Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
November 2, 2008 All Saints Sunday
Isaiah 43: 16-18-19; II Corinthians 5: 16-20
I once read about a woman who had raised twelve children, eleven of whom were foster children she had adopted, all of them with special needs. The newspaper reporter asked her how she, in her limited circumstances, limited money, had possibly managed to do what she had done. In fact, why had she even ever attempted such a thing? She responded simply, "I saw a new world a comin'." A new world. "I am about to do a new thing. Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?..There is a new creation: everything old has passed away, see, everything has become new." I saw a new world a comin'. Do you hear that? Do you believe it?
Like you, I have been very passionate about our up-coming election. I cannot remember when I have followed an election so closely. As you know, Betty and I have some personal stake in it, but I also find myself going home and turning on CNN at lunchtime just to check on the polls in the battle ground states. I have been into this election big time. And yet, you know, even as I say that I am tempted to stand here today and tell you that no matter what happens on Tuesday, it really isn't going to matter. Yes, I am passionate, certainly I will vote, but ultimately, it doesn't really matter. A group of us are going fishing on Wednesday morning, the day after. Actually, we are going to watch the returns together Tuesday night. All of us have been passionate about this election, and not all of us agree on it, and so I hope we are all still speaking come Wednesday morning. I can hear it now. "Hey, can you grab my fishing rod for me?" "Grab your own rod!" But again, as passionate as we are going to be, and as strong as we are going to feel, I'll be tempted to say to those folks on Wednesday, no matter what the results, "You know, it really does not matter."
But that isn't true, is it? Obviously this election matters a great deal. There are huge issues that need to be addressed in this country. I am not even going to open my quarterly report from the UCC Pension Plan. Huge issues facing the next President, and not just the President, but also facing all of us. Of course it matters. That is why I intend to vote early and often on Tuesday. And yet, it doesn't matter. Have I confused you thoroughly yet? I think I am beginning to confuse myself here. It matters and it doesn't matter.
Now, in one of Governor Sarah Palin's stump speeches, she's been talking a lot about something she calls the “real America,” which means there must somewhere be a false America. There's the patriotic America she talks about, so there must be an unpatriotic America. And I don't think it's hard to guess where she places much of Sonoma County and Sebastopol in that litany. But even though I live here in the land of nuts and chews, I like to think of myself as a real American and as a patriotic American. But you know, she may have figured me out. Because, you see, as a believer, as one who seeks to be a follower of Jesus, I realize that finally, my true citizenship - my true loyalty, my true allegiance - does not lie here. It lies in another realm, another country, another kingdom - what Jesus called the Kingdom or the Reign of God.
Jesus was a realist, engaged with, passionate about, his world. He did not preach a pie in the sky, wait until the great bye and bye kind of religion. He saw the world as it is, in all its joy and sorrow, hope and suffering, caring and injustice. He took it all very seriously and became an agent of change. He healed the sick, spoke of forgiveness, invited absolutely everyone to sit at the table with him and had no patience for evil, injustice, intolerance or a religion full of fine words and lacking in equally fine deeds. He was engaged with this world and he called his followers to go and do likewise.
But this hard-eyed realist was also a visionary, I think he was a mystic. When he looked out on the same world we look out on, he somehow saw more, saw deeper, saw wider, saw broader. What he saw was a new reality, a new creation. In fact, he not only saw this world - again what he called the Kingdom of God - but he also lived in it, and invited us to join him there. He saw God at work, right now, changing things, making all things new. The world is under new management, he said, the kingdom is here among you, open you eyes, light your lamps, be ready for what God is doing. There is a new world a comin', new hope a comin', new possibilities a comin'. Even now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it? I guess you could say Jesus had a kind of dual citizenship. Yes, he had his feet firmly planted in this world, and yet he could see that new world, a new reality, breaking into this world, into this reality, even now, and he literally bet his life on it.
I guess the question for us is, where does our hope lie, where do we finally place our trust? That's the question Jesus had to answer, and it's one we must all answer. Listen to these words of Barbara Brown Taylor: "Jesus’ enemies counted on his fear of death to shut him up and shut him down, but they were wrong. He may have been afraid, but he did not let his fear stop him. He did not get stuck on the suffering and death part. He saw something beyond them, something as wide and glittering as the sea, worth every risk required to reach it, and he did not stop until he got there." She continues, "To be where God is - to follow Jesus - means going beyond the limits of our own comfort and safety. It means receiving our lives as gifts instead of guarding them as our own possessions. It means sharing the life we have been given instead of bottling it for our own consumption. It means giving up the notion that we can build dams to contain the bright streams of our lives and letting them go instead, letting them swell their banks and spill their wealth until they carry us down to where they run, full and growing fuller, into the wide and glittering sea." And we can do this, as Jesus could do it, because of our faith in this God who makes all things new, who even now is doing a new thing among us, who is determined to bring about nothing less than a new creation.
So yes, we live in the now. We are passionate about this election, we are passionate about change, and whichever candidate we believe will bring about that change. We are passionate about peace and justice and love and family and a world where all of God's children will have a place in the choir. Of course, it matters.
But, you see, as people of faith, we also live ahead of time, in the not yet, on tiptoe, in anticipation of the new thing God will do in our lives and in the life of our world. And so no matter what happens on Tuesday, that anticipation, that faith, remains. And finally, for me at least, that is what matters most. I work for justice today, because I believe in the God who will bring justice. I work for peace today, because I believe in the God who will bring peace. I keep stubbornly struggling along the often hard road of forgiveness and reconciliation because I believe in the God who finally will break down all barriers and make us one. I attempt to stay faithful now, engaged now, passionate now, because I have glimpsed the hope of the not yet. I live now, in this world, but I realize I also live ahead of time, in God's new creation. And that is ultimately where I put my trust, not in Tuesday's election results.
In the words of Taylor, "To have faith in God, to have faith that we and our world are in good hands, to have faith that whether or not we understand it, the universe makes sense - that's the hardest choice any of us must ever make. To decide it is all true is to step out into the air without a net, because we have no proof, no evidence, nothing but the adamant witness of our own lives that it is so."
Yes, vote, be passionate and caring and engaged, and good luck on Tuesday. But, no matter how Tuesday turns out, be of good cheer, have faith. Do not despair. Trust, trust the deepest intuitions of your own hearts. Trust the source of your truest gladness. And trust the One who will not rest until all things are made new.