Sunday, September 21, 2014
First
Congregational United Church of Christ – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
Last week I kind of left
you hanging. We spent time during worship doing a bit of deconstruction and I
made you wait a whole week to get to the more constructive stuff. Sorry about
that. It seemed like a better idea than preaching a 30 minute sermon and
putting you all to sleep.
We spent last week
tentatively stepping through the Red Sea on dry land with the Israelites. We
looked back, somewhat fearfully, at the looming cloud following us through the
wilderness. We tried to ignore the angry thunder and lightning emanating from
the enormous cloud. We found ourselves backed up against the seashore, nowhere
to run, with the threat of evil running us down. That cloud was behind us,
protecting us, sure. But could the cloud hold forever?
Suddenly, a sharp wind
began to blow. And it blew and it blew. All night long the wind blew and the
cloud rumbled and the Egyptians gained ground. And we huddled against the
seashore, fearing for our lives.
In the middle of the night, we rubbed our eyes and shielded them against
the wind, because the strangest thing was happening. We could hardly believe
our eyes. The sea was parted in front of us – two giant walls of water – one on
our right and one on our left. We stepped onto dry land carefully, giving
thanks for the God who works miracles and protects us from harm.
If the story had ended
that way, it would have been so warm and fuzzy. But Exodus 14 doesn’t end that
way. Instead, we discover that not only are the Israelites ushered to safety,
but the Egyptians are lured into the sea. And as soon as they enter, their
wheels are gummed up in the mud. The waters come crashing down. The Egyptians scramble to
escape, but God tosses them into the sea. They die on the shore. Not one of
them remains.
And so we grappled last week with evil. Whether it
exists in the world. What to make of it. And we struggled with what it means to
believe in God in the face of great evil and suffering. We explored theodicy,
which is basically just how to hold together these three things: 1) Evil exist
and suffering exist, 2) God is all good, 3) God is all powerful.
I shared with you that I have found myself needing
to let go of #3 in that list. Evil and suffering do exist in the world, no
doubt about it. And I experience God to be continually good. Which means God
cannot also be all powerful.
Unless, that is, powerful means something different
than what we initially thought.
Last week I mentioned this video that was taken on
September 11, 2001. Dr. Mark Heath went to the site of the World Trade Center
attacks that morning to see if he could help. The video is about three minutes
long and consists of shaky camera footage with closed captioning. I can clearly
remember sitting in our duplex watching the video back in 2001. When I found it
online this week, it still brought me to tears.
At the beginning of the video, we hear Dr. Heath
talking to an emergency responder. Dr. Heath asks, “You need anybody with
emergency medical experience?” and the rescue worker says, “My estimate is, we
probably lost 200 firefighters and God knows how many thousands of people.”
The rescue worker tells Dr. Heath to stay out of the
way and away from high-rise buildings. Almost immediately, the camera looks up
at the North Tower where a cloud of smoke is starting to form. The building
turns in on itself and a sickening rumble is heard in the distance. For over 30
seconds there are no words, just the image of the building coming down. It
feels like an eternity. Finally, Dr. Heath begins to move and his camera moves
with him. As the cloud of debris rushes towards him he says, “I hope I live. I
hope I live. It’s coming down on me. I’m getting behind a car.”
And then – we are plunged into complete darkness.
For over 10 seconds there is nothing but blackness. No words from Dr. Heath.
And then, he speaks, “I’m buried in soot. I’m sorry I came down. I just had to
help people.” For over 40 seconds it seems as though we are buried alive with
Dr. Heath and the entire island of Manhattan. Darkness covers the land.
And then, Dr. Heath says, “Wait. I can see a tiny
bit. This is incredible.” And then, without missing a beat, “Okay. I have to go
find people who need help. I don’t think I’m one of them.”
Buried alive. Unsure if he would live. The air
begins to clear the tiniest bit and his immediate, gut-level, instinctual
reaction is to come to the aid of others. He springs into action, walking
amidst the rubble, offering help wherever he can. He borrows oxygen from a
firefighter. He walks quickly, with purpose, shouting out, “Does anybody need a
doctor? This guy needs oxygen. Thanks.” He keeps walking through the chaos and
the video goes dark.
It’s one of the most powerful videos I’ve ever seen.
I said last week that his simple words, “I hope I live,” had become twisted in
my mind over the years. I remembered him saying “Please don’t let me die,” or
“Please save me.” But it turns out Dr. Heath isn’t praying to an all-powerful
God to swoop down from the heavens and save him. Instead, he voices a deep
hope. He hopes to live. He seems to know that it is entirely possible that he
will not. And he does not seem to blame God for this.
Evil happens. Humans make mistakes. Humans commit
atrocities. We treat each other in ways that are sickening. We allow systems of
oppression to continue.
Accidents also happen. Cells mutate in strange ways.
Germs spread. Cars collide. Chaos exists. Supercells form. The waters rise. The
earth shakes.
Suffering is real. Sometimes it is because of evil.
And sometimes it’s….well….it’s just because.
And in the midst of suffering, where is God? Can God
be described as powerful at all? Because, I’m not going to lie. I still want my
God to be bigger than me. Bigger than you. Able to do something, you know?
Those of you who were here last week will remember
me telling you about my friend the Rev. Lynn James and the email she sent me.
Lynn is a UCC pastor and licensed mental health professional. She does a lot of
work with people who have been traumatized. She works with a lot of survivors
of abuse.
Lynn has grappled with how evil can exist if God is
good and all powerful and has come to believe that God cannot be all powerful….at
least not in the way we traditionally think of power.
But this is not to say that God is helpless or
unable to act in any way. Instead, in her reflections, Lynn turns to Process
Theology, which offers that we need to reconsider the TYPE of power God
possesses. Lynn says, “We are conditioned to imagine power as force, as
domination, as combative. For Process Theology, Divine power is love,
compassion, connection, and collaboration. G_d and humanity, actually all
creation, are interdependent. For Process Theology, at every moment G_d is
actively, passionately, powerfully at work to bring the best possible
outcome and at every moment G_d is also but one power among many (human free
will, natural laws) and is therefore necessarily limited. G_d
is at every moment working with us to bring about transformation, peace, and
healing.”
God is with us and God is at work. But
God isn’t throwing lightning bolts. God isn’t making us dance like puppets. God
can’t stop a tornado from barreling down on my house. God couldn’t hold the
Twin Towers up and God couldn’t stop the hijackers from committing their acts
of evil.
Instead, God was at work through
people like Dr. Mark Heath. God wandered the streets of New York that day in
the bodies of average men and women who look just like you and me. You remember
the stories. The guys who carried the woman down 68 flights of stairs in her
wheelchair. The first responders going up into the towers as others were coming
down.
I am reminded, of course, of the wise
words of the Rev. Fred Rogers’ mother. You probably know him better as Mr.
Rogers, of course. He said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in
the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always
find people who are helping.’”
My friend Lynn says, “Stories of
helpers, of kindness of courage, were true in concentration camps, in the
barbarity of slavery, in places of genocide and epidemics. There are,
everywhere, in all times and places, ordinary heroes and heroines acting with
courageous compassion, self-sacrificial generosity, and quiet humility.”
And I believe this is where we see
God’s power. God’s power is more subtle than a lightning bolt or a puppet show.
God coaxes. God is persuasive. God lures. God encourages. God supports. God
cheers us on. God is with us in each and every moment hoping for the best and
whispering, “You can do it. And I will help.”
Which brings us back to today’s
passage from Exodus. Manna in the desert. Having escaped Egypt in a scene of
great trauma, we find the Israelites starving in the wilderness. Once again,
they need God to save them. Once again, God does so. Only this time, no one is
murdered or drowned in the sea. Instead, the God in today’s passage is a little
tamer. This God uses her power to sustain and nurture. To feed. To nourish. She
listens with compassion and sends food to the hungry ones.
And once again this God requires
action from the people. God doesn’t do it all himself. The people have to meet
him halfway. God sends the food but the people have to gather it in specific
ways. They people have to do their part, too.
I find image of God and the people
working together to step forward into a new day to be powerful.
I find the image of God in the shaky
lens of a camera as a doctor roves the streets of Manhattan just after the
towers collapsed to be powerful.
I find Mr. Rogers’ mother’s words to
be powerful.
It seems to me that evil exists, but
God is good. We suffer, but we are never alone. And God is not in control, no.
But God still has power. The power to nourish, to soothe, to lure, to
encourage, to accompany, to hope.
And that is no small thing. Thanks be
to the One who sends manna in the desert. Thanks be to God, who nourishes us in
the midst of great suffering. Thanks be to the Almighty who exercises power in
surprising ways. Thanks be to the Friend who never leaves us alone.
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