Ordinary 26

The Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ezekiel 18:25-28; Psalm 25; Philippians 2:1-11; Matthew 21:28-32

We have been gathering for 2.5 months in the cemetery for the Eucharist. This move from out of our church building was not our choice. It was forced upon us, like famine caused Jacob and his family to leave Canaan and go down to Egypt.

We humans like what is familiar. We live by expected patterns and we react negatively when those patterns are disrupted. The COVID pandemic has disrupted much of our lives. The church – God – many people have always believed was supposed to be the one stable thing we could count on. The church has been steering through rough waters for over 60 years since the Second Vatican Council. And we fool ourselves if we believe that we will find security, comfort and steadiness with our God. How often in the scriptures does God ask someone or the people of Israel to pack up and move, literally and/or figuratively, without any instructions or directions except, “Go forward!”?

How does a person or a people put their trust in a God who is so unpredictable?  A God who demands trust from us without any guarantees except the cross? No wonder so many over the ages have turned their backs and walked away.

For 4 months we went without gathering for the Eucharist and for the vast majority of our parishioners they are still unable to gather due to health issues, infirmity or fear. As we look to returning to a church building next Sunday, have we learned anything from this tented cemetery experience? What is your take away from this experience?

Famine forced Jacob down to Egypt, the hunger for freedom impelled enslaved Israel out of Egypt into the desert, and Babylonian empire building drove many Jews bound in chains into exile. Have you understood that we have become like Bedouins, ancient Hebrews, living under a tent, outside, subject to the whims of the weather? We are a remnant of our parish community who gather.

When I first saw the tent it reminded me of a circus with its broad stripes. Yet it sides are open like Bedouin tents to see and receive anyone who approaches as Abraham saw three strangers in the distance and welcomed them.

Later in the story, God was upset with the prophet Nathan when he told King David to go ahead with his plans to build a temple. God was very content with a tent as a sign of “The Presence.” Tents fold up and move because people move, physically, emotionally and spiritually. This circus-like tent laughs at our church buildings which cannot move and which are not open to those approaching. Tents teach us that God – we – must go to where people are at in their lives. Many are turned off by our formalism, our sense of law and Gospel, our burden of history and scandals. We cannot expect people to come to our church buildings no matter how beautiful they are or how filled they are with our prayers and memories.

And do not see our returning to a building as a respite or as a homecoming. If we return unchanged, this exile will be for naught and we will be more distanced from ourselves and each other. The experience of exile in the scripture has as its sole purpose the demanding work of self-reflection so that we can reclaim the essentials. Returns from exile are never to go back to the way it was. Our God is not a God of the past. Our God is always leading into unknown futures.

In this tented exile experience we have pared everything down to essentials. Church is a people gathered just as we are with no frills. Death is water poured so that new life can emerge from within a person. The dynamic fire of the Holy Spirit is experienced in the contrasting silent laying on of hands and a smearing of perfumed olive oil. Eternity encountered in a small piece of bread eaten in the midst of our dead ancestors who await resurrection. Creation in deer, towering evergreens, turkey, rain, mist, hawks, warmth, cold and sun. Do you sense a deep Christian authenticity in these experiences? I fear that if we miss these signs, we do so at our own peril. They are the essentials.

Like the quiet, serene center of a hurricane, these essentials have and will sustain us as around us violently churn, the pandemic, job losses, the national election, loneliness, the issues of racial inequality and policing, protests, the dearth of leadership, street violence, the Supreme Court, the possibility of a new Cold War, the political polarization in our country and church, blame, the issue of immigration and refugees around the world, the paying of the rent, the issue of guns, online education for our children, abortion rights and most fundamentally the loss of trust.

The loss of trust in each other.

Exiles are difficult. And this one is far from over.

Trust is what our God demands. Trust is difficult as well but necessary to move forward in hope. To go on is to have trust.