Sermon from November 14, 2010

All Souls, Berkeley

Pentecost 25 / Proper 28C

Isaiah 65:17-25

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Luke 21:5-19

Gracious God, take our minds and think through them;

take our hands and work through them;

take our hearts and set them on fire.

Amen.

Today’s readings from Isaiah and Luke serve to remind us of two truths.

The first is that this world is a broken place, torn apart by human desires for power and the power of nature over our humanity, and it has been a broken place for as long as human memory stretches.

The second is that our only hope in the face of this brokenness is our hope in the abiding love of God, and that that love can transform and heal the hurt.

In Luke we are presented with eschatological images, pictures of what will happen before the end of times—destruction, wars, plagues, betrayal, famine—the very essence of brokenness in our world. And yet, this passage tells us that things will get much worse before the reign of God’s mission of justice, peace and reconciliation comes to full fruition. It also tells us that our faith will be tested. And it tells us that there is hope in the form trusting the Spirit of God to give us wisdom and words when we are in times of need.

In Isaiah we read words spoken to comfort those who have returned from exile to rebuild Jerusalem. It is one thing hearing about devastation as it was passed down their story, but it is another thing to stand amidst it. But when those who returned were standing and facing the utter destruction of their homeland, and hope must have felt fleeting, they were bolstered by the knowledge of a God who can and will create joy out of desolation—that they shall not labor in vain and they shall be blessed.

God knows that we need hope in order to stand in our broken world, just as the Israelites did and just as those who read and listened to the Gospel of Luke did after experiencing the destruction of the Temple in their own day.

But their question, and our question too, is, what is that hope calling us to do? I believe it calls us to join the work that the Spirit has already activated in the world, bringing transformation through love and compassion.

If only it were that simple. I don’t know about you all, but when I consider the brokenness of the world—not unlike the portents offered up in Luke—I can become overwhelmed. What can I really do to change things? Even thinking bigger, what can we do to change things, sometimes doesn’t seem to help. Because we have to start somewhere, but how and where?

It feel paralyzing, not knowing how or where to start when we look at such complex issues as war, political maneuvering, poverty, oppression—the list goes on and on. If we are not careful it can lead to hopelessness, or something even worse, apathy.

So how do we keep hope alive and forge ahead in our call? I think the first step is that we must realize that there are some things we can do as individuals and there are some things we can do a communities. And accordingly, the tasks we set for ourselves and the actions we take need to be in scale with those dimensions.

It was Margaret Mead that said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

What she doesn’t say, and what I would add, is that small, thoughtful, committed actions are the root of change—the operative word being small.

Church historian Roberta Bondi wrote in The Christian Century about such a scale of action in telling a story about a great early monastic teacher in the Egyptian desert named Poemen.

One day a student of his came to Poeman asking about a big, complex teaching Jesus. What did Jesus mean when he said, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." What a seemingly huge commitment that asks of us!

But of all the answers that Poemen could have offered, this is what he gave his student, “In truth if someone hears an evil saying, that is, one which harms him, and in his turn, he wants to repeat it, he must fight in order not to say it. Or if someone has taken advantage of it and he bears it, without retaliation at all, then he is giving his life for his neighbor.”

In other words, no matter how complicated or serious the problem, insisting on a grandiose solution can end only in despair and hopelessness. There are many small ways that we give up our lives for others, and the love inherent in those is no less for there being no actual loss of life.

Without the little things we do there can be no changes, big or small. We are not called by God into complexity, we are called into simplicity. This is about the choices we make every day, the way we spend our money, the relationships we choose to nurture.

If we think about hunger on a global scale we may lose hope. But if we think of those in our community that are hungry then we can do something little, like bring food every Sunday for the Berkeley Food Pantry, or serve at Open Door Dinner.

If we think about global warming and environmental degradation then we may lose hope. But if we each do the small things we can it will make a difference, whether that be riding our bikes and using our cars less or just choosing good old CFL’s over standard light bulbs. And as more of us live into these small changes it is only the natural progression of hope that we will join to form larger groups that will in turn push for more change—sometimes organized groups and sometimes those who are drawn together solely by concurrence of the Spirit, such as the 61% of Californians that voted to reject an attempt to roll back global warming legislation in our recent election.

If we think about access to health care and treatment of disease on a global scale we may lose hope. After all, our nation is divided on this very topic. And something as simple as a monetary donation to Episcopal Relief and Development can have the effect of purchasing treated malaria nets for those in sub-Saharan Africa to prevent the spread of malaria, as well as provide care to those affected by HIV/AIDS. And if you give through the end of the month your donation will be doubled through a matching gift challenge.

Each of us have a different lens for viewing our world and a different passion for fixing what is broken. A helpful lens may be the Millennium Development Goals. Where is your passion? Ending poverty and hunger? Universal Education? Gender equality? Child health? Maternal health? Combating HIV/AIDS? Environmental sustainability? Global partnerships?

Wherever your hope draws you, you have the opportunity to transform the world, locally and globally through your actions. Now is the time to reflect it and figure out just what it is your hope calls you to do.

And once you know you need to share it with others. For to truly heal our world we need to share our hope with each other, that we may form communities of hope.

In Luke, Jesus calls this testifying . I kind of like the old timey images that word brings up. It’s not one we generally use, but I think it’s one we ought to reclaim. It hits to the center of the task set before us: How does your life testify to the abiding love of God? How do your actions testify to the missio dei – God’s mission of justice, peace and reconciliation? How do you testify to the hope that together we can heal the broken places in our world.

I think it’s fitting somehow that from two truths, what we are left with are many questions. From a sense of surety, we find space for reflection. And within that space the hope of God transforms our humanity, our very expectation of what we can do.

Hope led those returning from exile to believe they could rebuild Jerusalem. Hope is what remained in Luke’s vision of the end of times. Hope is what we need to draw on when the brokenness seems too much, and to guide our minds and hands and hearts in healing this world.

So today I ask you, where is your hope leading you, and what will be hope together as a parish family?

~ AMEN ~