Risk losing
Isaiah 65: 17-25
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
November 17, 2019
When I read this passage from Isaiah—with this ancient text in one hand and the news and my Twitter feed and my friends on Facebook in the other—this is what I heard:
“For I am about to create a future that no one has ever seen or as yet imagined; no longer shall humankind live in the past or recreate painful histories or have to carry trauma in their bodies or wounds in their hearts and minds. But be truly free, be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create the city of peace, the city of wholeness as a joy and accessible to everyone, and its people as a delight.
“I will rejoice in this Beloved Community, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be a youth who is killed in their school or shamed and denied a hot lunch because of debt or who is homeless and bullied because of their queerness, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime because they died a homeless veteran or because they can’t afford their prescriptions or heat or rent; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
“They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit, because they can’t afford to because they are not paid a living wage; they shall not plant and another eat, like an undocumented laborer or a migrant farmer or sharecropper; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen—those who have long been denied their human rights and lived as exiles and outsiders—shall now long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not work and always be poor, or bear children for tragedy; for they shall be offspring blessed by Love enfleshed—and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.
“Prey and predator will eat at the same table, the powerful will bear the burdens of the humble; but those who bite and hiss and infect flesh with venom—let them eat dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Holy One.”
A prophet’s words are intended to comfort to the oppressed and to be a direct confrontation to the comfortable. We want to hear hope but it comes at the price of our denial and our self-deceit. The new life that God offers entails risk to us who want to keep what we have. God’s dream of wholeness and justice involves every aspect of our lives; everything is sacred ground; everything is interconnected.
Methodist pastor Rev. Anna Blaedel, who is non-binary and queer and who is one of the co-founders of enfleshed.com, has had three complaints filed against them in the United Methodist Church regarding their sexuality and for officiating a queer wedding. Rev. Blaedel writes, “…there can be no queer justice without racial justice without ecological justice without economic justice without gender justice without disability justice, because our lives are complex and entangled and none of us is free until all of us are free, and if our comfort is coming at the cost of another’s survival, sitting with discomfort is far holier than retreating into denial.” They go on to say, “Sometimes we have to be willing to risk losing that which we fear we cannot live without, in order to be free.”
If we are unwilling to sacrifice any of our comfort and dominance, we cannot complain or be offended or surprised when anyone calls us to the carpet for how we spend our money and how we make it; for the people we help and the people we don’t help; for the way we fit God and God’s dream into our lives rather than the other way around.
The last thing God’s word of hope is to those with privilege, is reasonable or easily digestible. When we say “none are free until all are free”, we need to acknowledge that when it comes to the freedom of the marginalized we are more than compromised; we are complicit. Today’s prophets are Greta Thunberg and trans and non-binary folx like Revs. Anna Blaedel and M Barclay and authors like Ta-Nehisi Coates and scholars like Ibram Kendi and activists like Rev. William Barber of the Poor Peoples Campaign and protesters in Hong Kong and Bolivia, Chile, Peru and Ecuador.
If any of this makes us squirm or gets under our skin, that’s the good news today. Oftentimes we can read the scripture for any given Sunday and say, “I don’t like that one” or “I don’t like any of these”. And yet it’s important that we pay attention to our discomfort because that is also the God who is still speaking.
It was discomfort and even conflict that prompted those who founded this church to leave other places of worship to form a community that was new and different from what they had known before. Those who founded this church chose to embrace the discomfort of not having a building for more than a dozen years, each Sunday bringing hymnals and other supplies in suitcases, living as gypsies because it was the faithful thing to do. Then when this church considered buying a building and settling down, once again it embraced the discomfort of strong opinions and building consensus.
Throughout this church’s 40 year history, there is a thread of embracing discomfort and the ensuing conflict, struggling to be faithful and authentic, sometimes with a risk of losing, sometimes fearful of losing what we think we cannot live without, in order to get to the place of God’s newness.
That’s the path. God’s newness, God’s dream of wholeness and justice and freedom means that “we have to be willing to risk losing that which we fear we cannot live without, in order to be free.” Rev. Blaedel reminds us, “Nothing is guaranteed; so much is possible.” And we won’t know what more might be possible if we are not willing to risk losing.
Jesus was willing to risk losing; in fact he lost everything. But as one Twitter friend put it, “In the end, the resurrection is about the fact that what the authorities wanted to kill when they killed Jesus refused to stay dead.”
In our desire for safety and security we think there will come a time when we no longer have to risk losing because we’ve earned it. That’s our privilege talking. In truth the path of love, the path of resurrection, the path of God’s newness travels right through the possibility of losing it all. Because it is also the path to freedom.
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
November 17, 2019
When I read this passage from Isaiah—with this ancient text in one hand and the news and my Twitter feed and my friends on Facebook in the other—this is what I heard:
“For I am about to create a future that no one has ever seen or as yet imagined; no longer shall humankind live in the past or recreate painful histories or have to carry trauma in their bodies or wounds in their hearts and minds. But be truly free, be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create the city of peace, the city of wholeness as a joy and accessible to everyone, and its people as a delight.
“Prey and predator will eat at the same table, the powerful will bear the burdens of the humble; but those who bite and hiss and infect flesh with venom—let them eat dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Holy One.”
A prophet’s words are intended to comfort to the oppressed and to be a direct confrontation to the comfortable. We want to hear hope but it comes at the price of our denial and our self-deceit. The new life that God offers entails risk to us who want to keep what we have. God’s dream of wholeness and justice involves every aspect of our lives; everything is sacred ground; everything is interconnected.
If we are unwilling to sacrifice any of our comfort and dominance, we cannot complain or be offended or surprised when anyone calls us to the carpet for how we spend our money and how we make it; for the people we help and the people we don’t help; for the way we fit God and God’s dream into our lives rather than the other way around.
If any of this makes us squirm or gets under our skin, that’s the good news today. Oftentimes we can read the scripture for any given Sunday and say, “I don’t like that one” or “I don’t like any of these”. And yet it’s important that we pay attention to our discomfort because that is also the God who is still speaking.
Throughout this church’s 40 year history, there is a thread of embracing discomfort and the ensuing conflict, struggling to be faithful and authentic, sometimes with a risk of losing, sometimes fearful of losing what we think we cannot live without, in order to get to the place of God’s newness.
That’s the path. God’s newness, God’s dream of wholeness and justice and freedom means that “we have to be willing to risk losing that which we fear we cannot live without, in order to be free.” Rev. Blaedel reminds us, “Nothing is guaranteed; so much is possible.” And we won’t know what more might be possible if we are not willing to risk losing.
Jesus was willing to risk losing; in fact he lost everything. But as one Twitter friend put it, “In the end, the resurrection is about the fact that what the authorities wanted to kill when they killed Jesus refused to stay dead.”
In our desire for safety and security we think there will come a time when we no longer have to risk losing because we’ve earned it. That’s our privilege talking. In truth the path of love, the path of resurrection, the path of God’s newness travels right through the possibility of losing it all. Because it is also the path to freedom.
Amen.
Benediction – Samir Selmanovic, It's Really All About God
“Jesus offered a single incentive to follow him... [To]…summarize his selling point: ‘Follow me, and you might be happy--or you might not. Follow me, and might be empowered--or you might not. Follow me, and you might have more friends--or you might not. Follow me, and you might have the answers--or you might not. Follow me, and you might be better off--or you might not. If you follow me, you may be worse off in every way you use to measure life. Follow me nevertheless. Because I have an offer that is worth giving up everything you have: you will learn to love well.’”
Benediction – Samir Selmanovic, It's Really All About God
“Jesus offered a single incentive to follow him... [To]…summarize his selling point: ‘Follow me, and you might be happy--or you might not. Follow me, and might be empowered--or you might not. Follow me, and you might have more friends--or you might not. Follow me, and you might have the answers--or you might not. Follow me, and you might be better off--or you might not. If you follow me, you may be worse off in every way you use to measure life. Follow me nevertheless. Because I have an offer that is worth giving up everything you have: you will learn to love well.’”
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