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Sermon April 25, 2021
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers,
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen’s
Fourth Sunday of Easter
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Easter/BEaster4_RCL.html
Audio: /documents/Eucharist__April_25__2021
Video: https://youtu.be/6s78FnxUGC8
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? 1 John 3:16-17
This week I have attended so many webinars and virtual presentations. I have notes on little pieces of scrap paper. I’m not even sure which notes go with which presentation. As I read the second reading from 1st John, I was drawn to these verses. I was especially drawn to the question about how God’s love can abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help.
So much of what I heard and participated in this week was about responding in love to each other and to our earth.
This week, we observed Earth Day. One of the things I heard this week, and I do think it was on the presentation about the movie, Kiss the Ground, is that when we are looking at climate change, and particularly at ways to enrich the soil, we need to work with rather than fight against. We need to work with the natural earth, rather than fight against it.
I know when I was growing up, I did learn stories or history, maybe, with sayings like “taming the land” or that somehow human progress was defined by subduing the land. Well, many of us are learning and some have always known, that working with the natural environment is much better, more sustainable, and gives us a good life.
I was drawn to this concept when I heard one of the presenters say it, I think, because I thought about sailing. Now, I have not been sailing very often. I’ve mostly been on bays, especially the Chesapeake Bay, although you might remember that a couple of summers ago, I went on a Windjammer cruise in Maine, still on the Penobscot Bay. Yet, I absolutely loved being on a sailboat. I realized at one point that was because you learn to work with the wind and water as much as possible. On a day with little or no wind, sailing is not really all that fun. Having to start and run the motor is not fun at all. Knowing how to trim the sails to work with the wind is truly amazing, I think, and so much fun.
Working with nature, rather than fighting it is also amazing. The movie, Kiss the Ground, really demonstrates this. The move starts off with some harrowing statistics about what is happening with our climate and what has happened to our soil. They show how much of the earth is becoming desertified or becoming a desert. Think about that for a moment. Think about what that means for people and creatures if there is less food and water. Yet, the movie shows that efforts to work with nature in ways that restore the land, also make the earth more livable for humans and all kinds of plants and animals and bugs and bacteria. One of the funniest or most interesting quotes from the movie was how we are basically bacteria on legs.
One way we care for each other and all of God’s amazing creation is to work with it, keeping creation and all of us healthy in the process. The earth and all things who dwell on it need help. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a planet in need and yet refuses to help?
Other things I attended this week included how to map systemic racism in our community, and the launch for a new book by The Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers, a Canon to the Presiding Bishop for Evangelism, Reconciliation and Care of Creation. The book title is The Church Cracked Open: Disruption, Decline and New Hope for Beloved Community. My last class of Repairing the Breach was pre-empted by conversation between the instructor, The Rev. Gayle Fisher-Stewart and Dean Kelly Brown Douglas of the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary and Canon Theologian of the Washington National Cathedral. Needless to say, all of these discussions occurred in the context of the decision in the Derek Chauvin trial.
I also learned of a new report from our church about a years-long audit, if you will, about how racism in our church manifests itself in our leadership. I have just begun to read this 72-page document and three webinars are also scheduled to discuss various aspects of it. And I completed watching the powerful, 4-part piece by Raoul Peck on HBO, Exterminate All the Brutes.
Dean Douglas stated and has stated many times that the Black body in this country was never meant to be free. Rev. Fisher-Stewart, a retired police officer after 20 years with the Metropolitan DC police force prior to becoming an Episcopal priest, emphasized that American policing was founded to control and contain Black bodies. She says we are at such a wonderful time, because we, meaning residents and the police, can all work together to build safe and just communities. We need to help each other have the communities we want. Canon Spellers reminded us that we need to seek each other’s flourishing. Dean Douglas said that the arc of the moral universe bent a little closer to justice and we must get on that arc and bend it even more towards justice.
In all of these things, I kept hearing many of the same things. That addressing racism is critical, necessary and urgent. That we must do more than educate. We must go deeper. That we must, and our faith can help us, bear and acknowledge the truth. That we have all of the knowledge we need to know that our brothers and sisters are in need. In fact, The Episcopal Church report contains a history going back to at least 1958 of resolution after resolution passed by the General Convention. If God’s love abides in us, we must not refuse to help.
Many have loved us. Many have given their lives for us, some willingly, some unwillingly. The writer of 1 John says we ought to lay down our lives for one another. While that could mean physically dying, I also think it means giving up the way we now live in the world. Our brothers and sisters and all of God’s creation are telling us they need help. Does God’s love abide in us? Can we lay down our lives or will we refuse to help?
Amen
Kiss the Ground: https://kisstheground.com/
FaithX – Mapping Systemic Racism: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/1bb8151c889e4e29a4aa0cb51cbd334e
The Church Cracked Open: https://www.facebook.com/heavenlyrest/videos/490749915463937
Conversation between The Rev. Gayle Fisher Stewart and Dean Kelly Brown Douglas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sajP7qovkgE
Racial Justice Audit of Episcopal Leadership: https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2021/04/19/episcopal-church-releases-racial-audit-of-leadership-citing-nine-patterns-of-racism-in-church-culture/
Exterminate All the Brutes: https://www.hbo.com/exterminate-all-the-brutes
