Spiritual Survivors

I’ve been thinking this week about what a church can offer, about what a Christian leader could possibly say today to people who are weary hearted, to people who are scared, to people who are angry. What can a leader say to people who aren’t in a place of despair, but who are nervous about how divided our nation has become? What does our tradition have to offer?

This morning I want to spend some time with Howard Thurman. One of Dr. King’s mentors, the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, has called by some the “mystic of the Civil Rights movement.” If you want a short text which wrestles the dynamics of our day, I recommend his work, “Jesus and the Disinherited.” In it Thurman writes that “Christianity…appears as a technique for survival for the oppressed.” Think about that a moment, our faith is a technique for surviving the most difficult of times. Christianity is a technique for survival.

It has been said that the Bible itself is rather unique among the ancient documents of the world, because it isn’t the record of a conquering people. Most of the ancient manuscripts are records of empires. They tell the story from view of the Romans, the Egyptians, from the side of the winners. What makes the Bible fascinating is how often it tells the story of the people on the underside of history, the people Dr. Thurman called “the disinherited.” The Bible is the spiritual heritage of survivors, of folks who lived on the margins, of people who faced enslavement and persecution. The biblical story is about spiritual liberation, often in the face of political oppression.

And today, on a day when some of us really need them, we have two stories of survivors.

Ruth

Naomi and Ruth are an unlikely pair. Naomi, her husband, and her two sons were refugees in Moab due to famine, and within 10 years all of the men have died. Naomi is left with two daughters-in-law, one of whom, for reasons we can understand, returns to her family of origin. But Ruth refuses to leave Naomi.

Ruth’s decision to join Naomi’s people, to move with her to Bethlehem is dangerous. Ruth would have faced deep discrimination in Judah. Moabites were not well regarded by their Judean neighbors, they were thought to be the descendants of sexual sin. And yet, Ruth says to Naomi, “Where you go, I will go; where you lodge I will lodge; Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.” Ruth’s decision not to leave Naomi, her willingness to face down the discrimination for the sake of love, for the sake of community, is a measure of wild and perhaps foolish grace.

We need to tell stories like those of Ruth. We need stories of people who faced down their neighbors’ hatred, who chose love, and dignity, and welcome. We need the stories of those who chose not the safe route, but the road that lead to integration, to fellowship, to freedom.

The Fallout of the Campaign

We are living through days when hateful language about race, and gender, and ethnicity was again at the center of a winning presidential campaign. More than half the voters in this country either bought into, or chose to ignore, the bigotry unleashed by president Trump as they checked the box next to his name.

There have been calls, in the wake of the election to come together. Today, today I can only muster one part of that call. The only call to “come together” I can manage today is this: we have to come together against hatred. We have to come together against transphobia. We have to come together to defend our immigrant neighbors. We have to come together to stand up for all who were belittled by the president-elect’s campaign. In the days ahead, I want to understand what motivated so many to vote the way they did. I have to hope the majority of the country voted with a bitter taste in their mouth, believing it was the right economic choice for their family. I have to believe that many of the voters who selected this president will want to come together against hate. But I also know that for many of us in this congregation, this week felt heavy, so heavy. Because we’ve seen what unleashed hatred can do when it is allied to power.

So today, let me say clearly, to my trans siblings, my LGBTQ+ siblings, to my Latino/Hispanic siblings, to my immigrant siblings whatever your status, to women who have seen this abuse and hatred before, who are terrified about the policies to come, let me say in words of Ruth, “Where you go, I will go….your people will be my people.” This church will stand with you as we face what comes next. This is a place where we will gather to pray. We will be a place of safety and comfort. And we will be a place to take action against hate. We won’t stay silent. We will organize and act to defend the rights of our neighbors. That’s who we are, and no election could change who we are.

Choosing Love over Fear

At the end of Ruth, the Bible, as it often does, gives us a twist. The last verses of Ruth are a genealogy, and as boring as the lists of names can be in the Bible, sometimes genealogies are radical texts. The last verses of the Book of Ruth tell us that “A son has been born to Naomi. They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.” David, the quintessential king of Israel, the anointed one of God, has Ruth, the survivor, as his ancestor. The Gospel of Matthew makes this link again in its first chapter. Ruth’s name appears in the list of ancestors of Jesus.

I think Ruth is listed among the ancestors of Jesus and David as a reminder, ours is a faith that teaches us how to survive oppression. Ours is a faith that teaches reckless love. Ours is a faith that teaches us always, always to stand up to injustice, to choose our neighbors, to choose community over fear. That is the power of the story of Ruth: choosing love over fear may not be a strategy for winning the short game of politics, but it is the only way to survive in the long term with your soul intact.

Jesus and the Generous Widow

The other story comes from Jesus. Jesus today is also focused on widows. First he tells his followers to “Beware.” Beware of the leaders who are out there demanding your praise. Lest the clergy get ahead of ourselves, Jesus says, “beware those who put on long robes and say long prayers. ”Beware, for they devour widows houses.” Remember, Jesus lived in a time of oppression, under the thumb of Roman rule. Howard Thurman wrote, famously, that Jesus has a great deal to teach the people who have their backs up against the wall.

Today that teaching comes as Jesus asks his disciples, “do you see that woman? The widow? She has offered her all.” Jesus tells his followers not to identify with the lawyers, not with the wealthy who give seemingly great gifts from what they have left over. Jesus says, notice the hungry. Follow the example of the widow. Identify with those who don’t have enough and yet still give of what little they have. Jesus lifts this poor widow up as the example. If you want to survive, if you want to survive with your integrity and your spirit intact, don’t put yourself first.

Love-Spreading Difference Makers

I had a friend in seminary who went to plant a new church out in California. As new church plants do, they went about reinventing some of the old language we use in the church. Some of it was cheesy, but one line always caught my imagination. Many of them struggled with the label “Christian” because Christianity had so often been associated with abuses of power. In response they said aspired to be, as Christians, “love-spreading difference makers.” That description of Christianity came back to me this week. How different would our politics be if all Christians sought first to be love-spreading difference-makers?

I have to say, this week St. Michael’s, you gave me hope. You gave me hope for our faith. You gave me hope for our country. On the day after the election about 60 people gathered for Eucharist. We prayed. Some of us cried. We hugged. We showed up for one another. Earlier that morning several parishioners drove to El Paso with our Las Familias ministry to drop off supplies for recently arrived immigrants at shelters. Next week a small group of us is headed back to El Paso and Juarez, to volunteer in the same shelters. On Tuesday, Election Day, we registered a dozen or so asylum seekers for our food pantry and fed over 100 families. This weekend our diocese debated and passed changes to undo a legacy of discrimination and make our church more fully welcoming of LGBTQ+ people. This week you made me proud, and in the days and years ahead, I have confidence we will continue to stand up.

I don’t want to pretend this work will be easy. Showing up may be hard for a while, but I’d encourage you to show up. Seek community. Building relationships is one of the best ways I know to build your capacity for hope. Claiming your voice, standing up to power, working for justice, caring for the widows and the poor these are not light work, not work to be done alone. Soul work hardly ever is light work, not work you can do alone. But it is also how we rebuild hope.

My friends, we follow a tradition of survivors, of women like Ruth and Naomi, of people like the generous widow. We follow Jesus, a poor Jew, powerless in the eyes of the world who in the face of Roman oppression taught a way of self-offering love. Ours is a faith which asks us to look always to the edges, to the borders, to pay attention to those our society would disinherit, and to stand together with them, Because God is always always with the outsiders.

We will face what is to come with wild and foolish grace. We will pray that God will grant us wisdom and courage. If you need a minute to grieve. That’s okay. But also know, as Howard Thurman told us, ours is a faith that teaches us how to survive. We will survive. And we will become the love-spreading difference-makers our world again so desperately needs. Because our spirits cannot afford anything less.