What
Response is God Creating?
Matthew 21:23-32 Proper 21, Pentecost 17 September 27, 2020
St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Williamsburg, Virginia
These
are days of disruption. Where is God, in
the disruption?
COVID-19
is disrupting our lives each day. We
lament the many hundreds of thousands who have died around the world, and how
many could have been prevented. We pray
for those we know who are suffering through weeks and even months of
recovery. The stress of the past seven
months – with, perhaps a year more to go – is exhausting; the constant,
conscious decision-making that’s necessary throughout the day. “Have I remembered to bring my mask?” “Should I put my mask on?” “Is it safe to go into that grocery store? That book store? That restaurant?” What about that person who just stands too
close to you? Is he infecting you?
Cataclysm
is disrupting creation. Wildfires in
Oregon and Washington on a scale never seen before. Wildfires in California earlier than ever
seen before. In the south and the east,
more frequently-severe hurricanes and flooding than ever before. Then there is that massive chunk of ice that
just broke off from Greenland!
The
four months since the murder of George Floyd have disrupted the illusion (among
most white folks) that we were slowly but surely working towards racial
justice. Protests demanding racial
justice have been unprecedented in American history because so many white folks
have been taking part! Is this a hopeful
tipping point? Or a descent into
chaos? Our political polarization reflects
this disruption. Asserting the truth that
black lives matter to God even disrupts our lives together in our
congregations.
Our
president is exploiting all of these disruptions to increase our divisions,
according to his own former Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis.[1]
We are in the midst of the nastiest, most divisive presidential
campaign since the Civil War, made even worse by the fight over replacing the
late Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the Supreme Court.
Where
is God in the disruption?
I ask this because, in
the gospel stories, Jesus is God’s disruption, in flesh and blood, in actions
and words! Jesus is disrupting the
religious power structure of “the chief priest and elders of the people,” and
the Scribes, the Sadducees, and the Pharisees.
Look at this morning’s
story, for instance, from the gospel of Matthew. It’s one of the last days of Jesus’ life. The day previous he had entered Jerusalem (it’s
what we celebrate on Palm Sunday), and he had entered the temple, and he had engaged
in what we have to call a violent protest: overturning the tables of the money
changers and those making a profit by selling animals for sacrifice. Now on this next day, Jesus proclaims that
those who are religiously unclean and excluded – tax collectors and prostitutes
– will enter the kingdom of heaven before those who are making the religious
rules! And, in all of this, Jesus is making
the claim that his disruptive actions and words bring the authority of God, and
that the same was true with John the Baptizer, too! In the gospel stories, Jesus is God’s
disruption of all assumptions of how God operates.
And so, I wonder, today:
Where is God in the disruption that you and I are experiencing? And – what response is God the Holy Spirit
creating in you and among us, as followers of Jesus? God desires the building of the Beloved
Community. How are you and I being drawn
into action by God the Holy Spirit, “to become peace makers, justice builders,
[and] caretakers of creation?”[2]
/ How is the Spirit empowering you and
me to respond with “active, engaged, fearless love?”[3]
On face book last week,
I asked, “Where is God in the disruption?”
I received several thoughtful responses from folks trying to make sense
of this painful, frightening, and hopeful time of disruption.
One woman wrote, “I
think God is humbling us and exposing our idols. And it is devastating. We have not lived as one nation under God,
but instead have acted as if America itself were a god, righteous and
invincible. I believe our loving God is
pleading with us to take a hard, honest look at ourselves, individually and as
a nation, so that we can know our own limitations and repent of our sins. We are not good enough or strong enough to
bring about healing and reconciliation, but God is.”
A pastor described what
she thinks God is doing in the challenge of creating virtual worship
experiences during the disruption of COVID-19! “We have invested in an audio/video system
that integrates with our online worship that will continue because we are able
to get worship to folks in eldercare at the same time. We’ve given ourselves permission to be ridiculous,
and own it, because the laughter feeds our ability to offer worship in a way
that engages (and amuses) members….God is right here on the couch with us,
right in the cold, empty, echoing church when we record. It’s kind of amazing, actually, when we’re
not stuck in looking back (or getting back),…we notice God right here.”
One respondent is a 5th
grade public school teacher, teaching her class from her dining room while, at
the same time, her two children are upstairs, “attending” their own classes in
their bedrooms. She writes: “I [am] reminded
of when God led his people out of Egypt.
They lamented the loss of home, food, water, and wondered at God’s
presence. ‘Did he lead us out here just
to die?’ I see God in many daily things,
but in the larger picture, I know He’s in the background, so to speak, just as
He was then. So, I try to look for the
manna and water from rocks.”
A nurse wrote this: “I
am learning to be more thankful for health and loved ones. I am learning to ask how to be of help and
how to be more sensitive. I see God
disrupting the status quo in my life so that I look with new, more loving
eyes. And sometimes, moving out of my
comfort zone to stand up for what I believe is right.”
One face book
respondent couldn’t answer the question.
Instead, she wrote, “I am wondering where you are finding hope these
days? … I am needing a lot of help here as I feel we are descending into
fascism.”
Where are you in
this? Are you challenged to feel
hopeful, when there is so much reason for despair?
Certainly, this is a
time of lament over all that we are grieving.
We are grieving the lost Senior proms and
graduation ceremonies, and gatherings of family and friends for weddings and
funerals, and the lost jobs and income, and the retirements that have taken
place over Zoom with no chance to gather with long-time co-workers, and grandparents’
lost visits with their grandchildren, and the lost concerts and performances, and
the games not being played, or being played in empty stadiums – and on and on.
We are
people of the resurrection! We are
people of hope! But, are you finding
that this is a time of exhaustion? Are
you finding it challenging to stay emotionally healthy?
Here’s what
I wonder about this time: might it be easier for you and me to become more
contemplative? As God the Holy Spirit comes
to us and opens us in prayer, God draws us more deeply into hopefulness. For instance, in the lectionary that I use
for daily prayer, Psalm 62 was appointed for Morning Prayer this past Monday,
and I prayed with the Psalm writer who was experiencing great distress and despair:
For God alone I wait in silence;
from God comes my salvation.
God alone is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold, so that I shall never
be shaken. …
For God alone I wait in silence;
truly, my hope is in God.
You know this from your
own experience: as we return to the daily practices of the faith, God the Holy
Spirit restores our souls, and renews our hope.
We receive renewed energy to engage.
We know that results are not up to us.
But it is up to us to participate in what God is doing.
I have no doubt that
God is in the disruption! God has busted
apart any idea that our old notion of what was “normal” is ok, anymore. Our racial divisions are not ok. Our political divisions are not ok. Our abuse of creation is not ok. Through the disruption we’re experiencing, God
has broken all of that down. God is
drawing us into God’s new future, into the Beloved Community that God is
bringing to be.
What response is God
making possible? How is God drawing you and
me to act as peace makers, justice builders, and caretakers of creation? What does that look like, in your daily
lives? How is God the Holy Spirit
empowering you to respond actively and hopefully, with fearless love?
God is moving among us,
with holy, disruptive energy!
What good news!
In the name of God, who is Father and Son and
Holy Spirit. Amen.
Pastor
Andy Ballentine
[1] “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does
not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three
years of this deliberate effort.” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/
[2]
Kathleen Deignan, Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours (Sorin Books, 2007),
page 26.
[3]
Mirabi Starr https://cac.org/engaged-love-2020-09-22/
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