7/12/20 “An Everlasting Sign” by Nancy E. Petty
“Focus on Hope”
Worship focus by Jill Hinton
I returned from a work trip to California late on March 13. And March 14 began my own ‘stay at home’ period. If you are like me, the beginning was measured in days – 3rd day of quarantine, 8th day of quarantine, 26th day of quarantine… but days became weeks, and weeks now have become months of being physically distanced from each other. And in the midst of the pandemic, our society is publicly and painfully reckoning with centuries of oppression and exploitation.
During times of uncertainty, we traditionally lean on each other – both figuratively and literally. So physical touch and proximity are sorely missed. It is a hard time. And in hard times, human connection – a hug from a friend, a shared cup of coffee, conversation over a beer – is what we have relied on. Without these comforts, it is easy to slip into negativity and despair. I am certain we have all felt this way at different times over the past few months.
This morning, I want us to think about HOPE – not in a trite way of ‘just have hope and things will get better”. And not in any way minimizing where we are now. As we think about hope, keep in mind that hope is the only positive emotion that requires negativity or uncertainty in order to be activated. If we didn’t have uncertainty about the future, there would be no need for hope.
Recently, a professor at the Univ of Montana issued an invitation for people to write 19 words or less about hope in these times. Listen to some of the responses:
“Walking down the trail-slowly, quietly; looking for little fox ears poking out of the den again this year.”
“Hope is staring at the blue eyes of my grand-daughter as we FaceTime a lesson on the letter ‘B.’”
Hope – “Howling for health care workers every night
“Hope is my wife, holding our infant son, commenting how the birdsong outside the window reminds her of Spring.”
“Hope – The work of humans/To slip from darkness/Rioting into the light.”
Hope is usually defined as a noun: ‘a feeling of expectation’. But paying attention to the previous words on hope, we heard words like walking, looking, staring, howling, holding, commenting, and rioting. Did you notice that these are not nouns?
My friend and colleague Dan Tomasulo, who has just written a book called Learned Hopefulness, describes hope as a verb. That is what we heard in those words about hope. We heard active verbs. Dan also suggests that as hope is practiced, then hope is learned, hope is cultivated, and hope and resilience blossom.
If we begin to treat hope as a verb, we don’t wait for something to happen, we make something happen. This has been helpful to my physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being during the last few months. Each day, making something happen. It doesn’t always have to be big and monumental. But practicing hope, builds hope.
On some days, hope may be cleaning out a drawer or pulling weeds
On some days, hope may be noticing the beauty of the birds at the feeder
On other days, hope may be sending bail money for a protestor who was arrested
Hope may be reaching out to a friend
Hope may be paying rent for a trans youth who has been disowned by their family
Hope may be writing your city council about housing
Hope may be taking a walk around your neighborhood
And on some days, hope may be shouting and protesting, speaking truth to power.
As we continue on this journey as a community of hope, may we find ways to make hope a verb – for our own well-being and for the well-being of our fellow humans.
An Everlasting Sign
Isaiah 55:10-13
Sermon by Nancy E. Petty
As I was leaving the church at 7:54 Thursday evening my eye caught one of the brightest and most beautiful double rainbows I have ever seen. Its arc stretched from Dix Park over the entire city across to Glenwood Ave. As I turned right off Cox Ave. onto Hillsborough St. and looked out on the horizon it was as though that rainbow was a gate, an entrance, inviting me to drive into a new hopeful world. For a split second, I forgot about the world we are living in—the world enveloped by an invisible spreading pandemic and a society structured on systemic racism. For that brief second, I could feel my whole body relax and I was reminded of God’s promise of care for all of creation.
I must confess to you, as this pandemic draws on and on, and my soul tires of the distance we must keep from one another, deep feelings of loneliness and longing have settled into my bones. Not that the church building is the church. I get that we are most faithfully the church when we are scattered in the world doing justice and loving kindness. But I am tired of “doing” worship the way we are having to do it. I miss seeing your faces gathered in one place. I miss Wednesday night meals with you. I feel so much loss when I can’t be at the hospital with you in your time of need. I hold sadness in my body that our youth and children can’t celebrate their summer rituals of gathering with other young people their age for Baptist Youth Camp and Vacation Bible School. Yes, we are finding other, creative ways to manage these rites of passage but it’s not the same. And maybe same is not even what I am after or what I am missing as much as it is the experiences those events hold for us. Honestly, I’m not sure I realized just how much I needed a sign that would soothe my weariness until I saw that beautiful bright mystical rainbow in the sky—a sign of promise and hope.
In our faith story, the rainbow is a sign of God’s covenant with God’s people. A covenant painted in colors of love and justice, compassion and mercy, hope and healing. The rainbow—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet—reflecting and celebrating the diversity of God’s creation. I will share another confession: I was not, growing up, a rainbow kid. There’s nothing wrong with being a rainbow kid. I just wasn’t one of them.
Now, I imagine you are wondering what I mean by a “rainbow kid.” Well, you know how in elementary school there were kids who, when asked to draw a picture, would draw a rainbow using all the brightest colors in those little individual Crayola packs. Their pictures were so bright and happy, seemingly representing a happy carefree life. I didn’t feel that growing up. As early as I can remember I felt different, out of place, like something was wrong with me. These were not rainbow feelings. So while I was curious by my classmates who drew rainbows and had rainbow toys and clothes, rainbows didn’t seem to fit me. And I guess my early theological education at Sandy Plains Baptist Church didn’t do much to help me explore the rainbow as a sign or symbol of a theological statement celebrating God’s diversity and inclusion. I was taught in my Southern Baptist Sunday school class, I’m sure in good faith, that the rainbow was a sign that God would never get so angry again as to destroy creation as God had done with the flood. That myth of an angry God didn’t really speak to a God who celebrates diversity. No, it wasn’t until I learned that the rainbow was the symbol adopted by the LGBT community to celebrate diversity and inclusion that I finally got what my schoolmates might have felt when they colored all those rainbow pictures. Think about that for a minute. It took an oppressed community to liberate the rainbow from the hands of an angry God and centuries of bad theology.
But then again, the fathers of mainline Christian theology and contemporary Christian preachers have used the story of our faith to highlight the suffering of humanity and natural disasters as signs from God to condemn and control and oppress God’s people since the beginning of time. I’ll prod your memory here. It wasn’t that long ago that a certain televangelist blamed 9/11 terrorist attack on “the pagans and abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle.” This is the same Christian preacher who prayed a “shield of protection” around his properties from Hurricane Florence. The fact that it didn’t hit his properties was a “sign” that God found favor in him. One can’t overstate the sickness of this kind of theology.
Seeking signs from God is tricky theological business. And yet another confession I must make. I often ask God for a sign. After all, the discernment process wouldn’t be complete without the request: “God could you just give me a sign that this is what I am supposed to be doing?” But it’s tricky. Because something then happens and you wonder: “Was that the sign from God?” It is definitely tricky theological discernment to ask God for a sign.
But here’s the thing: there are signs in this world pointing us to God and to God’s presence in the world. And I have been seeing these signs as of late. The generosity of people in this church who are able during this pandemic to give a little extra to care for their neighbors. Our church has gifted over $10,000 to families in need during this pandemic. This is a sign from God that God’s people are showing up in the world to love their neighbor.
There are other signs of God’s presence I am seeing in the world right now. A ruling from the highest court in the land affirming that a landmark civil rights law protects gay and transgender workers from workplace discrimination. Young people holding vigil 24/7 for over a week until a Governor vetoes a bill that included a provision that would have limited transparency in death investigations. The veto of Senate Bill 168 is a sign of the kind of justice our faith demands. It is a sign of history being righted that Native Americans in Oklahoma have had affirmed the sovereignty of their land. The cancelation of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a sign of the recognition that our land is sacred. In the midst of this pandemic, we are seeing signs of God’s compassion coming into the world in new and imaginative ways. As our nation engages in the work of coming to terms with America’s original sin of slavery and systemic racism there are signs everywhere that God is in our midst opening eyes and hearts and minds to new ways of seeing and acting and advocating. For certain, there are also signs that point to our shadow side as a nation and as individuals. Signs point in all directions. And if I can go back to that rainbow I started with, it is not lost on me that it takes rain and sunshine to make a rainbow.
The prophet Isaiah writes:
For you shall go out in joy,
and be led back in peace,
the mountains and the hills before you
shall burst into song.
and all the trees of the field shall
clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up
the cypress,
instead of the brier shall come
up the myrtle;
and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial,
for an everlasting sign that shall
not be cut off.
An everlasting sign that shall not be cut off…What is the everlasting sign that shall not be cut off? It is God’s liberating love. That is the everlasting sign. God’s liberating love. The great poet Maya Angelou spoke of this liberating love. She said: “I am grateful to have been loved and to be loved now and to be able to love, because that liberates. Love liberates. It doesn’t just hold—that’s ego. Love liberates.” If ever there was an everlasting sign from God to God’s people it is liberating love. Whenever and wherever you see love liberating people that is a sign from God that God is present.
When it comes to liberating love, we have the opportunity to liberate and to be liberated. There are two places I want to call out for liberating love today. One is an act of liberating others, and the second an act of liberating ourselves. Most of you are aware that the protests going on downtown are being led and maintained by young people. I’m talking about college students and twenty somethings. And they are doing things differently. I’ve heard a good many folks say, “This isn’t what protesting used to be.” And yet. These young people have shown up! They have occupied downtown Raleigh with fidelity, and last week, in victory. What would it be like for us to love these young folks for their hearts and their commitment, and to liberate them from our expectations of what it means to do the work they are showing up to do? To bless them in their discernment of their own path in this, their day of service. Can we allow love to liberate?
At the same time, many of us are educating ourselves and grappling with what it means to be anti-racist. For me and I believe for most white people, that work forces us to examine long held beliefs, and to be willing to question our own values. There is much intellectual and analytic work to be done, work of the head. But there is also work of the heart that must be done. There comes a point when we have done our analysis and we come to hold our world view and our beliefs in one hand, and we must then hold love in the other. Love can liberate us, if we will let it. Liberate us from attempting to see the world through new eyes, but all while holding onto the worldview that favors us, as white people, that makes our analysis right, that solidifies our values. I am not suggesting that we attempt to shortcut the intellectual work of this time. But I am convinced that justice love demands that we also be willing to value the ache in our hearts at the pain and suffering of our brothers and sisters, and to be willing to be liberated by love.
There are rainbows out there. Signs of God’s presence in the midst of these days that we are living in. To see them, we must open our eyes to Love. God’s liberating love. For it is the everlasting sign that shall not to be cut off.
