Prop 27B + Tikkun - light + 11.10.24

 

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Saints, Oxnard

(Ruth 3:1–5; 4:13–17; Ps. 127; Hebrews 9:24–28; St Mark 12:38–44)

 

How are all you doing today? I know this week has been hard. Wednesday morning felt unreal, waking up to the news of the election outcome, and then the fire later in the day. My heart hurts and I am praying for all affected by recent events. Because regardless of how we each individually feel about the election outcome, there will be some who will be feeling under attack with this result.

As I went to social media to try to process, I was struck by the words of Barbara Kingsolver. She said: “Truth and love have been smacked down, so many more times in history before today. Truth, because it’s often inconvenient, and love because it is vulnerable.

But truth is like gravity, and carbon, and the sun behind an eclipse: it’s still there. And love stays alive if you tend it like a flame. If you feel crushed by unkindness today, it’s a time for grieving, reaching out to loved ones, noticing one bright color somewhere in the day. Remembering what there is to love. Starting with the immediate, the place and people we can tend ourselves, and make safe. We can’t save everything all at once, but it’s still worth saving something. Because there are so many of us to do it.

And we are all still here today, exactly as we were yesterday. Like gravity, and carbon, and the sun behind an eclipse (Barbara Kingsolver, Facebook Post November 6, 2024).”

Now I know that not everyone will agree with me about this understanding of the election outcome, and I thank you for your patience in hearing me speak to those who are feeling distraught. But the reason why I share this is that this spoke to me – the light is still there, even if we cannot see it. In fact, I think one of the gifts of what to some of us is bad news is that we cannot become complaisant. If we want the world to be different, we must find a way to shine our light in the darkness.
Because as St Francis of Assisi paraphrased John 1:5: “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”

To me the story of Ruth is the story of chosen family, and it begins in darkness. Two women who, by the accident of one being married to the other’s son, are shipwrecked by grief. And while the other woman in the same situation leaves- and without rancor- Ruth stays with Naomi and builds a new family with her, and then subsequently with her family member Boaz. Boaz is wonderful but interestingly he is kind of secondary in this picture. The true focus of the story is how Ruth and Naomi build a family together along with Boaz. Although the new baby is amazing, and will continue the family line, Ruth has become to Naomi “more than seven sons.” Family is what we make it. In the darkness, the light of this unusual family’s love shines bright.
This week, we were at convention and saw a joyous celebration of fifty years of women’s ordination in the Episcopal Church. What a joy. We heard Carter Heyward, one of the first women to be ordained, speak. What joy and light. And yet we know that when they were ordained, those women’s ordinations were deemed invalid by our own church. They shone a light in the darkness and prevailed, and now we have many women who are ordained.

And there is another truth here. A hard one. In the “Philadelphia 11” documentary, which we saw at convention, we learned that some of the women who were ordained “peaced out” – they left the church and one couple practically left the world, living off the grid in the woods. And even one of the male priests who supported them who got put through the ringer also distanced himself from parish ministry for a while. They were harassed and had enough. We need to be aware that when we are going through darker times, we need to care for ourselves too.

Father Chuck Collier, may he rest in peace, loved today’s psalm, and I think that he especially loved this verse, which I always love too:  It is in vain that you rise so early and go to bed so late; * vain, too, to eat the bread of toil, for he gives to his beloved sleep.” The idea being that we must prioritize rest and care of self at this time, and that will give us energy. Energy to rise up and shine a light, and show the world that a different world is possible.

In order to heal our nation, we must all look to the helpers, Mr. Rogers said. We must be the helpers. And we must identify those who are already helping. I think of Sandra reaching out to the Red Cross and finding resources for those who were at risk with the fires this week. Each one of us, like the widow, has our little mite to give, our little grain of sand to contribute to the common cause.

The Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam speaks of this. Of our call to be repairers of the breach, to step into the hurt places of the world and to weave things back together, with God’s help. Always with God’s help.

But that work –that work that is not all about me and what I must complete- but is about caring for others – is draining. So, we must also practice self- care. We must nurture ourselves pro-actively so that we can be there for others rather than just shutting down or isolating when things get tough.

I have always loved New Zealand Prayer Book’s “Night Prayer” which has this verse built in towards the beginning. It helped me release stress I carried to bed. I remembered that I am beloved in God even when I don’t complete all the tasks I strove to finish in the day.

One of the last prayers in that same Night Prayer goes this way:

Lord,
it is night.

The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.

It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done;
what has not been done has not been done;
let it be.

The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives
rest in you.

The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,
all dear to us,
and all who have no peace.

The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day,
new joys,
new possibilities. [1]

Today, as we process any number of emotions ranging from grief to anger to joy to sorrow to being just plain scared, how can we be still, and restored, on this Sabbath day, so that we can rise up tomorrow and be a part of healing our world?

(Silence)

In your name we pray.
Amen.

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[1] John Williamson, New Zealand Prayer Book. Found at: http://liturgy.co.nz/lord-it-is-night.