Easter VII
May 20, 2012
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
I have a question for you this day and some of you are going to know right away of what I reference and some of you may not but we’ll get there. So my question is, “Do you have a Loki in your life?” Loki you may know is the adversarial character in the story of the Avengers, from Marvel comics and now the rave in its movie form. Loki, of course, really comes from Norse mythology where Loki is the god of mischief. Loki is, the brother, the antithesis and the arch enemy of Thor the god of thunder. What I frame for you today, I frame in the context of what the movies have done with the Marvel comics story line. Let me remind you of the Avengers: Captain America! Strong, loyal, brave, patriotic, strategic in his thinking. Iron Man-- brilliant, intelligent, technologically savvy, tough, made of iron, flies, strong ballistics. The Incredible Hulk--incredibly strong, fast, furious, big, green. The Black Widow, intelligent, creative, empathic, strong, and capable of getting what is needed for the task; The Hawk, vision capable of taking in the big picture and in a moments notice honing in like a magnet on an item to be acted upon, a skilled marksmen; And, of course,Thor--the god of thunder, his mighty hammer can conquer all things, protect all things. He, too with his hammer, can fly. Together the Avengers stand for righteousness and for truth. I am certain it exists somewhere but if there’s not a college-level course on these sociological statements of these characters and storylines there should be.
The Avengers--all those gifts used together cannot be defeated in pursuit of justice and of righteousness and for the defense of all. But then there’s Loki, that adversarial character. The god of mischief. Loki’s mission is to gain power by disruption, by deception. His approach is slippery. It is as slippery as his ability to disappear and to reappear. He is in the movie personification, the perfect example of an insidious presence. Loki’s strategy in the latest version of the movies of the Avengers is to cause the Avengers to doubt. To doubt themselves, to miscalculate their abilities and to doubt the truth of who they are and what they can do. Loki’s actions are designed to make them suspicious and fearful of one another’s motives and how they might employ their rather extraordinary abilities. A solid strategy if you’re a Loki, the god of mischief, the adversary.
I ask my question again, do you have a Loki in your life? Do you have an experience of Loki? That is, a force that seeks to cast out or to dis-integrate? A person or force that causes you to question or miscalculate your abilities or to fear or mistrust the motives of others thus preventing you from experiencing what it might be to find the joy of experiencing one another’s gifts? A Loki experience can take place a Loki experience can take place in family life. It take can take place in the work place. It can take place in an organization that you might participate in. It can even take place dare I say in the church -- a Loki experience or Loki people. Now I’m not speaking about those people or experiences in our lives who tell us valuable truths that we may not like. That’s not what I’m talking about. That’s another sermon for another day. But rather I’m asking you—do you have a Loki in your life? Do you have Loki moments? Perhaps you might have a Loki voice somewhere inside your head or your heart or your soul? A voice perhaps that subtly or not so subtly calls you away from who you really are. The truth of who you are. Calls you to doubt the power of the gifts that you possess. I can’t speak for you but my experience has taught me that there are Loki’s in our lives at one point or another.
Fred Buechner, my theological hero, calls Loki people or experiences “negos” as in negativity. Nego’s are those people in our lives or the voices in our heads that have one script regardless of the circumstance: “You can’t, you are not, you will not, you cannot, you are not”. So I ask you, do you have a Loki in your life?
If you have a Loki in your life, then hear the good news of the gospel today. In this beautiful and intimate moment from John’s Gospel our Lord Jesus prays in what biblical scholars describe as the highly priestly prayer of Jesus. Jesus prays for his disciples and, therefore by definition he is praying for us, as he prepares to take leave. He prays for his disciples because he knows that they will have Lokis in their lives. They will, as we do, have those experiences, those voices, and those people, who will seek sometimes overtly and sometimes subtly to pull us apart. Actively seeking to dis-integrate, to distract or to tear down. The disciples he knows will have those who will seek to have them doubt the truth of who they are and of whom they follow. The hope of the Loki’s in their lives is to spread seeds of doubt and suspicision and to have them question the gifts that they possess for the healing of the world in which Jesus sends them and us.
The disciples will have Loki moments in their lives that will cause them to doubt one another, to mistrust one another’s motives and be pulled away from the source of their power. Does this sound familiar? Jesus prayed intimately and beautifully to his Father in heaven that they may be in the world belonging to him but not of the world. He prays they endure the loki people and voices of the world and trust their belonging to God and one another. He prays that their gifts used in union will cause a new light to shine.
So do you have a Loki in your life? That is an experience, a person, a voice that seeks to disintegrate, take away, tear apart, to mistrust, to second guess the truth of who you are. Of who God has made you to be?
The gift that God has given you to be a joyful light in the world. Whether it be on a personal level or on a community level, there is good news today. We have a high priest, and he’s praying for us. Praying for USs! This praying reminds us daily who we are. His prayer is protection, this is what he asks for. For us! His prayer is want. It is desire. It is a reminder. It is motivation. And, it is hope. And his prayer is holiness. The truth the gospel reminds us today is that we are sanctified in the very truth that God dwells with us and we with Him. By definition, we are holy. We are gifted for this work that we are called to do. Our motives are as pure as the joy we find in dwelling with God.
Like the Avengers, who figure out that together they will conquer their enemy. There is nothing, not one thing, we cannot do, and there is no Loki that can separate us from his Love.
So, do you have a Loki in your life? If you do Park it! Park it. Park Loki. And let there be light!
Amen.
