We began
this season with Jesus telling us to stay awake. Larry [my co-pastor] has previously spoken
about the Stay Woke Advent meme. Stay Woke is in the Urban Dictionary already.
Deriving from "stay awake," to stay woke is to keep informed of the
shitstorm going on around you in times of turmoil and conflict, specifically on
occasions when the media is being heavily filtered- such as the events in
Ferguson Missouri in August 2014.
Since
Ferguson more cops have avoided incitement for killing unarmed black men. And I
have been alarmed at how many people are asleep about systemic injustice.
People I have spoken to and read are so incredibly blinded by the US myth of
individualism they still think these are isolated incidents. They focus on
individual cops’ racism. They can’t understand that these events are the straws
that broke the camel’s back. It is years and years of a racist legal system, a
racist prison system, a racist education system, and so on that is really
fueling the protests and the (remarkably fewer) riots.
And since we
last met details of the US sanctioned torture program have become available.
Back in 2002 when the President said that the Geneva convention didn’t apply to
terrorists I was aghast. But everyone I tried to talk to about it was still so
traumatized by 9/11 they didn’t want to hear it. The mere mention of terrorism
but them into a fear induced sleep. I honestly had a little bit of intolerance
with those caught in the post 9/11 terrorism scare. Had no one else watched any
European movies from the 1970s? Did they really think terrorism was a new
thing?
But all this
time later I’m reading all these defenses of torture still! And by Christian
leaders no less! And honestly debates about whether torture works or not is
irrelevant! The moment we engaged in torture we became war criminals. If we
really need to torture in order to "save lives" then maybe we don't
deserve to live.
And honestly
I find that this self-destructive despair is the price of staying woke. I have
been overwhelmed by feeling angry, impotent and alienated. Feeling angry and
impotent about social injustice is nothing new. The alienation, while not
entirely new, has been the most profound of late. Who the hell are these people
that seem even more asleep than me? Frankly, I know I don’t see half of what
goes on, and yet there seem to be incredible numbers of people who are totally
clueless. Or at least I pray they are clueless. If they really do know how
horribly immoral and cruel their arguments are, I couldn’t stand it. Even in
their cluelessness though I find myself profoundly estranged from what seems to
be a majority here in this country.
Of course
the experience of estrangement is a large part of why the order was formed. For many reasons and from many different
places, we in the order and many of those we serve have found ourselves on the
outside of what once was. Reconciliation is, for us, the only way forward.
Staying woke
in part is being aware of our estrangements from the Body of Christ as there
are seemingly endless reasons for one to be estranged from another. Even as reconciled we find ourselves then
also estranged from God. Even so we have come together to entrust ourselves to
the Reconciling work of God in Jesus Christ.
We in the
order have given ourselves over to the reality of God’s Reconciliation. We proclaim reconciliation in the face of
continued estrangement, division and animosity. We proclaim peace, and we offer
ourselves and invite any who are called to offer themselves to this asceticism
of reconciliation.
One reason a
person takes vows is to commit to a way of life that they embrace in their more
inspired moments. Because those inspire moments don’t last. And lately I’ve
been a little cranky about following a reconciling messiah. I want the other
messiah. I want Barabbas, the murdering rebel. Because in my limited human
reasoning, I can’t see how anything will change unless the empire is
overthrown.
The US is
the Roman Empire of today. We here are the Romans. And as we look at today’s
scriptures, keep in mind that Mary and Jesus to the Roman Empire would be about
the equivalent of Puerto Ricans, or the Inuit, or the Chamorro people of Guam
to us today.
And what
would a Chamorro woman today make of the words, “You have found favor with God.
You will bear a son, and he will be great, called the Son of the Most High, and
God will give to a throne and his kingdom will have no end." Might she not
say, “How can this be?”
I mentioned
feeling impotent in the face of social injustice before. And while I did not
mean that in a sexual way, Gabriel answers Mary by telling her of her barren
cousin’s success at reproducing. “For nothing will be impossible with
God." And certainly if I look hard enough I can find examples of progress
in social justice, despite my anger at all that still needs to be addressed.
The
Magnificat, which we sang today, is what Mary says to her cousin when she
visits her after hearing this news. She says that God has looked with favor on
her, low as she is in the world of the Roman Empire. She says that all
generations will call me blessed, even though she risked divorce and disgrace
as a sexual transgressor. That in the act of blessing the lowest of the low he
has scattered the proud, brought down the powerful, filled the hungry and sent
the rich away empty.
This for me
is what is so inspiring about Mary. That she sees the transforming work of God
in her pregnancy, which while it has its remarkable aspect to be sure, and is a
holy and cosmically significant pregnancy. Still, pregnancies are not in and of
themselves unusual. The incarnation is at the same time ultimately profound and
incredibly mundane.
And so
Mary’s words are ones to sit with while we stay woke. That while the shitstorm
is going on around us in times of turmoil and conflict, and we may long for
great upheaval, God’s world shaking actions are carried out in everyday human
matters.
And so I end
with humbly quoting the mother of my Lord and God, "Here am I, the servant
of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."
