Let us pray.
Lord,
listen to your children praying,
Lord,
send your Spirit in this place;
Lord,
listen to your children praying,
Send
us love, send us power, send us grace.
Amen.
I’m still struggling with what
happened in the Pulse Night Club in Orlando last Sunday morning. 49 people, dead. Even more wounded. Even more people mourning, fearful, worried.
I struggle with the magnitude
of loss and damage to human souls, to a community where people strive to find
themselves loved and accepted, in a world where some others are hate-filled and
fearful of a life they either do not understand or cannot embrace as wholly
human, as wholly blessed, or even as Children of God.
I am frustrated that some
people are so willing to hurt what they fear.
And the hurt is physical, emotional and spiritual. I weep when some choose to hurt themselves
because others cannot accept who they are.
I am broken-hearted when I
know that there are people in this world who cannot believe that God created
each of us to be vessels of God’s love, who cannot see that they themselves are
vessels of God’s love. I am
broken-hearted when I hear or read of other clergy condemning any of God’s
children because they don’t fit a certain mold, don’t look a certain way, don’t
live a certain life.
Don’t they get it? God created us. Each of us.
We each have a purpose on this Earth, perhaps known only to God. And yes, I am including the shooter. Yes, I do include the haters. Yes.
I cannot condone their
actions, and I cannot agree with their hate, but I can say that God created
them and loves them and has a purpose for them, whether or not they choose to
love God in return, to follow God or to live into that purpose, they are still
created and loved by God. And when they
don’t, I bet God is filled with sorrow when that child pushes God away.
I am not God. I can only trust that God will help me get
through the vast, public displays of all different kinds of emotions with
dignity and prayer, with a humble and contrite heart, and with hope. Always with hope.
So late Tuesday afternoon I
decided we needed to hold a vigil for those killed, injured and mourning in Orlando.
About 20 of us gathered here
on Wednesday night to pray, to sing, to share the one bread and the one
cup. We gathered after a bout of severe
weather, so our numbers were likely fewer than they would have been
otherwise. We gathered as the dark,
rain-filled sky began to lighten. And at
the end of the service, as we were standing, listening to Phil Collin’s version
of “True Colors,” a beam of sunlight came through those windows and shined on
Bernadette.
My first thought was, “I
wonder if there is a rainbow in the sky!”
So I lead us outside to see.
There wasn’t one, but Todd told me he had seen one that morning. I so wanted to see that rainbow, to
see God’s promise to all of us that God’s love was with us, blessing us,
gracing us, as a community gathered to both mourn and celebrate.
There was no rainbow, but the
feelings were there. Feelings of
hope. Feelings of peace. Feelings of
forgiveness and understanding. Yes, they
were mixed with nausea and grief, anger and frustration, pain and sorrow—how
could they not be? But to be in worship and prayer in community was certainly
more hope-filled.
Then, yesterday afternoon Jim
and Dennis were married here. Their
flowers are on the altar today, rainbow colored flowers, flowers of so many
colors, put together to reflect the broad spectrum of God’s love in the
world. I see hope and joy and
affirmation in these flowers that God is present here, blessing, guiding,
teaching us to be vessels of God’s love, no matter how we are defined by
society.
Paul, in his letter to the
Galatians, says that in Christ there is one-ness. He was speaking to new Jesus-Followers, new
Christians, who maintained much of their identities—as Jews, Greeks, Gentiles,
as men, women, as slaves and as free—and used those identities to separate from
one another at a time when unification, sheer numbers, were needed to make the
statement that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus is God’s Son, that Jesus saved us all
from our sins.
Squabbling factions of
Jesus-Followers were not helping that cause.
Paul needed the Galatians to
become unified, to stop the bickering and pay attention to what Jesus
taught. Sure, some Jewish laws were
important for some, but they weren’t for those who were never Jews, and to
expect everyone to follow Jewish Laws when it simply wasn’t an option, divided
the community of Jesus followers.
Paul’s message here in
Galatians was that whether any is male or female, gay or straight; Jew,
Gentile, or Greek; black, white, or brown; able bodied or not; employed or not;
hungry or not; homeless or not; incarcerated or not; sober or not; it is
through our baptism that we all express our faith in Jesus. It is his message that once we are baptized
who we are in every other way does not matter, our baptism makes us one in
God.
If
we look at it another way, Paul simply wanted the people to call themselves
Christians, Jesus Followers. He wanted
them to stop identifying themselves by where they came from, what gender they
were, or anything else that defined them.
He wanted them to be identified by WHOSE they were. He wanted them to say they belonged to God,
through their Baptism, through God’s promise. He wanted them to be known by others, as our
Presiding Bishop says, as Crazy Christians, as people who believe in the
teachings of Jesus, as people of the Jesus Movement.
In
Luke’s story, the man filled with demons called himself “Legion.” He identified himself by what possessed him,
not by anything else. Because he was
possessed, he was an outcast in his society; he lived, like he was dead to his
society in a burial ground, and on top of that, his society was an outcast to
the Jews. He was the lowest of the low
in so many ways.
Jesus
went there anyway. He proved that God’s
love has no boundaries, that God will go even to the scary places and to places
where people are shunned and set aside from society. Even places like the Pulse nightclub,
Newtown, Paris and right down the street.
God was with every person whose life is marked by a cross in our garden.
Why? Because God loves, even when people don’t
know how to love.
I
wrote some of this after yesterday’s wedding.
After I was reminded that the wedding could be a target for hate-filled
people. After I prayed for safety and
security for everyone in attendance.
But
it isn’t those prayers or those fears that will have the biggest impact on
me. Nope.
The
biggest impact is the love that surrounded Jim and Dennis here and at their
home. God is love. And love is love is love is love is
love. When we choose to live in love, to
live in God, to live into our Baptismal Covenant where we promise to respect
the dignity of every human being, love will win.
It
has to. Love is so much more powerful
than hate.
Let
us pray.
Holy,
loving, life-giving God, help us choose love.
Help us to live in the unity of that love and to live into the promises
that we make each time we renew our Baptismal Covenant. Guide our hearts and minds to focus on your
love for us and for all of creation.
Amen.
.