August 12, 2012, The 11th
Sunday after Pentecost
Year B, Proper 14
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
Good morning, everyone!
It is very, very good to be home.
We have been on vacation the past three weeks, a little time in the
mountains of Vermont, a little time on retreat at a monastery, a little time on
a lake in Maine, and all the while surrounded by our families. It was a good visit, but was phenomenally
hot. In a very short order we seem to
have lost our tolerance for humidity and we were wilting violets most of the time.
And Hannah Maeve learned to swim and ride a bike. Returning to Eugene we have had the distinct
feeling that that we have been returning home.
It has been a complicated few weeks in the world. Seventy people shot in a movie theater in
Colorado on the 20th. The
murders at the Gujarat in Wisconsin a week ago by a self professed white
supremacist. The nation’s corn crop is
all but lost as the heat in July surpassed the record set in 1936, the height
of the Dust Bowl and parts of the mid-West suffer though the worst drought in a
millennium. It snowed in Pretoria, South
Africa, the first time in 45 years. It
has been lovely here, though.
Then the Boy Scouts re-confirm their bigotry against gay
folks and a fast food purveyor of bad chicken makes worse moral and business
decisions also around human sexuality.
Mitch McConnell declares that the economy is racing towards a cliff’s
edge like Thelma and Louise… I don’t disagree with the metaphor, though I would
probably identify different causality that he might. And the same day that McConnell said that and
the temperature records for July were consolidated, and an overall shrinkage in
the world’s economy was reported, I learned that a friend of mine, Mike Schut,
Officer for Environmental and Economic Justice for the Episcopal Church, has
been laid off and that office closed by General Convention due to lack of
funding. The irony of it, the staff
officer for economic justice being downsized in the middle of the worst
environmental crisis in US history! It
is all so disheartening. Right when the
need for that witness in the churches and the world is at its greatest we
shutter that ministry. Our Hebrew Bible
selection for today fits just perfectly, the terrible story about Absalom
getting his head stuck in crook of a tree then, if that is not bad enough, he
is surrounded by soldiers who defy David’s wishes and finish off the helpless
prince. Absalom couldn’t win for
losing. Can we?
Maybe it was too hot back home; maybe it was too many
family picnics in a row with soggy paper plates and mosquitoes; maybe it was that
the only news we heard was the really big and bad stuff, I don’t know, but I
came home disheartened. Truly, and I
have not even mentioned the vitriol of the presidential campaign. What is going
on in the world? Our psalm is fitting
today, too. “Out of the depths have I
called to you, O Lord; Lord hear my voice, let your ears
consider well the voice of my supplication… My soul waits for the Lord, more
than the watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.” Who here has ever stood watch? The psalmist really gets it, right, no? That is the feeling, the monumental
waiting. You have to stay awake, but you
are bored to tears and exhausted beyond knowing and you cannot, must not fall
asleep. It is the most claustrophobic
feeling I have ever experienced, sitting watch on my tank many years ago. As the lieutenant I would do the 3 – 5 watch
and I can confirm that it is in fact the darkest before the dawn. The ways things have been over the past few
weeks I can almost get that feeling if I let myself wallow in the state of the
world. “When is it going to change?”
“When is that first glimmer of light going to break on the horizon?” Am I alone in this?
Then the week progressed.
On Wednesday we had our potluck outside, lovely as usual, everyone is
welcome, then went over to Tugman Park for the vigil in solidarity with the
Sikh temple, the Gujarat right down the street.
What, 300 folks joined together for the event? Resurrection was well
represented there. Religious and community leaders offered words and there was
singing and chanting and prayers. It was moving and the hosts from the Gujarat
were incredibly hospitable. Quite
remarkable. I was heartened.
On Friday we went down for the 30th coronation
of Eugene’s SLUG queen. What fun. There were so many people there, hundreds, we
saw Mike and Maron, and Kim Still, of course if right up in the middle of all
of it. Good clean, completely outrageous
fun. It is a community happening for the
sake of community. I was heartened.
Then on Saturday, Eugene celebrated Pride down at Alton
Baker Park. How great for people who
have for so long suffered indignities and injustices due to who they love and
their gender identity to join together and celebrate themselves and their place
in society. There was a strong religious
presence there, lots of Episcopalians and during the blessing and invocation
for the festivities I shared my favorite retort to conservative Christian
homophobes; Jesus said nothing bad about gay folks and nothing good about rich folks. That was well received. I was again, heartened by the sense of
community.
Just as the bad news of the world matches the grim Hebrew
Bible readings, Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus follows the more
positive trajectory of these past few days.
“…let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of
one another.” This passage is about how
we need to be in relation to one another in a very real way, in a very human
way. Be angry, sure, we all get angry, but don’t let the sun set on that anger.
Demons gnaw on us when we hold on to anger, it goes rancid. Thieves, stop stealing. You’ve got something to offer to this
community so turn too. Use right speech,
don’t gossip or slander, don’t be all negative and critical but use your words
to build up the world, use words that “give grace to those who hear.”
These words of Paul are so right on and they so mirror
the heartening events so many have participated in these past few days. What a healing response to a breaking
world. Of course there is anger. Think of the bumper sticker, “If you are not
outraged you are not paying attention.”
I am angry about a lot of things.
I am angry at that white supremacist who desecrated a place of worship
and I am angry that he died so steeped in delusion and hatred that there is no
chance for reconciliation. I am angry at
the people who buy the racist music he was involved in. I am angry at the schools and the parents and
the churches and communities that failed to teach him and so many others very
basic ideas about right and wrong. I am
angry with the lobbyists in the pay of weapons manufacturers and the NRA and
our political leaders who at this point couldn’t lead us out of a wet paper bag
let alone protect this nation from itself and our misguided ideas about freedom
and rights. I am plenty angry and I am
not even talking about climate change right now. But you know, when we find a positive
expression of that anger, when we take actions to raise up different values,
different moral structures, when we meet violence with kindness and another
cheek, that cycle of evil is maybe not undone, it is not that dramatic, but
that cycle of evil is weakened.
The same goes for how we do right after we have done
wrong; thieves have something to offer and need the opportunity for
redemption. It is the same in our
speech, when used rightly, we may even give grace to those who hear. We’re talking about redemption. Brilliant.
We have very little control over the world that we
inhabit. Ultimately we don’t have much
to say about how our own city fares, it rains or it doesn’t and the Earth
quakes or is still on someone else’s schedule.
We all know how much control we have over our families or even our own
bodies: bupkis. But listen to the words
of Paul. “Put away from you all
bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all
malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as
God in Christ has forgiven you.”
Everything he is telling us there, everything he is telling us to put
aside, the bad feelings, ill intent, negativity… over that, we have ultimate
control. We do not control our worlds
but we do, or we can, or we might be able to learn how to control our response
to our world. In the end, if there is a
practical purpose to religion, that is it.
This is the product of Christ as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to
God.
Let
us end with the eternal words of Reinhold Neihbur:
God grant
me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know
the difference.
Living one day at a
time;
Enjoying one moment
at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did,
this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things
right
if I surrender to His
Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy
with Him
Forever in the
next. AMEN
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