Proper 24C + God's dream + 10.16.16

(Image from God's Dream by Archbishop Desmond Tutu
and Douglas Carlton Abrams)

M. Campbell-Langdell

Our Saviour’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Oxnard

(Genesis 32:22–31; Ps. 121; 2 Tim. 3:14–4:5; Luke 18:1–8)

Good morning, I am Pastor Melissa Campbell-Langdell from All Saints Episcopal Church in Oxnard, and I am honored to be among you today.

Let us hear again these words from Genesis: “Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." Then the man said, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed (Genesis 32:24-28)." 

This passage is so striking because it is the origin story not just of a man called Jacob but of a nation called Israel. It is Israel’s nature to wrestle with God and man and prevail. Sometimes we feel that God prevails really, but no matter. This is core to the identity of all Jews and by extension key to the identity of all Judeo-Christian people, be they Lutheran or Episcopalian or other. We are a people that in our nature wrestle with God and man and prevail. We struggle to understand God and each other, and in that struggle we learn about our identity as children of God.

This is important today as we look at working together. Today we mark a day of collaboration between the Lutheran and Episcopal churches in Oxnard, in which Pastor Jennifer Chrien is preaching at my 9:15 service, Pastor Alene Campbell-Langdell, my wife and also an Episcopal priest, is preaching at Our Redeemer Lutheran, and I am preaching here at Our Saviour’s Lutheran, on the topic of “living the dream of God now.” This fall different Episcopal and Lutheran Churches are participating in this pulpit exchange across the Pacifica Synod and the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
We do this to prepare for a joint Episcopal-Lutheran celebration in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr day in January which we will do in Los Angeles.

We do this in a spirit of Christian togetherness. But we know Christian togetherness is not just for ourselves, just so that we can feel warm and fuzzy.

Our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry said something about this this past month when he filmed a short video on his trip to Rome to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the meeting between Pope Paul and Archbishop Michael Ramsey, which was a breakthrough in ecumenical cooperation. He said that we do this work of trying to do Jesus’ work together with other Christians for a reason. And that is so that this world can begin to look “something less like our nightmare, and something more like God’s dream.”[1]

God’s dream. We know that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr had a dream. And in this Lutheran-Episcopal collaboration, we honor him and his ministry.
But we don’t just elevate him as a person and a leader of faith. We look to his example. What he and others in the Civil Rights Movement showed us not only about what black people need in our country but also about what all the people of this country need.

Because let’s be honest. Both of our churches had a mixed history with the civil rights movement. Some people saw it as our Christian duty, regardless of denomination, to support the movement for equal rights. And others saw it as a “black issue,” not something that really affected our churches, which were mostly white or European-American at the time (and in some cases still are). Now, as the years have moved on and as our synod and diocese have become increasingly diverse, we have realized again and again that civil rights are not a color issue, they are a human issue.

And this is where the persistent widow comes in.

Because I was listening to a civil rights movement legend, Ruby Sales, talk about a song that she knew from the black folk religion of her childhood, and it went:

“I love everybody, I love everybody in my heart;

And you can’t make me hate you, and you can’t make me hate you, in my heart.”[2]

And who did it make me think of, but the persistent widow in today’s gospel passage. As we all know, widows were some of the most marginalized people in the ancient world. They did not usually represent themselves in court-they wouldn’t have dared, deferring to a male family member came to speak for them. But this woman has no one, so she makes the journey to the judge on her own. To ask for, to demand justice.
But he doesn’t care. In an honor-shame society, you would think that the judge would do the right thing because others looking on would say “well, you know, we are supposed to care for widows,” but no, he has no shame. He just keeps ignoring her. Until one day he realizes she is wearing him down. This term comes from boxing and literally means she has given him a black eye. Here is that feisty widow, punch one-two with her words and she has persisted and persisted in asking for justice until, finally, the judge is worn down.[3] This is not how God is. God is even better, wiser, kinder than all of this.

But this is how the world is. This is a world where we feel like we could get a black eye just from reading the newspaper.
And in a world where we are tempted to hate almost every day- every day that we see an unarmed black man shot because of a misunderstanding - every day a person who signed up to serve has his or her life cut short because of hate- every day one side or the other of the political discourse says something inflammatory, we feel tempted to hate.

But as Christians, as followers of the way, we must resist that impulse. We must be persistent in love.

We must say “I love everybody, I love everybody in my heart.”

Because a wise person told me recently that we will not get to a better place in our country without understanding each other better. So many Americans, whether they be Lutheran or Episcopal, or any other stripe, live in separate realities. We don’t know the fear of our neighbor who is undocumented and who feels that he or she needs to avoid whole areas of town for fear of being picked up by immigration officials. We don’t know the isolation of the poorer white people in Appalachia who feel their identity as European-Americans has been sidelined as the United States of America continues to embrace its more pluralistic and diverse identity. We don’t know.
But we can love and we can listen.

And we can’t do it alone. That is why it is so important that we Episcopalians and Lutherans work together. Because Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s dream was not just that Black Americans have more opportunities, but that this country might be a better and safer place for all. And we can only do this together, if we see it as a project that we are all meant to work on. If we reconnect with our identity as children of Israel. If we remember that our birthright is to wrestle with God and man together, but not in hate. Rather we can strive in loving ways, struggling to understand each other. To persistently love until justice comes. And it will come. We may feel as if we are against odds as steep as those of this widow, but we must continue to struggle in love, and to pray always and not lose heart. And then we will see the dream. Then we will live something that is less like our nightmare and something that is more like God’s dream.

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[1] http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2016/10/05/video-presiding-bishop-speaks-from-rome/.

[2] http://www.onbeing.org/program/ruby-sales-where-does-it-hurt/transcript/8937.

[3] Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 298-299.