Sermon for March 8, 2020
Lent II / A
Cathedral Church of St. Paul,
Detroit, MI
The Rev. Vicki Hesse
For readings, click here
Watch video here.
Listen here.
“Take my
lips, O Lord, and speak through them;
Take our
minds and think through them;
Take our
hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen.
Some
years ago I worked a night shift.
That
takes some adjusting.
If you
have ever worked a night shift,
you know
what I’m talking about.
Night
shift work has a special culture,
demanding
a special attention.
In
offices, you can see the people in cubicles
working
in the semi-dark spaces
with
their desk light on.
The
phones are mostly silent,
just the
sound of typing on keyboards
or the floor-scraping
sounds of the mop bucket going by.
You can
sometimes hear the music
eeking
through someone’s earbuds.
Around any
city, fewer people are awake in the night, except for the
·
Police
and ambulance cruising streets, awaiting 911 response calls.
·
Bleary
eyed parents soothing crying babies.
·
Intimate
lovers whispering sweet nothings.
·
Red
Bull-saturated students cramming for exams.
Night
shift work has a special culture, demanding special attention.
demanding
of your body heightened senses
for
bumping into other night shift people
as
intimate strangers –
sharing the
strange vulnerability of the night
while you
know nothing about them at all.
So in our
gospel today, we hear of one night shift worker,
“…a
Pharisee named Nicodemus. He came to
Jesus by night.”
Imagine
Nic just got off his part time night shift
at the
scroll-making factory.
Nic was stewing
about this Jesus person
he
encountered by day,
and all Nic’s
friends were talking about Jesus.
His
Facebook feed filled with comments,
his
twitter was a flutter
and even his
Instagram notifications were all about this Jesus.
Nic felt his
breath rushing, his heart racing, his jaw clenching, his eyes burning …
his
heightened senses alerted him.
That
night, he knew he needed to see Jesus
and see
him right then.
Being a part
time religious leader,
Nic had a
theological reputation to uphold.
What
better time to have a one-to-one conversation
like his
community organizing training had taught him?
So Nic
practiced courage, as he was taught,
and told Jesus
what was on his mind,
without
fear of anyone overhearing his questions.
“ ‘s up,
Jesus?”
“You must
be a Divine teacher,
cuz no one
can do that God-pointing
and
God-revealing you do,
apart
from the presence of God.”[1]
For
Jesus, nighttime was a great time for a chat.
And after
throwing the curve ball
about
needing to be re-born,
Jesus
explained,
“…being
born again is like that –
not
something you do, the wind does it.
The
Spirit does it.
This is
what happens, for God’s sake.”[2]
Nic,
being an external thinker, wondered aloud, “huh. how can this be?”
And we
wonder, too, (maybe not out loud),
but often
at night. “How can this be?”
Isn’t it
often at night that we, too, want to see Jesus?
When we need Jesus.
Isn’t it nighttime
when our senses are on alert,
our
questions deepen, that yearning tugs on our heart?
Isn’t it
often at night that we wonder about the corona virus?
We hear that
a former colleague just entered hospice. *sigh* We need Jesus.
We lose a
loved one. We gain a diagnosis. We need Jesus.
Our best
friend betrays us. We disappoint ourselves. We need Jesus.
Isn’t it
often at night that-
We are
exhausted, as a queer person,
with the relentless
coming out demanded by society
– to new
friends, fellow students, casual conversations.
Then we
get angry at our own frustration.
We feel
let down by others. We need Jesus.
Isn’t it
often at night that-
We are
angered and disgusted, even as a white person,
at systemic
white supremacy that surrounds us on every side
and of
which we are a part while vowing to dismantle,
while we are
learning to listen more
and not
assume we know best. God, we need Jesus.
Isn’t it
often at night that-
Our
society needs Jesus,
plagued
by what Rev. Dr. William Barber[3]
calls
the “five
interlocking injustices[4]
that are far
too often not
at the
center of our nation’s moral narrative.:
repeat:
the “five interlocking injustices
that
are far too often not
at the
center of our nation’s moral narrative.:
systemic
racism, systemic poverty,
ecological
devastation, the war economy,
and
distorted and misguided religious nationalism.”
The Rev.
Dr. William Barber co-leads a movement:
“The Poor
People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.”
Barber comes
to Jesus in our country’s dark night of the soul
on behalf
of people made poor by these interlocking injustices.
He asks
Jesus that the Son of Man be lifted up
so that
people made poor
may have
something to see and believe in and trust again.
“Jesus!”
he calls out on our behalf,
“send the
Spirit into God’s people!”
to work
with and for the 140 million
people
from every race, creed, sexuality and place.
140
million poor and low wealth people. That’s 40% of the USA.
Living
in the nighttime of five interlocking injustices.
We need
Jesus
Yes, working
the night shift takes some adjusting.
If you
have ever worked a night shift,
you know
what I’m talking about.
Night
shift work has a special culture. It demands attention.
When Nic
wondered aloud, “how can this be?”
Jesus was
right there.
Jesus was
present.
Jesus
kept on showing God’s love.
And, Jesus
explained how Spirit works.
“Think of
babies; they are born
and you
see their flesh, their outsides, and you gotta change their diapers.
But the real
person is born
when the
spirit moves in them
and they
grow up and mature and become real people,
formed by
the Spirit, the Spirit you cannot touch!”
Jesus
continued his conversation with Nicodemus, that night,
Saying:
“See, God loves the world –
the whole
cosmic creation and every delicate snowflake and tear drop that falls –
God loves
with so much deep compassion that
God feels
all that suffering, Nicodemus,
… your angry
vibrations, your racing heart, your sweaty palms.
God is
there.”
Then, Jesus
promised:
“God is
so present in this world, that in the day light
you will
see people with that moving, powerful Spirit
in their
eyes and feet and hands, and with a fire in their hearts.”
“See,”
Jesus concluded,
“God’s
got such a thing for this world, this loused-up planet
that God
sent me down here
so that if
you don’t believe with your own eyes
maybe
you’ll believe mine, or me,
or you
wouldn’t come sneaking around at night.”[6]
God’s
got such a thing for this place
Then, Nic
knew he made the right decision
to come
to Jesus by night.
Nic
realized, indeed, this demands attention.
So… when
we wonder, “how can this be?”
God in
Jesus is present for us.
In our
dark night of the soul, when we come to Jesus by night,
even if we
don’t believe with our own eyes
maybe we
will believe that Jesus sees the possibilities
and can
set the world right again.
Even if
we don’t believe, Jesus believes in us!
And
there, with Jesus’ night vision,
we can glimpse
resurrection –
a new way
and a new hope and a new life that is coming –
but not
yet; that’s for Easter!
God is
not condemning the world but saving the world.
Because
God’s love is that unexpected, that bold, that abundant.
God is
making the world right
through
Jesus who comes to us, by night.
Filling
us with a Spirit of truth, and compassion and drive
and unexpected,
bold love so that we can be Jesus’
hands and
feet and rushing breath and racing heart
to set
the world right again.
We learn
a new way to pass the peace
in the
days of corona virus.
We find
unexpected Jesus-resilience
to
explain again to someone what it means to be queer.
We
experience in new anti-racism allies
a
productive anger to confront white privilege.
We feel
deep Jesus-centered compassion
for a
friend who needs healing.
See, we
can set the world right again
by
practicing bravery in the night.
We know how
much we need Jesus for
that is
where the Spirit gives birth to our lives.
Take
courage, friends. This night shift work is hard. It requires attention.
And God’s
attention is trained on each of you
with
laser focus love and forgiveness.
Meet
Jesus in the night and be born again by his radical grace.
Now get
out there with him and set the world right again! Amen.
[2] Frederick Buechner, Peculiar
Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who, (New York, Harper & Row, 1979), p.
121-123
[3] Cited here https://wayoflove.episcopalchurch.org/episodes/season/2/episode/15 Rev. Dr. William Barber, president of
Repairers of the Breach, architect of the Moral Mondays Movement, and Co-Chair
of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
[6] Buechner, Ibid.
No comments:
Post a Comment