Pentecost +4
There is a children’s story that many of you probably know...”going on a bear hunt”, and all week the refrain from that story has been with me.
“There’s no way over it, no way under it, oh no, we've got to go through it...”
From one side of the sea to the other...no way over, no way under, no way around...just through. In a boat, on a journey, to the other side.
The youth and adults who departed for pilgrimage can surely relate to this notion of the journey to the next place. As they waited for the megabus on Friday morning (the first leg of their trek to Ireland) I can imagine that many of them wished there were some way to JUST get there--without the exhaustion and work and anxiety of the journey.
And, having experienced the intentional and ongoing work of formation that accompanies the ordination process, I can imagine there were times when Dan wondered if he would ever get across to the other side!
Are we there yet? The rather comic, and real, refrain that punctuates any long car trip stems from a longing to get there without spending our time in and with the journey.
A longing for the other side, a longing for the promised peace, a longing for the God of our hopes to finally make manifest the kingdom of love we long for in a new creation. And, sometimes a longing for this journey to end so that the next can begin!
In our travels there is a sense of eagerness for what is to come and sorrow at what is not yet come to pass.
This longing is not a critique of our life here in the 21st century, it is a longing grounded in that place of knowing that this is not all that is...a longing endured and embraced by saints through the millenia. Saint Augustine wrote: "We are but travelers on a journey without as yet a fixed abode; we are on our way, not yet in our native land; we are in a state of longing, but not yet of enjoyment. But let us continue on our way, and continue without sloth or respite, so that we may ultimately arrive at our destination."
And, in these heavenly terms, the destination is not ours to dictate. “Let us go to the other side”. The disciples stepped into the boat, from that place of learning (the passages preceding this in the Gospel are Jesus’ teachings about the kingdom) to the place of healing (once Jesus and the disciples reach the other side, they encounter the Geresene demoniac who Jesus heals). In a way, this particular journey is one from learning to healing...from study to action...from theoretical to lived.
But, in between the one and the other is a boat, in the water, on the journey. And, it is human nature to want out of that boat and into the promised land to come. So we speak of healing when the wound continues to be made; and, proclaim forgiveness for unrepented sins and use the death sentence as a means of avoiding owning our own place in a system of exploitation that all too easily nurtures the hatred that leads to destruction.
Look at those kind folk, they’ve already granted forgiveness. We just need to heal. Once the killer is dead, we can move on...
And from our place of pilgrimage we turn the newspaper pages to the next thing and the next thing. Turn the radio up, there’s a good song playing. Change the channel, there’s something good on channel 11.
Yet, beneath the sound of our own noise is the raging of the wind.
We are in the storm.
And, the disciples do not want to be there and I don’t want to be there as the seas grow rough, and we call on Jesus in words of lamentation. “Do you not know we are perishing?”
My God, my God why have you forsaken me? Do you not know we are perishing? Your people cry out for mercy and surely the cries have rent the heavens by now! Do you not know we are perishing?
This has been a week that demands our lament--A week when a terrorist steeped in the rhetoric of racism and despair has taken the lives of 9 of God’s beloved children--A week in which one less place in this country is proved safe for our brothers and sisters of color.
The street corner, the swimming pool, the sanctuary--the storm tears at whatever sense of safety our brothers and sisters might have had, and it is my intention to claim that we are in the storm. That from our place in the storm, our cry to the God who created us and the Son who redeems us and the Spirit who sustains us...must go forth.
And, so a litany of names and lamenting...
Do you not know we are perishing?
Clementa Pinckney. Sharonda Singleton. Ethel Lee Lance. Cynthia Hurd. Myra Thompson.
Do you not know we are perishing?
Tywanza Sanders. Daniel Simmons. Depayne Middleton. Susie Jackson
Do you not know we are perishing?
Tayvon Martin. Tamir Rice. Akai Gurley. Kajieme Powell.
Do you not know we are perishing?
Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Yvette Smith. Andy Lopez. Shereese Francis.
Do you not know we are perishing?
We could name more names and it is safe to claim that the list grows even as we speak.
Get us out of this storm! Make it stop! The water is deep, and the sea is wide and the winds overwhelm us.
Do you not know we are perishing?
In the midst of the storm the litany of the fallen has increased...and in the here and the now, we cry out.
Do you not know we are perishing?
We would not lament if were satisfied. We would not lament if we did not carry the hope for the other side within our very being. We would not lament if we were satisfied with the status quo.
Do you not know we are perishing?
Perishing in the storm of our own making. Perishing in the turmoil of a country torn by the named sin of racism. We are in the storm...and so we cry out. But, from where shall our help come?
Will the sleeping body wake and calm the storm? Will we, as the body of Christ in the world--no hands, no heart, no mind but ours--will we be able to say to the storm, “Peace be still”?
If we truly believe that he abides in us and we in him than it is our job to stand in the midst of the storm and listen to the lamenting of the grieving and the oppressed...and to demand the storm to stop. As long as we hear the lamenting, we can do nothing else but act...and the lamenting is loud and the cry cannot be unheard.
The lament names our brokenness, and the lament of the oppressed is the lament of the beloved children of God. The beloved friends of the one who came to love us as children.
The storm which has consumed our boat is racism…and it is ours to discern--as people of privilege and power, as people serving the call to be Christ’s body in the world--how we shall work to calm the storm. It is ours to discern how we shall speak “peace be still” into the structures, the powers and principalities, that benefit from the oppression and exploitation of others. It is ours to look into our privilege, to claim the power we have and use it for liberation--our own liberation and that of the world entire. It is ours to name the storm of racism that threatens to pull our boat under. It is ours to be the body that hears the cry
Do you not know we are perishing?
At announcements: *In your bulletin is a blue piece of paper with instructions for the making of an origami boat and the Breton fisherman’s prayer
“God, thy sea is so great and our boat so small.” I invite you to take this piece of paper home and fold it as instructed.
The sea is great, the boat is small, but in that boat we must fit the world entire.
Peace be still.
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