Sermon delivered at University Church, July 31, 2016
I am thankful that I was given the
opportunity to preach today, because it forced me to engage with Scripture this
week. It’s a practice that I’ve
struggled to maintain since leaving seminary. And in reading the text, I could
hear God; but not they way thought I would.
In times of trouble we turn to the Bible for comfort, but sometimes
there is no comfort to be had.
Sometimes, we open Scripture not to our own laments, but to God’s. Sometimes we don’t get the still, small
voice; we get a roar.
So let’s turn to Hosea, chapter 11,
verses 1-11. Listen for the word of God.
When
Israel was a child, I loved them. And
out of Egypt I called my child. The more
I called them, the further they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals,
and they burned incense to idols. Yet it
was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up in my arms, but they
did not know that I healed them. I led
them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I treated them like those who lift infants to
their cheeks; I bent down to them and fed them.
They
will return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria will be their king, because they
have refused to return to me. The sword
will strike wildly in their cities; it will consume their oracle-priests, and devour
because of their schemes. My people are
bent on turning away from me; and though they cry out to the Most High, YHWH
will not raise them up.
How
can I give you up, Ephraim? How
can I hand you over, Israel? How can I
make you like Adma? How can I treat
you like Zeboim? My heart winces
within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.
I
won’t act on the heat of my anger; I won’t return to destroy Ephraim; for I am
God and not a human being, the holy one in your midst. I won’t come in wrath. They will walk after YHWH, who roars like a
lion. Where YHWH roars, YHWH’s children
will come trembling from the West. They
will come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of
Assyria; and I will return them to their homes, says YHWH.
2016 is shaping up to be a year to
remember. And not in a good way. Our country
is a mess. Tensions between law
enforcement and communities of color are worse than maybe they’ve ever
been. We can’t go a week without a mass
shooting. Mosques, Black churches, Sikh
gurudwaras are being attacked and vandalized regularly. Women’s health clinics are being
systematically closed down and our right to control our own bodies is being
wrenched from us. And this election
cycle is marked by terrifying and unchallenged hatred. If there was ever a time to lament, it is
now.
And that’s what we hear in this
text, a lament. But not our lament, YHWH’s
lament. The chapter begins with YHWH remembering
when Israel was a child, when YHWH led the people out of Egypt by the
hand. YHWH remembers guiding the people,
nurturing the people, bringing up the people.
And being abandoned by the people.
Having that love and faith thrown back, discarded, for the temptation of
idols.
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| Democracy is good, but it's not GOOD |
Idolatry. That persistent threat that
has tempted us ever since we entered with God into the Covenant. Our nasty habit of elevating beliefs,
systems, and persons to the status of the ultimate. And we are an idolatrous people, with good
intentions. We often confound something
that has the potential for doing good into something that is capital-G
Good. National security. Wealth.
Law enforcement. The free market.
None of these things is inherently evil; we make them so by orienting our lives
and our theologies towards them instead of God.
They can never fulfill God’s role in our lives; they cannot be the
guiding stars for our moral compasses. They were constructed by human logic,
and are therefore fallible. And the more
we raise them up, the further we turn from God.
Because I know y’all, I’m going to
assume that most of you were captivated by the Democratic National Convention
this week. It was a really good show,
wasn’t it? Every speaker was on fire. And when Hillary Clinton walked out on that
stage as the first woman nominee of a major party, I teared up. After her speech on Thursday, I was ready to
GO. Give me the clipboard and the buttons, I’ll start knocking on doors NOW. 2016 is a make-or-break year. On November 9, we’re either going to be on
the road to redemption or the highway to hell. That’s the story, anyway. That’s what our idols are telling us.
Our idol is our political system,
our democratic republic. We put such
faith in this system and its ideals that we are unable to recognize its
limitations or imagine an alternative.
Let me reiterate, “democracy” is not inherently evil. Conservatism, Liberalism, Progressivism, are
not inherently evil. But when taken to
their logical conclusions, these systems and ideals become instruments of our
destruction. In the name of keeping our
“citizens” safe, we allow our government to round up “undesirables” and deport
them. And so people like Jose Juan are
separated from their families. Because
we want our own children to have the best future possible, we invest only in
our own neighborhoods, and abandon underfunded communities. And a whole generation is relegated to
poverty. We hold the right to protect
ourselves and our families so dear, that we refuse to regulate firearms. And we find ourselves 8 months into 2016 with
over 2,300 shootings in Chicago. Because
we believe so strongly that the way to make change is through political debate
and the long legislative process, we ignore the immediate demands of
underserved communities. And we are
surprised when police officers get off scot free for murder.
We have prioritized the stability and
familiarity of our political system over and above mercy, compassion, and
justice. We have oriented ourselves to
the laws and logic of the earth instead of to the laws and logic of God. As Pastor Julian has said from this pulpit,
as Malcolm X said 50 years ago, this is the inevitable consequence of our
choices. The chickens are coming home
to roost. And this was predicted
thousands of years ago when the book of Hosea was written; we see it in the
text. Because Israel has turned away from YHWH, they will once again be captive
to a foreign power. Because the people
have chosen to align themselves with Baals, and to orient their theologies
towards earthly things, they will suffer violence and destruction. And because we have put all of our faith and
hope for change into political ideologies instead of in the Law of the Covenant,
inequality, intolerance, and hostility will continue to fester.
And this is YHWH’s lament, the cry
of anger and grief at the future God’s people have chosen.
“They
will return to the land of Egypt and Assyria will be their king because they
have refused to return to me. The sword
will strike wildly in their cities…will devour because of their schemes.”
“How
can I give you up, Ephraim? How
can I hand you over, O Israel?...My heart winces within me. My compassion grows warm and tender”
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| Pretty sure the author meant "roars like a lioness" |
God’s cry isn’t just one of anger,
but one of anguish. We are suffering, and so is God. As a partner in the Covenant, God is bound up
with us with cords of love. And because
God is bound up with us, God will suffer because of us.
Our idolatry, our willful
disobedience to the Covenant, actively hurts God. And idolatry is a way of life; it manifests
itself in obvious and subtle injustices.
So God isn’t just hurt when a kid is shot in Englewood. God is hurt every time a straw purchaser
crosses the state line from Indiana to Illinois. God wasn’t just hurt when the community of
Saqja’ was displaced by paramilitary forces; God was hurt every time we bought
a Del Monte banana. God wasn’t just hurt when Philando Castile was shot, God
was hurt every time Philando was pulled over.
God isn’t just hurt when ICE breaks up families, God is hurt every time
we shake our heads and resign ourselves to incremental progress like DACA. If we keep this singular focus on electoral
politics, the People, and God, will continue to suffer. And though we should recoil at the idea of
violence against other people, the knowledge that we are doing violence to God
should stop us in our tracks.
What is God to do? Struggling
between wrath and compassion, pained by the Chosen People, what is God to do? The
logical choice would be to leave us to our own devices, to abandon us just as
we have abandoned God. Or maybe to smack
us down with righteous anger.
But God is God, and no mortal.
“I
will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim…I
will not come in wrath.” No, instead, God will “roar like a lion; when God roars, God’s children shall come trembling
from the West…and I will return them to their homes.”
To be God in this crisis to not to
abandon, not to punish, but to liberate.
God roars, and calls God’s people home.
This won’t be easy. Grace will
come, but it won’t be cheap. Restoration
is inevitable, but it will be a fierce deliverance. And it will not resemble our idolatry in any
way. The good news is that misogyny,
xenophobia, racism, and economic inequality will not have the last word. The difficult news is that we are going to
have to abandon the familiar and find the courage to follow God into the
unknown.
Now I like and admire Hillary Clinton,
I do. But Hillary Clinton is not going
to save us. And to be clear, Bernie
Sanders wasn’t going to save us either.
I am a vocal progressive and a proud Democrat. But the Democratic Party is not going to save
us. In the next 99 days, I will knock on
doors, I’ll vote early, and I’ll watch the election results roll in on November
8. But this election is not going to
save us. We have to recognize our political system for what it is, a human
construction, created with some good intentions, but limited in its ability to
do capital-G Good. We have made it into
an idol; we have put all of our trust and faith into the democratic ideals it
represents, even after it repeatedly disenfranchises our brother and sisters. It will never save us.
So where will our salvation come
from? From whom will we hear that liberating call back to our Creator? The answer is obvious, really. The saving
Spirit of God is where it has always been: among marginalized people daring to
imagine something different. For months,
every time I’ve read Scripture I hear the same thing. Every time I come to church, I hear it in the
sermon. Every time I open up my Twitter
or Facebook newsfeed, I see it. Black
Lives Matter. Not One More
Deportation. These movements and leaders
have challenged our conceptions of what is inevitable and what is possible. They
are calling out our idolatry. In their
organizing, I hear the promise in Hosea: a fearsome deliverance to a restored
and fundamentally altered community.
Here at University Church, we’ve
already seen the amazing transformation that can take place when we heed the
Roar of God. We dared to join forces
with a group of young people taking on the University of Chicago. If there was ever an idol in this
neighborhood, it is the University of Chicago.
And guess what—a trauma center is coming to Hyde Park. We dared to open our doors to Jose Juan and
his family, refusing to allow his deportation.
In doing so we joined forces with young leaders who are challenging the
Department of Homeland security. And
guess what—Jose Juan is still here in his home country, with his family. We
have dared to hear and heed the Roar of God, and our community—University
Church—has been reenergized.
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| Is the Roar of God calling us to the Voting Booth, or Freedom Square? |
Should we be surprised at
this? That our transformation has come from aligning
ourselves with communities whose anguish God shares? These young leaders are intimately familiar
with the evils of our political idolatry are also the ones with the power to
break its hold on us. Here in Hosea, God
shows us that a lament leads to liberation, that the cry of the oppressed is
also a call to justice. We have to
listen for the roars that challenge our idolatry, that make us question our
faith in Earthly logic. Do we really need the police? Are deportations ever really necessary? Can we really not afford reparations? Do we
really have to wait for the right candidate, the right bill, or the right
Supreme Court case?
In 2016 salvation will not be found
in the Senate, but in the streets.
Justice will not be brought about by politicians, but by protestors. 2016
doesn’t have to be the worst year ever; it can be the year we abandon the
idolatry of a political system that only divides and distracts us from the
liberation promised by God’s love. This can be the year we step out on faith
and dare to heed the Roar of God.
In this moment of silence and reflection,
I invite you to think about where you have put your faith, and whether or not
that faith has been earned. Ask
yourself, where do you hear God’s roar, and are you willing to follow it?
