Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD

November 28, 2021
Begin at the End
Luke 21: 25-36

One of the bleakest books I’ve read in a long time is Octavia Butler’s famed Parable of the Sower. Echoing Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, The Parable of the Sower depicts an apocalyptic California in the not-too-distant future. Poverty, addiction, and inflation push people to the brink. The only sure jobs come by selling yourself to a corporation. Fires burn wide paths of destruction across the state and nobody leaves home without a gun. It’s a troubling read. And I can’t help but think of the main character, Lauren, as I read this passage from Luke.

Lauren lives with her family in a walled-in neighborhood outside of LA. They live in relative safety, but the world outside the walls is falling apart. She can see that their way of life, their community, will not hold out forever, that eventually the forces outside will spill over the walls and tear them apart. So, she begins to prepare, getting ready to face whatever it is that’s coming. She stores food. She saves money. She practices her aim. And she stashes a bag of essentials to grab in case she has to run. When the walls that surround her neighborhood crumble and the chaos comes home, she is ready for it. She escapes and survives the brutal landscape. She survives because she was watching and noticed the signs; she survives because she was ready.

This passage from Luke is an apocalyptic prophesy, where Jesus predicts the destruction of Jerusalem and the terror and tumult that will come at that time. There are plenty of people who respond to apocalyptic prophesies like Lauren does in the Parable of the Sower. After all, Christ himself is calling us to be alert, to be ready – ready to stand and meet him when he returns. The Mormon church advises all of its members to store three months to a year’s supply of food and other necessities – just in case of adversity, their website says. I can remember in the first scary weeks of the pandemic, empty grocery store shelves, people hoarding toilet paper. Living through the supply chain disruptions of the past year and a half has certainly changed how my family shops – we do keep more dry goods on hand than we used to. But is that really what Jesus is saying here? What kind of readiness is he calling us to? How do we prepare? And what are we even preparing for?

This is the first Sunday of Advent, the first day of the church year. Advent is a season of preparation as we await the birth of the Christ child. But we don’t start by looking back to his beginnings.  We don’t read the early prophesies of one who will bring salvation to Israel, we don’t hear the angel Gabriel say to Mary, “Greetings favored one, the Lord is with you.” Instead, we begin at the end. Here, at the beginning of Advent, we hear predictions of fear and foreboding, signs in the sun, moon and stars, and distress among nations. Advent begins with an apocalypse.

Why apocalypse now, at the beginning of Advent? An apocalypse is a revelation, it shows us something that has been hidden, allowing us to understand the world and God’s work in it in a new way. The Advent season starts with a chance for us to lament and repent, and then to remember the promises of God, to reignite our hope for the future. Starting with an apocalypse gives us a chance to name the pain of our community, and to receive the promise of transformation: A new heaven and a new earth. God present and at work in the midst of the terror and tumult. God with us until the end of time.

These short, cold days of winter are when we prepare ourselves to welcome and embrace God’s presence in the world. There are signs of desolation all around – in headlines, on our streets, in our hearts. And I don’t need to tell you, there are plenty of reasons to feel hopeless. Migrants and refugees are freezing to death on the border between Belarus and Poland right now…they come from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, victims of war and who are now pawns in a game between Belarus and the EU – Belarus is using desperate men, women, and children to taunt the governments of Europe for imposing sanctions following a sham of an election last year.[1] Twenty-seven people drowned in the English Channel this week, trying to reach England in a flimsy inflatable raft, willing to try anything to get to the UKE after being pushed out of camps near Calais – through a policy of “enforced misery.”[2] Not to mention those many tens of thousands of people from Haiti and Central America trying to make their way northward to the US as we speak. People in search of safety.  Stability.  Enough food to eat, meaningful work, a roof overhead.  A chance to start a new life.  All while bullets continue to fly in Baltimore, and the Omicron variant threatens further travel bans and lockdowns as the world seeks to contain its transmission. These are difficult days.

Luke is writing in difficult days, too. He writes after the Roman armies have laid siege to Jerusalem, after the temple has been destroyed, after years of starvation and suffering. The things Luke’s Jesus describes have already come to pass. And so Jesus doesn’t make his predictions to scare his disciples into submission. Instead, he seeks to reassure his disciples that though it may seem unlikely, justice is coming. Their job is to be vigilant – faithful – even in the face of desolation.  Even when they feel hopeless.  Be on guard, be alert, he tells them.  Trust that God is hard at work, transforming this broken old world into something new. Stay true to the path and work of discipleship, Jesus says, and watch closely for what God is doing.  Look for the signs of new life springing forth. Even now, they’re all around us.

Winter brings short days and long nights. Green, growing things go dormant, to store up energy for the unfurling of spring. Anne Lamott writes, “as the days grow shorter,…we ask ourselves, “Where is the spring? Will it actually come again this year, to break through the quagmire, the terror, the cluelessness?…Meanwhile, in Advent, we show up when we are needed, with grit and kindness; we try to help, we prepare for an end to the despair.”[3] We prepare for an end to the despair. Beginning at the end helps us do this: it reminds us, we are not forgotten. Christ is coming. Lamott remembers a friend teaching her, “the promise of Advent is:…God has set up a tent among us and will help us work together on our stuff.”[4]

This is the good news: God has come to us. God will come again. By entering this world in the person of Jesus, by becoming embodied, God shows us that bodies matter, that we matter. In Christ, God reveals to us the power of love, solidarity, and service. And so in this time of year, we don’t just look back to the birth of Jesus. We look forward to the time when God’s plan for justice and peace is realized – as we do when we pray, ‘your Kingdom Come,’ in the Lord’s prayer each week.

As people of faith, we are analog people in a digital world. We read old books and light candles and sing songs. We have a long memory – remembering what God has done in the past, and gathering here in this place to remind each other when we start to forget, and shore up our faith and our hope for the future. We don’t prepare for the end by hoarding stockpiles of food, with stashes of cash. We prepare by doing the work of loving our neighbor here and now. We prepare by looking expectantly around us, to notice God’s presence in and among us even now. We welcome Christ coming to us again and again in the poor, the hungry, the sick, the suffering. Sparking compassion.  Building community. Igniting hope for what is possible. Helping us expect transformation. Thanks be to God.

 

[1] Ibrahim, Arwa, “What Next for the Migrants Stranded Between Belarus and Poland?” Al Jazeera, 11/24/21, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/24/as-belarus-eu-tussle-edges-toward-war-migrant-crisis-deepens

[2] Breeden, Aurelien, Constant Mehuit, and Norimitsu Onishi, “At Least 27 Dead After Migrant Boat Capsizes in English Channel,” The New York Times, 11/24/21, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/24/world/europe/migrants-boat-capsize-calais.html

[3] Lamott, Anne, “Advent 2003,” Salon, 12/5/03, https://www.salon.com/2003/12/05/advent/

[4] Lamott, Anne, “I am cuckoo, but hope is coming,” Salon, 12/12/12,  https://www.salon.com/2012/12/12/i_am_cuckoo_but_hope_is_coming/

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
November 14, 2021

Bargaining with God
1 Samuel 1:4-20

The church I served in Birmingham had a big, Gothic sanctuary, with stained glass windows, and old dark wooden pews. There was a center aisle, with maroon carpet that matched the velvet pew cushions. It was the first church to be built in the city, on land deeded as part of the city charter. Like most city churches, they were locked up tight as a drum every day except Sunday. We began to wonder what might happen if we opened the doors, making it possible for people to come spend time in the sanctuary for even just a few hours during the week.

And so we did.

The occasional curious passerby or businessman would stop in from time to time, but our most frequent visitor was actually a church member, a young woman about my age. She would come to write and pray at least one or two days a week, working out all kinds of questions with God. When she would ask me to, I would sit with her and pray with her, asking for God’s care and protection. This woman had mental illness, she vacillated between being okay and – not okay, between times of lucidity and delusion. She had a son who was in protective custody, and her prayers were filled with whispered pleas for him. For his safety. For his health. And most often, she would pray, Lord let me see him again. Help me find an apartment I can afford, so I can get my son back. Please, God.

I picture her when I read the story of Hannah. Her anguish. Her grief. Her fervent whispered prayers, begging God for her child.

This is a delicate story, a difficult one. I almost don’t know what to make of it – it raises so many questions for me: why does the text say that God closed her womb? And what happened to make God change their mind, to bless her with a baby? What are we to make of that? And what is up with the men in this story, why are they so clueless?

This story is difficult. It’s not easy to look back to a time when upstanding men had multiple wives to prove their wealth and power. A woman’s value lay in her ability to have babies, and not just any babies – boy babies. Hannah was childless, but she is, luckily, loved by her husband, and he provides for her even though she is barren. But – he’s also a little oblivious. He doesn’t understand the depths of her grief over her infertility. I’m guessing most women who have longed for a child can identify with Hannah: her pain. Her grief and disappointment.

Insulted by Elkanah’s other wife, Hannah is miserable, desperate. But still she does not give up. She persists in prayer, going to her peoples’ most holy sanctuary at Shiloh, home of the ark of the covenant, to ask God for a child. Yet even there, as she pours her heart out on the altar, the priest is rude to her, accusing her of drunkenness! But not even a bumbling priest will thwart Hannah. She defends herself, and Eli blesses her and sends her on her way. And she becomes pregnant.

The story of Hannah seems like a personal one: a barren woman longs for a child, and prays until she gets one. But commentators are clear – this is a political story, the origin story for a great hero of Israel – Hannah’s child, the one for whom she prayed, is Samuel, who God calls in the night and lifts to power; Samuel, chosen by God to be the priest who paves the way for monarchy in Israel; Samuel, the priest to anoint Kings Saul and David. Samuel’s miraculous birth is the beginning of the larger myth of three heroes of ancient Israel, one piece of the arc of our salvation history.

When we read Hannah’s story as a political story, it tells us that God is present in history. Opening wombs. Listening to the pleas of the people, hearing our prayers.  Raising up leaders. Making miracles happen. God is deeply invested and engaged in what happens here on earth.

If that’s the case, I wonder: what did Hannah do that got God’s attention? How was she different from the millions of other nameless, faceless couples who have longed for a child, but did not become pregnant? The countless other women who surely suffered, who cried out and were cast out, mistreated and maligned because of their inability to give birth? We can’t know. What is clear is that despite her situation, Hannah had faith. Hannah believed that if she cried out, if she prayed, if she bargained, if she humbled herself, God would listen, and what’s more, God would grant her request. Hannah was not resigned to the status quo, she was relentless. No matter what her husband said, she would not be satisfied with Elkanah. He tried to silence her, tried to get her to be satisfied with him alone. Nevertheless, she persisted, praying and pleading with God for more, asking God for what she wanted, what she knew she deserved, praying for what she knew in her bones was possible. And God delivered.

If we read the story of Hannah not as a personal story, but as a political story, I wonder what it might mean for us. For our prayer. For our activism. For our organizing and agitating here in Woodbourne McCabe. For our engagement here on Loch Raven, and here at Walter P, and here in the city of Baltimore. What do we see that is not as it should be? What do we dare ask God to do because we know it’s what we deserve, what we know in our bones is possible?

For the past two weeks, negotiators and delegates from countries around the world have been in Glasgow, for the COP 26 climate summit. Many world leaders called the meeting the last best hope for humankind in the face of the coming climate disaster. And in the streets, activists have gathered – to call for urgent action to limit warming, to end our reliance on fossil fuels. One young activist said she wants to ask them if they understand how urgent limiting climate change is for the next generation.

She said, “In my mind, it’s like: do these people have children?”[1]

Many journalists observed the dramatic differences between the leaders and diplomats negotiating the deal in the summit and those gathered outside, crying out for immediate and drastic changes to save the earth. Those in the summit were mostly white men, older, with longer timelines for change.  ]Those outside were mostly women, younger, led by indigenous and other activists of color.

The activists are furious at the 20-30 year goals being set by world leaders. They cry out: not only do we need to stop using fossil fuels immediately, we need to work to repair the damage that is already being done, particularly to women and children in the global South, where flooding, drought, and fires have become increasingly commonplace. As one young activist proclaimed, “Now is the time. Yesterday was the time…We need action right now.”[2]

Criticizing the summit, an activist with Power Shift Africa said, “The needs of the world’s vulnerable people have been sacrificed on the altar of the rich world’s selfishness.”[3]

These stories are personal. A home lost to flooding. A farmer’s crops dried up from lack of rain. A family fleeing to the city because a fire took everything they had. But we know they are also political. And that it will take faith, deep faith, persistent prayer and courageous action to create change. But the pain of that struggle – is the pain of labor, the suffering of bringing a new world into being. That is the work to which we are called.

And thinking back to my parishioner in Birmingham – her story was personal. But it was also political. Her whispered prayers were not just calling God, they were also calling me and my congregation to work for affordable housing, better mental health care for the poor, changes to the foster care system.

We lift our community’s needs, laments, and hopes in prayer each week, is because I believe God hears our prayers. When we cry out, God listens. So we should not be resigned to the status quo; no, we must be relentless. Asking, praying for not just what we need, but for what we know in our bones is possible. Because when we do, miracles might just happen.

[1] “Clean up your mess, young activists tell leaders at the COP 26 climate summit,” Nov 5, 2021, NPR, https://www.npr.org/2021/11/05/1052707018/clean-up-your-mess-young-activists-tell-leaders-at-cop26-climate-summit

[2] “The Summit is led by older men.  The protests are guided by younger women”  https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/06/world/cop26-glasgow-climate-summit-protests

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/13/climate/cop26-glasgow-climate-agreement.html