Where Do We Go From Here?
Good Morning Friends,
Here it is the Fourth of July, Independence Day. And I ask you to join me in contemplating our lectionary scripture on the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the story of Jesus controlling the weather, with the history of our nation as a backdrop. And as I think about the scripture considering our nation and about how close we have come as humans to becoming like gods, I seriously wonder what our culture is going to look like in a hundred years if humanity accomplishes all the things that people have contemplated. We have come a long way over the last 241 years. It is of course a blip in human history but prompts today’s question. Where Do We Go From Here?
Scripture: When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be consumed in the punishment of the city.” But he lingered; so the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and left him outside the city. When they had brought them outside, they said, “Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed.” And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords; your servant has found favor with you, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life; but I cannot flee to the hills, for fear the disaster will overtake me and I die. Look, that city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one? —and my life will be saved!” He said to him, “Very well, I grant you this favor too, and will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.” Therefore the city was called Zoar. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord; and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the Plain and saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of a furnace. So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had settled.
Genesis 19:15-29 (NRSV)
And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. A windstorm arose on the sea, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. They were amazed, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?”
Matthew 8:23-27 (NRSV)
Jesus began to weep.
John 11:35 (NRSV)
Message: Today’s question is taken from a book title authored by Dr. Martin Luther King and its prodding is not limited to a vision of a world at economic peace but something more. You see, Lady Liberty, beyond her call to national allegiance on this Fourth of July, suggests the full possibility that beyond the American Dream is the Kingdom of God… that it is not to be so much for the privileged, but more a comfort for the homeless, a welcome to the stranger, a hope of the possibility for the poor who seek a better life. I have often said that Immokalee is the Ellis Island of Florida. And what greets the immigrant here is not so much Lady Liberty but the Lady of Guadalupe, the mother of Jesus…Here the charity is hopefully not so toxic as the guaranteed income that the Seminole Tribe members receive. So today we contemplate where Jesus’ liberating ministry of justice, love, kindness and humility is taking us. And the first thing we must acknowledge is that we are a privileged lot. We are privileged to disagree, privileged to speak, to worship, to petition, to hope and to dream. We are privileged to share with others the greatest resource in the universe. And in so many ways we some are becoming like gods and that troubles me, for a world of have and have nots is not the sea change we hunger for. The reality is that we live in a changing the world that is even forcing the traditions of religion to transform. Deep down we hope with one accord that there will be a just and equal sharing of the things that the earth affords for the healing of the nations. Such is the picture of heaven on earth. But not all are of one accord in this vision. The future has both the hopes and challenges of our past. Change takes time. For example, in the Declaration of Independence, the word united in referring to the United States of America is not capitalized. It would not be until after the Civil War that we as a nation would be referred to in the singular. We have indeed been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven as President Lincoln once said. But instead of being proud to be an American, on this day, perhaps we ought to be saying, is that we are grateful that we are American while realizing the character of this changing world is indifferent to tradition. Friends we have a choice of community or chaos. The world is unforgiving of frailty and is unlikely to respect past reputations. The new customs and practices to be formed are critical. Just as those who formed the beginnings of this nation and led it through civil war, those who suffer today from an economic condition of existence without security will eventually gain a voice. Economic systems that exploit labor are not sustainable. Still we will need to be worth our salt. Thankfully where there are tears there is hope of unity.
Pray we share the good news of transformation in Christ to the poor and to the rich. Pray we realize that the poor are more than those who live in human poverty but also the wise and the great, the good and the bad and the financially rich too, for God loves them all. Pray we realize that there can be spiritual and relational poverty that keeps us from enjoying our freedom as well as physical and financial poverty that captures most of our attention. Pray for the leaders of our nation, the leaders of our churches and the leader in each of us. Pray that we might be free…free indeed. Pray that we follow God’s call to welcome the needy. Pray we recognize our own poverty and weep in it. Pray we realize that we cannot hope to change the political, economic or social conditions of people by merely giving them a better education or begrudgingly welcoming them to our shores. Pray we realize that the legacy is in building up His Kingdom and righteousness for the greater glory in the transformational power of God. Pray we have not become a nation of heretics.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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