A Prayer After the 2024 Election

 

 A Prayer After the 2024 Election

by Kara K. Root

God, election day has happened.

I have fears and worries. 

Dark thoughts keep me up in the night. 

The world seems fraught and fragile.

 I feel defensive, guarded, on edge.

I am protecting

the vulnerable parts of myself,

and thinking of the future I want for those I love:

safety and inclusion,

purpose and connection, 

mutuality and joy,

a life with hope.

 

But I’m convinced this future is under threat.

So I keep listening to the voices, and watching the screens,

 that repeat back to me

 my fears and worries.

At first, this helps. 

My fears are justified! My worries are validated!

But mostly it brings despair.

And I stay defensive, guarded and on edge.

And the world seems fraught and fragile.

And dark thoughts keep me up in the night. 

 

God, election day has happened.

The people I don’t trust, don’t agree with, and don’t know:

They have fears and worries. 

Dark thoughts keep them up in the night. 

The world seems fraught and fragile.

 They feel defensive, guarded, on edge.

They are protecting

the vulnerable parts of themselves,

and thinking of the future they want for those they love:

safety and inclusion,

purpose and connection, 

mutuality and joy,

a life with hope.

 

But they're convinced this future is under threat.

So they keep listening to the voices, and watching the screens,

 that repeat back to them

 their fears and worries.

At first, this helps. 

Their fears are justified! Their worries are validated!

But mostly it brings despair.

And they stay defensive, guarded and on edge.

And the world seems fraught and fragile.

And dark thoughts keep them up in the night. 

 

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy on us all.

 

No matter what we did or did not do, 

no matter what happens in our lives, country, or world,

or what unfolds in all human history,

this remains true:

all people belong to you

 and all people belong to each other.

We repeatedly forget this, 

we skillfully deny this, 

we frequently violate this, 

and we blatantly ignore this,

But our belonging to you and each other 

never stops being true.

 

Lord, may I bravely embrace it.

Make me open. Generous. Kind. Free.

 

After this election day,

Help me to love 

all my siblings in this vast, diverse nation.

Love my neighbors, whose lives touch close up,

and love the strangers to whom I also belong,

as I love my own scared and anxious soul.

Not because any of us deserves it,

more or less than anyone else,

but because you love us all, 

first, last, and always.

 

After this election day,

and no matter what comes next,

held in your love and trusting your belonging, 

may my life contribute to 

safety and inclusion,

purpose and connection, 

mutuality and joy,

a life with hope

for all.

 

Amen.

 

 

Belonging In Turbulent Times

Ephesians 2:11-22

Americans are living in an intense time, or at least, anticipating one. After half a century of political peace in this nation, there is brewing a kind of turbulence we’ve had in our past and other nations have experienced more recently or frequently.  And we kind of don’t know what to do with that. Let’s just say, it’s nicer to feel invincible as a country, to assume that what happens other places won’t or can’t happen here. It’s preferable to at least pretend that things will always remain stable no matter what. 

When things get intense, we humans amp up a favorite sin, which is to other each other. To hunker down into our silos of shared ideology and use shorthand labels to sort who’s in and out, who’s an ally we can count on and who’s an enemy we can despise or ignore. We can sum up a whole person in a single word, words like MAGA, woke, immigrant, anti-vaxxer, lawyer, widow, trans, white, sick, retired, Evangelical. We can boil down an entire human being into a simplistic stereotype. And once the label defines who we are, we’d better stick with our own group, because how else will we belong?

Which brings us to this letter, written several decades after Jesus died, to people who are doing what people do – they are othering each other. The recipient community is made up of both Gentile and Jewish Christians.  And according to this letter, shorthand labels have been slapped on the groups: “the circumcision” and “the uncircumcision.” 

Why those words? The offspring of Abraham were chosen by God to particularly, knowingly, intentionally, participate with God in caring for the world. This covenant identity and role was marked by circumcision. Called to be the people of God for the sake of all the other nations, they were agents of belonging in and for the world.

And so, this ancient symbol of belonging to God to care for the world is now being used inside a community of Christ-followers to separate and alienate, the very opposite of its original meaning.

Fourteen generations after Abraham, a young, Jewish woman was invited by a messenger of the Divine to be what some ancient Greek icons call, “the container of the uncontainable.” Through her body, God came into this fragile human life of living and dying to reconcile all things to Godself. Born a helpless infant needing to be cared for by those he came to save, Jesus came to break down all divisions and bring all people into the family of God.  

The Magi from afar, kneeling before this impossible child, were the first to worship a Messiah they did not grow up anticipating, (I suppose making them the original “the uncircumcised.”) Then thirty years later, after Jesus died and was resurrected, the party burst the seams and spread everywhere, and people of all languages and cultures were drawn by the Holy Spirit into the covenant family of God and transformed into agents of belonging for the whole world.

We’re now 81 generations after God came in Christ reconciling all people to Godself. But the malicious custom of othering others is alive and well in us. Every culture and people is adept at dividing, blaming and condemning, with their own short-hand labels and dismissive ways to signal who’s in and who’s out, and we are certainly no exception. Nor do we hesitate to use the language and symbols of our faith to do so. Why do we do this?

All human beings share the longing to feel safe and seen, to matter, to contribute. All people feel pain and joy, welcome new life, and experience aging and death. All people suffer. All people long to belong. But with our limited imaginations and seemingly unlimited susceptibility to fear and insecurity, we mostly can’t fathom that the belonging of God includes us all, or that there is no limit on love, no quota on forgiveness, no ranking of human value, no lifetime maximum belonging a person experiences or offers to others before it's all used up. 

Remembering our shared humanity feels easier when life is going along smoothly and we have spare reserves of equanimity and Zen. And perhaps some of us here now do, thanks be to God if that is you today. 

But many of us are a bit worried and raw, a tad edgy and tired, and collectively there’s a looming sense that things are just beginning, whatever that means, whatever those things turn out to be. So, it’s safe to say, even without a lot going on on the health front, or job front, or kid front, or parent front, most of us are already not operating at full capacity. 

For my part, 11 days ago, our jet-lagged family welcomed a new, wildly disruptive puppy who we are already in love with, but the sleep deprivation and vigilant attentiveness is no joke.  My kids keep telling me I’m mean. I don’t feel mean, just tired. But I’m told I walk around all the time sounding mean. 

So, if the message of this text today was: Go be kind and love all people, it would be impossible for me. Because right now, I can barely be kind to the people I already love. 

Add to the fatigue and caffeine a steady flow of news and commentary about political conventions and the horrors in Ukraine and Gaza, and fretting about the future of the planet, and there is no way I’m an agent of love and belonging in the world.  

The way of fear is loud, and I listen to it. And Paul seemed to know his readers did too. So the answer to our petty division and deep anxiety isn’t just to tell us Quit it and be nice!

We are simply, clearly, not capable of that. 

Thank God Paul wrote this letter and not I. Because here’s what he has to say, (aka, hear the good news of the gospel): 

First, the peace, goodness and wholeness we long for so deeply? It is not of our making. Christ does this, is doing this, has done this, will do this. Jesus Christ “proclaimed peace to those far off and peace to those near,” giving us all access to the very heart of God. Well-being within, well-being between, well-being everlasting.  We don’t do this, Christ does.

Second, Paul writes earlier in this letter that it is God’s “plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”  Meaning, this world, and everything in it, belongs to God. We are held in a greater love and a deeper story that outlasts time itself.  So, we can with confidence answer the “what if?” of fear with the “even if!” of hope. This is a lesson we learned during the pandemic when we left the building in Lent and returned two years later having learned the Lenten lesson still hanging on the wall, “Fear asks, What if? Hope answers, Even if!” Even if the worst thing we can imagine happens (like the whole world shuts down in a pandemic!), God is still God. Love is still love. This is all heading somewhere unstoppable. Even if. Always.

So we can look at the world truthfully, without hiding or covering over evil, upheaval, suffering or general disappointment. We will name the reality, “This is part of the story.” But then we’ll keep going, naming also the deeper reality, “This is not the whole story. The world belongs to God.” 

Third, Paul says the divisions we think exist - Christ has shattered them. Christ abolishes hostility and alienation between us and makes out of the fractured bits one human race. We don’t choose this, or create this, and we can’t make it not true (even when we try). In Christ, God reconciled us all to God and each other, and complete wholeness and connection is where this whole story is heading. We can deny it or defy it. Or we can join it, by taking up our calling to participate with God in caring for this world. 

This is not done through our stellar intentions or superhuman efforts, but by our honesty, our humility, our presence alongside, with and for one another. We live the belonging by our vulnerability. By seeking to see others and be truly seen. By asking for, and offering forgiveness. Pursuing invincibility and chasing safety won’t bring us well-being. We live into fullness of life, this peace Christ offers, by opening up and welcoming our shared humanity with those who – no matter how different than us- are also just like us. 

Finally, Paul tells us we are “no longer strangers and aliens, but citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God.” 

We, the Church - that is, you and me and all those everywhere formed by the death and resurrection of Christ and drawn by the Holy Spirit into the covenant family of God - we are transformed into agents of belonging for the whole world. And we are marked for this covenant identity and role by our baptism. 

When we live in the actual, particular, singular life we’ve each been given, committed to be in this place with these people, today, no matter what tomorrow brings or the day after that, something happens to us and through us that we can’t control. The Holy Spirit makes the hodge-podge, imperfect collection of ordinary people a holy dwelling place of the Divine. We become “the container of the uncontainable.” Jesus Christ is actually here, among and between us, drawing us into the beloved world where he continues to break down all divisions, and bring all people into the family of God.  

So take a breath and let it out. Settle into the love that holds us all. 

May we trust God, care for others, and live the gift and calling of our shared belonging. Come what may, even if, and always.

Amen.

Receiving What God is Doing

John 15:9-17

I visited my grandma on Monday. She’s 94 ½, and for most of my life she was one of the most joyful people I knew. Recently, though, she’s tired. She’s finished. And the things that opened her to joy and connected her with the world are diminished. Her daily four-mile walk is a distant memory. Her children and grandchildren no longer live right next door. Her parents, siblings, spouses, and friends are all gone, and her faithful dog died the year before her son did. Her hands are too unsteady for crossword puzzles and her eyes can no longer tolerate her voracious reading habit. What she has these days is daytime tv. 

Until recently, what mattered were her sons, her neighbors, her dog, grandchildren and greats, the birds she fed, the plants she grew, and the big garden she tended beside her small house. She knew the trees in the nearby woods, each one. She knew birdcalls and animal tracks and flower buds, and paid attention to sunsets, snowfalls, and owl nests, and debriefed it all every night on the phone with her sister. She lived attuned to life. 

 

But lately she stays inside her apartment. And even though she has steadfastly avoided all forms of smartphone, tablet, computer, or internet of any kind, she now takes in the world like many of us do – through a screen.

 

All this to say, on Monday morning, when I come into her apartment and she turns off the blaring true crime show and hugs me, it takes all of 30 seconds before she is oozing anxiety, near terror, about the state of the world. Is Owen at one of these terrible schools where the protests are happening?  Have you heard about all the immigrants overrunning our cities? Worry pours out of her. I tell her we’ve just been to New York City to visit with Owen for a quick day and a half, and she asks if we were mugged. 

 

I tell her instead about how 50 strangers on a street corner shared a silly moment between a skateboarder and someone else’s dog. About how the deli man treated me like I lived next door. And how, when the Staten Island Ferry was pulling into dock, a stranger behind me said, “Excuse me!” when I had nowhere to move to, and another stranger told him that he wasn’t being patient. “I’m being patient!” “No, man, you’re not.” and how it felt like we were buckled into the back seat of the family minivan and big brother was keeping little brother in line. 

 

She brings up a dire national threat, and I refute it, and she digs in hard and says it’s true. I realize with a slight stab of panic we are talking past each other, at each other. Instead of Grandma and granddaughter, we are Fear and Frustration, arming up to face off. And I haven’t even been here five minutes.

 

Finally, I look into her frightened eyes, my beloved, wise, and longsuffering grandma, and I say, “Grandma, the world is no more dangerous than it has ever been. This is a big, complicated, full world, and when you look for scary things, you will certainly find them. But when you look for connection and joy, for people caring for each other, for hope, that’s what you’ll see.” 

 

She pauses for a moment and then responds, “So you think I am looking for the wrong things?”

Yes, Grandma, I do.

 

And what I wish I’d said then is that she helped teach me this. She showed me how to look for beauty. She was an expert at seeing humor. She was dogged about connection and made people feel adored. She lived present, in the world, which is to say, perhaps without realizing it, she prayed. She loved boisterously: people, animals, the earth and sky. She showed me how to live into the seasons, and how to keep adjusting to the body you’re in as it changes. When I was small, she’d rock me and sing to me, and rub my back when she tucked me in at night. She didn’t let any nightmare set the terms for me, she let love show me what is real.  

 

But I don’t say that. I don’t say enough, don’t do enough, don’t stay long enough, what is ever enough? How would I even know? I’m limited and rushed, easily distracted and quick to argue. Too often, I let my fear of her fear lead me. I cannot love like I should, love like she deserves.

 

But love isn’t measured and earned.  It’s only received and shared. We can only be with and for each other and trust that God’s love is claiming us, reaching us each in the moment.  In our inability to say all that needs saying or to keep quiet when we can’t help reacting, nevertheless, God loves us and loves through us.

 

With coffee I picked up on the way and fruit cake she orders from the monks—which she swears they’re skimping on the bourbon lately, (and I don’t disagree)—we give to each other what we can, which is simply our presence.  We’re loved back to our true selves when we are with and for each other. Love shows us again what is real.

 

In our scripture today, Jesus invites us to make ourselves at home in love, the way he is at home in the love of his Father. In fact, to be at home in him is to be at home in God. He says if we keep his command (which is to say, Jesus' answer to what is a good life and how do we live it?), which is love one another, we will be at home in love, and Jesus’ own joy will become our joy.

Joy does not mean bad things not happening. Bad things will happen, that’s just life.  Joy is being at home in love no matter what happens. Sometimes joy feels euphoric and alive. But not always. Sometimes it’s groundedness in the midst of sorrow, or feeling quietly settled and secure, shoes off, eyes closed, guard down, tucked into love. 

This can’t be earned or lost; it’s not ours, it’s God’s love that never ends. And when we can receive being received in this way – known completely, loved utterly, belonging entirely - we can receive others as well. Not because they deserve it or we’re so good at it, but because God, who loves us, loves others through us. So, like the branches of a vine, the lifeblood of love simply moves through us.  And we taste what is coming, when all that degrades us in this life, all the is taken from us, all the ways the world says NO are swallowed up forever in the never-ending YES of God and redeemed. In joy, we sample now what will be all in all.

 

Everywhere these days, we’re invited to make our home in fear. To burrow into it and let it feed suspicion and division, let the fumes of it fill our lungs and cloud our eyes. We’re told what to fear and we fear it. We fear each other, we fear the future, we fear the looming threats of death and destruction and those who we’re certain could bring those things. We make enemies of each other, and we get trapped in anxiety and stuck in self-judgment. And soon enemies, anxiety, and self-judgment become what we’re looking for, and so they are what we see.

The truth is we all belong to God. We all belong each other. We forget this, or stop paying attention or noticing it, but we can’t stop it from being true. Jesus has done this. God keeps doing this.

 

There is no fear in love, we’re told in scripture, perfect love drives out fear. When we’re with and for each other we are loved back to our true selves, and love shows us again what’s real.  And we taste the fullness of the joy of God’s eternal yes.

 

Around here we wonder together who God is and what God is up to? God is love, loving us, always, and loving through us. When we look at the world through the lens of love and belonging, when we go into the places of suffering and pain with each other instead of fleeing them, Jesus will meet us right there; we will see God, and we will be part of what God is up to.

 

This starts not in our ability but our impossibility. We begin in our need, like the places where we are unable to live like we should or love like we wish. It starts in our loss, like the loss of who we once were and the bewilderment of things ending differently than we thought they would. There, in our impossibility, need and loss, God, who give us today our daily bread, who feeds us in the wilderness the manna we cannot provide for ourselves, who gifts us the faith of Christ that shepherds us through the darkest valley, who prepares a place for us in fullness of joy, God will love us and love other people through us.  

 

Until this limited part of the story is past, we won’t know most of how our how God has loved the world and touched other people’s lives through us, but we can trust that God is doing this. And we can try to pay attention. To receive it when it happens. To give thanks. To bless. To celebrate. To grieve with one another and come alongside others, knowing that is where Jesus is and will be. 

 

Perhaps what we’re really talking about today is prayer. Simply being available to God to meet us right now, right here. Paying attention. Turning our hearts toward God who turns us toward one another and makes us at home in love. And, with the help of the Holy Spirit, looking at the world through love’s lens to let love show us what’s real.

 

 “No one has ever seen God; 1 John says, “but if we love one another, God lives in us and God’s love is made complete in us.” 

 

Sometimes we don’t receive what God is doing until after the fact. And so, now I receive it:

Sitting across the table from my grandma, taking in her frailty and loveliness, her long full life in all its previous chapters and now the atrophy and smallness of this final chapter that she’s not super thrilled about, there’s not much left we can do together. But I can drink coffee and eat bourbon fruit cake and sit with her in the aftermath of her fear when I’d stopped letting it scare me or goad me into an argument. I asked her about her life and listened to her. I received her. And I let her ask me about my life and listen to me. She received me. Through waves of awkwardness and ease, contentment and grief, we were together in this moment with this person. She was present, and I was present, and God was present; and the love that holds us all and will one day welcome us fully home, was holding us and welcoming us then.  For this gift, I give thanks.

Amen.

 

 This is Part 3, receiving what God is doing, in a series on Receiving This Life. Read Part 1: Receiving what is, by Lisa Larges, and Part 2: Receiving what is difficult, by Kara K Root.  Coming up: receiving what God has already done, and receiving what will be.

A Prayer for Election Day

A PRAYER FOR ELECTION DAY

We belong

first and foremost

to you, Lord.

God of heaven and earth,

eternity and the moment,

ever and always.

Then we belong to the whole of creation;

the living, the dead,

the yet to become, and the reborn,

the ongoing cycle of earth and life

with its glorious array of ever-expanding participants:

mountains and trees and oceans and valleys,

gazelles and robins and rivers and earthworms,

all.

Next we belong to the human family,

all humanity in every corner of the vast globe,

all languages, creeds, cultures, skin tones, religions, beliefs, experiences, 

hopes, celebrations, losses, goals, 

vocations, technologies and connections,

in grief and wonder and anger and happiness and confusion and sadness and joy.

Whatever happens, and no matter what,

we belong to them all, all, all.

And they all

belong to us.

After this we are grouped - 

some arbitrarily and some by choice - 

into land masses and geographic regions.

We develop identifying accents, clothing preferences and regional tastebuds

which is to say,

we gather our experiences into ourselves

alongside others

who are gathering into themselves experiences

alongside us.

We call our places of belonging towns, counties, villages and cities,

tribes, nations, countries, continents and coalitions;

these countless designations simply mean that

we live nearby

and agree to certain codes of living with one another

that, in one way or another, uphold our greater belonging - 

to the whole human family,

the living and the dead of all creation,

and the Lord of all.

Next we have the smaller groups in which we learn

and the people there who teach us,

the neighbors, musicians, coaches and collaborators,

the members of our faith, our teams, our clans.

We have hobbies we cultivate with people who practice them alongside us,

passions we pursue and those whom they impact,

jobs we end up in and those who end up there too,

whose lives intertwine with our own.

And then there are those specific people from whom we come,

the ones whose being and belonging

shape our own being and belonging most directly,

I mean, of course,

our ancestors and grandparents,

aunts and uncles, cousins and kin,

parents and siblings.

We may have the partner with whom we share our life,

and the children whom we shape and watch become,

and the pets we assemble into our homes,

and the gardens we tend,

and the friendships we cultivate,

and the places we grow our roots,

deep, strong and sure,

with and for those to whom we give our hearts,

who will one day be buried in the ground alongside everyone and everything else,

to which we already and always belong.

So on this day when our Democracy is Verbed,

and we exercise our right and responsibility to participate together

in shaping the future of our shared home,

we give thanks for all the belongings that hold us,

both created and innate.

We give thanks for the communities into which we pour our lives,

and for all those in our communities that pour their lives into us.

We give thanks for the earth that nurtures all life,

and all those who nurture the earth.

On this day that shapes our nation,

in our collective belonging called The United States of America

we give thanks for all that is good and wise and kind,

all that upholds our humanity,

both individual and shared.

Thank you, God.

And in our collective belonging called The United States of America

we confess all that is evil, foolish and divisive,

all that damages our soul,

both individual and shared.

Forgive us, Lord.

And when this day of national weighing in

has come to an end

and whatever comes next 

begins,

it remains

that beyond country, beyond kin,

beyond borders and beliefs,

beyond any and all boundaries,

whether natural or unnatural,

is the Great Belonging,

that is,

to one another, all,

and to you, Lord of all.

For this, today,

we give thanks.

Amen.

- Kara Root, from Receiving This Life

The holy work of Advent

Luke 1:26-56

 This past week has been a hard week for hope, for me, and I anticipate this coming week, peace will feel like a challenge.  Which is why Advent is such a gift.  If I had to look at the circumstances in the world, in the lives around me, and feel hopeful, or say they speak of peace, I feel hard-pressed to do this.  

My kids’ school has been torn apart by incidents of racist and homophobic hate speech, with two students suspended and whole grades rising up in student-led protests decrying hate and demanding further action.  But through the week, the rhetoric and tone of the students began to change and escalate into a mob mentality of punishing, vigilante justice. It’s become a tangled mess of sin, which is to say, of people forgetting that we belong to each other – at every level –hate being met with hate, fear amping up fear. Revved up teens and exhausted, tense adults are facing off with no clear way forward, certainly not one provided by our culture, which offers nothing resembling mercy, practices vengeance in the name of justice, and persists until lives are destroyed, or until our attention gets grabbed by the next commotion.  

Our kids are doing what we’ve taught them to do, and they’re doing it to a couple of their own.  And that has been breaking my heart this week. Then the drama culminated with the announcement early Friday morning that restroom graffiti was discovered warning of a school shooting on Monday, which means hardly anybody showed up to school on Friday and school will be closed tomorrow, and now we are all suspended, in this state of tension and division. 

 

This, in the shadow of the school shooting in Michigan – the 28^th school shooting in America this year. We are averaging more than two a month, you guys, so all the administrators closing schools in an abundance of caution are not wrong to do so.  And yet another community is suffering unimaginable loss and grief. 

 

 Meanwhile, this morning’s headline read “Omnicron plunges the world into collective uncertainty.” As if we haven’t already been living in collective uncertainty for coming up on two years.  And so far we have no idea what this variant means or doesn’t mean, but that doesn't stop us from dooms-guessing.  So we let our already weary and tense selves get worked up and worried about what might be coming. And I don’t know about you, but once I get started, the apprehensions start to flow, and they’re hard to stop. Andy pointed out yesterday that I have a tell, a catch phrase that once he hears it, he knows I’ve handed over the reigns and anxiety is running the show.  It is when I start to say, with urgency and strain in my voice, how badly the dog needs her nails trimmed. 

 

So thank God for Advent. Thank God.

I welcome Advent’s demand that I wait in darkness for the light of God. Because there is darkness - around us, within us.  I believe this, I feel this, I struggle against this and often I succumb to it.  And I need to be told it’s ok to notice it and let myself feel how heavy and terrible it can be.  And yet, I also need to hear there is no darkness into which the Light does not shine; there is no darkness that can overcome the Light, and one day there will be no more darkness at all.  And that does give me hope. I am told to wait for peace, to expect it, to seek it and join it, and work for it, because I can trust that it is coming, that it comes. Into the darkest places, the most hopeless situations, God comes in.  This is what God does.

 

This story before us today pulls us back to the big picture: God comes into this life. 

It’s the continuation of my favorite story in scripture – last week we left silent Zechariah and pregnant Elizabeth, keeping mum about her pregnancy for the first five months too, because who could begin to explain? And who could she tell that would believe or understand?  Last week we jumped ahead to finish their part of the story. But that’s not how it happened – this part is what came in the middle, what shaped the next part, ultimately bringing them to tiny baby John the Baptist’s birth, and the end of Zechariah’s silence with his great proclamation to his startled neighbors, that culminates with exactly the words my soul needs to hear today:

By the tender mercy of our God,
   the dawn from on high will break upon us, 
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
   to guide our feet into the way of peace.’

 

So while Elizabeth and Zechariah are suspended in a state of uncertainty, Gabriel appears to Mary and invites her to share in the redemption of God, to let go of all that she though her life would be and step into this new role, God-bearer.  And when she is just as confused and questioning as Zechariah was about how the impossible could happen, Gabriel has a little more patience for her, and says, Even now your relative Elizabeth, who was barren, is in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible with God.  

 

And it doesn’t say that the angel tells her to go to Elizabeth but what else would Mary do? She immediately sets out on the 100-mile journey to visit the person she can share this with completely. And when she arrives, tired and hesitant, at her word of greeting, fetus John flip flops inside Elizabeth and kicks her out of her own silence to welcome Mary with joy and wonder, like a personal gift from God, Who am I that the mother of my Lord would come to me? She blesses Mary and her experience and trust, and Mary declares back to Elizabeth God’s greatness and what God is about to do. And right there the community of mystery-keepers and hope-bearers is formed: these two women, proclaiming the fulfillment of God’s promises with words and by their very bodies, and silent Zechariah taking it all in in wonder and witness.  Being together in this is what makes them able to trust that it is real. Bearing it together is what vanquishes fear and stirs possibility, what breeds hope and helps them anticipate the fullness of God for us all.  

 

We’ve said before that these three were church before there was a church. Even as Christ’s body was being formed, they are the nascent Body of Christ, helping each other remember the real reality breaking into this world, to see it unfolding right here in their very own lives, even. Together they are able to imagine the future God is bringing, can literally see in each other what God is doing for the future of the world, and proclaim it with confidence and trust. Together they move from suspended tension to hope-filled waiting.

 

No matter what unfolds in the world around us, in our own lives and bodies, in our communities and country, in the midst of whatever impossibility we are facing, or anticipating, or fearing, God is always breaking in. There is no life, no moment, no violence or horror, no despair or stuckness, no division, tension or uncertainty that God is not breaking into, not right alongside, not underneath and within. 

 

And we are given to one another- community to bear this reality together for the whole world, to remind each other of hope, to practice belonging and trust, to help each other watch God breaking in, and help each other live into the future that is coming. 

So we wait together in darkness for the light of God, and remind each that it’s ok to notice it and feel how heavy and terrible it can be.  At the same time we watch for the light and we seek peace, because the light shines in the darkness, and we trust that God comes in to bring redemption and life. That’s what God does. That’s who Jesus is: Emmanuel, God-with-us.  

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.

 

Amen.

 

Holding you through it

Psalm 139

Are you feeling foggy or disjointed? Having trouble concentrating or a terrible time sleeping? Are you irritable and edgy, or weepy and jittery? Perhaps you feel poised for disaster, ready for the other shoe to drop, but it already has, and now it feels like maybe pieces of the house are falling off too, so you’re guarded and alert and afraid a lot of the time?
If so, you may be living in January 2021.
 
Ten months ago we thought we all were making a temporary sacrifice, a momentary tweak, then we were told to hunker through the summer like it was a long winter, and then summer ended and fall ended and winter came. And here we are, still in a global pandemic.  
 
And now, nearly a quarter of a million people in our country testing positive every day and one person is dying approximately every 21 seconds, and a new, far more contagious variant ripping across the world, is actually THE BACKDROP to the seismic upheaval, political turmoil, bubbling violence, overt racism, rampant, damaging conspiracy theories dividing us in unfathomable ways, our democracy battered and bruised as national guard surrounding capital buildings with fencing and razor wire and occupy the Capitol in preparation for a transition in government that may be less that peaceful, so much drama that a president’s impeachment—for the second time—registers as relatively minor news.  
 
Oh Lord, we’d love a prescription to end our fatigue and anxiety!  But there is actually nothing wrong with us.  How we feel right now is just how human beings should feel in circumstances like these. 
 
Perspective helps. 

Last week we glimpsed who God is and what God is up to with the Magi visiting the baby Jesus and thwarting King Herod’s plans stamp out his supposed rival. By pulling way back to the cosmos, to see the God whose plan of salvation and hope for the whole world unfolds all over the place all the time, in the stars themselves and the small stories on the margins of things, even while the supposedly big stories are boiling right in front of us – we put ourselves, and this whole world, back in context. This is God’s story, we said. Oh yeah, remember? The world belongs to God. Be still and know this.
 
This week, we get reoriented again, but this time by zooming way in close, between a human heart and the Divine.  Psalm 139 comes to us not as a remedy, treatment or lesson, not as answers or advice, but as a very intimate conversation between a person and God. 
 
Oh, God – you know me completely! The parts of me I want known – which feels like a gift, but also the parts of me I wish I could hide, none of me is hidden from you. And there is nowhere I can go that you are not there, holding me, pursuing me, never giving up on me. Before the words are even on my lips, you know what I will say completely.  And even so, you love me. You made me and delight in me – I can hardly take that in, it’s so overwhelming and inconceivable.
 
And there is a part of this Psalm that I bet really jumped out at you when Lisa read it; it wasn’t actually meant to be included in the lectionary reading for today, because 99% of the time we skip this part.  It wrecks the vibe, so we censor it out.  But I loved hearing this part today, because I feel it resonate in my body. 
 
God, I wish you’d kill the wicked! 
Those bad and terrible people who are against you, who undermine your ways, 
with violence and evil—I wish they were destroyed! 
Oh God, I hate them! I hate them so much! They are my enemies!
 
Anger makes us uncomfortable. When we feel angry, as many of us do right now, we try to channel it, or stuff it down, or explain it away. But anger is our inner being saying, “This is not right.” This is not right! It’s energy in our bodies announcing that things are not as they it should be!  So we need to listen to our anger, to let it say what it needs to say. 
 
But instead, whenever the church reads the Psalm about God knowing us completely and how we can’t hide anything from God, we skip over the part where the Psalmist tells God how angry he is!  
Adorable! 
 
God will never, ever let you go, will never turn away from you, will never give up on you or stop loving you, and already knows and sees the whole of you anyway. What if you came with the courage of the Psalmist, and let God know what you are really thinking and feeling right now?  All of it, with no holding back? No checking to see if it's the right way to think or feel, just telling God?  
 
When the Psalmist unleashes his anger to God, he’s not theologically solid.  He talks to God like God needs defending, like God’s way is somehow at risk by the actions of humans, like God’s agenda of hope and redemption could be derailed were it not for his righteous rage, I hate those who hate you, God!  
 
Nevertheless, our predecessors in the faith left this part in here, even though hatred gets us nowhere, and God doesn’t need defending, and God’s way is happening no matter what.  This part is important because we get to say anything to God. We need to be able to say anything to God.  Our bible has this in it because in this relationship with God, we are supposed to not hold back.  This is the place where you get to say the unsuitable things and acknowledge all the difficult feelings and vent in ridiculous superlatives. This is where you even get to be wrong. God wants us to be angry with God instead of apart from God.
 
I imagine our Psalmist like a storming, tantruming child, ranting about bad people and the injustices they do while Mother God looks right into his face with tenderness and compassion, taking it all in.  When the Psalmist is spent, and all the fury has leaked out, mama opens her arms. And having been seen and heard and unconditionally received, the Psalmist crawls into her lap and curl’s up against God’s shoulder.  And he rests there.  

And then, there, in the safety of God’s love that will never waver, the shift happens, and inside his heart the space opens up to ask, most vulnerably of all, with absolute trust – Will you search me God? Look at my heart, please, see if there is any wickedness in me. Help me live in your way of love that cannot, will not end.
 
It’s ok to not be doing ok right now. It’s normal to be overwhelmed or exhausted. To be afraid or worried, edgy or weepy.  To feel scattered and not up to the task – any task. And it’s ok to feel angry.

This is a moment to remember our humanity, our limitedness, and the fragility of the structures we build up to sustain and hold us.  Underneath, and around, and through, and despite, and in the midst of all of it, God is holding us. That’s true about the whole big picture, but it’s also true about each and every one of us. God knows you completely. You cannot be lost; you will not be abandoned, there is space in God’s heart for all the things you are feeling.  
 
I am going to drop some sabbath wisdom on us today: It’s ok to stop. Breathe. It’s ok to turn your attention to the basics.  Breath. Food. Water. Sleep. Movement. One friend this week said he realized he doesn’t have energy right now for anything, so he figured out his top three things, family and two areas of work, and he’s paring back. He is taking a three month break from every other commitment and expectation.  And when he’s told people this – on the committees he is on and the leadership roles he is in, while some people may be frustrated, many people are saying, I feel like I am barely hanging on too. Or, I was wondering if I should quit this committee, maybe I could take a 3-month break too.
 
Maybe we remember again that insight about living in a different culture, covid culture, and how exhausting it is to be navigating this all the time, and how it’s wise to only plan to do three things in a day.
 
We know that in scripture when God tells us to Be still, it’s not in the gentle moments of bubbling brooks and floating clouds and introspection and groundedness, but in the tumult and the fury, when the Israelites are trapped at the edge of the Red Sea and the entire Egyptian army is bearing down on them weapons drawn, and they’re facing sure and certain death, Be still! God says, I will fight for you! 

 
And in Psalm 46, where the earth shakes and mountains crumble into the heart of the sea, Be still and know that I am God.  When the nations are in an uproar and kingdoms totter, God’s voice raises and the earth melts.  
This God is with us. The God who leads in the pillar of fire and parts the crashing Red Sea and guides the star-gazing Magi to the toddler savior on his mother’s lap in the house that nobody else is paying attention to at the moment – everywhere, always, right here, right now, this God is our refuge and strength.

 
The tumult is here. Now is a good time to Be Still.  

Be gentle with your heart and let it speak freely to the One who knows you completely and loves you unendingly. And since God knows all of it anyway, don’t hold anything back.  Tell it all to God.  Let God hear and receive whatever you have inside.  And find rest in the arms of the one who is already holding you close.
 
Amen