Sunday, January 22, 2017

Sermon for January 22nd 2017 - Hope is ...




Hope remains , hope persists … the people who will walk through these dark times will know joy and light even in the midst of them … God does not abandon us.

          I think if I go back in my sermons over the last twenty plus years that I have been privileged to stand in pulpits from Ontario to BC to Manitoba and back here in Ontario, I actually would find that the dominant themes I’ve preached on are hope and joy …
          And not shallow “be happy” joy, or hope that is about pretending that things are NOT a struggle at times, but a deep guttural hope that KNOWS that no matter what happens we will survive, we will endure and we will overcome …
          Hope that says “This moment is NOT the end of the story …” And Joy that faces the fullness of life and unflinchingly, says “we celebrate LIFE in all its fullness …”
          Having moved out of the Advent and Christmas seasons where we celebrate Hope, Love, Joy and Peace in the waiting for the Christ Child, we carry those values with us, even in the face of what is unfolding around us today …
          It’s interesting, this week the themes of darkness and light have popped into the headlines around the world … I can’t imagine why … but on the eve of the Inauguration a video of the National Moral Revival Poor People’s Campaign Watch Night Service on December 31st in Washington, D.C.’s historic Metropolitan AME Church, circulated with American Sikh Activist, Author and filmmaker Valarie Kaur speaking and asking the question: "What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb – but the darkness of the womb?"
          Kaur recounts the journey her grandfather made a century ago from India to The US in pursuit of a dream of freedom and equality … she inventories the reality her family has faced, that she has faced, and no that her own son faces today … that as a child with brown skin, he will forever be viewed as a potential terrorist … as someone different … someone other …
          BUT, what if … what if she is right … that this place of darkness we find ourselves in … and we find ourselves there often and in a myriad of ways .. what if, that darkness is NOT the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb as we await the birthing that will bring something new and something faithful …
          Kaur throws out the query and amid the applause and vocal support of the ecumenical congregation around her, pushes her example pondering if American society is standing on the edge of a rebirth … she cites the counsel of a midwife who says “breath …””focus …” and then “push …”
          In the darkness we need to breath …
          I’ve often counselled people struggling to “just breath …” take this breath … take the next breath … be present to THIS moment and this breath and let the next moment and next breath happen …
          Then we need to focus … focus on what is important … focus on what goals we seek to attain … focus on what lies ahead and what WE NEED TO DO to reach them …
          But then, if we are in a time and place of darkness that is the darkness of the womb, the pause and the push is crucial … a push for equality, justice, respect, fairness and inclusion of all people … a push for things that embrace and celebrate the diversity of God’s children … a push against fear and ignorance … a push for HOPE – true hope that embraces and embodies the light …
          Much of the darkness today arises from fear … a primal, guttural fear that has been focused on the mysterious ‘other’ … our leaders religious and political have done a masterful job of objectifying those who are different from ourselves into a role where they become an ‘other’ that we fear …
          This past week on CBC there was a documentary about Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel “It can’t happen here” that looked at the eerie parallels between that work of fiction, and today’s political climate … the rise of the right and the spectre of fascist administrations are part of our present reality, and much of the fuel feeding that movement is FEAR … fear of the other who is so objectified and so removed from you and I, that they lack a common humanity and can be easily vilified for political, religious, economic and moral gains …
          Since 9/11 we have witnessed the ‘othering’ of huge segments of our global society on a massive and truly frightening scale … the rise of Islamophobia and the acts of violence against – not just Muslims, but anyone who has brown skin … the systematic battle against equal rights for Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, transgendered and people who are just different … the rise of sexism, racism, and almost every type of ism and phobia imaginable – ALL of it is an expression of the othering … the vilifying of those who are different … answering fear not with curiousity and inquisitiveness and the very real possibility of growth in experience and understanding, but answering fear with entrenchment and bigotry … and where there is fear there is no room for joy.
          Ms Kaur, in her reciting of her family history also notes the difficulties her son will face simply because of his skin colour … he will be regarded as suspect even though he was born in the US … he will be considered a potential threat simply because of his skin colour … he will face a lifetime of being looked at in a less than inclusive way simply because of his genetic background … he has brown skin, so to a large swath of American society he will be “one of them” and will be labeled as a possible ISIS supporter even though he is Sikh … hatred, ignorance and bigotry doesn’t understand such subtleties … hatred, ignorance and bigotry feeds off of, and fuels the othering that objectifies and vilifies those we fear … and fear is about darkness and cowering in our corner …
          Hope counters fear …
          Light drives back the darkness and pushes back the fear … with the
          As people of faith, called to go and be fishers of people, we cannot be about fear … we are people of hope … people of light … people who are to go into the world and welcome in the other, not fear them …
          We are truly in a time of darkness … but like the dark ages of Europe (I just hope they don’t last so long …) the dark ages gave way to the renaissance where science and philosophy and religion experienced an awakening and a renewal that brought with it great scientific and intellectual understandings and experiences … with the end of the dark ages there was a sudden and almost explosive awakening of the human spirit and the world expanded exponentially.
          Scholars tell us that there have periods of enlightenment and awakening throughout human history where great thinkers and great spirits arose and helped guide and renew humanity … and each of those periods was preceded by a time of darkness …
          In a world filled with stories of violence and conflict … in a world shifting to a political stance that is intolerant and harsh … in a world where fear runs rampant … in our world, we dare to hold up the light of faith …
          A light that is about justice … grace … hope
          A light that says “the darkness shall not win” … we the people of faith will hold to the light …
          And so, we are being challenged to breath … to focus … and to push …
          The light we yearn for is not the light of the tomb … it is the light of the womb that will break upon us a new day … a day that overflows with the things that we as people of faith value and cherish and celebrate …
          We breath … focus … and push knowing that God is with us always …

          Thanks be to God … let us pray …