“Idle Idol
Worship: Trying God’s Patience, Changing God’s Mind”
Here are a couple of quick thanksgivings
from “60th Anniversary of the United Nations” event Kay, Julie
and I attended yesterday at St. Mark’s Sacramento. First is for the United
Methodist Women’s ownership of the Church Center for the UN. We heard from
the Assistant General Secretary for United Nations and International Affairs
with the General Board of Church and Society – a fulltime ministry of
presence and representation, advocacy and action, empowerment and
capacity-building – paid for by our apportionments! We learned the
first-ever UN General Assembly 60 years ago was held in the Methodist Center
in London! We recognized what they call “the Micah Paradigm” that we sing
as Benediction each Sunday. As they put it – “To know God is to do
justice. Ethics is the heart of politics. And humility is the truest
measure of pride.”
We were addressed by Wahu Kaara, Ecumenical
Program Coordinator for the Millennium Development Goals (which we will
celebrate on UN Sunday two weeks from today) at the All Africa Conference of
Churches. She’s a Kenyan mother and grandmother, educator and activist for
human rights and sustainable development – nominated for the 2005 Nobel
Peace Prize -- who just arrived for a month of speaking in the US for the
Jubilee USA Global Debt Relief Campaign.
She prophesies a time of “New Kairos,” of
opportunity born of crisis, for an Africa who “refuses to die!” She sees
herself as “standing up to be counted” – perhaps as Jesus expects of the
wedding guest in this story, and of us! – as one who is not “too busy” to be
there when needed but lives to “manifest the glory of God!”
Advised to go into exile as a threat to her
own repressive government, Wahu refused – “I did not want my kids to grow up
without an identity!” Isn’t that what Jesus is speaking of here – our
identity, our solidarity, with him and with one another – in fact, with all
others, especially those most in need? Isn’t it idolatry to think our true
identity, our very beings and reasons for being, can come from any source
other than God -- Who makes us? Who finds us? Who keeps us? Wahu says
over and over, “I don’t know how I found myself here!” She is a mystery and
miracle to herself – as each one of us is, and is called to be!! You, you,
you, even me – each of us a mystery, each of us a miracle, of God’s gracious
invitation to life led by love! Life led by love. All Wahu knows is, no
state and no powers-that-be can tell her who, or whose, she is! She is in
the world but belonging to God, here to “widen the circle of life to all as
one and the same!”
Wahu as a woman is not about to be cheated
by life. She is not about to let Africa be cheated by life! We have known
women, especially, like that – from Mim Davis to Alyce Stuart – even to Vee
Davis as she lies dying now. They witness, like Auntie Mame – “Life is a
banquet! A wedding feast! And most poor fools are starving to death.” So
many of us do not find the time to come to the banquet – which seems to find
some way to invite us each day. Remember Miriam Therese Winter’s song based
on this text? “I cannot come – I cannot come to the banquet / don’t trouble
me now. I have married a wife / I have bought me a cow. / I have fields and
commitments / that cost a pretty sum. / Pray hold me excused, / I cannot
come!” The God of Life, of Love, of Relationship and Solidarity – Father,
Son and Holy Spirit! – invites us to join God in making all things new --
every day, every minute of every day – starting here, starting now.
How do we live with such freedom and
fullness, such eagerness and expectancy, such wakefulness and watchfulness,
such true preparedness – that has nothing to do with so-called “homeland
security!” – preparedness for life and love, for relationship and
solidarity? “God could show up any minute,” Paul exclaims here! How are we
to be “dressed” and ready – in more ways than one?! As “reconciled” as we
can be? With as little “unfinished business” as possible?
We never know exactly when Moses is coming
back down the mountain. We are so conditioned to instant gratification! Or
the bridegroom is to show up for the bride. Out of sight -- out of mind –
or even of heart! Kathleen Norris warns, “It is much safer to love an idol
than a real person who is capable of surprising you, loving you and
demanding love in return, and maybe one day leaving you!” So much of the
time our God is an “absent” kind of “presence” – always here, always now --
yet going before us, calling us on! And coming behind us, cleaning us up!
For God knows how whackily “human” we are – even as God offers us our share
in being “divine!” God knows how the “eternal” in us comes in such
“earthen” vessels and ways. Can’t you just see this cartoon on the back of
the bulletin? Moses pleading with the people to pass the commandments back
to the front when they’re done reading them?! We who are so busy have a
“passing” interest at best in what God is trying to say to us, to offer us,
at any given moment.
How might we stop denying, resisting,
fighting against our own “humanness?” Our own lost interest and lapsed
attention to God? How might we learn to accept and embrace how imperfect,
imponderable and impossible each and every last one of us is? How full of
mystery, how full of miracle – some days just to survive! How might we
learn to live with and love every last part of ourselves – full of contrary,
confusing, contradictory, often conflicting parts? How might we learn, as
Paul puts it, to “REVEL in God,” to revel in ourselves as the IMAGE of
God?! In his last words to us Jesus says, “Believe in God, believe also in
me.” Which means, in part, believe in yourselves, believe also in others!
Learn to discern, says Paul, what is “true, noble, reputable, authentic,
compelling, gracious” – and discern it so often in us, so often in others
who make up our day-by-day lives!
Paul asks us always to look for “the best,
not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to
curse” in one another. How might we let every person we meet, whether in
work or in worship, know we are with them! And for them! And made for
relationship and solidarity with and for one another! There are so many
“idle idols” to worship – so many temptations, addictions, sedations to
ignore and avoid and escape one another! The stuff of so many “golden
calves” is all around us! Huge industries exist just to think up and design
and make and assemble and transport and market and advertise and sell stuff
to us all the time. At the same time they reassure us that it is “the
American way,” the burden of our own initiative and success, to enjoy so
much more than the rest of the world enjoys. Then they persuade us that our
government exists -- not to help us seek justice for all -- but to secure
and protect those who “have” from those who “have not.” And we buy it all
from them, cheap as we can! Why do we think we need all that stuff! Can it
save us? Can it help us serve others? If stuff cannot save, and stuff
cannot serve, we don’t need it – Let go! Let go . . .
Sisters and brothers, we know in our hearts,
in our minds, in our very souls, and in the examples of all the saints of
our lives and our life together, as we look to them for guidance and for
support – We know that true life and true love, true relationship and
solidarity, lie far beyond all the “stuff” of our lives! Beyond all the
lightweight distractions, and even destructions, so often calling themselves
“entertainment” and “recreation.” Those are huge industries, too, for those
who can afford them and have the time for them – and Reno/Sparks are built
and are building around them! I am not putting them down. I am just saying
we cannot rest easy unless and until we know that all persons, all peoples
everywhere, share this one human consciousness and condition with us. They
are all just as entitled as we are, as all the children of God are, to share
as well in all the resources of goodness and grace -- in this life and in
this world. Otherwise, as the parable clarifies cryptically, there is going
to be “hell” to pay!
The questions for this morning are, how
might we stop trying God’s patience? And how might we start changing God’s
mind? So that God will not be so tempted to give up on us and abandon us?
Or worse, to “repay” us – our children, our grandchildren -- in kind for the
destruction we all together have done to ourselves, to each other, and to
our one earth? How do we stop being so “stiff-necked?” So unwilling and so
unyielding to take on the yoke of the gift of God’s life and God’s love,
God’s relationship with each one of us, and God’s solidarity with us all?
Like Moses, how might we appeal to God’s memory and God’s self-interest?
How might we remember the promises made in response to God by all those who
go before us? Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, yes; but also, Wahu Kaara
reminded us yesterday, we might just remember those, with all their human
failings as well, who tried to found this nation on “life, liberation, and
the pursuit of goodness and wholeness in community?” Or words to those
effects!
God is susceptible to being flattered to
think that our promises matter – that we really believe what we say about
who, and whose, we are – that we really do trust in God to provide
invitation to banquet each day – that we really are willing to risk for the
sake of others who are yet to know that they are invited as well! That no
one is so “unworthy” as to lie beyond God’s redeeming reach and God’s
transforming touch! EVERYONE – “the good, the bad, and the ugly” – thank
God! – is invited in! How are we to live as those who are always
“invited?” No matter what our just earnings or just deserts? To live as
those who are always ready to be interrupted – in the sense that Henri
Nouwen once said, as a teacher he would start to resent interruption of his
“work” by students – until he remembered that his “work” was precisely to be
interrupted! To live as those whose lives are always available, accessible,
always “on call” to our God?
How might our church help us with that? Not
to add to our senses of guilt and of obligation – so much as to save us and
set us free? Heal us and make us whole? That we may respond, again and
again, to God’s open invitation to us?
Brothers and sisters, the scandals of God’s
mercy and grace, God’s justice and joy for us all, are precisely that we are
forever invited -- forever embraceable, kissable, acceptable, forgiveable,
renegotiable and renewable – just as we are! Just as we “show up” on the
highways and byways of life! The banquet is here, the banquet is now,. The
banquet is with us and for us, in us and through us, between us and among us
– all! In closing, a moment of tribute to a huge and prophetic voice in
American culture who died last Sunday.
Playwright August Wilson, aged 60, leaves
the legacy of a cycle of ten plays written over the past 20 years – each of
them addressed to a decade in the endurance of African-Americans through the
past century. The titles alone, arranged chronologically, hint to us of the
Shakespearean scope and shape – “Gem of the Ocean.” “Joe Turner’s Come and
Gone.” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” “The Piano Lesson.” “Seven Guitars.”
“Fences.” Two Trains Running.” “Jitney,” “King Hedley II.” “Radio Golf.”
Yet Wilson says of his legacy – “I once
wrote a short story called ‘The Best Blues Singer in the World’ and it went
like this: ‘The streets that Balboa walked were his own private ocean, and
Balboa was drowning.’ End of story. That says it all. Nothing else to
say. I’ve been rewriting that same story over and over again. All my plays
are rewriting that same story. I’m not sure what it means, other than life
is hard.” Yes. Yes, August! Life is hard. Love is hard! And life is a
banquet anyway. Love is a feast! Just look at what can be done with life,
with love – even in spite of ourselves – even in spite of themselves!
Just look at what August Wilson has done!
Look at what Wahu Kaara has done! Look at what so many we have lived with
and love have done! Look at what we – even we – each one of us! – has
done. Life can be turned. Love can be told. Our lives – even ours! – are
just full of meaning and mattering, mystery and miracles! We live. We
love. We reach. We redeem. We touch. We transform. We look at our
bulletin cover and we believe once more – I got a robe, you got a robe, all
God’s children got robes! And we ain’t waiting till we get to heaven to
shout -- to join in the shouting all over God’s earth!
Amen.
Rev. John J. Auer
