Sermons from Park Hill Congregational UCC Denver, Colorado Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] July 11, 2021 “Revolutionary Love” Amos 7: 7-15 – The Message God showed me this vision: My Master was standing beside a wall. In his hand he held a plumb line. 8-9 God said to me, “What do you see, Amos?” I said, “A plumb line.” Then my Master said, “Look what I’ve done. I’ve hung a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I’ve spared them for the last time. This is it! “Isaac’s sex-and-religion shrines will be smashed, Israel’s unholy shrines will be knocked to pieces. I’m raising my sword against the royal family of Jeroboam.” 10 Amaziah, priest at the shrine at Bethel, sent a message to Jeroboam, king of Israel: “Amos is plotting to get rid of you; and he’s doing it as an insider, working from within Israel. His talk will destroy the country. He’s got to be silenced. Do you know what Amos is saying? 11 ‘Jeroboam will be killed. Israel is headed for exile.’” 12-13 Then Amaziah confronted Amos: “Seer, be on your way! Get out of here and go back to Judah where you came from! Hang out there. Do your preaching there. But no more preaching at Bethel! Don’t show your face here again. This is the king’s chapel. This is a royal shrine.” 14-15 But Amos stood up to Amaziah: “I never set up to be a preacher, never had plans to be a preacher. I raised cattle and I pruned trees. Then God took me off the farm and said, ‘Go preach to my people Israel.’ Amos describes his unlikely call from a farmer to a prophet: to use a plumb line to determine the faithfulness of Israel – caring for widows and orphans, welcoming the foreigner or alien, practicing a religion that isn’t about showing off but showing up for the stranger. A plumb line is a weight suspended from a string used as a vertical reference line to ensure a structure is centered. As plumb lines always find the vertical axis pointing to the center of gravity, they ensure everything is right, justified and centered. If not, the structure will one day fall to the ground. It makes me ask: What might our plumb line be? How about love? Valarie Kaur is American civil rights activist, a member of the Sikh faith, and someone who can articulate the life and ministry of Jesus better than many who call themselves Christians – myself included. For her, the plumb line would not just be love but revolutionary love. That’s her extraordinary vision, her project, for us – as individuals and as a nation. She asks, what's the antidote to rising nationalism, polarization and hate? Valarie asks us to claim love as a revolutionary act. But just to be clear, she prefaces this with the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.” A plumb line. We’re going to watch her famous TedTalk from 2018. In the video, she journeys from the birthing room to tragic sites of bloodshed. And shows us how the choice to love is the force for justice. She is also clear: “I do not owe my opponents my affection, warmth, or regard. But I do owe myself a chance to live in this world without the burden of hate.” “Forgiveness is not forgetting, forgiveness is freedom from hate.” “No one should be asked to feel empathy or compassion for their oppressors. I have learned that we do not need to feel anything for our opponents at all in order to practice love. But love is labor that returns us to wonder—it is seeing another person's humanity, even if they deny their own. We just have to choose to wonder about them.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ErKrSyUpEo&t=9s Valarie asks, what if this present darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb. Something waiting to be born. In us. And in our nation. What if this time is our great transition? And so I ask, as she did: “Can you choose one person to practice wondering about? Can you listen to the story they have to tell? If your fists tighten, or your heart beats fast, or if shame rises to your face, it’s okay. Breathe through it. Trust that you can. The heart is a muscle: The more you use it, the stronger it becomes.” As Valarie concludes, you are brave. You are brave. I understand you may not be ready. I may not be ready. Archbishop Desmond Tutu wasn’t sure he was ready either. So, he wrote this “prayer before the prayer” Let’s pray: O God, I want to be willing to let go, to forgive. But I dare not ask for the will to forgive, in case you give it to me. And I am not yet ready. I am not yet ready for my heart to soften. I am not yet ready to be vulnerable again. Not yet ready to see that there is humanity in my tormentor’s eyes Or that the one who hurt me may also have cried. I am not yet ready for the journey. I am not yet interested in the path. I am at the prayer before the prayer of forgiveness. Grant me the will to want to forgive. Grant it to me, soon, but not yet. Can I even form the words? Forgive me? Dare I even look? Do I dare to see the hurt I have caused: I can glimpse all the shattered pieces of that fragile thing That soul trying to rise on the broken wings of hope But only out of the corner of my eye. I am afraid of it. And if I am afraid to see How can I not be afraid to say: Forgive me? Is there a place where we can meet? You and me The place in the middle where we straddle the lines Where you are right and I am right too. And both of us are wrong and wronged. Can we meet there? And look for the place where the path begins The path that ends when we forgive. And so let us pray together as Jesus taught: Our Creator, holy is your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kindom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
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