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Keeping the Faith

The Rev. Gail Keeney-Mulligan, Feb. 11, 2007

Today’s scripture call us to trust in the Lord, to root ourselves in God’s love, which we have come to know in Jesus. It reminds us that the source of our life, our strength and our wholeness is Christ….. NOT MORTALS, NOT OURSELVES. Like those in the Gospel story today, it is by seeking Him and following, putting our trust in him, that we will be blessed. We are assured in and through all things that WE WILL be blessed. And that the work we do will be blessed for we have been raise with Christ and we are his, our life is his and our work is his and He WILL give us all that we need.

This past Thursday I was in Raleigh, NC with Episcopalians from all over the United States, laity and clergy, including our new Presiding Bishop. We were gathered Thursday morning to hear the story of Nelson Johnson, who had been a victim of the KKK in the 70’s in Greensboro, NC. He told us about how hundreds of black and white men and women were gathering to march in the city for civil rights and how the Klan gathered and followed them with the complicity of the police force. They were armed and in the end our speaker saw a half dozen of his friends shot and killed. The police arrested him in the midst of all of this. And ringing in my heart and head were Jesus’ words, “Blessed are those who are hated, excluded, reviled and defiled on account of Christ. For their reward will be great in heaven.”

He was now standing among us as one of the conveners in the last four years of an organization called the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, an organization modeled after a similar project created by our South African Archbishop, Desmond Tutu, at the fall of apartheid. It was a project aimed at searching out the truth, acknowledging the years of silence and cover up, the wrong that was done to the black peoples and to commit themselves to work together for healing. But he and the committee were facing so much resistance from the City officials and from the public. Let the dead dog lie they said. Over and over they said NO to the process. And one woman in her seventies spoke up and said, “My life is comfortable and I am very happy. If I have to listen to the truth, it will make me uncomfortable and I don’t want that.”

And again I heard Jesus’ words from today’s Gospel “Woe to you who are happy now, for the day will come when you will weep and mourn.” We know as human beings that the wounds of our past are never healed until we come to terms with them, seeking healing, reconciliation and strength, regardless of whether we are the perpetrator or the victim. Without healing, we become hard of heart, we shut down and are no longer truly alive. We become like shrubs in the desert.

There is a horrible misconception among many Christians that God punishes the bad with poverty and rewards the good with wealth, that God punishes people with sickness and death for their transgressions and rewards only the deserving with health and long life. Yet, according to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus’ entire life and teaching would radically challenge this. He did not spend it sitting in or near the temple with those who came to merely worship God. Rather he left the high holy place to seek out the lonely, the marginalized, the sick, the sinner, the grieving, the children, the gentile, the unclean… he went into the streets and into the most remote regions to draw people in the greatest need to himself as the living water. And when they came, hungry, tired, hurting, afraid, lonely… he did not say Damned are you… he blessed them, he reassured them, he healed them, he touched them, he loved them. His message was that the least in this world are the most loved by God.

You who have been told you are shut out are not… blessed are you.

You who think that the loss of your loved ones is a curse, it is not… blessed are you.

To the poor – you are blessed, the kingdom is YOURS.

To the hungry – you are blessed, and one day you will have abundance.

To the grieving – you are blessed, and one day you will laugh.

To the outcast, you are blessed and will one day have your reward.

We DO have need of God. We DO need to seek out our Lord and touch him that the healing power of his love may flow through, just like a tree that is planted by the water draws its life from the stream. To know his blessing we must put our whole trust in Him and not in ourselves, not in human beings, not in the things of the world. And we WILL be like trees planted by the water, we will know his blessing, and our lives will always bear fruit. There is a huge difference in a life where we simply say we believe and come to worship God each week and the life that is lived seeking Christ in the world around us, that each of us and all of us might be made whole. There is a huge difference in saying we believe and really surrendering our lives into our Lord’s hands.

Which brings me back to my experience this last week at the Episcopal Urban Caucus and the sermon preached by the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, Bishop of N. C. He told us a story of a man who announced to everyone that he was going to walk a tight rope across the Grand Canyon... Thousand gathered to watch... do you believe I can walk across this tight rope across this canyon?

The people cheered and yelled, “We believe.” And he did it. Then he said to the people, “Do you believe I can walk this rope blind folded?” The people yelled back, “We believe.” And he did it. Then he asked, “Do you believe I can walk this tight rope blind folded and pushing a wheel barrel?” And all the louder people yelled, “yes, we believe.” And once again he did it. And then he asked, “Do you believe I can walk blind folded carrying a person in this wheel barrel?” And cheering loudly they said, “Yes, yes, we believe.” And then he said, “Do I have a volunteer?” And the crowds grew dead silent.

Curry looked at all of us and said, “You have to get in the wheel barrel and keep the faith. God will carry you and keep you safe.”

We have to journey away from the comfortable and safe places we hide, whether it be our homes, our churches or our communities, in search of our Lord... for he is out there looking for us. Do we really believe, like those who came seeking Jesus to fill there hunger, swage their pain, heal their brokenness, that Jesus will carry us through the dark times in our life and catch us if we fall? If we are the Christians we say we are, then we will plant our lives in Christ, like the tree that is planted by the water, and we will not be moved. We will not hunger or thirst. We will not fear or faint. We will run our roots deep in to the earth and our branches will always be green, our lives will always bear fruit.

Those Jesus spoke to in the text today, were people whose journeys were filled with hope and faith. They did not trust in the flesh of mortals, but in the power of God.

When we know God is the source of our lives. Blessed are we.

When we know God is the source of our wholeness. Blessed are we.

When we seek our Lord and serve him in our world the way Nelson Johnson did and does in NC, He is always and always will be our strength, just like the tree planted by the waters. And blessed are we when we put our hope and our trust in HIM.

So, are you ready climb aboard? Come on sisters and brothers, Keep the faith, walk the walk . Let’s get in the wheel barrel and ride.