Proper 7 B + The day of salvation + 6.20.21
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.
[1] https://news.yahoo.com/biden-harris-sign-law-establishing-juneteenth-federal-holiday-200720034.html.
[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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