An Afternoon in a Refugee Camp

The refugee camp in Bijelo Polje, 2004.

When I was fifteen, I visited a refugee camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I don't remember much about it--- I think the people there were refugees from Kosovo maybe? I don't remember much what the camp director told us about how the camp ran, how many people were there, how long people could expect to be there. But I do remember the children in the camp. How we tried to play games with them but really the kids were clinging to us so tightly we could barely move our arms to toss a ball, and the ball would come right back to us. My sister, who was fourteen then, said she still remembers the face of the little girl who held her hand the entire time. She remembers trying to get her to play but she'd just smile, shake her head and just hold her hand. I remember not all the children had shoes, but perhaps it was just because it was summer? I remember the concrete everywhere--- different from the images of tent cities with blue UN tarps like we usually see on TV nowadays. But this camp was concrete encased in a chain link fence. I remember the faces of the children pressed into the fence as we left.

The woman who translated for us while we were in Bosnia went on to work in a local school there and I remember her telling me that the children at that camp went to her school. So these refugees had different opportunities than ones crossing the sea or living in a tent on a border somewhere. But whenever I hear about refugees in the news, I remember the feel of tiny hands gripping mine with fierce longing. I remember the faces of children so desperate to be treated as something other than a criminal or a burden or unwanted that they were willing to attach themselves to a stranger like me who could not even remotely speak their language or, let's be realistic, throw or catch a ball.

And so when the president of my country issues an executive order banning refugees from entering the country for 120 days--- except those from Syria who will be banned indefinitely--- I get angry. How dare we prioritize a mythical concept of safety over the lives of children? I remember the faces of the kids watching us leave--- those were not the faces of terrorists. Those were not the faces of threats to our national security. They were the faces of children wondering why they lived in a cage. Wondering when they would have a home. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, 65.3 million people around the world have been forced from their homes, including nearly 21.3 million refugees. Over half of refugees are under the age of 18. These are the people we are really rejecting.

So let's stop allowing our politicians to feed us lies about our safety and instead embrace our fellow human beings. Call your representatives. Financially support organizations working with refugees. Reach out to local organizations that help with resettlement (if you are in the Baltimore area, check out the Refugee Youth Project). Pray and work for a world where people are not forced from their homes in pursuit of peace and stability. Remember that it is not our safety that is a concern but the safety of these children in camps.

Rebuilding a Temple of Praise

After the tragedies this week, preaching was a daunting task. Even with the further edits I have made to the sermon (even after it was preached this morning at Presbury United Methodist Church), it does not not specifically educate about #BlackLivesMatter as I would like it to. But I hope it still speaks to the truth of God's dream for creation, standing up to the violence we have experienced. 

Scripture: 2 Samuel 7:1-17 (NRSV)  
Now when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.”
 
But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings. But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever. In accordance with all these words and with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.
 
Sermon: Rebuilding a Temple of Praise
Let us pray:
Patient teacher, if we were you our patience with the world would be wearing a little thin this morning. And perhaps your patience is. But, as you did with King David, you are reaching out to us this morning, reminding us of your mighty power and your steadfast love. Through the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts break open the boxes in which we have tried to imprison you, and point us to your power and love yet again. Amen.

David wakes up one morning and he is overwhelmed by the way God has loved him. I don't know if you have ever felt that way, when you wake up one day, the sunshine kissing your face, feeling rested and full and content. There isn't always a reason, you know. Just sometimes you get caught up in beauty and realize how beloved you are.
 
This is how I see this scene in 2 Samuel. King David has successfully and somewhat peacefully brought together Judah and Israel, scattered, fragmented tribes of people who have dispersed since being led into this land of milk and honey from Egypt. He has suffered persecution, and also already committed some evils or at least questionable acts. But he has also felt overwhelmed by the presence of God in his life, and I don't mean overwhelmed in a bad way. I mean completely covered by the beauty of God's presence. And so we read today how he gets caught up in that moment, looks at the richness of his own life and wants to praise God! In the Robin Mark song we have been singing to conclude worship, he describes David as rebuilding a temple of praise in his time. That seemed like a pretty good message for us in our time too.
 
And then I heard about what happened to Alton Sterling.
 
And then Philando Castile.
 
And then police officers in Dallas.
 
I said to God, “How can I talk about joy and praise this week? How can I talk about anything besides the ugly racism that cripples our country and our bloodthirsty desire for revenge? How can I preach without acknowledging the fear that so many of our families are living in--- both the fear that their black or brown children and grandchildren will not come home one day because they held their held their hands in their pockets too long, and the fear that their spouse or friend or family member who is in the police or the national guard will be killed on duty out of spite? How can we experience joy and praise when our world is aflame in violence and hatred?”
 
But these days are not so different from the days of God's servant David. Frankly, as much as we praise David for being a man after God's own heart, a giant-killing hero, or a beautiful wordsmith as evidenced by the Psalms, David often had more in common with both the sniper who murdered those police officers and the police officer who murdered Alton Sterling right on the sidewalk as though he was an animal. David was a mercenary in his early years. He works for the Philistines who, in much of the Hebrew Bible, are the Big Bad (see 1 Samuel 27). When he became king, David gave up innocents for slaughter to placate kings he was trying to ally with (2 Samuel 21:8-10). He did not raise a hand against his son for raping his daughter (2 Samuel 13:21-22). And really, David was a rapist himself, or don't you remember Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:1-5)?
 
I say this not to rip your image of hero David out of your hands but to remind you of David's very deep sin. But we must also remember that he was a victim of sin as much as a sinner himself. He spent much of his early adult life hunted by Saul, the king who became increasingly unstable and vicious (starting with 1 Samuel 18:10-16). David lost his best friend Jonathan, one of the only people he ever truly loved (2 Samuel 1). He lived through war as much as he waged it. His world was one in which blood frequently ran through the streets just like it does in ours. He was complicated just like we are.
 
And yet. In the middle of this life so twisted by sin, just as our lives are so twisted by the sin of racism right now, he stops. And he remembers beauty. He looks at the palace he lives in, the house of cedar he references, and truly sees the goodness in his life that has happened in spite of the violence and tragedy. And he decides to make an offering to God.
 
He asks Nathan what to do first. Nathan is a fascinating man we too often forget about; he is a prophet. You will notice if you read through the Old Testament especially in Samuel and Kings, that prophets accompany kings. Prophets are supposed to keep kings honest. We see throughout David's rule that though he can be corrupt, he does listen to and take the advice of the prophet Nathan. When he does this time, he learns through Nathan that God refuses David's gift.  

Here we are in the midst of a story of violence, we have a glimmer of joy and peace, but the attempt at praise, the attempt to praise God by building the Temple, is shut down. Could this mean that our attempt to praise God today in the midst of the violence around our country could be shut down? The tradition is to read this scripture as God deciding David is not the best person to build the Temple because David has too much blood on his hands. But that is not because God does not love David because of how twisted he is by his own sin and other's sin. No, God loves us, no matter what. God sees our humanity in spite of our sin, God sees glimmers of beauty when we do not. Why God rejects David's gift, as I read it, is less because of David's sin and more because David misunderstands, just as so many of our ancestors in faith did, and just as we do, what God's purposes really are.
 
You see, God says to David:

“Hey! Did you hear me complaining about living in a tent? No, I prefer being mobile, flexible, responsive, free to move about, not fixed in one place.” God then turns the tables on David and says, “You think you're going to build me a house? No, no, no, no. I'M going to build YOU a house. A house that will last much longer and be much greater than anything you could build yourself with wood and stone. A house that will shelter the hopes and dreams of your people long after 'you lie down with your ancestors.'”¹

David misunderstood that praising God wasn't about building a building but building a life through which God could live and move. So God reminded him, by covenanting with him, choosing to make a house for him in the form of a dynasty rather than a house of cedar, a house that will shelter hope and dreams of a better world, one not so wrought by violence and hatred. One that retained the beauty of that moment when David woke up and felt compelled to do something in praise. And one that can teach us in these days too.
 
Because we are that house God covenanted with David about. Yes, I am drawing from our Gospel today when Jesus describes his own body as the Temple. But I also understand God's promises to David to not be limited, contained by one biological bloodline. God tells David that though David's son will build a Temple, the house God will build is one that can shelter the dreams and hopes for the kin-dom of God is within each of us. Rev. Steve Garnaas-Holmes, a United Methodist pastor and blogger explains:

You are a house. God has chosen you as a tent to move about and live in. Your opponents are also houses of God. And we all are a house where God lives, not in any of us alone, but in the sacred space among us. Be mindful of this mystery, for it is the foundation of a great and powerful dynasty.²

In this sense, praising God is not as easy as building a physical Temple would be, even if we are not to be trusted with power tools. Because when we truly praise God, it is when we recognize God dwelling in another human being. 

Hear this again: when we truly praise God, it is when we recognize God dwelling in another human being. When I listened to the news this week, what I heard over and over again were things like what my friend Janessa posted from a community police listening session in Phoenix: "It doesn’t matter what your training module is. You cannot be trained to protect and serve me if you don’t see me as human."³ What happened to the Dallas police was absolutely tragic, but it stems from a frustration and brokenness over people of color not being seen as a human beings. The police officers who shot Alton Sterling and Philando Castile saw them as animals, as less-than human. Consistently throughout our history, people of color are not seen as human. None of them are seen as dwellings for God. And yes, in retaliation for years of being seen as subhuman, some will start to see the oppressors not as human beings too but as monsters. And our recognition of one another is what we have to change.
 
So as we continue asking ourselves where God is calling us as a church, let us turn to the hard work of praise. The hard work of recognizing God not where we want to--- in beautiful sacred buildings or even in the beauty of rainbows and mountains--- but within the hearts of other human beings, particularly those who are marginalized. This hard work includes listening, especially if you are a person with race and class privilege as I am, and it includes reaching out, even if that makes you uncomfortable. 
 
Next week, our youth will be in Sullivan County, Tennessee, building houses. And even though that is work building, as David wanted to do building a Temple, it is more about doing the hard work of recognizing God within the hearts of human beings, more about doing the work of building the kin-dom of God than it is about wood and stone, fascia and decking. When we go to Appalachia, we are going to a part of the world that seems so different than Edgewood. People talk funny. The poverty there looks different than the poverty here. On TV, Appalachia is usually a place of ridicule, poor backwards rural people. Yet on this mission trip, I saw our youth doing the hard work of recognizing God in our host families in spite of the stereotypes that tried to define them. I watched as our youth bonded with our family over their pet bunny rabbits, how by the end of the week the little girl on our site was laughing and carrying on with the youth even though she had been so shy before, how the woman whose home we were working on started to help us work on the house even though she had physical limitations just because she liked spending time with us. These were the ways both our partner families and our youth--- and the adults--- recognized God in one another.
 
But we don't have to go on a mission trip to start the hard work of recognizing each human being as a Temple, a House for God. We can start right here. In an attitude of prayer, I invite you now to reach out in signs of peace and love to those in worship here today.

1Kate Huey, “Wherever You Are,” Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Weekly Seeds, Congregational Vitality and Discipleship Ministry Team, Local Church Ministries, United Church of Christ, 22 July 2012, http://www.ucc.org/feed-your-spirit/weekly-seeds/wherever-you-are.html 2Steve Garnaas-Holmes, “I will make you a house,” Unfolding Light, 20 July 2012, http://unfoldinglight.net/?p=1353.
3Posted by Janessa Chatain, 9 July 2016, on her personal Facebook page: "Important conversations today at a community police listening session in PHX. Wish more of last night's protestors were today’s participants. One statement that struck me: 'It doesn’t matter what your training module is. You cannot be trained to protect and serve me if you don’t see me as human.'"

Dreaming God Is with Us

A sermon for the Sunday after Christmas at Presbury United Methodist Church.

Today we are getting a little ahead of ourselves. Next week, we'll read the first part of this chapter for Epiphany, in which we celebrate the visit of the magi. But I didn't want us to forget the second part of the story, so we're reading it today. It is a very dark part of the Christmas story, a part we don't often care to remember, but also one that has deep resonances in our own violent time. Hear now these words:

Scripture: Matthew 2:13-23 (NRSV)

Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation,

Rachel weeping for her children;

she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.”

Sermon: Dreaming God is With Us¹

Let us pray:

Patient teacher, we give you thanks for all the ways you speak to us and try to get our attention--- from the beauty of nature to the nagging of loved ones, from the words of scripture to even dreams. Speak to us again this morning through the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts. Help us pay attention to you again this day and every day. Amen.

I have not been able to get Joseph out of my head this week. This is strange for me--- when I think of the Christmas story I want to talk about how awesome Mary is. I don't really think much about Joseph. But from now into the spring, we will be focusing on the Gospel of Matthew, and Matthew focuses more on Joseph in the Christmas story than he does on Mary. Now, no offense to the dads here in our congregation today, but you don't really do much when it comes to giving birth, which is perhaps why the Gospel of Luke doesn't mention Joseph much. But in Matthew's gospel, Joseph is active in one small but very interesting way. Joseph dreams.

Dreaming is a common activity in scripture, and when we think of dreaming in the bible, we are more likely to turn to another Joseph, the Joseph of the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. That Joseph got in trouble for his dreams at first. He dreamed of his older brothers bowing down to him, and then, instead of keeping such dreams to himself he went about telling people. His brothers are livid. I have described them in the past as classic bullies. They are obviously hurting, but instead of trying to break out of the cycle of hurt, they choose to hurt someone else instead. Joseph. They throw him into a pit, speak of killing him, but then decide to sell him into slavery. Afterward, they soak Joseph's fancy coat in blood and go to their father, allowing him to believe his beloved son was dead. This is a horrible, heart-wrenching story. And poor Joseph, as though his life wasn't bad enough, he tries to live as ethically as he can as a slave and still finds himself wrongly imprisoned! That's when his dreaming comes back into the story. When in prison, God gives him gifts to interpret dreams, and he eventually makes it all the way up to Pharaoh because of this gift, even becoming rising from the status of a slave and a prisoner to second-in-command over Egypt.

But here's the thing about Joseph—- he does not lose sight of God. When Pharaoh asks him to interpret his dream, Joseph replies that the interpretation is not his own but God's; however, the text itself never says, “And God spoke through Joseph” or “And God gave Joseph the gift of dream interpretation” or anything like that. Rather Joseph, despite all he goes through, is able to interpret drams and dream himself because he does not shut himself away from God. He pays attention to the situation around him and listens for God.

Which is what I think Joseph in the Christmas story does as well. You see, why else would Joseph have paid any attention to dreams if he was not naturally opening himself up to God? But he not only heeded God in one dream, but in two: first as a young man preparing to quietly divorce Mary, he changed his path and took Mary as his wife because of a dream; then, God told him to move far away to Egypt in a dream, and he did as he was asked. He listened, not to the clamor and chaos of the world around him, but through it, to find that God was with him, as his ancestor of the same name did before him.

Now, when we read this scripture from Matthew this morning, I'm sure that your first thought was not, “Wow, what a great listener Joseph was to pay attention to the warnings in his dreams.” Your first thought was probably, “Wait a minute, I thought this Christmas story was supposed to be warm and fuzzy--- I didn't remember that part about the babies dying!” This verse is discordant with the picture of the happy family in the stable receiving extravagant gifts from the wise me: When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. I don't want to gloss over the horror in this story by talking about dreaming. Just a few weeks ago, my friend in San Francisco preached on this scripture and spoke about Ferguson and the violence in the hands of the powerful in our own nation. She said, “There are too many weeping Rachels, not only across America, but in this very room. And not only in America, but in Gaza, in Nigeria, in Ukraine.” And she said, there are too many Herods as well: “Herod killed the babies of Bethlehem because he was afraid, afraid of Jesus’ power. So he killed innocent ones to keep himself feeling safe. When we refuse to hear the truth of the lived experiences of others, we become Herods, exercising power [and control] over others as a way to keep ourselves safe.”² And of course then it becomes a vicious cycle in which police officers are killed, breeding more fear, which breeds even more violence...Herod's world and our world are hurting, broken places in need of a new dream.

That's why we are talking about dreams this morning--- not to avoid the horror of the story but to remind us that in our own stories of horror we need to pay attention. We need to listen. For God is already with us, speaking to us and guiding our steps if only we would open our hearts to realize it!

To return to the dreams of technicolor dreamcoat Joseph, his openness to God's work in his life is what made him able to ultimately forgive his brothers, rather than continuing the cycle of violence and retribution. Joseph's story is a story of hope that we may become the people God calls us to be, a people who make God's dreams for a redeemed and renewed world come to life. Theologically, dreaming is about vision: a vision of that redeemed, restored world.³ That is God's dream. But God's dream gets so mixed up in our own hopes and fears that we lose sight of it and are lost to violence and power struggles. And we are not able to get out of the struggle because we won't look to God, who is beside us all the time coaxing us to do good.

But both Josephs did. Dreamcoat Joseph forgave his brothers for their betrayal and violence. Joseph, Jesus' earthly father, took Mary as his wife despite his own fears and uncertainties, and despite the societal expectations. Joseph, despite his own confusion and sense of powerlessness, took flight in the middle of the night and went to Egypt, far from anywhere he knew. He had seen that vision of a redeemed and restored world, and he trusted God to guide him to it.

Of course, I don't want you to go home and take a nap so you can figure out what God is saying to you. You have to cultivate a listening heart within yourself--- you can't just expect every dream you have to be direct from God. For instance, recently, I had a weird dream about how I really wanted to eat potato chips but I kept checking the ingredients on the bags and every single one had lard in it. I don't think God gave me that dream, as though trying to tell me that lard is important to my salvation or something. But if we can cultivate listening hearts within ourselves, then even in the small things we may hear echoes of God.

My prayer is that in this new year we may make a resolution not just to lose weight or eat more vegetables or stop cursing, but a resolution to listen more for God. Let us pay attention to God's dreams, whether we see that dream reflected in our own dreams, or in the words of great prophets and leaders, or in the kindness of a stranger. Bishop Desmond Tutu in his children's book called God's Dream that I have read to the kids during worship before says this about God's Dream: “God dreams about people sharing. God dreams about people caring. God dreams that we reach out and hold one another's hands and play one another's games and laugh with one another's hearts.”⁴ Maybe we resolve this new year to reach out and hold one another's hands. What do you think God dreams about? What does God dream for us in this new year--- for us and our families, for our church, for our world?

Remember: God is with us--- that is what Christmas is all about. So let us open our hearts to God. 

 

1I knew I wanted to talk about dreams this Sunday, but this sermon didn't really take shape until after reading this blog post: Adam Phillips, “Dreaming of God With Us,” Advent Reflections, Sojourners, 22 December 2014, http://sojo.net/blogs/2014/12/22/dreaming-god-us.

2Karen Oliveto shared her sermon with me over a direct message on twitter. Fangirl moment! These are quoted from that sermon. Karen Oliveto, “To Comfort Rachel,” 25 November 2014. Also found here: http://karenoliveto.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-cries-of-rachel.html.

3Rolf Jacobson writes, “In terms of theological content, 'those who dream' are prophets--those who receive visions from God (see Joel 2:28-29). The meaning, then, is that the divinely wrought restoration includes the re-opening of the lines of communication between God and people. In terms of the emotional content, 'those who receive visions' often experience and express ecstatic joy--like David dancing beside ark as it was brought into Jerusalem. The picture, then, is of spontaneous and uncontainable joy: 'our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.'” Commentary on Psalm 126, Working Preacher, 14 December 2008, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=193

4Desmond Tutu, God's Dream (2010)

Where is Our Comfort?

A sermon for Advent at Presbury United Methodist Church.

A Reading from the Prophets: Isaiah 40:1-11 (NRSV)

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.

Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

Sermon:

Let us pray:

Patient teacher, the noise of the world so often drowns out the truth of your word.

In this Advent season, we are supposed to be preparing our hearts for you,

yet we find ourselves running ragged to prepare for the less important parts of the holiday season--- getting the house decorated, buying those gifts on the list, sending out Christmas cards, cooking...Still our hearts this morning.

Let your word of life break through the noise of the world in the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts. Amen.

Words of comfort are not ones we expect to hear in either the world today or in Advent. Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God, we read in Isaiah. It may be a message we need to hear, certainly. But it is not always one we believe, particularly when uttered in contexts of court, even a heavenly one.¹ Where is this comfort you promised, God? How can those of us who can't breathe in a still-racist country, reeling from two non-indictments in just ten days find comfort? Comfort, O comfort my people, God speaks tenderly from heaven while people chant angrily in the streets. And comfort is not only unbelievable in the nation's racial climate right now, but it is unbelievable on many different levels. Where is the comfort for those of us with family in places like Sierra Leone and Liberia, afraid to pick up the phone because it may be bad news? Where is the comfort for those of us facing holidays for the first time or even the twentieth time without loved ones? Where is the comfort for those of us who see the post-holiday lay-offs looming but have not yet found another job?

The Israelites hearing these words may have heard them as we do, recognizing the hope but unable to believe it. They were living in a time of exile, where many of the elite had been carted off to Babylon, leaving the people in ruin. Now, you should note that the book of the prophet Isaiah is a composite book, written by different people in different times.² It is not all about Isaiah, who receives the hot coal on his lips and says, Here I am, Lord, send me. And the first 39 chapters of this book, attributed to that prophet Isaiah, are not necessarily comforting. They speak to a world like ours, heavily laden with injustice and oppression not at the hands of foreign powers like Assyria or ISIS but at the Israelite's and our own hands. First Isaiah, as the first through thirty-ninth chapters are often referred to by scholars, speaks a poetic and powerful word of judgment, and indictment from God that it appears will not be echoed by human courts.³

When Israel's crooked kings are overthrown, it seems too late for Israel. The people are torn apart, untold numbers perishing in violence and war-and-occupation-induced poverty; the elite are scattered, exiled. Second Isaiah, written by an anonymous prophet in the late sixth century BCE, emerges from the desolation and fear in a kind of “healing, life-giving song”⁴ beginning with these verses from Isaiah 40 that we read together this morning. Comfort, God insists, not because the either the Israelites (or we) have finally understood how to learn to do good, as they are instructed in the first chapter of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:17), and ought now be rewarded. Comfort, God insists, because God has heard our cries and felt our suffering. Comfort because ours is a God of grace.

Grace is a word we United Methodist should love, but it is one we don't always understand. Sin is easier to talk about, even when we don't understand that either. This is especially true when we speak of the Second Coming of Christ, for which we are supposed to be preparing our hearts during this Advent season. When we think of the Second Coming, we think of violence and strife, of desolation and doom. We think of a world so seeped in sin that most cannot escape from it and God chooses to destroy it rather that redeem it. We think of despair. There is no comfort in this vision, no transforming of the earth itself⁵ to bring the wandering and exiled home as gently and gloriously as only God can.

Yet John the Baptist, the one who proclaimed Christ's coming in each of the four Gospels--- his words come from not the words of the rupture between humans and God that we find in First Isaiah, but from this chapter of comfort, from God's insistence on grace in spite of everything.⁶ Now, John the Baptist is not one we usually think of when we think of comfort. The man wore camel hair and ate locusts, for goodness' sake! Whenever I think of John the Baptist, I think of an internet meme (that I mention every Advent) that goes around seminarians and bible nerds that depicts a hairy caveman-type guy with the caption: Merry Christmas you brood of vipers! Now Repent! Does not sound much like John the Baptist is speaking tenderly to us. His are the words we expect to hear in a world as messed up as ours. He names our sin and the sin of the world and calls us to face it head on. And we need to do so. We need to repent. But we also need to hear words of comfort and grace.

So again I come to that question: where is that comfort? For the ancient Israelites, living under occupation and exile even though times were changing, where was that comfort? For us, living with the weight of the sinful nature of the system of so-called justice in this country as well as just all the personal struggles we have, where is the comfort?

Our comfort comes in believing that unbelievable promise God has made and keeps making to us: that no matter how mired in sin we get ourselves both individually and collectively, God loves us so much that God will save us. God will change the world, and invites us to work alongside God, to make way for God's redemption. Preparing the way of the Lord is about repentance, yes, but it is also about letting God's promise of grace soften our hearts.

For me, I start to believe the promise when I see stories not only about people speaking out against the violence in our nation, calling us all to repentance, but also in stories about grace. Some of the pictures I have seen since Ferguson have been of children holding “free hugs” signs at protests of police brutality. It is a powerful witness, even pointed because it slashes through stereotypes of black criminality by showing child-like innocence. And in one of the most viral pictures, one of those children is hugging a police officer. Devonte Hart held up a “free hugs” sign at a police barricade and was crying, so finally one of the police officers went over to him and had a conversation about what Devonte was crying about. The cameras didn't catch the conversation and the apology for the fear Devonte lived in that the police officer gave, but one caught the hug when the police officer took Devonte up on his sign's offer. That was a moment of grace, a police officer comforting a young boy, and a young boy courageously reaching out in love when in our world it seems so much easier to hate. The police officer still wore riot gear, and in interviews since does not seem to speak too deeply about the systemic racism in this country, but that conversation he and Devonte had was a way of preparing the way of the Lord too.⁷

The comfort may be brief, but it gives us a grace-full glimpse into the redeemed world God has in mind for us. Jesus' ministry was heralded with words that follow the cry for comfort from Isaiah 40: A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Preparing the way of the Lord involves repentance as John the Baptist preaches, but it also involves nurturing the comforting presence of God, touching all with grace.

Later in these verses we read this morning, we see God admit that the pervasive nature of grace does not mean that sin is no more. Hear these words from Isaiah: A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field...The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever. We are grass. We wither and fade. The injustices we have created and that we endure now will one day wither and fade. But God's word of love will stand forever.

God's word of love will stand in spite of the continued violence of racism we live under in this country. And God's word of love will stand in spite of our addictions to that which kills us. God's word of love will stand in spite of grief and bad parenting and hurtful conversations and our general anxieties. As unbelievable as it is, this is the good news we proclaim as Christians this Advent season. Let us get up to a high mountain, as we read in Isaiah, and herald these good tidings of great joy; let us lift up our voices with strength--- lift them up, without fear. Let us say to this broken, hurting, sinful and sinned-against world in word and in action: “Here is our God!” Here in love and grace, here in hope and comfort, here is our God. Amen. 

 

1The chapter opens with God addressing a kind of heavenly council. See Christopher R. Seitz, “The Book of Isaiah 40-66: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,” The New Interpreter's Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, vol. 6, eds. Leander E. Keck, et. al (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2011), 334.

2See, for instance, Benjamin D. Sommer, “Isaiah: Introduction,” The Jewish Study Bible: Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 780-784.

3For this comparison between First and Second Isaiah's content, I looked to George W. Stroup, “Theological Perspective: Isaiah 40:1-11,” Second Sunday of Advent, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Volume 1, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 26-30; and Samuel Giere, “Commentary on Isaiah 40:1-11,” 7 December 2008, Working Preacher, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=191.

4Kathleen M. O'Connor, Exegetical Perspective on Isaiah 40:1-11, Second Sunday of Advent, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Volume 1, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 27.

5“This unnamed heavenly voice calls for a radical transformation of earthly topography in prelude to a mind-blowing revelation of the glory of the Lord (cf. Exodus 24:16; Ezekiel 43:5) to all people. Not just Judah and Jerusalem, but all people 'as one' are to see it.” Samuel Giere, “Commentary on Isaiah 40:1-11,” http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=191.

6See, for instance, Billy D. Strayhorn, A Voice in the Wilderness: Isaiah 40:1-11, Sermon Options: December 7, 2014, Ministry Matters, 18 October 2014, http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/2095/sermon-options-december-7-2014.

7For story, see Lilly Workneh, “Photo Of Young Boy Hugging Officer At Ferguson Rally Goes Viral And Becomes 'Icon Of Hope,'” 30 November 2014, The Huffington Post, accessed 6 December 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/30/young-boy-hugs-officer-viral_n_6244604.html.

Where is the one who will be our peace?

The drafts are piling up, but I can't seem to find the time to finish any of them. But I do have this sermon to share that I preached at Presbury United Methodist Church this morning.

First Reading: Micah 5:2-4; 6:6-8 (Inclusive Bible)
But God will give them over to their enemies
until the time when she who is in labor has given birth;
then the remnant of the ruler's sisters and brothers
will return to the Children of Israel.
The ruler will rise up to shepherd them in the strength of the Lord,
by the power of the Name of the Lord their God.
They will live in security, for now the ruler's greatness
will reach the ends of the earth.
They'll say, “This at last is the one who will be our peace!
When Assyria invades our land and tramples our fortresses,
we will raise up against the invaders seven--- no eight!--- shepherds,
leaders of the people.”
…
“What shall I bring when I come before the Lord
and bow down before God on high?” you ask.
“Am I to come before God with burnt offerings? With year-old calves?
Will the Lord be placated by thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers of oil?
Should I offer my firstborn for my wrongdoings---
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
Listen here, mortal:
God has already made abundantly clear what “good” is,
and what the Lord needs from you:
simply do justice,
love kindness,
and walk humbly with your God.


Second Reading: 1 John 2:3-11 (NRSV)
Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments. Whoever says, “I have come to know him,” but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, “I abide in him,” ought to walk just as he walked. 
 
Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word that you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says, “I am in the light,” while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness. 
 
Sermon:
They will live in security, for now the ruler's greatness
will reach the ends of the earth.
They'll say, “This at last is the one who will be our peace!”
Our reading from the prophets this morning is not one of our regular readings for Advent, this season of preparation in which we look back to the birth of a baby in a barn two thousand years ago and forward to the Second Coming of Christ. Yet this reading from the fifth chapter of Micah, as strange as it may seem for Advent, echoes messianic promises of peace and security. 
 
And isn't peace and security what we want? But the problem is the world isn't very peaceful or secure. And you don't have to look further than events this week to see that. 
 
Yes, I am talking about Ferguson.¹ Many of you heard about Ferguson, Missouri, over the summer when 18-year-old Mike Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson. While there are accounts that Mike Brown fought with the officer, he was unarmed, and eyewitnesses say his last words were, “I don't have a gun. Stop shooting.” The events of that day and the pain following it were revisited again this week as a Grand Jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson. Whether or not the jury's decision was right or wrong, many people saw this as another example of the racism that is still pervasive in the country. An unarmed teenager was gunned down by a police officer and the law did nothing to protect the teenager. 
 
Michelle Alexander, who is a civil rights lawyer known for her work on racism within the prison system, wrote a powerful piece for the New York Times this week about how she was going to tell her son, who is ten and black, about Darren Wilson's trial. She writes that she wanted to say, “Don’t worry, honey, you have nothing to worry about. Nothing like this could ever happen to you.”² But she couldn't. Since Mike Brown was killed just a few months ago, more than a dozen teenagers have been shot by police, and almost half of those teenagers were black.³ Where is the one who will shepherd us in the strength of the Lord? Where is the one who will be our peace? 
 
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said that “True peace is not the absence of tension, it’s the presence of justice.” Peace around the country would not happen if we could just all get along, to use Rodney King's words after the uprisings in LA. Peace comes with justice, when young black and brown men and boys cannot walk around without fear of being shot by the people who claim to protect them, there is a problem. Even if those men and boys were getting into trouble. And, for many people protesting, it isn't even about Mike Brown. It is about how racism continues to plague our country in insidious ways, even though we are supposed to be better than that.⁴

Now I say all of this but should share with you that, when my father called me after the decision was announced, he informed me that, as a child of a police officer, he will always support the police officer. I know that for some of us, perhaps most of us, Darren Wilson shooting Mike Brown is more complicated than you may feel I have described it. I'm sure it is! But I think that we can agree that what we have heard throughout the week has shown us the depths of the brokenness of our world, the pain that reverberates throughout this country, the need for shepherds of peace. The need for Jesus. 
 
Often in Advent, the readings on Sunday will be about the end times. We are to be preparing ourselves for the second coming of Christ. And wouldn't that second coming be a beautiful thing? We have gotten ourselves in a huge mess--- a mess we can see not only when we look at persistent racism in our country, but also when we read about schools like the University of Virginia where students have been gang raped and then unable to find support and protection from their administration until Rolling Stone magazine brought it to the whole country's attention. We drive down the street and see empty houses and yet so many homeless people. The list goes on and on. Where is that one who will be our peace that Micah told us about? The world is so bad that not only Christians dream of Jesus' return complete with rather violent destruction. In secular culture, our obsession with stories like The Walking Dead, a hit TV show about the zombie apocalypse, show some kind of sense that we are spiraling unavoidably into ruin. We've given up on the world as it is. We want everything to be destroyed so we can start over. Our brains get tired when we try to imagine living the way God originally intended for us to live.

But in Advent, though we may prepare for the Second Coming, we also celebrate how God put on flesh and dwelt among us,⁵ how God dwelt among us then, and God still dwells among us today. God is in the anger in the uprising in Ferguson, and in the comforting actions directed toward Darren Wilson and his family. God is in the voices breaking the silence about rape on college campuses, and in the hands of those making Thanksgiving meals for folks in need. In the beginning of chapter six of Micah, we see God dwelling among us. God reminds us of how God saved us from slavery in Egypt, sent us leaders to guide us, and brought us justice. God saved us in the past and will save us in the future. That is the story of Advent, folks!

So how do we respond? Where do we find ourselves in this story? This is the question both our scripture from Micah and 1 John are concerned with: What does God want from us as God enacts this drama of salvation all around us? For us to sit quietly at home reading the bible and ignoring the drama and pain of the outside world? For us to stand up in worship and say that we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and then go about our life as usual, waiting for the so-called rapture? Studying scripture and witnessing to the power of Jesus in worship are good things, certainly. But God has made clear what God really wants from us: God wants us to do justice, love mercy, and be a humble walking companion. “God wants the world to see whose we are.”⁶ This is part of the answer to the first question that Micah brought up--- where is the one who will be our peace? If we do as God has required us, then we are the hands and feet of the one who brings us peace. If we do justice, we are exhibiting Christ, who bring peace. If we are kind to one another, showing one another compassion, we are exhibiting Christ, who brings peace. If we walk humbly beside God, listening with open hearts for God incarnated all around us, we are exhibiting Christ, who brings peace.

So this Advent, I have some homework to help guide you. (I know you all love homework!) Using some Lenten calendars I found online last year,⁷ I came up with one little thing to do each day throughout Advent to help us do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly. My prayer is that these activities help us to better show who we are and whose we are in this crazy, broken world of ours. And that, in learning to better be children of God, we might bring a little light and life, justice and love, to this place.


Let us pray together:

Patient teacher, we know how frustrating we must be. We know that you rage at the sin of racism, and all those sins that have so broken our world. But we also know that you have told us what is good. Justice. Kindness. Humility. Love. As we celebrate the coming of Christ this Advent season, have us hold onto what is good so that we may be part of enacting your healing power on this world little by little. Amen.