revlatte's musings

Quote

2 months ago

"Nobody Knows But Jesus
Exodus 3:1-12, John 11:17-44
March 25, 2012
Rochelle A. Stackhouse

I stopped watching TV news at the dinner hour years ago; too much bad news. I listen to NPR preparing dinner, but not while we eat; too much bad news. I may stop looking at my Facebook stream in the morning for the same reason; too much bad news. Sometimes it seems to me that the world is being taken over by dementors.

Those of you who are not Harry Potter fans may not know about dementors. I think they are one of the most creative of J.K. Rowlings’ imaginative creatures in the novels. Dementors are beings who feed off of the happiness of others. When dementors appear, everything gets cold and you feel like all the joy has been literally sucked out of you. The world turns grey and hopeless. Did you ever hear a news story or get a phone call that did that to you? And if the dementor sticks around long enough, it will suck the very soul out of you and kill you. You can drive away a dementor by calling upon the most deeply joyful memory you have which will summon another force called a “Patronus” which does not destroy the dementor, but drives it away for a while. And the only thing that really helps you recover from a dementor attack in the books is chocolate!

I wish it was that easy to, as the spiritual sings, “drive old Satan away.” When I hear news like the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida, or the deaths of two young men in New Haven in the past week, or the killing of Afghan civilians or American soldiers in that endless war, or the shootings at that Jewish school in France, or the news of another person diagnosed with cancer or the bullying of another child or the dozens of stories on my FB feed about injustice anywhere or personal pain or loss among my friends, I wish I could summon my memory of deepest joy, pick up my wand and say “Expecto Patronum!” and push those dementors away, and then pass out chocolate as a healing balm. Even if I could do that, though, I know the very real dementors in this world, all those forces which suck happiness out of people, would always be back, and there isn’t enough chocolate in the whole world to make things right. Sometimes it seems all we can do is groan in despair.

We’re told in Exodus that “The Israelites groaned under their slavery and cried out!” Can you hear the groaning in these spirituals? “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a long way from home.” Which of course, many of those enslaved who first sang this were, children separated from their mothers and their Motherland. “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.” The deep loneliness of trouble, when it feels like you are bearing too much to carry all alone and there’s no one in the world who really knows the depth of how bad it is. All of us, I expect, have had times in our lives when we have felt that bad or we will. Too many people feel that bad for too much of their lives.

Groan. We groan and cry out for our own troubles, and for the troubles all around us. If we don’t groan and cry out from time to time, we are living in a fantasy that everything is all right and nothing bad will ever happen, the kind of world we desperately want this little baby, Madeline, to live in all her life, but it doesn’t exist. We want this baptism to inoculate her against all trouble. But as the character, Madeline, in the Ludwig Bemelman children’s books, discovers, too often in our lives, “something is not right.” And our prayer for her this morning acknowledged that trouble will undoubtedly come to her, “Give to the newly baptized,” we prayed, “strength for life’s journey, courage in the time of suffering.” Baptism is not a vaccine against trouble.

Baptism does, however, begin the passing down of memories of God’s love, of joy having come for others who have suffered, who have groaned. Before that burning bush appeared to Moses, we are told that the people in slavery groaned, and that God heard their cries. We’re told “God took notice of them.” In this very moving story from John’s gospel, we’re told that when Jesus saw his dear friend Mary weeping for the death of her brother along with all their friends gathered around, he, too, wept. “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,” the song proclaims, “nobody knows but Jesus.” The people of Israel groaned in slavery for generations, but God sent Moses. Lazarus lay in the tomb for four days, and then Jesus came.

There is a pattern that emerges throughout the scriptures, and perhaps you have seen it in your lives. We experience pain, evil, illness, loss, and we groan. And somewhere in that groaning, we remember that God is. We hold on to the hope that we are held. Then as we groan, we begin to wait, expecting not our Patronus, but our God, like the Psalmist in Psalm 130 who sings, “I wait for the Lord; my soul waits, and in God’s word I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning.” And in some way, not in our time but in God’s time, God comes. Healing and comfort in some way happen, though not always on the schedule or in the manner we might have wished. It took generations and a horrible war, but slavery in this country ended. A widow or widower continues to live day after day after the death of a loved one and discover love around them again. The Berlin Wall falls down. Babies are born after a tsunami or a tornado and new homes are built. Sometimes the waiting is long and we don’t understand why God doesn’t act more quickly. Sometimes God does, and we don’t cooperate! But often in the waiting time we live into the mystery of not understanding the mind of God because our minds are so limited in time and space and comprehension. We baptized Madeline this morning into this kind of trusting, waiting faith, but that’s hard. Groan.

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Nobody knows, but Jesus. But Jesus. But Jesus. Who was intimately acquainted in his body, mind and spirit with suffering, unjust suffering, his own and others’. As he hung on the cross, one witness remembers him speaking the opening words of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?” is how that Psalm begins. Jesus groaned, and not just at the end of his life. But he groaned in the context of a faith that remembered Moses at that burning bush and people walking out of slavery into freedom, and with the very present memory of the raising of Lazarus. Jesus groaned, he remembered, he believed and he waited, the way we wait with him every year during Holy Week, knowing and trusting all the time that Easter is coming.

So groan, yes, groan and lament and weep over too many losses and pains. But groan remembering that God has heard those who have groaned forever. Groan believing that God hears you. Then wait. Wait with eyes open and hearts willing to see God at healing work, receive it and join in if possible. Wait with expectation and purpose. Wait with the faith of the psalmist who first sang the words of Psalm 22, and which surely dwelt in the memory of the dying, breathless Jesus who could only get out that first line, but held the rest of the Psalm in his heart and memory. Psalm 22 ends like this:

You who fear the Lord, praise God!
For God did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted;
God did not hide from me, but heard when I cried.
The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
Those who seek God shall praise the Lord.
May your hearts live forever!
All the ends of the earth shall remember
And turn to the Lord;
And all the families of the nations shall worship.
For dominion belongs to the Lord who rules the nations.
And I shall live for God.
Posterity will serve God.
Future generations will be told about the Lord,
And proclaim God’s deliverance to a people yet unborn,
Saying: “God has saved!” Amen."

- Rev. Stackhouse, UCC preacher in New Haven, CT

Since the Trayvon Martin murder, my soul has been somewhat unsettled. I am sitting here thinking about the situation and the response of many Black churches. Whereas wearing hoodies today was a nice gesture of solidarity, it feels like a band aid on the situation. I remember first starting seminary in 2007 and suggesting that we should wear jeans, tshirts, and hoodies in order to create a worshiping community that focuses on transparency and authenticity. The church I was working with completely thought this idea was ludicrous and flipped when the young people and I came in to church the next Sunday “dressed down.” Clearly, pajama Sunday did not go well after this :)

I share all of this because it is more of my frustration with the institutional church. Also, I am conflicted on the other side of this travesty. Parents telling young children of color not to wear hoodies so that we do not end up in situations like this. As a person with over 40 hoodies (I know, it’s excessive), my mom would often become upset when I would wear these out of the house. She echoed Geraldo statements that this looked “gangsta.” In a way, she was right! Black people wearing hoodies perpetuates a stereotype and it’s a shame.

When I went to the corner store last night, it was cold and I was thinking about throwing on a hoodie. Then, a weight hit me in the stomach thinking that it was this very action that could have me killed by a racist.

As an urban-guerilla-pastor trying each day to be authentic and real with those whom I am finding community, it is important to be transparent. I do not seek to go to a church or a lead a spiritual community that only wears hoodies and dresses down when a young man’s life has been taken away. I would love to be a member of spiritual community that kept it real and wore whatever they had to a gathering.

See, worship is for us as people. Of course, we honor the Most High Divine, but really, it is a people thing. In my tradition, we have worn our “Sunday’s Best” clothing to church. This has now completely isolated groups of young people who honestly don’t care and do not want to be criticized and judged because of their appearance. People who are held to a standard that Jesus himself would even laugh at.

While with my dear friend, Becky, we had the opportunity to experiment with this very kind of worship service. Folk were invited into the “Village” community just as they were. Folk knew of my notorious orange shorts which I wore about 12 days consecutively, and how that meant I was being real (and perhaps a bit lazy!). Sometimes we would wear shorts, sweatpants, hoodies, wife pleasers, whatever we felt comfortable in. There were no judgments, standards, or criticizing - we just were. As we grew in faith and in love for each other, we embraced each other on the spiritual path and journey. Earlier, I mentioned on Facebook that we cannot just wear hoodies once to church, it must be a lifestyle change where we are whole-heartedly desiring a community of authenticity.

This is why I shared the album on Facebook “the evolution of the revlatte ….in hoodies….” Often, as pastors we are told what to wear, what not to wear, things that are appropriate and not appropriate. Well, I am the revlatte. Indeed, I have evolved over time and am thankful for those who were a sanctuary. I am thankful for those who walked on the journey with me. I am thankful for….my hoodies!