Genesis 15:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-3,8-16; Luke 12-13:9
I imagine that many of us have taken one or another trip in the past few months, and found refreshment. For those who will soon be traveling, I hope you do also!
For whatever reason, in the whirl of packing and putting things in order before our own travel last month, our summer of 1992 came to mind.
Over a few years’ discernment, I had hammered out a new position as pastoral associate of Our Lady of Guadalupe, with the retiring pastor, new bishop, and a feisty, quad-lingual group of 35 immigrant farmworkers and catechists.
After a great sendoff party, we had help packing up our entire household – our home of 6 years in an intentional community, into a truck. We handed our crying kids to Jim’s mom – who’d fly them down a few days later – and decamped from Willy Street to rural Southcentral Florida.
Off we drove: friends waving, goldfish splashing on the dashboard, car towing behind. Once alone, it hit us that we had just shy of 1,500 miles to go – and absolutely no idea how any of it was going to work out.
Our community had a song for that moment, a song from Africa: “We are going, heaven knows where we are going, we know we are!”
Until now, that “stepping off-a-cliff” experience was for me as close as I got to identifying with Abraham. He’d been steadily leading a nomadic people in the desert, when God called him by name, to do something new, unknowable, and seemingly impossible.
In that moment he was called, Abraham was completely caught short: without a son he failed the Prophetic tradition. Would a slave’s son usurp the role of his heir? How terrifying it must have been, how shaming to feel this impotence before The Holy!
Yet rather than striking down this trembling soul as a failure, God manifested to him as a Shield, a protector, a deliverer – and – Likely taking a deep breath, Abraham placed his trust in this encounter, his hope in the realization of a promise not imaginably possible, and that is what made “agreeable to God”!!
The author of Hebrews asserts that “Faith is the assurance of what we hope for, and the conviction about things which we do not see.”
How, in God’s name, do we find and surrender to believing in what seems so far from possible? This writer recognized that those who followed Jesus were “strangers and nomads on this earth.”
They remind us not to expect our faith to be supported by the surrounding culture; that each generation needs to “unpack” the revelatory event of Jesus.
He is that Gift of God, Unconditional love for us all! And we won’t be abandoned.
Richard Carlson’s commentary on this passage shared this gem: “Sacred Scripture teaches us that God delighted at Jesus’ birth; that it was God’s good pleasure, God’s delightful decision, to give those hopeless and despairing God’s Kingdom ALREADY.
As we grasp the enormity of that realization, the Spirit moves us to respond with love to the unseen Giver in return. How can we do that? Jesus made it so very clear: love your neighbors, act with justice and compassion; trust that those efforts matter, for they carry life/ Don’t worry about how others perceive or judge you.
There are centuries of loving and unwavering resistance to war, racism, religious and gender oppression, generosity of spirit, energy, money and more in the history of this circle. Yet, sadly, the work of justice is never complete.
And this is an utterly new time. A time that calls us beyond dedication to specific causes, and monthly donations, to claiming the power of our citizenship AND our faith in facing government authorized cruelty.
A time that requires us to become ever more a community of witnesses in the most ancient sense of following Jesus and his teaching. And may well take us out of our comfort zones.
Carrying the Cross, as we did last weekend up State St., we knew that we wouldn’t be those most suffering the shredding of decency, compassion, laws, and justice.
300 of us, walked in solidarity with, and in the place of, those who are, and who will be suffering needlessly in coming months. As people lined up to sign their names on the cross, I sensed they were pledging to take up the work that justice requires in this time.
Good thing! As new challenges keep arising. Just a month ago the IRS reversed its longstanding guidelines. Churches no longer need to avoid partisan speech under the Johnson Amendment of the U.S. tax code, as they have since 1954.
As Sojourners magazine immediately stated, “Progressive churches cannot cede the field of political speech out of propriety! The implications are especially foreboding if that new IRS stance allows for more explicit partisan campaigning by conservative evangelical groups and institutions.” While we don’t know what may come of that; it is certainly cause for our concern and watchfulness.
WISDOM, the statewide network including MOSES, held a powerful 25th anniversary Friday evening in Milwaukee. POWER, we were reminded, is what makes change. Finding and growing our power is the work of communities that affect change. We are a member church in that power.
After years of informed advocacy, WISDOM will make its final appeal to Gov. Evers in 2 weeks. We are again asking him to release some of the many eligible WI residents from prison before he concludes his term.
State affiliates of WISDOM will drive hours to join us outside the Governor’s Mansion on Saturday, the 23rd of this month 11am to noon to call on the Governor to honor his agreement: to release eligible persons imprisoned in WI. I ask you to be there, to help make a show of peaceful power: 300 people outside that mansion would be a holy expression of our Power to free the imprisoned, and make families and communities whole.
Maybe the Cross could accompany us?… Stay tuned!
Luke’s community may well have been afraid: of being killed, being without food or possessions, Yet they were taught to let none of that, turn them away, from the work of God’s home and people
Luke reminds us to summon the Fearlessness of the disciples, trusting that God holds us precious; that the Holy Spirit sets us free to live and act freely: not as those who fear. Despite what financial planners and worriers say, we can Choose to worry less about our possessions, portfolios, and reputation; we can Choose to “spend” ourselves ever more fully, sharing faith, love and resources .
Luke’s gospel promises, what lyricist Shirley Murray wrote, for the song For Everyone Born, a Place at the Table: “and God will delight, when we are creators of justice, justice and joy!”
Prayers of the faithful:
For the Benedictine Women of Madison, with gratitude for their vision and hospitality, for their well-being and peace, and for the growth of their community, let us pray…
For Bishop William Barber, and leaders of every denomination and faith who hear the cries of God’s people and work diligently for their safety and well-being, let us pray….
For all those currently homeless in our communities, especially families with children, that we prioritize appropriate and affordable housing so that they might prosper in a stable home, let us pray…
For Joan and Al Liegel on their 60th Anniversary, with gratitude for their life together, the contributions to the well being of God’s people in their professions, their engagement with the work of MOSES, and their presence in our Sunday Assembly, let us pray…,
Please raise the names of those for whom we can join in prayer…………for these, and all listed in our Book of Intentions; all those ill, suffering with addiction or mental illness, all who have recently died, and those who mourn them…
We offer these prayers in trust, O Holy One. We know that you support our efforts to help realize what we ask for. Grant us vision, O God, to create a more just future; grant us rebounding hope to persist against the odds of wealth and miserliness; grant us peace and joy in moving further into the heart of Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and into You, our Creator, Source of all life. Amen.