Proper 26B. 3 November 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Isaiah 25:6-9.  The disgrace of [God’s] people [God] will take away from all the earth.
Revelation 21:1-6a. See I am making all things new.
Mark 12:28-34. You are not far from the realm of God.

O God of our salvation, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

This morning we are observing the great Feast of All Saints’ Day. But I have to tell you that rather than reading the assigned reading from the Gospel of John for All Saints, about the raising of Lazarus, I have substituted the Gospel lesson appointed for this Sunday, which is the lesson Bob just read from the Gospel of Mark. I did this because we are not just remembering and celebrating all the saints of the Church, that great cloud of witnesses, known or unknown, and honoring the souls of those dear to us who have died since last All Saints Day. We are also on the eve of Election Day eve (erev erev Election Day) and it feels to me like we are on the precipice of what feels to me might be like an abyss. but we can’t see what’s immediately ahead of us. This past Thursday morning, our next-door neighbor created a great cloud of unknowing that enveloped the fronts of the houses of his immediate neighbors while he tested out his new dry ice fog-making machine for Halloween. The front of our house was completely in a thick blanket of fog while the back of our house was all clear. I thought, “huh! That’s a metaphor!” We couldn’t see ahead, we could only what was behind us!

You might know that polls suggest that more than half of voters have already voted or expect to vote before election day. Slightly less than half of voters are very worried about post-election violence and about misconduct among election officials. Those worries seem to be evenly spread among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. [1] So if you are very worried, you have a lot of company. That’s some good news. And slightly more than half are not very worried. That might be good news, or they might just not be paying attention! In any case, the way forward is in progress but we just can’t see it yet.

We hear from two prophets this morning, from Isaiah in the late 8th century BCE, and from John the Divine near the end of the 1st century CE with very similar visions, set in texts like mighty oratorios, singing about visions of peace for all peoples, for all nations. Walter Brueggemann writes that for Isaiah, a welcome feast of rich food and fine wine is already coming into being in a place where healing and emancipation happen. Death, in this passage, means not just the end of life, but stands for whatever limits or diminishes well-being and prevents communion with our neighbors or with God, who is also known as Love. In Isaiah’s radical vision of complete transformation, Bruggeman says, “Biblical faith…is not a mode of holding on or staying in control. It is rather an act of yielding in the present…to the assurances given for [Love’s future where the] disgrace of being helpless, powerless, and exploited; the shame of being stepped on…all will be overcome.” [2] 

What is clear for Isaiah and John the Divine, as well as for us right now, is that we have to wait. On that day, when the Holy One will remove and destroy the shroud of shame and the pall of mourning, and swallow up the pall that covers all the nations, it will be said, “this is the Holy One for whom we have waited.” That word “wait” can also be translated “trust” and get this: the root of the word has to do with twisting in tension. This is not about idly passing the time, trying to distract ourselves. It’s not passive; it’s active. This waiting is actively stretching. What kind of stretching? The kind that happens when we are loving our neighbors, with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our understanding, and with all of our very muchness. (That’s how my Hebrew teacher liked to translate strength or might.)

Here’s something to notice about our Gospel lesson in Mark. Jesus is in the temple precinct a few days before his arrest and in the middle of considerable conflict and disagreement. Some people are mad enough or afraid enough to wish he were dead, and he will be dead before the week is over. In the midst of this, a Biblical scholar, a scribe, heard the priests arguing with Jesus about the lawfulness of paying taxes to the emperor, and about marriage in the resurrection. You probably know that, according to Mark, Jesus got asked a lot of questions and if he answered at all, he usually responded with another question or a mystifying parable. Rarely did he give a clear and direct answer. His disciples rarely understood what he was talking about. But in the middle of a big crowd, a scribe asked Jesus, “which is the first commandment of all?” And Jesus answered the question directly, maybe for the only time in Mark: “The first is, ‘Hear, O god-wrestler [that’s what Israel means] the Holy Name is our God, the Holy Name is one.” “Shema y’srael, Adonai elohenu, Adonai echad.” Hear. Listen deeply. Understand. That is the first and greatest command. That is the starting point for all other commands. “Hear” is an imperative. What comes next is a verb that is indicative of the future. When you hear, when you listen deeply, you will love. It’s what will happen when you listen very carefully. You’re going to be loving the Divine and you’re going to be loving your neighbor with all your heart, with all your person, with all your understanding, and with all your very-muchness. The command is to listen and the loving will follow. It’s not theoretical. It requires muscles that are loosened by stretching.

Another noteworthy thing in this lesson from the Gospel of Mark is that the scribe and Jesus are demonstrating mutual regard. The scribe calls Jesus’ response to his question right. And in response to the scribe’s affirmation, Jesus calls the scribe “wise” and adds that he is very near to the realm of God. It is a reprise of what Jesus started saying in the beginning of this Gospel: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Turn around, change your ways and lean into the good news.” The kind of listening that leads to loving is much more important than all offerings and sacrifices made to and for the Holy One. I also want to make sure you hear what Jesus did not say. In the midst of the crowd in the temple precinct, Jesus did not say, “above all, keep safe; stay pure; keep clean; be holy; say your prayers.” He did not say, “first and foremost, figure out who is and who is not worthy of your consideration and care.” First and foremost, hear that the Holy is our God and the Holy is One. I wonder who told this story after Jesus’ death. Was it the disciples? Was it the scribe? Was it other witnesses? In the months and years after folks experienced Jesus’ resurrection, who remembered the command to listen? To hear?

Perhaps it was easy to remember because the Shema is prayed in every Jewish liturgy and in daily prayer. Perhaps it is the first commandment and most frequent prayer precisely because it is so difficult to do. In order to listen, in order to hear the Oneness of the Holy, we have to be still to remember that God is God and we are not God. We have to pause from talking to God or to ourselves or talking to others and get really quiet. I’m aware of the irony of speaking about the value of silence. I also know from experience that some have a greater capacity for silence than others. If it’s hard for you, start with a minute and work your way up. In an era where trumpets of advertising and misinformation blare from every device, silence requires practice and discipline. It’s a stretch while we wait for whatever happens next. While we listen and wait for whatever happens next we will love as fiercely as we are able. And I believe that Loving will make us real. Loving will make us brave. And Loving will make a way where there is no way, because it always has. That’s what I can see clearly looking out my back door! 

As a post-script to this sermon, here’s something to keep in mind if you are a praying person, or a praying person by proxy! (That means that you are close to a praying person.) It’s a poem by a retired United Methodist minister named Steve Garnaas-Holmes, who writes daily reflections. Martha Tucker sent this poem to me last week and I wanted you all to hear it. It’s called, “Please, God…”

We plead for God to intervene,
even “just this once…”
But I don’t think that’s how God works;
the Holocaust would have been a good time to do so.
No, God doesn’t stop the tyrant,
or nudge the car on the icy road.
God’s not a Big Guy with a magic finger
he [sic] deploys now and then (but not always).
God is the Love at the heart of all being,
as constant as gravity, infinitely attentive,
and can’t be more present or active than right now.
When we ask for God’s help,
what we mean is to align ourselves
with the great power of God’s grace already at work.
Like musicians in perfect tune,
we create harmonies, notes that sound
though none of us is producing them.
Our harmony with God creates an energy field
that does indeed change things.
In troubled times it takes great concentration
to align ourselves with grace instead of force,
with love instead of fear.
We begin by allowing ourselves to be loved,
along with the rest of creation,
and then we fall into that love,
and let that love flow through us into the world.
I think that’s what we mean when we pray,
“Please, God…”

1.  Zachary Karabell writing on Thursday, October 31, 2024 for edgyoptimist@substack.com
2. Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 1-39, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), pp. 199-20.

Proper 28B. 17 November 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

1 Samuel 1:4-20.  I am a woman deeply troubled.
Hebrews 10:11-25. Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.
Mark 13:1-8. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.

O God of enduring and eternal Love, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

We are nearing the end of our liturgical year. This is the last we’ll hear from the Gospel of Mark for another three years. It’s highly ironic to me to pray the beautiful words of the opening collect about scripture – to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest – on a day when our appointed Gospel lesson is the beginning of the apocalypse in Mark. Episcopalians generally don’t like dwelling on the fact that we have apocalyptic scripture. We don’t know what to make of it and we’d rather not have to try. 

But this week, and this year, the Gospel lesson seems teed up to address our current dystopian circumstances. In today’s Gospel reading we hear a part of a speech – a kind of farewell speech – that Mark reports Jesus delivering in the last few days of his life. Like Jacob and Moses and King David before him, Mark’s Jesus gave his hearers instructions for how to live – how to go on, facing whatever comes their way, after he’s gone. And he’s instructing his followers about how to respond in the midst of catastrophic endings. Although his prediction that not one stone would be left upon another at the great temple in Jerusalem was something of an exaggeration, life as they knew it surely came to an end when Jesus died. And life as they knew it surely came to an end when the Romans sacked Jerusalem in response to the Jewish uprising in what we call 70 CE. 

 Perhaps wondering how best to prepare, Peter, James, John and Andrew interrogated Jesus privately about when the end would come and what the signs of the end would be. I hear them longing for certainty. As is so often the case, Jesus’ response does not answer their questions. He seems to be saying again, without so many words, that they’re asking the wrong questions. Jesus seems to be much more about questioning the answers than he is about answering the questions of his followers in the Gospel of Mark! Instead, he says, “see that no one leads you astray by using my name.” Astray from what? Well my guess is astray from the feeding and freeing work that they are called to be doing: casting out polluted spirits and restoring health, widely proclaiming and enacting the love of God, and building up the beloved community. Don’t be led astray from provoking one another to love and good deeds as the author of Hebrews writes. Don’t be led astray from loving your neighbors. Don’t let wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes in various places or famines disturb or startle you and keep you from loving one another and loving God. 

The fascinating thing to me about this speech is that Jesus uses the metaphor of childbirth here. That’s a metaphor that really resonates with me! Jesus talks of the labor of birthing. I have to say I take great issue with the translation of a word “odeen” in Greek that means intense and unavoidable suffering, severe distress, and even death into the word “pang” that sounds like a twinge or stitch or a sting. Jesus is saying the pain is going to be bone-splitting agony. Jesus was not really addressing why labor hurts, just that it does – that it’s one of the signs of change –of a new life struggling to be born – about to be delivered through a process of extreme suffering. And let’s be clear, back then and even now, birth is very risky for both the mother and the baby. Survival is uncertain. His stated purpose in his farewell speech is to reduce emotional anxiety. Jesus’ followers are not to be alarmed. The pain is normal. It most assuredly does not feel good – and that can lead to fear. But “do not be alarmed” is Jesus’ refrain. Pay attention, keep alert, use your eyes and ears – and don’t worry. You have what you need. You know what you need to know. He’s like a birth coach! Keep breathing, he says.

People will come along and try to convince you that you don’t really have to behave lovingly toward “those” people. Voices will try to persuade you that the message of love is thin and facile, the opposite of mighty, that good deeds are too small to make a difference, or that unethical behavior is now justified. Keep your hearts and minds in the love of God and of one another, even in the midst of catastrophes, violence and great suffering, Jesus’ followers are to continue to live in love knowing that love is always more powerful than death. Jesus’ followers are to remember that anytime scripture is cited to defend behavior that’s not motivated by the law of love, something is seriously wrong.

We know that Jesus is talking about love because of the part of Mark’s Gospel just before the farewell speech begins. The wise scribe says it and Jesus affirms it. I’ll tell it to you – but I know that you already know it: “Hear, O Israel (or translated differently, “Listen deeply you god-strugglers”): Listen, O my wrestling people: the [name which is too sacred to pronounce] is our God, the [Holy Name] alone; (and when you listen deeply) you are going to love the Holy Name your God with all your heart, and with all your life force, and with all your mind, and with all your very muchness. (When you do that) you are going to love your neighbor as your self.” That’s it. That’s all you need to know. Indeed, that’s all we need to know.

And with that knowledge, we have the ability to do something great today – every single one of us, whether you are worshiping with us on-line or you’re sitting in the pews. If you’ve already done something great this morning, fantastic, you probably still have time to do another great thing. If you are alert – if you use your eyes and your ears and you pay attention, the Holy One will provide an opportunity to put aside your worry or your fear of war or rumors of war, of earthquakes in various places, and of famine, to go with only the clothes on your back, yes, empty-handed, open-handed, and to share who you are, and what you have, and what you know about the love of God, using words only if necessary. You can let your life speak, as the Quaker saying goes.

In his parting words, Jesus is making it clear that whenever the stones come tumbling down, it’s not the end with a capital E; it’s an opportunity for transformation. So, in the words of the writer of Hebrews, “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together…but encouraging one another, all the more.” According to Jesus, God does not invite us into abundant life by urging us to play it safe. [1] Do not be alarmed – love one another. I’m not talking about feelings. I’m talking about enacting compassion and kindness, gentleness and patience, leaning into the disarming power of love that is mightier than death. I mean enacting this love with annoying members of your own family, with your friends, with acquaintances, with complete strangers, with other drivers or commuters (I see you, Boston), even with those who wish you harm.

Perhaps you saw the piece in the Boston Globe on Friday by novelist and essayist, Cara Hoffman, writing about how to respond to authoritarian rule. [2] She wrote, “When the state fails or turns against us, penalizing us, denying us resources, restriction our speech and freedom of movement, and attacking the weakest among us, all we have is each other: our bravery, our competence, our delight, our anger, our refusal to back down or see another harmed.” She was writing about a neighborhood of Athens where she lives, but I immediately thought of Emmanuel Church and our long history of subverting the dominant paradigms through radical hospitality and advocacy, through sanctuary, through extravagant engagement with the arts. I thought of the steady stream of generosity that flows in and out from this place.

Howard Thurman wrote about how to respond to turbulent times, wisely and bravely saying, “there is no need to fear evil. There is every need to understand what it does, how it operates in the world, what it draws upon to sustain itself…the real target of evil is to corrupt the spirit of [hu]man[s] and to give to [their] soul[s] the contagion of inner disintegration.” Thurman concludes: ”To drink in the beauty that is within reach, to clothe one’s life in simple deeds of kindness, to keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement of the Spirit of God in the quietness of the human heart and in the working of the human mind – this is as always the ultimate answer to the great deception.”[3]

Our primary concern is being and becoming more and more living testimony to the Gospel, which is to say, food for those who are hungry, water for those who are thirsty, healing for those who are ailing, release for those who are captive, welcome for those who are alien, and reparation for those who have been wronged. Christianity has been formed and reformed in times of intense distress, when what seems like weakness becomes the very thing that strengthens us to go where the Love is and to be the people and the place where Love is. What we do matters. I’m going to close with a prayer from Jan Richardson, called “Blessing When the World is Ending”.  [4]

Look, the world is always
ending somewhere.
Somewhere the sun
has come crashing down.
Somewhere it has gone
completely dark.
Somewhere it has ended
with the gun, the knife, the fist.
Somewhere it has ended
with the slammed door,
the shattered hope.
Somewhere it has ended
with the utter quiet
that follows the news
from the phone, the television,
the hospital room.
Somewhere it has ended
with a tenderness
that will break your heart.
But, listen, this blessing means
to be anything but morose.
It has not come to cause despair.
It is simply here because
there is nothing a blessing
is better suited for than an ending,
nothing that cries out more
for a blessing than when a world
is falling apart.
This blessing will not fix you,
will not mend you,
will not give you false comfort;
it will not talk to you
about one door opening
when another one closes.
It will simply sit itself beside you
among the shards
and gently turn your face
toward the direction
from which the light
will come, gathering itself
about you as the world begins again.

1.  Thanks to Bob Eldan at http://preachingtip.com
2. The Boston Globe, November 15, 2024.
3. Howard Thurman, “Life Goes On,” in Meditations of the Heart (Boston: Beacon Press, 1953), p. 109-10.
4. Jan Richardson, “Blessing When the World is Ending”, Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons. Orlando FL: Wanton Gospeller Press, 2015.