What have been some of your prayers over the past few days?

Transcription

1 Text: Isaiah 61:1-4 Date: August 13, 2017 Title: Good Grief: Where s God in This? Theme: When things look impossible, know that Christ has promised to be IN US. Question What have been some of your prayers over the past few days? Prayer Sermon No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. C.S. Lewis wrote this in his journal following the loss of his wife to cancer a series of journal entries that he later published as a book called A Grief Observed I know that I promised to talk to you about grief this morning And I suppose I will, because I can t run away from my own grief this morning I need to add something to what CS Lewis said Yes, grief feels like fear, absolutely It also feels like despair It feels like anger It feels sometimes like rage I ve cycled through all of them in the past 24 hours Yesterday morning, I looked at pictures out of Charlottesville I watched some of the videos from the Friday march on the UVA campus I saw white men out at night with torches, not only evoking the KKK but even the Nazis with their racist, anti-semitic slogans And I asked myself: What nation am I living in? What year is this? 1

2 Then I get home from preaching a member s funeral service yesterday, We go out shopping for a bit, and Steph gets an alert on her phone: a car drove into a counter-demonstration in Charlottesville I come home, watch the video, and I am devastated But you know what? I m also not surprised Because every time you see a news story about Black Lives Matter shutting down a street or a highway as a means of protest, this is EXACTLY what you see when you scroll through the comments Someone saying they d do EXACTLY what happened here And when I think about that, I don t just grieve, I get angry furious Friends, I ve got to say something, otherwise I will not be able to sleep tonight A few weeks ago, we were talking about truth, and the need to speak truth That there is a reality here that we need to confront And the words that we use matter There is NO SUCH THING as the alt-right This thing in Charlottesville was billed as a gathering of the alt-right Every time you hear anyone on the news say this, it is a lie and I want you to replace it with what is true about this movement This is white nationalism the idea that the US is a nation by and for whites it is nothing else When you hear a crowd chanting Blood and Soil? You are hearing a direct translation of an old Nazi slogan Blut und Boden People want to make this about a Confederate flag, Confederate monuments About preserving history and heritage Think about that Preserving a history and heritage that enslaved and killed millions of people You don t preserve a history like that! The only reason why Auschwitz wasn t burnt to the ground the minute the Allies liberated it was to remind ourselves: NEVER AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN. 2

3 We need to be honest about history, honest about where we come from About the fact that Thomas Jefferson, the founder of UVA, the author of the Declaration of Independence was himself a man who owned other people. That General Washington, the beloved father of our nation, was himself a man who owned other people We need to be honest about these things we need to be honest about the fact that 241 years after our founding on the notion that all men are created equal, and 152 years after Lincoln reaffirmed it in the cemetery at Gettysburg that we are not equal Racism and privilege still exist We need to speak truth about all these things This is NOT a moment for us to say, everyone is at fault That everything was fine until the counter-protesters showed up It is NOT FINE to have Nazis and the Klan rallying in our communities PERIOD. EVER. END OF STORY. When these things happen, we have to stand up, as communities and as nation, to say, this is NOT WHO WE ARE To say, RACISM can have NO place among us. PERIOD. This white nationalist ideology can t be part of anyone s big tent politics it s got to be condemned. PERIOD. Belief that anyone is superior to anyone else because of where they re from or the color of their skin? It doesn t square with the gospel. PERIOD. Because what we teach is that every single person black, white, brown and every shade in between we are all created in the image of God. PERIOD. I know that sometimes people have asked me, or asked Kathleen, or asked each other, why do we, in our very white church, have a small group talking about race? THIS is why we have a small group talking about race Because we can t pretend that this is all going to go away. I know a lot of white people think that all these conversations are just about demonizing white people and making us feel guilty But that s not the point Because guilt is a not effective motivator for change. 3

4 Now guilt may be something we experience along the way, no doubt. God knows that are plenty of things that I ve said, I ve done, I ve thought that have not reflected that notion that all of us stand equal before God. And there are plenty of things that have been a lot easier for me than they would have been for someone else just because I m a white man. To understand that is complicated, but it should be complicated Our history as a nation is complicated. Our history even as individuals is complicated much more so than any of us are willing to admit Can I tell you a story from my own family? Back in 1924, in the town in Pennsylvania where both sides of my family comes from, the town that my daughter Lilly is named for 400 Klansmen, robed and hooded, rode in on a specially-chartered train from Johnstown to harass Catholics Their intention was to burn a cross on one of the hills in Lilly, and to draw attention to what they were doing by setting off dynamite as they marched from the train station Which they did. Someone in town cut the power so that it got really dark for a while, and that added to the terror of what might be happening, so a crowd came out to see what was going on. Now my family as you might guess at least on the Monahan side they were Catholic And the Catholics were not going to just let this go They actually got hold of one of the Klansmen and, according to the story, were ready to lynch him until cooler heads prevailed Someone else decided maybe a meaningful act of resistance would be to turn a fire hose on the Klansmen as they marched back from burning their cross Which they did. But when one of the Klansmen tried to wrestle the fire hose away, someone fired a shot. Pretty soon, a full-fledged riot and gunbattle broke out. It was brief, but at the end of it, three men died and more than twenty were wounded. My great uncle, Bill Monahan, who everyone called Timbers, my grandfather s brother, found himself charged with murder But he was not convicted 4

5 Why do I tell you this in the face of a day of tragedy and turmoil in the life of our nation why do I tell you this story from nearly 100 years ago? I tell you this because history is complicated. People are complicated. You know, according to the stories the family tells, the ones not in written in the official history It seems likely that some of my relatives were also on the other side that night either with the Klan or sympathizing with the Klan. The world is complicated. We re complicated. And our response to what s happening is complicated. Many of us are grieving. And grief feels like fear. It feels like anger. Grief can make us feel incredibly tiny and totally helpless. But it can also give us our mission Guilt doesn t work to motivate - but grief can Lose your job, lose your marriage, lose someone you loved very dearly The fact that we are suddenly plunged into a situation that we did not at all expect THAT can motivate us It can motivate us to do things we never expected to do that we never dreamed we could do Grief can feel like fear but it can also be a source of power This week, the world has felt like a mess Like it was coming apart everywhere we looked We started with the threat of nuclear war and ended with a violent Nazi rally I m celebrating a birthday this week And the longer I live, the more I m convinced of this The world ALWAYS looks like it s hanging on by a thread And what we have to offer in response ALWAYS feels so inadequate When Jesus preached the first sermon of his ministry career he preached it on this text, the one we read today, from Isaiah 61. He saw in it the calling the Father had placed on his life. It was his mission. Didn t he stand up and say, Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing? 5

6 Here was the very reason why he had come down from heaven. To do what he could to try and save a world that was hanging on by a thread Do you want to know the answer to the question I ask in my sermon title Where s God in This? When you look at Jesus, the answer to the question is this: God s in HIM. He could ONLY do what he did because God was LITERALLY IN HIM. But you knew that. Do you know what else is true? Maybe you think about this less often. He s promised to be IN US. It s right there in John 14. On that day, he said, when the world no longer sees me, you will see me. Then you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. So the answer to the question, Where s God in this? is simple: God s in you. And me. And us. To go out and clean up some of this mess. To try and keep this world that s hanging on by a thread, hanging on. So we need to hear this scripture again. But I want to offer, if I can, a couple of editorial changes as we read I want you to say them with me now stay with me! The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon US, because the LORD has anointed US; he has sent US to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners to comfort ALL who mourn 6

7 WE will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory. WE shall build up the ancient ruins, WE shall raise up the former devastations; WE shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. Who will do this? WE will. WE will. WE will. Because where s God in this? In us, my friends. In us. Amen. By Joe Monahan, Medford UMC, Medford NJ 7