Pentecost 26/Proper 27

November 9, 2008
The Ven. Richard I Cluett
Amos 5:18-24 + 1Thessalonians 4:13-18 + Matthew 25:1-13

What a momentous event we have experienced these last days in the United States of America! A black man elected to the highest office in the nation! Would you ever have thought that you would see that happen in your lifetime or the lifetime of your children? So many have waited and hoped for so long to see such a day.

In his election night speech in Chicago’s Grant Park, which itself had been the scene of great in-justice and violence, the president-elect spoke of Ann Nixon Cooper, a 106 years old black woman. He said, “…tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America – the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress” and today she “touched her finger to a screen and cast her vote”. Mrs. Cooper participated in the culmination of a dream that no one ever thought that they would see realized – the fulfillment of the promise of a just and full place in American society for people of color. It is a sign that even if not yet complete, it is well under way.

3000 years earlier, Amos, a dresser of sycamore trees, a shepherd and the prophet of the God of Israel stood on a wind swept hillside and spoke of the injustices of his time and God’s judgment. The names Ahab and Jezebel will forever live in infamy as symbols of the excesses that marked his time. Israelites were losing their land in droves and being sold into slavery. Wealth was be-coming concentrated in the hands of the few. And Amos spoke the Word of God. “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.”

On an August day in 1963, Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and said, “I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed… and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Today some have seen that day; today some have seen the redemption of a people in the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States; today some have seen the fulfill-ment of the dream of independence promised of our forebears and of our God that all men are created equal. So many have waited and hoped for so long to see such a day. Today some have seen.

In the gospel today we have a parable from Jesus about the necessity of waiting and living in Hope; waiting for Kairos, waiting for “God’s Time”, waiting for God to accomplish God’s purposes; and in that waiting time Jesus says, we are to remain faithful; we are to remain vigilant; we are to remain ready; we are to keep working; and we are to keep hope alive.

Who among us has not cried at one or another time, “How long, O Lord? How long must I wait? How long must we wait?”

We live in the here-and-now as if what we hope for in the great bye-and-bye will, in fact, come to pass, and we work to be ready when that Great Day comes. We live in Hope. Hope is what tells us that life is worth going on.

Probably the greatest Oral Historian of our time was Studs Terkel who died a few days ago. For 60 years he has listen to, recorded, annecdoted, reported, and found meaning in the stories of people’s lives: work life, family life, love life, life-changing life, cataclysmic life, war-torn life, and life of epic and historic proportions.

He wrote Will the Circle Be Unbroken, his oral history about death. He finished what was to have been his last book when he was 90. But he didn’t die right away. Instead he learned that after death in the roster of human subjects comes the greatest subject of them all – and one well timed to every moment – Hope.

He had one more book in him, Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Difficult Times. It is a re-minder that in good times, you can do nothing and still have hope, but in bad times, you have to act, take that first small step, in order to hope.

I have two preaching nightmares. One is that I will get to the pulpit and have absolutely nothing to say, and everyone will know that I have lived on borrowed faith much of my life. The second is that the church will be stone cold empty. And then I’ll have to face the questions, “Even if no one else believes, do I believe? Will I hold fast until God’s work, or my work, is done?” I hope so. I am trying.

Today's parable reminds us that it takes more than good intentions.

Many years ago Cornell professor Carl Sagan spoke at a Lehigh Commencement. He urged the graduates to embody – to body forth – what they knew intellectually. Speaking about the state of the eco¬logical environment, he said, "Don't sit this one out. Do something. You are alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet. Do something."

We who believe, who know, who have seen, and have been touched by the power of Christ in our own lives; we are to do something. We are to be signs of God’s presence here and now, the light of God’s presence here and now.

Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal on the death of her colleague Tim Russert, “After Tim's death, the … media for four days told you the keys to a life well lived, the things you actu-ally need to live life well, and without which it won't be good. Among them: taking care of those you love and letting them know they're loved, which involves self-sacrifice; holding firm to God, to your religious faith, no matter how high you rise or low you fall. This involves guts, and self-discipline, and active attention to developing and refining a conscience to whose promptings you can respond. Honoring your calling or profession by trying to do within it honorable work, which takes hard effort, and a willingness to master the ethics of your field. And enjoying life.”

Some signs I see of the kingdom right here and right now: children, youth & adults growing in their knowledge and love of the Lord; mission trips to care for others; food given to pantries that feed the hungry; people being present with others in times of pain, of sorrow and of joy; building schools and churches in Kajo Keji; gathering regularly for joyful, spirit-filled and empowering worship of God and on and on and on.

All of them, and each of them individually, bring light to the world, bring signs of God’s pres-ence and purpose to the world, and bring reason to hope to the world. May such hope never die and may this light never be quenched. Amen.