For surely I know the plans I have planned for you all—an
utterance of the Ancient of Days—plans
for your well-being and not for evil, to give you all a future and hope. Then
when you all call upon me and you come and you all pray to me, I shall hear
you. And when you all seek me, you shall
find me; if you all seek me with your whole heart. I will be found by you all,
an utterance of the Gracious God, and
I shall reverse your captivity and gather you all… [Jeremiah 29:11-14]
The Mighty One shatters the counsel of the
nations, she disallows the designs of the peoples. The counsel of the Wisdom of the Ages stands forever; the
designs of her heart to all generations… Our soul waits for She Who Saves; she is our help and
shield. In her is our heart glad, because we trust in her holy Name. Let your
faithful love, Compassionate God,
be upon us, for it is in you in whom we trust. [Psalm
33:10-11, 20-22]
Be patient, therefore, kindred, until the coming of the
Redeemer…Do not grumble against one another beloved, so that you may not be
judged… See here, we bless those who showed endurance. Of the endurance of Job
you have heard; and you have all seen the end goal of the Holy One, that the
Holy One is compassionate and merciful. [James 5:7a,9,11]
“…Heaven and earth
will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Be alert to
yourselves so that your hearts are not weighed down with self-indulgence and
drunkenness and the cares of this life, and that day catch you suddenly. Like a
trap! For it will come upon all who live upon the face of the whole earth. Stay
awake at all times, praying so that you might have the strength to escape all
these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Woman.”
[Luke 21:33-36]
There
is nothing new happening in the world. The world is and has always been a
fearsome place for many. Wars, threats of war, battles for power, hate
mongering, violence, poverty and desperation, bad governance, extreme weather,
and multiple other catastrophes destroy lives daily everywhere around the
globe. We are always in the fields of ancient and new history and humanity. And,
there are more of us now than ever before and we think that we know more, given
the increasing growth of “news” purveyors and the rapid-fire of the broken "breaking news,"
misinformation, disinformation availability. And then there’s the “viral” and
manipulated Us vs Them constantly screaming through ever-multiplying social
media options, and we weary ourselves and our spirits as we enter into the fray
of alternating chaos or collapse in paralyzing ambivalence and/or addictive
self-indulgence.
The
readings in this week’s Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church* are incredibly timely. Dr. Gafney, in her lectionary
notes, says, “This week’s readings are situated in moments that call for
patience we may not have or do not wish to develop.” While social media outlets
burn with verbal punching and shoving in a show of anonymous power jabs, lack
of patience–to say the least—gives way to completely mind-numbing “entertainment”
options of alleged “reality” tv, easy online gambling, and even easier delivery to your
door options for food, alcohol, and perhaps more. Every now and then some of us
look up from the impatience of doom-scrolling to wonder when things will return
to normal, whatever and however that is perceived. If you’ve ever been
close to someone who has been in the military and spent time in a war zone, even
coming home after the fact has a relatively short moment of relief and longer
moments of disappointment that there is no return to whatever normal once
seemed to be.
Jeremiah
is preparing the now deported Israelites to learn to live their new life in a
new land under the rule of their conquerors. He even tells them to pray for the
city in which they are captive and not to give into despair. Yes, God is always
present and God’s great plans for them will one day reverse their captivity,
however, the timeline is far from immediate.
While
the psalmist offers words of hope and trust in God’s promises, again there is
no specific end date all the while giving an impression of generations to pass
before their promised liberation. Of course looking more closely, clearly many
will die long before the restoration to their homeland. And, I wonder about
those born and raised to adulthood in this exile, perhaps as a second or third
generation ~ how does being “returned” to a land they never knew feel normal?
The food, the housing, the language, the cultural changes… The most startling
phrase, for me, is that God, the Mighty
One, shatters the counsel of the nations… now there’s a conversation
waiting, which counsel does one wish to be shattered? It is a hopeful thought,
if even opinions differ.
And, then, comes James commending us to patience
and reminding us of the endurance of Job. As an aside, Dr. Gafney tells
us that that Job isn’t the one in the biblical canon with his name on it
demanding that God account for the imposed afflictions, as that was written by
someone who wrote in Job’s name. The patient enduring Job is a character
whose stories probably pre-date the Hebrew Bible.
Jesus, in Luke’s Gospel passage, seems to be
saying “Hang on, things are getting ready to change.” And in every single
generation from Jesus’s time until now there are those who believe that He is
coming, soon, get ready, stay ready! What about those in our midst who have
experienced the terror of state-sponsored violence that seems to be spreading
rapidly. How long can people of color, and those who have immigrated from other
places and cultures, asylum seekers frightened of being sent back, those
scorned due to poverty and homelessness, how can others, even in better life
circumstances, hold on to these multigenerational promises?
Okay, let us put down the phone, resist the
doom-scroll, take a break from social media, avoid vacuous distractions, and
breathe in deeply of the hope and trust we are given by Jeremiah, the Psalmist,
James, even Job. Jesus promises that one day, whatever we experience in this
life, we will stand before the Son of Woman if we stay alert and pray to escape what may befall us. But, how can we not
entertain the question, and the hope in the answer, by this excerpt from the
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s speech in Montgomery, Alabama in March 1965
after the march from Selma:
How long? Not long.
Truth forever on the
scaffold,
Wrong forever on the
throne,
Yet that scaffold
sways the future,
And, behind the dim
unknown,
Standeth God within
the shadow,
Keeping watch above
his own.
How long? Not long,
because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
And
though many generations have gone and well may still go before we stand as One before the Son of Woman, let us carry the hearts and
souls of those who have gone before as we keep staying ready however long it
may be.
LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY
Leader: ~ GRACIOUS GOD, fill
our souls with the patience and endurance of Job, and strengthen our hearts through
difficult times. Remind us often to trust in your Holy Name, in your faithful
love, and in your enduring mercy, deeply knowing that you hear our every
prayer.
COMPASSIONATE GOD
RESPONSE: You are our Hope and our
Shield
~
GRACIOUS GOD, enter the minds and
intentions of those in political power across this planet, to shatter the
counsel of wicked design. O WISDOM OF THE AGES, imbue the leaders of every country
with the designs of your heart for all generations, and reverse all evil
actions that hold your people captive. We pray especially for: the
President, the Vice-President, our Members of Congress, our Governor, our
County Executive, our City Council, and our Mayor.
COMPASSIONATE GOD
You are our Hope and our Shield
~
GRACIOUS GOD, comfort all who are
trapped in chronic sickness, poverty, or depression, and lighten the hearts of
all who give support. We now join our voices to pray for those in need…
COMPASSIONATE GOD
You are our Hope and our Shield
~
GRACIOUS GOD, as You console those
hearts in the depths of fresh or remembered grief, infuse a spark of joy that
grows into rejoicing, to know that those we have sent ahead, now stand before You,
the Holy Spirit, and the Son of Woman, in eternal love and peace everlasting. We pray especially for:
COMPASSIONATE GOD
You are our Hope and our Shield
~
GRACIOUS GOD, we pause in
this moment to offer You our other heartfelt thanksgivings, intercessions,
petitions, and memorials, aloud or silently…
COMPASSIONATE GOD
You are our Hope and our Shield
~
GRACIOUS GOD, grant infectious
energy and contagious inspiration to all You have appointed to lead us in your
church. Guide all our steps on the sacred path to eternal life in You. We pray especially for: Sean, our Presiding Bishop; Kevin our
Bishop; Patrick, our Rector; Lloyd, our Rector Emeritus; and Cecily, our
Deacon.
COMPASSIONATE GOD
You
are our Hope and our Shield
The
Celebrant adds: O GOD WHO HEARS, excite
our desire to shake off the dust of our own complacency and self-indulgence, to
immerse ourselves in your service. Breathe into us your plans for our
well-being, our gladness of heart, and a blessed future, as we strive to make your
constant presence known, through all that we do in the spirit of kindness, empathy,
and respect. We ask through Jesus, our Savior; and the Holy Spirit, our
Sustainer, who together with You are One God, infinite and eternal. Amen.
*Readings for our Parish in this Year C are from The Rev.
Dr. Wilda [Wil] Gafney, Womanist biblical scholar, and the Right Rev. Sam B. Hulsey
Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas. She is
the author of A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church Yr C,
and others in her series, and translator of its biblical selections. I
definitely commend her book for the complete readings, to Clergy and Laity, for
her Text Notes, and “Preaching Prompts” whether or not you will use them in
your Liturgies/Services/Preaching. There is much to learn from her work to
inform every facet of our lives in Christ. To learn more about her and
her work, see her website:
It opens with "The
Lord appeared to Abraham" and then tells us that Abraham looked up and saw
three men yet, strangely, he spoke to them in the singular of "My
Lord..." The men who sat at Abraham’s table were beautifully captured by the 15th century Russian Orthodox iconographer, Andrei Rublev, in his famous, and my personal favorite of all icons, "Rublev's Holy Trinity."* This icon, as icons
always are, is filled with significant symbolism which I encourage you to explore [see link below]. But for this moment, here is his stunning visual interpretation of the "three in one" mystery of the Trinity. 
