God Always Gives Us Hope

Won’t you join me in a word of prayer? Almighty God, we thank you once again for your love towards us and your presence with us.  And so we ask that you might draw us, unite us. But once again, we pray that you would fill us, that we might be prepared for all the places you are preparing to send us.  This we ask in your wonderful name, amen. You may be seated.

Let me say this morning, it is good to be in worship, good to be here at the cathedral, to meet those who are joining us even online from the many points and places.  That certainly in just returning from what we call time away and vacation, I’m glad to be in worship.  But returning it would be an understatement to say between the time that I left and the time of return that not much has happened. In the course of perhaps choosing and coming back, I find myself in a position once again, I would’ve chosen a completely different passage than the one that’s before us today.  I would’ve selected a different reading and perhaps pointed myself in a particular place that would’ve made me feel better, perhaps taken my mind off of, and perhaps moved me away just as it was.

But here I am listening to the prophets and the readings about fire and hammer coming back, talking about and hearing about division. One side against the other, the gaps and really the space between one group and another, families.  To listen to the closing words of Luke’s gospel reading, those words challenged not only the generation to whom they were first spoken, but they also have challenged every generation since. They reach across the winds of time to confront all of us who seek to be, who claim to be, disciples of Christ, or even those who simply identify as children of God. Think about the words, that final line of the gospel reading, if you were listening closely, that met us squarely and directly speaking to the crowd, “You hypocrites, you know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

Having just returned from that time away and brief vacation with family, I must confess that as hard as I tried to escape the burdens of the moment, I could not. I gave it good effort though. I tried hard not to think about what was going on, not to wrestle with the news and to hear about what was happening. But I must admit, a significant portion of that time was still spent trying to make sense of this present reality. I think we all have our moments of trying to make sense of that, and even as I sit here, I look out and I see one of my next door neighbors and we try to solve the world’s problems while just simply standing in the driveway of our homes. Sometimes we feel like we’ve get something accomplished and go in, perhaps feeling a little bit better. But while I was away, I spent a significant amount of time trying to make sense of this present condition. I could not escape the flashing news updates or the passing comments of those who met me. Strangers who knew where I was from saying, “have you seen?”  Who knew a little bit about me and say, “have you read?”  All week long I was trying to look and the flashes kept coming. They said, “did you know?  How do you feel? What do you think?”

It just kept meeting me one moment after the next. But even as I listen to those words and the closing words of Luke’s gospel, I hear a direct indictment of those who are listening then, when Jesus spoke about their inability to interpret the present moment.  Yet if I read between the lines, I listen to the Spirit. I lift up perhaps what I was hearing even while reading. I also hear a summons and an invitation for us to wrestle with our role in every moment, in every generation, in this present moment.  Just like they had to wrestle with, “What is your role even as you’re looking on the landscape of the world that you live in?  While moving through the days and the time away, my prayers continue to be filled with thanks, petitions and pleas. Certainly, they were dominated by and filled though with questions. Just like many of you who have gathered today, your prayers perhaps are filled with ‘please’ petitions. You’re asking for certain things. But I often have to remind myself I’m not telling God that anything, that God does not already know. So my prayers are filled with so many questions.

Questions that seek not only understanding, but certainly are trying to seek direction. What would you have me to do? What is it that you would want me to do? What is it that I’m required to do? The present moment is so confusing.  It’s so burdensome because it’s filled with so many contradictions. Here I was away, certainly reading and listening, as troops enter the District of Columbia, while there’s so much talk of raising the banner of freedom and holding it high. I had to be away and listening to reports of the homeless being packed up, picked up, pushed aside without clear plans or resources being dedicated to housing and help for the least and most vulnerable of these. Here I was away again, listening to conversations, reading news, and listening to how people have become pawns in political power.  No matter which side you’re on or talking about the shifting of the landscapes, the gerrymandering here, the positioning of power.  And forgetting about the people who are within that power, affected by that power, subject to that power and even hurt by that power. What about those who had to suffer all of this, while there’s so much to talk about fairness, impartiality. And no talk about the voiceless and the vulnerable.

Not only did it appear to me to not make much sense, it appeared to me as hypocritical. Well, I had to go back and begin my reading and begin wrestling and there was a particular passage, and perhaps for many of my colleagues today and who it was required reading years ago, I thought about the words of the theologian, Gustavo Gutierrez, who wrote in the Theology of Liberation in 1971, “To know the God of the Bible is to not know abstractly that God exists, but to know what God wants in the world.” This requires the ability to discern the signs of the time. I dug deeper and even as the particular voice that resonates throughout the cathedral so often in his place, in memory, that I remembered the words of Dr. Martin Luther King in his 1964 Nobel Prize address. In looking at the world, examining the world, warned us that modern man has brought this whole world to an awe-inspiring threshold of the future. But at the same time, modern man has brought the whole world to an abyss of destruction and despair because he has allowed his technology to outdistance his theology. I kept digging, I kept reflecting, and even in my own here familiarity. I thought about the words of Reverend Dr. William Augustus Jones, pastor and theologian, who I often heard growing up, who wrote in one of his seminal publications. “A theology that is indifferent to human misery is a theology that denies God. Authentic faith must wrestle with the conditions that destroy life.”

And I see so much going on, and if I look at the signs of the time that are not lifting life, but pushing life down, I see so much that is dividing and struggling here. Well, I had to be prepared, so I figured, and I thought diving deeper into scripture might relieve me from some of the burdens and the weight that I was feeling.  That diving into the word might make me feel better about what was going on. Yet the more I read, the more the first century world mirrored our world. It was a time of military occupation. It was a time of economic disparity. It was a time of social stratification. It was a time where fear was maintained through violence and legal manipulations all under the cover of justice. The more I examined that time, the more it looked like this time.  But it was in a moment like that, that Jesus clearly moved onto the scene, stepped further into what was going on, looked at the landscape, and that the proclamation of the kingdom of God was heard clearly. There was an expectation that change was coming because of his witness, because of the disciples, that change was possible.

And even in our being present today, many ought to meet us in certain places and feel that no matter what go is going on, that even if we’re reading the signs of the times, that victory, that change is still possible, that it is possible for neighbor to love one another. It is possible to take care of those who are most in need, to help the lost and to lift up those who have been beaten down.  Because of Christ, I remind us that we are called in this moment to hold scripture in one hand and to hear the cries of the world in the other. We are called to respond with the strength of love and with a witness of sacrifice. We are called to speak to the moment that we find ourselves in and not the moments that are behind us or try to rush or close the blinds on the future that’s in front of us.   Here we are, still at a time, with all of the technologies that are on our wrist, around our necks, in our hands, our pockets, holding them up, using them. We get into our cars and our cars talk back to us.

Here we are with the ability to forecast the weather, pay so much attention to the rise of stocks and bonds, but not the falling of people. Here we are slow to recognize the signs of God’s presence, that God is still with us. That even in that moment, are we looking for God, listening to God in this moment? Are we paying attention to what God is doing? Jesus calls us to a deeper vision, to see God’s hand, not only in the sanctuary, but in the struggles and hopes of daily life.

To walk with Christ is to bring good news to the poor. To walk with Christ is to proclaim release to the captives. To walk with Christ is to recover the sight to those who are blind. To walk with Christ is to here declare freedom to the oppressed and declare the year of our Lord’s favor. To walk with Christ is to see something that maybe some others do not see, do not feel that they wrestle with in particular moments. To walk with Christ is to walk with him in a moment like this.  To hear him in a moment when chaos and confusion is all around us.  To hear us when promises are broken.  To hear him when here statements are made that sound hypocritical. Banners are raised on one side and another side.  But to claim that here we can come together.  When even history is being repainted and shaped. But I come out of a history that I’ve seen, I’ve heard, and I am have experienced, that has always been reminding me and telling me that God has always been at work in the midst of struggle. God is always at work in the midst of suffering and God always gives us hope.

In my experience, I’ve heard those before me. Those who are with me, give testimony and declare that God is not distant from human pain. He’ll even meet you in the pain. So if you showed up today, if you’re watching online, if you’ve gathered from any place, carrying your burden, lay ’em at his feet because God can bear those burdens. God can help you to carry it. If there are neighbors who are around you, remind you today, that even today do something that might be unusual or strange, is not leave here without speaking to someone you don’t know. To say good morning to those without a smile, to say hello to those who you pass. Don’t be in such a hurry to leave the sanctuary and say, “I met God”, but meet him when you’re speaking to someone else.  Meet him when you’re saying, ‘Good morning’.  Don’t walk by without smiling, without speaking, without saying, “God is good”.

Here when you look, God is still present in the moment. God is shaping our faith. God is giving us resilience and God is helping us to see that there’s liberation even under the most heaviest of burdens. History has taught me, history has shaped me, and I come out of a history where the church has been and must remain a place of worship. It must remain a community of welcome.  But it also must be a place of refuge for dignity and a base for justice. The truth assures us, and this truth assures, us that despair does not have the final word.  That ’cause, I remind you, the more I dug, the deeper I went into the word, the more I could see God will always be with us. That same God who is with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be with us. That same God who is with Daniel in the lion’s den will be with us.  That same God who is with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in a fiery furnace will be with us. That same God who was with Esther, who was with David as he met Goliath, who was with Gideon in a battle outnumbered, who was with Isaiah, and even Jeremiah, with fire and hammer, will be with us. That same God, who was there on a hill called Calvary.  That same God, who is in the grave, rolled away the stone. That same God who raised Jesus from the dead, will be with us in a moment like this.

As God carried the generations before us, so to God will continue to work in our time, leading us forward in faith and hope toward freedom. So don’t just look at the signs that you read on the papers. Don’t just look at the signs that you hear in news flashes, texts, twitters here, little short stories and everywhere. Look at the times and see God is still working. And remember that I still, every time, hear the voices of those who have come before me, who remind me, who I heard them declare, who I heard them sing, who I heard them pray. And I remember the words when they said, “I’ve learned to trust in Jesus. I’ve learned to trust in His word.”  And on this day, as our dean reminded us on last week, put your trust in him. Amen.