Keep going*

For may of us, our hearts are broken by the carnage in Orlando last weekend. As the news began to penetrate my consciousness I thought of the irony that I had just written about wanting the security of being in a gay venue. Well, it wasn’t so safe that time, was it? Grief often leads to anger, and I’m guilty of that as well. All week long we’ve been deluged with stories of how the killer was well known to law enforcement, even reported once when trying to arm himself, and everyone kept asking why he wasn’t stopped. And we who are lgbt people know the answer, don’t we? It was because it was us, wasn’t it?

One of my friends has changed her Facebook picture to this image of a fragmented broken rainbow heart. (I’m sorry I can’t properly identify it. The image is linked to something called Vanne Perry on We heart it dot com, where it also is linked to Kara Davis Rainbows; but all of them are on Pinterest and before I can get a proper attribution Pinterest pops up an obnoxious demand that I sign up for something.)

See, I told you I was angry.

I thought the image, and its metaphor, that we are broken but still together, was appropriate. So I hope it’s okay I borrowed it here.

Rant over. Here’s the sermon I preached this morning.

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Last week was, to say the least, a remarkable week. It seemed we reeled from tragedy to oddity, from moment to moment, day to day. I was reminded of the queen of England’s famous speech about her annus horribilis. I wanted to figure out how to say “horrible week” in Latin so I Googled it— what do you know, it was right there, apparently lots of people had the same idea. It was septimana horribilis— literally a horrible seven days.

And so it is fitting, I guess, that we have a long story about Elijah, God’s prophet, on the verge of giving up. Elijah, you see, is God’s prophet and that is not an easy job. It means mostly just being present and doing the right things and saying the right things and hoping God’s people will catch on. But of course Elijah has done much more. He has shown them the way to righteousness. He has healed them. He has taught them justice. And now, his thanks are, that his own life has been threatened. So he “was afraid; he got up and fled for his life” it says. And he prayed something along the lines of: “I’ve had enough now. I quit”

Sometimes we just have had enough. Sometimes we just want to give up. It is understandable. But it turns out it is not so easy to do. Life goes on despite us. The sun comes up, the neighbors mow the lawn, the village digs up streets, and the politicians keep carrying on. Life goes on, and we have to go on too. You might be expecting me to say something about God’s plan, but as much as we want to think that is how things work it just is not. I call that puppet theology; God is not running us like a giant puppeteer in the sky pulling our strings. God’s plan is for harmony, for connectedness, for eternity. God’s plan is for all things to work together in perfect unity. When things go wrong that is not God’s plan, it is human intervention. What God wants from us, is to get up, keep going, and stay plugged in. It is best for us to stay plugged in, to stay in the current of God’s universe. And, it is best for God’s kingdom too.

In that story it tells us Elijah, when he got done feeling sorry for himself, fell asleep. Now, he was all alone in the wilderness. It was probably pretty nice, all quiet and secure … but he suddenly was awakened; it says an angel touched him (but it was really God) and said “get up and eat.” And wow, there on the rock he was sleeping beside, was a cake and some water. In fact, it happened twice, that God touched him, woke him up, gave him food and made him eat. The second time God told him to eat heartily for he had a long trip ahead of him. Elijah had to get up and go whether he wanted to or not. And, even though he kept falling asleep, God kept waking him up, and feeding him, and urging him onward.

And there is our message. God is always there. God is always there. God is always providing what it takes to keep going. If you think it is hard to go on in difficult times think about Elijah who had to travel on foot for forty days and nights, fortified only with that cake and some water that God had provided. Sounds like real life to me. This is no magical story, it is a true revelation about true life. We go on, and God feeds us, and God provides for us, and God is always there.

Then we come to the famous part of this story. After Elijah’s long journey, God’s voice comes to him, and makes him go stand on a mountain, as if things weren’t bad enough already. God says “what are you doing here?” and Elijah tells that same story over and over, he says “I’ve been working hard for you and the people don’t like it and now I quit!” So now Elijah is standing on the mountain, and the tornado comes, and the earthquake comes, and then the fire comes, and God was not in any of those. But then, then, there is “the sound of sheer silence.” Utter nothing. And Elijah knew this was God, for real, in this utter emptiness.

Because that is where we all find God, in that moment of utter emptiness.

God asks Elijah one more time “what do you think you’re doing?” and Elijah complains one more time. And God says, “go back where you came from, keep going.” Because that is God’s plan, that we must keep going, it is what makes the universe work.

This psalm we read this morning, this is one of my sounds of sheer silence. When I was learning what it was going to mean to be a priest, I worked in a hospital in Harlem as a chaplain. I worked long nights over night, and long hot 110 degree summer days. I went from sick person to dying person. I was called to pray with people in comas, and people on the verge of death. And I somehow found this psalm, comforted me. “As the deer longs for the water-brooks, so longs my soul for you, O God.” This is how it works isn’t it? That we have the capacity all at once, to want to quit on the one hand, and to seek God in our soul, like a deer looking for water, on the other. But in the end, it reminds us that the truth is that God is our strength, God’s light and truth lead us, and for that we give God thanks.

For Christians the message is clear. God became human in Jesus, to actually walk with us, to show us how to walk in love, to teach us respect and righteousness, to bring healing and especially to teach us justice.

That’s a pretty fantastic Gospel story about the demons and the herd of swine. But the point of the story is healing; the man who had been possessed, was made whole by being made one with his own people, he got to go home. Make no mistake, in the Gospel, healing always means becoming one again with the people. Because becoming one with the people, is also becoming one with God. This is what God wants. God wants us to realize our own salvation. That means we have to own it. We have to push past whatever our selfish needs, we have stand up to whatever it is that oppresses us, we have to ignore the distractions and instead, we have to listen for the silence. Because there in the silence, is the sure knowledge, that God is always with us. That we already have been saved, that we already and always can be one, with one another and with God.

The carnage in Orlando was, well, it was carnage. We are unsettled that it happened. We are unsettled that it can happen. We are in grief at the loss of life. We are, literally, terrified. And yet, somehow we have to understand that, like Elijah, we cannot quit. God is reminding us that God always is with us, always nourishing us. God is waking us up, for the long journey, and it is a long journey, to discover the Salvation that already is ours.

 

©2016 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

*Proper 7 (1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a Psalm 42 Quemadmodum and 43 Judica me, Deus Galatians 3:23-29 Luke 8:26-39)