The election is over, and I want you to know how proud I am of the members of this congregation! I know that several of you voted early. Many you encouraged others to vote through social media. Some expressed their views about candidates but most just encouraged participation in the Democratic process of an election. At least one of you volunteered your time to be sure that elections were free and fair. None of these actions were small, and now…. now we can get back to criticizing the people we elected.
Seriously, though, the ability to hold our elected officials accountable is a big part of who we are as a people. I see that as nothing less than the grace of God, especially in the current political climate. Don’t get me wrong, I realize that politicians say what they need to say to get elected and rarely do what they’ve promised. Ecclesiastes reminds us that, “There is nothing new under the sun” and “all is vanity and a chasing after the wind.”
My concern is more about the current climate of ideology in politics, and a big part of selling ideology is making us feel that we are in a deep place of need and one person – or even a way of thinking – offers salvation whereas the other offers suffering. In other words, we are made to feel vulnerable because our resources, rights, and privileges have become scarce.
Rarely do many of us in this congregation truly experience scarcity, even though we see it in the lives of those that live right down the street in Freetown and McComb Veazey and North Lafayette. I’m sure we still have our moments, though, when we feel like we are “in the belly of a whale.” When a medical diagnosis just can’t be found – or worse, it is found and we don’t want it – we may feel like Jonah. During the divorce, when work is scarce, when a loved one is lost or distanced or harmed we may feel like we are in the belly of the whale.
While I’ve had a few myself, one of the worst was in 2008. The church I was serving as an Associate Pastor called a new Sr. Pastor, and he and I differ in our leadership styles. I won’t bore you with the politics of Presbyterian congregations, but it did not go well for me. The end result is that I had to find a new call. This can take some time in our system. We aren’t simply assigned to new congregations.
In the midst of this, my Dad received a terminal diagnosis for a very aggressive form of lymphoma, a house to sell during the height of the housing market crash, severance pay running out, and a family of four to feed. One of them was a two-year-old who had accidentally broken his arm, needed surgery, and was stung by a swarm of bees the night before his surgery.
Come to think of it, this may have been more of a Job moment than a Jonah moment. Anyway, a bird flew into that moment and sat on my porch. It was a Northern Flicker, which is part of the woodpecker family. These birds usually have a red v-shaped mark on the back of their heads, and they don’t normally come near people or houses. Treva saw him first and she said, “Come here! Quick! You gotta see this bird!” I looked and saw the bird. It turned its head almost like it was showing off, and it had a perfect heart shape on the back of its head. It was, for me, without a doubt a sign of God’s presence, and I gave thanks in the belly of the whale.
We all have these moments, and often we’ve contributed to them in some way. Jonah was clearly his fault, right? We can judge Jonah comfortably, right? God sent him to a people that he thought were unworthy, and he ran. He fled the presence of the Lord, only to find there is no place you can go and be apart from God. As the Psalmist said, “even if I make my bed in Sheol you are there. Night is not even dark for you, it is as bright as day.”
In the belly of the whale, in Sheol – the deep primordial waters that were below everything – Jonah did what no one would think to do. He owned his situation and he gave thanks to God for being a God of deliverance! Then Jonah promised to make good on all his vows to God, and he was delivered!
This is one of those points that we have to be a little careful in how we apply scripture. God saved Jonah out of love, but God’s love is not like a vending machine. It isn’t transactional. God saved Jonah because Jonah’s gratitude helped him see who God was, and God’s love did not just save Jonah for Jonah. It also saved him for the people that Jonah would set free, and that even includes you and me.
We have entered the story today, with all of our Jonah moments, in the place of greatest gratitude. Jonah is thankful just to be alive! He’s on the beach, and presumably pretty smelly. Imagine how he must feel. Gratitude may be an understatement, but as a feeling is the way that we often experience gratitude. In her book, Grateful, Diana Butler Bass talks about the way in which gratitude often starts as a feeling. You may or may not respond to it with some social convention like writing a note or just saying “Thank you,” but it can be so much more.
Gratitude that really takes root in your life as an ethic or way of being – I’m paraphrasing here – moves us to connect with others in a way that is more than just responsive. It connects us in a way that is deeply relational and even compassionate. It allows us to experience God as real and present and good. It even pulls us up from the obscurity of selfish scarcity and shoves us into the space of abundance through God’s love. That doesn’t mean that if you pray to God and send me money that you’re going to be blessed with more money. Faith is not a Ponzi Scheme, as some have suggested.
According to Paul and his letter to the Thessalonians, it means that whatever hardships you are facing is going to become proof to someone else that there is a God and that God is not limited by our limitations! It means that those who have been called to join our congregation in recent weeks are a testimony to the love and faith of those who have been here for years! It means that when our gratitude for God’s grace calls us together, we become a testimony to the abundance of God’s grace and mercy! When people see us together, they see the love that Paul saw in the church in Thessalonica.
Diana Butler Bass describes that as the movement from me to we, where our headwinds and trials become tailwinds and opportunities and we become the compassion that we all seek. I see it here every day when Meals on Wheels drivers deliver food to homebound members of our community. I hear it when drivers talk about their love for the people on our list. And lists? Wednesday prayer lunch is like a feast of love and compassion every single week.
This weekend we’ve had faithful conversations in a pub. We partnered with No Waste Lafayette to help reduce the size of our landfills. We held a gift market to support Evergreen life services, and we are even giving our own blood in support of a member of our church and for the health of our whole community! That, my friends, si what abundance looks like.
We do get overwhelmed at times. There is only so much we can do as individuals, and some individuals get leaned on more than others. So, while we examine our hearts to know how we can be a part of our corporate witness, we must remember that while we are limited God is certainly not.
Our scripture reminds us of this in a way that is almost painfully obvious when the disciples come to Jesus from a place of scarcity and he demonstrates the abundance of God. All they have is five loaves and two fish to feed a multitude, and yet Jesus gives thanks. Somehow it is still more than enough! It may be that there was some metaphysical miracle that happened there, but I like to think it was something more.
I like to think that the likelihood that families traveled with no provisions at all is pretty low and that the miracle was that people saw the example of Jesus and followed it. Either way, imagine the explosion of gratitude that took place that day. Would it have been greater if it were a metaphysical event? It’s tough to say.
What we do know from scripture is that gratitude is more than a feeling and a socially appropriate response. Gratitude is the invitation to move beyond our moments of scarcity to see and know of God’s presence. Gratitude as an ethos or way of experiencing the world is more than being thankful. It is the very presence of love that moves us beyond ourselves, even when we are spit up on a beach and smell of fish.
Let us, no matter how we smell, remember in this season of thanks that our hope for salvation – whether our candidate won or not – is not in a person or system of governance. It is only in the generosity of God, and against God’s abundance, we must hold all things accountable. Beyond all of this – and maybe because of it – if you hear nothing else today, I want you to know in this so-called season of gratitude where we are told relentlessly what we need to buy in order to feel like a human, that you are not alone. You are not without, and together we are a living testimony to the abundance of God’s grace!
Whether you reject it or embrace it, God’s love is for you. It brought you here today. It will see you through tomorrow, and together we will proclaim it in our love for one another and for those God has called us to love – especially when we don’t want to love them. Fortunately, we aren’t alone on the beach. We have one another to work it out together, and we will.
For all that and so much more I say, all thanks and praise be to God! Amen.
Comments