"When you hear of wars..." Sermon for Sunday 17 November 2019

Sermon for Sunday 17 November 2019

23^rd Sunday after Pentecost

Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem

The Rev. Carrie Ballenger

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jesus said:

“When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified.”

Or, Jesus said:

When ye hear of wars and commotions, be ye not terrified (King James Version)

Or, he said:

When you hear of wars and uprisings (New International Version)

When you hear of wars and revolutions (Good News Version)

When you hear of wars and rebellions (Common English Version)

When you hear of wars and tumults (English Standard Version)

Or,

When you hear the rocket sirens, and hear that schools are closed,

When you hear that a Gazan family of eight has been killed (by “accident”),

When you hear that the racist/misogynist president of your home country is (finally) undergoing impeachment hearings,

When you hear of yet another school shooting, this time in California,

And when your college-age kid calls you from Europe because his close friend graduated from that same school,

When you hear your child saying, “I’m so glad I didn’t go back to the US, Mom”…

When you hear of these and so many other things,

Jesus said, do not be afraid. Do not be terrified. This is not the end.

In fact, now is your opportunity to testify. (Pastor Carrie Version)

Dear siblings in Christ,

There are times when the appointed Bible texts in the church lectionary seem to have no relevance to our lives in the here and now. And then, sometimes, it’s as if Jesus himself says “I think this is what they need to hear this week.” I would dare to say this is one of those weeks.

Today, in so many places around the world (including right here in Palestine and Israel) there are wars and insurrections, revolutions, rebellions, and uprisings.

Today, like the first disciples, we are distracted by temples and their grandeur,

By empire and its power,

By promises of prosperity.

Today, like the first disciples, we are also weighed down,

By the suffering of our neighbors,

by the actions of our elected leaders,

by the brokenness of humanity.

We may not know what it was like to be a follower of Jesus in 1^st century Palestine,

But we do know what it’s like to be carrying, and attempting to live, the Gospel of love, of peace, of justice and truth, in a world that doesn’t want anything to do with it.

We know what it’s like to be both distracted by shiny objects and false prophets, and to wonder if maybe, just maybe, this is the end. Maybe, just maybe, there’s nothing we can do…

about occupation. About gun violence. About climate change. About war.

And Jesus says:

“Don’t worry! Everything will be fine. Calm down. Nothing to see here.”

Oops! No, that wasn’t Jesus. That was someone else...

Actually, Jesus says:

“You think things are bad now? Just wait. The earth is going to shake. There won’t be anything to eat. Your family’s going to freak out!

And this will give you an opportunity to testify.”

When I lived in Chicago and was attending seminary, I was placed in a Lutheran congregation at 93^rd and Jeffrey for what was called “Field Education”.  There was no field there, for what it’s worth. This church was on the far south and east side, close to Lake Michigan. The congregation, along with the neighborhood, had at one time been overwhelmingly Swedish (aka WHITE). When I worshipped and served there, however, the church had transitioned to being fully African-American and Caribbean-American, reflecting the change in the surrounding neighborhood.

There was an elderly couple in the congregation, Mr. and Mrs. Gardner, who were among the first people I met when I arrived. 

(FWIW: Yesterday, I messaged the pastor’s wife to try and find out their first names. She said, “I don’t know. I only ever called them Mr. and Mrs. Gardner!” And so I will today as well!)

Mr. and Mrs. Gardner were elders of the congregation. Fixtures. Icons.

And when I say they were elders, I mean to say they were…OLD. So old they probably knew Jesus before he was famous!

As the intern, I would show up to church as early as I could on Sunday morning from 40 blocks north with my small boys in tow, but no matter how early I arrived, Mr. and Mrs. Gardner were already there. They were especially devoted to the Sunday morning Bible study, which took place in the church pews because the children used the downstairs classrooms for Sunday School.

Most of my interactions with the Gardners took place there, in those hard and unforgiving pews, where we studied Scripture together, and shared our concerns, and where Mr. Gardner always impressed upon me the importance of being baptized in the Spirit and of staying close to the Word.

But every once in a while, during the 2 or 3 hour long worship that followed, Mr. and Mrs. Gardner would make their way out of the pews and to the front of the church. Slowly slowly, shway shway, they would position themselves in front of the congregation, and sing in voices seasoned by 8 or more decades of life:

There are some things

I may not know

There are some places

Oh Lord, I cannot go

But I am sure

Of this one thing

That God is real

For I can feel

Him in my soul

Yes, God is real

Oh, He's real in my soul

Yes, God is real

For He has a washed

And made me whole

His love for me

Is just like pure gold, oh Lord

My God is real

For I can feel

Him in my soul

In other words, Mr. and Mrs. Gardner would testify…

And it moved me to tears every time.

It wasn’t the song...It was their presence standing in front of us.

It was their being.

It was Mr. Gardner’s brown suit, decades old but perfectly pressed.

It was Mrs. Gardner’s hair, silvered by the joys and sorrows of a long life.

It was knowing that we were in the presence of two people who had lived through segregation, and through the civil rights movement,

People who had suffered from the white supremacy of the United States, and who had endured the impossible indifference of the church to that sin.

The tears came every time because of the power of seeing two people standing side by side, in love with each other and with God, (and even with the church) in spite of all they had seen and experienced,

In spite of the many powers and principalities conspiring against them.

In the face of all this, Mr. And Mrs. Gardner sang: “Yes, God is real.”

Jesus said:

“When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

 “But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify.”

Dear siblings in Christ, the world is a mess. Humans are broken. The nations are at war. The earth seems to be slowly dying.

But this is not the end.

The world does not end in a rain of bullets in a classroom,

Or in a barrage of rockets.

The story of the world God created,

and of the humans God fashioned lovingly out of dust,

does not end with walls, or checkpoints, or scandal or terrorism.

Yes, the world is a mess.

And also,

Yes, God is real! God's love for us is real!

And this moment is our opportunity to testify.

What will your testimony be?

Maybe you can’t sing like Mr. and Mrs. Gardner.

Maybe you can’t or don’t want to preach (I can understand that! Most Sunday mornings, I don’t want to do it, either!)

But each one of you has a testimony.

Actually, each one of you is a testimony.

Your testimony starts with the breath you take when you get up in the morning,
and continues when you love your neighbor

And love your enemy

And love your lover.

Dear visitors with us this morning, your testimony is sharing with friends and family back home about what you saw here in the Holy Land,

Not glossing over the hard parts, but telling the truth about occupation, about the wall, about how people today are still carrying the cross of Christ in the land where Jesus was crucified, died, and was raised from the dead.

Our testimony as the global church is the hope we carry into each day, which infuses our work and our mission,

A hope that springs from the manger in Bethlehem,

Where God’s love for the world was born,

And from the cross,

Where God’s solidarity with the broken was on display for all the world to see,

And from the empty tomb,

Where in great love God raised Jesus from the dead,

To walk among us and with us, to save us from our sins, and to grant us life everlasting.

This is the hope that compelled Mr. and Mrs. Gardner to the front of the church to sing,

And the hope that compels us each day to take next step on our journey of faith,

Dear friends, do not be afraid. Do not be terrified. God is real! Not only that: God’s love for you, and for the world, is real. For this reason, we breathe. We love. We live. We sing. We testify—for the sake of our neighbor. For the sake of our enemy. For the sake of God’s kingdom, which is to come.

“A Prayer—by Clarissa Pinkola Estes”

Refuse to fall down

If you cannot refuse to fall down,

refuse to stay down.

If you cannot refuse to stay down,

lift your heart toward heaven,

and like a hungry beggar,

ask that it be filled.

You may be pushed down.

You may be kept from rising.

But no one can keep you from lifting your heart

toward heaven

only you.

It is in the middle of misery

that so much becomes clear.

The one who says nothing good

came of this,

is not yet listening.”

― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, The Faithful Gardener: A Wise Tale About That Which Can Never Die