Saturday, August 29, 2015
Sermon for the Sixth Sunday
after Pentecost
Proper 9B ~ July 5, 2015
Holy Trinity & St. Anskar
He could do no deed of
power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.
And he was amazed at their unbelief..
+In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity
I like to
think that the lectionary gives us these two readings deliberately on
Independence Day weekend, not to rain on
the parade, but just to remind us that no nation can presume God's favor. Even the Chosen People of Israel, favored by
the prophetic visit, and so much the worse for them. And Jesus' own hometown wouldn't listen
either.
For me, this is a reminder that no human group — ethnic or
political — can claim to be the Kingdom of God.
Nazareth was not an exception, and neither is the United States of
America. National idolatry is one of the worst kinds. Good to be reminded of this on the Fourth of
July. That doesn't mean that we
shouldn't give thanks to God for what we have got right, but that we should ask
God's help to correct what we don't. Our
Collect for Independence Day speaks of kindling a torch of liberty to pass on
to other nations. Okay, as long as we
remember that the liberty was tainted with racism and genocide, particularly
horrible because of the clarity of the ideal we espouse. But then, we are a work in progress.
Take a look at the back of the dollar bill, there is depicted
the Great Seal of the United States, which has a reverse as well as an obverse,
like a coin. The reverse shows the
Masonic symbol of a truncated pyramid, which symbolizes the Temple of
Solomon. It is unfinished, a work in
progress like the United States, the All-seeing Eye keeping watch. It seems to suggest that the Founders
recognized that we were a long way from the ideals we profess. Human rights, equality, and so on. Thomas Jefferson also wrote words — now
inscribed on the walls of his Memorial — "I tremble for my country when I
reflect that God is just, and that His, justice will not sleep
forever." I recently learned that
the country to which he referred was not the United States, but Virginia. He was right to tremble.
As are we. We seem to
be in decline. Many believe that the
very notion of human progress is an illusion. The truncated pyramid is
collapsing, not being built. But isn’t it also possible that our increasing
trouble is not altogether unfortunate?
Isn’t it possible that growing difficulty may stimulate salutary
reforms, as it has in the past? It looks
like that would be a miracle, which is our modern way of saying it won’t
happen, and to hope that it might is superstitious. So, today the lectionary confronts us with Nazareth,
Jesus’ hometown, where He "could
do no deed of power." Although he was still able to heal some of the sick,
He could only marvel at the Nazarenes’ unbelief, which means their lack of
hope.
It may be true that we are a plutocracy and not a democracy,
as Noam Chomsky says. On the other hand,
Bernie Sanders is doing better than anyone could have predicted. His events in Madison and New Hampshire have
drawn more people than any other candidate of either party, surprising the
Senator himself. Now, I would never
compare any candidate to our Lord, but I would go so far as to suggest a
possible analogy between our own weary pessimism, and the unbelief of the
Nazarenes. Even God Almighty can't do
much for people who want to cling to their hopelessness.
While it is the worst kind of delusion to imagine that we
Americans enjoy any kind of special divine favor — raving about exceptionalism
and “humanity’s last, best hope,"
it is not impious to hope that more of us may repent — change our minds — and
rise to the occasion. Like Israel, we
“have become nation of rebels
who have rebelled against (God);” like them, we and our “ancestors have
transgressed against (God) to this very day,” often claiming that our
transgressions were actually God's will! With Jefferson, we ought to tremble,
reflecting that God’s justice will not sleep forever. There is no guarantee for
us.
Even God couldn’t say whether Ezekiel would get Israel to listen;
even Jesus couldn’t predict who would receive the disciples He sent out in
pairs. Even so, apparently there was some chance that some would. Some room for
hope.
If we have any patriotic duty at all, it is to those before
us, who kept that hope alive. Even
though it seems impossible, I consider that I do not have a right to give up,
when I remember Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks and Medgar Evers, Eugene
Debs and Joe Hill and Mother Jones, Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony and
Amelia Bloomer, and on and on. They have
passed to us the torch of liberty to be shared with nations yet unborn. They represent the America I am proud of on
Independence Day— the only America upon which I would invoke God's
blessing.
AMEN
MARANATHA
COME, LORD JESUS!
