July 24, 2022 - Rev. Ralph Moore

Rev. Ralph Moore

Hosea lives in Samaria in the northern kingdom after it has split off from the southern kingdom centered in Jerusalem—about mid-8th-century BCE—and in the poetry of his thirty or so years we feel the pain of a personal faith stretched to the limit. The kingdom is shattering by assassinations of kings and other royalty, corruption among the wealthy, and the disappearance of any loyalty to the ancient covenant between the people and God. Hosea's spiritual strength is such that he can interpret the infidelity of his wife as a metaphor for the disintegration of his society--national infidelity. But he doesn't give up; even in the end of today's reading he writes predicts that some day the people can again be called “Children of the living God.” His fears come true: shortly after his death the kingdom is devoured by the forces of Assyria. 

Jump ahead 700 years to Jesus and his people. The tyrants and rulers are different, but the living conditions are the same. Picture the circle around Jesus: male, female, young, old, mostly poor, mostly Jews, immigrants, slaves. What attracts them to Jesus? Their life situations are best described as desperate. They are trying to survive in a society ruled by a puppet king and his religious cronies whose power and authority depend on a vicious Roman occupation force. Daily arrests, disappearances, forced labor, prison, executions, poverty and illness. They've given up on religion. 

Jesus is a new experience of hope for them. “The law and the prophets,” he has said: “they still offer us hope.” The Torah, the teachings the covenant between God and the people, and the prophets who speak truth to the power-mongers that defame the Torah. In these is our capacity for not just survival but for new strength and growth toward justice. Well how should we pray, then? Jesus repeats age-old daily prayer phrases.. “Awe and praise to you, Eternal. Our hearts are humbled. We yearn for your presence among us as we struggle for the essentials of life. We seek release from our wrong doing as we release all who have wronged us. May we not be tested beyond our endurance.”  He stops talking. Silence. They stare at him. “That's it, that's all!” 

I recall a televised interview that Bill Moyers has in 1991 with the Dalai Lama, who  states his view on the essential path to world peace. “The essence of any good religion,” says the Dalai Lama, “is the good heart….There are many philosophies and systems of thought but they mostly can be obstacles for good heart.” He stops talking. Silence. Bill Moyers then says, “Is that all?” The Dalai Lama answers, “Well, what's wrong with that?” “Nothing,” says Bill Moyers, “but when I look around the world…..”

Just before he dies, Jesus sums it all up for those closest to him, as they share the last supper. “Love one another. Exactly as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” The power that frees us to forgive and to be forgiven...the courage to breathe deeply in quietness and humility and kindness...the joy and awe over the goodness and beauty of the gift of life given to us...And: “Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.” A theologian from South Africa once made a statement in a sermon that stays with me constantly. She said, “Jesus' resurrection began well before his death.” This path we are on, before our deaths, is potentially a opening of the risen life in us. There's an outside world of conflict, strife, oppression. The people rise above and beyond that, transformed into what Martin Luther King calls “the beloved community,” or, in Jesus' words, “the kingdom of God has come near.” Luke himself, in the Book of Acts uses the primary word to describe how the disciples live during the years after the crucifixion of Jesus--”koinonia,” the commons, sharing all with each other and caring for others in need.” “Church.” And then change in the world emerges as a result. 

But of course this doesn't happen without effort, without persistence. “If you, who are imperfect, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Holy Spirit be given to those who are open to receive it!” Do you believe that? Do you trust that that is true, that it can happen to you? It means paying attention, spending time, making an effort, going deeply into yourself. It means trusting that there can be new hope, “hope with teeth.” (D Lama: sleep in a room with a mosquito.) The Lord's Prayer: “Eternal, reveal yourself, please. Set the world aright. Keep us alive with the essentials. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe enduring what we face.” Spirit, dwell in me. (Spirit means breath—the name of God.) Jesuit philosopher Teilhard De Chardin:“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience." Jesus is not shouting when he says: “Keep knocking on the door until it opens, and it will.” 

That's where all this is going for us as we agonize over this world we live in. persistent care within each of us as relationship in community. In our nation right now  is a distortion a distortion of Christianity itself has become politicized. I've come across the work of a man named David Skeel, a professor of law in the University of Pennsylvania and an active member of a Presbyterian congregation in Philadelphia. He appears in the Wall Street Journal. “When Christians seek to usher in the kingdom of God through law,” he writes, “they are denying Christianity's teachings, not promoting them.” And: “Complexity is not an embarrassment for Christianity; it is Christianity's natural element.” The laws that are the most successful are those “that actually help to create relationships in our communities.” Christians seek “the flourishing” of others. 

We are being reminded about the daily need to live into the possibility that the Spirit can come into every human heart (the “good heart”) We do not choose the alternatives to win in politics by any means necessary as promoted by “religious nationalism.” In the nourishing to relationships. In the cost and joy of discipleship. And let's stress that gift of joy. Keep knocking—Rumi says, “sooner or later you become the door itself.”

I give the last word to poet Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate.

Give in to it.

There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be.

We are not wise, and not very often kind.

And much can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left.

Perhaps this is its way fo fighting back,

that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world.

It could be anything,

but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins.

Anyway, that's often the case.

Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty.

Joy is not made to be a crumb.