1st Congregational Church of Redwood City, UCC
Rev. Carol Barriger
Sunday, December 3, 2006
1st in Advent
Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25
“Living in Promise”
“The days are surely coming, says God, when I
Will fulfill the promise I made…” (Jer. 33:14)
“Promise?” “Yes, I promise.” “Cross your heart and hope to die?” “Cross my heart.” “You don’t have your fingers crossed, do you?” “Nope.”
We all remember these litanies of childhood. The power of a promise has been with us since our births. The physical language of crossing or touching one’s heart has been for thousands of years a sign of deepest sincerity – the heart being regarded in many places and cultures as the true seat of one’s being, and the residence of the divine soul.
“Promise?” “Yes, I promise.” A promise is a covenant, and as covenant people, we should pay attention to that. In faith, we are bound together by covenant, the promise to love one another even with our shortcomings. We are not bound together in this church by a creed, or a litmus test of who’s in and who’s out. The story of our faith is the story of God’s oft-repeated covenant with humankind – a covenant of love and life; of guidance and presence, vulnerability and grace, in spite of our wonderings and wanderings. Yes, there are promises in our culture that are put on paper as enforceable, legal contracts, but the promises into which we enter with our spirits are covenants, sacred, held in the Light.
“Promise?” “Yes, I promise.” Think of promises in your own life – the joy of promises kept; the pain of promises broken. Can you share just in a sentence a joyous memory of a promise kept in your life? Can you share in just a sentence a painful memory of a promise broken in your life? Promises are powerful. It’s an inescapable fact that as we grow up, experience tends to make the adult mind cynical about promise, and its unenforceable nature. A betrayal of relationship here, a lack of sensitivity there, forgetfulness, absence, distraction, trivialization; these things add up. One day we may find ourselves not taking the word “promise” so seriously any more.
One of beauties of childhood is the wonder, trust and belief in possibility which make “promise” an ever-joyous and sparkling thing. Is it any wonder that Jesus said to the disciples …
"Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them. (Mk 10:13-16)
We are called to seek God with a childlike trust in the promise of grace.
Now there is an opportunity here for a very extended Bible study on the promises of God throughout scripture, but I’ll give you several thousand years in a few sentences! There’s Noah and the rainbow: This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations… (Gen 9:12) … Abraham: I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. (Gen 17:7) … and the words of the prophets, including Amos and Jeremiah as we heard this morning, the promises of God for justice and righteousness, right relationship among all people.
Hebrew Scripture repeats the ancient promise of a messiah, the promise picked up in the gospels, and that we reflect upon during this Advent time. Was the messiah really a person? In the thinking of people 2,000-3,000 years ago, yes, the messiah was a person, a human deliverer, but one who could only be sent by God, because of the nature of the powerful and life-changing liberation for which they hoped and prayed. This was God-work. But does not the promise of messiah really mean the promise of grace, an experience of the in-breaking of the divine into human existence?
The gospel writers claim to have experienced that grace in the person of Jesus, but we have known it in others, too, in persons truly transparent to the presence of the Spirit within them. Our Christian language around messiah centers on the life and teaching of Jesus and the promise that the Christ-Spirit will be with us for all time, even to the end of the age (Mt 28:20). For our Jewish brothers and sisters, the messiah is not yet known in a person, but the real grace of messiahness is found in tikkun olam, in Hebrew, “the healing of the world.” Perhaps this was, in fact, what Rabbi Jesus was all about – the healing of the world., keeping the promise.
Since 1981, when HIV/AIDS was first described, 60 million people have been infected; over 20 million have died. Simple math – 40 million people live with it today. It is the leading cause of death for African-Americans aged 25-44.[1] Around the world less than one person in five at risk for HIV has access to basic education and prevention services. Only about one quarter of all people who need HIV treatment have any access to it at all. Heads of governments, particularly the G8, have held meeting after meeting. Here is the power and money to touch people’s lives! Their current promise is to “define the concept and framework for universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care by 2010.”[2] 2010. Define the concept?? And how many more will be infected, have died, by then? How many more candles lit? These people are precious to God, every one, many beloved children. There is a promise here, for life, which is not being kept.
Those who are down and dying, who live on the margins, must always live in promise. They have no choice. But we need more than prayer and expressions of compassion. We need prophetic voices in our churches to cry out the justice of Jeremiah and of Jesus. What promises have we made as a church, locally and universally? Which promises have been fulfilled, and which have not? In our setting, we have fulfilled promises to serve the community through ministries like the Food Bank and Casa de Redwood. The promise we have not fulfilled is to remain connected to culture; to keep the church relevant to the pain and needs of this present day; to offer newly hurt, and newly-seeking people a new voice. We have assumed that keeping the promises of the past is sufficient. It is not. We are formed, shaped in the image of God, the Holy One. This means that as God creates, so we are called to create; as God gives, so we are called to give; as God works in the world for justice and for peace, so are we to work for justice and for peace. As God promises, and is faithful, so are we to be faithful to our promises! Society and governments have not been faithful to the promises, to the hope held out to those with HIV/AIDS. The sacrifices necessary to bring life-giving education and drugs to tens of millions of people have not been made.
When we claim to have kept promises, we need to ask: Have we kept the promises to the least of God’s children? Or have we kept the promise to those in the First World, with the money, or the health care coverage, or the access to clinical trials to get the drugs and oversight care they need? Is the promise for Magic Johnson, or an emaciated child in Ethiopia? As the pandemic rages on among the world’s poorest and most disadvantaged, where is the hand of justice? For them, in the name of profit, the promise has not been kept. There is no large-scale availability of drugs and medical care, and doctors labor under impossible odds. India, whom we regard as a burgeoning partner in business and science, has the highest number of infected persons in the world today, 5.7 million, with only one in ten having any access to antiretroviral drugs.
“Promise?” “Yes, I promise.” Promise who? Promise what? Do we have the courage to fulfill the promises we have made? As people of faith, we are called to speak into the face of governments, corporations and all with the power to change this dire situation. Did we think that AIDS was under control just because the infection rate in the United States seemed to be declining, and more effective treatments were being developed? It’s easy to look at people like former basketball star Magic Johnson, now 47, and 15 years after he went public as HIV+, and think we have beaten this disease and the stigma attached to it. Our brothers and sisters are dying and we are complicit in breaking the promise to give them life! This is a justice issue!
The new church year begins with Advent today. A new year is filled with the opportunity to live in promise and ask ourselves, “Do we have the courage to fulfill the promises we have made?” Scripture readings during this season are often unexpectedly apocalyptic; that is, full of the chaos, conflict and uncontrolled wildness of a time of great change. Surely, for those with HIV/AIDS and those who care for them, the disease is like living in a fearful apocalypse. How many here, if you care to share, have lost a friend, a relative, a beloved to AIDS, or know someone who is living with HIV today? But apocalyptic writing is not always all about destruction. It is also full of hope and the possibility of growth, starting over. Growth means change … Change means conflict; that is, differences expressed openly .. .and conflict is not bad. It is the sign of God at work in people and conversation. It is the sign of new intentionality.
“Promise?” “Yes, I promise.” The promise of the communion meal we share at this table is that God in the reality of a moving Holy Spirit is present with us. God has kept God’s promise once again. God, in our memory of the human Christ named Jesus, is present with us in times of conflict; in times of harmony. God has kept God’s promise once again. The promise is kept that faith, hope, and love continue to abide here. The promise is kept that we can come here again and again for strength. We live in this promise, we breathe it in, we depend upon it – that this meal is here, and will continue to be here for the healing of brokenness in our community.
We live in this promise – that all will be fed here. “All” means young and old, stranger and friend, as we say in the communion invitation. “All” means regardless of your faith tradition, or lack thereof.
“All” means regardless of your history, your color, your language, your ethnicity, your opinions, who you love, or how you love them. “All” means not just the strong and the healthy, but the whole Body of Christ. We live in this promise and we are called by our covenant with God, the Great Love, to make that promise to others.
I’d like to conclude with a thought from Douglass Bailey, an Episcopal priest:
Today’s churches need to be … challenged by authentic Christianity … challenged and disturbed by God’s Word. One of my favorite prayers … [is this]… “Disturb us Lord, when we are too pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have become true because we dreamed too little, when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore." [We] need to be disturbed to become more faithful. … I am convinced that we prefer to "believe" in Jesus rather than "follow" Jesus, primarily because "belief" is easier and more comfortable. If we are disturbed by the authentic Gospel, we will always be counter-culture to the prevailing comfortable cultural current. We will be "magnificent misfits." To be a "misfit" in today’s dominant culture of success, power and control always demands a heavy risk and cost and extraordinary courage. Jesus is a misfit! Is the Church prepared to be also? [3]
My contention is that living in promise, in fact, keeping our promises to our marginalized and oppressed brothers and sisters, particularly those helpless in the face of HIV/AIDS, may mean being a misfit. At this table we are nourished to be misfits. I promise. Amen.
Jeremiah 33:14-16
14 The days are surely coming, says our God, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
15 In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: "Our God is our righteousness."
One: O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me.
All: To you, O God, I lift up my soul.
One: Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
All: To you, O God, I lift up my soul.
One: Make me to know your ways, O God; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.
All: To you, O God, I lift up my soul.
One: Be mindful of your mercy, O God, and of your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.
All: God, teach me to keep the promises of our covenant in love!
One: Do not remember my failings or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness' sake, O God!
All: God, teach me to keep the promises of our covenant in love!
One: Good and upright is our God; God instructs sinners in the way. God leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble the holy and just way.
All: Let us keep our promises to God and to one another in love.
One: All the paths of our God are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep the covenant and decrees of love.
All: Let us keep our promises to God and to one another in love.
[1] Kaiser Family Foundation, reported in USA Today, Steve Sternberg,12/01/06.
[2] World Health Organization, http://www.who.int/hiv/universalaccess2010/en/index.html
[3] (Interview with Rev. Dr. Douglass Bailey, Episcopal priest and founder of the Center for Urban Ministry, Inc. Wake Forest University Divinity School http://www.congregationalresources.org/InterviewBailey.asp)