Episodes
Sunday Mar 24, 2013
Finding strength in a hopeless place of powerlessness
Sunday Mar 24, 2013
Sunday Mar 24, 2013
Rev. Dean Snyder Matthew 21:1-11
Gordon Cosby died this past Wednesday morning. Gordon and his wife Mary founded the Church of the Saviour in Adams Morgan. Gordon very much influenced us here at Foundry. I’ve written a reflection on his life for the Washington Post which you can find online or you can get a copy in our office.
Gordon’s memorial service will be here at Foundry Saturday April 6 at 10:30 a.m. Even if you did not know Gordon, we invite you to the service to hear about him and his ministry.
On your behalf I sent a letter this week to Green Street United Methodist church in Winston-Salem, NC, which you can find online or at our office. I encourage you to do the same.
We are going to have a time of prayer for the Supreme Court this morning so I want to get right into the words I have to share this morning.
The Sunday before the Friday he was to die in the most humiliating and shameful and helpless way that a person could die, Jesus proclaimed himself a king.
All this Lent we have been talking about hopeless places in our lives … experiences that can make us feel hopeless and we have affirmed the possibility of finding God in hopeless places.
Jesus, in the final days of his life, was in as hopeless a place as any of us could imagine, targeted for execution and death … living under a death sentence. And Jesus’ response was to declare himself a king.
All of us have had some experience of powerlessness and helplessness. Maybe we got a diagnosis. Maybe we have a loved one we cannot help. Maybe we have family members who do not accept us and we cannot change their minds. Maybe we cannot find employment. Maybe we cannot find someone to love us. Maybe we are helpless to control an addiction.
Jesus, in a position of powerlessness, declared himself a king.
I am amazingly thankful for the time in which I have had the opportunity to live. So much has happened in my lifetime.
The civil rights movement - I went from seeing African-American on TV hosed down by fire hoses for trying to vote to seeing the first African-American president of the United States elected twice. I am not saying the problems are all resolved. I am just saying that I got to see something in my lifetime that generations of Americans never got to see, never believed would happen.
I got to see the first women elected to Congress who were more than tokens. I got to see the first women elected bishops in the Episcopalian and United Methodist Churches. I got to see the first generation of women CEOs in Fortune 500 companies. If I am lucky I will live to see Hilary elected president. I am not saying that all the issues are resolved, just that I got to see something in my generation that millions of Americans never imagined could happen.
I got to see curb cuts. I got to see handicapped accessibility become normal. Foundry had a member years ago who was carried into this church in his wheel chair Sunday after Sunday, until we built a ramp into our basement and then finally a ramp to our front door. Think of the generations of people who never imagined that they could have access to places to work, and to worship and to play because they were differently abled.
I got to see Republicans and Democrats agree that we need to reform immigration policies. Years ago I served a church where we had a number of members from other places in the world who did not have papers. They never expected to be able to get papers. They lived in constant fear that something would happen to cause them to lose their jobs or to be deported and to rip apart their family. I got to see Americans agree that we need immigration reform. Many of the people in that church did not live to see this day.
I get to see the Supreme Court of the United States deliberate about same-gender marriage. When I was young, same gender love was called the love that may not speak its name. You could not mention homosexuality anywhere. Now some people tell me we talk about it too much and I should shut up already. I got to see that.
When Jesus was on the brink of being a big time loser, when he was powerless to save his own life, nonetheless establish the kingdom he believed in, he declared himself a king. And he became a king even though he never got to see it himself, except from heaven.
When I experience a sense of powerlessness or hopelessness about ending homelessness, ending gun violence, ending the new Jim Crow, ending discrimination against LGBTQ people in the church, ending world hunger, all the things about which I can become discouraged, when I stop to think about all I’ve seen in my lifetime that generations of people longed to see but died without seeing, I realize how little faith I really have.
Jesus declared himself a king when he was powerless to avoid his own crucifixion. Because he was confident that the kingdom to which he had given his life would come even if he would die on a cross.
How little faith I have.
Victor Frankl was a psychologist who developed his psychological theories after being a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps where his wife died, his brother died, his mother died. Victor Frankl experienced and witnessed the worst that one group of human beings can do to another group.
Here is what Victor Frankl said: “Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
We are never totally powerless. We can always choose whether we will despair or whether we will believe in God to do what we may not ourselves see in our lifetimes.
I am so fortunate and so are you. We have gotten in our lifetimes to see God move in powerful ways. I wish I had more faith … I wish I had the faith of slaves who never got to see emancipation but who lived with hope; the faith of women who never saw suffrage but who lived with hope; people differently abled who never saw accessibility but who lived with hope; gay people who never dreamed of marriage equality but lived with hope.
On the Sunday before his great defeat, Jesus proclaimed himself a king.
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