REWRITE 2020

This is the last in our REWRITE Series. With all that’s unprecedented in our world, it felt like a good idea to the Holy Spirit and the worship team to do something precedented. It has been a joy going through my past catalog of sermons and updating them for our present day. As the preaching legend Fred Craddock said, “If it’s worth preaching once, it’s worth preaching again. If it’s worth preaching only once, it shouldn’t be preached at all.”

As I’ve rewritten sermons, it occurred to me that I could REWRITE the year. Because frankly, this year hasn’t been the best. Here is how I would REWRITE 2020.

President Donald Trump decides to try a new track and drains the swamp from all lobbyists. He does this by passing a sweeping campaign finance reform which tracks and shows money spent. He also institutes an anti-gerrymandering law that’s well received by the public and helps shed light on political corruption.

Politicians now have to wear their sponsors on their jackets like NASCAR. I guess I’m wearing my sponsors today. This message is brought to you by God, the United Church of Christ, and from worshippers like you.

Hearing rumors of a virus, he closes our borders in early February. A move I wasn’t in favor of at first, but given that the total number of COVID-19 cases on US soil has been 600, the global leader, I can’t argue.

Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, George Floyd is arrested by officer Derek Chauvin. As Derek kneels on George’s neck, he hears George say, “I can’t breathe.”

Derek said later in a New York Times interview, “I recalled that those were the last words of Eric Garner. I was reminded that black lives matter. I couldn’t do that to George. I couldn’t do that to my fellow police officers.”

Derek stands up, and then works toward police reform. In these new police trainings, Derek is contacted by our own Police Chief Ed Kinney. Now police around the country are swapping tanks and assault gear for community police training and partnering with social services. Medina has stepped into the national spotlight and is the gold standard of policing. Derek and George recently observed Labor Day together with their families at a cookout.

School is in session and it’s different having an elementary student and a new middle schooler. I was so thankful that because the global pandemic never hit our shores, I was able to enjoy Eve’s last year at Northrop Elementary. Our last father-daughter dance was very memorable. As was Sam’s spring Cub Scout campout and year-end ceremonies where he earned his Wolf rank.

Kate and I had a wonderful vacation to Ireland. We were so thankful that we could take that time away and know that the Rev. Harry Buch and Rev. Pam Branscome could cover for two Sundays and treat you all to a hot jazz worship service.

Well… that’s how I think it should have been. I often catch myself wondering a lot about what could have been. What if I tried harder in high school and college? What if I attended public school and not my Catholic school? This backwards looking hobby of mine is… interesting. Not really helpful. But I see this way of thinking in how some folks read the bible.

Moses is on the mountainside with God. Moses has led the Israelites out into the wilderness from Egypt. All Moses knows is God’s name and his vague connection to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Talk about a leap of faith! After all Moses has done for God, Moses requests to see God face-to-face.

God says to Moses, “Sure! You’ve done a great job thus far. Just go over to this cleft in the rock, and I’ll put my hand over it, and you’ll see my back, as no mortal can see my face and live.”

The literal English translation doesn’t do the Hebrew justice. “You’ll see my back or backside.” Instead, the Hebrew has, in my opinion, a cooler way to think about this: “You’ll see where I was.”

You’ll see where I was. I often don’t see God at work in my life until I look backwards. Like that Kierkegaard quote about how life can only be understood backwards but lived forwards. So we read our sacred scriptures and hold our tradition tightly because it shows where God was. It goes hand-in-hand with dwelling on what should have been. It gives us a backwards thinking faith. And that’s a choice we can make.

But that’s a problem! If we only see where God was, we miss where God is! And we can miss where God is heading. God is not going backwards, but onward! God did not lead Moses and the Israelites back to Egypt. No! God led them to the Promised Land!

I think it’s a very human thing to look backwards. It was safer there. We know how we got through those times and arrived at this place. It’s the future that scares us! The thought of what is going to happen can fill us with dread. But listen… We are called to be co-creators with the Creator.

God liberates the oppressed and breaks our chains not so we can put them back on. No! We are led out of Egypt. Egypt can be understood, like Walter Breuggemann thinks of it, as a demand economy. An economy that demands our production, demands men act one way and women another, demands unreasonable quotas for chopping cotton and making bricks. Escape into the wilderness means that the Israelites have moved beyond the reach and governance of Pharaoh.[1]

That’s where we are. We are in the wilderness. It’s hard to see what’s coming. We’re in a pandemic that’s outpaced our response to it. We are facing a skewed criminal justice system that in some instances has lost interest in justice and corrections. We are seeing a rise in unemployment, addictions, and mental health. We are once again in a reckoning with America’s original sin of racism.

Some are trying to rewrite this. They don’t know where to turn so they grumble, just like the Israelites did in the wilderness. At least in Egypt we knew what to expect. Pharaoh’s demands were awful but at least we had 3 square meals a day. So some say “COVID isn’t really that big of deal. And follow the rules, don’t break the law and you’ll be fine. Those who were shot should have just complied. I have a job, so I don’t care about those bums who don’t. And racism is over. We had a black president.”

Folks are rewriting their reality all the time. It’s exhausting to try to help folks care about their neighbors, but that is my calling. I don’t really like being in the wilderness, but I am learning to love it. I’m trying to rethink how I do my job. I’m trying to connect to you and widen our circle. Engage you to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.

The wilderness is a place the requires of us new ways of thinking and being. Constructive ways that build and do not tear down. Pharaoh is coercive and predatory but the alternative is God’s wilderness where you will build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce; have children and see them married and start their own families (Jeremiah 29:5-6).[2]

You will see where I was.

I have had these thoughts and I’ve heard them from you… Where was God in this pandemic? Where was God when that policeman took George Floyd’s life? Where is God in all of this?

God is with the scientists telling us to look for truth. Christ said that he is the way, the truth, and the life. Where there is truth, there is God. This is the result of what happens when we deny science. Like how scientists say that climate change will result in rising seas, more frequent and stronger tropical storms, and more frequent and wide-spread forest fires. People called them doom-sayers and ignored them. Now the seas are rising[3], we’ve had the first week in recorded history where there were 6 tropical storms,[4] and the west was on fire for most of this record-breaking month.[5] A fire that’s around 30% contained. We drove up last Monday to the church. We were going west on Liberty and I saw what I thought was the moon. I said to the kids, “Hey, kids! Look at the moon!”

Kate said, “That’s no moon.”

I said, “Are you quoting Star Wars at me?”

She said, “Settle down… That’s the setting sun.”

It looked the way it did because of the smoke from the fires, which have now reached Europe.[6]

We are called to be stewards who care for God’s first testament of creation.

God was with George Floyd, summoned when George called for his mother. The Divine Mother was there to welcome George home and in the calls of all the prophets who protested the taking of this life. This is not in keeping God’s command to love our neighbor as ourselves. God’s heart was the first to break. God was the first to protest. God is right there in the voice of the voiceless crying out in the wilderness to make the paths straight. The correctional paths straight. The paths we walk each and every day in our communities to be fair, equitable, and safe to walk down.

Just as the Israelites have groaned under their slavery and cried out, God answered. Out of Egypt and into the wilderness.

We are in the wilderness so we can learn again how to live together. Live not based on what we produce. That was the old economy. Live not based on our race, that was the old economy. Live instead as neighbors, and live in hope.

As much as I hope that I could rewrite 2020 how I think it should have happened, I can’t. Instead, all I have is here and now, and you. I can see where God was and it propels me to where God is and will be!

God will be where there is truth. So I listen to science and scientists and experts. God will be where there is justice and mercy so I seek out people who stand for those things and befriend them. Keep them close and learn from them. God will be where there is love of enemy, peacemaking, forgiveness and reconciliation, so I try to practice those things… sometimes timidly. Sometimes boldly.

We cannot rewrite the past. Instead, we can write ourselves a better future from here. Look. These things have happened. So what are we going to do about it?

We’re going to wear our masks. We wear them not because they will prevent us from catching the virus, no. They will prevent us from spreading the virus. My spit stops at the inside of my mask. That’s how the virus is transmitted is through aerosol.[7] We’re going to wash our hands. We’re going to limit contact.

We’re going to continue to be neighborly and reach out with phone calls, cards, and social media posts. Strike up a conversation today in whatever way you’re comfortable. Blame it on me. As you’re scrolling through your feed or looking through the directory and come across someone that causes you to hear the Spirit say, “hey! There’s a child of mine you need to get to know more about…” Reach out and say, “I’m only doing this cause Pastor Luke made me.”

We’re going to dream a world into being. Through our conversations together in bible studies and book studies and committee and council meetings, we’re going to envision how to bring the kingdom of God closer to earth. That’s the story I’m interested in writing. Let’s get to work!

Works Cited

[1] Walter Brueggemann, Journey to the Common Good: A reintroduction. Journal for Preachers, Spring 2020. Page 1.

[2] Brueggemann, ibid page 3

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/climate/sea-level-inland-floods.html

[4] https://www.newschannel5.com/news/national/six-tropical-storms-formed-at-once-it-was-a-new-record

[5] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54180049

[6] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/western-wildfire-smoke-travels-across-country-180975821/

[7] https://time.com/5883081/covid-19-transmitted-aerosols/

Comments

  1. I love this, Luke. I’m all for praying for and dreaming a better America. The problem is not 2020, it’s what we as Americans have become.

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