Philippians 4:4–7 and an Excerpt from Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler
December 15th, 2024
By Rev. Nicole M. Lamarche
Welcome again to what is in our tradition the third Sunday in Advent. Welcome whatever you are bringing, in whatever shape you are in. Thank you for showing up for yourself, for others, for the world we all want together. As you are moved, I invite you to join me in this prayer from Psalm 19. God may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice! These words from the letter to the people in Phillipi so long ago are meant for us now too. Rejoice! And yes, even now in parts that feels bleak, in some areas harsh, because of what feels like an agreed upon hierarchy of humanity, even with all of the grief I have experienced over the last month, over these weeks, I want you to know that there is cause for rejoicing! After the election told you that I needed about a month to sit with the outcome, to get my bearings and reorient and to grieve. I talked about the marker for grief in the Jewish tradition, called sheloshim, which is the Hebrew word for “thirty” and I shared that I needed about 30 days simply to be, before I could respond to all of your requests for action. And in my experience when I am honest and open and willing, often the Universe/God/Spirit meets me, meets us, with our intentions and our hopes, with our heart’s ideas of what can be. And pretty soon after I told you that, after I said that out loud, I received an invitation to be in Washington D.C. and it was almost exactly 30 days after the election, so I decided I had to say yes. So I spent the first week of December with faith leaders and organizers from all over with our national partner Faith in Action. For those of who you don’t know, Faith in Action was started by a Catholic priest, Father John Bauman in 1972. Its first name was PICO, People in Community Organizing and he started the organization and now it is network of over 50 faith based organizations, located in 150 cities, 21 states and 3 international sites. We are interfaith, multi-ethnic, multi-gender, inclusive of all, and more than a million families in faith based organizing for the world we want. As a white woman clergyperson in a mainline protestant tradition, I was in the minority and immediately I could feel both the pain and the power in the room.
The first day we created group agreements about how we would show up together and there were hardly any breaks, so we built community at our tables and shared stories about our work, our families, our lives, our hopes. I took tons of notes, wanting to bring back as much of it to you, as I could to inspire and equip all of you and the title of the event was Architects of a New America. So I kept waiting for spreaksheets, blueprints, plans. I became close to the woman seated to my right, LeQuisha. She is the Executive Director of an interfaith organization in Virginia and over the days we swapped hard stories about ministry and shared parenting tips. She has a 16-year-old and we were bonding over the particulars of teenage girls when on that Wednesday she got a call from her daughter in the middle of the school day. She raced out of the room to take the call because it was unusual and she was gone a while. She returned to the large conference room with tears streaming down her face and told our table the news, soon she left again accompanied by one of the event’s organizers. Over the microphone, the whole room heard the news that LeQuisha needed to leave the event early to get back to her daughter because one of her classmates had cut another student’s throat with a box cutter. Through gasps and cries out loud of, “Lord have mercy!” we stopped what we were doing. Then those who were willing were invited to come forward and join in prayer. It felt super vulnerable, that’s not something we do here, although maybe we should, but it felt important, so I went forward with some others and we were asked to put my hands on each other, on the backs of those in front of us, forming a web of love, forming a messy mass of humans, with tears streaming and hearts broken, with a few “Amen”s and “Yes, Lord”s sprinkled in. We prayed for kids everywhere, growing up now, showing the symptoms of a sick culture that has prioritized profits over thriving in almost every part of our life. We prayed for LeQuisha and all parents and all raising kids. We prayed for teachers. We sang and cried and prayed out loud and then when it was done and some left with her to escort her to the train, the leader created space for others to share and wow they did.
One person rose and talked about how triggered he was as he had a child who had been a victim of violence and how normal it was for many in this country to live with that. Another rose to talk about surviving decades in prison and losing a child to violence and how he had found liberation in Jesus’ message. Another rose to speak honestly about how hard it felt to be asked to show up for immigrants to protect them when it felt like no one was showing up for her, in her Black neighborhood to protect her. “Who will show up for us?” she said. The boring old Conference Room with no windows and stale air and very suspicious carpet was transformed into a holy space- a space where people could share their truth knowing others would hear it and believe it and that something could happen simply because we were willing to do that for each other.
Much of our original agenda was scrapped and it became tending to one another. I was already tender, not just from the election, but raw from the grief of my grandma’s dying and unmoored from the already increase in hateful language toward women, trans people, people of color and others.
As I sat there crying and listening and feeling, I sensed that perhaps this was exactly the detailed blueprint for action being rolled out before me, even though it wasn’t in the form I was expecting. While we did receive checklists and spreadsheets, (and I shared some of those with Council this week) I think the blueprint for a just world for all, is really about relationships. Yes, those of us who are able and willing need to run for seats on school boards and county commissioner and all of those annoying important roles, and also, I think now is the time for us be willing to let our gentleness be made known to each other.
That word that we heard in our sacred text today, rejoice is chairo in Greek and its meaning is to be glad for grace, or leaning towards God’s grace. So what if the blueprint for a just world for all, for the architecture of the America we want, is leaning towards each other? What I mean is that part of how we got where we are is an inability to really hear what is happening in others’ lives and to understand that we don’t all share the same reality. There are all kinds of Americas; we don’t all have the same experience; we aren’t treated the same way, we aren’t all allowed to excel or succeed, we aren’t all allowed to be free.
After spending days with some of the best organizers alive, I am convinced that most important strategies that we can employ right now is a willingness to lean toward each other to be vulnerable, to put ourselves out there, to talk to all kinds of people, to be willing to hear stories that challenge some of what we thought we knew, to have your mental map of reality flexible enough to welcome difference. What if the blueprint is being curious? Because as we heard from Octavia Butler, “Kindness eases change. Love quiets fear.”
When I returned to Denver that Thursday, I missed the bus and found my way to the area where Uber and Lyft drivers do pickups. Soon my car pulled up and I got in the back seat, exhausted, I began to close my eyes, when it became clear that Murtaza my driver wanted to talk. I decided to give in. He asked where I was coming from and where I was going, and I asked a few questions back. Then, after a few minutes, he told me that he was a refugee from Afghanistan, I figured it was somewhere like that because of his accent. He told me that he was a practicing Muslim, that he was trained as a lawyer in his country but his credentials weren’t fully recognized here. He likes the flexibility that driving offers. And then, he told me that he had voted for Trump. I could hear the words from the days of the Conference echoing in my head and I decided to take a deep breath and get curious. I asked him if he was worried about threats of banning Muslim immigrants, “Not me,” he said. “I’m a good one.” “I hope for your sake this is so,” I told him. As the conversation went on, he asked me what my job was, and I explained. He was confused, but also clearly intrigued and then he had so many more questions. “Does the government pay you?” he asked. “No that is one of the few things America got right!” I said. “We have a separation of our government and our religion.” “It’s all corrupt,” he said. “That’s not true,” I replied, “The government is us, the people we choose, the people we put in office, the people we vote in.” He shared how frustrating politics is in Afghanistan and it was clear that he had been convinced that no government could possibly be good. When I explained pledging and repeated a second time based on his follow up questions, that the government is not involved the church and that the government does not pay my salary. He pondered. He told me that what I was describing sounds sort of like his tradition. “The people support the Imam,” he said. “We take turns bringing his family dinner.” I kind of like the idea of all of you taking turns bringing me dinner. As the ride went on, he told me that he was sure that his vote will end the war. “Which war?” I asked thinking he meant the one between Russia and Ukraine. “Gaza!” he said. “Oh,” I responded. “But what about his other alliances that are profiting from this war?” “He will do it,” Murtaza told me. “He said he would.” “You know what?” I said, as he pulled up to the sidewalk in front of my house, “It sounds like we want a lot of the same things. I want that war to end too.” As I got out, it was clear that the conversation had offered new ways of thinking for both of us, challenged both of our mental maps and softened something in the great beyond between us and maybe out beyond us.
“Kindness eases change. Love quiets fear.” What if our action plan for this time is to rejoice in what is possible when we let our gentleness be known? When we let ourselves listen and be curious?
COMMUNAL REFLECTION
How do you feel moved to lean toward others in this time? How could you let your gentleness be known?
Beloved of God, let us rejoice for what is and what is possible, when we lean toward God’s grace by leaning toward one another. Let us be curious. Let our gentleness be known. May it be so. Amen.
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