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Rev Doug Horner
February 3, 2008
Sermon
Archive
The
Beloved of God
It's African American History month. Let’s test your knowledge
of African American history. Who was the first African American
to appear on a postage stamp? Paul Robeson, Fredrick Douglass
or Booker T. Washington? Sidney Poitier was the first African
American to win an academy award as leading actor. Which film
did he star in? To Sir with Love, Lilies of the Field or Guess
Who’s Coming to Dinner? In 2002 Poitier received an honorary
lifetime achievement award for his extraordinary performances.
Who was the first African American to win the Nobel Prize for
literature, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison or Richard Wright.
And in 1993 her book Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize. Guy Bluford
is the first what: African American killed in the Civil War;
the first African American tenured professor or the first African
American to walk in space? He was on the space shuttle “Challenger.”
In the Autobiography of Malcolm X, we learn that, as a junior
high student, Malcolm was a star. I never knew that until I
read the book. Despite the fact that he was separated from his
family and living in a foster home, he was an A student and
was elected president of his class. One day he had a conversation
with his English teacher, whom he liked and respected, about
his future career goals. Malcolm said that he wanted to be a
lawyer. His teacher responded, ‘That’s no realistic
goal for a nigger,’ and advised him to consider carpentry
instead. The message was clear: you are a black male, your racial
group membership matters, plan accordingly. Malcolm’s
emotional response was typical – anger, confusion and
alienation. He withdrew from his classmates, stopped participating
in class, and eventually left his predominately White Michigan
home to live with his sister in Roxbury, a Black community in
Boston.
Despite the advancement of Colored People in that last century,
hateful racially charged messages are still clearly alive and
active today. Every day we read about youth with axes to grind,
heavy recruitment by gangs, riots in classrooms, fights in front
of our homes all portray deeper spiritual issues. And why is
it still this way? Women, people of color, people of different
sexual preference and orientation – these folks have to
work harder, walk up the steeper uphill climb to success, deal
with rumors, jibes, bad jokes, insults and innuendos. It’s
happening in Cleveland Public Schools, in our neighborhoods,
in programs and agencies. We see different social climbers,
economic realities, races, cultures, sexual orientations and
preferred lifestyles crashing into the dominant culture –
white, middle class men.
Because of powerful media forces influencing the way minority
and urban children speak, walk, dress, style their hair, pierce
and tattoo their bodies, we dare not dismiss such influences
as ‘times in which we live.’ To the contrary, we
must recognize, realize, and conceptualize ways to limit a young
person’s exposure to negative influences on the one hand
and engage him or her in critical thinking on the other. The
moral fabric of our society depends on good people bringing
young people back to their senses. We must make church relevant,
more dynamic and real. The exploits of the heroes & heroines
of today’s generation have to make their way into church
discussions, classroom talks and critical thinking analysis.
The only power great enough to counteract these forces is love.
Love counteracts hatred. Love overcomes evil. Action is required.
Did you ever wonder what it was like to feel totally cared for,
totally loved? This is the feeling that Jesus probably felt.
He knew without a doubt that he was loved. He knew that his
parents were always going to be there for him. He knew that
he was the Emmanuel, although the ministry to which he was called
happened later in his life. Did he know it more deeply than
the rest of humanity? Yes; did he express it more fully and
with more power and passion than the rest of us? Yes; at his
baptism, when he was ordained to preach, teach and minister,
when the Holy Spirit descended upon him, and God spoke to him
and those around him, he knew his life was changing; when he
called the disciples, he knew that people would flock to him
for help and healing. It was time to put the love he felt from
God, from family and friends, into action. He knew that he was
the Beloved.
We can come into touch with that mysterious process of becoming
the beloved – I want to describe how the movements of
the spirit of love manifest themselves in our daily struggles
and respond with love to God’s call in our actions.
Words fail to describe the movement of the spirit in the life
of the beloved. But, for the sake of a sermon, I will use four
words from Henri Nouwen, a professor, author of many books,
mentor, pastoral counselor and priest. The words are: Taken,
blessed, broken and given. As Christians, as the Beloved of
God: we are called to become the bread for the world: bread
that is taken, blessed, broken and given. Henri Nouwen said
that these are the four most important words of his life. I
see them as the antidote for the negativity, violence, sexual
exploitation and hatred that pervades society.
First, as the beloved, we are Taken: when I know that I am taken,
I am chosen by God. I know that I have been seen as a special
person. We are taken by God, because we are God’s chosen.
We have been seen by God from all eternity as unique, precious
beings. Long before your parents admired you or your friends
acknowledged your gifts or your teachers, colleagues and employers
encouraged you, you were chosen. The eyes of love have seen
you with eternal value.
But this does not mean that others are rejected. We live in
a competitive world where people are constantly fighting for
attention, arguing for a place at the feeding trough, competing
for what is perceived as a deficit of resources. God is different.
With God there is always plenty. With God everyone gets some
attention. When one is chosen in this world, there is enough
for all flowing from God to us. Love makes us all fit around
God’s table. Think of God as being like the man in his
eighties going to visit his wife for years and years.
Al Lunde went over to the Good Samaritan Retirement Home to
visit with his wife Cora, who was helplessly and hopelessly
disoriented through Alzheimer's. Al would come over every day
with a bowl of ice cream to give to Cora. By the time that Al
drove from his home over to the center, the ice cream would
be melted. I watched him take that melted ice cream on a spoon
and feed Cora as if she were a newborn baby bird. As he put
the melted ice cream into her mouth and patted her on the cheek,
I saw. There was nothing but pure love; no chaos, no manipulation,
no questions and answers. I saw for sure the genuine love of
God between two people. I knew that love was true and I knew
that quality of love was from God and I was totally convinced
of the truth of that moment. It was a vision. I had seen true
love in the flesh right before my eyes. Holiness. Pure holiness.
Goodness. Pure goodness. I had seen a love that I wanted in
my marriage.
God’s
love is a power directed at us for our good. God’s love
includes us; it includes all people – rich and poor, big
and small, smart with common sense and those with book knowledge,
all the races and cultures, the conflict managers and the racists,
the criminals and the police officers, the privates and the
generals, the workers and the bosses. Each person is taken and
is called forth to be the beloved on the journey together with
others. Understanding that we are taken is the first part of
the formula for being the Beloved. We are taken; we also are
blessed.
Giving
a blessing or being blessed is speaking well of or having good
things said of someone. A blessing brings God’s affirmative
power right down on top of a person. It is like the Holy Spirit
which descends like the dove. More than a word of praise or
appreciation; more than pointing out someone’s talents
or good deeds; more than putting someone in the light; to bless
is to say “yes” to a person’s core, the place
of their deepest yearnings for attention and love, their “belovedness.”
The blessings that we give to each other are expressions of
the blessing that rests on us from all eternity. It is the deepest
affirmation of our true self. It is constantly surprising us
with inspirational richness and beauty.
Fred
Craddock tells a wonderful story about a young minister, newly
graduated from seminary, serving his very first church. The
first week on the job, he gets a call telling him that an elderly
member who has given her life in service to the church, is in
the hospital. She's so weak she can't even get up out of her
ICU bed, and the doctors don't hold much hope for her recovery.
All the way to the hospital he's thinking about what he will
say to this Christian lady, what words of comfort he can give
her to prepare her for her eminent death. He arrives at her
room, he sits and talks with her a few minutes, just medical
small talk really, nothing earth shattering. He is a little
frustrated, and then she says, “I want you to pray.”
“Yes, of course,” he answers, but is a little taken
aback.
To buy some time, he asks politely, "And what exactly would
you like me to pray for?" "Why, I want you to pray
that God will heal me," she answers with a surprised tone
of voice. So he starts, “Dear God . . . please be with
us now” and, just as she said, he asked that God will
heal her, even though he's not really sure that can happen.
When he says the "Amen" at the end of the prayer,
the woman immediately sits up in the bed, saying, "You
know, I think it worked! I think I'm healed!" And she gets
out of the bed and begins to walk towards the door, she gains
some momentum, and then she proceeds out the door to the nurse’s
station. A moment later, she is running up and down the hallway
of the hospital, shouting, "Praise God! I'm healed! Praise
God! I'm healed!" She goes running around the entire floor
in a state of euphoria, telling everyone of her amazing transformation.
Meanwhile, the minister is off balance. He was totally unprepared
for the miracle. He stumbles down the hall, walks down five
flights of stairs, leaves the building and out into the bright
sunlight, walks all the way across the parking lot and somehow
manages to find his car. As he fumbles with his keys, gets in
the car, he looks heavenward and says, "Don't you ever
do that to me again!"
A voice came from heaven saying, "This is my Son, the Beloved;
with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" That blessing
sustained Jesus through all his ministry, the support and the
denial, the praise and blame, the admiration and condemnation,
the peace and violence that followed. We are taken, we are blessed.
But we are also broken. We are faced with the facts of life
that all humans look forward to: pain, difficult relationships,
suffering at the hands of others, feelings of abandonment and
isolation.
Out of our brokenness comes the true calling that God puts on
our lives. When Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross was doing research
for her famous book on death and dying, she met a woman who
was a member of the cleaning staff in a large hospital. This
woman spent her days cleaning floors, emptying wastebaskets
and tidying up patients' rooms, but had a special relationship
with all the patients. The woman explained to Dr. Kubler-Ross
that she had known a lot of fear and tragedy in her life, as
well as good times when others helped her know of God's love.
She had been up and she had been down the mountain. The worst
time was when her three-year-old son was ill with pneumonia.
She brought him to the public health clinic, and he died in
her arms while she waited her turn. All of this could have embittered
her, she said to Kubler-Ross, "But, you see, doctor, the
dying patients are just like old acquaintances to me, and I'm
not afraid to touch them, to talk to them, or to offer them
hope."
This woman was a "Special Counselor.” She was broken
but God had special plans for her life. She knew she was taken.
She knew of her blessings. She was not afraid to go straight
into the brokenness of humanity and she was given by God to
help other people deal with their most important issues of life.
What gives me hope in these tough times are the stories of people
who have given themselves as bread for the world. Dr. King had
a special call put on his life. He told the striking garbage
workers in Memphis a day before he died, that they we called
to be the best they could be in whatever place they find themselves.
He knew he was going to the mountaintop but would not reach
the promised land. King understood his own life was broken,
it was a sacrifice, and he understood that out of the brokenness
was the change that brought more opportunity for a new society.
This was the time when King and Malcolm X had become friends
and began looking for ways to work together. Malcolm X had come
to a new understanding as well, realizing that the face of the
international Muslim community was totally multi-cultural and
mixed with people from the all the colors of the world. The
Beloved come from around the globe. As disciples, we are called
to proclaim the good news of the grace and hopefulness that
comes to everyone that we meet. In the face of the Holy one
that shines as bright as the brightest star, in front of indescribable
beauty and miraculous divine work. We are taken, blessed, broken
and given to others. Being bread for the world is the call of
the Beloved.
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