A Sermon by the Rev. Elice Higginbotham
For the First Congregational United Church of Christ, Chappaqua, New York
Pentecost 20
The lessons given to us for this Sunday all talk, in one way or another, about persistence. That's a rather mundane concept, isn't it? Not too inspiring? Rather dogged and dull? But it is, I imagine we could pretty much all agree, a worthy quality for the Christian life, not? -- even if not a very exciting one.
Reading these scriptural texts, and some commentaries on them by scholars, I began free associating about "persistence," and conjuring up some images in my own mind. And, frankly, in this time and place in my life and in the world around me, the first images that occurred to me were negative: the persistence of evil... of hatred... of famine and displacement... of war... of all kinds of violence. For some reason, this particular week, I just ooverdosed on news of terrible, bloody, exhausting, nauseating violence. The terrible bombings of tourist sites in Egypt... every day, more attacks, more deaths, a mounting total of grimly-counted U.S. casualties in Iraq and hardly-ever-counted Iraqi casualties. Just in recent weeks, the Indonesian Embassy in Paris was bombed Paris isn't a place that usually leaps to mind when we think about sudden political violence, at least not these days. (My husband is from Indonesia, so this particular bombing caught our attention, but it was certainly not the only one to add to the season's toll of blood and destruction.) And then there's ordinary old everyday crime much too everyday!: husbands and boyfriends battering wives and girlfriends, and occasionally vice-versa; youngers battering elders, parents battering children; people beating up other people in the street, in night clubs, in bedrooms and living rooms and every other room in the house. I just became numb and exhausted with the horrible persistence of violence. Suddenly I don't know why this week, I just couldn't stand it. I began turning off the radio and TV news. My faith was tried.
Christians, however, seek to live with the persistence of hope. This week, I didn't feel very hopeful. I was grasping and clawing, spiritually and mentally, for a hopeful vision, a sense that somehow this human race of ours is not going to just destroy itself, and perhaps in my lifetime! (I was pretty depressed, you can see!) But the phrase "persistence of hope" did also enter into my free association and, pessimistic as I was feeling, my faith obliged me to deal with it.
The faith of the people of God in exile, in the 5th Century before Christ, likewise obliged them to deal with the persistence of hope in a hopeless setting. It's difficult for us to appreciate, with our modern understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition, just how deeply the ancient people's concept of "God" was bound up with "land" and with "nation." For the people in the time of the prophet Jeremiah, to lose their homeland, or to be driven from it and obliged to live in a foreign culture, was to lose God. How can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? the Psalmist wails. The nature of the promise that's God's promise to Abraham and all Abraham's descendents was nationhood. The people covenanted to be God's people; God's part of the bargain was to make them a nation, a people with an identity and a home in the political and geographic sense of those terms that was the understanding. So these people driven into exile were a people absolutely bereft of meaning. What is it to be God's people, if there is no nation or home or culture? What is it to be? How can we and God fail so completely? Have you every found yourself asking yourself that? Maybe it's not so strange for us, after all... maybe the fear of those very questions drives us, both in our personal spiritual struggles, and in our public polices, you think, maybe? Anyway, that's kind of what I was asking myself this week, about the persistence of hope versus the persistence of violence.
Four or five years ago, a clergywoman colleague of mine, who was at that time the staffperson for women's concerns in the national offices of our United Church of Christ, participated in an ecumenical women's pilgrimage to Eastern Europe. Among the many sites of historical, cultural and religious interest was an interview with a group of woman who had survived Nazi concentration camps, or were the female descendents of survivors. The focus of the pilgrimage was to try to dig out and hear the often blocked or hidden stories of women, and their likewise unsung accomplishments or hidden triumphs, that often are downplayed in official histories. And so the visitors heard several amazing stories that reflected an unbelievable survival of community spirit and hope among women who had been interned or died in such brutal and degrading circumstances. The story I remember most vividly, as I recall my colleague's report of her trip, was about a hand-written and hand-bound collection of family recipes a personal, mother-to-daughter cookbook Somehow (I don't remember how now), in all the destruction of concentration camp life and war, this tiny paper package with handwritten recipes, that had been passed down through several generations in the same family, survived, and was found. Perhaps it was carried out by someone who managed to survive and leave the camp at the end of the war. One has to piece together its history from fading memories and tiny clues, but it appeared that, for three or four generations, every woman in the family had written down her recipes, along with loving and instructive notes to her daughter on the day of the daughter's marriage; the daughter later added recipes of her own, with her own notes to her own offspring, and then passed the collection down to the next generation at the time of marriage. We can now only imagine how the last woman to receive that small family heirloom happened to have it in her possession in a concentration camp. Perhaps she had been given a tiny window of time to gather her possessions before being shipped away to the camp, and somehow decided that this was the precious reminder of her family that she needed to tuck in a pocket or a hastily-packed duffel bag or the hem of a coat. In any event she had written down her own recipes, and the name of her daughter, and where her daughter lived the last time the mother was in touch with her, with a vision before her of the two of them once again, some day, reunited in a family kitchen, in which family specialties might be prepared and eaten for holidays. That little collection is poignant and tragic. But it's also an amazing affirmation of life, of continuity, of hope in the midst of suffering and death.
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will pub my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Jeremiah's prophecy was also an affirmation of life to a people languished in a place of death and cultural destruction. Jeremiah preached a God who forgives sin; a God who is worshipped in the way people treat one another, regardless of where they are, or what is their national identity, or whether or not they have territory or political power. The word of God through the prophet is comfort the persistence of hope.
. . . . . .
I've had some other things on my mind this week, besides the persistence of violence, tempered by the persistence of hope... and one has been the young people of our congregation. Maybe you noticed in your bulletin, Melanie and I will be meeting briefly after church with the parents of our youth who are at the age to prepare for Confirmation, and for formal church membership.
So thinking about how best to help our kids gain a sense that the church is theirs, for them, has been high in my heart for the past several weeks, looking toward this meeting today. And that caused me to ask myself, and let me ask you adults here, too: How did you become a Christian? Was your spirit engaged and nourished in a class? Did you encounter the God that is revealed to us in Jesus Christ through study, memorization, filling in the blanks, or even Bible games? Did faith become real to you, so that your life was changed and you understood yourself as God's unique creation... by having a little more school and a little more homework tacked onto your schedule? Well, I'm sure you can tell by my tone that I'm making some assumptions about your answers. And, I've got to tell you, I was one of those kids who just loved Confirmation class. But I've also got to tell you that I was a real Goody Two Shoes when I was 12 or 13 years old (hard as that my now be to believe!)... and I suspect that my pleasure in Confirmation class had less to do with experiencing a life-changing faith than it did with my desire to maintain and enhance my desired self-image of Model Adolescent and Good Student. I'm afraid I heard God calling me a lot less than I heard Elice's ego calling.
In the Epistle to Timothy, we hear something about imparting and experiencing the Christian faith:
... continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it.... In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.
This is a letter to a church that was getting more institutionalized and status quo than it had been in the exciting early pioneer years. And, among other things, it reminded me of how I really did encounter the Christian faith: I experienced it in adult Christians, who modeled it for me by how they treated others, and how they treated me; who witnessed with their own lives for peace and justice, even for people I didn't know or who lived in places, and under circumstances, that I'd never heard of; who served the church with energy and creativity; who had fun with me, and made me feel like a real person with potential and gifts. In other words, I became a Christian because the faith was modeled for me by faithful disciples, who lived it and shared it with me, rather than sitting down and instructing me in a formal manner. If you think back to your own experience, isn't that possibly how you came to grow into faith yourself? So Melanie and I prayed and searched and agonized a bit about how to provide the youth of First Congregational Church with challenging but supportive models of faithful discipleship that will engage their minds and spirits in growth toward a decision and it is their decision about Confirmation and church membership. You parents of potential confirmands will hear some more about what we've selected and decided in our meeting just a little while from now... but I'd like to suggest that the making of Christians come from the persistence of a community of faithful disciples, who not only model faithful living for our own young people, but share with the whole world just who this Jesus Christ is. The community does it by its own witness to love and justice, among themselves and toward the world. The community does it by thoughtfully and prayerfully making important decisions; by learning from its own mistakes; and by forgiving wrongs done to it, while yet maintaining its integrity. The persistence of faithful discipleship...
. . . . . .
Jesus told a story about a persistent person:
In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, 'Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, 'Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'
Now, we presume, that Jesus didn't tell this story just for the entertainment value, although we can imagine that there were probably women who heard of it and were known to chuckle a little. We know, because we're good Bible students, that Jesus is telling us something about God, or something about salvation, or something about God's new World, because that's what Jesus told stories for. And that's why Gospel-recorders wrote them down for posterity. But, well... God's New World is like... a woman winning a lawsuit???
Well... maybe this story has something to do with prayer persistent prayer. Indeed, that's what the text itself leads us to believe. You may have noticed that I just read the parable itself. But the story is neatly framed by the Gospel-recorder. He introduces the story by saying: Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. And the pithy little story about the pushy woman and the recalcitrant judge is followed by this little commentary: And the Lord said: 'Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?
Sounds good to me. This story is a good object lesson in the value of delayed gratification. Isn't it?
Do you have a little question niggling at the back of your brain, like I do? Is it something about, are we equating prayer with pestering God? Re we entirely comfortable with the idea that the God who knows our needs and our gifts and our weaknesses more deeply than we know them ourselves; the God whose will is for our good, our health and wholeness, for justice and peace and hope; the God whom we trust completely does it quite seem right that this is the God who caves in to pressure? Is this loving, trustworthy, forgiving God, the God who hangs back and waits to see if we're really praying hard enough, or long enough, and then when we've passed the "fervency test," says, "well, yes, OK, now I se you're serious, and I'll answer your prayer"? Is Jesus telling us that God is like... a judge who has no fear of God nor respect for people?
It may help if we remind ourselves of the impact that this story may have had on its original, New Testament-era hearers. We need to recall that, in the time and place in which Jesus told this story, and in which the Gospel-writer recorded it and passed it on women had no legal standing. A woman's testimony was not valid in a court of law unless it was corroborated by two male witnesses; a woman alone could not enter into the court record the evidence of her own eyes and ears unless two men vouched for her. She had no legal existence, aside from that of her spouse or father or other responsible male relative. Think about it. In other words, a woman could not bring a lawsuit.
But Luke tells us that Jesus told this story:
In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, 'Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, 'Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice.'
Now... if I had been the hearer at this point, I think I would have been confused. "Now hold on a second, Jesus. You said this widow came before the judge and won her lawsuit. But how could she have won? She was a widow her husband wasn't around to bring the lawsuit, and we all know that she couldn't bring the lawsuit, so how....???? O, my gosh...???...."
New Testament scholars point out that Luke's Gospel pays a lot more attention to women, and seems to treat them much more seriously and sympathetically than any of the other Gospels. But you know, there comes a point. Do we really want Jesus to be pushing us all that far beyond what we can conceive of as normal life? So ... well, let's say that maybe at this point, the Gospel-recorder becomes a spin doctor: "Oh, uh, well un, what Jesus really meant (dear reader) us, is he told them a parable about the need to pray always and not lose heart"!!! Those same New Testament scholars also note that the commentary following the parable, which seems to compare God rather favorably to the recalcitrant judge, was probably added at a later date a little more spin, just in case we were getting too close to the message that those with no power, no authority of their own, no legal right to speak on their own behalf, just might be in position, in God's new world, to get their needs met, all on their own without any help, even from the good guys who feared God and respected persons!
This week, having to prepare a sermon, despite my own gloom and doom, put me in mind of the persistence of hope, that strengthens us to make it, sometimes just one day at a time or one step at a time, when we are hopeless; the persistence of faithful discipleship, that makes it possible for the church not only to survive, but to adapt to changing circumstances and grow in spirit and witness. And with such persistence we encounter God in Jesus Christ, and can change the world. Amen.
