Proper 7 B + The day of salvation + 6.20.21

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M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4–11, 19–23), 32–49; Psalm 9:9–20; 2 Corinthians 6:1–13; St Mark 4:35–41)

See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! 

Today these words in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians go backwards and forwards. They are a quotation of Isaiah’s words at the end of exile and they are Paul’s words as he encourages Christians to look beyond the suffering of their moment and toward their freedom to come.

And they feel somehow fitting, on this week when at least the vaccinated among us in California are freed of our masks, if and when we choose to be. Even more fitting, this Thursday Juneteenth was signed into a Federal Holiday. Standing in a federal building built by slave labor, our leaders signed the document and our nation came one step closer to healing from its history.

If you are not aware of Juneteenth, it is a celebration of the last group of African American enslaved people to be freed following the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln was in 1863 but sadly it took until June 19th, 1865 for the slaves of Texas to officially be informed by Major General Gordon Granger that they were in fact free people and that the Civil War was ended. This took place in Galveston, Texas. Celebrations of this day have been happening since 1866 in Texas but when the state certified the holiday in 1980 that prompted other states and now the federal government to recognize the holiday.[1] You may have heard the amazing story of Miss Opal Lee who at 89 years young walked from Texas to Washington, DC to convince our nation’s leaders to make Juneteenth a national holiday. It took her a few years but she made it!

See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! 

We are at a time of renewed freedoms, although we do not know what that looks like fully yet. Yet for many of us there is a growing sense of hope as we move forward. Hope for more freedoms post-pandemic and of a movement toward a more kind, loving and just world. Our Anti-Racist work with CLUE-Ventura County continues to give me hope around that also- join us next Sunday afternoon if you want to learn more and act here in Ventura County.[2]

However, in moving forward we must always look back. We must consider what we have learned from this time of pandemic. I watched a lecture this week on the church of the future by Matt Skinner from Luther Seminary. He argued that in some ways the church of the future should look in part like the church of the past because we are always continuing Jesus’ ministry, all the way back to the Book of Acts. He also noted that things might look different moving forward. Quoting Indian author Arundhati Roy’s article “The Pandemic is a Portal,” he shared: “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”[3]

As we walk forward from this time, what will we carry with us? Many have rightly noted the low-level anxiety felt by many even in (or perhaps because of) a time of relative freedom. In the gospel today, we see Jesus still a storm and we sing “Be Still My Soul” in church to honor that calm. In this scene, Jesus is asleep on the boat in the middle of a storm, a scene that reminds us of Jonah’s story. Except instead of bailing out to save everyone and ending up in a whale, Jesus confronts the storm and basically exorcizes it, if you read the Greek right. This storm was not just a storm, there were powers at play trying to terrify and possibly destroy the disciples. And Jesus says no. You do not get to do that to my people.

See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! 

Where are the roiling waves in your life? Can you hear Jesus proclaim them to be calm as you discern how to move forward in faith? There are almost always challenges in life, and this time is full of them. But if we seek Jesus’ protection and guidance, we have the one who calmed the storm and saved us on our side. We can find relative calm in his still center and move forward knowing he will guide us.

Matt Skinner points out that at the end of the Book of Acts, Paul may be physically imprisoned, but he is teaching with boldness and with akolutos- which means “without hindrance” in the Ancient Greek. This man who has all the hindrances of the world placed upon him is nonetheless free inside.[4]

I think this is part of what he is sharing with us in 2nd Corinthians, and also what David shows us in facing off with Goliath using only his best abilities and faith in God. We who are acolytes, followers of Jesus of Nazareth, are invited to act boldly with akolutos- without hindrance. We have many challenges facing us on the storms of this life, but hidden in the Christ, we know that today is also the day of our freedom. How can we move forward out of this time, and envision something new, something free, something loving and something just for our future?

See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! 

Amen.

 


[2] Register here for the event on June 27 from 2-4pm on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0od--qpj0qE9I8zh5rO9xGCV1IhEue6VqQ.

[3] Arundhati Roy, “The Pandemic is a Portal,” Financial Times, April 3, 2020.

[4] Matthew Skinner, “Pesky Reminders from the New Testament about How, as Always, the Church of the Future Will (and Should) Be Like the Church of the Past,” from the Festival of Homiletics, 2021 (Bonus content).

 

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