Trust

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It is like a silent killer

A toxic mist that hovers amongst us poisoning our hearts

shriveling our souls

 

call it fear

call it hate

 

it drives us from green pastures

and still waters into the valley of the shadow

where we fear evil

and feel so very alone.

 

crouching in the darkness

like a demented Gollum

we become malignant

 

we grasp at foul things

we gnaw and destroy

our hunger is insatiable and our dread unrelenting  

 

we try to solve our torment with power

and satisfy our hunger with wealth

 

we grab power and abuse it

using it as a weapon against others

we reject the truth and hide behind comfortable lies

 

our fear-based lives are filled

with guns, banned books,

stacked courts, oppressive laws, and closed borders

 

and our world is littered

with the neglected poor and the excluded stranger.

with people minimized, marginalized, and denied

 

the planet itself cries out in pain

as it burns

 

in desperation, we turn to malevolent dominators

to profane saviors who promise power, wealth, and protection

who tell us we will get tired of winning

if we only follow them

who promise to crush our enemies

fill our pockets

 

who promise us Empire!

 

but the cost is great

children dead, truth denied, people left

in poverty and hopelessness

immigrants imperiled

justice denied

equity destroyed

 

no person can save us

there is only Love

there is only that inner presence of a power greater than ourselves

 

the secret is this

Christ in us, Love in us, the Sacred in us

 

we are all Sacred Children

we all carry the Sacred in us

it is there!

that love, that power, that creativity, the compassion

that created the universe

 

that made the sun, and moon, and stars

that made the flowers and the trees

the birds and all living creatures

 

it is there, inside us

and if we are awake to it

if it becomes that in which we live move and have our being

if it permeates us

 

then we do not have to fear

we do not have to protect

we do not have to manipulate and control

we do not have to hate and exclude

we do not have to lie and believe in lies

we do not have to trust the untrustworthy

 

instead, we can be strengthened in our inner being with power through the Spirit

we can be “rooted and grounded in love”

 

and we can be people who embrace the truth (and refuse to accept the lies)

people who live with open hearts

open minds

and open hands

 

accepting, welcoming, giving, caring, affirming, healing

 

God is here

and if we trust in God, trust in that power within

 

God will restore our souls

and fill our cups

and lead us down the paths of goodness and mercy

 

God will lead us home

We Say

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We say “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” (MLK Jr)

We say “Love wins”

We say “God has this”

We say “In God we Trust.”

 

In faith, we insist that Sacred is somehow “in the building”

Doing holy things

And that we do not have to be afraid

 

For "All shall be well, and all shall be well,

and all manner of thing shall be well" (Julian of Norwich)

 

I believe all of that

 

But there is something that we often do not say.

That the path toward love and justice

Involves a profound encounter with hate and evil

 

What we do not say

Is that often the center does not hold

And we slide into the abyss

 

There is a reason Jesus said we have to “die to live”

And Paul insisted that “all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6)

 

We sometimes want to forget that

In between Palm Sunday and Easter

Horrible things happened

 

Conflict, rejection, betrayal, injustice, brutality, and murder

We forget that the world “did its thing” on Jesus

That Empire killed him,

 

Before the resurrection happened

 

We cannot trivialize the power of hate and fear in this world

Yes, Hitler was defeated

But what happened before that happened?

Concentration camps.  Genocide. War. Devastation

 

Yes, Europe and the world crawled out of the ashes

But the devastation happened.

 

Yes, people recover from illness,

Tragedy

Mass shootings

Injury

Hate

Racism

 

Yes, when Sacred is present the end of the path

Will be life and love

Justice and equity

 

But along the path?

So often the path to transformation and change starts

Not (as Richard Rohr says) “when something new begins, but when something old falls apart.”

 

I trust that eventually love will win

That people like MTG and DJT and all the rest will eventually be defeated

 

But I also believe there may well be a lot of chaos along the way

There may be “fire, dark night, death, emptiness, abandonment, trial, the Evil One. Whatever it is called, it does not feel good, and it does not feel like God.” (Rohr)

 

There are times we do not feel the presence of God

Times when in spite of what we say, we wonder

 

I see hard times ahead

I hear the words of the ancient prophets echoing in my ears

Woe to those who devise wickedness and evil deeds[a] on their beds!

When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in their power.

They covet fields and seize them, houses and take them away;

they oppress householder and house, people and their inheritance (Micah).

 

We don’t have to go there

But we may well go there

And if we go there

God will be there

 

“He shall judge between many peoples and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore; (also Micah)

 

How do we hang on in that chaotic, liminal

Painful, deadly, time

In between?

 

We remember that Jesus walked this path too

We remember that out of death God brings life

We remember that Sacred hangs out in our souls

We remember, remember, remember

 

And we turn in

We go to that deep place within us

Where Love dwells

 

We become awake to the Spirit

We give it room to work

 

Knowing that it will not take the pain away

But will transform the pain

Into hope

Into love

Into action

 

And then we will keep walking

Keep serving

Keep giving

 

God does not change the world as much as

God changes us, in ways big, and ways small

God’s presence changes the way we see the world

React to the world

Live in the world

 

And that is why, in spite of it all

The Kingdom will come

And love will win

Listen up!

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“Listen, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of Israel.

Should you not embrace justice, you who hate good and love evil;

who tear the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones…

who eat my people’s flesh, strip off their skin and break their bones in pieces;

who chop them up like meat for the pan, like flesh for the pot?”

 

“As for the prophets who lead my people astray,

they proclaim ‘peace’ if they have something to eat,

but prepare to wage war against anyone who refuses to feed them.

Therefore night will come over you, without visions, and darkness, without divination.

The sun will set for the prophets, and the day will go dark for them“

 

Hear this, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of Israel,

who despise justice and distort all that is right;

who build Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with wickedness.

Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price,

and her prophets tell fortunes for money.

Yet they look for the Lord’s support and say, “Is not the Lord among us?

No disaster will come upon us.”

Therefore because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field,

Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble,

the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.

          Selections from Micah 3

________________________________________

 

Prophets do not foretell an unalterable future

They simply tell it like it is

 

And suggest, rightly

What the outcome will be if a person, a party, a nation

Keep doing what they are doing

 

And it is clear

There are consequences

Specifically, there are consequences when leaders behave poorly

 

We have seen it throughout history

Those mighty ones who have lost their way

Who have abused power

Who have dominated and controlled

Who have hated those different from them

Who have in fear sought to control, minimize, and even eradicate

Those they do not like or understand

 

Mao Zedong

Hitler

Stalin

Mussolini

The Khmer Rouge (Pol Pot)

 

For brief moments in history, they flourished

They controlled

They destroyed

 

And then they were destroyed

And became a foul footnote in history

 

In every case the leaders despised justice

and distorted all that is right; calling good evil and evil good

they build their power wickedness, with hate, fear, and lies

Those responsible for justice abandoned justice for power

and the imposition of injustice on those considered “less”

And the prophets (preachers) said what the leaders wanted them to say

and what many of the people wanted them to say

to keep the money coming in

to keep the pews full

to keep the illusion of influence

 

All while insisting they are on God’s side

That their agenda is righteous

 

“Is not the Lord among us!”

 

No.  They/He/She is not

The end of this path is destruction

Not God-caused destruction, human-caused destruction

 

It is not that after destruction God will not work with those who are willing

To resurrect and rebuild

But this path leads to nowhere good

 

We can change

We can repent

We can stop grabbing power

We can stop lying

We can stop dispensing injustice in exchange for political power

We can stop oppressing

We can stop pretending we love God by putting the 10 commandments in school

And replacing qualified mental health professionals with unqualified “chaplains”

We can stop insisting that “In God We Trust”

When it is clear we trust human strongmen (or women), guns, and political power

Not God

 

We can stop abandoning the poor

And enriching the rich

Stop throwing away our children to gun violence

Stop seeking to eradicate people who are LGBTQI+

 

We can stop

Will we?

Or will we be like Israel, which ended up in exile

Like Nazi Germany

Stalinist Russia?

 

It is our choice

We can choose justice or political power

We can choose generosity or accumulation

We can choose to welcome and affirm

Or we can choose to deny and exclude

We can choose the truth or the lie

We can choose to love or to hate

We can choose to dominate or choose to serve

 

Our choice

How will we choose

 

Whatever we choose

Let us not pretend that this foul game now being played out

By people we need to name, in places we need not name

(although we could)

Has anything to do with God