Earth Day

Sunday, July 27, 2025

Sermon, Proper 12, "God is good . . . all the time?"

 

C Proper 12 17 Pilg 2022
July 24, 2022
Luke 11:1-13

           Maybe you were like me.  You grew up believing that most of the Bible was just too complicated to understand.  Or just too spiritual.  Maybe when I got more spiritual, prayed more, developed some kind of special knowledge, I would understand the Bible.  But until then, the book seemed to be filled with the miraculous, amazing, and other-worldly that really had me second-guessing whether this “faith thing” would ever be something I would be spiritually mature enough to understand.  Other people seemed certain and got it.  I was always wondering what that “special sauce” was that would help me to get it.

           Some of that changed when I realized that many of the Biblical authors wrote with images meant to paint vivid pictures for the people reading or listening—like graphic novels.  These authors weren’t trying to be literal.  They were trying to help people of their own time understand that time. 

And I wasn’t a part of that time so everything would, naturally, appear to be “off” for me.  The Biblical writers weren’t writing for me.  What did those images, those vivid pictures, mean for people in their time?  That helped. 

           But there was a second part I probably didn’t really get until I reflected back on some of my missionary work in southern Mexico.  I spent a year in southern Mexico partnering with the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas to work with the displaced in southern Mexico and Guatemalan refugees.  Many of these refugees, indigenous Maya, had fled their homeland to find refuge and sanctuary in different parts of the world, some of them in the Chiapan highlands.  The people I got to know best, the small community of Zacaleu Zacualtipan,  was making a life in the rain forest.. 

At one of our recent Wednesday night services, I reflected back on some of my personal life as I agreed to return to southern Mexico to accompany Guatemalan refugees who had fled to southern Mexico back into Guatemala to struggle on behalf of their people and their homeland.    

           A few days before the small community of Zacaleu Zacualtipan led all of the Guatemalan refugees in this United Nations caravan to the southern most city in Mexico, I was blessed to  speak with Diego, a man who had been targeted for assassination in Guatemala.  When he and his wife, Natalia, found out, they bundled up their new-born and fled over the border into southern Mexico.  Diego and Miguel, Diego’s brother, were leaders of this small camp.

 I’ll never forget the day of the first return.  Diego joyfully played his guitar as people placed all of their life’s belongings on this United Nations bus.  His wife, further up on the bus, sat stoically looking forward, bawling her eyes out.  They were returning with another new-born.  Natalia knew that her husband would probably be assassinated when they returned.  That life perspective, that reality that you and your people are the hunted and the pursued and the persecuted, just for being indigenous and seeking a life, made even the most joyous moments bittersweet. 

           But the day before the caravan, there I was as Diego opened up the gospel to me, helped me to understand.  He told me of a grand banquet Christ had set before the world.  He knew his station in the world.  He said he was one of the lost and forgotten, a person who had to work hard every day just to survive as a farmer.  Indeed, I had seen how this small Mayan community had created community life in the rain forest--set up gardens, learned how to secure potable water, and even had begun to breed rabbits to provide regular protein for the people of Zacaleu Zacualtipan.  Diego told me how he would be invited to that banquet but that he had fears for people who were not poor, rich businessmen, who would be invited to the banquet, where we might all share in community and joy.   No, those people who had no dirt underneath their fingernails would turn away the invitation because they were busy hoarding all of their wealth in another kingdom.  It was Diego’s fondest wish that they might join him at the table.  Pero, ay, Miguel,” he said, “no lo tengo mucho esperanza.  I don’t have much hope for it.  Until then, we labor for that banquet. 

           At a time when I thought I was helping him, a Guatemalan peasant, a farmer who has lost his land, had laid before me a passage of Scripture, a teaching of Jesus, translated it, in a way that finally made total sense to me.  Must have been how people heard it the first time Jesus shared this revelation of God’s goodness.

           For that is why the proclamation that “God is good,” is so central to many communities.  If people like Diego, Natalia, and Miguel looked at the status quo, they would wonder if God had it in for them.  Why did God intend so much evil for them?  It is why the message of angels has to begin so often with “Fear not!” because for Jewish peasants, they must wonder if God has it in for them.  If your child asked for a fish, would you give them a snake?  If your child asked for an egg, would you give them a scorpion?  If you are persistent in asking your neighbor with a request,  a need, and they finally get up to help you out, how much more so God? 

Jesus is speaking to people who aren’t so sure God is good.  They see no evidence of that in their world.  And at the same time, Jesus is teaching them how they should be with one another.  Be good and kind to one another, as I can assure you, God wants goodness and kindness for you. 

           What I imagine, with Diego teaching me, as that Scripture opened up before me with his eyes, that Jesus is not only teaching hope to the people in front of him but Jesus is also giving them permission to be good and kind to each other.  There is a reciprocity there, a mutuality.  We welcome others as a way of saying this is how we would want to be welcomed.  We do not turn others away as a wish that we would not be turned away ourselves.

As you are good and kind to each other, know that God is good and kind to you.  As God is good and kind to you, be good and kind to each other.  For those who have been bludgeoned, wounded by the world and the status quo, the goodness of God is a revelation.  It is a reminder that even though the wider world may have treated you with cruelty, name-calling, and violence, this is not what God wants for you, desires for you, seeks in reciprocity for you. 

           My experience with Diego, who was a teacher of Christ and Scriptural story for me, has been one of the reasons I have worked on immigration issues almost my entire ordained life.  Whenever I preach, Natalia, Diego, and the newborn they carted across the border who was now a young, enthusiastic boy, Francisco, sit up in one of the front pews . . . because we know that nobody in church is going to take those front pews.  And that family wants to know every Sunday, are you going to preach in a way that remembers us?  Are you going to remember us?  So when I am punching away characters on my laptop and I come to that point in the sermon where I have to decide whether I am going to offend my congregation or offend them, that photo I still have of Francisco carrying one of the aluminum corrugated sheets from his makeshift roof to the bus, the strap around his forehead, with a huge smile on his face, that photo appears saying, “God is good!”

Let’s go back to the start of the Scripture verse.  Jesus is teaching the disciples the character of God in what we have come to know as the Lord’s Prayer.  We begin with the version from Matthew, “Our Father,” not my father, or your father, but a notice that this prayer is about who we are collectively, in mutuality and reciprocity.  The prayer recognizes we do not accept the world as it is.  Please, O God, your kingdom come.  Impose your rule, one of reciprocity and mutuality.  The second part of the prayer asks for our daily needs, not the frills and the fluff, but the basics.  And these are commands of God, expecting the character of God to be good and the expectation that God wants us to have our daily needs met.   Because we know it is God’s will that our daily needs be met, it is not by the will of God that these needs go unmet.  The will of humanity makes meeting our daily needs conditional.  God’s will does not have us foregoing the means of life.

In the next part of the prayer, Jesus relates to his disciples the character by which they are to come to God in prayer.  We ask God to forgive us with the very way we extend God’s forgiveness, release, and grace to the rest of the world.  In other words, if we are to demand of God forgiveness, release, and grace, we should have the integrity to have lived out that very same forgiveness, release, and grace in the world.  Do not come to God demanding or asking for things that you are unwilling to give yourself! 

That mutuality and reciprocity suggests that the Lord’s Prayer is not some individual encounter with God.  The prayer recognizes that as we come to God, we are also remembering our neighbor.  Within the Lord’s Prayer is a sense that we are all in this together.

This past week I was part of a national call involving leaders from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths.  All of those historic faiths have as a hallmark of their deep traditions practices of asylum and sanctuary.  And they came together this past week to warn us that state legislatures around our country are targeting immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, to make state law that would not allow us to practice asylum and sanctuary—two legal realities that have been baked into governing to assure our humanity and grace and forgiveness.  Two asylum seekers shared gut-wrenching stories of how they had fled the violence of their own country to go through the long and arduous process of applying for asylum in the United States. 

We were reminded that the anger, frustration, and pain many Americans are experiencing is being re-directed toward immigrants and asylum seekers as easy scapegoats.  Don’t let that happen, they pleaded.  Heal and do not harm, they asked.

The last person to speak was Rev. Dr. Ann Helmke, the Executive Director of Compassionate San Antonio.  She spoke about how the whole city of San Antonio had worked hard to develop and live out an ethic of reciprocity.  Then . . . tragedy.  Fifty-three lives were lost when a trailer full of immigrants was left in the baking sun.  I remember thinking how two of the kids, from Guatemala,  killed in that tragedy, looked like Francisco.  Rev. Dr. Helmke said that less than 12-hours after the semi-trailer was discovered, a vigil was organized at the site so that people could acknowledge the violence and reclaim the place as a sacred site.  The following day advocates organized a rally and called San Antonio to look at the systems which created this tragedy and urged transformation.  The following night after that there was a memorial mass where the Roman Catholic Archbishop made a gentle yet strong call for all of San Antonio to be engaged civically.  Be engaged civically as you would want others to be engaged on your behalf, he said. 

Rev. Dr. Helmke then closed with a blessing and a prayer that shared the ethic of reciprocity—a blessing and a prayer that broke me open.  I close with that now.

May we remember the stories, the images, the truth, the lives that we have heard today, as we hope and pray our lives will be remembered as well

May we recognize our complicities in the system as we sometimes so easily recognize in others

May we acknowledge that the U.S. asylum system often treats migrants inhumanely as we hope and pray others acknowledge and stand for us.

May we acknowledge that the migration policies are often discriminatory remembering that we don’t want to be discriminated against

May we have the strength to call out Title 42, as we would wish somebody would do for us

May we care for migrants across the community as we would wish to be cared for.

May we honor and memorialize all lives that are lost due to unjust policies as we would hope someone would honor and memorialize our lives as well

May we pray for those who serve in ministry, in government and are directly impacted as we would wish to be prayed for ourselves

May we welcome others.  May we stand together as we would wish to be welcomed and we would wish that others would stand for us

May we take action today

May we choose just one thing today that will make a difference

As we would wish that someone else would take action and choose one step for us.

And may we begin the work of healing through welcoming through hearts in compassion

That our elected officials center dignity and rights and the ethic of reciprocity in their decision-making

And may we fully engage in the needs of our new neighbors among us as we would hope and pray someone would do for us as well.  Amen. 

 

God is good . . . all the time.  God is good . . . all the time.  What person, when their child asked for a fish, would give them a stone?  Or when their child asked for an egg, would give them a scorpion?  Or would not get up and get their neighbor something when they persisted?  God is good . . . all the time.  In full reciprocity, may we also be good . . . and remember . . . as we would like to be remembered.  Amen.  

 

 

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