Resistors

Next Sunday, a new church year will begin to tell the story of salvation as it unfolded and unfolds: our yearning for a savior (Advent), Jesus coming among us (Christmas), our inability to follow him (Lent), his crucifixion and resurrection (Good Friday and Easter), the gift of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost), and our living our lives as Christians. Yesterday was the culmination of this past church year: the Reign of Christ Sunday. That Sunday looks forward to the time when Christ will truly rule over everything. Does that sound like a fantasy? This sermon is targeted towards the people who believe that it is.

“How can you believe all this stuff?”

I asked her, “What stuff are you talking about?”

“Well,” she answered, “all this stuff about the world becoming a place of peace and love. How can you believe it? I mean, just look around!” She spread her arms wide. “The world is messed up beyond belief. How can you believe that God is going to fix it? It’s just a fantasy.”

I had to think for a while about my response. The world is indeed warped and broken, and we all know it. Turn on any newscast, open any newspaper, or fire up any internet browser, and you’ll see all kinds of bad news. Our political system is dysfunctional. Sexual harassment is rampant. Human trafficking is widespread. Even the environment is suffering the effects of human greed and ignorance. And that’s only in our own country! If we look farther afield, we see millions of victims of war, poverty, and natural disasters. We see refugees, starving children, and dictators who commit incredible acts of brutality on their fellow human beings. My friend is absolutely right – the world is messed up beyond belief. On this day that we celebrate the coming reign of Christ, the time when all the problems of the world will melt away like ice cream in the summer sun, all Christians should ask themselves: Do we really believe – as my friend puts it – all this stuff? And if we do, how do we respond to those who say that it's a fantasy, if not a mass hallucination?

Maybe the best response goes something like this.

First, love is the most powerful force in the universe. If you don’t want to call it “love,” you can call it “attraction.” It is, quite simply, the force that holds the whole universe together. “Love” is just the name that we give it when we experience it in our own lives. Love is the magnet that keeps us together in spite of hurt and misunderstanding and stupidity. Without it, everything would fall apart like grains of sand when they are tossed into the wind.

Second, love comes from God, the One who is shown to us in Jesu1: Christ. Love is the foundation of the universe because God created it; and all creators put a part of themselves into what they make. The author of the New Testament book of Colossians said exactly that when he wrote (1:15-17), “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, for in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Finally, because God’s love is the most powerful force in the universe, it must triumph in the end. Our world is messed up now because God gives us the freedom to make choices – and we make really bad choices all the time! But some day, even though we don’t know when or how, love will get the last word; and on that day, God’s kingdom will come in fullness. All the bad choices that we’ve made will be repaired, and we and the world that we live in will be made whole. God won’t just slap a bandage on the universe; God will do major surgery and heal everything once and for all through the irresistible power of love.

Now, if you believe all this (and I certainly hope that you do), then I call on you to be a resistor! I’m not talking about a “resister” in the political sense, of someone taking a stance against government policies and practicing civil disobedience (although if you decide to do that, more power to you). No, I’m talking about a “resistor” in the electrical sense! A resistor is anything that slows the flow of electricity through a circuit. Now, don’t worry – I’m not going to ask you to stick your finger into an electrical socket. We humans can’t resist electricity all by ourselves. But we can help to resist the flow of despair that is surging through our country like a roller coaster. That despair is being fed by a whole host of problems: an inability to communicate effectively with one another, governmental dysfunction, a resurgence of hate crimes, a lack of jobs that pay a living wage, unaffordable health care, and rampant gun violence. Faced with these evils and all kinds of others like them, it’s no wonder that people are despairing! So it’s up to us Christians to be resistors and proclaim that despite all the evils that we face, those evils won’t win in the end. The appalling situations in which we find ourselves aren’t permanent. They must one day give way to the power of God’s love that offers peace and joy to the entire creation!

I once heard the story of a preacher who misunderstood the language of the King James Bible. When he read “And it came to pass,” he didn’t understand that “It came to pass” is simply an old way of saying “It happened.” So he preached a whole sermon on how all the problems of our world will one day disappear, because the Bible says that they have only “come to pass.” His knowledge of the Bible may need a little bit of help, but that sermon was right on track! Our problems aren’t permanent; and we resistors need to keep saying that to folks who are in the depths of despair. “Hang on!” we should be saying. “This situation won’t last forever! God will get the last word!” I don’t know about you, but the certainty that God’s kingdom will arrive someday and that Christ will rule over everything is sometimes the only thing that lets me get to sleep at night. It’s what keeps me from going haywire in the middle of the tempest that is today’s world. It’s what gives me the strength to go on. Let’s share that message! Let’s be resistors! And let’s not only proclaim hope; let’s show other people what it looks like! Let’s be little pieces of the reign of Christ that God has promised us, full of hope and love and peace! Maybe if all of us started doing that on a regular basis, more people would join us in believing “all this stuff.”

Blessed

What are you thankful for? It's a good question to ask ourselves, not only when Thanksgiving rolls around, but any day of the year. And if we are only thankful for the luxuries that we enjoy as middle-class Americans, maybe we should reevaluate our list! This sermon talks about exactly that.

Back in the day, when I was in elementary school, the week leading up to Thanksgiving was pretty much a throwaway as far as lessons were concerned. Nowadays many school systems take off the entire week, but that wasn’t the case when I was growing up. Because we students couldn’t concentrate on lessons, the teachers thought up all kinds of projects to keep us occupied. We made pilgrim hats out of construction paper, Native American garb out of brown paper bags, and turkeys out of our own hand prints. And almost every year, we would be asked to draw a picture of what we were thankful for. There were all kinds of responses to that! The kids who wanted to please the teacher (like me) drew pictures of people kneeling in church to signify freedom of religion, even though we had no idea what that really meant. The ones who were honest usually drew a picture of their families, their toys, or even the hamster.

That’s still a good activity for us adults, even though no pictures are necessary this morning. What are we thankful for? Take just a moment to think about that. What is tops on your list this morning? Is it your house? Your warm clothing? Your family? Those are the things that many people name when that question is asked. But what would happen if all those things were taken away? What would happen if, like Job, we suddenly lost every single one of the things that we so often take for granted in our lives? No roof over our heads… no soft bed with warm bedding... no refrigerator full of turkey and cranberry sauce… no telephone… no car with a full gas tank… no warm coat to keep out the cold. Would we still give thanks to God then?

Before you answer that question, let’s go back in time to the year 1620, when the Pilgrims first landed in Massachusetts. It was a very difficult time for them. Not only had they crossed the Atlantic very late in the season, they had landed much farther north than they had intended to land. When they finally started building a permanent village, it was late October and winter was coming on. Most of the Pilgrims lived on the ship during that first winter, because it was impossible to build homes in the cold and snow. Their food supply had been nearly exhausted during their ocean voyage, and very little fresh food was available. Half of them died of exposure, scurvy, or disease. If it had not been for the native Squanto who taught them to grow corn and squash, tap maple trees for sap, and catch seafood, the rest of them might not have survived, either. But they did survive; and the following fall, they shared a feast of thanksgiving with the Native Americans who had, quite literally, saved their lives.

What were the Pilgrims thankful for? Not soft beds; they didn’t have any of those. Not big homes; their houses were small, dark, and uncomfortable. Not a closet full of clothes; most of the Pilgrims had only two sets of clothing: one for every day and another for Sunday. And all of them had lost loved ones during that first dreadful winter. What could they possibly be thankful for in circumstances like that? The answer is that they were thankful to be alive at all! They were thankful that, because they had been helped by Squanto and other members of his tribe (surely a sign of God’s grace), they now had plenty of food to eat. They were thankful that they now had shelter on the mainland. And they were thankful that, even though some of their loved ones had died due to cold and disease, other loved ones still surrounded them. They were thankful for the basics: life, food, shelter, and loved ones! We who are surrounded by unbelievable bounty every day of the week tend for forget about all those basics, don’t we? We are so accustomed to life’s luxuries that we enjoy as middle-class Americans that we forget the blessings that we have simply as human beings: life, shelter, loved ones, and enough food to survive. And the reality is that if we don’t have those things, nothing else really matters a hill of beans!

At the United Church of Christ regional gathering that I attended recently, the host church was a mostly African-American congregation on the west side of Cincinnati. When they led us in worship, it was in what I would describe as a typical African-American style. We sang joyfully as we stood up and clapped with the rhythm of the upbeat music. We were encouraged to sing out; and we gave thanks to God for all God’s blessings over and over again. It made me stop and think; and I realized that African-American churches who have the fewest material blessings are the very ones who praise God the most enthusiastically. African-American congregations always have praise at the center of their worship! No matter how much injustice or inequality the preacher may lift up – and believe me, African-American congregations know a lot more than we do about injustice and inequality – the foundation of their worship isn’t complaint or lament, but praise!

We can learn a lot from our African-American sisters and brothers. They witness to us through their worship that despite all the difficulties in our lives – and all of us do have many difficulties – we can always thank God for the blessings that we have. We are alive. We are can get up and move around. We can see and hear and taste. We can love; and we have people who love us back and help us out when times are hard. Most of all, we have God’s presence with us every single day of our lives. We have Jesus Christ walking with us over both smooth paths and troubled waters. We have the Spirit within us giving us comfort and peace, courage and guidance. We have so many reasons to thank God! And when we do that, it changes our perspective. When we give God thanks, it takes our focus off the things that are going wrong in our lives and puts that focus squarely back on the things that are going right! Praise and thanksgiving have the potential to change us from Grumpy Gus into Grateful Gertie. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather be Grateful Gertie than Grumpy Gus; and I’m pretty sure that the people around me would agree with that.

Are we blessed? You bet we are! God has done so much for us that we can’t begin to keep track of it all! So… on this Sunday before our national day of Thanksgiving, what are you thankful for? Turkey and cranberry sauce, parades and football games – sure! But I hope that topping your list are life, love, and the presence of God. That’s what the Pilgrims gave thanks for. That’s what our African-American sisters and brothers give thanks for. And I certainly hope that you’re giving thanks for those things, too!

Be Prepared

What would you do if the world was going to end next week? How about in a month? In a thousand years? We Christians believe that it will end some day when the Kingdom of God arrives. So... how do we get ready for that? This sermon might help you think about that.

While I was scanning Facebook recently, I came across the astonishing prediction that the world is going to end next Sunday. According to someone named Terral Croft, the world will be destroyed by massive earthquakes on Sunday, November 19 “when Earth passes behind the Sun relative to the Black Star in the Libra Constellation.” (This quote is allegedly from Mr. Croft’s blog.) Call me a skeptic, but I don’t believe that prediction; and it’s not just because I am looking forward to enjoying Thanksgiving. No, it’s because lots of other people have predicted the end of the world before now; and they have all been mistaken in their calculations. I understand that even Sir Isaac Newton took a crack at that kind of prediction. He thought that the world would end in the year 2016. Since that date has passed and we are all still here, I assume that he was also wrong.

But what if the world was really going to end next Sunday? What would you do to get ready for that? Would you go out and buy all the things that you have always wanted? Would you quit your job and spend next week with your family? Would you find a quiet place to pray and meditate and just wait for the end? Fortunately, we don’t need to do any of those things right now. I’m fairly certain that the world will go right on turning throughout next Sunday into a week from tomorrow. (And if I’m wrong, I’ll certainly be the first one to apologize!) But one day, this world will, indeed, cease to exist; and we Christians believe that when it does, God will recreate this world into the Kingdom of God. We don’t know the details of how that will happen; and the Bible only offers imaginative glimpses of what that might look like. We don’t even know when that will happen. In fact, we really don't know anything at all about it -- only that it will happen someday.

How can we get ready for something like that? There are lots of different responses to that question. Some people just ignore it the whole thing. Their opinion is, “If it won’t happen in my lifetime, then I’m not going to worry about it.” They do whatever they want to do, and they don’t give any thought to the long-term future. Their motto, like that of the goofy character who graces the cover of Mad Magazine, is “What, me? Worry?” Other people know that life is short and nothing is certain; and they follow the advice that a beer company once offered: “You only go around once in life, so you have to grab it with gusto!” Like those who ignore the whole situation, they do whatever they want to do, as long as it is legal (and sometimes even if it isn’t). “Seize the day!” is their motto. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!”

We Christians have a different motto. We join the Boy Scouts in advising “Be prepared.” Be prepared for anything to happen! Be prepared for the world to end tomorrow; and be prepared for it to last for another million years! We know that God will recreate the world into the Kingdom of God, but we don’t know when that will happen. So, again we ask, “How do we get ready for an event that might happen today, or tomorrow, or not for another millennium?” The beginning of the answer, I think, is to consider what kind of person will fit into that coming kingdom. We all know what that kingdom will be like. It will be peaceful, with no more conflicts. In fact, it will be full of the kind of love that all of us want to get but that almost none of us are able to give: a love that accepts us no matter who we are, or what mistakes we have made in our lives. And because that kingdom will be peaceful and loving, there will be no more pain, no more suffering, and no more tears. That’s what we all yearn for, isn’t it; and that’s what we all look forward to at the end of time. So… if God’s kingdom will be full of peaceful, loving people, how do we get ready for it? The answer should be obvious: we practice being that kind of person right now; and we keep right on practicing until God’s kingdom comes in fullness – whenever that may be!

That may be an obvious answer, but it’s not an easy answer. Have you tried to be loving, forgiving, and accepting? Have you tried to put aside the differences that separate you from other people? Have you tried to reach beyond the divisions of politics, religion, and culture to find the common humanity that we all share? Of course you have; and so have I. Have you succeeded? Of course you haven’t; and neither have I. We will never love, forgive, and accept others the way that we should until we are transformed into the image of Christ when the kingdom of God arrives in its fullness! But that doesn’t mean that we should stop trying. On the contrary, we need to keep trying our best to practice love, forgiveness, and acceptance every single day until this world becomes the next one, whenever that may be!

That next world might be a long time in coming. In fact, we might practice our entire lives while we’re waiting for God’s kingdom to arrive. And we can’t practice anything that long without something to help keep us going! That’s what this morning’s parable from the gospel of Matthew (25:1-13) is all about. It tells of ten young bridesmaids who were waiting for a wedding to begin. In Jesus’ time, a wedding began when the bridegroom arrived at the bride’s home to take her to his own home. The whole wedding party would escort them there carrying lights. This particular bridegroom was late; and some of the bridesmaids hadn’t brought any extra oil for their lamps. In other words, they didn’t have any extra batteries for their flashlights. When the bridegroom finally showed up, their lights were out! They had to go looking for a convenience store that was still open at midnight in hopes of buying some new batteries; and while they were gone, the wedding started, and they were left out in the dark.

Friends, we are those lamps! Jesus tells us (Matthew 5:16) to “let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Love, acceptance, forgiveness: these are the lights that Jesus wants us to shine. They are the acts that will mold us into saints who are fit for the kingdom of God. But they are hard things to do! We need the resources of prayer, study, and community support to be able to do them on a regular basis! The resources that connect us with God and with each other are the oil in our lamps. If we try to be “good people” all by ourselves, we are behaving just like the five foolish bridesmaids who left their lamp oil at home.

So, how are you doing getting ready for the Kingdom of God? Are you filling yourself with the oil of prayer? Are you in a community of faith that supports you as you practice love, forgiveness, and acceptance? Are you worshiping regularly so that you stay connected with God? We want our lights to shine brightly until the kingdom of God comes in fullness! And when we are discouraged, we can hold on to the hope that one day, we won’t need oil for our lamps any longer; because Jesus will supply all the light that we need when we are invited into his home for the wedding feast.