We build our faith on pillars of promise. We anticipate that the Holy Spirit will keep her promise in a few moments and confirm five in the church, including Joseph Jr. and Joanna, Fr. Joseph Oloimooja’s children. After church, we’ll dedicate the rectory in memory of and thanksgiving for your devoted treasurer, Bruce Lee, who believed in the promise of God and reciprocated it by his generosity. I promise that I’ll continue to support Fr. Joseph and your wardens Wendy and Norma and the vestry in the ministry we share together.
These are promises in the spirit of the great covenant. Many years ago, at the church and school I served in Orange County, I told my fifth grade religion students they really only had to remember one thing from the story of Abraham as he made his way across the wilderness, following the voice of God that only he heard.
Remembering this wouldn’t guarantee an A. But I promised they’d have a really good chance of making it to sixth grade on time.
All they had to do was remember the covenant between God and Abraham. The covenant was like an electrical circuit, always open, the power continually flowing back and forth. Since Abraham kept faith with God, God promised to care for Abraham and his descendants. And then the power goes back the other way. Since we recognize that God loves us, we promise joyfully and gratefully to love God and take care of God’s people, whoever they are, wherever they are. What makes everything possible is God and God’s people keeping their promises.
And oh, my, but is this a time for us promise keepers. It’s been a difficult year so far in our diocese and our country. Two hundred people and families in our missions and parishes, including a family of four here today, lost their homes in the wildfires. The church building burned at St. Mark’s in Altadena. School buildings at St. Mark’s and St. Matthew’s Pacific Palisades were damaged or destroyed.
Because of the fires of chaos in Washington, millions are now at risk because of our government’s serial acts of cruelty and recklessness — undocumented workers and their families, members of the trans community, people of color who feel scapegoated for plane crashes and by attacks on diversity programs.
And yet the word of God remains the same. Fire burned Bibles and books in our neighbors’ homes, but the Word endures. Fire teases the fragile edges of the Constitution, but the Word endures. The Word comes to us in the voice of the prophet Jeremiah: “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.” The Word comes from St. Paul, who assures us that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead as the first fruits of eternal life for all. The Word comes from the mouth of the Lord, who promises that those who hunger today will be filled tomorrow, and that those who weep will soon laugh with delight.
The Word of God always comes first to those who suffer for righteousness’ sake and at the hands of unjust power. It came in Mose’s time to God’s people in the Sinai wilderness and in Jesus’s time in the wilderness of the despair of Roman occupation. God’s promises never came first to those who were happy and comfortable. As Jesus says, they already had their reward: “Woe to you who are rich,” he says, “for you have received your consolation.” When people are persecuted, afraid, separated from one another, afraid to open the door to the stranger, afraid to turn on the television or read the paper – that’s when the Spirit of God soothes the faithful like cool water. The prophet says God’s faithful people needn’t fear the heat and fire, because they will be like a tree by a rushing stream – a tree whose leaves stay green forever, a tree that never ceases to bear fruit.
Of course the strength and authority of the tree is in its unity, all the parts contributing to the health of the whole – the roots, trunk, branches, and leaves inextricably connected. Without any, the tree would suffer. Working together, they continue to bear fruit in every season – and the fruit they bear is righteousness, justice, and love. Love of neighbor, and love of enemy. Love that is unselfish, and love that is kind. Love that makes room for everyone, and love that cannot bar the door to anyone. Love that respects the dignity of every human being, and love that will not tolerate the oppression or mistreatment of any human being. Love that comes from God – remember what the fifth graders had to remember back in Orange County – and love that we reciprocate by loving God and loving God’s people, whoever they are, wherever they are.
“Shock and awe” are now shaking our tree to its roots. That’s what the people in Washington called the first three weeks of the new administration. These were their words, not mine. This is our the elected government of free people saying that its goal is to terrify us, isolate us, turn us against one another, and make us feel like we’re in the wilderness again – thirsty and hungry, abandoned and alone, afraid that the darkness has overcome the light, afraid that hate has at long last made short work of love, afraid that we are no longer one nation under God but a people abandoned by God and pulverized by our leaders’ game of shock and awe.
But remember: We are the people whom God first found in the wilderness. Church people are always wilderness people, a green tree sprouting on the edge the desert, nurtured by the Word of God, Holy Eucharist, and coffee hour fellowship. We remain stubbornly together in community, worshiping and studying and supporting one another and our neighbors.
This is especially true at Holy Faith. The Slauson Learning Center are our friends of 41 years. These two years, Fr. Joseph has been watering and tending the tree with his cheerful, unifying spirit. Your generous support of the Mission Share Fund and our emergency fire fund helps our neighbors in six counties. And today you give the church five more confirmed members, ready to do their part nurturing the family of God down here on the riverbank, where the cooling waters always flow.
At the diocese, we are just another branch of the tree that bears the fruit of God’s love, here on the verdant edge of the trackless wilderness — doing our best to take care of those hurt by the wildfires, continuing to build affordable housing on 25% of our church campuses, and making sure undocumented workers and their families know their rights and that the churches that care for them know theirs. We have a “safe haven” training this afternoon at four at St. Paul’s Commons, maybe I’ll see you there.
We are all carrying the sword and shield of the love of our God in Christ. Politicians’ shock and awe have no power to come against that kind of love. We have been prepared for these times ever since God first whispered his promise of love in Abram’s ear. When we’ve lost someone we love, or when someone is sick, we’re prepared. When the fires take our homes or the homes of our neighbors, we’re prepared. When politicians do their worst, we’re prepared. We’re prepared to redeem the promise of God’s love by loving God right back and caring for our neighbors near and far, all our fellow creatures of God. Just remember the promise and keep the promise, and we’re halfway to the promised land already.
[“Shock and Awe,” my sermon this morning at Holy Faith Episcopal Church in Inglewood]