Sermon May 3 2015
Acts 8:26-40
Psalm 22:25-31
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8
“Nourished by Love”
The
past several days, couple of weeks have been trying ones in this world where we
live. We see, in the midst of natural disaster and the pain of national protest
over racial injustice, that we are connected to one another in ways we cannot
deny. We bear one another’s pain because we are one human family: Christian,
Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and people of many other faiths large and
small. We are all connected to one another every day and at times, when large
disaster and painful situations arises we realize what that connection means--and how deeply
we are connected. We are reminded that at rock bottom we are made in the image
of God, all of us, everywhere.
7Beloved, let
us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of
God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God,
for God is love. (1 John 4)
On
April 19, a young black man named Freddy Gray in Baltimore, Maryland died 7 days after his spinal
cord was severed while he was in police custody. The 6 police officers involved
have been charged in connection with his death. People, many clergy, have been in
the streets calling for justice because of this and other incidents of injustice
and police violence, but also because of the extreme levels of unemployment
among the black population there and extreme poverty among the black community
in Baltimore. The recent examples of police violence are not and cannot be
separated from the desperate situations in which some folks, especially people of color, find themselves
living.
And last Saturday, an enormous earthquake hit Nepal.
As of Thursday, when I checked, More than 7,000 people are dead. Many more are
injured and homeless. Eight million are affected across Nepal. One million
children are urgently in need of help. Most of those who are known to be dead
are in Katmandu, but there are still extremely isolated villages closer to the
epicenter of the quake where rescuers have not yet been able to go. There are
bright, isolated moments. A four month old baby boy was rescued after 22 hours
lost in debris. But many are homeless refugees of the disaster or are afraid to
enter their homes because of the continuing quakes and landslides caused by the
quakes.
21The
commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their
brothers and sisters also. (1 John 4)
In both of these situations, and in many situations all
kinds of people have come together to work for good for those involved.
Besides the story about the rescued infant, I read one
brief story of Turkish and Chinese rescue workers who freed a 21 year old man
from a crushed bus after 13 hours of work. Rescue workers from around the world
are traveling there because after an earthquake there is not shelter, no water,
and often no roads to travel to get resources to places in need. But people are
working together to help, people who probably can’t agree on anything else
agree to rescue the injured, feed the hungry, house the refugees, and provide
whatever is needed as the earth itself is unstable right. Often these
situations bring out the best in humanity because we know our priorities in
these moments.
In spite of the
stories on many network news shows, there are thousands in Baltimore protecting
police officers, protecting places where people are receiving help, while
protesting against the injustices they have witness or experienced. A small
fraction of people are violent—and all are justifiably angry—but thousands more
are just desperate for change in their city and the wider culture. They are
asking us—Americans everywhere—there and in places like Ferguson, Missouri to
listen to the stories and really hear them. One “protester laid
into [one notorious correspondent] about the national media's obsession with
black rioting and criticized him for ignoring stories about Baltimore's
poverty, and nonviolent protests which had also taken place in the city. ‘You're
here for the black riots that happened,’ said the man. ‘You're not here for the
death of Freddie Gray.’” He continued, "Why
does it take a catastrophe like this in order for America to hear our cry? I
mean, enough is enough. We've had too many lives lost at the hands of police
officers. Enough is enough."[1]
“The protester's blunt analysis of the situation
mirrored what others have said about a media obsessed with covering rioters and
ignoring the city's largely peaceful demonstrators. [One Baltimore councilman]
urged reporters . . . to focus on larger
issues plaguing the city as the underlying causes which led to the death of
Freddie Gray and the riots.” He specified, “This is about the social economics
of poor, urban America.” This is “a symptom of something that’s going on here .
. . look at communities like this in urban America, lack of education, lack of
commercial development lack of opportunities. . . . This can erupt anywhere in
socially economically deprived America.”
The thousands who came out to protest were not the
ones destroying the city—the protesters were the ones standing together,
praying together, protecting one another from the police, if necessary, and
protecting the police from the ones who were violent. Many African Americans
were handing out water and other necessities to police as well as the people
gathered in protest. This is their home. They don’t want to destroy it.
Members of notorious gangs, the names of which bring
fear and hatreds to many hearts and minds, came together in a truce to protect
stores from being looted. Well, not a truce, they said, but men respecting one
another as men to protect their communities from further destruction. The gang
members took water to the police as they guarded stores and homes. The police
officer brought food and water to them, too, as they worked for their
communities.
5I am the
vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much
fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6Whoever does
not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are
gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. (John 15)
The gang members spoke of people being pushed into
corners until they finally had to push back for their very lives. And when they
pushed back, with shouts and marches for justice, with protests against so many
deaths at the hands of authorities, people outside their situation began to
wonder at the extent of their anger. But their anger, and our anger, if we have
understanding, is at a system that values one kind of community over others. In
this case, white affluence over black poverty. Or white affluence and success
over the despair within many communities of color.
21bthose who love God must love their
brothers and sisters also.
(1 John 4)
Different human communities do not exist in isolation
from one another, no matter how hard we’ve tried to do this, say this, and
enforce this in our history. What happens to one group of people has tremendous
influence on all other groups of people—we know it because we talk about it
from various perspectives every day. When we’re feeling drained by the needs of
others, we sometimes wonder why they (whoever they are today) don’t take better
care of themselves, their needs, wants and desires—so I or don’t have to. Or,
if we’re feeling the pinch ourselves, we think or feel that the real or
perceived abundance of another and lack of generosity or caring contributes to
what we don’t have. And both of those situation contain pieces of truth—but
almost nothing is worse than an incomplete truth. Because we stand and defend
some incomplete truths with our lives and the lives of those we call enemy.
1I am the
true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. (John 15)
The truth is—as Jesus said in John’s gospel that all
of us are part of the vine that is one body of Christ. And any of us who do not
bear fruit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control) need pruning. We need correction and connection
to the one who nourishes us. As Christians, we have found that we cannot love
without the strength we find connected to the vine—to one another, to Christ,
to God. When we aren't bearing fruit, we are isolated, unconnected, rejecting
what we are offered. We are dry, barren and might as well burn for all the good
we are doing. We are branches with a choice to make—are we connected to the one
who teaches us love or to what are we connected? By what are we nourished? Do
we listen to the reasons the news media give us for the anger of the black
community or do we listen to the black community, to all communities of color
and hear about the anger, the pain, the sorrow, the terror directly and
authentically? Do we listen to our brothers and sisters in Christ with love in
our hearts? By what are we nourished, inclusion and connection or isolation and
exclusion?
It’s not only Christians who are connected, who are
loved, because we can also hear the words this morning’s epistle lesson,
“because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God,”
and “10In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us.”
And “21The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must
love their brothers and sisters also.”
In the stories
from Nepal, it is sometimes easier to see and express the love, the mercy and compassion
that people have for one another in the ways that we respond to people who are
victims of natural disaster. When the situations become complicated, like in
Ferguson, like in Baltimore with human fallibility and the complications of
historical and communal sins like racism, we struggle to respond graciously and
with love. We struggle to understand the economic history in places like
Baltimore where the city council purposefully segregated their city by race
after the Civil War and those historical practices still effect the generations
of black men, women and children who live there. Not that Baltimore is alone,
but they are a fresh example. We struggle to understand, because police
officers are often put into situations where health care professionals, social
workers, councilors, and others would be more appropriate, but the burden has been
placed on law enforcement because there isn’t enough money in budgets for what
is needed.
And though not
every person in these situations claims Christian faith, Christians are still
called upon to work in love, to respond in love, to reach out in love because
we are connected to the vine—the body of Christ—and because God fist loved us,
all of us, all of them, everywhere. As part of the vine of Jesus Christ, we may
need to be pruned of that which keeps us from bear the fruit the Spirit gives
us—that fruit characterized by love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and
self-control—so that we can exist in this world surrounded by love rather than
fear. We can live, as we are connected to the true vine, nourished by loving
community in Christ and bearing fruit as his followers. We may not be big
branches—that’s not what Jesus says—but we are all to bear the fruit of our
connection to him. To love even when we don’t completely know how—because who
really does. To do justice and stand for justice—when people are treated as
subservient to systems and other groups of people. To see what is within us
that does not bear fruit and allow God to prune it from our lives.
8My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my
disciples. (John 15)
In this life, may we be nourished by love for God is
love, so let us love God, remembering that if we are loving God we must love
one another. Amen.
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