2 Pentecost, St. Barnabas, Falmouth The Rev. Nancy E. Gossling
God, grant me the serenity to
accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and
the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.
“Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and
love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness and
minister your justice with compassion.” So, Church, how do we do that? As my
aerobics instructor often says, let’s break it down!
First, we are a household. We are family! Just like the Sledge Sisters
sang in 1979. We are a church community of diverse people created by God,
united by Jesus, and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Now, if you’re like my
family, or the various households I’ve seen, and the communities to which I’ve
belonged, our ways of living and moving and having our beings are not all
“sweetness and light” as my father used to say. We like to hang out with people
who agree with us, see life from our perspective, and don’t drive us crazy.
Maybe, we’re a little bit afraid of the strangers who appear on our doorsteps.
Perhaps like your households, our Church has some guidelines for
behavior. Outlined in our baptismal covenant, we make promises to God and to
each other to continue to gather as a community, to resist evil and when we
fall into sin to repent and return to the Lord. We promise to proclaim by word
and example the good news of God in Christ, to seek and serve Christ in all
people, and strive for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every human
being. We promise to care for God’s creation. Tall orders, aren’t they?
My twin grandsons are at that age when they have “stranger anxiety.”
For a few months in the first years of life, most babies are fearful of
strangers, even the doctors who are there to help them. This anxious period
eventually passes but most parents continue to teach their children about fear,
how to stay away from harmful things like guns and drugs and violent people.
Parents of black and brown children decide when they’ll have that “Talk” with
their children, teaching them how to respond in frightening situations. In
fact, we have those kinds of “talks” with our children all the time. And after
certain ages, they have those talks with us.
There was, and still is, a time when our churches were offering
training in case someone with a gun came into our gathering. We became overly
suspicious of strangers and backpacks. I remember a time in Boston, during the
Women’s MeToo March, when wearing masks in our cathedral was prohibited,
because they suggested an affiliation with a terrorist organization. Now most
of us wear masks, fearing COVID 19.
Today there is a great deal of physical, social, political, emotional,
and spiritual unrest and pain in our nation. There is much to be feared, and
yet we can react in fear or respond in faith, as the story of Abraham and Sarah
reveals. Sitting at the entrance to his tent, Abraham saw three strange men
standing near him. And how did he react? He ran, like the Prodigal Father, to
meet them. He bowed down before them. He begged them to stay, washed their
feet, gave them water to drink and cakes to eat. Then he “took curds and milk
and the fatted calf and set it before them, standing by them under the tree
while they ate.”
Sarah, on the other hand, remained inside the tent. Aside from the
cultural norms for women during these times, maybe she was afraid that these
strangers might harm her, or that Abraham might offer her to them. Sarah was
old, and maybe she was fearful for her own health, that these strangers might
be carrying a disease that could kill her. We also know that she was deeply
sad, consumed by disappointment and grief, recalling what could have been if
she were only younger, and times were different. In despair, she laughed when
she heard the stranger say that she would have a son. Sometimes we laugh when
we really want to cry because we've known broken promises and unfulfilled
dreams. We are afraid to hope.
Fearful people often react quickly. Triggered, we say and do things
that we later regret. It is tempting for us to despair when we’re afraid that
things will never change, when we think we’re on a hamster wheel of
dysfunction. When we react in fear, the way Sarah did, rather than responding
faithfully, the way Abraham did, we lose our agency, to live fully and freely
as God intended. Instead, we hide in our tents. We fail to keep our baptismal
promises. And so I asked myself recently, what exactly am I afraid of?
I was scared this past month when two of my married best friends, one
with cancer and the other with asthma, were diagnosed with COVID 19 and
hospitalized. They struggled to breathe with the knee of this virus on their
necks. I was also scared for family members and friends suffering with mental
illness and addiction, afraid that the darkness of these diseases would
overwhelm them. I fear for my daughter who works in a hospital in Minneapolis,
and my grandsons whose premature births compromise their lungs.
Despairing for our nation and our world, I am afraid of the increasing
violence, and the destruction of goodness in the midst of this chaos. Bottom
line for me? I am afraid of losing everything and everyone I love. I am afraid
of rejection for speaking the truth, and of dying in pain or alone; and so I am
tempted to hide in my tent, not out of self-care, but out of fear.
How about George Floyd? I wondered. He must have been afraid when he
was murdered for trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. Crying out for his
Mama, harassed and helpless like a sheep without a shepherd, he begged for
mercy from a fearful white man who had his knee on George's neck. George did
not die alone; he was surrounded by fearful people. Three other policemen were
afraid to challenge their veteran officer, while fearful people stood by and
watched.
Imagine if the other policemen took their knees off George’s back, or
actually pulled the veteran off George’s neck. Imagine if the bystanders
intervened as well. Instead of filming this cold-blooded murder on their
phones, walking away or remaining silent in fear, maybe they could have
responded in a different way. Maybe, together, they could have pulled the
officer off George’s neck. Fear, like COVID 19, like systemic racism, is
another invisible enemy that contributed to George’s death.
We have every reason to be fearful these days, and when we’re angry and
fearful, bitter and resentful, we are tempted to justify our bad behavior and
our hate-filled words. We will hide in our tents of privilege, power, and
prestige, relying upon our own power to save us. And yet St. Paul’s letter to
the Romans reminds us that we are justified by our faith in God. Instead of
laughing in despair, we can find hope “boasting in our sufferings, knowing that
suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character
produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.”
We are drinking from a fire hydrant of feelings these days, but rather
than drinking from fountains that say “whites only”, or living in fear as many
people do, let’s drink from the waters of our baptisms. Let’s speak and act
with love, or as the prophet Amos once said, let’s make “justice roll down like
water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:24)
St. Paul reminds us that it is through grace that we can speak and act
with love. For grace is God’s steadfast love that is unmerited, undeserved, and
without conditions.This grace enables us, in fact this grace empowers us, to
proclaim God’s truth with boldness, and minister God’s justice with compassion.
Grace means that we have agency to live freely and fully, to use God’s power
for the common good and to transform our world.
We are family, living in a church community with household guidelines,
in which we believe that we are all equally beloved children of God. So Church,
what are we to do? For if we speak without action, our faith is dead. And if we
hide in our tents, nothing will change. Instead, like Abraham, we can respond
faithfully, running to greet the stranger, feeding and serving others, and
standing by them in times of need.
In his book, The Compromise of
Color: the Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism, Jemar Tisby
argues that systemic racism gradually grew over time because of compromises
made out of fear. He encourages us to educate ourselves about our history, so
that we can acknowledge the parts that we’ve played in building faulty systems,
and determine how we can build anew. Our mission strategy in this diocese
invites us to act: to embrace brave change, to reimagine our congregations, to
build relationships, and engage our world.
So, today, I remember this story about Abraham and Sarah with you; for
it is a message of faith and hope. I invite you to talk about your fears and
name the injustices that you know. Welcome the strangers both inside and
outside your tents, even the ones who speak and act badly, as if they are
messengers from God. And spend some time in prayer; consider what you fear, and
how you can respond faithfully rather than fearfully. Consider how this church
community, this household of God, can proclaim God’s truth with boldness and
minister God’s justice with compassion. The time is now to restore our
relationships, to rebuild our systems and our churches, and to fight those
enemies with the Way of Love. Amen
Genesis
18:1-15, (21:1-7) Psalm
116:1, 10-17 Romans
5:1-8 Matthew
9:35-10:8(9-23)
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