And Then God Speaks: Draw Near!
Jonah 3:1-10; Psalm 62; Mark 1:14-20
Rev. Tiare L. Mathison, Pastor & Soul-Tender
A Mash-up. I borrow this word from the rap/rock music scene where the word “DJ” now refers to someone who has multiple turntables at her fingertips, along with her computers, so she can ‘mash’ the music together.
This sermon is a mash-up of borrowed, maybe even stolen words. As one of my colleagues from grad school says, “all artists are thieves”.
Wednesday, January 20, was loaded with incredible words, words of hope and healing, vision, truth, setting the stage for a renewal of our commitments as a country to ‘a more perfect Union’. Just 2 weeks before, literally, 2 weeks to the hour, when white supremacists stalked our nation’s capital ‘hunting down congress people threatening the life of Then Vice President Mike Pence with a chant, ‘hang him’ their noose outside ready’. The contrast is shocking, the wound from that day still lingers as we hear Rev. Sylvester Beaman, pastor of Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Delaware, offer his benediction at the inauguration: the powerful words of Jesus echoing throughout:
Americans, in our common humanity, will “seek out the wounded and bind their wounds.”
“We will seek healing of those who are sick and diseased,”.
“We will mourn our dead. We will befriend the lonely, the least and the left out.
We will share our abundance with those who are hungry.
We will do justly to the oppressed, acknowledge sin and seek forgiveness, thus grasping reconciliation.”
“we will seek the good in and for all our neighbors,”
loving the unlovable,
removing the stigma of the so-called untouchables
and caring for our most vulnerable: our children, the elderly, the emotionally challenged and the poor. “We will seek rehabilitation beyond correction,” he said. “We’ll extend opportunity to those locked out of opportunity. We will make friends of our enemies.”
Unquote.
Friends, the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news. In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven.
We are still in the season of Epiphany, where God’s disclosure of power and purpose in our daily world is seen up close and personal. It is disruptive, ill-fitting to our comfortable life.
But when our life is torn asunder, we cry out for God to save.
Jesus demands we follow Him, to fish for something ‘real’ to reorient our occupational and economic and social worlds toward generosity and welcome. The kingdom of God is at hand.
Hold out your hand for a minute would you please? What can you touch? Your devices, your partner, a child, a dog or cat, a cup of coffee or tea? This is how close the kingdom of God is. It is within our reach. It has broken into our world and joined itself to us. This is what makes it possible to believe. Our Psalm for today, #62, has this amazing string of epithets:
My hope Our hope
My rock Our rock
My salvation Our salvation
My fortress Our fortress
My deliverance Our deliverance
My honor Our honor
My refuge Our refuge
It got me thinking about this notion of joining one thing to another in a deeper way.
The kingdom has come. It brings hope, salvation, and deliverance. It provides a refuge, a fortress. It gives us honor and dignity as God’s creation. We are surrounded, enveloped, contained within the kingdom of God. It’s right here, right now within reach. No wonder the angels always say, “Don’t be afraid” it’s right here right now! and Jesus promises to be with us always even to the end of the age, right here, right now. And all those other declarations of the promise of the presence through the Holy Spirit, spoken in Scripture over and over again.
The reign of God is not produced by our faithfulness & discipleship. It is the groundwork, the foundation and the scaffolding in which we live into our calling as Christians. We give up command of our lives and we follow after the One who says the good news of God is this: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, captives are set free and there is plenty for everyone.
We stumble and fall, mess things up in our own lives and other people’s lives. We sin, lets be honest. The. Good news? Within the kingdom at hand is all the forgiveness you’ll ever need. Indeed, all the forgiveness the world will ever need is contained in the kingdom of God.
Jesus not only proclaimed it, He became it. Took on the sins of the world, offered the final sacrifice, and rose again from the dead. He binds Himself to our world and His saving grace is poured out. He says, Draw Near.
I drew near to Jesus Voice and words in Amanda Gorman’s, the first Youth Poet Laureate, beautiful poem, The Hill We Climb: listen carefully. God has a word for u today.
When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We've braved the belly of the beast
We've learned that quiet isn't always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn't always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we've weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn't broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn't mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried
That we'll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid
If we're to live up to our own time
Then victory won't lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we've made
That is the promise to glade
The hill we climb
If only we dare
It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it's the past we step into
and how we repair it
We've seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated
In this truth
in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future
history has its eyes on us
This is the era of just redemption
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children's birthright
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we're brave enough to see it
If only we're brave enough to be it