The Rev. Canon Jan Naylor Cope: Be the Light
Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
where there is hatred, let us sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is discord, union;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that we may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born
to eternal life. Amen.
This prayer, attributed to St. Francis, is one that I have returned to over and over again during the past two weeks. As we look at the grief, the sorrow, the death, and destruction—not just in the Holy Land, but in Ukraine, places of conflict around the globe, and yes, conflict, division, and discord in this country—sometimes we’re not quite sure where to go and what is ours to do. I find prayer particularly helpful to keep me grounded and to keep me focused on what I can do and frankly, what is mine to do.
As we heard in the gospel lesson this morning, Jesus lived in a time of deep division and conflict. In the passage, Jesus’ religious opponents come to him trying to trap him into basically taking sides. If he had taken a side, there would have been tremendous consequences. Jesus doesn’t fall into the trap. He shows another way: that it’s not either-or, it’s both-and. If we look at today’s landscape, some of the most vexing problems and conflicts and disagreements in the world aren’t black and white—there’s a lot of gray. The one we follow, Jesus, the Christ, is all about the way of love and peace and reconciliation—seeking justice and respecting the dignity of every human being. So, I turn to his teachings. I turn a lot to the psalms; they lift up for us every possible human emotion.
In Jesus’ teaching, I’m reminded of his Sermon on the Mount. Listen again to those familiar words of the Beatitudes.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
It’s so hard when the pain and the suffering are so profound to find the language, to find our way. Jesus shows us the way.
As we turn to the wisdom of the psalms, we are reminded that no matter how dark the day, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Hear the message of the Thirty-fourth Psalm: “The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” The deepest longing of our broken hearts is, Lord, may it be so.
The language of lament is one that seems particularly apt right now. In her book Journey through the Psalms, Denise Dombkowski Hopkins notes that “The Hebrew question lamah (“why”) is the most frequently occurring question in the psalms. It is not simply a question of information, as if God could explain the pain away. The why indicates that something is very wrong and that the psalmist does not understand what is happening and feels totally helpless…” I suspect that a lot of us are feeling helpless today. Perhaps the most familiar question of “why” in the psalms opens Psalm Twenty-two: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” —which Jesus recites in Matthew’s gospel account from the cross. My God, why? —probably followed closely thereafter by, How long, O Lord?
We are called, my friends, to be instruments of peace: to sow love, union, faith, hope, and light in the darkness; to console, to understand, to love, to give, to pardon. This is our call. This is the way of the one we follow. We know it’s not going to happen overnight. No, it’s a long road, but one that we are all committed to. As Dr. Martin Luther King reminded us from this very pulpit, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
One of the great gifts of this cathedral is that it lifts up in its very fabric, the story of God and God’s people. I was reminded this week by our former dean, Nathan Baxter, of one of our windows. It’s called Suffering and Redemption. It’s based on the theme of the 137th Psalm: “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered you, O Zion.” The story moves in an arc from right to left, from despair to hope. As you look at the far right lancet of the window, you see a prophet with hands up in supplication and head downcast in despair. In the central two lancets are the people of Israel depicted in exile in Babylon weeping along the banks of the Euphrates, which you see coursing through those central panels. And then on the left is another prophet pointing upward as a gesture of hope. The prophet is pointing to the top of the window with the symbol of hope—the rainbow—the rainbow of God.
Finally, in the lower left quadrant of that multifoil, is a special gift made to the Cathedral from the people of Israel. It is a rock that was quarried near the Western Wall, known by some as the Wailing Wall, in Jerusalem, where generations of people of all faiths have gone to lift up the deepest prayers of their hearts and their longings. For those of you who have been to the Holy Land, I would bet that you too wrote the deepest prayers of your heart and your spirit on a little piece of paper and wedged it into that wall in a crevice. Some have called the wall the “mailbox of God,” which I think is a wonderful image for expressing our deepest longing, our deepest hope for all. We lift up to God who is our refuge and strength.
Remember, Christ came into the world as the light. The darkness did not overcome the light 2000 years ago. It cannot today. It cannot ever. We look for the light in the darkness. I leave you with the words of inaugural poet Amanda Gorman from her poem, “The Hill We Climb” written during a dark and divisive time in our country.
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
for there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it,
if only we’re brave enough to be it.
My brothers, sisters, and siblings: be the light. Follow the light. This broken world of ours needs it now more than ever. Be the light. Amen.