Land of Plenty

It was only on Friday that the smoke began to clear enough for Merle and Hannah to venture out of their small mobile home. Shortly before noon Hannah turned the Venetian blinds on the window by the kitchen table and looked across the park. It was like someone had wrapped their house in gauze and she was trying to make out shapes through it. She looked out to the laundry house in the middle of the parking lot. It was still standing, looking just as it had on Thursday before the fires came ripping across the interstate and howling through the tops of the oak trees. But beyond the laundry house…lying beneath a gray cloud that hovered like an evil fog over the ground…there you could see the destruction. Where trailers had stood before there were just charred and twisted piles of metal, wood and fabric. It was hard to tell just how many were gone but Hannah guessed from what she could see through the haze that over half of the 214 units were burned completely up.

She heard Merle coughing violently and went back to the bedroom to check on him. She had been coughing all morning, too. Even with every washcloth and towel in the house soaked in water and stuffed into the crevices around every window and door, you could still smell the fire. Their home was untouched but the fire had managed to invade. In the worst moments on Thursday morning Hannah was sure she could feel the flames licking under the doors. Her lungs burned as if embers had lodged themselves there. She and Merle had huddled together on the bedroom floor, pulled the sheet off the bed and covered their faces - coughing, crying, and gasping into the thin fabric.

Outside, it had been dark as night except that there was this brilliant orange glow from the fire, something unearthly and infernal, something you might have called beautiful if it weren’t for the destruction it wrought. It announced its presence with an advance guard of swirling embers and a howl of hot wind rushing through the mountain passes. Soon you could hear the crack of explosions as trees yielded to the inferno, spontaneously bursting into flame and adding more fuel to the fire. When it reached the Valley Oaks Mobile Ranch the explosions became more frequent as the mobile homes groaned and then broke. Propane tanks exploded and sent shrapnel crashing through the walls of other homes.

When it was at its height, Hannah thought it was the end. She wondered why Merle had insisted on staying when everyone else was evacuating. She wondered why she had agreed. It would have been hard to get Merle out of there in his hobbled condition with his failing knee, but surely it would have been better than this. With her face buried in the sheet Hannah prayed to God that they would go quickly. She prayed for their children, Jackie, Mary Lynn, and Georgia. For their grandchildren who brought such joy to their lives. She prayed for Merle, with whom she had shared this life for 45 years from their days in Fresno through their retirement near San Diego. And she found herself thinking about her mother, who had died 25 years ago.
At one point she was speaking out loud. “O God, I know we’re just a small dot in the big scheme of things. I know you are Lord of heaven and earth and that you can use even things like this fire to show your glory. I know there’s no reason we should survive and others should die. We don’t deserve it more than any other. But God, have mercy on us. God, forgive us. God, help us. And bless our children.”

She didn’t know it, because he would never have admitted it, but Merle was praying, too. He felt intense shame that he had not forced Hannah to go when they came around to evacuate. He felt guilty about the ways that he had failed her so many times. Most of all he felt weak and helpless. He was a big man who, in his younger days, could chop wood all day and not feel it. He had driven trucks, worked in the fields, and even spent some time unloading ships on the docks in Oakland. But now his knee was crumbling and he was putting off surgery. And he hated that he had to rely on her for so much. Hated that he had to get government assistance.

So when they came around with the offer to take him out, he refused. No more help. This was his last stand. And in that dark moment on the floor of the bedroom with his wife right beside him, as always, choking to death from the smoke, he prayed, too. “God, I know I deserve this, but she doesn’t. Save this woman who has saved me so many times. Take me for my sins, but do not take her.”

Now here they were on Friday noon, once again watching the sun break through the smoke to shine on them. It was not, after all, the end. Somebody else might have said to them, “You were so lucky,” but they knew better. It was mercy, only God’s mercy, which allowed them to see this day.

Hannah sat on the bed next to Merle, who was settling down from his latest coughing spell. “Are you O.K.?”

Merle didn’t even answer. Just nodded his head. “What’s it look like out there?”

“Looks like somebody spilled a collection of black toothpicks over the surface of the moon. It’s bad. But we can still do our laundry…if they get the water back on.”

Merle smiled, something he would not have done on Wednesday. Hannah smiled back and patted him on the hand. “Want to come take a look?”

Merle shifted heavily and threw his legs off the side of the bed. Hannah got his cane and they hobbled out to the small metal porch on the front of their trailer. They leaned against the rail and stared at the ruins. The tall oaks that were the centerpiece of their community were blasted away. Smoke still filtered up from the stumps.

“This is not exactly how I envisioned our retirement, Hannah,” Merle said.

“Looks like the pool survived. That’s something.”

“Yeah, we may have to be drinking out of it…Hannah, God must be really mad at California.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, look at this. If the insurance companies are right and this is an act of God…well, I’d say God is pretty mad. And why shouldn’t he be? I mean look at what we’ve allowed to happen here. The malls are full and the churches are empty. Our movies are filth. Everybody wants to be young and beautiful and instead they’re all superficial and messed up.”

“Merle, did the Gulf Coast deserve Katrina? Did that town out in Kansas deserve to get blown away by a tornado?”

“I’m sure you could make a case.”

“Yes, you could. And yesterday when I was praying and I thought we were going to die I could think of a thousand reasons I deserved it. But don’t you feel like Shadrach today?”

"Shadrach?”

“Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego – one of Daniel’s friends who went into the fiery furnace and came out safe even though they were sentenced to death?”

“Oh, yeah. Them.”

“There’s mercy in the fire, too. And what did they tell old King Nebuchadnezzar? ‘We want to make it clear, King, that we won’t serve any god but the God of Israel.’ And after they came out of the fire, King Nebby praised God and told the whole kingdom to protect the followers of God. So, sure God’s got reason to be mad with California and with us, but I don’t think God wanted any of us to die.”

A thought crossed Merle’s mind that he hadn’t thought of since Thursday morning. He looked across the central community area to the ruins of the house that belonged to the Hernandez family. “You think some of us did die here, Hannah?”

“I’ve been praying ‘no’.”

A few minutes later they heard the sound of trucks coming around the corner. A convoy of military trucks was coming slowly up the road. A young man in full uniform wearing a white mask and thick rubber gloves got out of a Humvee and walked over to them. Another soldier started pulling rakes out of the back of a truck.

“I’m Lt. Torres with the California National Guard. Are you O.K.?”

Merle answered. “Yes, thank God, we are.”

“We were told there were several folks who didn’t evacuate. Looks like you folks had a close call.”

“We did,” Merle said. “We should have left. I should have listened. But we’re O.K.”

“I’m going to have the men bring you some water and MREs – that’s what we’re calling rations these days. I’m not sure how long it will be before they get electricity back to you. If you have a place to go, we can help you get there.”

“Thank you,” Hannah said. “Are you checking in on people who stayed?”

“Well, yes, but our main mission is…to check those houses to see if anyone was killed.” Merle could see the soldiers taking the rakes to the remains of the Hernandez house. Every so often they would lift a piece of metal or the remains of a door and look beneath it. “Fortunately, we haven’t found any bodies yet. I’m very glad to find you alive. God was looking out for you.”

“So you’re a believer?” Merle asked.

“Yes, sir, I am. I’m a lay leader at my church back in Bakersfield.”

Merle paused before he asked his question. “So, do you think we deserved these fires?”

“Deserved it?”

“Yes. Not just us, but California. The whole place.”

The soldier thought for a minute. “I’ve seen a lot of people suffer through stuff they didn’t deserve, sir. I’ve done two tours in Iraq and I saw things there that no human being should have to see or live through. I can’t believe that the God Jesus talks about would send that on anyone, whether they deserved it or not.

“But now…now suffering doesn’t impress me. That’s a given. There’s going to be suffering and it’s going to come to good and bad. What impresses me is that there’s some good. Like in the middle of all this destruction your house with you in it is still standing. Like in the middle of the forest where I was yesterday there were flowers. Everything around them black, charred, burnt up - but flowers. Like babies being born and young people trying to good. All these guys with me today – they’ve got homes and families and lives. But they’re here and it’s not just because they’ve got orders. And you should see the Red Cross tents and the tractor-trailers coming into the city. Somebody can see beyond the fires. God can.”

A soldier trotted up to the door with the water and the brown MRE bags. Then both he and the lieutenant turned to go. “Thank you for your kindness,” Hannah said. “And can I ask your first name, lieutenant Torres?”

“Joel.”

“Like the prophet.”

“Yes. Like the prophet.”

Later that afternoon Merle and Hannah gathered up some things and waited for the soldiers to return with a ride for them to leave. They had gotten in touch with their daughter, Mary Lynn, in Oceanside and were planning to spend a few days with her. While they were sitting on the porch, Hannah prayed for the search and prayed that they wouldn’t find anyone in the ashes. She pulled out her Bible and read from the prophet Joel.

She read about the plague of locusts that Joel warned the people about. How they would come and wipe out the land – destroying its crops and ruining the lives of all the people who depended on it. The locusts would come like a great army upon the people. But then, Joel said, there would be a new day of restoration. God would restore the years that the locust had taken. People would give thanks to God again and they wouldn’t feel any shame ever again.

Then something more would happen. The prophetic spirit that had fallen on Joel would fall on the people. All living things would have the gift of seeing the world as God sees it. Sons and daughters would prophesy. Young people would have visions and old people…old people like Merle and her would dream dreams. And all who called on the name of the Lord would be saved.

When the truck arrived that was to take them out to the checkpoint where Mary Lynn was waiting, Hannah looked at the house behind them and then at Merle. “I think this a new beginning for us, Merle. I don’t think God’s done with us yet.”

Merle stood up and grabbed Hannah’s hand. “Then I guess we’d better get started, Hannah.” He kissed her and they walked unsteadily to the truck.

As they were driving out they saw yellow Xs marked in spray paint on all the driveways. “What are those for?” Hannah asked.

The soldier who was driving said, “Every time we check a building we mark the place. If it’s just an X it means that no one was found there. We’ve had a good day. It’s just Xs.”

“Funny,” Hannah said. “From the right angle they look like crosses.”

Isaiah the prophet says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.” [Isaiah 43:2-4, NRSV]

Our hope is built on the visions that floods and fires cannot overwhelm. Our hope is built on a God who knows something about building things up from the ashes. Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. When the bad times come, as they always do, we must know that they do not have the power to define who we are or what the world is or what it will become. What defines the world and what defines you is that God has made it, God is redeeming it, God is bringing justice, God is loving it, and God is making it new. Hold on to your hope, my brothers and sisters, because our hope is holding on to you. Thanks be to God.

Joel 2:23-32
Children of Zion – rejoice
and be joyful in Yahweh your God
for he gave you the early rains for righteousness
and he brings down upon you showers, early and late, as before.
The threshing floors will be filled with grain
and the wine vats will be overflowing with new wine and fresh oil.
Surely I will restore to you the years which the locust swarm has eaten
the devouring locust and the destructive locust and the devastating locust
the great army that I sent among you.
And you will eat continually and always be full
and you will give thanks to the name of Yahweh your God
who has worked wonders among you
and my people will not feel shame ever again.
And after this I will pour out my prophetic spirit on all living things
and your sons and daughters will prophesy
and your old men will dream dreams
your young men will see visions.
Moreover on male and female slaves in those days
I will pour out my prophetic spirit.
I will give wonders in the skies and on the land
-- blood and fire and columns of smoke.
The sun will become dark, and the moon will turn blood red
before that great and terrible day of Yahweh arrives.
But everyone who calls on the name of Yahweh will be saved,
for some on Mount Zion in Jerusalem will escape,
just as Yahweh has said.
These will be among the survivors whom Yahweh has called.

In Praise of Persistent Women

There is no power on earth equal to that of a persistent woman. That’s the message for today. If you want to write down the point of this sermon, well, I’ve given it away already. No holding out for a big suspenseful ending to today’s sermon. The message is clear—there is no power on earth equal to that of a persistent woman.

Now you might think that statement’s a little dramatic. After all there are quite a few powerful things on earth and heaven we might talk about. There’s the power of the persistent mosquito. There are hurricanes and earthquakes and all manner of forces of power and destruction. There is the power of God, which we might want to say is more powerful than that of a persistent woman. But stick with me on this one for a minute. In the gospel parable of the day it is very clear that the power of a persistent woman is a thing to be reckoned with above all else.

You might also think my statement is a little exclusive. After all, can’t men be persistent as well? Can’t men be at least as powerful in their persistence? And how about children? They can be persistent. If you’ve ever taken a child through the check-out line in the grocery store past all that candy, you know they have a persuasive power all their own. But there’s no getting around the point of this parable. It’s a woman who holds the power here. And the fact that she is a woman is important.

Are you curious yet? Let’s take a little closer look at this gospel parable for today because it’s good comedy. Luke chapter 18 begins with Jesus telling his disciples a parable. A parable is a favorite way for Jesus to teach. It’s a story, and as with most stories, the point of the story is not always easy to express in only one way. Each time you hear a story, you hear it slightly differently and get a slightly different meaning from it. Jesus is usually content to let you do that with his parables.

But here the author of Luke does something that he doesn’t do very often. None of the gospel writers do this very much. Luke tells the point of the parable right up front! Kind of like I did with this sermon. No guessing what this is about. Jesus tells the disciples a story about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. Which is probably a very good thing for him to do since he just spent the last part of chapter 17 telling them how difficult their lives would be in the days and years to come.

So there it is. This is supposed to be a story about the need to pray always and not to lose heart. And the main character in this story is…well, you know whom the story is about. I told you at the very beginning. It’s about a… Well, actually it’s about a judge, but the persistent woman will show up in a minute.

Jesus says, “There was this city, you see. And in this city was a judge, but he was not a good, just, and fair judge like Judge Judy.” (Jesus didn’t actually talk about Judge Judy, I’m paraphrasing.) “Anyway, this judge neither feared God nor did he have any respect for people.” You’ve known judges like that. We’ve all heard of judges like that, who become corrupted by the power of their position and generally disregard fairness and justice in order to protect those who ought not to be protected. Believe it or not, even in Jesus’ day a corrupt judge was a believable character. Some things don’t change.

What doesn’t change is the fact that this is not the way things were supposed to be. One of the things judges were supposed to do is to give a fair hearing to everybody. In the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy the judges are told, “You must not be partial in judging: hear out the small and the great alike; you shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s.” [Deut. 1:17] Judges are supposed to fear God and they are supposed to respect people, but this judge in Jesus’ story does neither.

But I said there was a persistent woman in this story and there is. She lived in this same city. She was a widow, which in Jesus’ day meant that she was one of the most vulnerable members of the society. In Biblical times, there was no Social Security, no supplemental benefits, no aid to survivors. In a patriarchal world, men were the key to some sort of safety net. And judges in particular were given the task of ensuring that some measure of justice was done for the widows and the orphans. In the book of Sirach, part of our Apocrypha, judges are given the model of God, the righteous judge, and we are told that God “will not ignore the supplication of the orphan, or the widow when she pours out her complaint.” [Sir. 35:17] Judges are supposed to do the same.

Now we don’t know what the particular case of this particular widow was, but she had a case. She had an opponent and she had a legal dispute with this opponent and the only way that she could ensure justice in her case was to keep appealing to the judge, who just happened to be the corrupt judge from verse 2. Of course, being a corrupt judge, he refuses to help her.

But this is a persistent woman, and the point of this sermon is—there is no power on earth equal to that of a persistent woman. So the story doesn’t end here. The judge has a little soliloquy that we are allowed to overhear. He is talking to himself and he’s very honest. Very self-aware. He says to himself, “Self, I know that have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, but this widow keeps bothering me.”

Now that’s how the New Revised Standard Version puts it. The King James Version says, “She troubleth me.” But that’s not how the Greek puts it. The Greek literally says, “This widow is threatening to give me a beating.” When I said this woman is persistent, I mean she is persistent and this judge, who doesn’t even fear God, is physically afraid of the most vulnerable member of society.

It gets even better. The New Revised Standard Version continues, “Because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” Well, this makes it sound like the widow will get her way just because she’s a very good nag who will eventually wear the judge down. But that’s not what’s going on here and it’s a terrible translation of the Greek. What it literally says is that the judge is going to grant her justice because the widow might come up and give him a black eye! It’s a boxing term being used here—hupopiaze—and it means, to strike somebody just below the eye or to beat them black and blue. What the judge says is, “I’m going to give this woman what she wants, because she’s liable to haul off and hupopiaze me.” And no self-respecting person, even one who has no fear of God, wants to be hupopiaz-ied. Behold the power of persistent women!

Now that’s the end of the story. And remember this is being billed as a story about the need to pray always and not to lose heart. So Jesus makes the connection for them. “Listen to what that crooked judge says. He’s willing to grant justice even though he doesn’t give a lick about real justice, just because of this woman. How much more will God grant justice to God’s children who cry to him day and night? Will he be slow in helping them? Of course not. God will quickly grant justice to them.”

Now there’s a lot of distance between the judge in the story and God. God does care about real justice and it is in the nature of God to grant justice. It is also the case that God is presumably not in the position of feeling bullied or physically threatened by petitioners who might do God some harm. But what does this tell us about prayer?

Do we really believe that the best form of prayer is constant nagging? Is it really a matter of saying the right thing the right number of times with the right attitude? If an enemy is oppressing me, whether it’s my neighbor or a bottle of alcohol, is it really my persistent begging in just the right tone that will cause God to release me? Will the petitions of 300 million Americans offered to God in regular intervals with sufficient fervor bring about an end to terrorist bombings and justice for the wronged? And what then do we say to the mountains of seemingly unanswered prayers offered in sincerity, blood, sweat and tears by persistent women and men of every generation?

If we are to pray always and not to lose heart…If we are to cry out night and day…If God, who has been our guide for centuries and who promises a kingdom that is not yet come, if this God promised to quickly grant justice to those who call upon God…If all these things be true, then prayer cannot be what I have just described. Because there are just are not enough minutes in the day when a creature like me could offer up prayers appropriate to the justice I desire. There is not enough fervor or strength in my body or soul that could earn the merit of God’s attention. There is no way I could make my case with any confidence that it was worthy of this high standard of prayer Jesus seems to set.

But then I remember the persistent woman. If her pursuit of her case is a model for prayer, then it certainly is not a passive-aggressive model that alternates nagging with waiting on something to happen on her behalf. The widow in Jesus’ story doesn’t wait around for something to happen. She is there every day, tapped into what she already knows is just and good, and proclaiming it loudly. And as the Greek text shows, she is not an example of someone who wears down the judge with words, she is physically powerful. The most powerless person in the story has power that causes the judge to cower because she is living her life already out of an understanding of that justice she desires. Before the judge does anything, the widow has received power, and it doesn’t come from him.

This is why Jesus adds one more line to this story that I haven’t yet mentioned. After the story of the woman and the judge, after the promise that God will quickly grant justice to those who call out for it, Jesus asks one more question. “And yet, when all is said and done, when the Son of Humanity comes, will he find faith on earth?” Will he find that people are not waiting around for what will come in the future, but rather, will they be actively living their faith out in the here and now?

I have a friend, Molly Gee, who wrote an article in the latest newsletter from the Wesley Foundation at UVA, our campus ministry there. In it she talks about going to a John Mayer concert and listening to him sing one of his most popular songs, “Waiting on the World to Change.” Molly says that at first she liked the song because it expresses a hope that things will change. Now she says, it drives her nuts. In the song, John Mayer “talks about he and his friends don’t like the way things are and so they wait. What are they waiting for?” At the concert she says she found herself standing beside a young woman who was screaming throughout the concert, “I love you, John Mayer!” Molly says she worried about this young woman, “singing along with this song and thinking she’s an activist because of it. Knowing the world needs to change is a good first step, but waiting doesn’t do a thing.”

Molly says that the other singer at that concert was Sheryl Crow and she found herself envying Sheryl’s muscular arms through the concert. So after the concert she started lifting weights. “I don’t have Sheryl Crow’s arms,” she says, “but I’m a little closer than I was. Change takes time.”[i]

So what are we doing when we pray? Are we just waiting? Paul’s letter to the Romans contains a great truth. He says, very realistically, I believe, that we do not know how to pray. Even with all of the best methods, even with all of the best intentions, even when we’ve been doing it for years, we do not know how to pray. And yet we are commanded to do so. Is it so that we can offer up a laundry list of needs, desires, and Christmas wishes? Or is it so that we can stand before God in all of our inarticulate insecurity, to say the simple, hopelessly inappropriate words that we can say, and to feel all of our mumbling and bumbling swept up nevertheless into the heart of God? That’s what the Holy Spirit does, you see. As Paul says, the Spirit intercedes with sighs to deep for words. What that tells me is that we don’t pray. The Spirit does.

We don’t pray. We simply tap into that awesome power at the center of the universe and the center of our lives and we hold on for dear life. We open ourselves to prayer because it is in prayer that we discover that justice is not something we wait for in the Second Coming, it’s something being worked out in our lives every day. Justice won’t come because we beg some heavenly sugar daddy for it. Justice comes because persistent women and persistent men refuse to accept the world as it is. The transformation God intends for all creation is not just a highlight for the end of the world news wrap-up; it’s happening now in the lives of praying people.

So I can resonate with a widow packing a powerful right jab for justice. I can celebrate that the kingdom is not just yet to come, but already is. And I can see that the company of persistent women is large and growing. From Catherine of Siena in the 14th century who was the counsel of popes to Dorothy Day in the 20th century who fought for fair working conditions in urban America. From a Canaanite woman who argued with Jesus to ensure the healing of her child, to the women of Afghanistan who are treated like ghosts in their own land, but who will yet tell a story of redemption and hope. I believe in the power of persistent women, and I pray that I may pray with their knowledge, which sees beyond the way things are, to the way things are in God’s eyes.

As a church, we should pray this way, too. Because God hears and knows. And God will transform the world. When God does, I hope we won’t be waiting around, but fighting for justice. Thanks be to God.

Luke 18:1-8
He also told them a parable regarding the necessity of praying always and not to lose heart. He said, “There was a certain judge in a certain city that did not fear God, nor did he have regard for people. Now there was a widow in that city and she kept coming to him, saying, ‘Vindicate me against my adversary.’ For a time he did not want to do this, but eventually he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God nor respect people, still I will vindicate this widow because she is causing me vexation and so that in the end she doesn’t come beat me black and blue.’”

Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge has to say. Will God not make vindication for his chosen people who are crying out to him day and night? And will he delay long over them? I tell you he will make vindication for them speedily. Even so, when the Son of Humanity has come, will he find faith upon the earth?”

[i] Molly Gee, “Waiting on the World to Change,” Wesley Word, Fall 2007

The People of God in the Land of America

I’ve really got just one thing to say this morning. It’s an important thing. I mean, I would even be so bold as to say that it is a message from God. But it’s really just one thing. And the one thing is: Be restless but stay put. That’s it. Be restless but stay put. So if you nod off this morning or forget where I’m headed over the next three hours, just remember this, because it’s what the sermon is all about. Be restless but stay put.

I know that sounds strange coming from a United Methodist minister. After all, John Wesley, the first Methodist, put restlessness into our DNA back in the 18th century and we Methodists have been on the move ever since. Our most celebrated figures are the circuit riding preachers who started churches like…well…this one. They took seriously Wesley’s admonition never to stay in any one place any longer than was strictly necessary. And so these preachers on horseback were constantly on the move, preaching the gospel, establishing new small groups and never settling down.

So you may think it’s strange to get a message like this from me: Be restless but stay put. You might think I’m not a very credible witness. I mean, we don’t move as much as we used to, but United Methodist preachers are still itinerant. We still move. So you might think, “O.K., you’re telling me to stay put, but when are you going to stay put?”

You also might think this is not a very biblical message. I mean didn’t Abraham and Sarah pack up everything they had and leave their home and their family and head off to follow God’s promise in the land of Canaan? Didn’t the people of Israel wander through the wilderness for forty years after they escaped slavery? Didn’t God take Ruth from her home and David from his sheep and Amos from his sycamore trees and Peter from his fishing nets and Matthew from his tax business and turn their lives around and turn the world upside down through their restlessness and refusal to stay put? Didn’t Jesus say that foxes have holes and birds of the air have their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head? [Mat. 8:20] Didn’t Paul make his first missionary journey and his second missionary journey and his third missionary journey and his fourth missionary journey so that when you look at the map in the back of your study bible that shows Paul’s travels it looks like some child has taken a Crayola pack to it? Aren’t we marching to Zion and walking on the heaven road? Haven’t we decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back? Don’t we want to walk in Jerusalem just like John? Don’t we sing that some glad morning I’ll fly away? Doesn’t 1 John say, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world”? [1 Jo. 2:15] Aren’t we in the world but not of it? How can you say, Alex, that God says, “Be restless but stay put.” We’re on a journey here. We’re heaven-bound. This train is bound for glory. This train.

All of which reminds me of monks. Monks are like the opposite of Wesley’s circuit-riding preachers. One of the things that makes them so different is that they take some pretty significant vows. Poverty, celibacy, obedience – these are typical vows in a monastic community. But they also take a vow of stabilitas. It is a vow of stability, which means that they enter a monastery with the intention of living their entire lives in that community. In some cases they vow never to leave the walls of the monastery again.

In medieval days there were elaborate ceremonies held for monks entering the monastery. In effect, they were funerals. You could go to your own funeral, because in a real way you were committing your life to this monastic order unto death.

This seems very extreme to us who live in a very different culture and time where stability is how we talk about our psychological state rather than how we live. We wonder how someone could do that. How could someone give their entire lives to one place or one order?

Dwight Longenecker, the chaplain at St. Joseph’s Catholic School in Greenville, South Carolina, says that “the vow of stability means the monk promises to remain in one community for life. He commits himself to one family of monks, one place, one set of buildings, one way of life. The whole point is to stop him doing 'a geographical'. He's not allowed to run away. Stability teaches us that God is not elsewhere. We'll find him here. We'll find him now, or we won't find him anyhow. Stability is a rock.”[i]

Stability is a rock. That’s how an oyster grows. It finds a place to root and that’s where it stays. An oyster rock is the place where it flourishes. Could the same be true for us?

Richmond Hill is an ecumenical retreat center on Church Hill in the city of Richmond. The community that runs the center is a residential city made up primarily of lay people who have committed themselves to living together under an order using a monastic model. It is different from traditional monastic communities, though. People come and go. They work in other jobs outside the community in Richmond.

But Richmond Hill has kept a vow of stabilitas. This is how they interpret that: We will live in this community as if it will be the place where we die. We will live here as if it will be the place where we will die. It is their way of saying, “I am not giving this community only a part of myself. I am giving everything I have to it. When I see something that needs to be fixed I will fix it. If I have a personality conflict with someone I won’t just wait them out. I will treat this community as if it is the last one I will be in, because it may be. Who knows if I will move again or if Christ will come again? But I will work to pass it along to the next generation and to preserve what is good about it.” Now that’s a good message for Methodist ministers and for all of us who find ourselves moving. Live in a place as if it’s the last place we’ll ever live.

There’s a similar message in Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a prophet, not a bullfrog. Even though we haven’t been following it in recent weeks, Jeremiah has been running through the lectionary. The story it tells is about how his ministry unfolded. The early part of the book tells of Jeremiah’s realization that he was born with a purpose, which was to proclaim God’s word to a people who were not always ready to hear it. Jeremiah spoke to the people of his nation, the nation of Judah, God’s chosen people, and told them that their land would be devastated by the Babylonians and their people carried off into exile. Not exactly a popular thing to say. As you might expect it didn’t win friends and influence people. Jeremiah was thrown into a pit, held under house arrest—but even then, he was looking to the future. Jeremiah bought a piece of land at ground zero as a symbol of hope in the midst of trial.

Well, today, I find Jeremiah speaking to us once again, because Jeremiah knew what it was like to be restless and yet to stay put. I think he also has something to tell us about what it means to be one of the people of God living in a foreign land, and we could say that America, much as we love it and much as it is our home, is in some ways like a foreign land for Christians. He might help us understand what it means to be the people of God in the land of America.

Today’s passage from Jeremiah comes much later in the story. About 597 BC, (which is a good, long time ago), what Jeremiah the prophet had been warning about happens. Jerusalem is overrun by the Babylonians. The city is plundered. The king and rulers and all of the skilled people in the nation are carted off to Babylon as exiles. The people who are left are defenseless and weak. The economy is in ruins. Unemployment has skyrocketed. CNN has begun special news reports titled “Jerusalem Under Attack.” The stock market has crashed and pork belly futures are looking mighty dim. But I guess in a Jewish land pork belly futures are always looking mighty dim, aren’t they? It’s not a pretty scene.

But even in the midst of all of this tragedy, some of the people, including the religious leaders, are starting to crow about the fact that they hadn’t been carried off to Babylon, so that must mean that they weren’t as bad as the ones who had been. Maybe God had some sort of special protection for them!

Other folks were talking about getting up an army to go and take on the Babylonians and bring their people back, which is a little like Luxembourg deciding to declare war on the United States. It’s not very realistic. So Jeremiah must be shaking his head and thinking, “What have I got to do to get through to these people? Wake up and smell the falafel, Jerusalem! You have not been faithful to God and you are still not able to understand what is happening. There is no special protection. There is no divine favor for Jerusalem. The Babylonians have come.” And Jeremiah knows that they will come again and this time there will be nothing left of the great city.

Then Jeremiah does an interesting thing. He writes a letter to the exiles, to the people who have been carried off to Babylon. And what do you think he tells them? Does he tell them to start forming a Resistance Underground movement to overthrow the Babylonians? Does he tell them to grin and bear the punishment they are receiving but to separate themselves from the Babylonians so that the Jews are always seen in opposition to the government? Does he send them a cake with a file in it and say, “Good luck!”? No, what Jeremiah tells them is to pray for the Babylonians.

Actually what he tells them is this: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. (This is because you are going to be in Babylon for quite awhile. This is not a short-term stint. In fact, the exiles stayed in Babylon for seventy years.) Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. (That language should be familiar. That’s just what God told Adam and Eve to do at the beginning of creation—be fruitful and multiply. It’s just what the Hebrew slaves did in Egypt – they were fruitful and multiplied. Even though they were no longer connected to the land that was also a part of that original promise, they were still to multiply.)

Here’s the most interesting part: Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. The God of Israel, who had chosen this people out of all the nations of the earth, who had guided them as they carved out a place for themselves in the land of Canaan, who had warned them about the influence of foreign gods and foreign leaders, who had set them apart—this God is now commanding the people to pray for their enemy, to pray for their persecutors, to pray for the very people who had taken away everything they had ever loved. And why? “Because in its welfare you will find your welfare.” They were still to be separate peoples. They were still to maintain their identity and to do the things that were appropriate to the people of God. But they were to recognize that they were now connected to the nation in which they found themselves. They were to pray for the good things about Babylon that could help them be faithful to God.

You know, there have always been groups within the Christian tradition that have felt that the most faithful way to follow Jesus is to separate themselves from the world. These groups develop their own societies that strive for a kind of purity. The Anabaptists of the Reformation period rejected all civil authority and refused to participate in public service of any kind. Part of that was a refusal to take up arms on behalf of the state. Menonnites and the Amish are direct descendents of this branch of the Reformation.

There is something very attractive about this. With all the biblical warnings about being tempted by the world and of the dangers of loving the world too much, it is easy to see why Christians have tried to keep their distance. Knowing how easily we can be seduced and deluded…knowing how many times Christians have compromised their allegiance to Christ by falling under the spell of the latest political theory or an intricate philosophical construct or materialism or something else…knowing all this, it seems right, doesn’t it?, that we should be separate from the world.

Our ultimate allegiance does not belong to America but to Jesus Christ. It is our worship of the God of Jesus Christ that tells us who we are and how we are to live. But it is because of this…because we love God and because we follow Jesus that we do care about this land. It’s because of our journey to the land that is yet to come that we care enough to stay put. As Jeremiah reminds us—we are to pray for this land of America and that is what we do each week. We pray for its leaders and its military, because they are our leaders and our military. We pray for the welfare of this land and we pray that our witness to the love of Christ may build it up and not tear it down. We pray for America, not only because we’re Americans, not even primarily because we’re Americans. We pray for America because we are the people of God, and as wanderers in this weary land, we are always seeking the good and pointing the way to the source of that good. We are always pointing the way to God.

I got to spend some time this week with Pete over at Terry Brothers in Willis Wharf. Pete and Tom have donated a lot of seed clams for the beds that the youth are planting as their new fund-raising project. But what you discover if you talk to Pete for any length of time is that he really cares about what he does and about this place. He talks very passionately about water quality and aquaculture and economic development and oysters. I learned more about oysters in an hour with him than I have in my whole life. Did you know that they can change genders in their life cycle? Fascinating.

But Pete also cares about passing along the knowledge and heritage of the Shore. He talked about how important it is that young people learn the ways of the water and how to be stewards of it. It’s obvious he loves this place, but not for its own sake. He also wants to pass it along.

That is what it means to be restless and to stay put. To know that we are all transient, even if we live our whole lives between Kiptopeke and Kegotank, and yet to love this world for God’s sake. To be responsible for its care, to be fruitful and to multiply, and to spread the knowledge of God’s holiness throughout. We may be passing through but God has given us work to do as we pass through. It may all come to an end tomorrow. The kingdom may come. Christ may return. But what shall we offer him as people who have been entrusted with the care of others and of the land?

Sometimes the most radical thing we can do as Christians is not to go around the world, but to simply stay put, giving our lives to the place where we are because God is here. We say that. But do we believe that in this place we will find the one who is closer to us than we are to ourselves? And will we help this world around us, that we so wrongly call God-forsaken…will we help the world understand that the word became flesh and dwelt among us? And the promise is that he is still with us to the end of the age. Thanks be to God.

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 (NRSV)
These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon…Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

[i] Fr Dwight Longenecker, “The Benedictine Way -1”, Standing on My Head, June 2007, http://gkupsidedown.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html