Done with Normal

I am done.

I am done with partisan divide in our country.

I am done with seeing people dismiss one another because they disagree with each other.

I am done with reading social media posts where people who try to protect themselves from disease are bashed and called “sheep” for blindly following our top medical experts.

I am done with hearing of anti-Semitism growing in areas around our country as people living in economic fear seek a target for their current situation.

I am done with experiencing heart wrenching story after story from our African-American brothers and sisters in Christ who speak out against racism that they experience… and yet racism is dismissed by so many of us who do not experience it for ourselves.

I am done with the reality of sexism continuing to permeate throughout our society as women in the year 2020 still only receive 79 cents compared to every dollar that a man with similar experience makes.

I am done with the reality that women are assaulted and raped and then told it was their fault.

I am done with cyber bullying people into committing suicide because others found enjoyment in tormenting someone who they had never even met.

I am done with people dismissing one another as somehow less than deserving of… happiness.

less deserving of stability

less deserving of safety

less deserving of respect... compassion… life… and perhaps even less deserving of love.

I am done.

And as a straight white Christian man with a master’s degree… I can say I am done if I want to. I can turn on my blinders to the harmful ways that we treat one another… and the world will continue on for me. I can live without feeling the direct effects of sexism, racism, classism… I can say that I am fine and so is the world around me… mostly, anyway.

I can say that in these days of Pandemic that we just need to get back to normal… we need to get back to the way things used to be before COVID-19 and then… then everything will be fine again.

But getting back normal… that isn’t good enough. Normal is far too broken… even if it works well for me.

This last week, as I attended the Festival of Homiletics put on by Luther Seminary as well as the UCC, United Methodist Church, AME Church, and many others… one of the pastors out of New York talked about how this pandemic has affected the community that she serves. She said that their largely African-American congregation who has all too often been on the wrong side of racism looked to this Corona Virus that had the promise of being non-discriminatory.

As we hear in 1 Peter 5:9, “For you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.” Being united in suffering is a major theme of 1 Peter to the early church. In the course of its short 5 chapters we see the word suffering come up no less than 12 times. Suffering is something that the early church understood. Suffering is something that the early church did together. Suffering is something that united the church with one another as they prayed for and supported one another through horrific ordeals.

While certainly COVID-19 is something we would not wish to experience… it was something that we were all going to experience together. It was equally destructive… equally contagious… equally deadly… until it wasn’t.

Minority groups who had often experienced discrimination in other ways now are being dealt the hardest of blows from this disease. Lower-income, higher density living conditions with poor access to healthcare… the cards were stacked against them and they felt it. One pastor said that nearly 10% of their congregation had died from the disease as it swept through high-risk families.

I am grateful that here in Oklahoma we have had as few cases as we have… relatively speaking. As of this morning, we had experienced 311 deaths in Oklahoma so far. In a Synod conference call a few weeks ago, our synod’s secretary who lives in Queens told us they had recorded 750 deaths in Queens alone in one day. One day.

For many of us here in Oklahoma, it has been an inconvenience. This has been true to the point that I have seen some dismiss the disease all together… it’s nothing… it hasn’t really been killing that many people. This is all just a political stunt. The government is trying to control you with fear… so on and so forth.

And I think of that congregation that lost 10% of their flock… I think of the people of New York and its surrounding suburbs who nearly 20 years ago we stood in solidarity with as the twin towers were brought down by terrorists and now… it seems that their deaths are being dismissed.

Getting back to normal… unfortunately, I think we are racing back to a normal that looks ever more divided and divisive.

A good friend and person I have known for many years now had posted a meme on Facebook that compared Covid-19 deaths from 10 Republican states to 10 Democrat states based on statistics from May 19th.

For Republican states it listed Texas, Florida, Ohio, Arizona, Tennessee, Indiana, Missouri, South Carolina, Alabama, and yes… Oklahoma for a grand total of 9,107 deaths to COVID-19 so far.

For Democratic states it listed New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, California, Michigan, Illinois, Louisiana, Connecticut, and Maryland for a total of 70,144 deaths.

And the comment was, “Well well, what do we have here?”

I suggested that it appeared that the predominately Republican states which we live in are perhaps well-positioned to reach out and show Christ’s love to our hurting neighbors in predominately Democratic states. He didn’t respond.

Church, it doesn’t matter if you are Republican, Democrat, Green Party, Blue Party, Tea Party, Coffee Party… I might join the coffee party…. we are still followers of Christ first and foremost. And that means engaging one another with love… even our enemies. Will we always be successful at loving? No. We won’t. We’re human. But we do need to remember that our goal… no, our calling is unity through love.

In our Gospel lesson today we hear Jesus praying for his disciples on the very night that his betrayal is taking place. And as we hear this beautiful, high priestly prayer… something in the prayer stood out to me this year that I had always managed to pass over with little notice before Covid-19… before this time of greater division and greater dismissal.

Christ says this in John Chapter 17 verse 11,

“11And now I am no longer in the world,

Remember, Judas is already on his way to sell Jesus out. The betrayal is in motion. The arrest will be happening in hours… then the trial… then Jesus’ final breath on the cross… all within 24 hours from this moment.

Jesus will soon no longer be in the world. He knows what he is saying even if the disciples don’t get it yet. But he continues.

but they (the disciples) are in the world, and I am coming to you.

Jesus knows what’s going on in his future. He has the knowledge of God’s plans. He knows what’s around the corner… and he also knows that the days ahead are going to be hard for his disciples. These followers have been with him for years… he cares for them… he loves them… even when the butt heads and disagree with each other.

Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me,

So Jesus asks God to protect the disciples. It’s great, it’s beautiful… but it’s nothing new to me nor is it a surprise per say. Jesus cares for his followers. They are his sheep… they have followed him… perhaps blindly… into the valley of the shadow of death.

But it’s here… its’ this next phrase that catches me anew this time around as we read the Gospel of John.

Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me…

so that they may be one, as we are one.”

So that they… the disciples… may be one… as we… meaning the Father and the Son are one.

What does that unity between the Father and the Son look like? As the Son dies on a wooden cross for sins that are not his own… the Father experiences that death along with the Son. As Jesus breathes his last, the curtain temple is rended in two… it’s ripped right down the center as the presence of God leaves that hallowed place and the earth itself trembles.

The Father experiences the death of the Son. I would imagine if there were some way to get a glimpse of the Father in that moment we would see that God the Father… wept. And that there was indeed much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The understandable response from God in that moment of the Son’s death would have been for the earthquakes to continue until the earth itself was rended in half. The dismissal of the Son… the disregard for his message… not unlike the vineyard owner who sends his son to the renters only to learn that the son has been murdered. It is unthinkable.

And yet, God had not sent the Son into the world without knowing what would happen. Jesus would die. The Son would experience death. The Father would experience death. But God was done with what had become normal in our world.

God was done with how the vulnerable were dismissed and the rich lifted up.

God was done with how the neighbor was hated and feared rather than loved and embraced.

God was done with how the relationship between God and humankind had come to a point of such complete brokenness that there was no hope for humankind to be reconciled. Until we were.

Why? Because God so loved the world that he sent his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world… but to save it through him.

The Father and the Son… they were one in this. They were one in their love for the world. They were one in their desire to reach out to those who had been such terrible sinners. They were one all the way to and through the Cross amid the suffering, the pain… and yes… the death.

And so Christ prays on that final night with the disciples that they may be one with one another as the Father and the Son are one.

Christ Prays that as the disciples face hardships in the days to come that they might overcome their differences and their arguments about who is best or who is “most” right… and instead stand in solidarity with one another in their love for the world as Christ had taught them. And as one suffered, all would experience that suffering together… because they were linked. Each of them, essential… each of them, critical.

And so my prayer for us in this time is that we do not go back to normal but instead that we move forward in a new way. That we take this opportunity to have our eyes fully opened to the brokenness and divisiveness and strive to not continue reacting in fear, anger, and dismissal but instead respond by loving the world God has put us in… respond by experiencing suffering together with our neighbors… and to be one people of God… united by the love of God and Christ crucified.

Let’s be done with what’s normal and look instead to the future that God has in store for all of creation. Stand with and for one another in the mist of suffering so that we might live into Christ’s prayer of being gathered as one… no longer divided by hate, anger, selfishness, and mistrust… but united together singing our song of joy.

This week, I encourage you to be intentional in reaching out to your neighbors who you might otherwise feel divided from. Respond to fear and anxiety with the love and grace of God which we first received. In Christ, we are one.

Peace be with you my friends. Amen.