God of love,
teach us to be like you. Amen.
Sisters and brothers in Christ…
This is a difficult time to be a woman.
When
rapists can be sentenced to incarceration for less time than the raped woman
would have to endure pregnancy, should it result from the assault – there is
something seriously wrong with our ideas of justice and retribution and
rehabilitation.
This is a difficult time to be of Hispanic origin.
When
people show up to Latinx night at a club – Latinx is meant to be a
gender-inclusive term for people with Latin American heritage – when attendees
at a Latinx event are attacked by a gunman and over a hundred of them end up
either dead or seriously wounded, there is something seriously wrong with our definitions
of culture and violence and tolerance.
This is a difficult time to be queer, to be transgender,
bisexual, lesbian, or gay.
When the
place that your community has developed as a sanctuary from prejudice is
violated, so that an entire demographic of our population now feels that there is
nowhere safe for them to be themselves, there is something wrong with our ideas
of relationship, romance, and socially appropriate behavior.
This is a difficult time to be Muslim.
When the
faith of your forefathers has been distorted in the public eye by extremists,
beyond all recognition… when none of the goodness and humility you were raised
with is ever part of the public discourse about your religion… when every
adherent is suspected to be a terrorist, so that even when you are mourning the
murdered members of your community, you also have to defend yourself and your
actual faith at the same time – there is something wrong with the way that we
listen to one another and learn from one another.
This is a difficult time to be a person of color in America.
When you
have to have “the talk” with your children to train them to hide from the
police rather than turning to them for help, because too many people you know
have been wrongfully accused and incarcerated for no reason other than the
color of their skin – there is something wrong.
When we have reached the anniversary of a shooting of
nine innocents in a black church, who were doing nothing more sinister than
praying and studying their Bibles, and we realize that nothing has changed
since that tragedy – there is something wrong.
There is something wrong with the way that we are
treating each other in this society. According to all the news headlines, in
general, we are living in dark times, guided not by love, but by hate.
Hello
darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to
talk with you again
Because a vision softly
creeping
Left its seeds while I
was sleeping
And the vision that was
planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of
silence*
Elijah
encountered dark times in his ministry.
He was the only prophet of God left
in the land. He was marginalized and oppressed, and he felt overwhelmed by the
burden to turn the people back to faithful worship of the one true God.
Then,
he performed an amazing miracle, defeating the prophets of the false God in a
contest on a mountain.
We
heard the story a few weeks ago. Elijah was triumphant.
But the people in power didn’t
appreciate his miraculous feat. He was a threat to their establishment. So
Elijah suddenly found himself persecuted and pursued by the powers that be, and
he fled in fear.
This
is where we meet Elijah today.
He
was so frustrated with his ministry, he was ready to give up entirely. He
couldn’t see any point in moving forward. He laments to God, “I have been
working my tail off for you! But no matter how faithful I am and how much you are with me, God, the people are against me. They’re trying to
kill me. They don’t want to hear your Word. And I just don’t have the energy to
go on anymore, God. I may as well be dead.”
It’s easy to relate to Elijah’s
frustration – especially for those of us who are women or Hispanic or queer or
Muslim or black, or a member of any other group that has experienced senseless
violence in the recent past.
We’ve
been working our tails off! And nothing we do seems to make any difference. No
one else seems to care.
We may as well give up.
In restless dreams I
walked alone
Narrow streets of
cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a
street lamp
I turned my collar to
the cold and damp
When my eyes were
stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound
of silence*
But
God doesn’t let Elijah off the hook that easily.
And
God doesn’t let us off the hook that easy either.
Elijah
is met by a messenger from God who gives him food for the journey to come, and
then he is met with the very presence of God.
Elijah remains in hiding throughout
this story – he does not go back to re-engage his enemies right away. Instead,
he retreats to a cave, where he is told that the Lord will pass by.
There
is a windstorm, strong enough to split stone. But God is not in the windstorm.
There is an earthquake, but God is not there either.
There
is a fire – remember, just a few weeks ago we celebrated the presence of God in
the fire of Pentecost – but this time around, God is not in the fire.
Elijah
experiences these powerful, world-changing events – but cannot find God in any
of them.
And then, there is the sound of sheer
silence.
And God is in the silence.
When
all the drama and terror and hatred and power and fears of the world have been
spent, all that is left is silence.
And
God.
When
the world has raked us across the
coals, when we have been mistreated and mistrusted, when we don’t feel like we
can make a difference, when we are ready to give up, sometimes all that is left
is silence.
And
God.
Silence
can be powerful. It can be refreshing, comforting, peaceful and invigorating.
Silence can bring us strength and renewal, and even the very presence of God.
Since the times of Elijah, people of
faith have been seeking God in silence all over the world. Jesus went alone to
pray in the wilderness.
Monks
have set up monasteries in remote locations, where silence is the rule of the
order.
Mystics like Augustine of
Hippo, Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, Saint
Ignatius, John Donne, Dag Hammarskjöld, Thomas Merton,
even Mother Teresa – all of them understood the power of silence for restoring
the soul and growing closer to God.
Silence
is powerful.
But
silence becomes impotent if you stop there.
The silence of meditation is
different than the silence of inaction.
Even Elijah wasn’t allowed to stay in his silent
mountaintop retreat. God gave him a message and sent him back to society.
He had a chance to refresh
himself, yes. But he didn’t get to stay self-centered. If he was going to do
God’s work, like a prophet is called to do, he needed to get down off that
mountain and get to work among the people.
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence*
Our call, as followers of
Jesus, is to disturb the sound of
silence.
This week we had a powerful example of someone disturbing
the sound of silence – speaking truth to the indifference in the world.
When congress was in session,
the assembly was asked to observe a moment of silence in honor of the people
who died in last week’s shooting in Orlando.
But some of the senators weren’t happy with that. They
knew that the time had come to break the silence.
And one of the senators from
the state of Connecticut, while congress was in session, took the floor and
didn’t yield it for 15 hours, until leaders on both sides of the aisle agreed
to finally, actually, and hopefully honestly, discuss and consider bills to
control the sale of firearms in this country.
When
a change needs to be made in the
world, and yet no one is willing to put themselves on the line for the cause,
sometimes it seems like nothing is happening.
The silence can be deafening.
When
change is required and people need to speak, but they dare not, then we are
living in dark times.
Like
Elijah.
But,
like Elijah, we are also given the tools we need to more forward from our place
of shock and indifference and inaction.
In our worship together, we share food for the journey to
come, food that we believe holds the very presence of God, in the meal of Holy
Communion.
When
we pause to listen for God, like Elijah and Jesus and Origen and Merton and
Mother Teresa did... we are inspired, and we can emerge from our silent
reflection with more vigor and enthusiasm than ever.
As
you know, Jesus had to endure silence and trials in the desert over the course
of his ministry. He was tempted by Satan after spending time in the wilderness.
But he emerged stronger than ever.
Elijah
was ready to give up on ministry. But he took time out to experience the
silence. And then God sent him back into the fray, because there was work yet
to be done.
And that is where we find ourselves,
also.
If
we need to pause and observe a moment of silence in the face of the world’s
horrors, we can do so. But we can’t stay there. God needs us to head back into
the fray, to go in the strength of the food we have shared, to speak truth into
the silent and scary places in the world.
Now
is not the time to remain silent. Now is the time to speak out and act out against
injustice!
It is time to combat
homophobia and racism and fear of our neighbor. It is time to cast out the
legion of demons that have been possessing our society.
Now is the time to expel
the demons of self-hatred, of sexism, and of gun violence. Now is the time to
follow the example of Jesus – when we see suffering, to do something about it.
We can use a break in
the silence to refresh ourselves. But then we need to emerge from that silence
as a prophet, with a message for the world, like Elijah did. The silence is
only useful for as long as it takes us to find our voice. And then, God calls
us to speak truth into the silence.
Elijah
gives us the inspiration today to
feed on God’s Word in silence, and then to speak God’s Word to society.
Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia gives us the words to speak.
There
is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer
male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
There is no longer Latinx and
Muslim, victim and perpetrator, white and person of color. Yes, these
characteristics make us who we are. But in Christ Jesus, all of us are equal.
There are no second-class citizens. There is no place for hatred and violence.
There
is only room for love.
Let us love one another, for God is love.
Let
us make it a better time to be a
woman, a person of Hispanic origin, queer, Muslim, or a person of color. Let us
follow Elijah’s example as a prophet, and Jesus’ example of casting out demons,
and share God’s love with the world.
My
prayer for us today is that God would feed us as Elijah was fed, and then send
us into the world to break the silence, to bring light to the darkness, to
speak God’s truth to the world, and to cast out the demons of hatred and fear,
like Jesus did.
My prayer is that all people
would find a way to learn the truth, that God loves them and cares for them,
and created them perfectly in God’s image, and they do not need to change, and
they do not need to fear assault by others of God’s children.
That
is the society that I hope for.
And
may God help to make it so, using us as instruments of change.
Amen.
*Lyrics for “The Sound of Silence” from http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-sound-of-silence-lyrics-simon-and-garfunkel.html,
© UNIVERSAL MUSIC PUBLISHING GROUP
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