL
www.sunshinecathedral.org