06/30/2024 ~ Proper 8 ~ Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time ~ Sixth Sunday after Pentecost ~ 2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27; Psalm 130; Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15, 2:23-24 or
Lamentations 3:22-33; Psalm 30; 2 Corinthians 8:7-15; Mark 5:21-43 ~ VIDEO OF FULL SERVICE: https://vimeo.com/showcase/7960701/video/974163243

The Faithfulness of God

“Your favor, O Yahweh, is not exhausted, / nor has the compassion of God failed.” — Lamentations 3:22.

I have said this here probably way too often: I grew up Roman Catholic, shifted to the Episcopal tradition and perhaps due the influence of a certain Congregationalist who for reasons I still do not comprehend was willing to marry me, I shifted yet again.

I have also said this way too often: my Mother went into but left the convent, met and married my Father who taught at a Jesuit School. The consequence? I’m a church geek. I have always involved with the church and the people of the church community.

This is a story from my late teens which delves into that, but you need some background. Generally Catholic youngsters in the Second Grade experience a “First Communion,” the first time they receive the Sacrament. The church says this is when a child has reached the age of reason, can have some understanding about the Sacrament.

Given the complexities of Roman dogma— transubstantiation and all that— these children need to get some instruction. Parochial school children get instruction, lots of it.

But Catholic students in public schools need to go to classes just for them. And so in my late teens I was recruited to teach public school Second Graders about religion. To be clear, these classes don’t help second graders understand complex dogma. A somewhat more basic instruction is accomplished by having the youngsters memorize questions and answers found in The Baltimore Catechism.

We Protestants should not laugh or hold our nose at children memorizing questions and answers in a Catechism. Martin Luther, himself, wrote Luther’s Small Catechism meant for the training of young children.

All that comes back to my involvement. In my late teens I was teaching Second Grade students, involved in the church, involved in the community (Slight pause.)

This is something else I’ve mentioned too often. I’m a street kid from Brooklyn, New York, which is not like Brooklin, Maine. That city environment was less than bucolic. In my neighborhood, for instance, sometimes someone would pour gasoline in a mail box and flip in a lit cigarette— boom, fire.

Another example: a local newspaper stand was open from 10 to 4 only. A police car was often parked in front. A newsstand open from 10 to 4 with a police car there? In street parlance, it was a wire room. It took bets on horse races. The police were on the take.

I could go on but you get the picture— my neighborhood. And yet… despite those things which rubbed my nose in the reality of the world, I taught children about church. I was… a church geek, interested in God and interested in community. (Slight pause.)

We find these words in the work known as Lamentations: “Your favor, O Yahweh, is not exhausted, / nor has the compassion of God failed.”

If you’re paying any attention to the news, one can readily argue we live in difficult times. As I suggested last week, we humans often live in difficult times.

In our times a myriad of social issues tell us about the broken-ness of the world, the broken-ness of society. If that broken-ness is not self-evident, you’ve not been looking. Hence, we live within the conflict of that broken-ness.

The writer of this passage lives in conflicted times. The words I quoted praise the compassion of God. Later verses talk about burdens, yokes, insults. Why? These words are likely to have been recorded during the Babylonian Exile, the captivity of the Jews.

Given the sense of conflicted-ness in my early life and what Lamentations says, it leads me to the thought that life, itself, is more complex and even more conflicted than we want to admit. Perhaps our life with God is more complex and conflicted than we want to admit.

Equally, there’s a simple, straightforward premise we claim about God. It’s not just that God is with us— Emmanuel. It’s that God is with us through conflict and through struggle, no matter what the circumstance.

God with us does not mean we will avoid the myriad of issues surrounding us. And I don’t need to name them for you since each of you could easily compile a list of both personal issues and issues in society as a whole. I think what this reading tells us is, because life is conflicted, we must engage, learn about, strive to deal with these issues.

And yes, engaging the personal issues and the issues of our world probably means things may not always go the way we had planned, wanted, hoped. But Scripture still insists God will be with us and is with us even as we experience the conflicted-ness of life.

And so what gives the writer of this passage hope is the fidelity and mercy of Yahweh, God. The writer clearly says the steadfast love of Yahweh never ceases; the mercy of God never comes to an end; these are new every morning.

In its poetics the poem encircles and frames the reality of conflict with the merciful fidelity of God while proclaiming a God of hope. My take? Hope describes a reality of God, God who walks with us, encircles us with divine mercy. (Pause.)

Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann said the images of Pharaoh and Pilate are a metaphor for empire and every empire, without exception, wants to reduce what is possible to what is merely available. Pharaoh and Pilate are stand-ins for the reality of empire. They embody, represent brute force, raw, absolute, worldly power. (Slight pause.)

Here is something I don’t think I’ve said often enough from the pulpit. We live in an age of empire. Jesus lived in an age of empire but was not a part of that empire. So Jesus lived with this conflict: living in empire while not a part of empire. And the empire killed Jesus.

Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in the Fourth and Fifth Century, lived in an age of empire. By then the church was a part of empire.

However, Augustine was not enamored of empire and lived with that conflict. So perhaps the question for us is what does it mean to live, as did Jesus, as did Augustine, both under different circumstances but both in an age of empire— what does it mean for us to live with and in the reality of this conflict? (Short pause.)

Empire is represented in many different personae throughout Scripture. These agents of empire work against the possibilities which God insists are present for us. And so this is what I take from today’s passage: life, especially life in an age of empire, is lived within conflict. That’s a given. We need to grapple with it.

Why? God wants to enfold humanity in steadfast love. Empire, a large part of the reality of the conflicts of life, has a difficult time with steadfast love.

Why does empire not want to allow for love? Because hope is an aspect of love and hope does not need to silence the rumblings of crisis, of conflict, of empire, to still be hope.

So our hope is not, or at least should not be, in and with empire since a hope placed in empire, a hope which declares empire is a cure-all, is a foolish hope. Our hope is in God, with God, God who is faithful. Amen.

06/30/2024
Elijah Kellogg Church, Harpswell, Maine

ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Choral Response and Benediction. This is an précis of what was said: “Let me offer something else Walter Brueggemann said. (Quote:) ‘Sabbath is not about worship…. It is about withdrawal from the anxiety system of Pharaoh and Pilate. Sabbath is a refusal to let one’s life be defined by production and consumption and the endless pursuit of private well-being’ (unquote). Sabbath is, therefore, not self centered. It is community centered. Looking out for only self, not for neighbor, is an activity of empire. Involvement in and with the community, involvement with neighbor, is an expression of hope.”

BENEDICTION: Let us place our trust in God. Let us go from this place to share this Good News: by God we are blessed; in Jesus, the Christ, the beloved of God, we are made whole. Let us depart in confidence and joy that the Spirit of God is with us and let us carry Christ in our hearts for God is faithful. Amen.