In the name of the One who hears our cries and heals our hearts.   Amen
 
A little over fifty-two years ago, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stood before striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, and spoke these words in answer to a question he posed to himself.  First, the question:  “Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?”
 
After surveying a long span of human history, Dr. King addressed his own question,
 
“Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, ‘If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy.’”  King
continued,  “Now that’s a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up.  The nation is sick.  Trouble is in the land.  Confusion all around.”
 
Things really haven’t changed very much, have they?    The world is still messed up.  The nation is gravely ill.  Even the planet totters on its axis.  Many of us rise every morning with more than a dash of wariness and trepidation.  Perhaps this morning even more trepidation than usual as we rise to a country where hate stalks the land snatching mostly black children and brown children and poor children from their mothers and fathers; a country where the ravages of disease and poverty and violence—be it passive like incarceration or active like military policing—disproportionately fall on brown people and black people. Against this backdrop we hear the story of Hagar and Ishmael.  And in their story, we hear echoes of our own day, our own time.
 
Hagar, a young Egyptian woman given—some by Sarah to Abraham for a night or maybe more so that he might have the offspring God has promised.  Hagar gets pregnant.  Sarah gets upset.  She beats Hagar who flees to the wilderness.  Pregnant, desperate, and despairing, Hagar has no place to turn, nowhere to go.  Not even a plan.
 
A messenger of God finds Hagar by a spring, consoles her, and sends her back to the place from which she has fled.  But there’s a twist:  Hagar is sent back with a promise from God—a promise that her offspring will be so many that they can’t be counted.  After she receives that promise, Hagar becomes the first person—the only person—to name God. 
 
So Hagar goes back—back to the tents of Abraham and Sarah.  First Ishmael—Hagar’s son—is born and then some years later Isaac—Sarah’s son.  That’s where the story we just heard begins.  Sarah gets mad.  Hagar and Ishmael get sent packing.  Today, we meet Hagar in the wilderness.  We meet her in her tears; we meet her in her desperation; we meet her in her despair as she hears her son cry out in the distance, “Momma.”  A mother weeping in despair; a son crying out in fear.  A scene we’ve witnessed far too many times in our recent past. 
 
We know a mother’s tears; we witness a father’s anxious pleas; we hear sons and daughters crying out—“I can’t breathe.”  The frame freezes.  We find ourselves suspended in time.  What happens next?  And what is our part in all of it? 
 
But the story of Hagar and Ishmael does not end with the tears and the fear and the deep sadness.  There’s more to their story:  A messenger of God hears Ishmael’s  cries and sees Hagar’s deep grief and then rouses her from her despair saying, “What troubles you, Hagar?  Do not be afraid….Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.”
 
A messenger of God—neigh God herself—to the rescue.  That is grace at work in human life. 
 
You and I, we are living in troubling times--
times that call us to examine our most cherished assumptions and our most convenient excuses;
times that cause us to wonder, “Will things really turn out all right?”
times that turn our faces squarely into uncomfortable truths—about ourselves and our country.
 
You and I, we are living in what some might call a crisis.
 
You and I, we, know what the Chinese character for crisis consists of—two characters combined:  challenge and opportunity. 
 
Those of us who follow Jesus of Nazareth might change that up just a little.  We might say that crisis consists of moments of challenge and moments of grace, as does life.
 
In the wilderness times in her life, Hagar met agents of God, agents of Grace, who helped her find a way out of no way.
 
So it is with you and me and us—the people of this land and the peoples of the world. 
Agents of grace abound—sometimes challenging us by turning our eyes to the truth of our lives; sometimes standing witness to justice and mercy and righteousness as they play out in our national life; sometimes forging paths through the wilderness of racism that has shaped our history but that need not form our future; sometimes calling out what Abraham Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. 
 
At the end of this service, while David and Kellie lead us all in singing Amazing Grace, you will see pictures of some of those Agents of Grace.  Then look around.  Maybe even look in the mirror.  You might just see more Agents of Grace.
 
Please join me in a prayer of Dr. Cornell West:
 
“Let us hope through God’s grace and our struggle, that we will be able to overcome our prejudices and hate that separate us, and thereby empower us to become the one people God created us to be.”  Amen.
 
 
 
 
 
 

​7 June 2020
Pastor Joe Britton
St. Michael’s Church
Trinity Sunday

    We have heard this week quite a cacophony of voices speaking out in opposition to one thing or another. “I am opposed to racism,” says one. Or “I am opposed to police brutality,” says another. Or yet again, “I am opposed to violence of any sort,” says a third. There is a lot of opposition in the air, and opposition to many things.
    But if such opposition is to achieve anything, then behind it there must also be clarity about what we are for. It is not enough simply to be opposed to injustice; one must also be prepared to articulate and then to construct its alternative. One must stand for something, beyond that which one opposes.
    So of all the Sundays in the year, perhaps today is the most appropriate occasion to consider the importance of living for, rather than just against, since Trinity Sunday is when we focus on how above all, God is for us. (And I should give credit here for this idea to a lay Catholic feminist theologian named Catherine LaCugna, who died prematurely at the age of 44 from cancer in 1997. Her book, God for Us, helped to reintroduce Christians to the idea of the Trinity, not as an esoteric and slightly illogical concept, but as a portrait of life itself.   But more about that in a moment …)
    For months now, since last Advent, we have been telling the story of how God reaches toward us in Jesus. We have followed Jesus through his birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension. That story was completed with last week’s celebration of Pentecost, the day when Jesus sends his Spirit upon us, and now this Sunday adds a kind of coda to the whole of that story, putting it all in a broader perspective. 
    And what today says to us is this: As a trinity of persons, God’s very nature is relationship (or communion), and so God exists solely toward and for the other. That is to say, God does not hide from us in a bunker or behind any kind of security perimeter. No, God is always completely present to us, pouring God’s own loving self fully into creation, loving it into being what it was created to be. That’s what Catherine LaCugna meant by the phrase, “God for us.” 
    But equally important to this statement about God, is that if God is pure relationship, and we are created in God’s image, then we ourselves are called by our very nature into relationship as the essence of what it means to be human. The direction of our attention, therefore, can never be inward and toward the self, but must always be outward and toward the other. So the foundation of our life becomes this movement from self to other, from the familiar to the unknown, from the human to the divine. 
    The best image I can think of this “living for the other” comes from what I am doing right here and now: taking care of my aged parents. I’m surrounded by reminders in the house of what they did for me as a child: the piano where my mother coached me as I learned to play, the sofa where they nursed me whenever I was sick, the basement where my father taught me to use tools under the guise of model railroading. I was talking late last night with my niece who is also here, and found myself describing these days as a kind of closing of the circle: as my parents once extended their lives in caring for me, so I am now doing that for them. Living for the other, in the image of how God lives for us.
    And there are important implications to be taken from this trinitarian perspective. The first is, it means that the idea of the Trinity is not only a way of talking about who God is: it is also a way of talking about who we are. We are created by a God of relationship, for the purpose of being in relation with that God, and with one another—if God lives for us, then we are to live for God and for one another. To do anything other is to be less than human.
    And in Jesus, we are given a concrete representation of what that kind of life looks like: he is both the exemplar and the criterion of what he called the reign, or the household, of God. For us to dwell in that reign, in other words, is to live a life first and foremost trusting as he did in God’s ways of mercy, compassion, and inclusion; and so, it is also to live a life in harmony with the whole of creation, and the human family within it. In short, to live a life that is part of the household of God, is to exist peaceably in regards to ourselves, to one another, to creation, and to God. 

    So, back to the pattern of opposition and confrontation which has been on such display in the news this past week. If we are to live the trinitarian life that is imprinted upon us, then in the face of the void of angry rhetoric which has come to be accepted as political discourse in this country, it is our task as Christian people to articulate and to model an alternative vision of what it is we as human beings are to live for. 
    The source for such a vision is given to us in the nature of the triune God in whom we believe: a God who is entirely driven by concern for and delight in relationship. It is a vision of life that is constructive, healing, aspirational, non-defensive, and self-sacrificing. It finds its expression in an unwavering commitment to the welfare and happiness of the other, which is the very meaning of justice. And as Marianne Budde, Bishop of Washington, commented this week in responding to certain incidents that took place in front of one of Washington’s churches, what is justice but “the societal expression of love, [which] is what matters most to God.” The Christian vision of life is not built on domination, it is not self-centered, and it is not authoritarian. What it is, is the self-emptying, loving extension of our own lives on behalf of one another. And any ideology to the contrary must be called out and named for what it is: a distortion of the very essence and meaning of human life, and therefore a blasphemy against God in whose image we are created.
    And that, it seems to me, is what we as Christians are for, because it is none other than the way in which God is for us. Amen.

​31 May 2020
Pastor Joe Britton
St. Michael's Church
Pentecost
 
"And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind … And they were filled with the Holy Spirit." (Acts 2)
 
            Against my better judgment, I'm going to preach about hope today.
`           I say it's against my better judgment, because things are pretty bleak right now. This week especially has been a cascade of bad news.
            Yet another black man has died at the hands of the police. And although it's been 6 years now since Ferguson, nothing much has changed. Year after year, the number of people killed by the police has held steady at about 1,100.
            In response, protests have once again erupted, some turning violent. And we have a president who knows only to stoke the anger and violence.
            Earlier in the week, we passed the symbolic mark of 100,000 mark American deaths caused by the virus. And globally we're now above 350,000. Those are staggering numbers, not to mention 40 million people out of work.
            And those, like me, who had hoped that this crisis might help the nation to reset its moral compass are growing doubtful. An article in The Times observed that if anything, we are even more divided. Some stores in California are refusing to allow anyone in who is wearing a mask.
            And on Memorial Day at the beginning of the week, I heard a World War II veteran say that if we had that war to fight again today, we wouldn’t be able to do it. "There just aren't enough people willing to make a sacrifice for something larger than themselves," he said.
           
            Friday night, feeling rather discouraged, I decided to finish up the Netflix documentary on Michelle Obama’s book tour for her memoir, Becoming. And there, in the very final scene, was that great political sage, Stephen Colbert, interviewing her. Toward the end of the interview, he said, "You know what I miss? I miss leaders who talk about hope. And isn't hope just about the possibility of change?"
            Yes, I thought. Of all the things I miss most right now, hope is the biggest one. I miss the sense that we as a people are working toward something together. I miss feeling that we are committed as a nation to making life more just, more inclusive, more fair.
            So Saturday morning, when I turned to the lessons for Pentecost, it hit me right between the eyes that what Pentecost is all about, is hope—because it’s all about change.
            Think of it: there are Jesus’ followers, reeling from all that had happened. Jesus has died. Jesus has risen. Jesus has appeared to them. And now Jesus seems to have departed and be gone for good. As Mandy laid out for us last week, they were a pretty bewildered and dispirited group.
            And then suddenly, out of nowhere, a rush of wind sweeps over them instilling that they can only describe as the gift of Christ's own spirit, renewing them from within with a confidence not just in a general way, but with a confidence in the possibility of change. In an instant, their lives are turned inside out and upside down, and the world has never been the same since. 
            Pentecost is God’s ratification that change is in the very nature of things. Think of the whole biblical witness—everything is about change. The creation of something out of nothing. God’s call to Abraham. The liberation of Israel from the bondage of slavery. The giving of the law. The prophetic call for righteousness and justice. Jesus’ witness to the power of mercy and love.
            Pentecost takes all of that, and puts an exclamation point on the fact that God does not accept things as they are, but is always calling something new into being. Pentecost is the ultimate new beginning.  Change is not just a possibility, it is a certainty. And therefore there is always reason to hope.
            The Day of Pentecost, then, is all about encouraging us both to work for, and to wait upon that rush of the wind of change that will come unexpectedly in our own day—like those sudden gusts of wind that precede a New Mexican thunderstorm.
 
            Another scene in the Becoming documentary also touched me deeply. Michelle Obama recalled that one of the darkest moments in her time in the White House was when she and Barack had to go to Charleston to attend the funeral of the pastor of Mother Emanuel Church who had been gunned down while leading Bible study. You’ll remember the service: it was when the President of the United States led the congregation—and the nation—in singing Amazing Grace, singing as balm for our collective wounds.
                        But later that day, when the Obamas were back in Washington, was also the moment when the Supreme Court announced its decision making marriage equality the law of the land, and the White House lit up with the colors of the rainbow to mark the occasion. The winds of change blew through the land on that day, even when there was also so much hurt.
            We're a hurting nation right now. And a hurting world.
            But somewhere deep in my heart, I do believe, that there is a stirring in the air that will be the beginning of a change that will renew the heart and soul of this nation, and that in time it will come rushing upon us like the Pentecostal wind itself, and mark a true point of new beginning. I believe that, because I believe in a God of change, and it is precisely there in that ineradicable possibility of change, that hope finds it home.         
            As President Obama himself once said,
 
Hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it. Hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, [but] who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.
So in that spirit, and maybe even against my better judgment, I’m going to opt for hope. Amen.