Sermon for November 24, 2019 - Advent 3 (Extended) - The Rev'd Elise A. Feyerherm

Jeremiah 23:1-6 – Psalm 46 – Colossians 1:11-20 – Luke 23:33-43

Last Sunday we heard from Jeff the story of Harriet Tubman, the woman who, after escaping slavery herself, went back to the south time and time again to lead over three hundred slaves to freedom in the north. In the current movie, “Harriet,” Tubman gives voice to the grief and commitment inside her, saying,

What those still enslaved are goin’ through right now! I have heard their groans and sighs, and seen their tears, and I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free ‘em! So I ain’t givin’ up! I’ma do whatever I got to, go wherever I got to, however I got to do it – to rescue as many slaves as possible, til dis beast, dis monster call slavery is slain dead!

I sat here last week, listening with my eyes closed, as those words rang in my consciousness. In my mind, another voice was ringing along with that of Harriet Tubman; this was what I heard:

I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. (Exodus 3:7-8)

 The voice I heard alongside Harriet’s was the voice of God, calling to Moses on Mount Sinai. I heard these two voices like a Bach fugue or a duet, woven together, their cadences strangely, but not so strangely, similar. After all, Harriet Tubman was called “Moses,” after the prophet of God who led the people through terrifying waters and wilderness into freedom. I thought, God is speaking through Harriet; in fact, her words are God’s.

I have heard their groans and sighs, and seen their tears… I’m not giving up. I’m going to do whatever I have to do, go wherever I’ve got to, til slavery is dead.

In that moment, I realized, it is God who is speaking.

Hold those words in your head and in your heart, and then cast your mind back to the gospel we heard just a few minutes ago. The one who is supposedly the Anointed One of God, the “King” of his people, hangs on a cross with no power, it seems, to save either himself or anyone else. And hear again Harriet’s words: I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free them.

It may seem as if we are in a bit of a time warp, that this is Good Friday and not Advent. This is a strange gospel to hear on a Sunday when we are celebrating the Reign of Christ, the Ruler of Nations who will be all in all at the end of the age. Rulers, even benign ones, generally have power, authority, respect: Jesus on the cross has none of these things, and seems not to want them, either. Instead, this ruler is helpless, without influence, and scorned. This is the one whom we honor as the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, in whom all things in heaven and on earth were created. We proclaim, as the letter to the Colossians says, that all the fullness of God is pleased to dwell in him – and yet this one who at this moment on the cross appears to be the victim, not the Lord, of creation.

Today we grapple with the strange coincidence of opposites that is our Christian faith: that a broken and powerless human being is also the fullness of God for us, and that the turning of the world toward God and toward justice is both sure and maddeningly elusive in this life.

And it is maddening.

How on earth can we say that we are in a season of hope and expectation, when this is the image we are given? How is it that we can sing week after week that “the world is about to turn?” Turn to what, and how?

We look foolish, no doubt, to the rest of the world, lighting candles and trusting in God when most of the evidence around us seems to point to the contrary. We look as foolish, perhaps, as those who first claimed that the earth revolves around the sun, spinning all the while on its axis. The world is turning? How can that possibly be?

When I was a young child, I used to love to go to the Franklin Institute – Philadelphia’s version of the Museum of Science in Boston. There was the huge model of a human heart that you could walk through, hearing the thump-da-thump of a recorded heartbeat ringing in your ears. And there was the pendulum – Foucault’s pendulum, hanging from a point four stories up, swinging back and forth, and every 25 minutes knocking down one of the pegs that were arranged in a circle beneath the pendulum. We couldn’t feel the earth rotating, but we could see it, there in front of us, so gradually that if you were impatient you would miss it.

So no, I don’t especially feel the world about to turn around. Lately I’ve fretted mightily over the growing violence in Hong Kong, as the vicious circle of anger and retribution takes hold. I’ve despaired at how entrenched and polarized are our political animosities. But I’ve seen a peg knocked down from time to time. Maybe you have too.

Just a few days ago, a jury in Arizona acquitted Scott Warren, who had been charged with harboring illegal immigrants, because he refused to stand by while refugees died of starvation and thirst trying to cross the desert. He committed the “crime” of giving them food and water. An earlier jury was deadlocked, but this jury decided – unanimously – that giving humanitarian aid was not a crime. There’s one peg down – perhaps the world is turning after all.

But don’t take my word for it – where do you see evidence of the world turning in response to the immense gravity of God’s love? Where do you notice the power of the powerless Messiah on the cross, refusing to meet hatred with hatred? Where have you seen radical hospitality and care affirmed not just as heroic exceptions, but as the norm of decency and justice? Where have you seen reconciliation, or the powerful relinquishing their power so that those who are cast down could be lifted up?

The dark blue of our Advent candles is the color of the sky just before dawn – we do not see the light yet, but something is changing. Something is turning, though we cannot always feel it. If you cannot believe it yet, look to Harriet. Look to Scott Warren and the jury that said, as the centurion said of Jesus, truly this man is innocent. Look to this table, as we hear Jesus say, this is my body, and my blood, given for you. Look around you, at this beloved community that is one of the clearest signs of God’s presence – the Reign of Christ – among us.

Indeed, the LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob, and of Jesus, and Harriet, and Scott, and our God, is our stronghold.