Pentecost Proper 20 Nativity Cathedral September 24, 2017
A Sermon by Rick Cluett
“The whole congregation of the Israelites complained
against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, “If
only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt…for you
have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with
hunger.” Exodus 16:2-3
I begin with this passage because it helps, I think, to
give to some context to our own day and time. The newspaper had a headline
yesterday, Ordinary life beyond reach in Puerto Rico. Actually, ordinary
life as we had known it seems to be beyond the reach of most of us.
We seem to think that this time is the epitome, the
quintessential human life lived in all its extreme. We wonder, “Was there ever
such a time of angst, agony, stress and distress as this?” We turn on the news,
we open up the newspaper, we check Facebook or Twitter, we talk with our
neighbors and our counselors and our pastors and we discuss the plight of humankind.
We learn about the devastation, destruction, displacement and pain brought by
the Harvey, Irma, Jose, and Maria hurricanes, by the earthquake in Mexico and
the fires in the northwest and southwest of this country. Earthquakes, fires,
and floods the apocalyptic signs of the end-time.
In Matthew 24:6-7 Jesus said, “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that
you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7For nation will
rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and
earthquakes in various places…” Well, Pretty much… and good luck with
not being alarmed… and there is a famine in almost every country in central
Africa and elsewhere.
We read about Afghanistan and Syria and South Sudan and
so many other places. There is hardly a spot in this world, hardly a place on
this earth, where enmity does not reign and the horrors of war are being
visited upon innocent people – in more places in this world than it is not. If
war is not actual, it is a threatening potential.
Terrorists and mentally ill people with guns make going to
the grocery store or restaurant or a sporting event or a public gathering of
any kind, or simply getting on an airplane, a potentially life-threatening
activity. Government cannot govern, Leaders cannot lead.
We are living in a world, not of discord but of hate where
whole groups of people have become the objects of the hate of other groups of
people. Someone posted the other day, “We can remove flags and statues all
day, but until we figure out how to remove the hate in our hearts, nothing will
change.” Clearly, we are not ready for that change yet.
A friend recently suggested to me that stress and
dis-stress are so extreme and so constant, that many of us are walking around
with undiagnosed PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome — except it is not Post-.
It is ever present; for some, present every minute of every day. People, to
quote Thoreau, “… lead lives of quiet desperation.” Or they violently rage,
rage against unknown, unseen powers of oppression.
And we think, “Was there ever such a time of angst, agony,
stress and distress as this?”
Then we read Psalm 60,
O God, you have rejected us, broken our defenses; you
have been angry; now restore us! You have caused the land to quake; you have
torn it open; repair the cracks in it, for it is tottering. You have made your
people suffer hard things...
In Exodus, chapter 3 the Lord God said to
Moses, “I have seen the misery of my people; I have heard their cry… I know
their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them. So, I will send
you to Pharaoh to bring my people… out of Egypt.” Exodus 3:7-10
Eugene Peterson writes that Job speaks the language of
an uncharted irony, a dark and difficult kind of truth when he says, “We take
the good days from God -- why not also the bad days?” The Book of Job is not
only a witness to our suffering but also to God’s presence with us in our
suffering, it is also a biblical protest against (easy) answers.
And in Matthew’s gospel: When (Jesus) saw the crowds,
he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep
without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is
plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest
to send out laborers into his harvest.” Then Jesus summoned his twelve
disciples and gave them authority… over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and
to cure every disease and every sickness. Matthew 9:36-10:1
So… Yes, there has been a time such as this. Indeed, there
has never not been a time such as this. Every time is an apocalyptic time with signs of the end
time, including ours.
In the year 2000 I and three colleagues were sent by Bishop
Paul to the southernmost county and diocese in Sudan. They had been living with
the presence of war and all its attendant horrors for 50 years. When we
arrived, they were having a quiet and peaceful moment in time. We spent almost
3 weeks visiting their towns and villages. We listened and heard their stories,
stories of horrific violence, with burning, rape, desolation and loss. And we
prayed with them, and worshipped with them.
The gift we brought to them was that fellow disciples of
Jesus from a little diocese, thousands of miles away, had heard their cry and
been sent by God to encourage and love and support them. They told us that they
knew we had been sent by Jesus and they were filled with Joy by our presence
and love as this new sign of God’s presence with them in all their suffering.
Their gift to us was the power and joy of their faith, how
they loved one another and shared what little they had. They literally had
nothing, except they found everything in the love and presence of God shared
with one another. And that gave them the power to sing mightily, dance
joyfully, and to pray powerfully in the power of God’s Holy Spirit.
So, if you begin to despair, if the stress of these times
weighs you down, remember the Lord God’s promise of presence, remember Jesus
sending his disciples to minister to the people. And remember the Cajun Navy
driving their boat trailers to from Louisiana to Texas. Remember the guy
jumping into the fast-flowing flood waters to free a woman from her flooded
car. Remember those two women hugging and comforting each other in the midst of
the swirling waters. Remember the hordes
of people and dogs searching for survivors in the collapsed building in Mexico.
Remember the thousands of folks who have come from near and very far to
volunteer and to let other people know that they are not alone and to help them
reclaim their homes and lives. Remember all those volunteers who have placed
themselves in immediate danger in war zones around the world to protect us and
those who live in those places. Make no mistake, our time is a time of
heroic love lived out.
Listen to our presiding bishop: “It may be that we
cannot solve everything, and we cannot do everything. But we can do something,
no matter what. We can pray. We can give. If possible, we can sign up and go to
work.
We have been nurtured in the love and presence and power of
the Lord God who knows us, who loves us, who hears our prayers and cries and
who sends us to be with one another. For no matter what it looks like around us
or within us, this God is faithfully present with us. And this is “who we
are to be for one another”, to quote a colleague.
And then perhaps, we, too, can
joyfully sing and dance and pray and worship together in the power of God’s
Holy Spirit. Pray God. Amen.
