Hope from the Ashes
(Proper 19A)
10:00 a.m. Said Mass Live-streamed from the Chancel
13 September 2020
The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
Parish Church of Trinity Ashland (Oregon)
Genesis 50:15-21; Psalm 103:(1-7), 8-13; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35
God, give us hearts to feel and love,
take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.
Ten households in our parish family lost their homes this week to the Almeda wildfire. Between a third and a half of the parish was evacuated, some multiple times, having to flee not only from their homes but from their safe sheltering locales as well. One family took refuge with friends, and when their own evacuation was lifted and a new one was imposed in their new shelter, returned to their homes with their sheltering hosts in tow, now hosting them. Talent and Phoenix were largely devastated. Many of the neighborhoods totally destroyed were among the few affordable housing options in this valley, and many of the now homeless were already among the most vulnerable of our community, with little or no insurance, many having to keep working during the pandemic for want of bread. As today’s parable suggests, in this world, the rich get richer and can afford to put on a show of compassion, while the poor, whether stingy or compassionate, seem only to get poorer. And now we cannot breathe. Covid-19, isolation, fear of contagion, and now firestorms and slow suffocation—2020 has turned out to be what the Romans called an annus horribilis: a year to make your skin crawl. None of us are asking any more when things might return to normal, for “normal” has been emptied of its meaning. Our society is riven with hatred and division, increasingly armed and tribal: where most disasters bring communities together, and those directly affected so far have come together beautifully, in our larger community, false accusations are flung with impunity at those considered the enemy—the left blames the fires on proud boys with tiki torches; the right, antifa rioters with Molotov cocktails. But this deep schism in our common life is, perhaps, karmic payback for a caste system of privilege and plundered wealth and power based on what family you are born into and your imputed color. Nature itself seems to be revolting and pushing back on us who have plundered the wealth of the earth with little heed to its health and the sustainability of our practices. The governor said this was a once in a hundred year event, but boy, it sure feels maybe like the new normal with climate change caused by a whole society’s careless pursuit of wealth.
One parishioner asked after noon mass on Thursday: “How could a loving God let this happen?” I glibly asked back, “What is it that makes you think this is abnormal or wrong? It is the very image of God left in you at creation that tells you this is not normal, is not right, and is wrong, wrong, wrong.” But another parishioner, one certain that her home was lost, replied wisely, with the authority of faith in the midst of suffering, “I have seen more love and compassion in these last three days that I had seen for years before.” Graciously, it later turned out her home had somehow been spared from burning to the ground.
St. Paul writes the following in 2 Corinthians:
“So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer selves are withering away, our inner selves are being renewed each and every day. For our current bit of suffering—so light as to be almost nothing—is kindling in us a glory weighty beyond any comparison, because we are looking not at what is before our eyes, but at what is hidden from our eyes; for what can be seen passes quickly away, but what cannot be seen lasts forever.… It is God who has given us hints of this bright future, by giving us his Spirit as a down payment of what’s ahead” (2 Cor. 4:16-17; 5:1-5).
Paul is not trying here to disparage the world in which we live. Remember that when God made the world, God saw it and said it was good indeed. Elsewhere, Paul says he sees plenty of evidences in the world of God’s good intention and love in the world. What Paul is talking about is how things seem when we are suffering and finding it hard to see any good before our eyes.
Paul is not trying to say that our sufferings are not real or truly bad. And he is not saying the world needs to be ignored. He is contrasting how things now appear with how things actually are. He is saying feel the sorrow at suffering, but also feel the joy of the grace that God continues to show each day despite the bad.
For Paul, the hidden “eternal weight of glory” is actually the real thing, while our suffering, all too clear before our eyes, is but a dim shadow that is passing away. The image in our hearts of what God has promised, and what God is already actually accomplishing in us, drives away the demons of hopelessness and helplessness that threaten to beat us down.
Paul tells us to contemplate the “invisible things” which do not change instead of the “things before our eyes” that do. For him, the ultimate reassuring image is God’s love in suffering alongside us. Paul says he preaches only, “Christ, Christ on the Cross”: it is because this man of sorrows is the same as the glorious Risen Lord.
I began a silly little practice when Covid-19 broke out: to make sure I wash my hands long enough, each time I wash, I sing two verses of a metrical form of Psalm 100 (to the tune Old One Hundredth):
“All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with gladsome voice,
Serve him with mirth, his praise forth tell,
Come ye before him and rejoice!
Know this: the Lord is God indeed.
We are his own, he did us make.
We are his folk, he doth us feed,
And for his sheep he doth us take.”
I am so thankful for this practice. It has allowed me to see a great truth: a “mixed state” of emotion, joy and sorrow mixed, is not simply a symptom of mental illness. It is also a gift of grace in hardship. Elena, with her Parkinson’s disease, has had many of her emotional control systems taken from her, and sometimes she weeps, but is not sure if it is for joy or for sorrow. It is usually perhaps both. A blending of joy and sorrow is perhaps the right place for a person of faith when suffering. Psalm 100, for all its talk of mirth and joy, was written by someone who suffered much, and yet kept joy in seeing God’s hand at work in all things, even the suffering.
As Mister Rogers used to say, “when bad things happen, look for the helpers.” As Paul says, keep your eyes fixed on the eternal goodness of God even in this current horror. As we say in the Prayer Book funeral office, “Even at the grave, we sing, Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.”
We have been reading this last week the Book of Job during Morning Prayer. Its message, loud and clear is this: Do not curse God and die. Do not try to rationalize horror, and most definitely do not blame victims. Rather, like Job, repent in dust and ashes, and love and trust God through it all, through it all.
In the words of two African-American freedom songs, we must “keep our eyes on the prize,” our “hands on the plow.” We must, simply, “hold on, hold on.” Phoenix, like the mythological bird it is named after, will rise again from the ashes, in new life and vigor. Talent, whose name is shared by the units of money in that parable about proper stewardship, will rebuild and prosper again through the efforts of all who want to truly help.
In times like these, it may be hard to see the light. But we must not resign ourselves to being beaten down, must not “lose heart.” See God’s hand at work: not by blaming God for the unspeakable, but by seeing the grace and glory mingled with the sorrow and by becoming instruments of grace for others. Strive to be one of Mister Rogers’ “helpers.”
Don’t give up, and don’t give in. “Come into God’s courts with praise. Give thanks to him, and call upon his name. For the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and his faithfulness endures from age to age.”
Amen.
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