by The Rev. Craig Lemming, Associate Rector
In the name of God who is Love: Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
What sacred texts do you return to in the wake of tragic loss? Is it a passage in the Bible? Is it a hymn or song? Is it a particular prayer? Is it a film? Or a work of art? Several years ago, one of Circle of the Beloved’s young adults introduced me to the Podcast, Vibe Check.[1] Vibe Check is a weekly news and culture conversation hosted by three brilliant and hilarious Black gay men: journalist Sam Sanders; essayist, poet, and Harvard professor Saeed Jones; and Tony-award-winning producer Zach Stafford. A recurring episode they host is called “Modern Scriptures.” Modern Scriptures are texts we return to when we need to make meaning of our existence – poems, essays, novels, music, films, plays, art – creative texts that help us to remember and to re-evaluate our core values. In the wake of this week’s tragic shooting at Annunciation Church and School in Minneapolis, what Modern Scriptures did you turn to to remember and re-evaluate your values?
One of the texts I have returned to often since I began seminary over ten years ago is this classic collection of essays titled, All About Love by Black feminist, cultural critic, and visionary Bell Hooks. There are red asterisks in the margins marking two underlined passages in my well-worn copy of All About Love. The first marks Bell Hooks’ quest to find a meaningful definition of the word “love.” Hooks builds upon psychiatrist M. Scott Peck and philosopher Erich Fromm’s work, who defined love as the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth… Love is as love does. Love is an act of will – namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love. To this definition, Bell Hooks adds, “To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients – care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.”[2] In these dystopian days, every person desperately needs care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, trust, and honesty.
Since Columbine in 1999, the K–12 School Shooting Database has recorded over 2,000 school shootings in this country. Children’s lives continue to be sacrificed to the idol of the Second Amendment. Thousands of lives are slaughtered on this idolatrous altar and little has changed in policies or in praxis. In the Prophet Jeremiah’s words from today’s first lesson:
Be appalled, O heavens, at this,
be shocked, be utterly desolate,
says the Lord,
for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
that can hold no water.
To turn away from worshipping the death-dealing idol of the Second Amendment and its anti-liturgies of gun violence requires a complete re-evaluation of our values. To turn away from cracked cisterns that hold no water, and to turn back to God, the fountain of living water, requires a complete change of heart. It is only by God’s love, and with God’s love, and in God’s love that a complete change occurs.
The second underlined passage with a red asterisk in the margin of my well-worn copy of Bell Hooks’ All About Love reads as follows:
Awakening to love can happen only as we let go of our obsession with power and domination. Culturally, all spheres of American life – politics, religion, the workplace, domestic households, intimate relations – should and could have as their foundation a love ethic. The underlying values of a culture and its ethics shape and inform the way we speak and act. A love ethic presupposes that everyone has the right to be free, to live fully and well. To bring a love ethic to every dimension of our lives, our society would need to embrace change.[3]
The right to be free, to live fully and well was ripped away from the children who were harmed and killed in Minneapolis on Wednesday. Will society embrace change?
Change begins with humility. In today’s Gospel Jesus says, “go and sit down at the lowest place.” The lowest places are where we find the lowly of heart. The lowly of heart are the ones who teach us how to remember and to re-evaluate our values. The lowly of heart are the ones who have persevered in love through unspeakable suffering: women, Black and brown queer folk, those who are differently abled, our children, elders, immigrants, all those outcasts who think critically and compassionately to survive the violent domination of empire. Like the Vibe Check hosts and Bell Hooks, the lowly of heart create a love ethic in those lowest of places. Society shuns, shames, and secretly desires to know those lowly people and places: because that’s where true joy is. The lowly of heart understand the living water of God cannot be possessed or hoarded or contained in the cracked cisterns of greedy, violent, oppressive regimes. The lowly of heart are the ones who have turned away from worshipping the idols of death and violence, turned away from empire’s cracked cisterns that hold no water, and have chosen instead to freely share the living water of God by living lives steeped in a love ethic.
In times of tragically flawed and failed despotic leadership, the Epistle to the Hebrews is another text to which we often return. That sacred text proclaims: Let mutual love continue. Show hospitality to strangers. Remember those who are in prison. Remember those who are being tortured. Keep your lives free from the love of money. Be content with what you have. Do good. Share what you have. The living water of God’s love flows through these humble love practices.
As we seek out the lowly of heart and minister to the heartbroken, we rely completely on the love of God to transform our humble love practices into divine spiritual fruits. Look again at the verbs in Thomas Cranmer’s Collect appointed for today. Today’s Collect is one of my favorites – an extended metaphor of God being a gardener. This prayer describes the fruit of loving works being brought forth by the grace of God. We can make those verbs more than words when we choose to be All About Love in this hurting world. God grafts love in our hearts. God increases love in us. God nourishes us with love. God’s grace brings forth the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control when we turn away from empire’s death-dealing violence, and humbly turn back to Christ’s life-giving love.
Jesus Christ says,
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me;
for I am gentle and lowly in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls. – Matthew 11:28-30
Healing the wounds of idolatry requires us to go and sit in the lowest places in order to cultivate a love ethic with the lowly of heart. When we accept and practice God’s grace, God’s healing love prevails. Amen.
[1] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vibe-check/id1637476174
[2] Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2001), 4-5.
[3] Ibid., 87.
