By request I am posting the best sermon ever preached by anybody ever. “The Dark Side” by the Reverend Dr. Patricia A. Jarvis, pastor September 16, 2001 Lewisburg United Methodist Church © copyright and all rights reserved Will you turn in your bulletin to the insert? The top of it says “Lamentations.” And at the bottom of this passage of scripture you’ll see some questions, in case you are a visual learner, that you might want to think about as we go through our time together here. Yesterday about noon, well about one o’clock actually, I said to Julian, “I’m so tired. Why am I so tired?” And Julian said, “We are all tired.” And isn’t it true? Aren’t we all tired? We’re emotionally exhausted, aren’t we? We’ve been to the various services, we’ve watched television until our eyes have nearly fallen out, we’ve prayed, we’ve been in endless conversations with one another. All revolving around the national crisis that we have experienced as the American nation. And so we are tired. We have experienced a crisis the like of which we have never known before. Yesterday at the Saturday service there was a young fellow there who was, I think he is probably in his early thirties, and he said to me, “You know, my generation does not remember Vietnam and we were too young to recall the assassination of John Kennedy. But this,” he said, “this will be the defining moment for us.” And so it is for all of us. There is a sense in which none of us will ever be the same because of what happened last Tuesday. Now, before we read the scripture, I want to tell you just a little about the context in which this scripture passage was written. It is the book of Lamentations. It is an Old Testament book of prophesy. We don’t use it much because to tell the truth we don’t like Old Testament prophesy very well. We don’t like it because it calls our lives into accountability. It calls us into accountability as a nation. So a lot of times we just sort of skip over that part. But this passage from Lamentations was written at a time when the people of Israel were also experiencing a deep national crisis. One of the lines in this passage that we will read which is from Lamentations 3 is actually the text, is the scripture around which the text for the first opening hymn that we sang, “Great is Thy faithfulness.” And you will see, within the scripture itself, you will see a reference to that particular idea. But the people of the southern kingdom, Judah, in the year five hundred and ninety-seven B.C., five hundred and ninety-seven years before the birth of Christ, experienced a deep national crisis. The empire of Babylon, which at that time was the most powerful military and political force in the world, invaded the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom had already been taken into captivity by the Assyrians. But the southern kingdom stood for a while longer. The empire of Babylon came in in five hundred ninety-seven and began to occupy the land. It took them another ten years before they completely subdued the southern kingdom and that occurred in the year five hundred and eighty-seven, B.C. And that was characterized by the total destruction of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the Holy City, the place where the people of Israel had assumed that God had God’s protective hand over it in a special way. Jerusalem which would never be destroyed. But indeed it was destroyed. The temple, which was both symbol and landmark, does that sound familiar? Symbol and landmark of the very centerpiece of the life of Jewish faith, was leveled. All of the holy implements and equipment within the temple were either destroyed on the spot or were taken into Babylon to be used for profane purposes. The land itself was destroyed. Olive trees that had been there for centuries and generations were cut off and the stumps were set afire. The land itself was salted so that it would never again, or at least not in any time soon, be fertile enough to support crops. The brightest and best were taken into captivity into a foreign land. Four hundred years of monarchy ended with that event. In the southern kingdom four hundred years of Jewish kings had been direct descendants of King David and that concluded with the destruction of Jerusalem. A country in deep national crisis. And the Jewish people for generations after would puzzle over what does this mean. What is the meaning? Where was God? What happened to the protection of God? And we indeed struggle with those same questions as we enter into a time of national crisis ourselves. Let’s read together responsively this passage from the Old Testament which has a strangely contemporary feel for us. Lamentations 1:1-2, 3:19-26 Lamentations Chapter 1: 1. Jerusalem’s streets, once bustling with people, are now silent. Like a widow broken with grief, she sits alone in her mourning. Once the queen of nations, she is now a slave. 2. She sobs bitterly through the night, tears stream down her cheeks. Among all her lovers, there is no one left to help her. All her friends have betrayed her; they are now her enemies. Lamentations Chapter 3: 19. The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. 20. I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. 21. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: 22. The unfailing love of the LORD never ends! By His mercies we have been kept from complete destruction. 23. Great is His faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day. 24. I say to myself, “The LORD is my inheritance, therefore will I hope in him.” 25. The LORD is wonderfully good to those who wait for him and seek him. 26. So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the LORD. This is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Maybe a question you’ve asked yourself or certainly you have heard someone say during the past several days is, “Where was God in all this?” “Why did God allow this to happen to us?” And you know behind those questions are a couple of more basis question for people of faith and that is, “What do we think God is like?” “What is the nature of God?” “How does God operate? How does God function in human history?” And so people have wrestled with these questions for a long time. But I lift up before you today that God did not do this. This was done by people. And God is very serious about allowing people choices. We call it “free will.” If you read the first couple of chapters of the book of Genesis, we have the story of creation and you’ll see there that from the very beginning God gave people choices. He gave us an outline for how we were to live but also gave us choices. And we have that choice every day. We have that choice as to whether we will opt for the forces of light or the forces of darkness. God did not do this. People did this because we have choice and free will. And where is God in the middle of all this, this mess, this destruction, this death, this despair, this hopelessness that we are tempted to feel? Where is God? I think God is right in the middle of it. God is weeping with us. God is there in the present to comfort us and if we will allow ourselves, God is not only there to sustain us but also to heal us and to restore us. God is in the middle of it all. And we can see the presence of God if we will, we can see the presence of God even in this event. For example. Have you not been gratified and proud as an American citizen to see the way all of us have had this urgency to do something, to help? What about the lines that line up around blocks sometimes, around city blocks, in order to contribute blood? Why, I’ve never seen a thing like that before in my lifetime, have you? There’s a need, an urgency within each of us, to help. And sometimes the helpers have done so sacrificially. I’ve seen some stories on television, you know I’ve just been, I’ve probably been like many of you, the minute I get in the house I turn the tv on and it makes me so mad at myself, I always say “I’m not going to do that anymore,” but I come right in, I turn the tv on in the kitchen and while I am fixing our food and working in the kitchen the tv is on all the time, replaying this again and again and again and again. How many times have you seen the World Trade Center crumble? About a million, haven’t you? And yet we don’t seem to be able to turn the television off. I’m not able to. Sometimes I have to get up and walk around or go outside but there’s something about it that just captures my attention. Perhaps you find that you are the same way too. And I’ve heard stories that really illustrate to me that God’s presence is there, even in the midst of it all. People who helped sacrificially. Did you hear about the Roman Catholic priest who was the chaplain for the firefighters there, who lost his life as he was in the midst of where the firefighters were working and he was giving the Last Rites to a firefighter who was dying? And he died himself? Or I heard another story about a man who was with a paraplegic friend in the World Trade Center. And as the building began to be in danger and to crumble, he would not leave his friend although it meant certain death for both of them? Sacrificial help. The outpouring of love and care for one another. I heard another story, maybe you heard this one too, about three women. One was severely disabled. They were on the sixth-eighth floor. And of course the elevators were not functioning so the thing that they all had to do was go down the stairs and the woman with the disability was not able to go down the stairs. So her two friends, her two women friends, carried her down sixty eight flights to safety. Where is God? We can see the shadow of God in the behaviour of one another that helps and loves, even sacrificially. We also are given an opportunity in this national crisis to once again focus on the things that are really important. You know a couple of weeks ago, I talked with you for a few minutes about the difference between “irritations and inconveniences” and “troubles and turmoils”? And sometimes we get those all mixed up, don’t we? The things that divide us are so trivial. Have you not said to yourself in the last several days, well I had this worry or that worry or this has happened or that has happened but it seems so trivial? Have you not said that to yourself? Have you not heard people say that? Because you see when we face a national crisis, then we are reminded of the things that are really important. And what are the things that are important in our life? Are they not our relationships with each other? Is it not our faith? Is it not our ability to give and to receive love and help from each other? Those are the things that last. Not the trivia in which we so often focus our lives. You know, too many of us, at least I find that I do, I major in the minor things too often. But when a national crisis happens, then we have an opportunity to remember what’s really important. We have an opportunity also at this time to affirm the presence and the reality of evil in our world. Someone once said that Satan’s best trick was to try to convince us that he doesn’t exist. But can there be any doubt now, right now, today, that evil exists and is alive and well and functioning and active in our world? I think not. We see that in a whole new way. John Wesley, one of the forebears of our faith, said this: “We know that Satan and his angels are continually warring against us, watching over every child of man.” Ephesians 6 says this: “Finally, let the mighty strength of the Lord make you strong. Put on the armor that God gives so that you can defend yourself against the devil’s tricks. We are not fighting against humans. We are fighting against forces and authorities and against the rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world. So put on all the armor that God gives and when the evil day comes you will be able to defend yourself. And when the battle is over, you will still be standing firm.” Let there be no mistake. We as people of faith know that human events simply mirror a larger struggle that is occurring on a cosmic level. As Paul says in Ephesians we are not simply involved in human struggle, we are involved in a cosmic struggle. And so it is. We know that every day of our lives, even as people of faith, that the forces of light and the forces of darkness are struggling not for only our attention but our very souls. As you look at your life, as I look at my life, do we not sense that struggle? The forces that pull us in different directions? Paul in the letter to the Romans said, “The thing that I want to do is the thing I am not able to do; the thing that I hate is the very thing I end up doing.” You know what he is talking about, don’t you? You have experienced that, haven’t you? And we experience it every day of our lives. Evil is a reality. The enemy bumps up against us in every day life. And the enemy will have won if we permit an event like last Tuesday to make our lives different. If we allow an event like that to plunge us into lives of fear and despair, the enemy will have won. One of the precious things in our life as Americans is our freedom to live as we would. And if we transfer our lives into lives of despair and fear, then we will have discounted that precious freedom. We will have allowed the enemy to win. We will have allowed the enemy to win if we see Americans of Arab extraction any different this week than we did last week. I’ve heard sad things on television. You have too. About how people who’ve been here for generations are now suddenly being harassed by their neighbors, their vehicles are being injured, their places of business are being destroyed, their children are being harassed on playgrounds. People who have been here for generations but who are of Arab background. I was in a certain place this week and I heard a distressing thing that someone said regarding Arab Americans. What she said was, “Let ‘em all go back to where they came from.” Friends, if you and I were to go back to where we came from, who would be left in the United States? Native Americans. We all are immigrants, each one of us, no matter how long your family has been here, we are all immigrants. And one of our precious freedoms as Americans is the ability to recognize that we are this wonderful stew of humanity and that we can not only embrace but celebrate our diversity. And be glad about the differences between us. We will have allowed the enemy to win if we look at folks of different ethnic origins any differently this week than we did last week. Indeed, if we don’t treat one another with kindness and with patience, we will have not only discounted an important American freedom, that freedom to disagree and be in dialogue, but we will have allowed the enemy yet more territory, inroad into more territory. You see, as we come to terms with this, as we continue to struggle with it, we are not all going to be in agreement as to what it means, as to what the response should be, and if we cannot treat one another with civility, with kindness, and with patience during that time then indeed we will have allowed the enemy to take over our territory. We will have allowed the enemy to win if we as a nation begin to regard ourselves as spotlessly innocent and entirely good. You know I have a lot of respect for John McCain. I saw him on tv the other day though, and he said something that disturbed me. He said, “We will win because we are good.” I am so glad to be an American. I am so glad to live in this country. But I think it is dangerous if we start seeing ourselves as entirely good and innocent. Already you may have heard some pastors from branches of the family tree that we call Christian beginning to interpret this event theologically. I heard it on tv that I just don’t seem to be able to turn off these days, I heard a couple of them in dialogue and one of them said, “God has done this to America.” Which right off I didn’t agree with. “God has done this to America because” and then there was an opportunity for him to really advance his social and political agenda. Because we’ve taken prayer out of school. Because we don’t post the Ten Commandments and so forth. Brothers and sisters, I think posting the Ten Commandments and taking prayer out of school is small change compared to the sin that affects us as a nation. And that sin doesn’t have anything to do with little stuff like that. It has to do with things that have the ability to eat away at our souls. For example, how have we contributed as Americans to the violence in the world? How is it that we have allowed it to be okay to use violence as a solution to things? Think about your individual lives. Think about the books we read, the movies we see, the television that we tolerate. How is it that we as a nation have contributed to violence as a solution in our world? God forgive us. How is it that we have used systems which keep some people poor? You know I heard a futurist about two years ago. He said the thing that will sink the United States of America will not be an outside enemy. It will be internal. It will be our inability to address the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and our inability to solve our racial tensions in this country. How have we contributed to that? How have we individually and as a culture been culpable in those problems? God forgive us. The Old Testament prophets whom we don’t like very well because they call us into accountability, in the face of every national crisis, the Old Testament prophets have said, “Repent. And return unto the Lord.” We have the power, each of us as individuals, to examine our lives individually and to repent and to return to the Lord. And we have the power as a community to examine our common life together and to repent and to return unto the Lord. There are four suggestions that I would briefly make to you regarding how we as people of faith may live the next few days, the next few months. One is that we, as people of faith, seek justice. We serve a God of justice. But we do not seek revenge. Revenge is not our prerogative. Revenge, the Bible says, belongs to who? To the Lord, to God. As so while it is appropriate for us to seek justice, revenge is not our prerogative. You will be in conversations with people who will be seeking revenge. Perhaps you can hold that up. Secondly, we will remember as people of faith that God is in charge. God is ultimately in charge. It is not human beings. One of my favorite hymns is “This is My Father’s World.” And the final stanza of that goes like this: “This is my Father’s world oh let me ne’er forget that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.” And so we as people of faith will remember that God is ultimately in charge. And God has not abandoned us. God is with us. The presence of God is with us. God is dependable to what God says. And finally that we remember that God one day came among us in the One called Jesus. The first chapter of John’s gospel talks about that event like this. The One who is the light of the world has been sent into the world and the darkness has never been able to overcome it. And so we pin our faith, we bet our lives, on the reality that the One who is the light of the world is with us yet, and that the darkness will not overcome. I’ve asked the acolytes if they will come and help me to have as our prayer of discernment this afternoon remembering that One who is the light of the world. And we will light four candles today, remembering four different parts of our national tragedy. And will you use this with me as a prayer time? We light one candle to honor the memory of those who have lost their lives. May their souls be granted peace. We light a candle to honor those families and friends who have lost loved ones. May the presence of God comfort them in their deepest sorrow. We light a candle to honor those who at this moment and in the days to come are helping, police, fire fighters, medical personnel, clean up crews, and rescue teams, those who give blood and other assistance, and countless others who help in ways that we can never know. May they be given courage and strength for their sacrificial work. And the fourth candle is lit to remember the leadership of our country and other nations as they provide direction for the days ahead. May they all be given wisdom and strength during this difficult time. You have printed in the bulletin the words that the choir has been singing. Let’s sing with them. O Lord, hear my prayer. O Lord, hear my prayer. When I call, answer me. O Lord, hear my prayer. Lord, hear my prayer. Come and listen to me. Benediction: (Pastor Julian Sulgit) As we go forth we ask that you continue to walk in the path of light and that you never stumble on the path of darkness, remembering God bears us up and continually gives us strength every day of our lives. May the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, go with you and remain with you, now and forever. Amen. -30- Pastor Jarvis’ post-service message to television congregation At the close of this service, I want to personally thank you for taking your time to watch our worship service on television. We light these candles remembering in our own hearts the tragic events that have happened in our nation recently. And as we have lighted each one in honor of a specific phase of that tragedy, we also remember that our ultimate hope is in Jesus Christ who is the light of the world. So ultimately all light and goodness come from Him. And during this difficult time we rely on Him. We hope that He is your companion and friend too, and that as you go through these difficult times with the rest of our nation that you may be sustained by His love and power and presence. God bless you. Please join us again.
Posted on: Wed, 11 Sep 2013 20:05:51 +0000
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