Rebels and saints

 

2 Thessalonians 2: 1-5, 13-17
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
November 6, 2022

Photo of a poster from the Extinction Rebellion in London.  Block letters in black that read "Rebel for life" over the Extinction Rebellion logo of two triangles posed perpendicular to each other in green.  Poster is dirty and worn and affixed to a brick wall. Website: https://rebellion.global/

“Do not be deceived that the day of the Lord is already here.” What today some might call a “come to Jesus” moment. And yet it feels that way, doesn’t it? Not only in the past few days and weeks but in so many previous elections have we repeatedly heard the words, “Vote like your life depends on it, because it does.” And it’s true, truly for all of us. Eugene Peterson in his introduction to Paul’s letters to the church in Thessalonica writes that the “practical effect of this belief [the Second Coming of Jesus] is to charge each moment of the present with hope”. How we think of the future shapes the way we think, feel, behave, and act in the present.



And yet messages of hope are often co-opted and manipulated to produce fear in many and indifference in others, especially when the future is uncertain or at least difficult to predict or control. Paul knows this and so he instructs his listeners to watch for signs: a rebellion, people leaving the faith, followed by the revealing of the ‘lawless one’. Almost two millennia later and we know that rebellion is a natural part of one’s faith journey. In fact this church would not exist if it were not for the faithful rebellious folx who had a felt need to start a new church, to be church in a new way.



Today I want to remember those who died since October of 2013, since I have been your pastor, whose lives have touched or affected this church, most of whom were themselves shaped by this church.



2013

Wally 

2014

Leonard 
Jim 

2015

Larry 
Peter 

2016

Adele
Jim 

2017

Delma
Steven 

2018

Bob 
Frank 
Barbara 
Katie 
Tom 

2019

Bill 
Storm 
Verna 
Bert 
Greg 

2020

Paul 

2021

Kay 

2022

Edith 
Barbara 
Thomas 



All of these people were rebels in some way. They were uniquely themselves. They lived life on their terms; some of them struggled with the terms. They were kind and just and generous. All of them were the kind of people who were willing to disrupt their lives for others in one way or another.

Poster with stylized lettering in black and red that reads "Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. 'Be still' they say. 'Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.'"

We remember the saints, not only to acknowledge we are grieving their loss amongst us, but we are also calling forth their rebellious spirit to encourage our rebellious spirits. One day people will be looking to our lives, to our memory, to be encouraged by what we did, how we resisted and rebelled and didn’t give up. Author, journalist, and Presbyterian minister Chris Hedges wrote, “Rebellion…should be our natural state. [Faith] is a belief that rebellion is always worth it, even if all outward signs point to our lives and struggles as penultimate failures. We are saved not by what we can do or accomplish but by…our steadfastness to the weak, the poor, the marginalized, those who endure oppression. We must stand with them against the powerful…[The] struggle to live the moral life is worth it.”



So many of our institutions designed to build rebellious community have been corrupted, from the very beginning and as they gained power: the Church, democracy, social media. Even as many are leaving one or all of them, some for good reason, there is a stalwart cadre that is remaining, because of the solidarity and empowerment they have found in community with those willing to disrupt their lives.



I’m not convinced that the Second Coming was supposed to be literal but rather a belief to encourage our rebellious spirits, to not give up, to claim hope in the midst of fear, to declare that violence, power, oppression, and death do not have the last word. What if the Second Coming of Jesus is his justice and love enfleshed in us? It was June Jordan in 1956 who wrote in her "Poem for South African Women", “we are the ones we have been waiting for”.



What if we were to rebel against White supremacy and use our White privilege to figure out what reparations would look like? What if we were to rebel against racism and learn what it means to live as an anti-racist? What if we rebelled against Christian nationalism and declared what it really means to be a Christian? What if we had the courage to examine our own lawlessness, how we live well in a system, an empire that is destroying the earth and human lives?



The Church is deeply flawed and so is this Table in that, like us, the people gathered around it were complicated. Even amidst desertion and betrayal, Jesus rebelled by loving them anyway and professed to his disciples, “This is my body broken for you. This is my blood poured out for you, for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.” Jesus even had the nerve to return to them and build a makeshift community with them.



Kindred rebels and saints in the making, this is the faithful life, that no matter what is going on around us, we are hopeful even as we are afraid, we are joyful even when we have considered all the facts, we are loving even in our loss and grief. Because human lives in need of community like this one are on the line, we are Church no matter what.

Benediction – enfleshed.com


Where grief lives in your body and spirit—
may it have space to shape to shift into healing in its own time.
And may you find consolation in the Mystery of the Still Living God,
who holds every generation before and yet to come.
For we belong in this Lineage of Love Unfolding.
Amen.