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Spirited Love
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27 April 2008 Where is God? Isn’t that one of the perennial questions? Is God in the cosmos? Not according to the Soviet press after Yuri Gagarin, the Soviet cosmonaut returned from orbit. After all, in a three-tiered universe, heaven is up, and surely God is up rather than down…. What were they looking for? Michelangelo’s God, reaching with that outstretched hand to greet the first human being to ascend the heavens and live to tell about it. At any rate, they gloated that Gagarin had seen no such being. All the same, over the millennia, we look to the heavens in our appeals to God. Is God in nature? Without a doubt. Whether the panorama is John Muir’s storm-whipped ride on top of a Douglas Spruce, Australian naturalist Steve Irwin’s crocodiles, Mongolia’s Gobe desert, or the wonder of a simple buttercup, God’s hand is seen in every atom of creation. But is God found only in the heavens? Or only in nature? Not according to our gospel. In John, Jesus promises his followers that the Spirit (God’s presence) will be with them when Jesus is no longer able to be there in the flesh. The Spirit brings comfort and reassurance that the disciples are not abandoned by God or by Jesus, that’s for certain, and if that’s all the Spirit did, there still would be plenty of room for gratitude. But from the beginning of biblical faith, the Spirit has done more than comfort us when we’re down or feeling abandoned. When Israel was in Egypt’s land, the Hebrews weren’t looking for someone to sing “lullaby and good night.” They were looking for someone who could tell Old Pharoah, let my people go. They were looking for someone to lead them out of that land which had started as sanctuary under Joseph and another pharaoh, and was now the land of enslavement and a very different ruler. They were looking for comfort, yes. But more urgently, they were looking for a change in their current circumstances. Exodus tells us that powerful story celebrated by Jews the world over at their Passover table, the story of the Spirit, leading Moses and his people with a fiery pillar by night, a cloud by day. That Spirit spoke to Moses in the bush that burned without being reduced to ashes. That same Spirit gave Moses and Aaron the courage to face down Pharoah, speaking truth to power, and that same Spirit gave the Hebrews water in the desert and manna for the journey. Where would the prophet Jeremiah – I’ll let you decided which one – be without the presence of that Spirit? Or Peter, with his bold sermon in front of the Sanhedrin; Paul before just about everybody? Or Francis of Assisi? Or Martin Luther? Or Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Or Archbishops Romero or Tutu? Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr., Caesar Chavez…You get the picture. Individual people of faith who give witness to that faith in the public arena through their passionate calls for justice, their grounded-in-faith conviction that God is not well-served when uninsured children are denied medical care, or when women of every race earn less than their male counterparts, or when race or ethnicity or religious practice is used to justify lesser services. I don’t know how many of you caught the interview of Jeremiah Wright by Bill Moyers on Friday. I hope a number of you saw the real McCoy, and not the pre-released sound bites that continue to shift the tenor and the content of Wright’s remarks. Wright credits former professor Martin Marty with challenging Wright and fellow seminarians to bring the world into the sanctuary, to acknowledge the realities that tear our communities apart, numb our souls, and leave us frayed and frazzled. Do more, Marty challenged, than advertise the next women’s night out in your Sunday bulletin; address the needs of the community you serve, and help them know that God does not want things to remain as they are. Where is God? Zimbabwe’s catastrophic descent into poverty and corruption has been news even before Mugabe lost last month’s election. But he refuses to give up his power. Thugs loyal to Mugabe are terrorizing those who had the courage to vote against his brutal dictatorship, attacking people and burning their homes. The country is rapidly sinking into civil war, with Mugabe’s forces hitting a new low on Friday when they locked 24 babies and 40 children under the age of six into a stinking prison. Where is God? Speaking to the dock workers in Durban, South Africa, who refused to unload the Chinese shipment of arms headed for Zimbabwe. Where is God? Advocating through the Spirit, siding with those infants and children, helping leaders of other African nations in their refusal of port for that same ship.[1] God does not want things to remain as they are, so just as Jesus promises, sends the Spirit to give us courage to speak out against today’s pharaohs, God sends the Spirit to give strength to act even on the docks of the shipyard. The gospel according to Luke frames Jesus’ ministry in the words of Isaiah: The Spirit—that same Advocate Spirit—of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind.” And that same Advocate Spirit finds the most unlikely people to give witness to that message. In an age when slavery and its traffic in human cargo cursed this planet, the Spirit fired the hearts of abolitionists. Those who have seen Spielberg’s movie, Amistad will remember the rather silly portrayal of the church people praying for the imprisoned Africans who had dared to fight for their freedom on that fated ship. Those church people/abolitionists were mostly Congregationalists who organized the legal fight to free the Africans. They found an interpreter, taught the captives to read, and supported their fight clear to the Supreme Court, where they were defended by that old lion John Quincy Adams. And when the captives were freed, some of those same impassioned, spirit-filled abolitionist Congregationalists joined the acquitted Africans when they returned to their homeland. Slavery is no longer the law of any land, thanks be to God!, and even though its legacy still colors our contemporary political campaigns more than 100 years after abolition, the Spirit that motivated the abolitionists has no time to rest. The alarming escalation of poverty is rapidly creating desperate situations around the world. Grain prices have doubled in just a year; people who could barely make enough money to feed themselves and their children are now able to buy only half the food they need. Food riots in Haiti, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Mexico, and Morocco are in the news. US decisions to promote ethanol may be a boon to our farmers, but they only compound the situation. It takes the same amount of grain to fill a 25-gallon SUV with ethanol – once – as it takes to feed one person for a year. Even here at the church, we have commented in the office that the number of calls UCCSV receives for help with utility bills and eviction notices is increasing. With the rising cost of fuel, it cost more to heat our homes; even with a mild winter, and if utilities cost more, people on limited incomes are faced with a no-win choice: pay the bill or eat. Where is God? Where is that Advocate Spirit? Still on duty. Evangelists now are hearing the call to work on the broadest of social issues: war, poverty, hunger, ecology. Liberals once again are making the connection between their passion for justice and remaining centered in the Spirit, finding renewed purpose and community in the gathered faith community. Social movements are rising out of spiritual revival and actually changing the wind of our culture and our politics. Just this week, Columbus, Ohio, hosted a Justice Revival. Billboards around town read, “Love God? End Poverty.” God does not want things to remain as they are. That’s why Jesus promises us the gift of the Spirit—even in Columbus, Ohio. Even in Germantown, Maryland. *~*~* [1] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3822568.ece, from the Sunday Times, April 27, 2008, “Arms Ship Exposes Robert Mugabe’s Link to Chinese Firm,” Michael Sheridan, Far East Correspondent |