Do not be terrified
This week has been overwhelming. On Friday when I first started working on my sermon for this morning, I just sat in front of the computer screen...paralyzed. The gospel reading from Luke is Jesus preparing the disciples for the worst parts of discipleship, so that wasn’t much help. I had trouble finding the good news in that, and had considered completely ignoring the reading and taking the easy way out and just preaching on Isaiah and the Canticle. There’s lots of good news there! Through the prophet Isaiah, God is telling the people that a new heaven and earth will be created, that there will be no more weeping, that there will be no more hunger, that their lives will not be in vain. And that stuff will preach! But it’s hard to preach that kind of hope if you don’t deal with the dismay first...otherwise it’s empty.
Now I realize that not all of us may be feeling the way I’m feeling. And that’s ok. For those here that are pleased with the outcome of the election, I ask that you at least listen. And for those of you who are dismayed, know that you are not alone. I don’t normally talk politics in this way from the pulpit...I try to be a bit more subtle...but today is not the day to be subtle.
On Tuesday night I was in the airport...first the Fresno airport, which hardly has more than 20 people in it at a time, but then to LAX. I’ve been to LAX hundreds of times….my guess is many of you have as well. And you know how it is in a busy airport...people walk fast as they try to make their flight, others walk slow because they’re on endless layovers, children are crying, people are hungry, some are sleeping, announcements are made over the intercom...there’s a buzz that exists in the airport. When I landed in LAX at about 9pm on Tuesday night, you would have thought it was the middle of the night. It was so quiet. I found a little pub in the airport to grab a late night dinner and join about 30 other people in front of the big screen tv to watch as state results were being announced. My waitress, a woman of color, was in tears as results came in. We looked at each other and I simply said to her, “somehow we’ll find a way to survive.”
By the time I landed early the next morning in Chicago, the results were in. And it was surreal. I was in a place that just a week earlier had experienced the miracle of the Cubs winning the World Series, and now it was super quiet. I ate my toast and eggs in front of a big screen tv with others, and no one said a word.
My final destination was Wisconsin. I had flown there to meet up with my dissertation chair; months ago we had planned to make a pilgrimage to the National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help. When we met at the hotel, we talked about how this was the only place in the world we could imagine being in this moment. As we drove to the shrine, which is out in the middle of nowhere by the way, we discovered we had no cellphone reception...and that was actually a good thing. So we found ourselves out on County Road K to see where the Virgin Mary had appeared to a nun by the name of Adele Brise a little over 150 years ago.
We spent the day walking the grounds, talking to the nun who served as the historian of the shrine, and enjoyed a little cheese and meat tray in the cafe. When we finally went into the church and sat in front of the altar marking the spot of Mary’s appearance, I meditated on the events that had occurred. And I asked God, “now what do we do? How can I talk to people about loving our neighbor, being respectful of the dignity of every human being, of serving in their communities with integrity when it seems that all hope is lost? How am I supposed to do that now?” And as God does, or at least does with me, I got no immediate response to my questions.
I returned home on Thursday not knowing which way was up and I’ve been trying to figure it out since. You see, as a white, heterosexual, middle-class person I don’t have nearly as much to worry about as my friends who are people of color, or have various ethnic backgrounds, or who identify as LGBTQ. But I am a woman. And I know first hand that many of us will struggle with the outcome of what appears to be the approved behaviors of racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, and bigotry. And this is where my fear lies. That somehow these behaviors and attitudes have been made “ok”. When my priest friend from Raleigh, North Carolina told me the KKK is marching in Durham in January, my heart dropped. I know what that means in the south...I’ve been to parades where the Klan shows up. When one of my former parishioners who is now a student at the University of Oregon emailed me a copy of the letter the dean of students sent out about harassment and violence being unacceptable on campus, I worried for her safety.
So I guess you can see now why I’m having a hard time with today’s gospel lesson from Luke. When Jesus tells the disciples things like:
...the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.
Beware that you are not led astray...
Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.
You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all…
I’m like “dude...Jesus...this stuff is for real. This is happening...or at least a great many of us feel it is. Where is the good news in this??? I’m not sure I want to be a disciple in the Jesus Movement if this is what’s in store.”
And so I procrastinated by going on facebook...which hasn’t been the most fun place lately. And there, buried in a series of comments on a post I had made about wearing a safety pin, one of my former parishioners, a young mom of two kids under the age of 9 wrote this: “Seriously missing your sermons.” I replied “Thanks...that’s very kind. I have no idea how I’m going to preach on Sunday.” She replied that her son George, who is 8 suggested “just tell people it will be ok.”
And George is right. If you look back to this lesson on discipleship that Jesus is sharing with his followers, in between all this end of the world stuff, he says, “do not be terrified.”
At the place where the Virgin Mary appeared to the nun Adele Brise in 1859, Mary is reported to have said, “Go and fear nothing, I will help you.”
And today I wear my safety pin to say “I am safe. Speak: I’ll listen. I’ll hold you, stand up for you, sit down for you, shut up for you. Do what I can to let you know I love you. This sign is how you’ll know me.”
The world may feel crazy right now, and even the words of Jesus and Mary and this safety pin won’t fix it all. But right now, we are in a unique position as the church, as part of the Jesus Movement, to be a people and place where our words and actions matter. Now don’t get me wrong...I believe we always have been, but sometimes we get kinda lazy. But now, our communities need us even more. Right now we need to be that place of safety, a place where people can feel loved and unafraid. In this moment we have a responsibility to live with integrity into our baptismal covenant--to seek and serve Christ in others and to respect the dignity of every human being. And while we may indeed feel scared or angry or dismayed...we can’t get stuck there. In some respects, you could say this is our resurrection moment...we can choose to stay at the cross of Good Friday or we can rise from the grave and sing Alleluia...the heavens and the earth are a new creation, we shall not labor in vain, and with God’s help we will sing with joy.
Amen.