A Prayer in the Midst of a Horrifying Night

I've been trying to get through some academic writing, so telling myself I don't have time for blogging.  But tonight I need to write this piece.

On the way to church this morning, I wanted to hear some meditative music, so I started a series of songs from Fernando Ortega.  The first one was a piano instrumental hymn interpretation.  The second one was one I had not heard.  When the lyrics started, they sounded somehow familiar.  Eventually I realized they were the words of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he spoke with his closest friends about the burden of his heart.

My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow
To the point of death.
My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow.
Stay with me here.
Stay with me here.
Stay with me and keep watch with me.

The words come from the story that unfolds in Mark 14:32-36.  Another version is in Matthew 26:36-39.  They are the words of a breaking heart.  They are the words of one who has seen what the world and its systems of domination can do to the ones who challenge it, and to the ones it deems disposable.  They are his cry for those he loves to stand by him in these moments.

Jesus had spent his public years fighting the injustices perpetrated against the poor by those who had the power to do so.  Landowners who had accumulate the livelihoods of their neighbors through foreclosures treated their victims as if they deserved their poverty.  So-called decent people ignored the blind, lame, and other disabled neighbors who were marginalized and forced to beg for food. Patriarchal laws and structures forced women into sex work, condemned women for sexual sin while excusing men, devalued women's work, and kept unmarried women in poverty and vulnerable to abuse.  Religious opportunists overcharged pilgrims in Jerusalem, doing dishonest commerce on the very grounds of the temple.

Jesus saw what happened to his mentor, John the Baptist, because he dared to challenge the injustices of the land and its rulers.  They arrested and executed him.  He knew that every time he came to the centers of power, the Sanhedrin and the colonizing Roman leaders began to plot his death.  He knew of the recent arrest and condemnation of Barabbas, another rabble rousing leader among the people.

Jesus knew that the people in power would do whatever they needed to do to keep their power and prosperity.  Their willingness to crush the masses of the poor were evidence of their greed and willingness to abuse power for their own benefit.  They would have no qualms about doing their worst against him if he continued in faithfulness to proclaim the Jubilee economics God calls all people to follow.  His message of liberation would bring their harshest retribution.

In the garden Jesus was exceedingly sorrowful.  His grief was overwhelming.  He had come on a mission to proclaim good news for poor people, release of prisoners, a place for the marginalized, the Jubilee year of the Lord.  He had raised the hopes of the masses, and they had followed him and cheered his entrance to Jerusalem.  Such a crowd of supporters only solidified the intention of the rulers to destroy him.  His heart cried out for someone to stay by him in this hour.

Some would say Jesus failed in his mission.  I have no doubt he was disappointed in the way things had turned.  Yet I also believe he had eventually realized that it would come to this.  If he continued faithfully in his mission, the powers that be would do what they must to stop him.  Committed to a loving path, a non-violent way, Jesus was unwilling to arouse his followers to violence.  He would therefore receive violence without returning it.

Rulers knew what to do with Barabbas's ilk.  Those who raised a violent hand against the system deserved to see the punishing violence of the system.  That is the proof of the system's "justice."  Unauthorized violence must be put down by authorized violence, a paradoxical virtue of good order.  Even the oppressed should theoretically be thankful for an orderly system of violence to prevent the chaos of uncontrolled violence.  Executing Barabbas would be "redemptive violence."

Jesus was harder to deal with.  He did not come at the state with violence, but with the challenge of a social vision of justice and beloved community.  He was hard to battle.  It was not obvious that he needed to be punished.  But he was as great a threat as Barabbas, and maybe worse.  So he must, of course, be stopped.  The people with power must be allowed to define justice, not a small-town outsider who has listened to the cries of the poor and created false hopes in the masses.

Around midnight in the garden, Jesus was grieving the dream.  He would rather have seen the Romans and the Sanhedrin persuaded to begin restoring justice to the land and its people.  He knew that many had been won to his challenging vision of society.  But others had hardened their hearts.  For this reason of power or that reason of power, they would see him dead before they would join his cause.

Jesus was grieving the continued oppression of the poor and marginalized.  He knew that his execution would be intended and used as an example to the poor and the masses.  He would be killed in public view on the highway to show what happens when someone challenges the powerful.  Hearts would be broken and discouraged.  Some would feel like giving up.  The poor would be hung on a cross on that day as every day before.  But not everyone gave up.  Some told and retold the story of his campaign for justice, eventually writing it down and passing it through generations.

On this day in 2019, the shoppers at the most noted low-price store, were greeted with the violence of a system of power known as white supremacy.  That power system directed a young man to find a place where he could execute the enemies of the system, outsiders defined by having a Hispanic heritage.  Mexicans, Salvadorans, Hondurans, Guatemalans, Latinx people of any label, whether US citizens or recent immigrants, became targeted as killable flesh.  The white supremacist cry of, "You will not replace us" echos from Charlottesville to El Paso.  White ownership of the land, white privilege to determine who is acceptable and who is outcast, white power over life and death--this is his mantra and destiny.

In Dayton, after midnight, patriarchal systems directing anger and hatred toward women drove a young man to act upon his fantasies of killing the women he knew and grew up among.  Even his own sister died at his hands.  Misogyny or misanthropy, a fascination with killing drove him to identify women, and perhaps others, as targets deserving to die, if for no other reason than his lust for power through spilling blood, a privilege of white men in a culture addicted to violence.

Around midnight this weekend, Jesus reminds us that his heart, his soul, his deepest being, is overwhelmed with sorrow, even unto death.  Jesus tells us to share this sorrow for the poor and the outcast, the darker skinned, the outsider, the women, the people who have been designated killable flesh.  He reminds us that when we have done this to the least of his brothers and sisters, he has died with them.  Jesus and the poor, the outcast, the women, the person of color, are executed on the public streets again, bodies displayed in public view as a reminder of how the power of this world operates.

If we are followers of Jesus, if we would be like this sorrowing Lord, we must become men and women of sorrow on a day like today.  We cannot set it aside as if this way of the world is inevitable.

We must refuse to believe that this is the only path power can take.  There is a power rooted in love.  There is power that comes by building relationships across the barriers that divide us.  There is power in a vision of justice that includes every brother and sister, every person among us.

We sorrow, and we become defiant.  We will not stand by and let white supremacy be the truth of our communities.

There is a truth of beloved community, and we will live in it.  Stay with me here.  Stay with me here and keep watch with me.  Stay with me here.  Live in this vision, in this justice, in this world of love, this world as it should be.

Death Behind Us, Death Before Us

This sermon for the Lenten season was first preached at Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church on April 2, 2017.  It seems highly relevant for Good Friday or Holy Saturday.

Ezekiel 37:1-14
    1 The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.  2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry.  3 He said to me, "Mortal, can these bones live?"
    I answered, "O Lord GOD, you know."
    4 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.  5 Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.  6 I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD."
    7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.  8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.
    9 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live."
    10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
    11 Then he said to me, "Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.'  12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.  13 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people.  14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act," says the LORD.

John  11:1-45
     1 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.  2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill.
    3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, "Lord, he whom you love is ill."
    4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it."  5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
    7 Then after this he said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again."
    8 The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?"
    9 Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. 10 But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them."  11 After saying this, he told them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him."
    12 The disciples said to him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right."
    13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep.  14 Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. 15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."
    16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."
    17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
    18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.
    20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home.  21 Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him."
    23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."
    24 Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day."
    25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
    27 She said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world."
    28 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, "The Teacher is here and is calling for you."
29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him.
    30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him.  31 The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there.  32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
    33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.  34 He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see."
    35 Jesus began to weep.
    36 So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"
    37 But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"
    38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.  39 Jesus said, "Take away the stone."
    Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days."
    40 Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"
    41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me.  42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me."
    43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"
    44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
    45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

    We already heard the reading from the prophet Ezekiel.  I’ve had a special affinity for Ezekiel, for his many acted out prophecies and for the pathos of his life as a prophet who was rejected among his people.  Ezekiel’s visions, another sermon for another day, make a crucial theological turning point, along with the other great prophets of his era–Jeremiah and the Exilic Isaiah.  They reshape the vision of a people under God who are not dependent on an earthly army or king, or even on a land of their own.  They elevate the doctrine of the Hebrew God to One who is not limited to land or ethnicity, but rules in all places and among all peoples. 
    This passage in the 37th chapter, one of the most famous ones from Ezekiel, is a text I have preached more than once.  I want to highlight the first verse before I read from the gospel text.  If you want to turn to the 11th chapter of John’s gospel, I will start there in the first verse.  But first, let me repeat the first verse of Ezekiel 37.  “The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.”
    Now if you will join me in the Gospel reading from John, chapter 11.  The lectionary selects verses 1-45, telling a familiar story of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.  I will narrow the focus to the first 16 verses.  John 11:1-16.... 
    And look again with me at that final verse, 16.  “Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’”
    Join me today as we consider these two passages on the theme, “Death with us; death behind us; death before us.”  Death behind us. Death before us.
    The first thing to strike me about these lectionary readings for the Fifth Sunday of Lent was the pervasive presence of death.  The prophet Ezekiel was carried away by the power of the Spirit and set down in a place of death.  It was some kind of historic battlefield scene, but one in which the traditional practice of burying the dead must have been too overwhelming.  Instead, a field of dried, bleached bones lay scattered before the prophet.  As so many other times in his prophetic ministry, Ezekiel found himself overwhelmed.  Here he stood, surrounded by the signs of death of so many who had lived before his time.  He was immersed in the memory, or perhaps it was the forgotten memory, of so much death behind him, so much death that loomed heavy behind him.
    Then we look at the Gospel text and find another very familiar story in which Jesus initially feels no pressure to check on his friend, only to find out soon that Lazarus had died. I was struck by more death.  With his disciples, he has to face going to the home of his dead friend.  Moreover, his disciples are concerned that to take this journey could also mean the death of Jesus and even their own deaths.  In the midst of their work of ministry, they are looking down a road toward death.  Death looms before them.
    My mind quickly jumped to a famous Irish prayer associated with St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.  One of the most remembered sections of the prayer repeats one affirmation after another about the presence of Christ:

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I arise...

But my mind replaced the affirmation of Christ with the recognition of the presence of death. 

Death with us, death before us, death behind us,
Death in us, death beneath us, death above us,
Death on our right, death on our left,
Death where we lie, death where we sit, death where we arise...

I admit it’s not a pleasant set of thoughts.  We live in an age of denial.  We like to call our denial positive thinking.  We think we can mentally hide from the realities of life.  So faced with the pervasive presence of death, we are most often inclined to say to ourselves or to one another, “Why don’t we change the subject?  Let’s talk about something happier.” 
    I’m not criticizing that strategy.  Sometimes that’s the best way to cope with some of the hard truths of our existence.  But we should not confuse coping through occasional denial with opening our hearts to the truth about what people face every day in our world.  We, as Ezekiel and as Jesus, live in a world where death surrounds us.
    Many of us have in recent months had to entertain the possibility of death’s presenting itself in our families as national leaders threatened to eliminate health insurance for millions of us.  What kind of logic, or should I call it greed, drives people to believe it’s acceptable to cause the deaths of many thousands of fellow citizens by taking away access to health care?  What does it mean to call health care a responsibility and not a privilege, when at least half of workers make such low wages they could never take the responsibility to purchase health care on their own?  Death with us, death in us, death where we lie down.
    I’ve heard people say that when I preach they know to expect a social justice sermon, a sermon about ministry in our community.  I don’t mind that reputation.  I hope that along with that reputation I can also have a holistic faith and ministry that touches all kinds of needs and hopes of God’s people.  But I don’t apologize for always seeking to look beyond our inward well-being toward the well-being of the world God loves.
    Yet today I want to say that while there are obviously social justice implications for this message, it is also an attempt to delve into the depths of what it means to live and love, to lose and die, and to be God’s creatures, to be human in this marvelous and mysterious world God has made.
    In day-to-day living, we don’t always have time or energy to think about the mysteries and marvels.  We stay busy putting one foot in front of the other.  We count on the continuity of having the people around us present today and tomorrow and next month and next year.  Jesus probably felt the same way about his friends in Bethany.  When he got word that Lazarus was sick, maybe he did not initially take it very seriously.  Everybody gets sick now and then.  I had a head cold this week.  Some of you may have had a rougher time with the flu recently.  We think of getting sick as something to endure, with the assumption that “this, too, shall pass.”
    A couple of days later, Jesus decided it was time to go to Bethany.  Had another person come to give him a message?  We don’t know that, but we soon find out that he had somehow come to know that Lazarus had died.  Maybe he had a vision or an intuition.  Moreover, John does not give us much insight into his mood or feelings at this point.  Later we learn how sad he was about Lazarus’s death.  At this point we only know that he has made up his mind to go to Bethany.
    His disciples are pretty upset about this plan.  They have been doing their work farther north, and across the Jordan, outside of the jurisdiction of the Jerusalem authorities.  The reason is that Jesus has not always been respectful and diplomatic in his dealings with the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Herodians, and the Roman authorities.  During his last visit to Jerusalem, of which Bethany is a near suburb, a mob had actually picked up stones to kill him.  Jesus and his buddies slipped away before the stoning could happen, and they had stayed far away ever since.
    Now Jesus is facing the death of his beloved friend Lazarus down the road, near Jerusalem.  The disciples are thinking about that angry mob with the rocks.  We know from the other three gospels that Jesus has warned his disciples that when he goes to Jerusalem, the rulers there are going to kill him.  Their strategy has been to keep their distance.  They are not sure Jesus is thinking straight.  He insists on going, so Thomas gives a plainspoken response–“I guess we can all go die together.”
    Under the rule of empire, the residents of Palestine were acquainted with death.  They had the experience of harsh treatment by the Roman overlords and the Herodian interloper kings.  They could not get out of their minds the image of their friend John who had been beheaded because he would not mince his words.  And they had seen the way crowds can shift to mobs in a moment when the conversation turns an unpopular way.  They weren’t ready to die, and they were not convinced they or Jesus needed to die.  If Jesus would just get organized for battle like a real Messiah was supposed to do, they could gather enough fighters to sweep into Jerusalem and take out all the enemies of the people.  But Jesus showed no interest in being a Messiah under those conditions.  So maybe they were doomed to die together.
    The slogan Black Lives Matter is a response to the pervasiveness of death in times and places where it just should not happen.  The former president stood in the role of every person when he confessed that in the killing of Trayvon Martin it was clear that the boy could have been the son of any black parent, including himself.  The blood of Trayvon, of Michael, of Sandra, of Freddie, of Rekia, of Jonathan, of José, of Uniece, and of so many more cries out from the ground.  How many deaths until young people’s lives matter?  How many killings until accountability becomes a reality?  Death on our right side, death on our left side, death where we rise up, death where we sit down.
    The rest of the story from John 11 is very familiar.  Jesus goes on to meet Martha and Mary.  He weeps over the death of his friend.  And God performs a powerful sign through the Incarnate Son to demonstrate that there is nothing out of the reach of God’s power.  The story of Lazarus’s coming forth from the grave is a powerful moment in the gospel account of Jesus’ life.  It foreshadows something even greater to come when Jesus comes out of his grave.  In and of itself, this event does not abolish death.  Lazarus went on to die at a later time, as did his sisters and everyone else gathered in Bethany that day.  And so we still find ourselves living in the midst of death, as did Jesus and his disciples and friends in this story.
    I stumbled upon a book of poetry by Audre Lorde this week as I was preparing for this sermon.  The title of the book is Our Dead Behind Us.   I decided I needed to understand what she meant by that title, so I got a copy of the book and started reading the poems.  I was not too surprised to find that title phrase in the first poem, one called “Sisters in Arms.”  It is a poetic narration of two women who find themselves in a crisis.  Both live as expatriates from different societies–one from the USA and one from South Africa.  The South African woman gets news that in a horrific and violent series of repressive acts, her fifteen-year-old daughter in South Africa has been murdered by the police forces.  In the same sequence of events, elementary school children have also been massacred for protesting against injustice and apartheid–six-year-olds, nine-year-olds, even a three-week-old infant.
    The mother heads to South Africa to bury her daughter and join in the struggle.  The other woman remains behind, and in her pain and anger is working in her garden.  Let me quote a few lines from the poem,

my hand comes down like a brown vise over the marigolds
reckless through despair
we were two black women touching our flame
and we left our dead behind us

The power and pain of death, even in their sympathy and care for one another, was breaking them down and breaking them apart.  Their lives kept going on, and their dead were left behind them.  This experience is not far away from many people throughout this world in which we live and die.  Death before us, death behind us.  We don’t escape it if we live in this world.
    God has made us finite beings.  We are born, we live, we die.  Even Jesus’ coming into the world has as a crucial part of it his full sharing of our existence, all the way to the point of death, and more specifically an undignified death. 
    By the time most of us reach middle age, we have become far more acquainted with death than we wish.  Grandparents and parents whose love filled and shaped our lives leave us in this world without their presence.  Too many of us lose loved ones far too early for their time.  The mystery and grief of their absence weighs heavy on us.  We sometimes are tempted to join with the writer of Ecclesiastes and wonder if all of life is in vain.
    I do feel some trepidation in taking you down this difficult road of thinking about death today, but I can’t help but testify to the light the Spirit has shed on these texts.  From Ezekiel to Lazarus, even when we walk with Jesus, we walk amidst death in a dying world.  Part of what we must recognize in Thomas’s remark from John 11:16 is that if we are going to be faithful to Jesus, we may even have to challenge death.  The way of Jesus, we see now in hindsight, is a way of the cross.  It is a road to execution.  It is a pilgrimage of standing strong for God and God’s justice even in the face of those who would kill us for doing so.
    Many of us have grappled in recent months with the likelihood that struggling for justice may become harder in our time.  It may not be adequate to call the congressional representative or write a letter in support of some legislation.  It may not be adequate to have celebratory marches in which we are happy to be together in the cause of justice, then stop off at our favorite restaurant on the way home.  It may be that we will have to face down harsher opponents in our time.  We may begin to catch on that when our young people are beaten and shot in the streets, we cannot keep telling ourselves that it was because they were not acting respectably enough.  In some circles and places, the forces of evil are gathering their strength.  They are already lashing out at Muslims and refugees and transgendered persons.  They are looking for ways to cut away the safety net for the poor, for the elderly, for school children, and for children of immigrants. 
    Protecting the vulnerable may become costly for us in ways that it has not been.  Standing up against official injustice, against warmongering, against government sanctioned discrimination, against unfair voting practices–these may become as dangerous as it was for children in Birmingham, for citizens walking on a bridge in Selma, and for Dr. King organizing with sanitation workers in Memphis.
    I’m not predicting these things will happen to you or to me.  I am simply reminding myself and all of us that when we take up the calling to follow Jesus, a cross may be near in our path.  If any of you would follow me, you must deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow me. Anyone who would save his or her own life will lose it, but all who would lose their life for Jesus’ sake will find it.
    There is a deep logic of death and resurrection in the very nature of the church.  Our sacramental practice of baptism articulates that logic.  We ought not to be unfamiliar with death, but we ought to be able to see it differently than the world does. 
    For part of the reason that Jesus was ready to head to Bethany was that he had become convinced by his faith in God that death was not final.  He had come to realize that even if he were captured and executed as an enemy of the state, that God still had a purpose for him beyond that moment of death.  Moreover, his dying as an act of defiance and protest to the injustice of the empire would be far greater than the regime’s acting against one person.  He had come to realize that the death he would endure was one which would encompass the deaths of all of us.  In his role as the Second Adam, he would be recapitulating, reconstituting, rebooting humanity into a new creation.  This is what he tried to explain to Martha later in Bethany--he himself is the resurrection in which we also share.
    Paul wrote about this logic of death and resurrection often.  In Jesus we all die, and in his resurrection we all are raised.  In his death, our past inadequate way of living passes away.  In his resurrection a whole new life already has begun in us.  He, who is our Savior, is our new life.  As Paul wrote in Galatians, I am crucified with Christ, yet nevertheless I live.  But it is not I who live, but Christ lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live in faithfulness to the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.  He reminds us in Romans that we die and are buried with Christ in our baptism.  We rise from the waters of baptism into a new life.
    So there is another sense in which we might say without despair, and perhaps even with rejoicing, that death is behind us.  Although Ezekiel looked at the bones and saw death in its brutality in the history of that valley of bones, his eyes were opened to see that those parched and desiccated bones can live when God raises them to new life.  Jesus, on the road to Bethany, can face the likely wrath of the powerful in Jerusalem because he has fixed his eyes on the joy that is before him.  He is willing to despise the shame of the cross, of the jeering crowd, and of the mocking crown on his brow.  He can endure the cross for the sake of the new creation.  He can endure death because he will bring us all through it with him.  Oh, Death, where is your sting?  Oh, grave, where is your victory?  In bringing all of us together into his death, Jesus puts our deaths behind us.
    Now some of you may rightly want to complain that it’s not quite right, Rev. Broadway, for you to lay on all this thick death conversation and then try to turn it around to be happy in the last minute or two of the sermon.  Let me say that I also hope I know better than that.  It ought not to be a rule that we have to leave church feeling giddy and happy all the time.  Sometimes we may have to leave with some burdens to bear.  So I’m not going to try to dress up death in a pretty outfit so you can forget about what these texts teach us.
    What I do want to say is that in our baptism, we are united to Jesus in his death.  We undergo the death of our sinful ways.  The death of our rebelliousness and rejection of God is accomplished.  The old short-sighted and egocentric self dies in order to be joined to the new self, the true human self, the Second and True Adam, Jesus.  Our new humanity is constituted by being joined to him.  We live in Christ.  Christ lives in us.  We are made new.  This is great and wonderful news.  But that is not the same as saying that we no longer have to face the troubles of the world. 
    I think there is something to be learned here from Jesus’ baptism.  The gospel accounts tell us of the remarkable experience of his baptism in which all three persons of the Triune God are made manifest together as the Son is baptized.  It is a crucial moment of Jesus’ life and ministry, and yet he comes up out of the water only to face some of the greatest trials he ever had to face.  He goes alone, driven by the Spirit, into a deserted wilderness, and great temptations befall him.  He struggles with his mission and Messiahship.  How should his life count in the world?  What kind of Messiah should he be?  It was not easy for him, and it will not be easy for us.  Yet still, because of his example in baptism, and because of the way he embodied that baptism through faithful life, death, burial, and resurrection, we have become united to God through him.
    Would you go on living on your own, alienated from God, if you knew that you could have your life joined to God for every moment and every day?  Would you seek to have the courage to face whatever troubles and trials come, knowing that in all of them, Christ is living in you and you in him?  That is what God is offering to each of us today.  If you have not yet answered the call to unite your life to Jesus, to follow in his way, and to enter with him into baptism that demonstrates our passage from death into life, then there is no better time than today for you to follow Jesus.  Follow him through this vale of tears, through the pervasiveness of death, with hope that God is at work even now to transform this world we live in to become the Kingdom of God, the beloved community, a land where peace and justice reign in the lives of women and men.  Follow Jesus today.  Pass from death to life in him.
    There may be some present today who are struggling with loss and grief.  You have lost a friend, a family member, a spouse, a parent, or some other loved one to death.  You know you are supposed to acknowledge that such a death is a mere passing on to another dimension of life, an entry into the presence of God even more fully than we know on this earth. Still, it does not take away the emptiness and hurt you feel on this side of that transition.  Perhaps you need to turn toward God and ask for comfort and healing as you continue on the road of life that remains for you, before and until the joyful reunion you long for beyond the grave.  If you need to come and cry out for God’s Spirit to fill and heal you, then now is the time to come.  Don’t be embarrassed for having grief.  It means you are human and that you know what it means to love and be loved.  God is a healing God.
    If you live in Durham, but you are not currently united with a congregation, take a moment now to call on the Holy Spirit for guidance.  It may be that God has brought you here today because you should be united to this local body of Christ’s followers as we fight against the pervasive power of death and shine the light of life in the world.  If you feel the calling to join with us in the ministry that God has called us to in this city and this neighborhood, why not go ahead and join with us today.  Amen.
**********
An addendum:  a few words from Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Whoever enters discipleship enters Jesus’ death, and puts his or her own life into death; this has been so from the beginning. The cross is not the horrible end of a pious, happy life, but stands rather at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ.

Emotions Stirring on Election Day 2016

Yesterday was very busy by my standards.  I was doing communications work for church and community organizing most of the morning.  I had a meeting that lasted an hour and one-half at noon.  Then I had to drive to Raleigh for another meeting at Shaw.  I stayed in my office after that to do some email catching up and get some preparation work done for the faculty retreat.  The next thing I knew, it was after 5:00 pm, dark outside, and the security officer was locking up the building now that all classes were over for the day.

I went on to the car and started the drive home.  The traffic fates had mercy on me, and there were only a few slowdowns with red brake lights shining, so I made good progress.  It's always tempting just to pick a restaurant and buy dinner on the way home, but nobody can afford that all the time.  On the other hand, going to a restaurant by myself gets pretty old.  I had made a plan for supper, and I knew Naomi would need to eat, too.  So I went straight home and started getting dinner on the table:  baked potatoes with Brown & Brummel's yogurt/butter spread and cheese, fresh snow peas, and corn on the cob.  I have to admit, we needed another potato to fill out the meal, so before long I was turning to the "Little Debbie food group" to reach complete satiety.

On that drive home I found myself in a roller coaster of emotions.  Listening to music or listening to news, everything was setting my thoughts off into deep reflections.  Suddenly, without any clear reason, tears welled up, and sent my investigative mind searching for "why?"  Rather than hiding, buried down deep as usual, my feelings stayed thick in my consciousness all the rest of the evening.  I did some more work on a project I'm trying to finish.  I read more up-to-the-minute analysis at the FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics websites.  I listened to the song I am supposed to sing lead on this Sunday at Mt. Level.  I read and meditated on lectionary texts from the past few weeks, especially the Prophets.  I chatted with a friend who helps hold me up.  I got a report of one of Everly's cousins' having passed away in hospice.  I listened to more music, finally getting back to one of my fall back artists, Bruce Cockburn.  And this morning, the mood remains.

Identifying why moods come and go is never as easy as I would wish.  If I could find the simple cause and effect, I guess I imagine that I could take charge of this embodied self and put me back on an even keel.  Hanging around long enough, knowing Everly for so long and her far greater familiarity with the stirrings and proddings of emotion, has taught me enough that I don't tend to react with an overwhelming effort to suppress.  My upbringing taught me to own the feelings as mine and stop looking for ways to blame them on something or someone outside of me, and I think I do a fair job of avoiding that.

A situation like this one really comes with a complex set of events and changes going on.  Naomi is in the final lap of finishing her dual masters degrees, and I feel the pressure she is under.  I'm at that point of the semester when all my unfinished work is piling up on me, with deadlines I hope I can meet.  As has often been the case, I puzzle in such times about whether what I am doing now is the best I could be doing for my calling to follow Jesus.  Naomi will be job hunting, and she may soon need to move out of the house we share to take up her calling.  W.D. is living far from all of us in Salado, and I wish there were a simple solution to his not being isolated.  It's quite a few things, and not any one of them.

The uncertainty, volatility, and hatefulness of the election season also takes a toll on me, and I can't help being afraid of what some results might lead to.  I have no delusions of American exceptionalism or divine destiny being fulfilled as the USA becomes the Kingdom of God.  I believe the opposite.  The sins of this nation, piled up, reach to the sky like a tower of Babel.  Trust in false gods of violence and wealth, oppression on every side while most of us enjoy such ease--"Woe to those who are at ease in Zion."  Almost all of the hope I can muster looks to the local possibilities of working for the common good.  At the national and state level, it too often seems like our work is defending people from the worst that leaders can do, holding off the extremes of greed, violence, and indifference.  I've cast my vote toward not stepping deeper into a cesspool of hatred for so many whom God loves, regardless of where they were born or how they pray.  One election can't transform this world into something it has no desire to be, and comparing options for least bad outcomes takes a toll on our hearts if we long for justice and beloved community.  That's my discouragement talking today.

As I write, I realize that four years ago, Everly was able to vote in the election, there in Salado, Texas.  So much has changed since then, and as months pass, the cumulative effects continue to unfold.  My beautiful David, Naomi, and Lydia keep progressing through their adult lives, passing through challenges and victories, and I wish she could touch them and tell them how proud she is and give them little trinkets of her affection.  She can't do that, and she couldn't go to her cousin's bedside, as he did for her in 2013.  His classically Southern name, Ben Tom, to distinguish him from uncles named Ben and Tom and another cousin named Ben, matched perfectly with a gentle, loving Southern way of caring for and encouraging others.  May God receive him in glory and love, and may the family know the presence of God in these days.  I am a witness--God will never leave you or forsake you!

Election days, if we can get ourselves out of the boxing ring and the horse race long enough, are days on which we think about the world that is coming: weeks, months, years ahead.  How do our choices, made in anger and rage or in lust and greed, shape the future lives of child workers in Bangladesh, fast-food workers who have to apply for welfare, and young men and women who will be sent to die for someone's profit margin and vacation home?  May we face this day with appropriate sobriety, and may our hope rest somewhere beyond the battle of Demicans and Republicrats whose record of caring for the poor and outcast, the marginalized and the worker, has been dismal at best.  May those elected catch a glimpse of the grace in which they stand, and may their endurance produce character, and may character give rise to a hope that does not disappoint.  Is it too much to ask?

Why I'm Not Mad at Colin Kaepernick

There is a modern form of religious fervor known as nationalism.  It is a doctrine which holds that the place of one's birth deserves one's ultimate loyalty and devotion.  The cardinal virtue called forth by nationalism is patriotism, displayed through emotionally charged commitment to love nation and its symbols.  The liturgical practice of nationalism involves postures of reverence and obeisance to symbols such as the national flag, enthusiastic singing of hymns and anthems to the nation, and recitation of creeds such as the pledge of allegiance.

While standard Americanized Christian theology has found it easy to merge devotion to God and Country, my own understanding of following Jesus can't help finding contrasting and conflicting visions of the proper loyalties and loves required by nationalism and Christian faith.  The assumption that the modern fiction of borders should create divisions of ontological hostility--meaning that it is right for me to love and support people on my side of a border and wrong of me to equally love and support people on the other side of a border--contradicts most of what the New Testament teaches.  Moreover, adopting a stance of suspicion, fear, and animosity toward those across the border, which much nationalistic religion seems to affirm, requires a Christian to disavow the very virtues that the Lord exhibited and taught.

While Jesus observed among his closest followers a kind of ethnocentrism that is akin to nationalism, he took numerous opportunities to challenge their prejudices.  When they would have preferred to walk around the territory of Samaria, Jesus walked straight through it.  While they would have avoided talking with a Samaritan woman, he was direct and friendly in acknowledging the common humanity they shared.  While they would have denied sharing the good news of Jesus' transformative ministry among neighboring peoples, Jesus lampooned their views by first refusing the request of the Syro-Phoenecian woman, then granting it with compassion and respect for her faith.  There are other examples from Jesus' life and words, but let these suffice to point toward a refusal on Jesus' part to let human-constructed ethnic and national boundaries determine who we should and should not love.

In the New Testament Epistle to the Ephesians, a crucial text further addresses the ways that human beings divide themselves into antagonistic groups.  Ephesians 2:11-22 draws the focus upon the divisions that exist between Jews and Gentiles.  The writer asserts that in the work of Christ, those "who were once far off have been brought near."  The made-up and hyped-up reasons that would keep groups apart have become nothing.  Jesus "is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us."  Whatever sorts of ethnic, linguistic, nationalistic barriers that human beings want to erect have been made irrelevant by the love of God in Jesus Christ.

The book of Ephesians is talking about ecclesiology, that is, about what the church is supposed to be.  When people become part of God's family, when they become part of one body, when they are joined together into the household of God, the other kinds of divisions take on a very different meaning.  They are no longer excuses for domination of some by others.  They cannot justify violent behavior; on the contrary, in Jesus' dying, he is, "putting to death that hostility."  They exist as the beautiful mosaic of divine blessing in the world:  not as reasons to resent and reject one another.

Thus, the church should not know boundaries.  If you are a brother or sister of mine, regardless of what political power wants to claim you within its borders, we are in the same church.  If you are my sister or brother, my duty is to care for you and seek your good.  Jesus has set out to "create in himself one humanity in place of the two, thus making peace."  A Christian church should know no nationalisms, no ethnocentrisms, no jingoisms.  When two modern nation-states enter into conflict and war, a faithful church would refuse to join that cause.  The loyalty of the church and its members should be transnational, because we are "no longer strangers and aliens," but one family.

A key difference between the demands of the calling of Christ and the demands of the calling to patriotic nationalism can be found in Jesus' own words in the Gospel of John 15:13.  "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."  Jesus' understanding of love, demonstrated in his own resistance to the empire and its oppression toward the poor and outcast, was to continue his resistance until he was arrested, tried, tortured, and executed as an enemy of the state.  He laid down his life.  Along the way, people suggested he should take up the sword, but he refused.

Here is the difference.  Nationalism asks me to be willing to lay down my life, but first it asks me to be willing to kill other people.  Being willing to die for one's friends is not the same as being willing to kill for national interest.  The religion of nationalism calls for a full sacrifice of one's life and of one's conscience and character.  As a follower of the Prince of Peace, I must not submit to a wholly contradictory vision of the world in which I am expected to be a killer. 

So for decades I have not offered anthemic devotion to country by singing "The Star Spangled Banner."  Nor have I made an idolatrous pledge of allegiance to affirm my ultimate loyalty to the god of nation and war.  A song which glorifies the technology of war and the steadily operating machinery of death asks me to turn from the way of Jesus.

Colin Kaepernick's reasoning is not the same as what I have offered so far.  He is not addressing a conflicting pair of faiths as I have described and advocating what I am--conscientious objection to war.  He is not directly questioning devotion to country as a high ideal.  Kaepernick is protesting for the sake of the high ideals of country--he is expressing a longing for the ideals to become reality.  He is asking for a nation of high ideals, such as equal justice before the law, equal opportunity, and due process of law, to live up to those ideals.  On these matters, I agree with him.  To refuse ultimate loyalty to the nation and to reject the religion of nationalism does not mean that I also reject any good that might rise from the political community of humanity here in the United States.  The ideals of justice, of equality, and of fairness are ideals I also hold.  I appreciate the good that I receive from being a citizen of this nation, and I long for the goodness to overcome the many ways this nation has fallen short of its ideals.  

This particular song upheld as the national anthem was originally written with multiple stanzas.  In public events, people sing only the first stanza.  There is a third stanza which has stirred significant controversy as historians have studied it.  It speaks of vengeance against the enemies, particularly those who as "hirelings and slaves" have spread their "foul footstep's pollution" on the "land of the free and the home of the brave."  Frances Scott Key was a slaveholder, and while fighting in a previous battle at Bladenburg, his troops faced and were defeated by the British who were employing escaped slaves to join in the war with the promise of emancipation.  Some historians argue that Key held a special resentment and hatred toward these slaves fighting for their freedom, which he expresses in this stanza.  Other historians dispute that conclusion, and Key recorded no commentary on the meaning or context of these particular words.  It seems to me to be a compelling argument, and it adds another reason to question the practice of singing such a song with patriotic fervor.

Political dissent is at the core of what it takes for human beings to do better toward one another.  People must be able to articulate and challenge the failures of society to live up to its ideals.  The often unspoken, yet original sin of racism and white supremacy continues to bear fruit of bitterness in the United States.  Challenging the ways that social behaviors fall short of moral aspirations is the duty of those who have eyes to see and a voice to speak.  There was a time in our family's life when my beloved Everly asked me the question that must not be so different from the one Colin Kapernick heard echoing in his own conscience:  "How will we explain our inaction to our children when they ask us why these things have happened in our community?"  The only answer we could have given would be that we had failed our morality, failed our conscience, failed our God.  So we did what we knew we had to do.

I am pretty sure Colin does not think his kneeling is going to suddenly make injustice go away.  But if no one asks the hard questions, demands a hearing, and ultimately enacts resistance in public, there will be no chance of seeing change come.  No doubt, he realizes as other who risk to take a stand against the dominant ways that more people will misunderstand and be hurt than will be awakened and inspired.  There really isn't any easy way to confront systemic injustice.  People will get angry.  They will accuse you of the opposite of what you are trying to do.  But in the words of Nobel laureate Bob Dylan,

You may be a state trooper, you might be a young Turk.
You may be the head of some big TV network.
You may be rich or poor; you may be blind or lame.
You may be living in another country under another name.

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes you are.
You're gonna have to serve somebody.
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord,
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

I pray for all of us that we can get clear on who it is we are going to serve.  As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.  Let me invite you to do the same.  I ain't mad with Colin Kaepernick. 
 

A World Fit for Naomi

This is the second reflection/sermon on the horrible violence that continues in our world, preached last Sunday after a week in which police killings of black men rocked Baton Rouge and Minnesota followed by a mass killing targeting white police officers in Dallas.  Some preachers may try to deal with such events by simply continuing to preach on topics already scheduled, ignoring current events.  That seems all wrong to me.  Biblically and theologically, it is a season that calls for lament.  Lament is an honest crying out to God for an accounting and for divine action and presence in the midst of all that is going wrong in the world. 

These deaths, though remote from Durham, still can be personal to each of us in a variety of ways.  We may know someone who has suffered in the same way.  We may know someone who is in the same kind of work.  Or we may have found ourselves in a similar situation such that "there go I, but by the grace of God."  One of my connections on this day was my daughter's birthday; thus, the title represents my struggle with hopes and fears for her life, the lives of my other children, and the lives of so many more who must face dangers and aggressive evil in the world.

As I have done several times recently, I draw on multiple texts from the Revised Common Lectionary to piece together a narrative and argument.  I suspect that this time that the centrifugal force of my anger and hurt have led me to be more "all over the place" than I usually let myself be.  If at times it seems that I am digging down in my knapsack for everything that makes me mad, grant the patience that it also may be an opportunity to speak to as wide as possible a range of different hurts and fears in the congregation.  In retrospect, I have never had so many mothers and women come to offer their thanks and appreciation for a sermon when it ended as this past Sunday.  May that be a learning opportunity for me about how I flesh out an argument when I preach.

Amos 7:7-9, 12-13

7:7 This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand.

7:8 And the LORD said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A plumb line." Then the Lord said, "See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by;

7:9 the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword."

…

7:12 And Amaziah said to Amos, "O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there;

7:13 but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom."

Colossians 1:9-14

1:9 For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

1:10 so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.

1:11 May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully

1:12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.

1:13 He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,

1:14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Psalm 82

82:1 God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:

82:2 "How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah

82:3 Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.

82:4 Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked."

82:5 They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk around in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

82:6 I say, "You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you;

82:7 nevertheless, you shall die like mortals, and fall like any prince."

82:8 Rise up, O God, judge the earth; for all the nations belong to you!

…that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.  May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power.

 

A World Fit for Naomi

to Bear Fruit in Every Good Work

         I was eager when asked to preach on July 10, a special day in our house.  Naomi was born down the road at Duke Hospital on July 10, 1989.  A couple of things immediately went through my mind, perhaps not in this order.  First, I thought it would be an opportunity to reflect on Naomi, and so many other Mt Level children, as a gift of God to us.  Second, I thought it would give me a chance to tell an embarrassing story about her.  Well, I would not really want to embarrass her too bad.

         Naomi came into the world full of energy and joy.  Many of y’all know her for her grace in worshipful dance, but you may not know that she started practicing her dancing almost as soon as she could walk.  There was a time when she would take a bite of food, climb out of her chair and dance a loop from room to room in the house, then climb back up to continue her meal.  She also was a very creative child in making up words to suit her understanding of the world.  One of those words was the name she called me for a while.  We don’t really know why she combined the words Mommy and Daddy to come up with “Momdy.”  But for a while, when she was 2 yrs old, I was Momdy.  Well I could go on and on, but telling stories on Naomi is not my main purpose today.

         Many of you could easily start in telling fun and funny stories about family memories.  Even when life is hard, families and children can show resilience in finding ways to be joyful together.  We can thank God for making us able to be resilient and to see that life need not be judged by its worst moments.  It’s not always easy to see that.  In the deepest periods of my grief over Everly’s illness and death, you all stood by me.  You saw me step into this pulpit and struggle to speak, even weep at times.  I felt like I had become the crying preacher.  And I’m not sure that today is going to change that pattern. 

Today is a day of sorrow, a day for worship through lament.

         “How can we sing the songs of Zion in a strange land?” the Psalmist cried having lost home, family, and everything else she or he loved.

         “How long, O Lord?” the prophets asked, watching the injustices of the world.

         It’s been a week for calling out to God.   In Baton Rouge, a man was already pinned to the ground and still shot.  In St. Paul, a man cooperating with the officer who stopped him was still shot.  Alton Sterling and Philando Castile—two people’s lives were taken from them, from their families and communities.  As people began to rise in the liturgy of protest across the nation, another mass shooting took place in Dallas, targeting police officers.  Five died:  Lorne Ahrens, Brent Thompson, Michael Smith, Michael Krol, and Patrick Zamarippa.  How many lives must be lost to the evils of racial fear and hatred, God?  How long can this go on?

Every name points to a family, to moms and dads, to sons and daughters, to brothers and sisters.  Bullets have destroyed relationships, traumatized loved ones.  Our hearts break when we hear a boy crying for his daddy, when we hear a little girl trying to comfort her mother.  And it’s only human that we start thinking about our own loved ones.  What kind of world is this for our children and grandchildren?  What kind of world is this for the young people who live on our blocks and in our neighborhoods?  Is this a world fit for Naomi?  I know it’s not the world I want for her.

The reading from the Prophet Amos reminds us that too often the world has not lived up to God’s standards for justice.  He tells about a vision in which he sees the Lord holding a construction tool.  The tool is a plumbline.  It’s a simple tool that relies on the force of gravity, and it has been used at least back into the days of ancient Egypt.  The plumbline, sometimes called a plumb bob, combines a weight and a cord or string to measure whether a beam or other element of a building project is vertical, whether it is perpendicular to the ground.  This is similar in its function to a tool many of us may have used or seen, a level.  A level usually is used to judge whether a beam is horizontally level, and it actually also operates through the force of gravity.  When a builder hangs a plumbline, gravity causes it to hang straight toward the gravitational center of the earth.  The string forms a straight vertical line that can be used to measure whether a wall is being squared up properly to build a strong and stable structure.  If the structure is out of line with the plumbline, then it needs to be corrected.

So when Amos sees this vision of the Lord using a plumbline, it is a vision in which God is taking a measure of whether Israel is lined up the way it should be.  God is checking to see whether the structures of Israel have gotten out of whack.  Has Israel become crooked?  Are Israel’s public officials, rulers, and other powerful people out of line, bent, and twisted?  God is not going to ignore a misaligned society, according to Amos.  The rulers and religious institutions are in for an inspection, and being found to be crooked and out of whack, they will have to be set right.  Some boards and masonry may have to be knocked down so they can be rebuilt the right way.  Some people in charge will have to be replaced.

If we were to read the whole book of Amos, we would find that a wealthy class has conspired with the rulers and the priests to let greed win out over justice.  The poor are suffering.  They are becoming slaves in service of an oppressive ruling class.  The systems of political and economic justice that God had given to Israel have been ignored and discarded.  Israel has gotten out of whack, and the priests and prophets who should be upholding the law and looking out for the people are themselves in on the corrupt system.  Amaziah, high priest of Bethel, is angry with Amos for criticizing the temple and the king.  He challenges Amos for daring to speak against the house of worship and against the king.  He says that Amos should not say such things in the king’s sanctuary.

Does Amaziah not understand what he is saying?  Isn’t the house of worship dedicated to God?  Isn’t it God’s house?  Yet Amaziah says it belongs to the king.  He calls it a temple of the kingdom.  Help us, Lord, if we have become the king’s sanctuary and a temple of the kingdom.  Help us if we have become the governor’s sanctuary and the temple of the General Assembly. 

Are we unwilling to speak the truth in our churches because we dare not offend the powerful?  Do we believe our preachers have crossed the line if they criticize the mayor, the manager, the governor, the legislators, the board chair, the police chief, or the sheriff?  Have we gathered here to worship the social structures and the status quo as if whatever is happening in political and economic life is the will of God? 

Lord, give us the courage and hard-headedness of Amos!  He told Amaziah that he was neither a prophet (by which he probably meant a well-trained messenger from God, perhaps from the priesthood like Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and others) nor was he the son of a prophet (by which he probably  meant a disciple or trainee working under a prophet).  He was a farmworker who did not let his particular job nor his lack of training  keep him from doing what God sent him to do.  Let us be ready, whether we are trained prophets or not, to speak the truth God gives us to the powers that oppress and abuse people.  The plumbline does not lie.  Social forces have warped the world we are in and gotten it all out of line.  It’s not producing and protecting justice.  God is expecting us, like Amos, to stand up for justice.

Psalm 82 creates a dramatic portrayal of God’s judgment upon the bent and crooked systems and structures of our world.  It describes an imaginary divine council, as if there were a pantheon of gods who came together to argue and negotiate the fate of the world.  It was not uncommon to believe such a thing possible in the ancient world, with the common assumption that every group of people, every tribe or nation, had its own patron god.  Some of the Bible’s stories imply that the various gods battle against one another for territory and for devotion.  According to this Psalm, a council of divinities has gathered, and in walks the God of Israel.  When God walks in, the politics of the meeting change. 

It says God claimed the seat of judgment.  That would seem to be the highest place.  This telling of the story quickly makes it seem that those who would pretend to be gods are being put in their place.  Having taken the seat of judgment, God speaks to principalities and powers gathered there.

How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah

Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.

Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

This Psalm helps us to understand what is out of line from Amos’s vision of the plumbline.

         First, it says they are judging unjustly.  The decisions made by powerful people are showing partiality.  The wicked thrive because the legal system is twisted to help the powerful.  Bribes and influence peddling are distorting the fair distribution of goods among the people.  Abuses and oppression slip through the courts, and no one is held accountable for clearly unjust acts.  The Psalmist calls out all who are abusing the system to benefit some and harm most.  With Amos and the Psalmist, we must stand up against an unjust legal system.  Whether the abuses happen in the North Carolina General Assembly, in the US Congress, in the police department, in the district court, in the banks, in the boardrooms, in the jailhouse, in the fast food chain, in the immigrant detention center, in the housing authority, in the big box stores, or in the social services department—the time has come to change the way things are being done.

         Second, the Psalmist names our duty as “giving justice.”  People deserve better than they are getting.  There is a right response to human dignity and a right response to wrongdoing.  The right response is justice.  When justice is denied, society starts to crumble.  The efforts of the powerful and wealthy to benefit themselves without care for others will eventually destroy the system which is benefiting them.  An unjust social order destroys itself from within, but the tragedy is how many people are harmed and even killed by injustice while the corrupted system remains in place.  The antidote to this road to destruction is to restore a system of justice for all.  With Amos and the Psalmist, we have to fight back against unjust laws and unjust conduct of the legal system.  Those who do wrong should face consequences and have opportunities to repent and change their ways.  Those who have been abused should be restored to their just and joyful state of living. We have to take to the streets and to the halls of decision-making to be faithful to God.  Seeking revenge is no form of justice, but a continuing corruption and expansion of injustice. 

         Having said to give justice, the Psalmist restates this charge with additional demands.  The Psalm has God telling the others gathered in the council to “maintain the right” of the ones who are being abused.  Giving justice is not only setting things right that have already gone wrong.  It is also promoting a system in which justice is the standard operating procedure.  It is making sure people have what is rightly theirs before they become destitute.  Extending the availability of health care to tens of millions more people is an attempt to maintain the right.  Yet if the laws are flawed and create opportunities for powerful corporations and their executives to overcharge for drugs and medical procedures, there is still much more to be done.  If the system continues to shut out millions of people, to allow medical bankruptcy to be the most common form of bankruptcy, and to use medical care as an ideological tool for party politics rather than a cause of justice, there is still much more for us to do.  God’s gift of health to creation should not go to the highest bidder nor be denied to those whose jobs pay less than a living wage.

         Part of our duty, according to the Psalmist, is to rescue and deliver the poor and needy from the hands of the wicked.  Whether it is the abuse of usury through payday loans charging 300% to 700% interest, or the speculative real estate deals that put renters out of affordable housing to redevelop neighborhoods for gentrification, or the high risk financial transactions that led to a worldwide economic crash that put hard-working people out of jobs and homes, we must be about the work of rescue and deliverance.  We can’t sit idly by and watch governments that bail out supersized banks, that allow the very people who destroyed the economy to continue getting richer rather than go to jail, and that leave unemployed people without health care, without homes, and without hope for a job that pays a living wage.  We have to open our hands, our buildings, our pantries, and our wallets to those who have been put out, cast aside, nickeled and dimed, and kicked to the curb.  The work to rescue those harmed by the injustices of the world is part of the work of giving justice.

Third and finally, we should note that the Psalmist is naming the ones who are being abused and should be given justice.  The list includes the weak, the orphan, the lowly, the destitute, the needy.  Just to make sure, the Psalmist mentions the weak twice.  The point is that some have access to the halls of power and others do not.  The ones who have had to depend on a just social order to protect them are now being abused.  Their weakness is not a lack of ability or strength, but it is a lack of connections, of access, and of anyone to call on for help.  They are not in the noble families.  They don’t have money to grease the palms of those who might help them.  They lack many basic necessities.  They are deprived of what any person must have to thrive and flourish.  Symbolic of this kind of weakness is the orphan.  Lacking parents, the protection of orphans falls to other family members or community members, and orphans find themselves subject to the whims and indifference of society.  The plumbline shows that the treatment of these people fails the test of verticality—the way they are treated is not upright.  With Amos and the Psalmist, we must take the side of those who are being oppressed and work together for justice.

This imaginary council of gods has failed to measure up to God’s standards for justice.  So God reminds them of their true nature.  While they imagine themselves to be gods, they are not.  They are mortal.  Their end will come.  Like every human institution and government, they will fall.  Then the Psalmist concludes the Psalm by praising God and proclaiming the truth about who God is.  “Rise up, O God, and judge the earth; for all the nations belong to you!”  It’s not a council of equals, a group of gods in competition.  It’s a room full of pretenders who must now face the only true God.  The Psalmist calls for God to rise and judge the powers and principalities, the thrones and dominions, the rulers and authorities, the pretenders and posers and wannabes.

As I pointed out earlier, often the Bible presents the idea that the various nations may have their gods in competition with the God of Israel.  We tend not to think quite that same way about the nations and the gods, although perhaps we are not as far from that world as we think.  But it is definitely true that if we examine the ways that we act, it seems like we expect to find rescue and salvation in the world.  There are clearly many gods in our imagination.  These pretenders, these false gods, find their social embodiment among the governmental, corporate, patriarchal, and intellectual structures and systems of our world.  We look to these powers for salvation, although we seldom use that language.  We keep the salvation language locked up in church, but we live as if we still need many more saviors outside the halls of worship.

Who in our day are the gods gathered in council?  What are the names of the gods offering us salvation from the challenges of our lives?  What powers are we calling on to get a leg up and prove ourselves better than others?  The Psalmist reminds us that no matter what idols and false gods the world is calling on for salvation, only one God is the true judge and savior of the world.

Only a week ago, across this city and the nation people elevated an idol in their churches by pledging allegiance, not to the God of Jesus Christ, but to the flag.  Many sang songs of war and battle to demonstrate their hope for salvation rooted in the nation and its military might.  The idea of America has become a doctrine of salvation.  It is a belief that by spreading the power and influence of this country, the world will be saved.  Statements of faith about “the greatest country in the world” accompany a theological understanding of America as God’s chosen nation.  These unbiblical and heretical ideas penetrate into institutions that pose as churches, but instead act as the king’s sanctuary, the temple of the kingdom.  Amaziahs all over this country seek to silence the prophets and protect the status quo of power that has its origins in genocide of the native peoples and enslavement of Africans.  God is judging the idols of nationalism and calling us to justice.

Another god of our time is whiteness.  Pale skin functions as a sign of chosenness, a sign of destiny, a sign of superiority in our world.  Darker skin remains a sign to many of condemnation, of evil, and of danger.  Thus some like Dylan Roof rest their faith in protecting the white race by seeking to kill the descendents of Africans, even as they gather in church.  Others with less overt in their racist ideas continue to act out this same worship by labeling children like Trayvon, and Tamir, and Michael, as a menace, as a threat, as a monster.  The fiction of race has had deadly consequences for half a millennium, and it remains a powerful doctrine of salvation expressed in the aphorism, “If you’re white, you’re right.”  The differential treatment of people of color in the legal system and through mass incarceration has given rise to the phrase, “the new Jim Crow.”  One way or another, the legal system seems committed to salvation through destruction and degredation of dark-skinned people.  God is judging the idols of whiteness and racism and calling us to justice.

Another false god of our day is the gun.  The NRA has steadily repeated its religious mantra of salvation that the only way to stop bad people with guns is to have more guns in the hands of good people.  The gun is the means of salvation.  Arm everyone with all sorts of powerful weapons, and this idol tells us we will be safer and more able to defeat evil.  What else is a gun but an instrument of violence?  Some might demand that I do homage to hunting and the long heritage of providing meat for the table.  I can acknowledge that without being turned away from the truth that people who are buying and gathering guns are doing so out of fear that they will have to try to protect themselves from marauding enemies, either from beyond our borders or already within our borders.  Guns are being offered as a way to be saved from immigrants, criminals, and jihadists.  They tell us that guns don’t kill people; people kill people.  But guns make it so much faster and easier for people to kill people.  I would have to reply that guns don’t save people; love saves people.  God is judging the idols of guns and gun violence and calling us to justice.
         Another false god of our time is the border wall.  Some would claim that America can be saved, and all of us with it, if we could just keep out all the foreign people trying to undermine our prosperity and society.  The reasons given are differences of language, differences of culture, differences of religion, and scarcity of the goods that everyone needs.  If we can keep out the outsiders, we’ll be saved.  The God of Jesus Christ has invited all outsiders to come and be part of God’s peoples—all of us who are Gentiles are welcome.  Keeping people out is not God’s way.  God is judging the idols of xenophobia (fear of outsiders) and racial and religious hatred, and calling us to justice.

The Psalmist says the gods were gathered in council, so there must have been many of them present.  Who else was there?  There is the god of money that promises us if we can get enough, we will have everything that we need.  Of course, we always need just a little more.  It is a false doctrine of salvation.  There is the god of superficial, chauvinist Christianity that twists the faith of a peaceable, non-violent Jesus into a call for holy war against Islam.  Yet we are called to love our enemies.  It is a false doctrine of salvation.  There is the god of virility and sexual conquest that promotes male sexual domination to prove one’s power in the world.  Elevating oneself by harming others is ultimately destructive of oneself.  Patriarchal power over women is a false doctrine of salvation.  There is the false god of fortified bathrooms.  Fearing what they do not understand about the variety of sexuality in creation, people grasp at harmful solutions to complicated issues requiring understanding and reconciliation.  Hate Bill 2 is a false doctrine of salvation.  There is the false god of consumption that says we can be somebody if we wear the right labels on our clothes, drive the right vehicles, eat the right foods, join the right clubs, and in every way stay abreast of the trends.  But this neverending consumption in fact consumes us until we disappear into our possessions.  Consumption is a false doctrine of salvation.  There is a false god of respectability.  It tells us that if we just go along to get along, if we keep showing ourselves to be respectful and respectable, we will be saved from the dangers of the abuse of power.  Respectability discourages protest.  It tells the young people to go home and stop talking about “Black Lives Matter.”  It looks for fault in the ones who have been abused, as a way to prove to ourselves that it can’t happen to us.  But this week and the past two years are sure reminders that respectability is a false doctrine of salvation.

         The gods gathered in council are not saviors.  They are idols, bent on using and abusing us for our own destruction.  They distract us from the trust in God that we ought to have by urging us to trust in idols, in salvation by other means.  They discourage us from standing up for the truth of God’s salvation because we are too busy trying to earn a false salvation that promises everything but delivers death.  Guns, money, nationalism, whiteness, and every other false god only draw us away from the one true God who is demanding that we live justly, love mercy, and walk in God’s way.

         The Psalmist’s description of God’s judgment and victory among the false gods of this world is a foreshadowing of the victory of Jesus over the powers and authorities.  Our text from Colossians today speaks about how the people in that church and in that city have grown in their faith and in following the ways of Jesus to the point that they are bearing much fruit for God.  Their love and their faithfulness to Jesus’ ways have become well known.  Since we know Jesus and we know what the Psalmist has written here, we can infer that their bearing of fruit must also include a flourishing of justice in their community.

         Beyond the first chapter of Colossians, Paul goes on to write about the victory of Christ over evil.  He says that the thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities, and powers are subject to Christ because they are part of the creation that Christ himself accomplished.  Moreover, through his cross and resurrection he has disarmed them and made a public example of them.  He has judged them and now rules over them.  God’s purpose for the structures and institutions of human life is that they contribute to our flourishing, that they serve the good of humanity and all creation, that they give justice to all God’s children.  So just as the Psalmist says, now Paul repeats that we must be about the work of giving justice and maintaining the right, rescuing and delivering the unjustly treated.

         Joining Paul in his prayer for the Colossians, I also pray for our world to be this kind of world.  Although many who seek their own benefit and ignore the good of others are at work to twist this world away from justice, the work of Christ among the Colossians reminds us of the hope for transformation of a corrupted world into a community of love and mutual service.  That is the world that I pray and I work to send my children into.  It is the world that we as God’s people long for.  It is a world in which Naomi can bear fruit in every good work.  Through our prayers and devotion to the God of Jesus Christ, the seeds of that fruit and that good work are planted in her heart and in the hearts of Mt. Level’s children.  Yet we have seen horrifying reminders this week of the continuing struggle against evil, against the false gods and idols of our day, and against the forces that would turn us and our children away from our calling.

         Thus, we continue to join with Paul in his prayer for the Colossians that they will be made strong with all the strength that comes from God’s glorious power.  We will need strength to face the evil at work in our world.  We will need strength to break through the intense misunderstandings and divisions that keep people at odds over race, class, guns, money, and power.  We will need strength to get out of bed day after day to take up the cross of Jesus and live for justice in an unjust world.  We will need strength to love when it seems hate is winning the day.

         Our hope rests in the power of the God of Jesus Christ, who has, as Paul tells the Colossians, “rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”  As he has rescued us, now we are sent into an unjust world to continue his work.  Jesus has redeemed us.  Jesus has forgiven us.  That is the world into which we may enter:  the loving fellowship of Jesus, a world of redemption, a world of forgiveness.  That is a world fit for our children to respond to the calling to give justice.