Sunday, May 17, 2020

Easter 6 Sermon Online

Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you
an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.

The first letter of Peter reminds us that we will all be called to witness the hope that is inside us.

Hope. There are times during this pandemic when such hope seems beyond us.

So many have been infected, so many have died. Businesses shuttered. People unemployed.

We remain safely in our homes, to flatten the curve and to help slow the spread of this uncontrolled virus. But our anxiety and fear sit with us in our rooms.

And yet Peter’s letter calls us to be witnesses to the hope that is in us even during these troubling times.

That hope is Jesus Christ who still walks with us and will not leave us. We must live into such hope.

On The New York Times’ Parenting website, a dad tells of transforming his son’s terror:

“When my five-year-old son told me there might be monsters in his closet, I grabbed a jar from the kitchen, and the little net from his fish tank, and said, ‘I hope we can catch one!’ After I made a big show of searching and came up empty-handed, he consoled me. Since we turned that fear into a game, not only was he not afraid of closet-monsters, he was sorry there weren’t any.”

A cute story of transforming fear. That is also a story of hope and one we need to hold onto during this pandemic. St. Paul in our first reading takes it a step further.

As Paul wandered around Athens waiting for Silas to arrive, he saw many altars and idols. But there was one that caught his eye and his imagination: the altar simply said: ‘To an unknown god.’

And so when given the opportunity to preach before a crowd there, he took it. He didn’t denigrate their faiths or religions, but he spoke of the hope inside of him. A hope that transformed his hate into love.

He taught them about Jesus. Paul before the Athenians on Mars Hill in the Aeropagus, helps the Athenians learn that this unknown God that they worshiped was the God Paul knew. For Paul listened to the longing in their hearts for faith and hope and love, he saw their intellectual curiosity and their restless creative spirit, and spoke boldly of God who is near each one of us, “in whom we live and move and have our being. as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’

Paul witnessed to the hope inside of him, and that was Jesus Christ, the one raised from the dead for all of creation and all his offspring, including Athenians.

David Nott has witnessed humanity at its worst. For the past 30 years, Dr. Nott has served as a surgeon in war zones and territories devastated by natural disasters. Dr. Nott has treated victims of barrel bombs in Syria, snipers in Bosnia and child rape in Sudan. He once removed a detonator from a woman’s leg; during another surgery, the nurse standing next to him was killed by a bullet.

The British physician has traveled to such missions since 1993, when he first took an unpaid leave to volunteer in Sarajevo with the French organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders). Today, Dr. Nott’s foundation works with the International Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations to train surgeons and medical professionals to work in regions of conflict, violence and catastrophe. The intensive five-day course Dr. Nott and his associates have developed and teach is based on his own war surgery experience. (Today, Doctors without Borders has a team on the Navajo Reservation because of Covid-19.)

In an interview with the British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph [February 16, 2020], Dr. Nott was asked how he managed to survive so many close calls — Dr. Nott replied that his success is due largely to his ability to build relationships.

“You can’t stop bullets or bombs, obviously, but you can develop relationships with people whereby they don’t want you to die — or they don’t want you to be in a situation whereby your life is at risk.” Such relationship-building has enabled the unassuming, modest physician to save lives not only on the operating table but through careful negotiation and intervention.

As well as seeing the worst of humanity, Dr. Nott has witnessed acts of extraordinary kindness and heroic generosity. How does he reconcile these opposing sides of human nature?

“There are some people who use their power to make things better and have a positive effect on people’s lives, there are others who use power to destroy everything around them. I think the majority of humans are good.”

Dr. Nott bore witness to the hope inside of him. David Nott and the many selfless and courageous physicians and medical professionals like him who serve in the most dangerous places on earth (including our own medical facilities treating Covid!) - mirror the Holy Spirit, the Advocate in our midst; their work is the work God entrusted to his Son – and now his Son entrusts to us.

To be bearers of hope in a world full of pain and sorrow that is what we are called to do.

Let me end with two poems from a poet in England – (Rev) Malcolm Guite – who gives me hope through his words… his poems are based on his reading of the psalms during this pandemic.

III Domine Quid Multiplicati?

That you may find your peace in his good will
Call out to him, and tell him all your fear
For he will hear you from his holy hill

He knows how many ills both far and near
Oppress your soul and how they multiply,
These obstacles and problems, how you veer

From one side to the other, from one lie
To yet another till there’s nothing true.
Just let it go for now. Don’t even try.

Lie down and rest. Let him look after you
And in the morning when you rise again
Then let him lift your head and change your view

Replenish, renovate you, and sustain
His long slow blessings in your growing soul,
Till troubles cease and only joys remain.

IV Cum invocarem

Till troubles cease and only joys remain
Take refuge in the shelter of his love
Who hears your call and feels with you your pain

Who does not keep his distance, high above
But brings his light into your little room
Nestles and settles with you like the dove

In its familiar dovecote. From the womb
Of Mary, to her house in Nazareth,
From the upper chamber to the empty tomb

He comes to share with you your every breath
And to commune with you. To every heart,
That opens to him he will bring new birth,

For every ending offer a new start.
Lie down in peace and trust and take your rest
Safe in the love of one who’ll never part.

Always be ready to share the hope that is in you with gentleness and reverence. Amen.

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