Hello again!
If you're wondering what happened to me...I have been away. Far away...across the Atlantic enjoying a break from my every day to spend time visitng friends and family in France. It was nice to be removed from regularly being exposed to the horrors happening in the country, but I wasn't sealed off in a bubble. I did still have access to the internet. And that means I saw stories from home getting posted on Facebook.
The worst one was the report about the 50 Florida Highway Patrol cruisers along with several unmarked cars and a massive police force of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents descended upon a construction site in Tallahassee between the two major universities the day before we were coming back. The purpose was to terrorize the Latino/a population of the city, but the practical effect meant that construction workers all over the city went home out of fear that they would be the next arrests.
Out of 100 or so arrests, only four got booked into the Leon County jail. Many were eventually released. And still others can't be found. Thanks to Secretary of State Marco Rubio (a Floridian who might as well be called an "anchor baby" since his own parents immigrated to the USA from Cuba before Castro's revolution), thousands of men and women have had their temporary worker permits and other documentation cancelled because.......
Well....because....we're now going to ciminalize being brown and a foreigner.
Seeing this news made me want to stay in France. Never come back to the USA...until we get rid of this regime once and for all.
But I knew that wasn't possible.
And God seems to have a purpose for me here. Maybe to deliver sermons to a small Congregation in Southwest Georgia. See what you think.
Text: John 17: 20-26
+++
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to
please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I
am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know
that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know
nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be
lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and
You will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen.
That prayer by the
American monk and theologian Thomas Merton is called “A Prayer of Unknowing.”
I’ve used it before…and
find that I go back to it from time to time.
And it seemed like the
perfect prayer for this particular Sunday…in which we are in this liminal space
not only in our church time…and also where we are in our current moment in this
country.
The church calendar
tells us that we’re in this suspended moment between the Day of the
Ascension…the day that Jesus makes his final ascent to sit at the right hand of
God…and the celebration of Pentecost next Sunday…which is when the Holy
Spirit…that third person of the Trinity…will make a dramatic entrance and serve
in that role as that guiding conscience…and spirit of truth and courage for
those who are believers in Christ.
In our Gospel reading
from John this Sunday…what we’ve heard is the final portion of a very long
prayer that Jesus offered to the disciples right before his crucifixion.
This final farewell in
John’s Gospel stretches over about three and half chapters. It serves as
Jesus’s last pep talk to his followers…reminding them that to love one another
as he has loved.
To remember the source
of that love that he has shown them is none other than the love that comes from
God the Father.
He wants them to hold
it in their hearts that the greatest love they can show is that love that isn’t
self-serving and selfish…but reaches out and gives comfort and
support…especially to those who find themselves down and despondent.
These words…that John
has Jesus speaking…were not just meant for disciples of Jesus gathered with him
in the Upper Room in Jerusalem.
This was an important
and necessary speech for the followers of Jesus that made up John’s community
in 100 CE…about 70 years after the crucifixion.
These were the very
early Christians…both Jews and Gentiles…the ones who were beginning to be
identified as Christians…who were living at a time where they felt their world
was crashing down around them.
At the time that John
was writing this Gospel…the early followers of Jesus were in a very difficult
spot.
They’d been hoping that
Jesus would have ushered in a new Messianic age.
Instead…they had
endured and survived a brual war with the Roman Empire which ended with the
destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.
And they found
themselves unwelcomed in the synagogues of the Jewish population which didn’t
accept Jesus as Messiah.
So they were a minority
within an already persecuted minority.
We can imagine that
some people might have been falling away from the faith at that point.
So this long prayer of
Jesus in John’s Gospel is there not just to get his disciples in the right
frame of mind for what was coming with the crucifixion.
John wanted his own
community to buck up…be brave…and don’t give into hopelessness…and to continue
to live into the way…the truth and the life that Jesus had shown to those who
believe.
That message was
meaningful then…and it is clearly meant for us now.
Take a look at the way
this passage begins. We hear Jesus pray:
"I ask not
only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe
in me through their word, that they may all be one.” (John 17:20)
If the disciples had
let their fear of the Roman Empire shut them up…if they had let their anxieties
over what the authorities might do to them get in their way of acting…we would
never have known the story of Jesus.
If Peter had just
curled up into a ball of shame and guilt…and if Paul had never had his amazing
conversion experience on the way to Damascus…this Jesus movement might’ve lasted
only for a few years.
If John’s followers had
allowed their depression and their dread to dominate their thoughts and made
them go silent in face of oppression…the Gospel of Jesus would never have
spread beyond Palestine.
This prayer shows us
that it’s through the followers…those who are committed believers in Jesus…people
who’ve been moved and touched by the Christian story…it is through them that God’s
love becomes really real to the greater population.
And it is through our
participation…in hearing this prayer…that God’s love links us to our ancestral
heritage of all the faithful who have come to believe in God through Jesus
Christ.
So this is a prayer
about unity.
Not only unity with the
ancestors and the saints that have gone before us.
This is about bringing
ourselves…our souls…into communion with God.
Feeding our hearts on
the love that is “the Alpha and Omega…the beginning and the end” of all things
(Rev.22:13) and unifying us individually and collectively with the holy.
It also serves as a
prayer of unity right now…in our present moment…bonding us in mutual aid and
affection for one another.
And—boy—do we need that
unity now!
Because there are those
forces that want to divide us and make us fear and hate one another.
They want us to see our
differences—whatever they are—racial…political…gender
identity…orientation…ethnicity…as reasons to pull away from one another.
I was deeply hurt and
angered by a recent raid on a construction site this past week in my city of
Tallahassee.
More than 100 people in
safety vests and neon colored shirts and jeans were arrested and put onto a bus
with no air conditioning…because they were undocumented.
By the end of the day…only
four people were booked into the Leon County jail.
Many others were
released.
And still others were
sent off…even though they are not criminals.
These were people who
were working and contribuiting to society as their asylum claims were getting
processed.
This was an action that
was an overkill of police force…an apparent attempt to cause the maxium amount
of fear in the city…especially among the Latinos and Latinas in the area.
But of course such
things never just touch one segement of the population.
We’re all
interconnected.
What happens to one
group will have ripple effects that touches everyone.
Lots of people…white
people in Tallahassee…and not all of one political camp or the other…were shaken.
All of the construction
projects in Tallahassee screeched to a halt…and now no one feels safe going to
work.
Wives are missing their
husbands.
Children don’t know
what’s happened to their dads.
Again…we see these
words of Jesus in John’s Gospel:
"Righteous Father,
the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent
me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love
with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." (John
17:25-26)
There will always be
those who will attempt to get us to turn on one another…to break our bonds of
unity.
There will always be
efforts to touch those dark corners of our hearts that make us see the
“other”…however we define that “other” for ourselves…as a person or a group of
people to fear.
Don’t give into that
temptation.
Remember the promises
we make at our baptism…to seek and serve Christ in each other…loving our neighbors
as ourselves…striving for justice and peace among all people…and respecting the
dignity of every human being.
This prayer that Jesus
offers…one that is particularly geared toward people who are living in a time
of confusion and uncertainty…is the constant reminder that we have so much more
in common with one another…so much more that unifies us…to each other in the
Body of Christ…and brings our true selves into deeper relationship with God.
This prayer reminds us that
even when we’re uncertain about things going on in our lives…to keep walking in
love…and bringing that love out into the world.
The love that Jesus
demonstrates again and again…a love that knows no “others” and has no black out
dates or exceptions.
That love is OUR
superpower.
Use it.
Live it.
Share it.
In the name of our One
Holy and Undivided Trinity.
No comments:
Post a Comment