We Stand

*This blog post is taken from my Sunday sermon following the presidential election of 2016*

"When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, 'As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.'  

They asked him, 'Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?' 

And he said, 'Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, `'I am he!'' and, `'The time is near!'' Do not go after them.  When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.' 

Then he said to them, 'Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places  famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.  "But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.'"

--Luke 21: 5-19

Where do I begin?  It’s been a hard week.  Going back to all of the emotions that we experienced last weekend, and then we had to deal with THAT election.  Now most of you will say that politics have no place in the pulpit, and to a large extent I agree with that.  I have never and will never tell someone who they should vote for during a sermon.  The pulpit is not a place to campaign for a candidate or a party.  It is the place from which the Gospel is preached. However, and there are times when politics and the Gospel collide with each other; after all, Jesus may not have been a politician, but he was deeply concerned with the political climate of his own day; it’s what got him killed. And we find ourselves right now in a place where the Gospel and politics are colliding.

Since late Tuesday evening, I have talked and prayed with many people who are scared, living in fear of what's to come.  And any time God’s children cry out from fear, any time justice is denied, and any time bullyish tactics are used to intimidate or incite violence, Jesus weeps.  He is the one who told us we didn’t have to be afraid, after all, and he’s the one who told us those who lived by the sword would die by the sword. So, my brothers and sisters, when the Gospel has collided with politics, we do not help ourselves or those who are suffering if we ignore that fact.  While I normally preach from the floor, today, as hard as it is, I stand in this pulpit, the symbol of the authority you have given to me to preach the Gospel, and preach it I will, because that’s what you called me here to do. You did not call me here to make everyone happy or comfortable all the time. You called me to preach the Gospel, which is certainly not always happy or comfortable. 

Last week we all renewed our baptismal covenant at the Feast of All Saints.  We renewed our promises to God to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to love our neighbor as ourselves, to respect the dignity of every human being.  This past week has been filled with so many moments where God’s children have cried out because their dignity has been denied.  I’ve heard from folks who have been intimidated and unjustly labeled as racists, misogynists, and xenophobes because of who they voted for.  I’ve heard from folks who have walked down the street and been pushed into the gutter and yelled at because they are gay.  I’ve heard from folks who are afraid their friends and family will be deported, or their Muslim neighbor will have to register or wear a badge.  I’ve heard from folks who are scared that they will no longer be able to afford health insurance for themselves and their families.  I’ve heard from folks who are frightened that the Ku Klux Klan will be marching in early December here in North Carolina, so those folks have organized a counter march, which I will be taking part in.  One person even said to me, while looking at the social and political landscape, that she was beginning to wonder if God really exists. Every single one of these folks deserves to know that God loves them, and they deserve to have their fears held, because that’s what Jesus does. 

Fear is incredibly powerful.  We have lived in fear over the past two years.  Like a fire that we could sometimes keep under control, it was constantly stoked by cable news and posts made on social media, and now it has gotten out of control.  It has consumed us.  That fear leads us to anger, which leads to hate, which leads to suffering. The earliest followers of Jesus knew what this was like.  They experienced fear in ways that we haven’t, being kicked out of their houses of worship, dragged before authority figures, beaten, and killed.  To be a follower of Jesus was to live in fear.  We can see it in our gospel this morning—and once again I am indebted to those folks who put together our Revised Common Lectionary because we could not have had a more fitting Gospel reading for this Sunday than the one we get today.  Luke wrote his gospel near the turn of the first century. The Temple had been destroyed, and the gap between Jews and Christians was beginning to widen.  The fires of fear were being stoked—and they’ll begin to get out of control once John’s Gospel is written.  

So today we find a group of Jesus’ disciples admiring the grandeur of the Jerusalem Temple, and Jesus warns them that one day it will fall.  We can hear the fear in their voices when they ask when will this happen, what will be the sign, what are we going to do? The Temple will fall, Jesus says, and so will everything else.  Individuals will rise, he says, and they will try to sway you to put your trust in them.  Nations will rise against one another.  And you, followers of mine, you will be persecuted, abused, slandered, and even put to death.  Families will be split up, and you will feel like the whole world is against you, like everything you know and love and hold dear is falling apart. But when all around you is going mad, when you feel the hate surround you and begin to engulf you, do not be afraid, Jesus says, for I will give you the words to say.  You will stand in the midst of the fear and the hate, and you will endure.  And by your endurance, you will gain your souls. 

How could they possibly endure?  How could they not let the fear and the hate take hold of them?  It's because those early followers of Jesus to whom Luke was writing knew something that we sometimes forget:  that all their hope, all their trust, and all their faith was in Jesus.  It wasn’t in any human authority figure, not in the emperor, not in the chief priest, not in the government, no, it was in Jesus Christ.  For the last two years our fears have grown and grown because we’re told to put our hope, our trust, and our faith in candidates, in political parties, in platforms.  They’ll save us, we’re told.  No they won’t!  Only one can do that.  And that’s Jesus. Those of you who remember doing Morning Prayer every week may remember that final line of Suffrage B.  "In you Lord, is our hope."  Do you remember the congregational response?  "And we shall never hope in vain." 

We shall never hope in vain because he is our hope.  He is our king, our God.  He sat on the throne when we went to the polls on Tuesday.  He sits there today.  And he will sit there tomorrow.  And no amount of fear will ever change that!  He is the one who endured the shame and humiliation, who was beaten, who was executed as a political traitor, who literally went to hell, and who was raised.  He showed the world then, and he shows the world now, that death, fear, and hatred cannot stop God; that God can and will resurrect life out of the worst set of circumstances.  We have that hope because we have Jesus as our Lord, our King, and our God.

So we stand.  We endure.  And we put our hope and our trust in Jesus, just as Luke’s audience did.  It isn’t easy.  It can be downright scary, and it can be uncomfortable, but nobody ever said being a Christian was easy or comfortable.  Still, we stand.  We stand, grounded in caritas.  Some of you saw the picture I posted earlier this week of the floor tiles the chapel at General Seminary, which has the seven virtues written on them in Latin.  The virtue caritas means charity, and every time we preached from the floor we stood on that tile.  Mother Mitties DeChamplain, my preaching professor, always told us, ‘Stay grounded in caritas!’  She didn’t just mean don’t move from that spot while you preach, but she meant that we should live every single day grounded in charity, grounded in love and light, not fear and shadow.  The world may go crazy and feel like it’s tearing itself apart, but we Christians have a hope that is not of this world, a hope whose name is Jesus. And so we stand, grounded in caritas, and we continue to work for justice and freedom for all God’s children, and we continue to respect the dignity of every human being.  We do so, even when the fear starts to consume us, but we don’t stop, because Jesus doesn’t stop!!  

There is an old Chinese proverb that says, “May you live in interesting time.”  Is that proverb a blessing or a curse?  We get to decide.  What we do every single day of our lives--and particularly from this moment forward--will decide that.  If we place our hope on the crucified and risen One, who sits on a throne of love and tells us not to fear, but to love others and walk humbly with our God, than these times will, indeed be a blessing.  But it’s not always easy, and it’s not always comfortable.  People need to know that they are loved.  They need it everyday, but they especially need it right now.  That’s something we can all do.  Just tell someone that they are loved, that you love them, that you’ll stand with them when the fear takes hold, that you will make no peace with oppression because your baptism will not allow it!  We may not be able to change the past, but we can change the future, one day at a time, one opportunity at a time. Desmond Tutu said that we cannot change the world on our own, we can only do our small piece of good in our small corner of the world.  That’s what being grounded in caritas looks like.

Brothers and sisters, know that I am with you.  And I love you, each and every one of you. I will listen to you.  I will hold your hand if you are afraid.  I will buy you your favorite cup of coffee if you're angry, or I will sit on the benches in the columbarium with you and Jesus and just be still.  I will hold whatever concerns you have, even if your concern is that you didn’t like this sermon—or any sermon I preach, for that matter. I am here.  So is Jesus. Anxiety is high, and fear is running amuck, but Jesus still reigns.  In him have I placed my hope, and my prayer for each of you is that you have done the same.  For when we know deep down that it is Jesus alone who saves us, we can stand in the middle of the fear, in the middle of the chaos, and we can endure and reach our arms out to the extreme left and extreme right and we grab on to our brothers and sisters and hold them.  May you hold each other today, as you are all held in the arms of the Good Shepherd. Remember that it is he who sits on the throne, it is he in whom we put our trust and faith, and it is he who is our hope now and forever.  For that let all God’s people say, ‘Amen.’