July 1, 2018: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard.  Amen.

Lordy!  It’s hot! 

You know what Episcopalians do when it’s this hot? We go to Austin Texas for General Convention!  Yup – I kid you not.

Anyway, I remember once being in heat far worse than this – back in 2012, when I was on the US-Mexico border, walking the desert in the summer heat.  Why?  I was there as part of my seminary’s requirement for a cross-cultural trip. I have mentioned this trip to you before a couple of years ago, but it bears repeating now.  While there, we met with people on both sides of the immigration issue – the Border Patrol, government agencies, humanitarian groups, and others.  And we walked the scorching desert of Arizona where men, women, and children risk their lives to cross our border – and where I found a discarded pink backpack of a child. 

I was thinking about this experience yesterday, as I stood in the scorching heat in Newark.  Newark was where one of the many marches all across the nation took place – marches that proclaimed that “Families Belong Together.”  And at the rally, a young immigrant spoke about the journey she took with her mom across the desert to a new life here – when she was just 5 years old.  

She described the harrowing trip, her mom hiding her in brush whenever the Border Patrol was flying overhead, and that once the brush was filled with thorns that cut into her skin all over her body.  She was bleeding and frightened, but she was with her mother, who comforted her.  Eventually they were picked up by the Border Patrol, and processed.  She is now what we call a “Dreamer,” and yet she knows, as she said yesterday, that at any moment, she could still be torn apart from her family and deported.  And I wondered if there had been a small pink backpack left behind by her lying somewhere in the desert heat. 

All of this, and the news of late, collides with our scriptures today in a powerful way. 

In our first reading, from the Wisdom text, we hear that “God did not make death, and does not delight in the death of the living. For God created all things so that they might exist.”  Think about that – we were not created to be dead, but alive! God created us to be fully alive!

And if we didn’t get that message, then the gospel makes that clear.  There is so much to say about these two healings, but one thing is for sure – Jesus is sought out by those who need healing – those who are physically, emotionally, and spiritually dying.  A woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, and a father of a dying young girl of twelve.   The twelve number is important – it is meant to bring to mind the twelve tribes of Israel – a people who were dying inside from their captivity in an oppressive system. The woman touches his cloak and is healed.  Jesus reaches the girl, and tells others that she is asleep, and orders her to get up.

I wonder if today we might not speak instead about the woman who was bleeding for 50 years, and a young girl of 50 months… because we live in a country of 50 states – and we too are on the brink of death. We too are in need of healing.

This week our country will celebrate the 4^thof July.  This is supposed to be a reminder of something to us – something more important that BBQs and trips to the beach.  It is supposed to be a celebration of the liberation of this country from the tyranny of a king who wielded power to abuse his people. 

Today, we are facing a new tyranny – by our own government.  Then, leaders in the colonies risked death to protest.  Now, we are protesting to protect those who have already risked possible death to escape death that was certain to be theirs, in their native land.

We are facing death as a country, as a people united, because we have lost sight of who we are.  We are in need of the healing hands of Jesus, a hymn we sing today during communion.

One of the other hymns we sing today is the one I feel should be our National Anthem (in fact, it has been proposed to be just that on a few occasions).  It is commonly called “America, the beautiful.”  Most know the first verse, and perhaps the third, but it is really the second verse that should be something inscribed in our minds and hearts. It goes like this: “O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life!  America! America! God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.”

Oh to live into that ideal – a country that loves mercy more than life, whose very soul is confirmed in self-control, and in which liberty is law.  But that is not what has been happening in our country of late – and it is not only killing the people our government wounds in heart and soul, but it is killing us as a people too. 

But God created us for life!

And THAT is why we protest!  That is why we, people of faith, followers of Jesus, are taking to the streets. Because we are not dead!  Oh no!  We are not dead – we are alive – alive in Christ – and with that comes the responsibility to call out others – to heal the broken, to proclaim the good news of God’s unconditional love, to be the sign of life that give others a fresh start.

It is also why we come here, because we need to be healed of our brokenness, we need to be with one another in Christ to be given strength for our own journey across the desert of destruction and chaos around us.  We need to do this, to be who we are – followers of Jesus, called to speak out against injustice, to care for the least of these, to offer the healing balm of love.

And today, we give voice to the voiceless, standing as Jesus would against the horrific actions our government has done at the border – separating children from their parents.  Now two weeks ago I preached about this, and one would think that by now, things would have gotten a bit better.  Yet in that time – very little has changed, just more horrors have emerged from the darkness.

Do you know that we still don’t know where the babies are?  Do you know that there are toddlers having to represent themselves in court (TODDLERS folks!)?  What’s worse is that it is actually a policy that has been around for years, but is just becoming public.  Do you know that children are crying themselves to sleep at night in what are essentially prisons, wondering if they will ever see their parents again? Folks, people little children, are dying emotionally and spiritually, running from a place where physical death was assured if they didn’t flee.  If you aren’t outraged yet, than something has died within you, and Jesus is calling you out of your long sleep of death. 

Get up! Get up, and be healed, Jesus is saying. 

For if we do not rise, when others are dying, we will surely die ourselves.  That is the truth of our faith – of our existence here.

Yesterday, our state senator, Cory Booker spoke about the legacy of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, Jr. and I don’t remember which of King’s quotes he used, but I believe it may have been this, delivered in a speech at Washington National Cathedral (which is Episcopal, I might add) just days before he was killed.  King said “We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.”

That IS the way God’s universe is made – as a wonderfully alive  fabric of creation – beautiful in the diversity that reflects God’s image – and connected to one another in the bond of God’s love.  And one thing needs to be absolutely clear – there are no borders in God’s creation – no seam dividing one part from another. But when we rip children apart from their parents, when we hate, when we deny the dignity of another, we do this to God and to ourselves, tearing at the very fabric of God’s creation.  For any part of this world, down to the smallest blade of grass, and the tallest tree, from the child of Guatemala, to the child of Wales – is of God – we are of God – if they are harmed – we are harmed.

So, as we celebrate the birth of this nation, a nation of immigrants – let us remember that there is no freedom for any of us, while others are oppressed.

Let us remember that there is no safety for any of us, while others live in fear.

Let us remember that there is no feeling satisfied for any of us, while others hunger and thirst.

Let us remember that there is no life for any of us, where others are dying from neglect, from abuse, from ignorance, and from hate.

We are being called out of our slumber – Christ is telling us to “get up!”  Get up and be healed – because we are not meant to just wither and die, but exist!  That is why God created us – to live!  That is why Jesus came too –  to wake us all out of the death slumber of our complacency, to heal our brokenness, that we might be the healing presence we are meant to be – the body of Christ alive in the world today.

Let us get up!

Get up and march that others might be freed.

Get up and speak that others might be called to rise up.

Get up and proclaim that every child is our child, and every immigrant & refugee is a member of our family.

Get up!  Be healed here in Jesus, for we were made for life – ours, and our sisters and brothers too.

Amen.

For the audio from the 10:30am service, subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast, or click here:

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
July 1, 2018
The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost
1stReading –Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15; 2:23-24
Psalm 30
2nd Reading –2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Gospel – Mark 5:21-43