St. John's Church, Honeoye Falls

Building Bridges                Sermon from February 21, 2016

They arrived at dawn.

            Far off course. Not from this area. They were strangers.
                        No one had seen ones like them in a long time.
                        And people were not quite sure how to respond.
                                    So they gawked. They took pictures. Some called the authorities.
There had been a few previously. In fact, in other parts of the world, their type had been around for eons upon eons. But here?
            What should they do?
Some said: leave them alone. They must be sick to be this far removed from their group.
Maybe they did something wrong and were exiled?
Yet others said: be warned. If these have come, there will be more, and they will destroy what we have.
Others said: capture them so that they can’t hurt us.
Some said: send them away.
But no one….no one asked why they’d come, or what they needed.
No one dared to get too close.
No one welcomed them in.
Except God.
            God knew that they should be far afield. God knew that they weren’t with their families or friends.
God knew what had brought them there, and what they needed. 
God heard their amazing call.
And God said to them: stay.  Turn towards the light.  I am here with you, and I will be here with you.
God didn’t question the who’s or what’s or why…..God was patient and gave to them according to their need.
            And in God’s mercy, they were able to find strength. They were able to recover what they had lost. They were able to find their path again.
            Who are these that were lost?
Were the Syrian refugees trying to enter Europe?
Were they people fleeing violence in Central America, trying to cross into the US from Mexico?
Were they persons who had come out as gay, or lesbian, or transgender, and who were forced from their homes?
Were they the ones who had contracted Zika, or AIDS, or mental illness, and now were exiled?
Were they the ones whose homes had been destroyed by lead, by drought, or by famine….
Were they the ones who had done violence elsewhere in the name of a God, or a regime that they wanted to spread….

But maybe they none of these. Maybe they were just lost.



Cranes, Ipswich, MA (c) David Burnet

 

 

They were sandhill cranes.

Sandhill cranes are a subspecies of whooping cranes, those large, elegant birds that have an incredibly distinct and loud call.  Cranes are one of the oldest birds still in existence—there are fossil records in Nebraska that are over 10 million years old.

They’re abundant all along their migration route from Florida to Alaska, but they’re not commonly seen in New England, and when they show up, it’s newsworthy. Seeing two together is quite rare, though it makes sense for this breed, which mates for life, and can live for upwards of 20 years.

So somehow these two got off route, and ended up in Ipswich Massachusetts, and our photographer managed to capture it on film.  It’s a great shot. It shows them facing into the light, comfortable with each other, companionable.  They aren’t hiding. They aren’t in a defensive stance. They are simply there, in the light.

Now if you’re sitting there saying: cranes? She was talking about refugees, about outcasts, about people at the border. Well that’s hardly the same. Talk about a bait and switch. 

Actually, I never said the vignette was about humans. 

But the vignette is about mercy, and our relationship to it…and it’s a little easier to wrap our heads around if we make it about animals.

First let’s take a minute to talk about what mercy is, and then we can talk about what it means for us today.

Theologian Rudolpf Bultmann defined mercy as both character and action that emerges as a consequence of the character. 

He said that mercy is demonstrated most clearly by qualities as compassion and forbearance. When we have compassion, we can then act mercifully. In a legal sense, mercy an involves pardon, forgiveness or the mitigation of penalties.  In each case, mercy is experienced by two –the one who gives it (and has power to do so), and the one who receives it (and who has not authority in the situation).

Barbara Brown Taylor’s defines mercy as not getting what you deserve.  You get pulled over for speeding, but you don’t get the ticket.

Mercy is a gift to the undeserving. And all of us are undeserving, because we are imperfect, we are selfish, we are human. Let’s take a moment and look at how this plays out in the scripture:

In our Genesis reading, we have Abram not quite understanding his relationship to God, and God giving him the covenant, the promise of heirs and land. Does Abram deserve it? No….but God has made up his mind, and makes it happen. And in Luke, we have the disciples saying to Jesus, come away. Herod wants to destroy you.  But Jesus knows that he still has work to do.  Even as he would like to draw the people in, it is not time...so he continues on with his ministry, knowing that the full covenant is one in which his death and resurrection is the ultimate gift. And do we deserve it?  No.  But God has determined that, despite our many failings, he will keep his covenant with us.

            It’s all about mercy. About a loving God sticking with us and giving himself for us and through us.  This is about mercy that comes to us in the moment and stays with us, healing us, even when we do not know why, or how, or what the next move should be.

And I’m sure you can think of times when you’ve witnessed it.  When the guy at the farm market said, “you don’t have quite enough? Pay me next week.”  When the person stopped to help you change a flat tire.  When the judge wrote off your parking ticket.

We have all needed mercy.

So, what’s the connection between lost sandhill cranes, the times when we’ve received that gift we didn’t deserve, and our lives as Christians?

Let’s go back to the cranes for a moment. It’s easy to feel merciful and to act mercifully toward a pair of cranes.

1.    We don’t blame the cranes for showing up.

2.    They’re not a threat to us, or who we think we are.

3.    There are only a few of them—so we don’t feel overwhelmed

4.    If they leave, they won’t take anything that we need.

In other words, we can be merciful in situations in which we feel no risk.  But that’s not what God calls us to.  Because somewhere in the mental math about mercy, we do some judging.  What is this person, animal, situation to me? What do I feel I am called to do right now? What do I want to do that will cost me the least? What do I have to gain?

And when we feel threatened—physically, socially, emotionally, economically….we may be tempted NOT to be merciful.

On Thursday, Pope Francis got into a shouting match with Donald Trump.  At issue? Immigration.  And here’s the thing: each one knows there is a real crisis going on. The difference, as Francis pointed out, is that Trump’s position seeks a solution based on fear, doubt, and self-protection.  It blames the other.  And if one reads the gospels—any one of them—Francis is right.  We are always called to accept the stranger and act out of mercy. Treat others as we would want to be treated. Just like we see Jesus doing in Luke today: do not fear Herod, but stay in the moment and attend to the ministry needs in front of you.

Francis said that building walls is not the answer—but that is not all he said. The full thing he said is that building walls is not the answer if that’s all you do instead of building bridges.

Pope Francis is talking about compassion. Compassion grounded in the knowledge that everyone of us is a sinner. None of us is perfect. All of us have gotten off path, have looked for refuge, or forgiveness, or a way out of a situation….and all of us have had the power to make a difference for someone seeking refuge, forgiveness, or a way out of a situation.  Francis is saying: concentrate less on the judgement and more on the mercy. Build bridges.

Think of the parable of the person going upstream.

Imagine an ancient village with women doing laundry at the side of the stream.  Every day they did laundry, and one day, one of the women looked up to see a baby floating among the reeds.  She waded in and retrieved the baby, and all the other women dropped their laundry to come see.  In celebration for this life saved, they left the laundry and prepared a feast.  The next day they went back to continue the laundry, and they found two babies floating among the reeds.  Of course they saved these infants too.

 

On the third day, still having to complete the laundry that was piling up, they went back to the water. And there they found three babies.  So now they had six new babies, and a crisis on their hands. They had to build an orphanage. They had to figure out wetnursing for the children.  All the normal work of the village turned from their normal lifestyle of hunting and gathering to caring for these children.

 

And the children kept coming.  Whole teams had to work to pull the children out.  One day, one of the women broke off from the rescue team and began to walk upstream. "Where are you going?" the others yelled.  "We need you here to help."

 

"I'm going upstream to find out who is putting the babies in the water, and why."

If they had continued accepting all the babies without thinking about it, their own civilization would have been overwhelmed.  No one would have tended to the hunting or gathering. No one would have prepared for the winter, or thought about the needs of the old and infirm.  So someone had to walk upstream. Someone had to go find out why the babies were in the water and why…and that person is the bridge that builds connection and understanding.

THAT IS what the Pope meant. Building the fence to keep the “other” out is not the answer. It’s incomplete.  The next time that you are faced with a situation, listen for that voice that is the judging voice, and ask yourself, where is the voice of mercy in this?  Where do I see my humanity in this situation? And what is the gift that I can give, simply because God gave me the gift?

In every situation, we are called to be people of merciful character, acting mercifully. We are called to bring hope. We’re called to be beacons of God’s loving healing. We’re called to stay in the moment, and to be authentically faithful, even without the answer for the future. That’s God’s to provide.  So like the cranes, let us turn towards the light and say, I am here Lord.  I am encountering something new, and I am not sure what to do.  I know and trust that you do know, and I trust that you will bring mercy into this moment. May you be the bridge that brings healing and compassion into our midst. .  Hearken to my voice, and mercifully answer me. 

Amen.