Loading...
I am by the swimming pool at my apartment complex where I feel so sad that the pool has been closed. The changing of the seasons brings me down. Jesus is the only sparkle in this sermon since the glare of the late autumn sun is in my eyes.
I am recording this sermon at 3:30pm on November 4. Election results are not all in yet. No final call on the presidential vote has been made. But Daniel, our editor, needs the sermon to insert into the prerecorded Agape Meal for Sunday November 8.
I cannot predict who will win.
I cannot predict what might happen when the news breaks. ( I’ve learned that sometimes people like to set stuff on fire, in general — for either celebration or protest. I am praying that whoever might be at the pump filling their gas can just stops that right now. May their purpose be interrupted and stopped.)
I can’t predict if there will be an objection to the election results.
I cannot predict that if there is a clear winner if they will keep their campaign promises.
And I have no idea of knowing if the ears who hear my message will feel victory or defeat.
I can tell you what is happening right now. My phone is on fire with texts from loved ones listing their fears. “What will happen if……”
“What will happen if…” That is a powerful statement of hope. A demand of hope. I hear it in the psalms as a plea, “Hear my prayer O Lord.” “I am helpless without you.” “You are my only hope.” “Do not forsake me.”
On any given day we swim in an ocean of ambient existential dread. “What-might-happen” is like the air we breathe, through a mask, wondering if we have been exposed.
We have been exposed — to fear, to the vulnerability of loss, to death. Given the reality of human vulnerability, and given all the restrictions of the natural order of which we are one small part, would I change my message to you based upon a winner or a loser today?
I would not.
I cannot not.
I can only know what I know. And I know no matter what happens on earth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who gives his life on the cross as a sacrifice for sin. When Jesus died I became forgiven. When God raises Jesus to life, I am raised with him to the promise of eternal life with Jesus. That’s about it. And that’s plenty to go on.
Go on comforting my loved ones who feel afraid. Go on conducting my business as if my earthly actions are heaven’s business. Go on forgiving people I would rather not. Go on treating myself as if I were as precious to God as my children are to me. Go on filling my oil flask as if every day were a wedding celebration.
One way I fill up my oil flask is with words of hope. Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, admonishes defiant hope in the face of hopelessness when he preaches….Whatever your politics, ...however this election unfolds, wherever the course of racial reckoning and pandemic take us, whether we are in the valley or the mountaintop, hold on to the hope of America. Hold on hope grounded in our shared values and ideals. Hold on to God’s dream. Hold on and struggle and walk and pray for our nation.
Every day that oil in my lamp burns down. And every day I labor to replenish it as an act of sheer defiance in the face of darkness.
Darkness cannot overcome the light of the love of God that shines in your heart. Let the light of Love shine even when you don’t feel the love. Jesus shines it for you! Jesus, if my party loses shine your love in me. If my throat feels scratchy and I fear I have symptoms, shine your love in me. If my loved one is struggling to the point of taxing my patience, SHINE YOUR LOVE IN ME. Less of me and more of you Jesus-amen.
I can’t predict what will happen anytime, even in the next five minutes. I am bound by the laws of nature. And I bind myself to prayers which transcend the laws of nature, like the collect for today where we ask God that we be made like Jesus in his eternal and glorious kingdom -a kingdom Jesus claims by virtue of great suffering and surrender.
Fill your flask of oil. Get to know Jesus — the Jesus you are praying to become like. You are going to be made like Jesus—
God is not going to make you into anything else but the Jesus whose heart of love is open to the entire world.
God is NOT going to make you into anyone you don’t already possess the capacity to be today.
God will make you like a son willing to die for the sake of his Father’s mission.
God makes you, a person vulnerable and exposed --a person as good as dead, raised to new and eternal life. AMEN
Note:
Full Text of Presiding Bishop’s sermon from Nov 1, 2020
