11/13/2016 1 Comment A Great and Common TendernessA Sermon by Rev. Robin Bartlett
Delivered November 13, 2016 at the First Church in Sterling, MA Sermons are better heard than read. Listen here. Our friend Cathy Nicastro reminded me this week that in the end, love will win. If love hasn’t won yet, that means its not the end. That’s how I’m summing up the heart of the Gospel for us today. And only the Gospel matters today. Like our poet, I believe we are still capable of attention and paying attention, that anyone who notices the world must want to save it. Notice the world: -The sun came up this morning, beautiful reds and oranges filling the sky on a crisp November day. -We got to lay eyes on our shared children. Our children’s cries and laughter are what God’s voice sound like. -We welcomed 14 people into membership at First Church in Sterling just now, 14 new ways to see the face of God. - And we are a community united in Love to serve the Lord. Not everyone has a community united in Love to go to this morning, and boy, do we ever need one right now. Right now, we need to let the peace of Christ rule our hearts. Right now, we need to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience. Right now, we need to bear with one another and forgive. Right now we need a REVOLUTION of Love. If this revolution is going to come, we need to arm ourselves. Not with weapons, but with a mix of humility, bravery and kindness that is foreign to the current political climate. We need to clothe ourselves with Love as St. Paul demands, because love binds everything together. We are one body. We are one. Ultimately, we do not belong to a political party, or a government. We belong to each other, and we belong to God. I know that many of you feel relief and contentment today. And I also know that many of you feel sad and scared today. But you are not powerless, and more importantly, you are not alone. We were made for such a time as this. We are creating a great and common tenderness here. Perhaps your desire is to go back to bed until 2020. Don’t. Perhaps your desire is to gloat with the glee of winning. Don’t. Perhaps your desire is to give yourselves over to fear. Don’t. Perhaps your desire is to demonize “the other side.” Don’t. We can’t afford any of that right now. We don’t have time. Instead, as St. Paul tells us: be thankful. For we are one in the Body of God, and yes, we were made for such a time as this. Friends who are here today in this congregation who voted for our president-elect: I want you to know something. I love you. I absolutely know that you stand for love. I know that you are not racist or sexist or xenophobic, because I know you. I will not stand by and listen quietly while pundits and angry opponents call you names or place blame on you for the country’s ills. I will stand up for you. I know you only by the name “Beloved”, just as God knows you. On Wednesday, two Clinton supporters pulled a man out of a car who “looked like” a Trump supporter and beat him. Anti-Trump anarchists have trashed town squares in major cities, burning American flags. I will not be silent while this happens. Christ said that “those who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Christ reminded us that we are all to be called children of God. Those of us who stand for Christ will not stand for this. No matter who you voted for in this election, its aftermath has been undeniably devastating for people on the margins. I know you’ve all read and seen on the news the hate that’s been emboldened in the past few days. You’ve seen the KKK’s victory march in North Carolina. The graffiti. The swastikas. Assaults on Muslims, LGBTQ folks, women, Latinos. No matter who you voted for or didn’t vote for, none of you—not a single one of you--voted for this. I know that. So our job is clear this morning, and it is shared. Our job--as people who are called to love God and neighbor--is to do just that. Love. Loudly and extravagantly. Together. Please don’t retreat from this job, please don’t live into the divide this election has caused among neighbors, please just respond unequivocally and clearly with Love. Stand together and get loud. And please, please pay attention. Don’t dismiss, don’t equivocate, don’t deny. Jesus begged the disciples on the night before he died simply to “stay awake.” They couldn’t do it—it was too hard. They kept falling asleep. But you and I can do hard things. We are so divided that we don’t even watch or read or trust the same news sources as one another. So I am going to bring you news from our congregation, and our community. I only ask that you stay awake to it. One of our young adults, the child of one of our board members, who grew up in this congregation and works in New York City was sexually assaulted on the subway on Wednesday, in the name of our president elect. She shared with her mom only a “fraction” of the hateful things he said about women, immigrants and Muslims, having “blanked out the rest in fury.” I have a friend whose parishioner in Connecticut was grabbed by the crotch and told, “I have permission to do this now that Trump’s in charge.” Black women were spat upon at Wellesley College by two Babson College students riding around in a truck emblazoned with the word “Trump.” We need to say—loudly—that women’s bodies and women’s lives matter. That no matter who is in office, we will stand up for survivors of sexual assault, and that we won’t stand for women’s bodies being violated. We who stand for a savior whose body was violated need to stand up. The children are listening. The whole world is listening. Sofie—one of our beloved teenagers of color-- asked me to let you know that she was “gifted” a gigantic Trump banner in her high school on Wednesday by white kids with confederate flags on their hats. One boy said to her “I hope when he builds a wall, people will stand on it with machine guns killing Mexicans if they try to get over.” “I’m pro-life,” he said, “but their lives don’t count.” We need to stand together as a community and affirm for Sofie and all of our children of color--that their lives do, in fact, count. I wrote to her principal to ask him what he is doing to keep the teenagers safe, emotionally, physically and spiritually. I urge you to do the same with your children’s schools. It doesn’t matter who you voted for, beloved, we need to stand for our children, and for black and brown lives. We stand for Christ who reminded us that all lives count, so we must say this unequivocally. The children are listening. The whole world is listening. Sofie reports that her Muslim friends didn’t got to school on Wednesday at all because they were scared they would be targeted. Muslim women are telling stories all over the country of men coming up to them on the street and ripping off their hijabs. Muslim women are being told not to wear their head coverings anymore to avoid getting hurt or killed. Our friend Mona Ives from the Worcester Islamic Center is trying to organize self-defense classes for her Muslim sisters so that they can protect their bodies. We need to reach out to the Muslim community we have worked so hard to build relationships with. We stand for a savior who was religiously and politically persecuted by the state, and so we are called to stand with and for our Muslim neighbors. Our children are listening. The whole world is listening. We have children from our congregation who woke up on Wednesday morning in tears, terrified that their mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers would be deported, and they would never see them again. My own weeping children--whose father, grandmother grandfather, and uncle, are immigrants--included. We need to say—loudly—that here we welcome the stranger. We stand for Christ who reminds us that we were all strangers in a strange land once, so we must say this unequivocally. Our children are listening. The whole world is listening. Our LGBTQ brothers and sisters here in our community are scared. Their brothers and sisters have been targeted for hate crimes since the election. Some LGBTQ youth have attempted or committed suicide since Tuesday. Our brothers and sisters are worried that their marriages will be nullified, their lives devalued, their rights taken away, violence increased. We stand for Christ, who reminds us that God is love—and so we need to stand up and say that love is love is love is love. That the lives of our GLBTQ brothers and sisters matter. That our doors and hearts are open to them. The children are listening. The whole world is listening. We can do this. WE WERE MADE FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS because we can do hard things if we do them together. Though it is so tempting to do so in the desire to allay terror, PLEASE do not try to minimize the feelings of those who contain deep fears for their lives, their healthcare, and their livelihoods in our communities right now. Their fears are real. And please do not demonize the “other side.” There is no “other side” in the Body of Christ. There is no other side. “St Paul says to let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.” I know a lot of you are not feeling thankful this morning. But I am. I am thankful for all of you, together in this place. One body, with Christ’s rule in our hearts. We are an ideologically and theologically diverse community that stands for love. Our diversity and our unity are our two greatest strengths. We have a lot to teach the world about hope. I gathered with our board on Thursday night, all of us around the table at Bob Dumont’s house. There are 6 of us. Half of us are conservatives, half of us are liberals. 3 and 3. We voted differently in this election. We love each other so much that we have enough trust to disagree loudly with each other, and we laugh a lot. Knowing them doesn’t always change my mind, but it has absolutely changed my heart. And on Thursday night, after sharing the stories of the day, our fears and our anger, we prayed. We held hands, and Doug, our board chair, who I’m quite sure is not comfortable praying extemporaneously, prayed for us. He prayed humbly and with great tenderness, because he could tell how angry and defeated I was, and he could tell I had no words. Those of you who know me know how rare that is. I’m sure it scared Doug. Doug does not agree with me politically AT ALL. But we love each other, we respect each other, and we serve this place of profound unity together. We believe with every faithful bone in our body in unity and Love over and above everything else. We know we belong to each other. That’s how this works. We pray for one another, in the Love that overcomes all differences. That’s what grace looks like, and that’s how the world changes. We can do hard things. On Wednesday, when I came to work, I heard the preschool teachers lining kids up singing “one heart behind the other.” They are teaching the children that their hearts are in the line, not just their bodies. We gathered in this sanctuary on the Wednesday after the election, and we stood together united—conservatives and liberals. We shared a common meal at God’s table. We reminded each other to whom we belong—not a political party or a president, but to each other and to God. We sang “Imagine” together. “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope some day you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.” We were made for such a time as this. We are building the great and common tenderness we wish to see in our community and our world. Together. New members, we are so glad you have chosen today to join us in this effort. Because there is no Greek nor Jew, no male nor female, no Muslim nor Christian, no Mexican nor American, no gay nor straight, no urban nor rural, no Republican nor Democrat for ALL ARE ONE in Christ Jesus. All are one. Pray for each other. Hold hands. Sing together. And then call your neighbors--especially the ones with the "wrong" yard sign. Bake something and bring it over. Smile at someone in the supermarket. Go out and create a great and common tenderness in your neighborhoods, in your workplaces, in our schools. Love wins in the end. If love hasn’t won yet, it means it’s not the end. Amen.
1 Comment
Rev. Carol Granger
11/20/2016 12:32:05 pm
Amen!!! This is wonderful! Wish I was there in your presence to worship this day!
Reply
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorRev. Robin Bartlett is the Senior Pastor at the First Church in Sterling, Massachusetts. www.fcsterling.org Archives
February 2021
|