By the Rev. Craig Lemming, Associate Rector
Watch the sermon recording on YouTube here
In the name of God whose continuous presence creates, heals, and sustains life. Amen.
God proclaims through the Prophet Isaiah:
I am about to create new heavens and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating.
God is creating. Today’s pop quiz comes early in my sermon. Are you ready? In what verb tense are the words: “God is creating”? The Present Continuous Tense! The simple present tense would be the more general “God creates.” The Prophet Isaiah’s Present Continuous “God is creating” expresses the magnificence of God’s creativity taking place right now eternally. God’s creativity is a present continuous reality. And yet, we often find ourselves too distracted by the destructive forces of evil to notice the continuous presence of God’s creativity. What helps you to keep focused on the Present Continuous Creativity of God?
The destruction of evil can become more than a mere distraction. The destruction of evil can become an idol. When we stare too long at the evil being done, we might unconsciously become so obsessed with destruction, that we forget God’s Present Continuous creation.
The Destruction of the Temple that Jesus describes in today’s Gospel, was a level of catastrophic pain that is unimaginable. The Temple was the heart of life for generations of countless individuals, families, and communities. The violent Roman colonial destruction of that sacred site, where countless souls made meaning of their existence, is beyond most of our imaginations.
When destructive evil comes crashing into our own lives, our hearts break, and we can sometimes spend years obsessing over that devastating loss. All of the hours, days, months, seasons, years, even decades of love and devotion we poured into building a home, a relationship, a career, a community can be wiped out in a mere moment. We can spend years replaying the tragic events during which evil destroyed something or someone we loved. The unnecessary pain that evil destruction causes requires relational care, comfort, and healing. And it is often in those times of unspeakable loss, that we begin to seek out the Present Continuous Creativity of God.
When I am desperate to know and to feel God’s creative continuous presence, I often turn to a short video clip from an interview with Toni Morrison. Morrison spoke these words1:
Sometimes you don’t survive whole, you just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is that attempt. It’s not about that solution. It is about being as fearless as one can, and behaving as beautifully as one can, under completely impossible circumstances. It’s that, that makes it elegant. Good is just more interesting, more complex, more demanding. Evil is silly, it may be horrible, but at the same time it’s not a compelling idea. It’s predictable. It needs a tuxedo, it needs a headline, it needs blood, it needs fingernails. It needs all that costume in order to get anybody’s attention. But the opposite, which is survival, blossoming, endurance, those things are just more compelling intellectually if not spiritually, and they certainly are spiritually. This is a more fascinating job. We are already born, we are going to die. So you have to do something interesting that you respect in between.
— Toni Morrison
Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “By your endurance you will gain your souls.” What helps you to endure destructive evil? How do you tether your endurance to God’s Present Continuous Creativity? At Diocesan Convention our Bishop Craig Loya gave Episcopal faith communities four practices for spiritual endurance.
- Be weird and authentic by centering Jesus and not the ego.
- Grow deep roots in discipleship, justice, vitality, and innovation.
- Embrace limits by focusing on the most important work that needs to be done, let go of what cannot be done now, then rest.
- Be bold and contagious in the hope of God’s love.
Today’s Epistle says, “do not be weary in doing what is right.” Focusing our attention on doing what is right, and refusing to be distracted by all that is wrong, brings us into that Present Continuous Creativity of God. So that, in the Prophet Isaiah’s words, before we call, God will answer, while we are yet speaking, God will hear. When we’re in the continuous presence of God’s creativity, in Jesus’s words, God gives us words and a wisdom that none of our opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.
So, dear friends in Christ, we shall not lose hope. We shall not allow destructive evil to distract us from God’s Present Continuous Creativity as we choose to tether our lives to Christ’s words and wisdom and choose to continue doing what is right. I hope, trust, and pray that we will all bear witness to doing what is right together at today’s Hope Fair in the Parish Hall following the ten o’clock liturgy.
And if you are not able to attend the Hope Fair and are struggling to imagine a spiritual practice you can turn to, to keep focused on the Present Continuous Creativity of God, Pauli Murray might help. We celebrate Pauli Murray’s birthday this week on November 20 which is also the Transgender Day of Remembrance. As a Black, multiethnic, gender expansive, working class, lawyer, professor, Episcopal priest and saint, Pauli Murray refused to be distracted by the destructive forces of evil ruining lives across lines of gender, race, and class. Poetry was a life-long spiritual and intellectual devotion that helped Pauli Murray to be in the continuous presence of God’s creativity. Pauli Murray was a wonderfully, faithfully, authentically weird Christian; deeply rooted in God’s justice for the oppressed; who worked fastidiously within life’s limitations; and radiated a bold and contagious hope.
I leave you with Pauli Murray’s poetic and prophetic words. May these words become more than words to nourish a bold and courageous hope as we dwell in God’s present continuous creativity.
Hope is a song in a weary throat.
Give me a song of hope
And a world where I can sing it.
Give me a song of faith
And a people to believe in it.
Give me a song of kindliness
And a country where I can live it.
— Pauli Murray
