Tear Open the Heavens by Marie Alford-Harkey, M.Div.
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Sermon Advent 1B
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford, CT
Marie Alford-Harkey, M.Div.
Isaiah 64:1-9, Mark 13:24-37
“Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down!”
“And what I say to you, I say to all: Keep awake!”
Today begins the season of Advent, the season of waiting.
There is a kind of waiting that most of us don’t mind. It’s the kind of waiting that is joyful anticipation – waiting to see those we haven’t seen in a long time. Waiting to see the delight on the faces of those for whom we have made or chosen thoughtful gifts. Waiting to revisit our most cherished traditions, songs, foods, and rituals. Waiting for the good things that we know are coming.
But there is another kind of waiting that is much more difficult to endure. There is a waiting that feels more like dread. Waiting for news – and not knowing whether it will be good or bad. Waiting for hope and yet doubting that there is any. Waiting for healing that may not come. Waiting for answers, and not knowing when or if they will come. Waiting for life to get better. There is a waiting that is, quite frankly, painful, destabilizing, and hard.
This is the waiting that makes us cry out to God – tear open the heavens and come down! Can’t you see that we need you here? Tear open the heavens and come down! You can show yourself in power, you can make the nations tremble, you can surprise us with your awesome deeds, you can make the mountains quake – come down!
That kind of waiting, that kind of longing, is real for so many people today.
We have sick relatives and friends or maybe we ourselves are sick. We are waiting for a decent-paying job, and worried about putting food on the table. Our hearts are breaking because Ebola is spreading in West Africa, now in Guinea. We lament that schoolchildren are missing in Mexico and Nigeria.
Perhaps most urgently, we feel the unrest manifested in the protests that are happening in Ferguson and around the US to assert that Black lives matter.
The announcement that police officer Darren Wilson will not be indicted for the killing of Michael Brown has sparked new protests in Ferguson, Missouri. The outrage over the killing of 12 year old Tamir Rice by a police officer in Cleveland, Ohio because he was playing with a realistic-looking toy gun in a park has added to the sense of hopelessness.
There are so very many things to be said about these unfortunately not isolated events, and many of them have been said by people who are, perhaps like many of you, reflecting deeply on the sin of structural racism.
I have a Facebook Friend who lives in Cleveland, Ohio. He has two Black sons. He is White. On the day that Tamir Rice was killed, he posted this.
“I had a very shiny chrome/steel cap gun at his age, and used it in public parks - I am (just like) Tamir Rice.” A friend of his replied, “And you don't dare to let your son have one.” My friend answered, “You're right- I had that conversation with the two younger boys at dinner.”
This is not an uncommon story. I know of many Black mothers and fathers who have these kinds of conversations with their sons. Those of us who are White, who enjoy the privilege of not having to have those conversations with the children we love – can we imagine what this is like for the parents of Black children?
Of course not. I can’t live another person’s reality, no matter how much goodwill I have.
Another Facebook friend said this about the killing of Michael Brown. “If I had stolen cigars, walked down the middle of the street, refused to move to the sidewalk, got into an argument or even altercation with the policeman, I would have been subdued, perhaps beaten, would have had my feet kicked out from under me to get me to the ground, but I would never, ever have been shot multiple times and killed with my body left out in the street for hours. Because I have a white body.”
It isn’t easy for those of us who are White to name our privilege. How hard it is to admit that I benefit from a system that I never asked for, and that I don’t know how to dismantle.
But my friend is right. The numbers are stark. A report was released in October on the 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 that are captured in the federal data.
It’s easy to get distracted by the specifics of these cases and to miss the bigger point. The privilege of having a white body is a real one. The truth that all lives are sacred is being lost in a system and a structure that privileges some people over others.
I remember when I first learned about white privilege. I was in seminary at Episcopal Divinity School, where the entire curriculum is built around challenging systems of oppression. So the first class that we all take is one called Foundations of Theological Praxis. It involves intensive anti-racism training. When I first was awakened to the idea of white privilege, I said in class that I felt guilty about all this unearned privilege that I have.
I’ll never forget what our instructor said. “We don’t need your guilt.”
She was right. Guilt doesn’t get us very far in the struggle for justice. Neither does blaming the police or blaming the victim. We don’t need more guilt, or more blame. What we need are two advent practices. We need a longing for justice and we need to stay awake.
That cry from the Israelites for God to tear open the heavens gives voice to a deep longing for justice. The world is not as it should be for them. The Israelites have finally returned to Jerusalem after hundreds of years of exile and much to their chagrin they have discovered a deep spiritual truth. Wherever they go, there they are.
Yes, they have arrived back in their promised land of Jerusalem. The temple has been rebuilt. Surely that means that the golden days of Israel’s happiness with God are returning. Except… they have brought themselves along. In the refounding of temple worship, the Israelites begin to encounter resistance from each other. There are disputes between those who have been in Jerusalem and those who have just returned. The exultant vision of a triumphant return to Jerusalem that the Israelites have clung to for hundreds of years is not exactly as they had imagined. Life is still hard. Enemies still prevail against them.
And so, once again, Israel feels abandoned. God’s people are looking and cannot find God. They beg for God to come down and vindicate in the sight of their enemies. They know they are not blameless. They admit that it is by their own fault that they cannot see God’s face, saying “You meet those gladly who do right,” and acknowledging “you were angry, and we sinned.”
And yet, these Israelites who know that they have not been the people they could have been, who believe that God is justified in turning God’s face from them – they still make an audacious request. They remind God that God is a kind parent, a potter to their clay, and that they are the work of God’s hands. And so, they say, we are all your people.
Their lament has turned to hope. Hope not in themselves, but in God’s ultimate goodness.
Our sisters and brothers – and maybe some of us – are lamenting all around this country. These prophet-protesters are calling us to remember that all life is sacred, that Black lives matter.
Mike Kinman, the dean of Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis, has been writing about his journey in accompanying the protesters in Ferguson. He says that the first times he was out as a clergyperson with demonstrators, he wanted people to calm down. But, he says, “I realize now that, for me, a big part of it was my own uncomfortability with the anger and my own fear at its power. But the anger is the natural result of injustice and it must be expressed. White people like me must not only allow it, we must…allow it to cut us to the core and shake our foundations. We must feel the anger and let it change us.”
Mike has friends who are police officers. And he is making friends among the demonstrators. He says that he wants the police and the protesters “…to see each other's humanity and beauty. I want them to see each other as I see them. And I want it to happen right now because it hurts so much that they can't. I want it to happen right now because it hurts so bad. And I hate the pain. I want it to happen right now because I want the pain to stop.”
Mike is longing for a better world. And so are the protesters. Anger at an unjust system makes sense. Mike has learned that and is allowing himself to be change by that righteous anger.
The protesters know that the world should be different, and they are forcing us to take notice as well. And so we all cry out with all our longing to God – come down! Tear open the heavens and come down! Make this different!
We who are Christians believe that Jesus did come among us. And yet, the world is still not as it should be. Racism infects us and our systems, violence abounds here and around the world.
But we too are audacious in our belief and hope in God. We too, remind God that we are all God’s people. We believe that there will be healing. We believe that wrongs can be put right. We believe that Jesus began that work by coming among us.
And like the disciples, we’d like to put our hope in the miraculous return of Jesus with power and great glory. We’d like to know exactly when Jesus is going to show up and vindicate us to our enemies.
But what we know is that we are not going to know the day or the hour. We know that all through his ministry, Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is among us, not somewhere or sometime far away. He exercised his ministry with those who were oppressed and he taught that his disciples are to do likewise.
So it is our job to keep awake. To keep awake to who needs food, or comfort. To keep awake to the times when we should just show up and weep with those who weep. And it is our job to make the kingdom of God real among us by working for justice and dignity for all people.
May our longing for justice inspire us to tear open the heavens this Advent.