"The Lion's Roar"
May 4, 2008: Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year A
The Rev. Caroline K. Murphy, interim senior minister
United Church on the Green, UCC: New Haven, CT
www.UnitedChurchontheGreen.org

Scripture:

"May God take these words and make from them a holy word for us today."

1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:5b-11

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.

And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.

Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.

And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.

"Friends, God is still speaking to the world. May our hearts be open to listen and respond. Amen."

Sermon

Friends, a call has gone out the United Church of Christ for us to engage in a sacred conversation about race relations. Churches throughout our denomination are being asked to take up a topic that is fraught with painful reverberations, both past and present, and to hold it in sacred trust. We are being challenged to speak honestly and to listen prayerfully for God's still-speaking voice. You can find the call to this conversation in the ad that was published a couple of weeks ago in USA Today, with our support. The ad is posted on the bulletin board by the front door, along with a more recent letter from the Rev. John Thomas, our general minister and president.¹

The suggested date for this sacred conversation on race relations is Sunday, May 18 — two weeks from today. When they set that date, the national officers of our denomination were not able to consult the calendar of each of the nearly 6000 local churches of the UCC, so they had no way of knowing that here at United Church on the Green, a couple of other things might be vying for our attention on that particular day, including a pastoral transition and a benefit performance of the Brahms Requiem. Nor were they able to predict the events of the past few days: the renewed furor around Jeremiah Wright and his relationship with Barack Obama, and the way that would further heighten the need for this conversation well before May 18.

In light of all this, I propose that we go ahead and start the conversation today, with the full expectation and hope that it will continue well beyond today. At some level, after all, it is a conversation that started well before the oldest among us were born and that will, in all likelihood, continue long after the youngest among us will have breathed their last. It would be folly to imagine that one sermon, or one conversation, will exhaust the subject. Instead, what I hope to do this morning is to begin suggesting a few ways in which the words of scripture might help us approach this sacred conversation.

A sacred conversation about race relations. As I began to draft this sermon and went to type the word "sacred' into my laptop, my fingers managed to transpose a couple of letters, so that it came out not as "sacred" but as "scared." The computer registered not the slightest objection to my possibly Freudian slip-of-the-fingers. No red squiggly line appeared on the screen to alert me to the danger of placing this conversation not in the context of God's holy love and justice but in the context of fear and trepidation. And yet the events of these past few days have provided sobering reminders of just how great that danger is, of how easy it is to get caught up in the fears that have so long divided us rather than trusting in the holy love that reconciles and heals us.

When I watched a recording of Jeremiah Wright's remarks to the National Press Club, I felt that I was witnessing a curious juxtaposition of sacred conversation and scared conversation, of wisdom born of deep immersion in the sacred truth of scripture and of folly born of anger and fear. Right before the now infamous question-and-answer period, the Rev. Wright made some very fine remarks about reconciliation. He reminded us that we are all brothers and sisters, equals in the sight of God. He asked us to embrace the richness of our varied histories, and to recognize that "the other who stands before us is one of God's children, just as we are; no better, no worse, prone to error, just as we are; in need of forgiveness, just as we are."

Perhaps this kind of reconciliation is so hard to live into — even for one who ministered with great courage and compassion during his four decades at Trinity UCC in Chicago — because it is so very hard to let go of fear, to let go of anger, to "cast all our anxiety on God," as the writer of 1 Peter invites us to do. But, lest we be too quick to judge the Rev. Wright, we need to ask ourselves the deeper questions about the kinds of latent anger and fear in our society that have allowed this story to gain so much traction, or why this particular black pastor has been singled out for criticism while so many white pastors have been given a free ride — including, until perhaps the last few days, the Rev. John Hagee, who deemed Katrina to be God's punishment for a gay parade planned for the day of the hurricane.

The author of 1 Peter was writing to a group of Christians who were feeling hard pressed, marginalized for their devotion to Christ and perhaps for their social standing as well. The whole letter is centrally concerned with the issue of suffering, which is described here as a fiery ordeal. It is an apt image, for I suspect that both Wright and Obama must feel that a fiery ordeal is precisely what they are undergoing right now. For those who admire one or both of them, it is also an ordeal to witness such a painful rift between two such intelligent and thoughtful individuals, each with so much to contribute to our society.

For our wider United Church of Christ, too, this feels like a fiery ordeal. I cannot help but worry about the health of our wider church, especially when I think about the many churches in our denomination — some of which I have known and loved — that are less comfortable in claiming a prophetic, progressive identity than United Church on the Green is. As John Thomas writes in his most recent pastoral letter, "There is a collective and abiding sadness and anger in the present moment, regardless of theological or political persuasion."

A biblical passage that openly names the ways in which we are tested by fiery ordeals cannot help but resonate as we contemplate this controversy, and the broader subject of race relations. The writer of 1 Peter goes on to speak of the need for humility and self-discipline, and to look to God. Like the psalmist, who praises God as the one who shelter the orphans and the homeless, leads God's people out of captivity, and is our source of power and strength (Ps. 68:5-6,35), 1 Peter turns our attention away from self — away from trusting in our own goodness and strength — and toward God.

"Disciplines yourselves," the writer of 1 Peter admonishes us; "keep alert. Like a roaring lion the devil your adversary prowls around, looking for someone to devour." Or, as the Australian pastor Nathan Nettleton puts it in his paraphrase of this passage: "The devil has set himself against you, and he is always cruising around like a hungry croc, ready to make a meal of anyone who is not on their guard."² A roaring lion or a hungry crocodile or an old-fashioned devil — however you picture the powers of oppression and evil, they are real. Any sacred conversation about race relations can do no less than acknowledge that reality: the way in which that roaring lion or hungry crocodile has shaped the terrible and shameful history of slavery and segregation in our country, the way it still casts its shadow over our present-day society, the way it raises its head even now, threatening to make a mockery out of our hope for national reconciliation. Hence the language in our United Church of Christ Statement of Faith about "resisting the powers of evil."

Curiously, the author of 1 Peter himself — I'm supposing a male author here, for reasons that will become clear in a moment — this faithful follower of Christ seems himself not to have been beyond the reach of the lion's roar. Should anyone here feel inspired to go home and read the letter in its entirety, you will see that the writer of 1 Peter speaks of suffering in ways that have at times been used for unholy purposes. In particular, this letter includes a troubling passage (2:18 ff.) about slaves submitting to their masters that was at one time widely quoted to justify the practice of slavery in the United States, and another passage about women accepting the authority of their husbands (3:1 ff.). A sacred conversation about race relations will need to deal honestly with the toxic practice of lifting such verses out of context in order to justify everything from slavery to the subjugation of women to homophobia.³ Conversely, it would be tempting to throw out this whole epistle based on these offending passages. And yet — like Jeremiah Wright, like most of us with our jumbled mix of virtues and vices, strengths and weaknesses, insights and blind spots — the author of 1 Peter ultimately has something redemptive to say to us if we listen for the deep truth that is sometimes obscured by an overlay of culturally conditioned bias.

The deep truth is that the roaring lion is never given the last word. Throughout 1 Peter, a contrast is drawn between the reality of suffering and temptation on the one hand, and, on the other, the eternal joy to which God is drawing us all. Earlier in this letter, echoing a passage from the prophet Isaiah, the author of 1 Peter writes, "All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever" (1 Peter 1:24-25 // Isaiah 40:6-8). This is one of the scriptural passages that Johannes Brahms set to music in his great Requiem.

"But the word of the Lord of endures forever." The director of the New Haven Chorale refers to this as "the biggest 'but' in western music"! The contrast on either side of this "but" is not simply between present and future but rather between our human frailties and God's enduring truth. Nor is the call here simply to ignore the ills of the present — the brokenness in our world or the signs of suffering around us — and look forward to some vague time of future happiness. Instead, this is a word of deep hope. Because God's ultimate aim is justice and reconciliation, we can invite it into our lives now. We can celebrate it wherever we see evidence of it; indeed, we can stake our lives on it. For in doing so, we rely not on our own strength or goodness but on the grace of God. Turning again to our UCC Statement of Faith, which we will share together in a few moments, we find our hope in this bold claim: "You [God] promise to all who trust you forgiveness of sins and fullness of grace, courage in the struggle for justice and peace, your presence in trial and rejoicing, and eternal life in your realm which has no end." May it be so! Amen.