Pandemic/God's favorite kind of places
Link to video (sermon begins at 16:55) https://www.facebook.com/138797592802860/videos/528330178063164/
Thumbnail image was taken by Julien Harneis, used under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/deed.en
Clare L. Hickman
Lent 3A, March 15, 2020
If I were choosing my own readings for today: might well choose Noah’s Ark
All those people making fun of Noah, thinking he’s lost his mind
He’s over-reacting … it’s just a little rain!
A great reading for the times
when big decisive actions are necessary
(but might look a little crazy)!
Still … the ones we have for today are pretty good too!
Story of the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness,
afraid that they will die of thirst
Story of the Samaritan woman, who has had and lost so many husbands
(Oscar Wilde? “To lose one parent … may be regarded as a
misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”)
And now must come to the well in the heat of the day,
Avoiding the crowds who came earlier when it was cool
Story of Hebrews/Sam Woman: stories, that is, of people who are feeling lost
People who are desperate to know what to do and where to go,
People who are lonely
People who long for community,
People who are longing for life!
The Hebrews are afraid … the woman feels isolated (is this starting to sound familiar?)
They are asking for water, but what they’re really searching for is God,
All looking around for God, and starting to despair
They are afraid that God has abandoned them
After all, they are lost, they are alone
and things are feeling very precarious
Why did you bring us out here, the Hebrews ask,
if you were just going to let us die?
Are you even still with us?
Where can I find God, the Samaritan woman asks Jesus
I know where my ancestors always went … but I’m not sure any more
because my life did not turn out at all the way I had planned
Where is God, we ask, as we walk into brand new territory
When so many of the normal parts of our daily lives have been cancelled
Worse, when we’ve been told that they are dangerous!
Where is God when we are trapped in our houses,
and the walls are starting to close in?
Where is God, for people who have no house to be trapped in?
Where is God when we worry about every cough, every tickle in our throat
Where is God when our loved ones actually become ill
Where is God when we look to other countries, with overloaded hospitals
And wonder, can that, will that happen here?
Where is God, as we wait for the shoe to drop?
It’s an understandable question, any time the signs really aren’t looking good
(which isn’t really a new phenomenon)
When, like the Samaritan woman,
we find that relationships end, that people die,
that the community and social fabric we had counted on
has raveled and slipped through our fingers
When, like the Hebrews,
We have set out into freedom, with all the hope and joy in the world
and found the landscape unfamiliar and frightening
and we aren’t quite sure how to make sense
of this new life
When, honestly, we are in a wilderness of loss and grief
Of sacrifice, limitation, fear and uncertainty
Even God couldn’t blame us for looking around and seeing … nothing
No sign of water.
No promise of a future.
No assurance of the life we (could have sworn)
we were promised.
In other words: No God!
We look around at all this, and we tend to think just that:
God is clearly no longer with us!
But here’s the thing; here’s the good news:
Those are actually God’s FAVORITE kind of places:
The rocky, barren ones
The closed off, fearful ones
The “maybe I should just take care of myself,
because things are bad and no-one is coming to help me” ones
Those are the moments, when our fear and our isolation threaten to destroy us
Those are the moments when God will find a way
to strike the rocky ground of our lives
and living water will spring forth!
Living water, that will never run dry
Living water, that is anywhere and everywhere
Living water, that can sustain us in our wildernesses
and bring us out of our exile
You’ve seen it break forth, surely, in this past week
In between the articles about flattening curves, and sites of infection,
and symptoms you should check for (and clearly have most of)
In amongst the stories of people who are hoarding,
and those who are allowing their racism
to assure them “we” are immune
There are also springs of living water
There are teachers who scrambled on 24 hours notice
to create learning packets for all their students to pick up
There are those who have already organized food pick-up
for kids on school breakfast and lunch programs
There’s our medical workers of all kinds, who are ready to “ride at dawn”
There are people who are playing guitar and singing on Facebook,
just to entertain and distract us
and those who are reaching out to shut-ins,
to see if they need anything, or just to say hello.
There are people writing prayers and poems reminding us that humanity
is often at our best in a crisis,
and that common sacrifice might just bring us together
when it seems like nothing else can
Maybe that’s why these are God’s favorite places in our lives
Because this is when it’s easiest for him to break us open
To strike the ground, and let the living water gush upward
To see the Christ that has always been within us
finally shine forth
When we are vulnerable, and that makes us reach out
to those who are even more vulnerable
When we feel oddly cut off,
And that makes us want to connect more than ever
When we remember, that we are one Body
That we cannot be the Body without each other
That our life is in Christ,
is in each other, is in God
Sir, she begs, give me this water, so that I will never thirst again.
My child, he says, my life is already, always in you.
We forget, just like she forgot, or didn’t realize.
But times like this remind us
These times, these wilderness times,
when we are lonely and afraid:
They are God’s favorite times
And He is ready to strike the ground of your life (of our common life)
And let water burst forth in the desert!
May it be so, Amen.