Transfiguration Inspiration
A Transfiguration Sunday sermon related to Matthew 17:1-8 CENTRAL FOCUS: That the transfiguration story is s source of inspiration amidst struggle, a theophany of Light and Renewal to "Get up and be not afraid" as we head back down the mountain. Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I[a] will set up three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved;[b] with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8 And when they raised their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. For the Word of God in Scripture For the Word of God among us For the Word of God within us Thanks be to God They were young and in love (at least 23 and 18 seem young to me now). So they married. She was pregnant and they were happy about it. They loved each other and wanted to be married. The baby came and eventually two others. Young love is not an unusual story, but this love does have an unusual twist of context. You see it was 1958 and husband Richard Loving was what our society calls white (European American) and wife Mildred was what our society called back then "colored." (Her lineage was African American and Native American.) And, in the State of Virginia in 1958, interracial marriage was forbidden, a felony, and punishable by significant jail time. After marrying quietly in the District of Columbia and returning to Virginia to live quietly, someone tipped off the police who then raided their bedroom in the middle of the night and arrested them. They plea bargained for a sentence of one year in jail to be suspended, provided they left Virginia for 25 years, never in that time to return together. These country people lived in DC for years away from family and the country life they loved before Mildred appealed to Attorney General Robert Kennedy who referred them to the ACLU. The ACLU provided free legal support that over several years finally landed their case in front of the Supreme Court who overturned Virginia’s and all such state laws in 1967. My wife and I watched the dramatized version of this story some years ago in the feature film titled simply and appropriately, Loving. That cinematic way of telling the story allowed me to see and feel the love between these two and the anguish, pain, and struggle that these two people, these two citizens, endured. Born of fear and systematized into law, the injustice of white supremacy caused these two to be sometimes separated from each other, separated from family, and to be exiled from their home. It was an inspiration to witness their love, their perseverance, their strength, and their courage in staying together and in finally finding a way to publicly and legally resist. It is appropriate to uplift such stories of courage and justice making, even more so during Black History month. And there are other such stories brought to film. Selma is the dramatized version of the story of seeking voting rights in Selma, Alabama and of the events and efforts of 1965 at the end of this long campaign that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 13th is a documentary film outlining the historic pattern of turning the racial discrimination of slavery into the racial discrimination of criminalization, using the 13th Amendment to the Constitution which forbids slavery, but allows an exception when one is duly convicted of a crime. Difficult stories these are, yet inspiring in their witness to those who put their lives and bodies on the line for the truth of justice, the truth of liberation, the truth of the dignity of the human person, all persons. Feature films are one of the common ways we tell stories today. Our tradition of faith is also gifted with stories, ancient stories. Their distance of time and culture can make them seem less accessible than the movies which are a primary form of storytelling in our age, but the effort to overcome that distance can be worth it. These sacred stories are meant as teaching, reflection, and inspiration just as they were for the early Christian communities. This morning’s story can seem particularly distant, especially if you are not a mystic and not inclined to imaginative prayer visions. It can be easy to classify this story as very "religious" and simply a story to support some kind of high theological and doctrinal view of Jesus as Divine. But, this morning, I offer that, looking closer, we can see something more, something more for Matthew’s community and something more for our community. Context is important always to shape our imaginations in getting the story’s fullest impact and import. Matthew’s author is writing to a community still wondering what it means to follow the lineage of Judaism now that the Temple has been destroyed by the Romans after another failed revolt. Matthew’s author is writing to a community wondering if they will be safe, if they have a place, in this new version of Roman Empire occupying their land. My UCC colleague Rev. Anne Dunlap offered insight into the context of this story of Transfiguration in an online sermon on this text and I gratefully follow her lead here in further understanding the context of this sacred story. The baby Jesus, visited by the Magi, subsequently has to flee for safety south to Egypt. After returning, Jesus has grown up, been baptized by John in the Jordan River, and has begun teaching and healing. He has spoken his Sermon on the Mount (much longer than any I would give!), gathered and sent out disciples, and has made his way to many towns and cities. But something significant happens in chapter 14 that subtly changes the tone of Matthew’s Gospel: the incarcerated John the Baptist is executed. Another movement leader killed by the empire. The one who baptized Jesus, to whom he was related in blood and in a message of Holy resistance and change, murdered by the state. We notice that Jesus from this point on seeks refuge regularly in deserted places like mountain tops. And, just prior to our story in Chapter 17, he begins to talk about the suffering he is to endure, even having to forcefully rebuke his close disciple Peter who discourages the path of suffering. Immediately after our story of transfiguration, Jesus speaks of John the Baptist and his fate. So it appears the context of the Transfiguration story is of a Jesus under duress of the system, under a growing threat as his movement grows, under the shadow of the cross. And where does he go in such a state? He goes to the mountain to pray. He takes the support of community with him. He seeks and finds the support of the ancestors. He listens for and hears a Divine Voice of Affirmation. Faced with his mortality and vulnerability, he seeks the Divine Light. And while Peter offers to build dwellings to stay there and they all respond with fear to God’s presence and message to follow, it is Jesus who touches them and says, “Get up and do not be afraid.” “Get up and do not be afraid.” The story of Transfiguration is a story for our difficult stories, for our difficult times when Herod or Caesar, the one out in the world or the one inside of us, is on our trail. The Transfiguration Story is a story for us, an invitation to experience the Divine Light and hear Divine Affirmation so that we can be like those who persevered in their love for each other amidst hard times, so that we can be like those seeking voting rights who got up after being knocked down by State Troopers, and be like those who see the painful path of injustice and have the courage to seek and even suffer another path for justice. Transfiguration is a story of Spirit’s power to touch us, bless us, and send us back into the world as it is so we might witness with our lives to how it can be. One of the possible translations here is that Peter wanted to build three sanctuaries. Jesus’ message to him was that, with the power of Divine Light and Truth, and of the ancestors, we must overcome our fear, get up, and come down the mountain to be sanctuaries in the world. Transfiguration is a story of the Divine Light that has the power to sustain us in the difficult times. We can be like the disciples focused on the power of the Christ Mystery. We can be like Jesus and become infused with God’s Light. We can know Transfiguration Inspiration so that we can come down the mountain and become sanctuaries in the world. May this be so. AMEN
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Yes and No
A sermon based on Matthew 5:33-37 (The Message version) Central Focus Being clear about our own truth and our own boundaries, allows us to be more loving and is more of a service to God, to the other person, and to God’s Realm. And don’t say anything you don’t mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ and then never doing it or saying, ‘God be with you,’ and not meaning it. You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say “yes’ and ‘no.’ When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong. For the Word of God in Scripture For the Word of God among us For the Word of God within us Thanks be to God Think of a time when you said yes to someone, but you really wanted to say NO. Or, a time when you said NO, but realized you really wanted to say yes. It might have been a small thing like going to a movie or getting ice cream or a big thing like taking a job or buying a house. You might have known your true answer in the moment or perhaps later. This morning we are moving into our Annual Congregational Meeting and will be asked to say yes or no on matters of the congregation. So it seems appropriate to name and to know that Jesus speaks to us about matters of discernment and declaration. He seems to want us to be truthful and clear and to know ourselves as we declare our yes and no. My sense is that Matthew’s Community has Jesus teaching about this in the important Sermon on the Mount because being clear about our own truth and our own boundaries actually allows us to be more loving which is more of a service to God, to the other person, and to God’s Realm. The Beloved Community is a place where community building covenants are made, and made well, and therefore kept. I think Jesus understood that community, real and worthy community that finds its way to justice and peace, is based on truthful, sincere and appropriate covenants. And relationship covenants are based on good boundaries of yes and no. In a church I used to pastor, one of the three simple questions of new members that I asked during the ritual of membership was “Are you willing to say both yes and no?” I must admit that I have often not been free and willing to do that because I was afraid that my authentic answer would affect the relationship negatively. Jesus challenges me and us in calling us to be authentic and in a way that builds relationships and strengthens community. I have an idea about that and a process I want to share with you. Here’s what we often don’t realize or remember:
I believe that this positive No is at the heart of how we clarify and ground the oaths and covenants that build loving and just relationships. A positive No serves relationships by building them on the clarity and truth of what is and by minimizing the likelihood that whatever covenant has been made will be broken because a lurking unexpressed resentment or disagreement or disrespect. Let’s explore…. What do people do that is not a positive NO? Or, you could say, what is a negative No? Three things: accommodate, attack, or avoid.
A positive no honors both parties in that it empowers you to be true, to not hurt yourself or the other, and it keeps respect for the other and openness to the possibility of another agreement and to the ongoing relationship. So how can one do this? In most sacred traditions, including ours, there is the presence of a symbolic Tree of Life. That Tree can serve well as an image for how we can find our positive No which empowers us to follow the teaching of Jesus in being clear about our yes and our no. Let’s divide that tree into three parts; roots, trunk, and upper branches and leaves. There are three parts to a positive No that can correspond to the tree image; an internal yes, our external No, and another external yes. Let’s start with the roots. If we are to have a positive No, we must go inward, down into our own roots and know what is important to us. What do we truly want? Where are we trying to go? What are we trying to do? What vision is calling to us? This taproot is our deep yes, our basic values and commitments. For those following in the Christ Way, we are asked to say yes to some basic understandings
This place of the Yes, of the “roots” is the also the place to know who we are individually, uniquely, deeply. What are my values? What do I want ultimately? What is mine to do? How is my unique life going to express God’s Yes to me and to all life? This is the place to find our deep yes! We can often miss what is true here because we are unaware of our unconscious motives and commitments. This inquiry into our deep roots is critical to working through our yes and no. OK, now to the trunk of that tree. This is the No that we identify and express. Out of our roots where we find our deep yes, comes the identification of what then does not serve that Yes. If I have made time commitments and affirm that I am only one person with limits of time and space, I might have to say NO to a request for volunteering or working overtime or giving my time up to television or continuing a destructive behavior like an addiction. Setting a NO boundary is being faithful to our deeper Yes. We might disappoint someone else, but we cannot really agree to something with integrity that we are asked unless we actually see the yes in it. Saying yes to things that we know are not the right thing for us in that moment leads to resentment and sabotage of that covenant later on, even unconsciously or passive-aggressively, or it leads to a loss of self-respect or a depression that hides anger. We can punish ourselves or another person (often both) for not being true to our deeper Yes. When discrimination or hatred or insult come, if our deeper Yes to God’s Grace and our making in the divine image is to be served, we must reject messages or treatment that says we are less than that. The civil rights movement was and is a giant positive NO movement. Speaking up and saying Black Lives Matter is a positive No to all that does not honor equally the lives of black people. Speaking up and acting against the discrimination and hatred of gay or lesbian or transgender people is positive NO to all that does not honor equally the lives of LGBTQ people. These positive No statements are based in a deep Yes to seeing all of us as God’s children and worthy of love and respect. OK, now the third part of the tree, the canopy of the upper branches and leaves. After expressing our positive NO, we not only honor and protect our own deep Yes, but we can then be open to another positive Yes in relation to the other. We can come from a place of self-knowledge, self-respect, and self-confidence to offer what is an acceptable agreement in relating to the other. Like those branches, we can reach out to the other, offering other possibilities, not this but that. I can’t go with you now or volunteer now, but perhaps I can reconsider in two months when my schedule changes. We can make an offer to the other person that honors our true connection or commonality with that other. So there are three parts to a positive NO; a deep Yes, a specific No, and the offer of another possible yes. Here’s how it might look. A boss comes to you and asks you to work on Saturday on an important project. You know that this would score points with the boss and possibly advance your career, but you are also the coach of your daughter’s soccer team and promised that you would spend more time with her. What do you do? LET’S REVIEW To the roots: Where is your yes? How does your career figure in what you want in life? Is it most important? Is family life and presence more important? Can advancing your career support your family life or have told yourself that before only to see it doesn’t work out this way? Maybe your boss has a way of using people in this way and doesn’t really come through or return the favor. While life is complicated and we might want to know more about how family is going in terms of money and relationship, and more about the boss and your history with her, let’s just say that you know inside that the thing you really know you want to do is to be there for your daughter and to coach the soccer game. You want to say yes to more family time. It will lead you to the life you value, to living out a value of children and family that you believe in. You may see that God calls you to human relationship more than money, and that you are called to respect yourself as much as the other person. To the Trunk: Expressing your No. Now you have to draw on the inspiration of connecting with your deep yes to family and to self-respect. This is the time to express your NO and say to the boss, “I can’t work this weekend. I have a commitment to family time that I want to honor.” To the top of the tree: Another yes to the relationship. Adding another possibility to the equation that would work for you and showing respect and appreciation for the other keeps the relationship open and keeps you from a negative no. It might sound like this: “I can’t work this Saturday. I have a commitment to family time that I want to honor, but I really appreciate you thinking of me with this important project. I can hear that you would like to get it done ASAP. I know that the project is important for the company and I would be willing to work on it Sunday evening from 6-9pm. How would that work?” How did that feel as I was telling it? Did anyone feel any butterflies in the stomach or anger when the request was made? You may already see where this process is most difficult for you:
Mahatma Gandhi said A ‘No’ uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.” While there is much to learn of this process and more that could be said, I hope the tree image is a helpful way for you to remember and to identify your true yes and no. Jesus teaches that it is important to have your yes be yes and your no be no, to be true to others requires being true to yourself. This is one Way to the Realm of God, to Beloved Community. This, I believe, is what Jesus teaches. This is the Path we are challenged to follow.
Remember Your Baptism
A sermon related to Matt 3:13-17 Rev. J.T. Smiedendorf CENTRAL FOCUS: That baptism represents an immersion, a rebirth, into the living, loving Way of Jesus. Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” For the Word of God in Scripture For the Word of God among us For the Word of God within us Thanks be to God Inspired by the presence of water in this morning's scripture story, I'd like to share with you one of my favorite stories of water. In southwestern South Dakota there is a First Nation reservation called Pine Ridge, the home of the Oglala band of the Lakota Nation. On my first visit there a number of years ago, I was privileged to meet Duane, a middle-aged Lakota man. As a part of our day’s work with Re-Member, a nonprofit group on the reservation started by some UCC people in Michigan, we were sent to help Duane garden. But Duane was no ordinary gardener. He had three large gardens that covered more than an acre. And the garden’s produce of beans, squash, corn, and melons was meant for the elders in the nearby village of Porcupine. Knowing the scarcity and the preciousness of water on the reservation, Duane had written a successful grant proposal to purchase drip irrigation equipment. We were there to help lay it out and to plant. Duane showed me how it worked and how to repair it. I even planted corn for the first time, a novelty for a city kid like me. Duane was utilizing the gift of water, wisely, for the greater good and life of the Lakota people. Our sacred story of water this morning comes from Matthew’s early Christian community. For Matthew, the story of Jesus’ baptism certainly helps accomplish his purpose of showing Jesus as a true Jewish messianic leader. Jesus, like so many Jewish leaders and the Jewish people before, entered the waters of the Jordan River and was deeply affirmed by God’s Presence there in an experience of the Holy Spirit. The esteemed Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann noted that this scene is a kind of endorsement reminiscent of those of the Davidic kings and that the Matthew story affirms God's blessing for the coming rule of Jesus. It is that coming rule of Jesus or the Realm of God that Jesus proclaimed that is the deeper purpose of baptism. Baptism is a kind of initiation and immersion into that Divine Realm, a transformation into a new way of life where one experiences one’s true Divine affirmation and blessing and, like Jesus, leads a life guided and sustained by Spirit that serves Life, a life of love and integrity and service and generosity and community. Indeed, in Luke’s version of this story, John the Baptist’s call was to prepare for a new age, to become part of a movement to prepare the way for it, and when people asked, ‘What then should we do?’ John said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’ he told tax collectors to collect no more than was proper and soldiers to give up their racket of extortion and simply do their jobs. Baptism in the water of the Jordan certainly celebrated and sealed this new way of living for the individual, but it clearly had a goal of changing society, redeeming it from its ills of selfishness, poverty, violence, and corruption. John’s invitation called people to prepare the way of God by changing one’s life, preparing the way within, seeing and acting differently, living in the world and with others differently. Baptism meant there would be relational and social change leading toward the fullness of God’s Realm and that we each would need to choose, to act to immerse ourselves in this new reality. Do you remember your baptism? I don't remember my baptism in late 1963 because I grew up in a family in the Methodist Church and Methodists do infant baptism. While I do appreciate and truly love the welcome and the blessing that comes with celebrating a new life in our community through infant baptism, baptizing babies does miss a profound adult experience of consciously choosing faith not just in Jesus and in the God of Jesus, but in living into the Way of Jesus and toward the vision of the Beloved Community. Baptism is meant not only to be a profound reorientation of the inner world, but to be a profoundly countercultural choice. Baptism is a big deal, change of direction moment for youth and adults. In fact, for the apostle Paul the ritual of baptism was such a big deal that it was imaged as a form of death, death of the old and rebirth into a new life in Christ. Indeed, there could be no better symbol than that of water for baptism, the waters of birth. And, despite the common church practice of sprinkling water on babies and sometimes adults, there could be no better symbolic act than full immersion into the water to re-emerge anew. It was not uncommon in the early church for those wishing to follow Jesus to study for months and then to be stripped of their clothing before experiencing a full immersion baptism, often on Easter, to initiate their new and full life in Christ, rising from the water to clothed anew in all white. This morning I'm not here to propose a change in our practices of baptism, but I am here to call us again to immersing ourselves in the Way of Jesus, to be in the practice of becoming beloved community. I am calling us to remember our baptism, to remember that life we are initiated into and who goes with us on that journey and how important it is. If you have not been baptized, I invite you to consider a conscious choice to follow the way of Jesus and to consecrate that choice in the ritual of baptism. Remember your baptism. The Way of Jesus is a profound way of love where there is a deep intention, a free will choice to love in a way that brings healing and justice that moves us beyond cycles of despair and bitterness, of violence and revenge. Baptism is acknowledging the choice to love in a way that goes beyond a judgment as to whether others deserve love, goes beyond simple tit for tat and eye for an eye, goes beyond the focus on what the other did or did not do. It goes beyond a reactive reality about the Other to a creative reality of the Self that simply asks, “How can I manifest love here and now? Love for myself and other, love for community and the whole earth? What form of love would serve the life in me AND the other now and moving forward?” Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount summarizes the vision of what baptism initiates us into, the Realm of God, life in the Beloved Community where cycles that drain life are replaced by intentions and actions that give life. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you Turn the other cheek Blessed are the merciful Blessed are the peacemakers Blessed are the humble Store up treasures of the Spirit Seek first the Realm of God and do not worry Treat others as you would like to be treated Remembering our baptism is remembering that we are called to choose this kind of love. The fact the you and I often fall short is not as important as remembering our baptism and choosing again the Way of Jesus. Remember your baptism. And remember you are not alone on that imperfect journey after baptism to live into this kind of love and service of Life. I think of Duane still as someone who inspires me on that journey after baptism. Some years later, I asked about Duane, and found out that he had died. It was a sad reminder that like many on the Pine Ridge reservation, living to your late fifties is actually better than average. Measured by certain statistics, Pine Ridge is the second poorest place in the Western Hemisphere (after Haiti). In a land area the size of Connecticut, there is one grocery store and one hospital. Alcoholism and diabetes are rampant. Duane knew that most of the food that Lakota people can get is of poor nutritional value so he tried to do something about it. So when I remember my baptism, and what I am to live for, Duane is one of those in the communion of saints who goes with me. Duane goes with me and helps me remember my baptism not simply because he was a kind and delightful man, but because even amidst the wilderness of poverty and discrimination, amidst a system of injustice and oppression that creates conditions for despair and death, Duane chose to love, to embrace a vision of life, to have a faith in action, to commit to the life of the people. He chose care for the elders and the children. Maybe he found his transforming sacred waters in the sweat of the prayer lodge, but I believe Duane was a baptized human, whether he ever did a Christian ritual of baptism or not, because he immersed himself in a higher sacred purpose beyond himself, a purpose to serve compassion and justice, a lifegiving purpose in the Realm of the Great Spirit. Who can help you remember your baptism and what baptism is for? Who in your communion of saints can whisper in your ear, when life for you or your family or this church is difficult, “Remember your baptism.” Later in worship, during the passing of the peace and the last hymn or even after worship is ended, you are welcome to come forward to the bowl to dip your fingers into the waters and touch your forehead or back of your hand to remember your baptism. Whether we are at life’s end or closer to its beginning or in the middle, it is wise to pray to God, “May we know Your Presence, May your longings be ours.” This is what Jesus sought and experienced in baptism and this is what we seek when we Remember our Baptism.
Unexpected Peace
An Advent sermon related to Isaiah 11:1-9 and Dalai Lama quote on peace CENTRAL FOCUS: To uplift the unexpected possibility/emergence of peace and to connect it with the realization of justice. Isaiah 11:1-9 (The Inclusive Bible) Then a shoot will sprout from the stump of Jesse; From Jesse’s roots, a branch will blossom. 2 The spirit of YHWH will rest on you, a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of knowledge and reverence for YHWH. 3 You will delight in obeying YHWH, And you won’t judge by appearances, or make decisions by hearsay. 4 You will treat poor people with fairness and will uphold the rights of the land’s downtrodden; With a single word you will strike down tyrants, With your decrees you will execute evil people. 5 Justice will be the belt around this your waist faithfulness will gird you up. 6 Then the wolf will dwell with the lamb; And the leopard will lie down with the young goat; the calf and the lion cub will graze together, and a little child will lead them. 7 The cow will feed with the bear; their young will lie down together; The lion will eat hay like the ox. 8 The baby will play next to the den of the cobra, and the toddler will dance over the viper’s nest. 9 There will be no harm, no destruction anywhere in my holy mountain, for as the water fills the sea, so the land will be filled with the knowledge of YHWH. For the Word of God in Scripture, For the Word of God among us, For the Word of God within us, Thanks be to God. In January of 1915, in Great Britain, the Wellington Journal & Shrewsbury News published a letter of a British military officer. Captain Robert Patrick Miles wrote home on Christmas Day from the Great War’s trenches, the front lines of World War I. He wrote: We are having the most extraordinary Christmas Day imaginable. A sort of unarranged and quite unauthorized but perfectly understood and scrupulously observed truce exists between us and our friends in front. … The thing started last night – a bitter cold night, with white frost – soon after dusk when the Germans started shouting 'Merry Christmas, Englishmen' to us. Of course, our fellows shouted back and presently large numbers of both sides had left their trenches, unarmed, and met in the debatable, shot-riddled, no man's land between the lines. Here the agreement – all on their own – came to be made that we should not fire at each other until after midnight tonight. The men were all fraternizing in the middle … and swapped cigarettes and lies in the utmost good fellowship. Not a shot was fired all night. The letter was published posthumously. Captain Miles was killed 5 days after he wrote this letter on December 30, 2014. Unexpected peace broke out that Christmas during the First World War. The tragic fact that it did not last is, of course, reason for deep disappointment, sadness, and grief. Yet, the fact that this unexpected peace occurred is soul food for our imaginations. It is manna in the wilderness of violence and violent expectations. The story’s unexpectedness, the fact that we call it that, unexpected, points to the expectation of a lack of peace in our collective imaginations and even the cynicism that can make a home in our hearts, especially in the light of mass shootings like Club Q in Colorado Springs, King Soopers in Boulder, others around the country, and in light of the Jan. 6th insurrection at the Capitol building. Yet, the prophetic voice we hear in the passage from Isaiah this morning has no such limitation of imagination and expectation. Isaiah’s prophetic poetic imagination offers a vision, a hope, even an expectation for his people who stand in their time also amidst the darkness of deportations and war. Even in such a time, the prophet Isaiah offers a vision of peace that comes about by justice. In this case, justice brought by an ideal sovereign whose connection to God imbues humility, wisdom, compassion, and a sense of equity. Amidst these qualities, there is a reconciliation in the land so profound that even the lion shall lay down with the lamb. In the story I shared, the War to End All Wars resumed and Captain Miles was killed because, of course, nothing changed in the systems in which these humans lived. No policies or orders were changed, no heartfelt connection and conversation was had by the warring nations’ leaders. They would not make room in their imaginations for another vision. These leaders, and many of their citizens, were prisoners of their limited sense of self and of the other, captives of their nationalistic, competitive worldview and its expectations. As a Peace with Justice church nationally and here locally at Plymouth United Church of Christ, we uplift an understanding that what makes for peace are conditions of justice. The Dalai Lama said it this way: Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free. Indeed, what makes for justice are peaceful actions of justice-making by peace-filled nonviolent people like Rosa Parks, Dolores Huerta, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, and like First Nation youth and elders at the Standing Rock Reservation a few years ago. And many unnamed others. All of these people made room for a dream of peace based in justice, made room in their imaginations in such a way as it led them into actions for that vision of Just Peace. This also can be the case in our personal lives where our conscious imaginations fail us and we set expectations, often unconscious, based on our internalized family systems that demean or inflate ourselves and/or the other, that make no room for a new vision of what might be possible, of making a way to inner peace and healing, unexpected though it might be. In that world of habitual confinement and conflict, there is no room for imagining reconciliation of lion and lamb, no room for the advent of a light of peace amidst that darkness. The status quo expectations of our internalized family system and the status quo expectations of culture and history can and often do keep us captive. Is it too much for us to make room for a story like the Christmas truce of 1914, to make room for something unexpected, something beyond our usual expectations of age or situation or personal or historical habit? Is Isaiah an unrealistic dreamer with all his lion and lamb talk? Are such stories and visions all just wishy-washy, touchy feely, cotton candy Christmas talk? Dr. King and others didn’t think so. Their communities of faith trusted Isaiah’s prophetic vision of an unexpected peace, let it embolden their prophetic imagination. Then they directed their hopes and charted their actions toward that unexpected vision of a just peace, even as they waited for it amidst the darkness of injustice. “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” When John Lennon penned his lyric for Imagine and said he imagined no religion, no possessions, no heaven and hell, he was naming the toxic forms of religion and possession that limit us, divide us, and lead us to injustice and violence. Indeed, we are better off without them. He was encouraging us, from the darkness of our limited cultural expectations, to imagine differently, to make room for an unexpected vision of how there could be peace. As we now come together at the Banquet table of God, let us faithfully imagine differently, like Isaiah, and make room for an unexpected coming of peace. AMEN.
The Land of And…
A sermon related to Matthew 14:13-23 CENTRAL FOCUS: The inward contemplative life must be integrated with the outer life of expression and service (and vice versa). When Jesus heard about John, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. When the crowds learned this, they followed him on foot from the cities. 14 When Jesus arrived and saw a large crowd, he had compassion for them and healed those who were sick. 15 That evening his disciples came and said to him, “This is an isolated place and it’s getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 16 But Jesus said to them, “There’s no need to send them away. You give them something to eat.”17 They replied, “We have nothing here except five loaves of bread and two fish.” 18 He said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 He ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves of bread and the two fish, looked up to heaven, blessed them and broke the loaves apart and gave them to his disciples. Then the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 Everyone ate until they were full, and they filled twelve baskets with the leftovers. 21 About five thousand men plus women and children had eaten. 22 Right then, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead to the other side of the lake while he dismissed the crowds. 23 When he sent them away, he went up onto a mountain by himself to pray. Evening came and he was alone. For the Word of God in Scripture For the Word of God among us For the Word of God within us Thanks be to God Some of you know the elder Roman Catholic Priest Father Richard Rohr who was the founder and driving force in establishing the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He once offered this illustration…… When people ask me which is the more important, action or contemplation, I know it is an impossible question to answer because they are eternally united in one embrace, two sides of one coin. So I say that action is not the important word, nor is contemplation; and is the important word! I’ve read Father Richard Rohr’s books in past years and he is an increasingly important teacher for me, particularly as an articulate voice and presence for evolving Christianity, for the kind of Christianity that takes the best from our tradition and moves it forward with articulation and depth that is accessible. Like Father Rohr, I don’t find the essence of Christianity problematic, I find that too often our way of understanding it over the centuries has been problematic and immature. Our faith has too often been captured by the Empire and used for its purposes. Conveniently for the Empire, this capture psycho-spiritually involves the ego and its fondness for splitting things into two and confirming its bias. The ego thrives on either/or; my way or the highway, I’m in and you are out, heaven or hell. Taken as a whole, and in its highest and deepest teaching, the Gospel and our spiritual lives are meant for more. The Realm of God, of which Jesus spoke so often, is a big enough circle, a wide enough vision to include all, even paradox. In short, the Realm of God could also be called the Land of And. Father Rohr quotes Charles Péguy (1873–1914), French poet and essayist, who wrote with great insight that “everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.” And Rohr says that everything new and creative in this world puts together things that don’t look like they go together at all, but always have been connected at a deeper level. Spirituality’s goal is to get people to that deeper level where the Divine can hold contradictions and paradox. (Some call this place the unified field or nondual reality or wisdom.) This creative work of living in the Land of And is the creative work of a lifetime and a sign of maturing faith and psychology. (It’s harder when we are younger.) We could spend a long time exploring all those seemingly opposing poles of life in which we move, like continuity and change, structure and flow, accountability and mercy, planned and emergent, and countless others. Today, I invite us to travel in ‘the Land of And’ by focusing on the two important poles initially mentioned: action and contemplation. Did you notice the integration of these two in our Scripture story today? Just below the plot, just below the surface, Jesus is in the dance of action and contemplation. He seeks solitude and prayer both before and after his communal feeding of the 5000. Just before our story, Jesus hears of John the Baptist’s cruel execution at the hand of Herod, and he seeks solitude. And after his action with the crowds, showing them compassion and healing, offering them food, he seeks solitude and prayer time once more. This is a deep pattern, contemplation and action and then contemplation again and so on, each feeding and informing the other. You might say that Moses was in this cycle on Mount Sinai, first having a mystical experience of the burning bush and having that lead to his actions for liberation of the people. It’s as if the bush burned before him, then in him, and then through him in action in the world. You might come to the Land of And from either side of this or any polarity. You might be a person of action like Simone Weil, an activist who fought against totalitarianism and worked for the French Resistance based in England during World War II. What you might not know is that in the 1930’s as a young activist, her atheist, communist sympathies soured and it was no longer religion that she considered the opiate of the people, but revolution. A mystical experience in the Church while on a visit to Assisi changed her life and the framework and fuel of her activism. She realized that activism without a spiritual framework, a framework capable of getting beyond the ego, was deeply limited and even dangerous. Said Weil, “God is not present, even if we invoke God, where the afflicted are merely regarded as an occasion for doing good.” Weil began in action and found her way to the inclusion and integration of contemplation, of inward spiritual practice, which in turn altered and inspired her continued activism. She found her way to the Land of And where action and contemplation were one dance, indispensable and interdependent elements. Others have journeyed the other direction from contemplation to action. Saint Oscar Romero might be one example of this. The quiet studious priest earned his doctorate after ordination and then eventually served in parishes and as a church official in various capacities including running a conservative Catholic publication. He certainly got things done in his early ministry, yet was considered a conventional and conservative choice years later when he was selected as Archbishop of San Salvador, selected as someone to preserve the status quo. It was Saint Oscar’s contemplation of the assassinated body of his activist friend and fellow priest, Rutilio Grande, that transformed Romero, transformed him into a prophet of action who led actions of liberation for the people, actions borne of compassion that came out of his wrestling in prayer, his inner spiritual contemplation. The invitation to the Land of And begins when we draw the circle wide, including both energies. As simple as the inbreath and the outbreath, we come back to the necessity of each and their interdependence. Any energy pole can polarize, distorting the other side and suffering the consequences of focusing too much on one side. In most congregations like this one, to oversimplify, there will be fans of action and of contemplation, people who lean one way or the other. Let’s do a quick polarity map of those. A polarity map is a way of understanding where we are in relation to any given poles and how the two can be integrated. Each pole can have an upside and a downside. When we are really preferring one pole, we tend to be suspicious of its interdependent pole, judgmental about the downside of that interdependent pole. If you are preferring action, you might be suspicious of those who talk about prayer or meditation or mysticism. What are your concerns? (I’m one of these people. I have this voice.) Pie in the sky, all talk no action, hypocrisy, insulated, not real. Breaking through this polarization involves trying to see the other pole’s upside and your preferred pole’s downside. So, let’s say we guarantee that the action pole will be served, what could one gain by also serving contemplation? Energy, inspiration, insight for better actions, care for the self and inner life, integrity of spirit when engaging action, etc. Reverse it. If you prefer the inner life, the contemplative life of Spirit, you may have been suspicious of those always in action. What are your concerns? Burn out, reactivity, not strategic, act in inconsistent manner (ie not peaceful peace marchers), etc. But what could be the gain in adding action to one’s contemplation? Integrity of doing what you say you value, new learning from engagement, connection to others, grounding in the tangible world. Are we, like Jesus in the story we heard this morning, involved with self-awareness, with checking our egos and supporting our souls with a regular life of connecting with Spirit through prayer and/or yoga and/or other spiritual disciplines like Lectio Divina, poetry, or journaling, or walking the labrynth, or participating in vital worship? Are we, like Jesus, then filled with enough courage and compassion to answer the call to act, to incarnate the Spirit into acts of service and healing and justice-making, to put our bodies and checkbooks and time into faithful actions for the coming more fully of heaven to earth? In a distracted world of the 24-hour news cycle, of Facebook and emails, of constant cable news crawlers and tweets, my friends we are challenged to keep in touch with God, with the deep still point of the circle. And, in the midst of a world of such constant noise and so many opportunities to live only in a chosen private manufactured reality, we are challenged to connect in community, and to act in wise, effective, and meaningful ways that are grounded in the embodied reality of earth and guided by the vision of all God’s people and all Creation in a just relationship. If we are to see the possibility and then miraculously deliver such abundance satisfying the hunger of body and soul as Jesus in feeding the 5000, we will have to imitate Jesus in the cycle and the integration of action AND contemplation. It’s worth remembering that both King and Gandhi considered their movements spiritual movements, fueled by prayers of song and speech. Gandhi once said, "I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one." That’s a human being living in the land of And. Let us go and do likewise. AMEN
Heartbreak That Leads to Hope
A sermon related to Jeremiah 8:18-22 and 31:2-6, and to Prophetic Imagination Central Focus: The Prophetic journey through grief to hope. Jer 8:18-22 I drown in grief. I’m heartsick. Oh, listen! Please listen! It’s the cry of my dear people reverberating through the country. Is God no longer in Zion? Has the Sovereign gone away? Can you tell me why they flaunt their plaything-gods, their silly, imported no-gods before me? The crops are in, the summer is over, but for us nothing’s changed. We’re still waiting to be rescued. For my dear broken people, I’m heartbroken. I weep, seized by grief. Are there no healing ointments in Gilead? Isn’t there a doctor in the house? So why can’t something be done to heal and save my dear, dear people? Jer 31:2 - 6 This is the way God put it: “They found grace out in the desert, these people who survived the killing. Israel, out looking for a place to rest, met God out looking for them!” God told them, “I’ve never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love, and more love! And so now I’ll start over with you and build you up again, dear young and innocent Israel. You’ll resume your singing, grabbing tambourines and joining the dance. You’ll go back to your old work of planting vineyards on the Samaritan hillsides, And sit back and enjoy the fruit-- oh, how you’ll enjoy those harvests! The time’s coming when watchmen will call out from the hilltops of Ephraim: ‘On your feet! Let’s go to Zion, go to meet our God!’” For the Word of God in Scripture For the word of God among us For the word of God with in us Thanks be to God What is breaking your heart right now? What is breaking your heart right now? Or if that doesn’t resonate for you today: What has really broken your heart in your life in the past? What is breaking your heart is a question we use in the Inner King Training that I sometimes take time away from church to lead (like this past May). It turns out this a potent question in helping people experience unconditional love and blessing in their lives. That includes being a portal for people of Christian faith, especially a people professing the social Gospel, the prophetic Gospel, a Gospel that might change lives and our collective life as humanity. If you have been able to keep feeling during these times of pandemic, of rising inequality, of authoritarian vitriol and violence, and of the earth’s struggle to bear the burdens we humans put on her, you likely have experienced heartbreak. If you are part of a historically marginalized group, you have known it most, if not all, of your life. There are so many opportunities for heartbreak in this life. We just heard the prophetic voice speak of heartbreak. In the first part of the Scripture reading we just heard, Chapter 8 of Jeremiah, the prophet channels the voice of God, broken-hearted for the 6th century BCE siege of Jerusalem that led to the downfall of the southern realm of Judah and the exile of many into Babylon. The Divine pleads like a parent over the bed of her dying child, heartbroken that there is no balm in Gilead, no physician to stem the suffering and death. Jeremiah speaks of drowning in grief and wondering if God has simply left their land. Jeremiah is expressing heartbreak, plain and simple, as he sees destruction coming for the people. The prophet who is sees with the lens of the Divine, feels with the heart of the Divine, encounters the reality of the day with the sense of the Divine. And, so often, what is seen and felt and sensed is the reality of the empire system of Pharaoh or Caesar or Putin or Mao or Trump or whichever representative of the domination system is current. For those who are in touch with the love and justice of God, with the Good News of Jesus, or with the loving and liberated state named in another faith tradition, this encounter with the system of empire is painful and truly heartbreaking. Instead of grace there is harsh judgment, instead of freedom there is bondage and oppression, instead of connection and community there is alienation and suspicion, instead of cooperation and solidarity there is accusation and fear, instead of peace there is violence, instead of the growing and life-giving power of the earth there is a sense life draining away as the earth is dominated. A powerful book, The Prophetic Imagination, by Hebrew Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann reminds us that the Prophetic Imagination begins with the willingness and ability to feel anguish and to express grief in the face of and the experience of empire or empire consciousness, the consciousness of domination and of fear and separation by "isms." Simply put, in the face of this encounter, for the faithful prophet, there is heartbreak. Have we allowed ourselves to feel the heartbreak of that gap, the gap between life and history as we’ve so often known it and the Beloved Community as God has dreamed it? That heartbreak is our connection to our yearning for God’s intended vision of justice and peace and freedom. And that kind of yearning is a source of life-force, soul-force, Spirit-force. It is our deep tunnel to hope, our birth canal to new hope and life in God, to the alternative consciousness of God’s faithful community. For the Hebrew tradition, this yearning life-force feeling generates prophetic vision and prophetic proclamation. The prophets were the ones to herald God’s dream, God’s activity and coming, not as fortune tellers/future predictors, but as voices of the present moment seeing into the deeper currents of God’s longing and God’s activity to liberate. When God heard the cry of the Hebrews, Moses was called to proclaim another reality amidst the darkness of slavery and Pharoah’s way of thinking. When the Israelites had established themselves in Palestine, even to the point in Solomon’s time of building a temple for God to live in, the prophets eventually spoke against the regime, seeing that now Israel had become like Pharaoh, content with a status quo that tried to domesticate God and ignore the cries of the oppressed and ignore the imbalance and injustice of such unequal sharing of the blessings of life. As Brueggemann notes, it is the prophets’ job to bring forth a new consciousness, an alternative to the imperial consciousness of Pharoah, of the established monarchy, of the Roman Empire, and, more recently, of the European colonizing powers including, eventually, the United States. For us, in the USA, our dreams of freedom and justice for all have been imperfect, unevenly distributed, obstructed, distorted, and blinded because they were contaminated by colonial, empire building consciousness. Our self-evident truths cannot be realized in this state of mind and heart. We need God’s alternative consciousness, the alternative sacred vision, the Divine Heart that we witnessed in the Good News proclaimed and lived by Jesus. Prophets old and new bring forth God’s alternative consciousness in two ways; by speaking another truth to the current colonial or empire consciousness and then by energizing those open to the new way, the new Light amidst darkness. But prophets critique the old most effectively not by moralizing, but by presenting their heart break and the heart break of God for what is happening. Amidst the illusion and trance and numbness of the empire’s status quo that says, "Everything is all right. Just go shop. Watch TV. Cruise the internet. Just let us have more authority and we’ll make it all great again," the prophet instead remains vulnerable to wounding, remains compassionate and therefore awake, and from that place voices the heart break of God, expressing the grief of those whose cries refuse to be heard. The wise elder, scientist, and earth advocate Jane Goodall years ago, upon realizing the profound intelligence and heart of chimpanzees was heartbroken to know these kin of ours were locked up in research labs. She set about to get the social, intelligent, and feeling chimps released from isolated 5x5 iron bar research cages. But she did it, not by yelling and pointing fingers, but by staying close to her heart break, telling stories of intelligent, feeling chimpanzees to those organizing such research. Her storytelling powerfully proclaimed another story, another narrative of what chimpanzees were and what a respectful relationship to them would be. The cautionary tale here for those of us open to the prophetic and to worthy causes is to make sure our voices do not merely become brittle, partisan, moralizing voices pointing the finger at the evil "other." The prophets instead rooted their voice in the Divine heartbreak of the ones crying out. They broke the spell of the dominant status quo, not with white papers or resolutions or character assassinations, but with images and voices of the grief of those unheard and unseen, of the pain of the inconvenient truths of the empire, and with the proclamation of the Presence of the God of compassion and justice. It is only after the prophet proclaims Divine heartbreak and acknowledges the felt cost of the imperial consciousness, the injustice built into colonial achievements, and pain exacted by those illusory values that enslave or dominate or discriminate against some for the purpose of others that the prophet can bring the energy of hope to those poor in Spirit, to those crying out, to those broken-hearted ones. So in the second part of the reading we heard today, Jeremiah, in the midst of the darkness of Exile, after naming the grief and heartbreak, can proclaim God’s faithfulness in a new day, a day of justice when those who plant shall enjoy the fruit, when those who have been crying shall sing with joy again. Grief is a way of connecting. The heartbreak we allow ourselves to feel if we acknowledge the suffering of those shut out of history’s voice, those left behind in globalization, those impacted by global warming, those discriminated against, is a way to reconnect with those marginalized people of the human family. And this applies to ourselves and our inner life as well. Remember, last week, Pastor Jane Anne spoke of the macro and micro, of the patterns that repeat in large and small forms in the world. So, too, for our collective and individual lives. The prophet speaks to society and the empires of history, but also to the ways of empire we internalize, dominating and neglecting some parts within ourselves. Then we shut out God’s Grace and justice within. That is also worthy of grief. But feeling heartbreak for those parts of ourselves that are dominated, neglected, wounded, or silenced is a way of re-connecting to those parts within. For the world and the worlds within us, heartbreak is the prophetic way of acknowledging what is not right or well and beginning the process of the re-igniting the hope that brings it back from Exile and death to healing and life. Following the Divine Heart through heartbreak, Jeremiah is able to find hope. Did you hear it in the reading? God told them, “I’ve never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love, and more love! And so now I’ll start over with you and build you up again, … You’ll resume your singing, grabbing tambourines and joining the dance. You’ll go back to your old work of planting vineyards on the Samaritan hillsides, And sit back and enjoy the fruit-- oh, how you’ll enjoy those harvests! The time’s coming when watchmen will call out from the hilltops of Ephraim: ‘On your feet! Let’s go to Zion, go to meet our God!’” How beautiful! What good news for the poor of the world and for the poor parts within us! I invite us to be a prophetic community of faith like this, honoring the prophetic way of knowing and expressing the Divine heartbreak and grief of what is not well, what is in Exile, what is worthy of tears in the dark places of history and society, and of the self and soul. In the way of the faithful prophet, heartbreak is the beginning of the journey to Divine Hope. Let us have faith in both the heartbreak and the hope. AMEN
Active Hope
A summer sermon related to John 1:1-12 Central Point: To introduce Active Hope as an expression of a faithful inspiration and integrity-based form of hope and action, especially necessary in difficult times of anxiety John 1:1-12 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it. 6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God… For the Word in Scripture, For the Word among us, For the Word within us Thanks Be to God When I was young, I kept hoping that the Chicago Cubs would win; they would win that day and that they would win the World Series. But that hope was difficult to maintain, particularly in the 1970s and even in the 1980s when they would win more, but still break the hearts of Cub fans like me in stunning fashion during the season or in the playoffs. But now that I've lived a lot of years and given the Cubs plenty more seasons to try, I lived to see my hope realized in 2016. (It only took 108 years between championships.) This is hope that is based on outcomes. It is based on the prediction of a favorable outcome. Now this year with the Cubs, I have no hope for that kind of favorable outcome. They will not win the World Series nor even make the playoffs. I can always hope for another year in the future for a more likely favorable outcome. But mostly these days I'm not thinking of such things very much, such objects of hope or even this form of hope. Although it was nice to finally have the hope of a Cubs World Series win realized in 2016, it happened while I was at the Standing Rock Lakota Reservation with my wife, Allison. We were with the Lakota people protesting the Keystone XL pipeline which was unjustly routed through their reservation and near their water supply. Getting the news of the Cubs winning the World Series while I was at standing rock was such an instant teaching of perspective. That win just didn’t matter that much in the scheme of life. Though I had hoped for this event in my life for many, many years (involving baseball which I love), receiving it while at Standing Rock was a profound teaching that not only was hope was better focused on other matters, it would also need to be formed in a different way. At the camp in Standing Rock, entertainment like baseball was, of course, not our focus. Our mantra was “water is life,” mni wiconi. That gathering was a prayer meeting where the prayer fire never went out and the hope was always to protect the water and therefore to protect life. The likelihood of success was low. The legal system had conspired against the Lakota and the law enforcement was well funded and equipped with vehicles, personnel, and arms. Yet, that gathering at Standing Rock was a living example of active hope. And that’s what I want to lift up today: active hope. I'm taking this term active hope from a book by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone titled, Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in Without Going Crazy. And, if you haven't noticed, we are in a mess aren't we? Business as usual has been and is leading us into what's been called a great unraveling of environmental systems not to mention income inequality and the rise of authoritarian movements in the world. Macy and Johnstone get us right to the point of their book with the subtitle “how to face the mess we are in without going crazy.” For if we really face the truth of it, it could drive us to madness, certainly heartbreak. Our collective behavior seems crazy. If you don’t know her, Joanna Macy is an elder (93 years old now) and a Buddhist teacher. I find her trustworthy for that reason and also for the reason that this teaching about active hope resonates with the stories of faith in our Scriptures and in the lives of so many of our Saints. It is in these Scripture stories and the stories of the Saints that I see a kind of active hope that Macy talks about. What is active hope? Well, it's not hoping that the Cubs will win. In fact, active hope is not based on the likelihood of an outcome, rather it is hope rooted in a vision of what we long for, or in the case of the people of faith, what God longs for. You could call it the Realm of God or the kin-dom of God or the Beloved Community (as Dr. King was fond of calling it), but it is that vision of blessing and fullness and wholeness, that vision of justice and peace and the integrity of creation of which God dreams and to which God calls us. And while one side of active hope is rooted in this vision, the other side of active hope is rooted in our action, action that is in integrity with that vision. Not unlike the way that Jesus so often taught that the Realm of God is already here, practicing active hope means that we are living out the values or participating in the energies of that Realm here and now. Through our presence, our choices, and our actions, we can live in that Realm already. Active hope then is a practice, something we do with our imagination and actions. It is not passive and it is not based on the likelihood of external outcome (like hoping that the Cubs win or that it's going to be pleasant weather). Active hope means we connect with the vision of the Realm of God, the beauty and value of it, of life and community in its blessing, and act from it and for it. We act to bring it further into being, not calculating the likelihood of a short term or even an ‘in our lifetime’ outcome. It is not about how we feel things are going or might likely turn out. It is about what we do. Active hope is about vision, the vision of what we long for to become manifest in the world and how that draws us into life and action. It is that connection to the vision and values and staying true to it, no matter the situation, that keeps us from becoming hopeless or even lifeless in the face of this mess. Says Macy, “Of all the dangers we face, from climate chaos to nuclear war, none is so great as the deadening of our response.” A few moments ago, I read the first 12 verses of the gospel of John. What might that have to do with active hope? This poetic prologue from John’s community is a wondrous, mystical presentation of the coming of the intangible divine into the tangible Incarnate world. In this case, through the person of Jesus. This miracle of incarnation may be the greatest genius of Christianity, having the Word, the Living Wisdom, the deep invisible life-giving wisdom of all things somehow become flesh, become Incarnate, become real in human life and the life of the creation. We can talk about high theory and mighty ideals and about grand design and expansive patterns, but that does not matter much to the life of Creation unless it is embodied and expressed and lived out in this complex messy world. It is one thing to talk about love and another to live it out, to incarnate it. In John's prologue we have this amazing poetic summation that the Word became flesh and lived with the people. “And the darkness could not overcome it,” says John. Active hope is like that. Incarnate. Fleshy. Earthy. It's like bringing these great aspirations right down into the messiness and even the darkness of the world in our lives. It is about choosing faith, choosing a trust in the way of Jesus and the good news of God even though the outcome is uncertain at best and doubtful at worst. Our tradition is full of situations where it seems there is no way, but somehow God makes a way when the people act. There were the Hebrew people chased by pharaoh's army and pinned up against a great body of water with nowhere to go, but, as the Jewish interpretive story says God made a way after someone went into the water up to their neck. There was the story of Jesus surrounded by an angry mob in his hometown intent on throwing him off a cliff, but somehow Jesus moved and passed through them. There was a woman named Rosa who sat down on a bus where she was not supposed to sit, where they said she would never be allowed to sit, yet somehow she sat, Spirit moved, and the people of color found a way to act into their hopes and, indeed, did sit in the front of the bus, and then vote, and go to any school. Learning and practicing active hope is timely for there are many reasons to not hope if one is basing hope on the likelihood of a good outcome. Yet, our faith tradition doesn’t say that life is easy or that life unfolds with simple, predictable steps of linear progress toward goodness and liberation, especially in times like these. The irony here is that finding Active Hope, facing problems, those seemingly intractable difficulties, asks us not to focus first on the problems, on what is wrong, but on what is right, what is worthy, what is beautiful, what is of value that is already present. Active Hope invites us to build the base of our reality with gratitude. And like Active Hope itself, gratitude is a practice, a learnable way of seeing and living. Gratitude is a basic spiritual practice across traditions. It is the valuing of what is already present that inspires us to protect it, to act for it, to make the changes necessary to nurture it and preserve it. How important is acting for that vision now? How urgent? The environmental activist Bill McKibben had a cover story on Rolling Stone magazine a few years ago and then went on what he called a Do the Math tour around the nation. He proclaimed the simple math: according to climate researchers at that time, we could burn 565 more gigatons of carbon and stay below 2°C of warming — anything more than that risks catastrophe for life on earth. Fossil fuel corporations then had 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, five times the safe amount. At the known rates of consumption, McKibben and others, calculated the years we had left to act decisively. Now it would be only about 8 years or so in which to make significant change. We need hope, my friends, to respond faithfully to our situation and we need it to be active hope. Oh, and in case you might have forgotten, in July of 2021 the company sponsoring the Keystone XL pipeline declared the project dead. So remember, our stories of faith are full of people wondering how they would continue, how they would find a way where there was no way, how they would get through a tight spot. Our stories of faith are full of ordinary people just like us, doubting and limited, but who found a way through by sharing God’s hopes and then acting them into being such that the darkness could not overcome their active hope. AMEN. Bonus quote…. |
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