The Difference the Resurrection Makes

This sermon was first preached at Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church on the Second Sunday of Easter, April 3, 2016.

Acts 5:27-32

When they had brought them, they had them stand before the council. The high priest questioned them, saying, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.”

But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”

The Difference the Resurrection Makes

         Today is the second Sunday of Easter.  We celebrated that high holy day last Sunday with joy, enthusiasm, humility, and gratitude.  We considered what it is to be eighth day disciples.  We gloried in the appearances and words of Jesus to his followers who had felt lonely and hopeless.  In the marvelous gift of Jesus’ resurrection, it begins to dawn on us that somehow, in innumerable ways, everything is different. 

Twenty centuries ago, Mary, Thomas, and their friends, came to realize that their concept of God’s power had been too small.  They searched their memories for words Jesus had spoken, deeds Jesus had done.  They realized how much they had misunderstood what had happened when they were with him.  In those last weeks of his life, those last days, even those last hours, he had pressed hard to explain to them why he had come.  He had corrected and clarified what kind of leader he was.  He had demonstrated and described the kind of community of ministry he wanted them to be.  He had poured himself out in words and acts of love that for them had in many ways seemed like any other day with any special friend. 

But it turned out, against their state of denial, that it was not like all other times.  At this time, on this day, those who plotted against him would not be denied.  The day Jesus’ enemies would arrest and execute him had exploded upon them.  They had kept telling themselves and Jesus that it was not going to happen.  Some had worried, but on the whole, all they could see ahead was a rising tide of Jesus’ triumph over the powerful elites, the wealthy oppressors, the religious snobs, and the Roman invaders.  Jesus was going to sweep it all away.  They had heard the preachers.  They had listened to their moms and dads tell the stories of the Messiah’s coming.  Some had read the prophetic writings.  They remembered how Moses and Miriam had led the people out of Egypt.  This is what they saw coming. 

It was not what came. 

They had misunderstood the message.  They had misunderstood the stories.  They had misunderstood the Messiah.  They had misunderstood their friend.  In a whirlwind of events, Jesus had been arrested.  His followers were confused, disorganized, afraid, unready.  As each hour passed, their disbelief only grew.  How could this be happening?  They saw him verbally attacked.  They saw him beaten and tortured.  They saw the conflicting interests of the powerful battle over what to do with him.  And finally, they saw him exhausted, abandoned, struggling to say a few last words, to show a few more moments of love, until he could bear no more, and he died.  A spectacle of violent power was brought down on this good man, and it did not stop until he was crushed.  Less than a day before, they had talked, eaten together, and shared treasured moments.  Now it was all swept away.

So when Mary and Thomas, a week apart, faced the realization that Jesus was now living, though he had been dead, they were mentally and emotionally overwhelmed.  What could it all mean?  Their friend who had been their hope had been brutally killed by the state, but now now he was present with them, talking to them, touching them.  That just does not happen.  We would call it “mind-blowing.”  It was not something they would get a good handle on in a few minutes.  It was going to take some time.  This resurrection, more intense and amazing than Jairus’s daughter or even Lazarus coming from the tomb, shook the foundations of reality.  And if this was the destiny of their friend Jesus, then he must be far more than they had ever imagined him to be.  Who was this Jesus they had followed?

The New Testament tells us that Jesus appeared to many people over a period of many days—not just on that Sunday morning; not just eight days later.  He appeared to a couple of friends on the road.  He showed up by the shore where people were fishing.  He met them in Galilee.  Jesus, the Word became flesh who dwelt among them, who moved in their neighborhood, was back at it again.  He hung with them and talked things through.  He made sure they understood the time they had spent walking and talking with him was only the prelude.  Now was to be the beginning of a world-changing movement.  Now, they would have to take up the task of doing greater works than he had done.  They would have to reorganize their lives around loving one another.  They would have to be ready for their men and women to rise up and lead, from young to old, toward a better world, a more just social order, a beloved community.

So although we are still in the season of Easter, and not yet at Pentecost, the lectionary has brought us this text from the book of Acts.  It is about the work of Peter and other apostles who were going about in Jerusalem preaching and doing mighty works.  Masses of people were following the way of Jesus.  The priests and rulers who thought they had gotten rid of the Jesus problem were frustrated and angry.  They tried arresting and threatening them, to no avail.  They tried putting the apostles in jail, but the prison could not hold them.  After the conversation in this text, the Council would have them beaten to try to scare some sense into them.  That was not going to work either.

Peter, we recall, had tried to start a war at Jesus’ arrest, had hung out on the fringes, had denied Jesus, and had run away brokenhearted.  Most of the other disciples had scattered, hidden, disappeared when Jesus was threatened.  Any who saw or heard the events did so from afar, from the shadows, from hiding places of their fear.  So how is it that they were so different in Acts 5?  They had come to realize that the resurrection changes everything. 

In their time with the resurrected Jesus, They had

remembered, recentered,

ruminated, meditated,

reconsidered, reconfigured,

contemplated, explicated,

reassessed, praised and blessed,

retold, grown bold,

understood, gazed upon the Highest Good

—God’s goodness revealed in Jesus Christ, their Messiah, their Savior, the Risen Lord, the Great Physician, the Liberator of the poor, the Ever-loving Friend.  With new focus on the depth of reality and of truth, they were changed.

What a difference the resurrection made!  In chapter 4, when instructed not to be preaching and carrying on about Jesus, they answered, “Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.”  After some more time of living in the glow of resurrection glory, and after a partial night spent in jail, their confession became even more precise.  This time, when chastised for continuing to teach in Jesus’ name, they answered, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.” 

What a powerful witness!  What insight into the truth they now had!  But if we are to understand what their statement means, we have to remind ourselves of some of their previous misunderstandings of Jesus.  Now, it was becoming clear.  But when he was alive, they were just about clueless.  Since the resurrection, the Holy Spirit had drawn them again and again to Jesus’ words and deeds.  New light had dawned upon their eyes, their ears, and their minds.  The resurrection had made all the difference.

Think back to the time Jesus began to tell his disciples that he was expecting his enemies to capture and kill him.  Peter said, “No.  That’s never going to happen.”  He told Jesus not to be giving in to that negativity, not to speak that into the world.  He thought by keeping a positive outlook and making the most of the resources at hand, Jesus could never have to suffer such a terrible end.  But, Jesus, who himself was not fond at all of getting tortured and killed, had to push back on Peter’s tempting proposal.  He told Satan to leave him alone.  He didn’t call Peter, “Satan.” 

He spoke up to the tempter.  Sure it sounds good to maybe plan for weapons to face up to weapons.  Sure the multitudes were on his side and could be persuaded to take up arms.  But Jesus had come to realize that he could not win against the violent powers of the world by taking up violence as his own means.  A victory of love has to come through loving people, no matter how wrong and harsh they might become.  So Jesus rebuked that idea and reaffirmed his faithfulness to God.  He would not settle for a short-sighted human strategy.  He would not take the path of the world.  He would be faithful to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly into the face of his enemy, loving the enemy even to the point of being killed by the enemy.  So he realized he would have to try again later to explain to his buddies and compatriots what the coming days were going to bring.

Peter really was not hearing it.  He did not even for a moment think that Jesus would be the victim of state-sponsored murder.  He was sure, if it came to a fight, they could win it.  So even at the last moment, in the garden, he grabbed his sword and tried to start the revolution.  Jesus had to rebuke him one more time.  That is the world’s way.  The world depends on swords and other weapons of violence.  Violence breeds violence, in an ever-downward spiral of destruction.  Jesus was not going to be one more link in an eternal chain of violence.  He explained again that the way of the sword is the way of destruction.  One who lives by the sword ultimately dies by the sword.  That is the world’s way.  That will not be Jesus’ way.  Jesus will obey God rather than any human authority or power, even the power of violence. 

Let’s take a look at a second way their understanding of Jesus was changed.  Since Jesus had risen, Peter had been mulling those words over.  He had been rehashing the events of those crucial days.  The resurrection made the difference.  He was realizing that what Jesus came to do was so much greater, so much more extensive, so much more revolutionary than he had ever imagined.

Before Peter drew his sword, another conversation had caused a rumble of anger and trouble among the disciples.  James and John, the Sons of Thunder, probably did not get their nickname from being pushovers and passive.  As they walked along, they had pulled Jesus aside.  The events were exciting.  Crowds were proclaiming Jesus to be the Messiah.  They, like Peter, believed the war to end all wars was about to break out.  They were sick of the Romans putting their boots on the throats of the Jews.  They were ready to put their feet on some Roman necks.  Since they were so sure Jesus was about to give them that opportunity, they started thinking about who would have what status in the New World Order.  They asked Jesus whether they could be his vice-regents when he became King.  He was always talking about a Kingdom, so there had to be a hierarchy and some people in charge of everything.  They had been tight with him from the beginning, so why shouldn’t they get some recognition, some power, some position to shape the vision of the future? 

They must have pressed their point so loudly that everyone overheard their request.  People started fussing and griping.  Jesus must have rolled his eyes and let out a big sigh…  They just did not get it.  No matter how much he had tried to show them what he came to do, they kept thinking it was something completely different.  Seeing, they did not see.  Hearing, they did not understand.  So he set out again to explain.

He told them that in the world, people who are rulers tend to become tyrants.  They want to “lord over” others.  They like to dominate, control, and master people.  The world sees power as something that those on top press down upon everyone else.  Worldly power is power over others.  Then Jesus told them, “It must not be this way among you.”  Don’t accept the ways of the world.  Don’t obey the world’s existing patterns of domination.  God has another way, and I’ve been trying to show it to you.  Whoever wants to be great must become a servant.  Leadership is serving.  Leadership is working for the good of others, not just trying to keep everything good for oneself.  Servant leadership is what I have shown you.  It will be the way you should also live and lead.  Power in Jesus’ kingdom is not power over, but power with one another.  We care for one another.  Loving one another, we aim only to outdo one another in service, not for acclaim, but to see love blossom and expand far and wide.

Maybe a few of the disciples felt embarrassed.  Maybe they listened enough to have their consciences pricked.  Probably some of them kept grumbling about James’s and John’s arrogance.  Probably some were mad at themselves for not asking Jesus first.  Whatever way they reacted to Jesus’ correction of their view of the Kingdom, they clearly did not absorb the lesson.  According to Matthew and Mark, this conversation happened not long before Jesus rode a donkey colt into Jerusalem, surrounded by cheering crowds who believed he would save them by coming to be the heir of David, their greatest king, a mighty warrior.  The disciples probably quickly forgot about the servant leader idea.  They started tasting the defeat of the Romans as they imagined this mass of people from the countryside and the streets forming itself into an army for battle.

So a few days later, Jesus was showing them exactly what he meant at their Passover meal.  He undressed down to the scant clothing of a servant and began to wash their feet.  They were alarmed, shocked, and upset.  He had rank in their cohort, so he should not be doing that.  Peter fussed with him.  They had not understood how to lead through service, and Jesus had to show them.  He washed their feet, one by one.  It did not diminish him.  Rather he grew in their hearts that evening.

Even with that dramatic lesson and explanation, they still struggled to get the point.  Luke tells us a dispute about who was greatest came up after the meal.  Jesus one more time talked over with them about how worldly thinking views power.  The leader, in God’s world, is one who serves.  Rather than greatness coming from size, strength, or any other means of domination, the greatest should appear as a child appears--one who would obviously not be a threat to others.  Even though we think of the one who gets served by others as the greatest, Jesus reminds them that he came among them as one who serves.  The way of the world is not the way of God.  Jesus says that he came to obey God, not human conceptions of greatness and power.  How hard a lesson this was for them to learn!  And no doubt they did not learn it at that time. 

But what a difference the resurrection made!  Now, in the temple and before the ruling priests, Peter and the other apostles were not arguing about who was in charge, who was greater, or who was going to get put down.  They didn’t tell the ones who arrested them, “You can’t do this!  Don’t you know who I am?  Are you trying to get yourself in trouble?”  They went to prison and waited to see what God would do.  If God had brought Jesus from the prison house of death and the grave, then God might very well bring them out of the jail.  On this occasion, that is what happened. 

Rather than being overcome by fear and anxiety, they found themselves changed by the resurrection.  They walked out of the prison with instructions to get back to their public teaching.  God’s messenger told them to get back to delivering the message of following Jesus into a life that goes against the grain of the world.  So they started at daybreak to disobey the ruling authorities.  Leading and serving people, healing the beggars, lifting up the kicked aside and thrown away people, serving them and elevating their lives toward Jesus’ Kingdom—this was to be their way.  They did not rush to the Sanhedrin and command the Sadducees to kneel before them.  They did not gather a crowd with clubs and swords to force the rulers to submit.  They simply ignored the worldly powers and their forms of domination.  They kept telling people that Jesus had shown them a new way to live.  They kept building a contrast society, a beloved community.  The resurrection had made a difference.

One last moment in the final day of Jesus’ life deserves our attention as we think about the difference the resurrection makes.  Jesus went on trial not only before the high priests, but also before Pilate.  Pilate took him into his chambers to interrogate him and consider his judgments.  At one point, he did exactly what Jesus said he would do.  He roared, “Don’t you know who I am and what power I have?  I can crush you if I decide to do so!”  He spoke as a tyrant.  He lorded over Jesus.  Jesus, who came as a servant, was unperturbed.  When asked if he was a king, Jesus said that his kingdom was not of this world. 

Be careful here, or you will miss his point as pitifully as the disciples did.  You might already be thinking that Jesus means his kingdom is in heaven, not on the earth.  You might think he means it is invisible and spiritual, not visible and material.  You might think that, but it would not be what he said.  Rather than take Jesus’ phrase “not of this world” to mean “not of the earth,” we do better to hear him say that his kingdom is not a worldly kingdom.  It is not a domination system like the kingdoms of the world.  It is not a structure that depends on violence to gain power.  That’s why he goes on to say that his followers are not fighting to keep him from being arrested.  That’s not the way he fights.  That’s not the way he wins.  Jesus wins because love wins.  Jesus wins because peace defeats war.  Jesus wins because enemies must be turned into friends.  That is why his kingdom is not a worldly kingdom.

Now although Jesus had been taken into the governor’s courts for this conversation, someone must have reported what they said, because it ended up in the Bible.  Maybe there were some of his followers nearby who were able to listen.  Maybe Pilate enjoyed bragging and telling the story, and it got around to Jesus’ followers.  Maybe they had to wait and hear about it after they could quiz the resurrected Jesus about what had happened on that day.  But someone told the story, and it was considered an important story to report in the gospels.  It was a clarifying story.  Placed alongside so many other things Jesus had said, it helped to put the puzzle together.  God has a way for us to live.  The power of love is a very different kind of power than the world.  Human authorities will prefer force and violence as means of domination.  But Jesus shows humans a better way to live.  It is not Pilate’s way.  It’s not the world’s way.  It is God’s way. 

What a difference the resurrection made!  There, fresh out of prison and living in the Jesus way, not the worldly way, Peter and the apostles were again brought before the ruling authorities.  They were asked why they did not obey the previous admonition to cease and desist from all their Jesus rabble rousing.  They were accused of slandering the rulers.  But Peter and the apostles could see that this domination must not be the way they must live.  Peter and the Apostles had been changed.  There were united to Christ in the resurrection.  They answered, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.”  Not a question this time, but a bold affirmation came from their mouths. 

“We must” began their statement.  Out of the chaotic mass of human social existence, Jesus has called together a new community.   We are united in him to be a body, a living organism.  We are a community with a mandate to follow Jesus. 

“We must obey God.”  It is not up to us to figure out how to gain power through domination.  Jesus, who came to us from God, showed us a better way, and that is the way we have to go.  

“Rather than any human authority.”  We know that you all are religious and political leaders.  We know you have put yourselves in charge and the Romans have let you do that.  But we don’t need to live in a world where people put themselves in charge over others.  We live in a different reality. 

It is the reality constituted when “The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus.”  The resurrection has changed everything.  We now see that everything is different.  So we don’t live by human self-serving politics.  Our politics is the politics of Jesus, of serving, of loving our neighbor, of loving even our enemies.  We will keep on living that way, even if you use your domination power to try to stop us.

In this new confidence they began to preach a sermon to the chief priests.  They announced the resurrection.  They told about Jesus’ execution, hanging on a tree.  They proclaimed that the Resurrected One has been exalted as the Leader, a serving leader who saves the endangered and lost.  They tell them that the reason they can say all this is because they remember what Jesus did and said.  “We are witnesses.”  We have been thinking all this through.  Now we understand what a difference the resurrection makes.  God’s Spirit testifies with us that the resurrection has changed everything.  It’s not your world any longer.  It’s a different world from where you come from.  It’s the world reborn in the resurrection.

The apostle Paul would later write to the Corinthians that because of the resurrection, we no longer look at people from a human point of view.  He says that we used to look at Jesus that way—a crackpot, a con artist, a troublemaker, a pain in the neck, an impediment to our ambitions.  But we don’t see Jesus that way any more.  We see the world through the eyes of a loving God.  We look upon the world from the perspective of the bent knee of a serving Savior.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.  The old has passed away.  Behold, all has become new.  It is because of the life, the teaching, the servant way, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus that all has been made new.

The resurrection makes the difference.  Whatever ways that you have found yourself captive to powers of this world, the resurrection has made the difference.  We no longer have to try to gain power over others.  We may join with others to build power with one another for our mutual good, for the common good.  The resurrection makes the difference.  We can unite around the good that God has planned for the human race and for all creation.  We don’t have to give in to being divided, sorted, ranked, stacked, appraised, or crunched.  The resurrection changes everything.  We can unite in beloved community.  We can live this life God has called us to live because of the difference the resurrection makes.  Amen.

 

Durham's Housing Crisis and the Wise Exhortation of James

Today I heard a sermon based on a passage from the New Testament Letter of James.  It made me think about the current crisis of affordable housing in Durham and strategies to fix this problem.  Addressed as a letter, James looks more like a collection of wisdom teaching and moral exhortations.  Rev. Dr. William C. Turner, Jr., pointed us to the first ten verses of chapter 2.

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

Housing has been driving economic restructuring for more than a decade.  At first, it was the housing bubble created by overinvestment and irrational exuberance about buying up mortgages.  That led to all kinds of bad risks in writing mortgage loans, misleading people without experience in dealing with real estate markets, repeated selling of a property for inordinate profits, lying about the reliability of mortgage-backed securities, and in general lots of swindling, taking the money, and running.

When that manipulated, false market crashed, more restructuring happened through a foreclosure crisis.  Housing values dropped so far that many business's and investor's paper wealth disappeared overnight.  High-risk securities and credit default swaps were exposed to be the emperor's new clothes.  An economic recession led to massive layoffs and soaring unemployment.  That put millions of people into foreclosure.  Efforts to ease the foreclosure crisis failed as the "bailout" turned out to benefit only the banks, the brokerages, and the very actors who had caused the economic crisis.  Average workers and homeowners were left high and dry, unable to pay for their overpriced mortgages.  The powers of government and financial institutions resisted any serious plan to offer principle reduction or debt forgiveness, which had successfully restored the economy after the Great Depression.

People who did manage to stay in their homes found the new housing market to have very low demand, so that if they needed to move or get more space for a larger family, it was almost impossible to sell their homes.  Slowly, the market started to recover.  First, all the bargain housing sold.  Next, slowly people began to be able to sell near the uninflated prices before the housing bubble.  There are still many pockets of foreclosed neighborhoods, and not all housing prices have recovered.

But now we are seeing what looks to be another bubble emerging.  Cities and municipalities are putting capital into downtowns.  They are trying to bring recovery and prosperity to city centers.  A new generation, facing a long period of high gasoline prices and tired of traffic jams for commuters has regained interest in living downtown.  These trends attract developers, which is something that is good for all of us.  Every city wants to see vibrant businesses and neighborhoods.  However, prices are skyrocketing for central city housing.  As rents and purchase prices rise, speculators begin to look into other nearby streets and communities for more land to buy up.  Lower cost housing gets razed, and the occupants have to look elsewhere, away from their neighborhoods and friends, to find a place to live.

We know this process as gentrification.  Some see it as only good--better housing units replace older, unmodernized, sometimes run-down units.  Property values rise.  More money in the neighborhoods attracts businesses and jobs.  I don't think anyone is against those kinds of things.  But many are bothered by the callousness that some have about displacement of people, relationships, institutions, and communities.  They also wonder why it is that lower income people always get displaced and told to go somewhere else.  Why can't redevelopment create spaces for people to continue in the networks and neighborhoods where their families have lived for years and decades?  Why is redevelopment only targeted to attract new colonizers of old and established communities?

No one is surprised that developers want to maximize their profits on the risk they take in building new housing.  We know they won't take those risks if they can't expect to make a profit.  Building new housing takes big up-front capital investment, so we don't begrudge developers a profit.  On the other hand, part of building a good city to live in means that people of various income levels need to share in the benefits the city has to offer.  If I live in Durham, I will depend on city, county, state, and commercial institutions to help structure schools, fire protection, medical care, and public safety.  Doctors and entrepreneurs, pharmaceutical executives and hi-tech wizards may have six- and seven-figure incomes.  But teachers, firefighters, nurses, and police will live on more meager salaries.  Shop clerks, wait staff, cooks, mechanics, maintenance workers, and cleaning staff--all of these people will contribute to making a city a good place to live.  They are fellow-members of the community, not merely servants to the ones who have more money.  All of us need a place to live.  All of us deserve to enjoy the benefits of a flourishing city.

That's why, in the wisdom of our civic traditions, leaders have seen fit to put in place programs and incentives to make sure there is adequate housing for people of many levels of income.  One such program, the Low-Income Housing Credit, provides tax subsidies for developing affordable housing that enable developers to make a profit.  Durham CAN and Self-Help Credit Union want to use that subsidy to build 80 to 100 units of housing downtown, by the Durham Station Transportation Center and across from the NC Mutual building.  City leaders have expressed a desire to see better affordable housing opportunities, and by donating this land for affordable housing development, they can do their part in helping make Durham affordable to more of its citizens.

These units would be affordable to people who make 40% to 60% of the median income of Durham County.  That means up to $37,000 for a household of one, or $43,000 for a household of two, and slightly more for larger households.  These people, working hard to bring home enough money to feed, clothe, and shelter their families are of equal importance to a flourishing city as those who make the median salary or more.  Durham has had notable success in the recent past with some affordable housing, and we hate to see that only in the past.  We are hoping this project can be the next planting of a seed, the down payment, toward a new strategy and plan for creating more high-quality, affordable housing in neighborhoods all around Durham.

Sadly, there are some who have said that downtown is for the millennials, for entrepreneurs, for people with higher incomes.  They say that Durham can find a way to provide affordable housing for lower incomes somewhere else, somewhere less in demand, somewhere less desirable, somewhere out of the way of the profits a select few desire to make.  Those kinds of arguments sound to me like there is some kind of insider decision-making going on about who gets to live in what neighborhood and who gets pushed out.  It seems that someone has in mind a "certain quality of people" that are acceptable for Durham's nice downtown.  Others need not apply.  If there is no property available for affordable housing downtown, the doughnut hole, then the next step, and we see it happening already, will be no affordable housing in the doughnut ring around downtown.

Moderate- to low-income people get pushed farther and farther away from the neighborhoods with rich heritage.  Will the last remnant of Hayti be a museum surrounded by residents who know and care nothing about the struggle and achievement of families who built a prosperous community when all odds were against them?  Will Walltown go the way of Brookstown, Hickstown, and Crest Street, to be a faint memory of a lost past?  Cities change, and neighborhoods change.  That is inevitable.  But will people of various economic levels have access to the historic neighborhoods of Durham?  Or will the profiteering incentive lead to closing off the central city from people of moderate to low income?

Enter the wise exhortation of James.  James saw a problem in some churches of his time.  He saw that people became overly impressed by the wealth or affluence of some who came to their churches.  They catered to them.  They escorted them to the best seats.  They fawned over them.  But when people whose clothes were plain or even a bit worn came into the church, they directed them to the side or the back, or even suggested they stand by the wall sit on the floor.  The text says they were showing favoritism, based on the apparent affluence of those who came to their churches.

James reminded them of the Lord whom they serve.  He reminded them of the way of Jesus, who was himself from a working class home, born under bad conditions, sympathetic with beggars, outcasts, prostitutes, and others who found themselves on hard times.  His co-workers had mostly made their livings fishing and other hard work.  James, probably from the same family as Jesus, knew what it was to be looked down on by those who thought they were better.  He reminded them that the social dynamic of poverty was exploitation, and that the wealthy gained their affluence often through paying low wages or otherwise mistreating their workers.

James knew showing favoritism was not the way that Jesus had taught and planned for his followers to live.  "Love your neighbor as yourself" was Jesus' motto.  His life and ways had shown he meant every neighbor--Samaritan and Jew, blind and sighted, man and woman, worker and manager.  If it came to a question of injustice, Jesus took the side of the oppressed and stood up to the oppressor.  James said this to remind the churches that Jesus had come to reinstate, to kick-start, God's plan for this world as a good society, "There should be no one in need among you."

So when leaders in our city say that downtown is only for millennials, we wonder which millennials do they mean?  What about millennials who become teachers?  Don't some millennials become firefighters and police officers?  I think that some millennials are nurses, city staffers, cooks, and mechanics.  Aren't they welcome downtown?  Of course, I don't think anyone intends to have only one age group in the neighborhood.  Will there be room for all economic levels, age groups, and other segments of society, or are we back to drawing red lines on our maps to indicate who we will let live in which districts?

Now I understand that James is writing to the churches, and that Durham is not a church.  I also recognize that municipalities may not do everything the way churches do.  Yes, I am familiar with the distinction between church and state.  But I also want to say that the faith of the church is that Jesus came into the world to recall Israel, and all others who would come to join in, to build the kind of beloved community that God made this world to be.  While I would not think it appropriate to ask the city to enforce everything the church believes in, I do think there are many points at which our purposes of building a flourishing community may coincide.  Not cordoning off portions of the community by wealth and class and ethnicity and race and age and family size is one of the goals that the church and the city may have in common.

One theologian said that there are times when the social agenda of the church may appropriately blend with the social agenda of the communities with which the church shares space and time.  He said it is kind of like a "spiritual osmosis."  An idea like "no more shacks" that drove the Christian community of Koinonia Farms in Americus, Georgia, to create the housing model of Habitat for Humanity over time became widely accepted by people who had no connection to Christian churches.  Church or not, most people see that this plan works, and volunteers come from all creeds and no creed to build Habitat houses together.  Making room for affordable housing in the central city, near transit stations, in the doughnut hole and all the surrounding rings of the city is a similarly worthwhile goal.  People don't want to be displaced.  They want to be able to find housing near their jobs, near their schools, near the places they like to go for fellowship, friends, and food.  At all income levels, people want to share in the good things of life.

Durham must not have a housing policy which says to the wealthy and affluent, "Please, as our favorites, take the best places in which we have invested heavily, creating them just for people of your kind," and then turns to the moderate- and low-income citizen and says, "You, who are not our favorites, are on your own, and you'll have to go away from all the good things our city has invested in, because they are for someone else."  I think James's wise exhortation speaks to this issue of urban development.  Let's keep the best, that is all, of Durham available to all of it's citizens, and not show favoritism.

Put On the Armor of Light

This sermon was first preached at Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church on September 7, 2014.

Romans 13:8-14

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

             Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires (NRSV).

I want to begin by making a few personal remarks.  I hope I am not being too presumptuous by commenting to you about events in my life.  Most of you know something about the recent years and the major opportunities and challenges that my family and I have faced.  In 2009, Everly took the opportunity to lead the mathematics curriculum for the public school system of the state of Texas, the second most populous state in our country, and certainly one of the most influential states in national policies concerning many areas of our lives.  We decided to make this move largely because of the desire to be near our aging parents in the last years of their lives.  We had been in North Carolina for almost 24 years by that time.  All four of our parents were living and approaching eighty years of age.  So we perceived the opportunity as God’s blessing to let us share some time with them after so many years away.

Everly took the state by storm.  She stood out above the crowd among statewide education administrators.  She inspired and energized math teachers and college professors.  Her talents and leadership drew her into the highest circles of influence.  Her candid and forthright words changed the minds of commissioners and the governor on mathematics education policy.  Recognizing what a treasure was in their midst, she was given near carte blanche to rewrite the curriculum of mathematics for grades K through 12, and she put all the experience, talent, skill, and relational ability she had into the task.

At the same time, we realized that it would be difficult for me to find a job in theological education in Texas.  So we settled for a very modern kind of family situation.  I worked in North Carolina while living in Texas.  I commuted for stints of a few weeks at a time in North Carolina, then continued my work using the wonders of the internet to teach from Texas.  Thanks to the generosity of my church family, I always had a place to stay in North Carolina after we moved out and put our house on the market.  It was a complicated and hectic way to live, but we were making the most of it.

About two and one-half years after she started her job in Texas, we discovered that Everly had metastatic cancer which was focused in her liver and backbone.  Doctors were unsure whether it would be worth giving her any treatment at all, but then decided there was enough chance for improving her life and extending it that we should try.  The first treatment almost took her life, and in the month-long recovery from that dose of chemical poisons, she drifted through many stages of discouragement and hope.  God granted her visions and insight into her remaining life with us.  And with great joy, we discovered that the treatment had brought about a dramatic reduction in her cancer.  She slowly regained her strength, and then began a regimen of chemotherapy that showed promise of managing her cancer.  All of our children were able to join us in Texas and be with her for this challenging and precious time of being close to one another.

During that struggle, she came here to visit you and her many friends in North Carolina.  She stood up in this sanctuary and testified of the goodness of God in her life, in the opportunities she had had to use her gifts, and in this special time of being available to be away from work and with her family.  Eventually, that early plan of treatment’s progress diminished, so we began other forms of experimental treatment.  Over a year of cancer treatments, we developed hope that she might live many more years.  But eventually her ability to resist the disease ran out.  The last three months involved regrouping, searching for new options, and ultimately coming to face that she was not getting better.  Of course, even near the end, we kept thinking things would turn around. 

With what would only by a little more than a week remaining, Everly came home for hospice care.  The children and I spent all the time we had with her, and watched her life slowly ebb away.  She had given us all she had to give, and she was ready to leave the troubles of this world.  She knew she was in God’s hands, and we knew that as well.  Not quite fourteen months ago, she went on to her reward and left behind all her pain.

It was, of course, a beginning of a season of pain for the rest of us.  We had to try to find a way to live our lives without our anchor and guide.  We could reasonably call these “dark days.”  So during this past year we have sometimes floundered about, and we have sought out the support, the love, and the counsel of many friends who knew Everly and who know us.  Even though it was comfortable for me to live in Texas, sharing the home of my parents, it became clear to me as this past year unfolded that I ought to relocate back to North Carolina where my job, my church, and my networks of friends remained. 

So three weeks ago, Naomi and I arrived with a truck full of our things and moved in just a couple of blocks from here on Denfield Street.  Naomi is starting the Masters of Social Work program at UNC-Chapel Hill.  I am back to a more normal work situation in the same job I have had for over twenty years, teaching at Shaw University.  In locating down the street, I say to myself, to our congregation, and to our community that this neighborhood is made up of the neighbors God has sent us to love.  So I’m putting my roots here, and looking with expectation at what God will do with my life and with the life of the people who are Mt. Level in the coming years.  All of my family cannot be together now.  Lydia is finishing her bachelor’s degree in Texas.  David is relocating and starting up a new life in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  And we are holding one another close as we trust that the God who holds our Everly will hold us, too.  All of us, in our own ways, by God’s grace, are striving to lay back the darkness and let in the light.

Well, telling that story was the hard part of this morning for me.  And it is prologue to what this scripture text will tell us.  In the text that was read this morning, the Apostle Paul makes remarks of the same sort that the Prophet Micah did many centuries before.  As Micah had posed the question, “What does the Lord require of you?”, now Paul offers the guidance that we should “owe no one anything, except….”  Micah said that it is really pretty simple.  Do justice.  Love mercy.  Walk humbly with God.  Paul says they should narrow it down to this:  love one another.  That’s all you owe anyone.  That’s what Jesus said really mattered.  That’s what God expects of you.  That fulfills the whole stinking law, every jot and tittle of it.  Of course, you can learn by studying the specifics of the law, but Jesus already told us how to sum it up:  Love your neighbor as yourself.

So in the way that you live with others, if you love them, you will do no wrong to your neighbor.  And the law is largely about telling you what wrongs not to do.  So love, and you won’t do wrong.  That’s why love fulfills the whole law—every bit of it.

Paul was continuing a train of thought from what to us is the previous chapter.  Of course, Paul did not divide his letters into chapters and verses.  Like you or I, he just wrote out his sentences and paragraphs.  The chapters and verses were added later by readers who wanted to be able to analyze and talk together about the books in a systematic way.  That way, you and I can quickly get on the same page for conversation and study.  But Paul did not have chapters and verses.  So I should say he was continuing a train of thought from a few paragraphs before.

In our habit of speaking, in chapter 12, verse 10, he started talking about living toward Christian love with one another as God’s people.  Just before this section, he had written about how everyone has gifts from the Spirit, and we are not all the same.  But each of us has something to offer to one another and to the whole group, like parts of the body all have their function.  He told them back there, “Let love be genuine.”  Those verses were part of the wedding vows Everly and I spoke in 1980.  That short sentence is now engraved on the gravestone where she is buried.  “Let love be genuine.” 

It was a commitment we shared with one another.  In so many ways, we certainly fell short of the ideal, but it was a byword for how we knew we ought to live in relation to the world and the people God had given us.  But it is not a statement specifically about the love of married people.  It is about the love that we have for one another in the church.  It is the love God expects us to have for all God’s children.  As followers of Jesus, married people and families should also live up to this kind of love.  So Paul is making it plain here.  Love genuinely.  Love honestly.  Love thoroughly.  Love wholeheartedly.  Love the lovable people, and love the unlovable people.  Love when you are eager to do so, and love when you are on your last nerve. 

But, we may ask, isn’t there something or someone I can hate?  Paul says to hate evil.  Don’t harbor your evil thoughts.  Don’t plot evil devices.  Don’t fixate on evil responses.  Don’t seek revenge.  Hate evil, but don’t act evilly to oppose it.  Hold fast to what is good.  Keep on imagining the good possibilities.  Look beyond people’s troublesome actions to see the good that is in them.  Think of ways to return good for evil.  Do not repay evil for evil, but put your mind on a noble response to the times when you are wronged.  At the climax of this reflection, he tells them there is a way to fight evil:  overcome evil with good.  Let good grow and snowball and expand and press outward until it overwhelms all the evil it can find.  Don’t let evil overcome you.  You get out there in all the goodness that God can produce in you and let that goodness overcome evil.

Paul knew that the times in which these Roman Christians were living were evil times.  Powerful people wanted to persecute them, put them in jail, fire them from their jobs, take away their homes, make outcasts of their children, drive them out of town.  Rulers were selfish and devious, and so were their assistants and lackeys.  Soldiers and police were directed to obey the whims of the rulers.  They might not have the strength of conscience to realize that the policies of the leaders were twisted and wrong.  Paul was not deceived.  He knew his own life had hung in the balance of unjust laws and unjust rulers before.  So he acknowledged that the times were rife with evil.  He warned the Christians to watch out.  And he taught them that even in an evil setting and situation, God had a different way for them.

Paul could say this because Paul also knew that the time in which these Roman Christians were living were good times.  They were fertile with opportunities for virtuous living.  They could watch the growth of their love touch their neighbors and their neighborhoods.  God was not defeated by the Imperial power.  God was just getting started showing them all that God can do.  So when they come up against violence and wrong, Paul said to live peaceably with all.  He said don’t avenge yourself, but stand up against evil by doing good.  Don’t flag in your zeal.  Be ardent.  Be motivated.  Work it out.  Yes, work it.  Work that goodness that God has placed in you.  Be intense about fighting wrong, but do it with goodness. 

Paul knew that the Roman Christians should have hope.  Knowing that hope, they could rejoice even in hard times.  They could show patience when they suffered because their hope is in God.  They could continue in prayer, knowing that God is with them and guiding them into the next opportunity to overcome.  Love one another.  Show mutual affection.  Outdo one another in doing right and honoring each other.  Make sure no one is in need.  Show hospitality.  Love, love, love, love, love, in word and deed.  Because God created this world to be good.  God’s goodness has been poured out in your lives.  Good will prevail, even if not in every moment, if not in every situation.  Even after setbacks, we can build a better world in God’s power and grace.  Death is defeated.  Christ is risen.  Good will prevail.

Paul had pressed this case hard in that earlier section, the second half of chapter 12.  Then he took a kind of aside.  He chased a rabbit.  He made an illustration of sorts.  He planned to finish his exhortation about love, but there was this little matter of the Empire to deal with.  He started talking about how they should act toward Caesar and Caesar’s minions.  But he talked about it in vague terms.  He talked about his enemies in abstract terms.  He did not say anything about Caesar, per se.  He didn’t name Caesar or any of the lesser officials.  He did not say anything about the Empire or the Senate or the Roman Legions or the Centurions.  He did not name any of the officials or even their offices.

Instead, he talked in broad theological terms about divine creation.  He talked about God’s good work in creating humanity as social beings.  He talked about the concept of authority in the abstract.  He said that having a system of authority is a good thing.  Ruling authorities, in general, help make our lives better.  Human authorities, as a concept, contribute to a better life for us.  In the ideal, authorities reward good and punish evil.  According to its purpose, authority maintains justice. 

But of course, Paul has been talking previously not about theory, but about the facts on the ground.  The facts on the ground were that Roman authorities were prejudiced toward their own kind.  The facts on the ground were that Christianity was an illicit, an illegal community of faith.  The facts on the ground were that everywhere Christianity had raised its liberating message of God’s love for the least and the lowly, people in power had gotten angry.  From the synagogue officials to the Sanhedrin.  From the Proconsuls to the Procurators.  From the Kings to the Emperors.  From the Pharisees to the Sadducees to the who knows who sees you practicing Christian faith, people wanted to shut it down.

That’s what Paul was telling them in the discourse about letting love be genuine, hating evil, and overcoming evil with good.  The facts on the ground were that the authorities, not in concept, but in flesh and blood, were coming down hard on the Christians.  The facts on the ground were that people who in theory were supposed to keep the peace were disturbing the peace.  Officials whose job was to serve and protect were self-serving and destroying lives in the streets.  Paul understood what was what.  He knew that everybody who had a title did not live up to the duties of office.  He knew that power, once it is in someone’s hands, can become a tool of domination.  That is what he and the Christians in Rome saw.  It’s what they knew.  It’s the yoke they felt on their shoulders.

So he said, in theory, they should recognize the goodness of authority.  They should cooperate with authority to do good.  They should not resist authority just to get their own way.  Paul was not being a respectability preacher here.  There have been a number of people lately talking about “respectability churchfolk” and “respectability preaching.”  They mean those people who try to find the fault in an unarmed youth’s behavior for his own death.  They mean those people who say that if the black community could just work harder to stay in school, to dress conventionally, to keep a job and keep their noses clean, then things like Ferguson would not happen.  That’s what they mean by the “respectability” view. 

But Paul was not talking respectability, and neither am I.  Paul was not saying that the answer to our oppression is to be more docile in obeying our oppressors.  He was not saying that the real problem is us, so we need to mend our ways.  No, he knew who was troubling the world.  God was not doing this.  The church’s service to God was not doing this.

If the powers that be want to keep people down, it does not matter how respectably people act.  They will get pressed down on.  So the answer is to press back.  That’s why Paul was saying that they need to get serious about resisting evil in the world.  They should continue their efforts to overcome evil with good by pressing the authorities to do the good they should do.  But he was not fooled into thinking that Caesar or his minions were likely to do the good.  That’s why he reminded the church to go ahead and pay taxes to whom taxes are due and revenue to whom revenue is due.  But then he turns the phrase.  He speaks with irony and from the point of view of faith.  He does not say that some people who demand your respect may not deserve your respect.  No, he is not that explicit.  He does not say that Caesar has not earned the honor that he wants you to show.  No, he is more subtle.  He says to pay respect to whom respect is due.  (Wink, wink.)  He says give honor to whom honor is due.  (“You know what I mean?”)  God deserves our honor.  Caesar probably does not.

But just so we don’t conclude that he means to start blatantly disrespecting the officials, and blatantly dishonoring Caesar, he goes back to his previous theme about loving our neighbors.  Now, we are finally back to the text we started with.  He says owe no one anything except love.  Martin Luther, the 16^th-century reformer translated that verse as a declarative statement, not an imperative.  He said it means that you don’t owe anyone anything, except you do owe everyone love.  God made us for love.  God made us to love one another, to be loved by one another, to receive love from one another—God made us for love.  So even Caesar gets our love.  Even the harassing official on the street gets our love.  Love does no wrong to the neighbor.  Love fulfills all our requirements and obligations.  Not just a feeling of love, but more importantly a way of treating someone.

Having made his case about love that’s genuine, that overcomes evil with good, that supersedes whatever resentments or desires for revenge we may have, Paul then starts talking about how important it is for us to stand strong in the face of evil.  He does not mean for us to sit back in our bedrooms thinking loving thoughts about those who do evil.  He does not mean for us to wait around the kitchen table until the tide of evil forces overwhelms and swallows up our whole neighborhood, our town, our community institutions.  He does not mean hiding behind church doors, shouting and singing while the neighborhood dies.  No we can’t just nap while destruction is happening all around us.  Overcoming evil with good is not a passive admonition.

We have to know what time it is.  It is the time for God’s good news.  It is the time for people to know that we can live together in harmony.  We can live together in love.  It’s the time that no one any longer has to be trying to dominate anyone else.  People can make a life without domination systems.  So if it was not real to you when you first got saved, then it needs to become real to you now that God is not interested in just a little bit of our lives.  God is not interested in just 10% of the church people to be part of the struggle.  God is not interested in just a token commitment.  God wants the whole of us.  God want you, and God wants us, and God wants you and me and us to be building the beloved community.  That is the whole reason God made the world and put us in it.  God wants to see that loving, just community come into the light of day.

Paul tells them to lay aside the works of darkness.  Now somebody might try to twist the term darkness here and make out that dark is equivalent to black, and that somehow blackness is opposed to God.  But Paul was not talking that way, and we know better than to fall into the trap of that kind of thinking.  Darkness here is the absence of light.  Light is the beacon that shines upon the realities of the world and reveals the truth.  Darkness is the world hiding from the light.  What is hidden from the light is afraid, is ashamed, is deceptive, is indifferent.  But in the light of day, we have to take a stand.  We have to show who we are and what we live for.

Paul says that the light is our armor.  Armor is our protection.  Bringing the truth into the light of day is our hope, because Jesus himself is the truth.  The love of God is the truth.  People able to get along and treat one another right is the truth.  Enough good gifts of God to feed and clothe and shelter everybody is the truth.  Letting everyone have a good education is the truth.  Paying people a decent, living wage is the truth.  Finding ways to keep people in their homes is the truth.  Our armor is joining together in the truth. 

You or I alone might try to stand up to the powers that be and get ignored.  But we are not alone.  God has put us together into a holy nation, a peculiar people.  Together, in solidarity with one another and with God, we can stand up to the powers and be heard.  This is the heart of the labor union movement.  The people with the capital, the people with the money—these people know that they need to organize into corporate boards and chambers of commerce and political action committees if they are going to make the world go their way.  Their hope is that the workers and the average people will stay disorganized.  A labor union exists to provide the organization necessary to stand up to the owners and managers who want to be in charge of our lives.  In a way, the church is a labor union of the neighborhood.  We organize together and care for our neighbors with the intensity and capacity to be a union of neighbors, loving our neighbors.  We join Durham CAN to operate as a union of people of faith and people of commitment to press our theoretical public servants toward being actual servants of the people.  The union makes us strong.

What time is it?  Paul says we had better know.  It is a time when people full of fear are trying to shut down and shut out and shout down and shut up the voices of those who are suffering.  They are belittling and humiliating teachers.  They are closing off access to voting.  They are shutting down jobs and taking them places where the poor workers have no protections.  They are refusing to hear the cry of the poor.  They are warehousing the desperately unemployed in prisons.  They are blaming the victimized and the marginalized for all the social ills.  They are shooting down our children in the streets.  They are claiming that the 1% deserve to own half of all the goods in the world.

We’d better know what time it is.  We have to lay aside the works of darkness.  The works of darkness are many.  Hiding out and believing we cannot make a difference is one of the works of darkness.  Get out in the light and stand for truth.  Being satisfied that we have a home and a job and not caring about others is a work of darkness.  Get into the light.  Letting some misguided police (I know it’s not all of them) continue to do whatever they have made it their habit to do, just because they can get by with it, is a work of darkness.  Pressing for reform is our armor of light.  Paul says don’t get discouraged and drown your sorrows in drunkenness.  Don’t go out and party because you think the world is going to hell anyway.  Get into the light.  Shine a light for God.  Shine a light for justice.  He says don’t take up the ways of the oppressors and sink into debauchery.  Don’t say that since the world is all corrupt anyway, I will now join the corruption of licentiousness, and consider that I have a license to do whatever I “blankety-blank” well please. Being free from the law does not mean that each of us can be a law unto ourselves.  Let a light shine into that despair that wants to give up on making things work, and let that light bring the hope of Jesus Christ who showed us another way. 

And don’t slip into the darkness of arguing and quarreling with one another.  We can find a way together to move forward.  It is the deceiver that tells us that it has to be my way or the highway.  Let the light of cooperation and solidarity shine.  And Paul says don’t become jealous of who is getting the credit.  If the Mayor or City Manager can bring a change, then let them claim the credit, even if they did so only because we pushed them and nudged them and scared them into doing it.  If the Police Chief wants to turn around and start policing in a fair and just and transparent and clean manner, then let him have the credit, no matter how slow he was in coming around to the light.  If the legislature wants to do right by our teachers and our voting citizens, let them have the credit, even if they did it kicking and screaming in resistance to the flood of people crying for justice.  Let the light shine above and beyond jealousies.  If justice is done, we don’t care who gets the credit.  We know God is the one who gets the credit.

So dress yourselves up to be the image of Jesus Christ that the world needs to see.  He did not count his own life above others.  He did not let even the small children or the disabled widows be disrespected.  He did not tolerate the poor being mistreated or the haughty and wealthy acting proud.  Paul says we should get dressed in Jesus.  Go to our closets, pull out a hanger with Jesus on it, and put that on.  Wear Jesus out into the wide world.  It’s a graphic image of the deep theological claim that in his life and death and resurrection, we have been united to Jesus.  God has drawn us into God’s own self.  So our image should be a beacon of God in the world.  We are the Jesus the world an see.  Jesus is the light of the world, and we keep on shining that light.  Be a light.  Be a beacon.  It’s a dangerous and troubling time.  But it is a time ripe for goodness.  The harvest is plentiful.  The workers are few.  We must work while it is day. 

Drawing on the words of songwriter Kyle Matthews (“My Heart Knows,” See for Yourself, Benson Records, 2000.)

We’ve thought it through,

And we’ve decided

We’re sure of You,

Whatever happens to us…

Whatever happens to us.

And if you lead

Where there is no path,

Where there’s no way out

And no way back,

We will go where we have to go;

Give what we have to give;

Face what we have to face;

And we will live where we have to live.

Our hearts know where home is.

Our hearts know our home is with You.

The road is rough—

Our courage leaves us.

The way of love

Was never easy for You.

And it won’t be easy for us.

But If you’ll reach down

From time to time

And let us feel

Your hand in ours,

We will go where we have to go;

Give what we have to give;

Face what we have to face;

And we will live where we have to live.

Our hearts know where home is.

Our hearts know our home is You.

Our hearts know, Lord.  You are our home.  So lead us now.  Lead, us Jesus.  Lead, kindly light.  Lead and we will follow.  Thanks be to God.  Thanks be to God.