"Watermarked: Witness of Watered Assurance"
Just a late-breaking thought that occurs to me here about a couple of
words from this passage in Revelation. The good words
"abomination" and "falsehood" have been ripped off
and squandered by so reducing and limiting their use for personal, even
sexual, transactions. When we follow the news of war and abuse in the
world today, and consider the masses of resources governments and
corporations give over to witness and service of death, not life, then
we are led to new and vital appreciation for the meanings of
"abomination" and "falsehood."
This passage also talks of the absence of "lamps" in the
city. I just got back from visiting with my mom. Almost always, we
remember together the imaginary childhood friend I used to call "Dickie
Lamp." I have no idea how "Dickie" got his name or
whatever happened to him. I had not heard from him for many years. Then
one night on the church retreat . . . . Well, you had to be there, or
ask someone who was! Now the real preaching may start.
I’ve not read the book or even seen the movie, but I love the image
of the title "A River Runs through It." John the Revelator
says "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life,
bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb,
through the middle of the street of the city." Right downtown, --
where all the people gather this very weekend for Reno’s first River
Festival! To celebrate kayaking on the Truckee! A river runs through it!
It runs through us.
Flannery O’Connor calls it, "the River of Life, made out of
Jesus’ blood! That’s the river you have to lay your pain in, in the
River of Faith, in the River of Life, in the River of Love . . . . All
the rivers come from that one River," she says, "and go back
to it like it was the ocean sea and if you believe, you can lay your
pain in that River and get rid of it . . . . It’s a River full of pain
itself, pain itself, moving toward the Kingdom of Christ, to be washed
away, . . ." This church stands like a tree of life planted by the
waters! "And the leaves of the tree," adds John, "are for
the healing of the nations." Nothing less! Than for the healing of
the nations.
Julie and I bring word of the waters of Pittsburgh. Three rivers run
through it! The Ohio, the Allegheny, and the, what? Mongahela!
Pittsburgh is stapled together with bridges! Our General Conference (www.umc.org) met there April 27 through
May 7 around the words of our first hymn today, "Water Washed and
Spirit Born." Our friends in the Reconciling Ministries Network (www.RMNetwork.org) took as their
theme of offering for the conference "Watermarked: Witness of
Assurance."
They tried the whole time, and we joined them the last few days,
"to wrap the conference in the language of baptism." Baptism
affirming "radical equality and radical grace naming us Beloved
Children of God." Baptism initiating us into the church and
commissioning us into ministry. For these brothers and sisters say they
"continue to trust in the faithfulness of God to the action God
takes in our baptism" and "continue to challenge the church
for breaking the promises of baptism," for denying, betraying,
abandoning at crucial points in their lives and callings Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, and Transgender members of our church.
Each day delegates returning from lunch along a line of witnesses
wearing rainbow stoles and praying for them, -- standing, kneeling,
sitting, eyes open and eyes closed, often singing "What Does the
Lord Require of Us?" – offering them bottles of fresh water
marked "Refresh your soul!" and "H2O – Hearts to
Open!" White-robed volunteers held water bowls reminding delegates
of their baptisms as they entered each morning. Many delegates chose to
dip their hands in the waters and give themselves a fresh Watermark of
God’s love and grace.
At one noontime worship Bishop Sprague baptized two persons, one his
grandchild, as the congregation rang out the chorus, "Rain down,
rain down, rain down your love on your people. Rain down, rain down,
rain down your love God of life." The day before conference ended,
in collaboration with our bishops and led by the interfaith organization
Soulforce (www.soulforce.org)
that trains us in nonviolent resistance of Gandhi and King against the
spiritual violence of the church, hundreds of Reconciling volunteers
created a "River of Life" processional onto the floor,
praying, prophesying, singing, bearing signs, and handing to delegates
small "Baptized in Christ" coins that read, "Washed with
the water of baptism, Led by the Spirit each day, This shell in my
pocket reminds me that Jesus will show me the way." Twice as many
bishops stood in solidarity as had stood four years ago. Many delegates
stood, some alone in their delegations, and even joined us in the
"River of Life."
Julie and I brought back the full compendium of conference business
and a CD of our Bishop Beverly Shamana’s powerful sermon (www.cnumc.org) calling upon us to hear
God speak in those we consider to be least like ourselves, and to keep
open in both our church and nation the faithful capacity to grieve and
to mourn our failures and losses. We are happy to meet together with you
at your suggestion and share more reflections on ways to keep the
"Watermarked" witness alive in our congregation and in our
general church. We encourage us to attend our Annual (Fresno, June
16-19) and Jurisdictional (San Jose, July 13-17) Conferences and to
learning more about Reconciling Ministries and Soulforce.
The point we seek to make this morning, in light of our Eastertide
theme "Rivers of Rain," the River Festival, and our campaign
for stewardship called "The Giving Tree," is simply the
costliness of our baptisms, personally and all together, -- the vision
for "downtown" and "progressive" ministries lifted
here in Revelation, and the courage to love Jesus, to keep his word, his
commandment to love, to which the gospel calls us here. Jesus knows how
hard it will be, and remains, for us to live in the tension between his
absence and his presence, his going away and his coming again, -- a
tension, sometimes creative, often destructive, we believe we experience
all the time, not the least of which in relation to our church and other
such slow-grasping, slow-changing institutions of our lives and our
works. Sometimes don’t we just want to jump up and down, right here in
worship, screaming at Jesus, "Come back! We can’t take this any
more!"? Anyone?
Jesus knows we need to learn to love not only persons and peoples, --
though that is where we always start, -- but also to love institutions,
governments, even whole nations, whole communities of nations, as John
here foresees. We need to reconcile with all persons, all peoples,
through ceasing our various wars and attacks upon them and seeking the
truth with them, yes! Bishop Shamana wonders how we think we can judge,
label, persecute and exclude folks, then tell them we love them anyway!
But more than that, in today’s world, for the sakes of all of our
children, our grandchildren, and of the one earth and creation all of us
share, we need to reconcile also with the very powers and
principalities, as the Bible calls them, the systems and the structures,
the governments of both church and state, now tearing and keeping us
apart. I believe we are very close to one of those times President
Eisenhower foresaw, when the peoples of the world are going to want
peace so much, their governments will just have to get out their ways
and let them have it! But not without great commitment, great cost.
We need to help governments, all of them covered by John’s
"new city," reconcile themselves to God, through the lordship
of the crucified, risen, returned-again Christ, -- "the Advocate,
the Holy Spirit," the one who gives voice to the voiceless, who
might be called our "resistance counselor," -- so that God may
restore these powers, principalities, systems, and structures to the
good purpose and project for which God creates them at all! Sisters and
brothers, we got some serious "downtown" and
"progressive" ministry and mission to do, and it takes all of
us to do them! It takes all of our stories, all of our prayers, all of
our visions, all of our dreams, all of our personal gifts, all of our
communal resources.
In our Words for Meditation Lorian Hemingway says baptism in the
rivers that run through our lives leads us away from safe banks and
"out where the bottom starts to slip away!" We will feel
breath-taking panic at times, "like a reed in some underwater
wind," not at all sure what we are doing. The waters will seem as
deep and demanding "as outer space!" It often occurs to me
today, as we dare to explore our diversity and our complexity,
especially in terms of our sexuality and our spirituality, -- our ways
to make love, not war! – our "inner spaces" can be as new,
as expansive and therefore as unknown and scary to us as the "outer
spaces" revealed to us by the irreplaceable Hubble telescope! I do
not doubt for a moment, because I know them too well in myself, the fear
and the trouble felt for our church and our state by those of good will
who question how much more risk and change we can take. The very last
things any of us can afford to be now, from presidents on up or down,
are smug and self-righteous.
Rather, we must turn, and turn again, to the Jesus of well-wounded
hands and side, who rises to bless us with promising, "Peace I
leave to you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world
gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be
afraid." There is nothing to fear but that our hearts will turn
fearful, hard and cold. As I tried to discern the role we were playing
in Pittsburgh, which certainly was not to be "right" and to
"win," I could only hear the familiar words, "Keep hope
alive!" Keep hearts alive. Which includes the capacity to feel
anything at all. Much less to feel hurt and loss. To grieve and to
mourn. For ourselves, our church, our nation, our world.
As Lorian Hemingway thinks of a voice so loud and so clear as to
"open her eyes in dark water" – Don’t we all need and want
to do that? To open our eyes in dark water? To face our deepest,
abidingest fears? – she hears, "’Help me,’ it said, over and
over, first deep, then high, then meek as a child’s plea. ‘Help me.’"
One of the quotes Bob and Carol gave us on church retreat comes from
Annie Lamott: "Here are the best two prayers I know: ‘Help me,
help me, help me,’ and ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’"
Jesus seems to be saying, we’ve got to keep praying them together, and
together! Lorian Hemingway concludes on the cost of her baptism, taking
everything out of her: "’You baptized yet?’ Freda called from
the cottonwoods as I walked slowly from the river, falling to the red
clay bank, exhausted. I raised my arm and wave my hand once, a signal,
yes . . . "
Yes! YES! Yes to God! Yes to Jesus! Yes to the church! Yes to all
persons! Yes to all peoples! Yes to the earth! Yes to life itself! Yes
to the struggles for life and for love for all persons and all peoples.
Holly Near asks it, "Can we be like drops of water falling on the
stone / Splashing, breaking, dispersing in air / Weaker than the stone
by far but we aware / That as time goes by the rock will wear away / And
the water comes again." The water comes again! Amen.
Rev. John Auer
