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Sermon Notes — September 11 2005

St. John's United Church of Christ, San Francisco

Rev. Kyle Lovett

Sermon Title: "Remember When?”

Readings: (Romans 12:9-15) Genesis 50:15-21; Matthew 25:31-46; 1 John 3:17-18

What Is Today for You?

Welcome Home Sunday – first Sunday after Labor Day

I was at an Evangelism and Church Renewal and Growth gathering Friday, I saw one of those red & black God Is Still Speaking posters, one I’d never seen:

The first Sunday after Labor Day has become the traditional start of the church year, when programs and activities and studies and Choir and the next round of whatever mission and ministry foci the church embraces gets under way.

Anniversary of 9/11 – the 4th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon

-        We read a litany of remembrance in this morning’s service[1]

-        There are musical tributes on the radio…

Ongoing Katrina Crisis –

There’s a lot of finger-pointing going on.  I imagine each of us has an opinion about where the fingers ought to point.

“Maybe this is an opportunity to 'point the finger' at ourselves and challenging folks to do what they can for the folks living next door to them.  The folks in the deep South here in the States are getting tremendous help (finally!) - what are we doing for folks overwhelmed by the flood of poor choices, poverty, being born in the wrong 'class', being born in a different skin in our own communities.

    “I am deeply moved by the compassion & generosity of folks who have opened their arms to the 'refugees'. But the cynical side of me wonders:  "if Katrina had not hit, and if the mayor of New Orleans and the other communities had gone on TV and said, 'Folks, we can't help the poor here in our city.  Can you take them in? Will you shelter them?  Will you feed them?  Will you educate them?  Will you find them new jobs, new homes, new hope?'"   I don't think the response would be quite the same.

    “I am intrigued, and grateful, that folks respond so generously to a catastrophe of this sort, when everyday in every city, and probably in every rural area, throughout the world, there are folks facing tragic circumstances that we turn our backs on.

    “Maybe that's where the parable of the week hits home. God has forgiven us so much and graced us beyond measure, and our response to the poor, the helpless, the lost, the least is so ungracious, so unforgiven 99% of the time. [2]

Mayor Newsom has held up over & over the plight of people living in Bayview Hunter’s Point.  It’s not a new situation.  But it’s largely out of sight of most of us in San Francisco.

We have a natural ally, a family connection there.  There’s a Samoan church in Bayview, affiliated with the UCC: The Samoan Congregational UCC of Bayview.  Perhaps there is an opportunity there for us… and for them.

(juvie / jail story – Samoan youth)

Dedication of Banners with Hands – with its memories of who has been here, the joy of who is still here, and the awareness that even as we’ve been constructing the banners, new friends have joined us on their journey.

Our scriptures abound with conflicting messages.

We are to believe, and we are to do, to act – our beliefs are empty unless coupled with righteous and compassionate works of justice.

Some say the church is all about learning forgiveness. The portion of the Joseph story we read from Genesis today speaks to that, to that striving towards forgiveness.

But I’m not convinced the church is basically about forgiveness.  

I believe that the church is really about justice. Justice-seeking, justice-making, justice-being. And frankly, I think it would be easier if it were all about forgiveness. Justice is SO much harder. (That’s likely why we so often do a lousy job at seeking, making, and being it). Justice is about making judgements and finding ways to make things right.

Unfortunately for many the term now only refers to the Criminal Justice system and there are many voices that insist harsh punishment is the only way to make things right. A pure retribution model.

Check out what Joseph’s brothers assume and then do.  They assume Joseph will treat them harshly, now that their father is dead.  So what do they say?

Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph's brothers said, "What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?"

So they approached Joseph, saying, "Your father gave this instruction before he died, 'Say to Joseph: I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers…

But I am convinced that God's justice combines judgement, payment, and forgiveness. I am convinced that we need to find a way to reconcile our need to strike back (retribution) with the peace-building that comes with true forgiveness (something I think HAS to be accompanied {or preceded?} by true repentance. [3]

One colleague noted that “Forgiveness leading to justice is a two way street.  For example, Castro has offered to help in response to the Katrina crisis.  How do we feel about accepting medical supplies and help (which could get here rapidly) from someone we as a nation refuse to deal with.   There's a kind of forgiveness involved on both sides here.  Then there's the justice and response of those who were affected by the Tsunami that are now offering us dollars.  It's the widow's mite (maybe even our own dollars returning) -- but we know how important that is!” [4]

Another colleague hears in this text an echo from a book entitled Is Human Forgiveness Possible? (John Patton, Abingdon Press, 1985)  “Patton says forgiveness is NOT something we do - if it were, we'd always be holding power over the one forgiven or not forgiven, as the case may be.  Instead, forgiveness is something we must discover.  To truly forgive someone, we must discover that "I am more like those who have hurt me than different from them." [5]

My colleague points out that “there's a lot of justice in viewing forgiveness in just this way.”

Yet another colleague says this, which makes a lot of sense to me:

“Sometimes forgiveness isn't so much about the one who has wronged me as it is about me.  It is quite possible that I can forgive someone who has done me a wrong but who shows absolutely no interest in repenting.  Forgiveness in this case is more about not allowing the wrong that has been done me to continue to run my life.

“If forgiveness absolutely requires repentance, then the one who has done wrong and refuses to repent continues to control me.  When I forgive, I release myself from being held hostage by the person who has done the wrong.” [6]

We pray to God the Lord’s Prayer, asking God to forgive us as we have forgiven others. 

Connected Crises – Katrina & 9/11

There are many conflicting messages about what “caused” 9/11 and the devastation of Katrina.

Some confidently tell people that natural disasters are not God's will.  Others point to the received texts of scripture and say that clearly, natural disasters are God’s will. 

“I think we need to view the flood story from its conclusion, not just its beginning.  We're told the story that God sent the flood because humanity as a whole was so out of control and out of relationship with God.  At the end of the story, though, God covenants that God will never again act this way, never again send destructive natural forces as punishment for our actions. And so our understanding of who God is changes ...

“For me one of the gifts of the biblical narrative, particularly from the Hebrew Scriptures, is seeing how our understanding of God has grown and developed over time.  Where God once was seen as vindictive and punishing (as all other cultures of ancient times believed of their gods), we learn that our true God doesn't work that way, that God is God-with-us through good and bad times, working to bring good out of bad, comforting us and strengthening us, not trying to strike us down.

“So the flood story IS a good example of how, NO, God did NOT send Katrina as a punishment to the people of the Gulf Coast, and NO, God did NOT send those planes on 9/11 as punishment against the people of NYC or the pentagon.  God doesn't work that way because God promised NOT to work that way.  Or so the rainbow says ... [7]

“Katrina may give us a contemporary understanding of how the ancients understood the sea - the symbol of ultimate chaos - an enemy of God.  And yet this was a story that told them that God could overcome that chaos.” [8]

There are a number of tough, unanswered questions in this area, too.... the field of Theodicy (the theological or philosophical origin of evil).

But didn't Jesus say something about all this?  (See Luke 13:1-5)  In responding both to a humanly caused atrocity (those "whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices") and a natural disaster (or was it faulty engineering?  18 were killed when a tower fell on them) Jesus said these instances were NOT God's judgment on the victims for being "worse sinners than all other" people; but at the same time the tragedies could serve as a wake-up call  lest we "all perish as they did."

So, maybe having unanswered questions is one result of our being human? [9] 

Some throw up their hands and say God’s will is a mystery.

Yes.

But we need to grasp that mystery.  This is something that was posted 3 years ago a quote by Rabbi Brad Hirschfield:

"Since Sept. 11th, people keep asking me, "Where was God?"  And they think because I'm a rabbi, I have answers.  And I actually think that my job as a rabbi is to help them live with those questions.  If God's ways are mysterious, live with the mystery.  It's upsetting.  It's scary.  It's painful.  It's deep.  And it's interesting.  No plan.  That's what mystery is.  It's all of those things. "You want plan?  Then tell me about [God's] plan.  But if you're going to tell me about how the plan saved you, you better also be able to explain how the plan killed them.  And the test of that has nothing to do with saying it in your synagogue or your church.  The test of that has to do with going and saying it to the person who just buried someone and look in their eyes and tell them God's plan was to blow your loved one apart.  Look at them and tell that God's plan was that their children should go to bed every night for the rest of their lives without a parent.  And if you can say that, well, at least you're honest.  I don't worship the same God, but that at least has integrity. "It's just too easy.  That's my problem with the answer.  Not that I think they're being inauthentic when people say it [it was God's plan], or being dishonest.  It's just too damn easy.  It's easy because it gets God off the hook.  And it's easy because it gets their religious beliefs off the hook. And right now, everything is on the hook."[10]

Conclusion

Where do we go from here?  Wherever God leads us, and God doesn't seem to have a reverse gear. [11]

Whether we’re as individuals facing the return to school & work and the regular routine of the Fall, or

Whether we’re focused on this day being the 4^th anniversary of the horrors of 9/11, or

Whether we’re anguishing over the death and destruction and angry over the broken trust and failed responses to Hurricane Katrina, or

Whether we’re celebrating the hands that have molded us and have shaped our congregation and have held us when we cried and have clapped in celebration with us…

The passage from Roman which we read at the beginning of the service may be some of the most radical, most challenging, and most comforting of all the words in the Bible.

Whatever the circumstance, we are Christ's.

Whether we're stuck in the mud, or overtaken by the flood,

we are Christ's!

Whether we live, we are Christ's;

whether we die, we are Christ's.

Christ does not protect us from dying,

any more than Christ protects us from the vagaries of living.

The Promise of God is Presence, not Privilege!

There is a commandment in Deuteronomy that says "'Justice, Justice. You shall pursue.' One explanation is that justice is written twice because there is justice for the well-off and justice for the rest. May that day not be far of, in the USA and everywhere.