The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
What I get from these two lessons this morning is a reminder that the Passover was a once and done event. It was a unique, seminal, transformative and divine intervention into the affairs of humankind to bring salvation. God is not going to come down again and wipe away the problems that lay behind us, before us, and upon us and set us free.
And Jesus tells us through Matthew’s gospel that there are ways to get through these times, any times, all times, if we are willing to do the relational work with one another that is required to live together in community with any hope at all of living with integrity, grace, peace, power, or, might I say, success.
Here on this Labor Day weekend of 2011, 14 million Americans are counted as unemployed. Add to that an additional 6 million who have been out of work for so long that they are no longer.
Most Americans have gotten up every morning of the past two decades and found themselves running harder and harder just to keep up. The wealthiest 1% have 25% of the income. While families in the middle are stagnating, those at the bottom are losing ground. After adjusting for inflation, low-income families lost more than 10 percent of their income in those 20 years.
For so many people life seems to be coming apart. Do you remember this description from Thoreau? Leading lives of quiet desperation. Is anyone here today blind, fooled by the relative comfort and ease of those lives which look economically secure, but may be emotionally fragile and relationally fractured? Living on the edge used to be a phrase applied to those on the edge of society, on the edge of town, on the side of the road. Now it includes those who live on the edge of bankruptcy, on the edge of emotional stability, on the edge of human isolation.
In our time, dreams, values, structures, systems that held us together in a commonwealth for the common good have disintegrated into a chaotic maelstrom of competing self interest. There's a sense of everything being out of control – spending, emotions, lives, the world. People are worried about their lives, their children, their futures, and the world. There is a confusion of needs and wants, which has created a culture that values making a killing more than making a living.
What happened to our dreams? For so many they have been drowned by the struggle to live day to day, week to week, month to month, paycheck to paycheck in safety and security.
And instead of coming together to solve these problems in good faith, we are driving each other farther and farther apart. Region against region. USA against the world. Labor against management. Political Right against Political Left. Republican against Democrat. Good faith, indeed!
We can’t even have a civil discussion about what night of the week to meet together to discuss the big issues of the day that affect the quality of life for the entire citizenry of our country. How pathetic is that?
These are the issues of our society and world, these are the issues of people's lives, these are the issues before the Church. These are your issues. Your life and mine, the lives of those around us and those far away; life shapes the agenda for the Church.
We, the Church, have something to bring to this unhappy world. We have something to inform the tenor, quality and content of the debate about which direction to go, what to do, how to live. Most of all we bring hope and a way forward.
While we know that the Passover was once and done, while we know that there are no free passes through this life, while we know that the road ahead is difficult, we also know that there is a way and a truth shown to us by Jesus Christ.
“Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
“Where two or three are gathered …” We will only go forward together.
I have learned in my three score and nearly 10 years of life that God has built into human DNA is the primal urge… I know that born into every human being is the Need (with a capital N) to be in relationship with another – to be with others. I have also learned that life can beat that urge down.
But People know this, it does not ever die, because by God we are made for one another. We are created for community. The nature of God’s self is community: Father , Son, and Holy Spirit. Our salvation as a person, our salvation as a people is dependent upon our common well-being – even when it is hard.
We are fast approaching the 10th anniversary of 9/11. One of the enduring images for me, one of the iconic images for me, comes from the film and photos of the all those police officers and firefighters and others, too, running toward the twin towers at the same time people were running away from the towers in fear for their lives.
Now where does that come from? What moved those people to do that? One could say, “Their duty to protect…” But where does that idea of Duty come from? I think they ran toward the towers because they knew in their very being, they knew in their heart of hearts what was most important – those people, saving those other people – no matter who they were, what they believed, or how they looked. The well being of those people was a priority, and so those men and women ran into the towers. The need, the urge to “go toward” was born in them and nurtured in them by family and others along the way. As it is in us.
Many of you know that for the past three years I have been working with some dioceses around the church to assist them in rebuilding after bishops and other leaders and members left the Episcopal Church. When people left, they left behind members who stayed who were hurt and angry at how the leaving was accomplished.
Today, as some of the ones who left are returning, those who remained in the Episcopal Church are coming face to face with the gospel imperative of forgiveness and reconciliation. How do they receive these people back into the church and into their lives? Some are still hurt and angry and are struggling mightily to align how they feel with what they know they need to do.
How do we live together as if Jesus really is among us as he says in the gospel? What do we do? How do we treat one another? How do we order our lives? What decisions do we make? What takes priority? How do we live in this new world?
Those are good questions for our prayer work in the week ahead. And the answers we come up with will have consequences, not just for today and tomorrow, but for eternity. Once we decide, we will need the help of one another to go on. The Good News is that Jesus will be among us.
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