“Now What?” Sermon for November 13, 2016 Annesley United Church Markdale, Ontario

 Based upon Isaiah 65:17-25 and Revelation 21:1-4 (Paraphrased)

For I am about to create new heaven and a new earth; the past things shall not be remembered or come to mind. Be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be an infant that lives a few days, or an old person who does not live out a good long life; the one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, the one who falls short of a hundred will be considered cursed. They will build houses and live in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their own fruit. They shall not build and someone else inhabit; they shall not plant and someone else eat; my people’s lives shall be like the days of a tree, and the people shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They will not work in vain, or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be blessed offspring, and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb will eat together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; the food of the serpent will be dust! They will not hurt or destroy anything on all my holy mountain, says God.

Revelation 21:1-4

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them; they will be God’s peoples.
Every tear will be wiped from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”

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Normally, we don’t preach at our own covenanting services. It’s actually usual to have someone else preach. The plan earlier this week was to do a kind of dialogue sermon with Mark Waugh and with you, about the nature of covenant. I knew we were using the Isaiah and Revelation texts and had planned to talk about covenant using those texts.  On Wednesday I emailed Mark to say forget the dialogue bit, I just feel like I need to preach this one.

Preaching, for me, is not about the minister getting up and telling you what to believe or how to believe, what to think or how to think. Part of preaching is about opening a text and helping find meaning and direction – and for me, preaching is about ministers being able to wrestle with their own faith and their own doubts, their fears, anger, and discouragement – together with the congregation – because we do struggle, and sometimes we really just don’t know where to go with something. Where to find some hope, when hope seems to have been destroyed. How to find our way forward when suddenly everything seems so dark and history appears to repeat itself.

Today was supposed to be a hopeful sermon about the new realm, the one we keep hearing about in the New Testament – where the realm of God is right at hand, right around the corner, all we have to do is seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly through this short life. So easy.

And for me these two texts  have always been the ‘bookends’ of the vision – that there’s yet work to do, but we are on the right path, slowly building bridges so we can come together as united humanity. The ‘vision’ is laid out in Isaiah – children and infants will live out a long and healthy life, no one will die young, people will be able to build their own homes and plant their own crops and eat their own food – instead of doing it for someone else while they struggle. Everyone, no matter who, no matter what faith or colour or gender or orientation – everyone, has a place in this vision – and that place is equal in every way. This ‘vision’ is really, for me, the full text of the covenant, the promise made by the one the Hebrews called Yahweh – and we, human beings, were to be co-creators in this vision.

And the Revelation passage, the other ‘bookend’ is the vision accomplished – the new world come about. The old anger and hatreds and prejudices are gone, all the old ways are gone – a new way of being, of living, of relationship.

This week, that vision has gone up in flames. A friend of mine  – of mixed race, wrote “Don’t talk to me any more about building bridges – we’ve tried doing that, and our bridges have just been burnt to the ground.”

So here we are, now – the vision has faded like a mirage in the desert, and now we have to start the walk, all over again, to the promised land – because the mirage wasn’t it. How many years will it take? How can we take any promise seriously any more?

But I have some even harsher questions: did we really think if we just sat and enjoyed our lives, and were good people on the whole, God would somehow bring it about? Do we think that things like screening visitors, immigrants, refugees for ‘Canadian values’ will bring about something better? What are Canadian values? Do we live those values all the time? What about a new “House Un-American Activities” office in the FBI – which has already been proposed? Do we think the bigotry and anger we are seeing there won’t touch us here? Do we think that these activities will bring about the vision in the covenant?

A colleague of mine, Kathy Donley, writes about the preaching of one of her African-American colleagues – that God makes a Way out of No Way. “After the sea has been crossed, after the people have returned from exile, after the abolition of slavery, after women and then people of colour get the right to vote,” - ….after same-gender couples get the freedom to marry, after people of all religions and colours are truly part of the fabric of life,….. “THEN we can see that there was a Way made out of No Way. When you are on this side of ‘No Way, this side of the unthinkable which is happening yet again, it is entirely different to affirm with a whole heart, - a Way will be made out of No Way.” I don’t know any more. I honestly don’t know. 

As I was scoping some of this sermon on Friday, while driving the highway, I started to cry in the car. I cried for gays, straights, trans-gender, black, Asian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Latino – immigrant and refugee – and I cry for Christians and for myself too – because this isn’t the dream, this isn’t the vision, this isn’t the covenant. It’s everything the promised covenant is not.

I realised through the week that I was first shocked, then stunned, then furious, and finally – angry. I realised I have to pick myself up by the scruff of the neck and recognise that it isn’t going to happen unless we keep going. But this time we have to keep going angry. I don’t mean violent or rude angry – I mean determined-angry, focussed-angry, peaceful-angry, constructive-angry – ready to push back against the unthinkable – but not returning hate for hate, or violence for violence. And that’s hard, because yes there’s a part of me which would like to lash out and hurt. Yes, there is.

What do we do when the unthinkable happens? What in our covenant – our promises of faith – puts us in place to do anything? What do we do in this in-between time, when we have left one place, and we can see the place of the vision, where we need to be – but suddenly there is this enormous yawning and daunting desert in front of us to be crossed before we get there? What do we do when we are now standing in the middle of those ‘first things’, and they’re ugly?

Today – we covenant – as a whole people made up of minister, congregation, presbytery and conference – to lead each other in this wilderness. That means speaking truth regardless of consequence. It means naming hatred, bigotry and racism for exactly what they are. Theologian Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggeman says “What a time for truth-telling! As we all know the world is baffled and confused. It does not know where to turn, because there is so much deception and seduction and manipulation out there. But the mouth that Jesus gives tells the truth, that it may be simple and direct and clear. When faithful, the mouth of the church has always been on the side of justice and mercy and compassion, and against fear and greed and brutality…..and Jesus says to his disciples “If you have courage for truth-telling, you will always get into trouble.” (2)

What about the vision?? Is that unthinkable? That we could have a world where there is economic equality – where people can live in their own homes, grow their own crops for their own consumption instead of being enslaved by markets and economies which leave so many behind? Where everyone has health care and children look forward to living, and old people have plenty of productive years? Where all can sit together to eat, and where the dinner of all those other violent and hurtful and destructive ‘unthinkables’ will be dust?

Where do we go in this in-between time? We can’t go back – that’s not an option now. We can, however, look around us and take stock of how to go forward. Rev. James Eaton in his sermon for today says “What do we do now? Because we know it’s not like that now. The wolves and the lambs are not lying down together now. We are living between the past, and that vision.””Someone has said that the Puritans were so effective because they believed everything depended on God but they acted like everything depended on them.”(3) And James notes that the Rabbis say “Even if the Messiah comes, still finish your Torah study for the day.” Work for the vision is how that vision gets created – it won’t happen without all of us; and that’s where our covenant, our promises here today, come into the picture.  

JRR Tolkien was considered a leading Christian author, who bemoaned not just a lack of Christian values but the lack of plain decent human values, which were not being taught in schools. In the very first story of Lord of the Rings, called “Fellowship of the Ring” the young hobbit, Frodo, is told by Galadriel, the Queen of the Elves, that it is his role to return the One Ring to Mount Doom where it is destroyed so that the lands can live again – no one else can do it. Frodo responds “Then I know what I must do. It’s just, I’m afraid to do it.” Galadriel answers “Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.”

In Hebrew, the verb ‘to create’ is ‘barah; but in the Hebrew scriptures that word is only used about God. In our current theological understandings, that which we call God lives within each person – so my logic tells me that the only way the creation of the vision will happen is if we are truly the hands and feet and mouths and bodies which make it happen. There isn’t going to be some kind of magic event which suddenly makes this desert go away.

So I believe that our covenant, here today, is one of ministry to and with each other , yes – and ministry to and with the community, yes. But to covenant to ministry as a follower of The Way means to speak truth – even if it means we get into trouble for it. We are called to live as People of the Way, and the Way was one of equity, equality, the Hebrew word ‘shalom’, the vision of that time and place in which everyone can sit outside  - as Micah says – in the shade under the fig tree, welcoming others to join us and eat our food and we each learn each others ways, and live in peace, and not afraid. To do that – to bring about that vision which suddenly seems so far away, we must covenant to work actively to ensure that happens.

So my covenant to you today is to speak my truth without fear. It might get me into trouble. But it might also, in this short remaining 5 ½ months, help you to stand and speak against the unthinkables of racism, bigotry, violence, retaliation, war. Because it’s critical for all of us. May it be so.

Sources:

1.      Rev. Kathy Donley, sermon November 13, 2016  “When the Unthinkable Happens”

2.      Walter Brueggeman, The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggeman, Volume 2 (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2015) p. 240-241

3.      Rev. James Eaton, sermon November 13, 2016 “Do Over, Do Now”