(This is an excerpt of a sermon preached on Sunday, March 27, 2011 at New Covenant Worship Center in Baltimore, MD)
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? (Psalm 42:2)
In the Scripture text, we find that the writer in the Psalm is one who is obviously yearning for a closer relationship with God. He is seeking and searching for something more, something deeper in his spiritual walk. And so he begins abruptly with the metaphor of a thirsty, panting deer. The deer is frantically searching the desert for a stream of water.
With the same intensity as the deer seeks water, the psalmist seeks after God. He is speaking to a need that is common among all of us. An integral part of the human plight is a need to know God and to experience God. This is what St. Augustine spoke of in his prayer, “Lord you have created us for yourself, and our souls are restless until they find their rest in thee.” All of us in some way have souls that are restless.
Here, the psalmist offers the image of a deer that is thirsty. Though the psalmist points to the deer’s longing in the midst of physical thirst and danger, this metaphor offers a profound spiritual image- our relationship with God is as essential to our spiritual well-being as water is to our physical well-being.
I would venture to suggest that all of us have found ourselves at the point of being thirsty. Being thirsty places us at the point of needing to address one of the basic needs of life. The fact is that we can’t survive without water. Without water we would die. To be thirsty is to experience the most basic and profound of human needs. It has been suggested that thirst is such a powerful longing that it displaces all other human desires.
This image of being thirsty may be lost on some of us in a day when there is so much that substitutes for the basic elements of life. Even knowing what we thirst for – what we need most essentially in our lives - is often lost amidst the things that grasp our attention.
Growing up, my paternal grandparents lived across the road from a well. I can remember playing outside in the hot summer sun, and there would come a point when we knew that it was time to stop playing, for we were thirsty.
We knew that it was time to go to the well, and pump it until water came out. We’d pump and pump, and there was nothing like the sight of seeing water begin to flow out of the well, and knowing that our thirst would then be quenched.
We reflect upon this matter of being thirsty today because in this day and age, we thirst for many things. Some of us have schedules that are so full that it leaves us thirsty for time with God. Some of us have religion in our lives, and yet our relationship with the Lord yearns for intimacy.
Some of us thirst for recognition from others as a way of masking our deeper need for self-esteem. Some of us thirst for relationships – only to find ourselves being exploited and abused and unable to deal with our profound loneliness. We thirst for material things and find ourselves mired in a form of “affluenza” which Marion Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund defines as our possessing too much that is worth too little. We thirst.
What are you thirsty for? What are the things that you most desire in life? What are your heart’s desires? What are the things that you seek after?
Over the course of history, there have been persons who have thirsted after the things that would make our world better, the things of God:
• Martin Luther King, Jr. thirsted for racial equality.
• Mohandas Gandhi thirsted for peace and justice.
• Mother Theresa thirsted for truth and fairness.
• Dietrich Bonheoffer thirsted for true discipleship.
• Rosa Parks thirsted for her dignity.
Christ beckons each of us to obey our thirst. This should be good news for us today. In the midst of failing economies, political disappointment, violence and wars, broken homes, lost jobs, and diminished stock portfolios – Jesus is the living water. In the midst of fears, doubts, despair, dread, disillusionment, disappointment – Jesus is the living water.
What are you thirsty for? Are you thirsting after God? Our response to the presence and power of God should be to obey our thirst, and seek God where he can be found.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Waiting
The length of this year’s Epiphany season has afforded an opportunity for many to enter into a time of deeper reflection and preparation for Lent and the resurrection promise of Easter. Through all that occurs in our lives – earthquakes, tsunamis, wars, violence, economic volatility, and even lives transformed by the power of God – we are enlightened and emboldened in our sensed need for the powerful presence of God in our lives. The resurrection promise of Easter is one of hope and joy amidst any and all of life’s circumstances. This hope and joy is what the church is called to embody and proclaim as we participate in the transformation of the world in Christ’s name. In The Sabbatical Journey, Henri Nouwen shared that “Life is a short moment of waiting. But life is not empty waiting. It is to wait full of expectation. This knowledge that God will indeed fulfill the promise to renew everything, and will offer us a “new heaven and new earth,” makes the waiting exciting…” May God, who is making all things new, make our waiting exciting in the days that are before us.
Friday, April 1, 2011
The State of Black America 2011
Check out the Executive Summary of the National Urban League's 2011 edition of the "State of Black America" at http://nul.org/content/state-black-america-executive-summary.
Thoughts on the City
"Our cities are crime-haunted dying grounds. Huge sectors of our youth...face permanent unemployment... Neither the courts nor the prisons contribute anything resembling justice or reformation. The schools are unable-or unwilling-to educate our children for the real world of our struggles."
- From the Preamble, National Black Political Agenda, Gary, Indiana, 1972
- From the Preamble, National Black Political Agenda, Gary, Indiana, 1972
Food for Thought
"The whole history of the progress of human history shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of struggle. ... If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. ..."
-Frederick Douglass 1857
-Frederick Douglass 1857
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
State of Shalom
Check out Dr. Michael Christensen's report on the State of Shalom at http://michael-christensen.blogspot.com/2011/02/state-of-shalom-2010.html.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Holding onto Hope
(Exerpts from addresses given at First Baptist Church, Chillicothe, OH and Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Baltimore, MD, January 2011)
On the occasion of the 82nd anniversary of the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the time of year when we celebrate the history of people of the African Diaspora in America, and two years after the historic inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, we continue to experience unprecedented change and challenge across virtually every sector of our society. From the collapse of the economy that has in some way affected all of us – to the wars that are now being fought in at least two places in the Middle East – to the proliferation of violence that affects many of our communities - to the healthcare crisis that continues to result in over 40 million Americans living without adequate healthcare today, these are days of unprecedented change and challenge.
In 1903, W.E.B. DuBois declared in The Souls of Black Folk that the problem of the 20th century was the problem of the color-line. Today, several recent events serve to remind us that one of the critical problems of the 21st century in America remains the problem of the color-line. Among these are the 2009 Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Justice Sonia Sotomayor; the arrest of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates at his home in Cambridge, MA; the emergence of the Tea Party and others across America who seem intent on “taking back the country”; ongoing discourse on issues related to immigration reform; and the ongoing debates surrounding President Obama’s efforts toward reforming our nation’s health care system.
For many people across the nation and world, Obama’s historic election as the first president of African descent renewed (or birthed) a sense of hope. His election seemed to point - for many - to glimmers of hope that our society had somehow arrived at our ideals of “E Pluribus Unum” (out of many one), and the creed shared in our nation’s Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all (persons) are created equal.”
Many also seemed to sense (and hope) that the election of Obama had ushered in an age of post-racialism and post-racism in America – and perhaps across the world. Two years later, we discover that we as a nation are continuing to come to grips with the racial and racist realities that continue to afflict us. During a recent visit to the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL, I and others who were a part of the visit were informed that there were over 800 hate related groups identified in 2008, and that this number is on the rise since Obama’s election as president.
It is clear today that race continues to matter in America, and that we are not yet at the place of being post-racial or post-racist. This is the matter that Michael Eric Dyson addresses in his book, "Can You Hear Me Now?" Dyson insists that the critical question that is before society today is not if we are yet a post-racial society and the question is not even if we should strive to become post-racial, but the question is how might we move closer to becoming a post-racist society?
Near the end of his life, Martin Luther King, Jr.published a book entitled, "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?" In it, he reiterated a point he had made on several other occasions. He pointed out that we are faced with a choice in our life together, and that we will either learn to live together as brothers and sisters, or we will die together as fools.
A part of the moral prerogative of churches, civil rights organizations and all other institutions and persons concerned about the well-being of our world today remains that of speaking to the critical moral and social issues of the contemporary age. It is our task to help articulate a framework for engaging in critical and constructive advocacy for the disinherited among us – the poor, the violated, and the oppressed.
In light of this, where might hope reside among us as we look to the future? King framed his vision of hope within the context of Beloved Community. In one of his later sermons, "The Meaning of Hope," he defined hope as that quality which is "necessary for life."
King asserted that hope was to be viewed as "animated and undergirded by faith and love." In his mind, if you had hope, you had faith in something. For King, hope was the refusal to give up "despite overwhelming odds." In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on August 28, 1963, King shared that a part of his dream was that we would be able “to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”
In Jeremiah 29:11, the prophet offers a vision of hope for a people experiencing exile in a strange city. Here the Israelites were in Babylon – alienated from their land, alienated from their God, and alienated – many of them - from their loved ones. It is against this backdrop of nihilism that Jeremiah shares these words of hope:
“For surely, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare (shalom, wholeness), and not for your harm, plans to give you a future with hope.”
Those were also the same times and conditions that would lead Jeremiah earlier to offer provocative questions to the same people –
“Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no healing there? Why then has the health of my people not been restored?” (Jer. 8:22)
In reflecting on the text from Jeremiah, Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out that the evidence of faith and hope is found in the fact that persons were able to convert the question mark of the prophet Jeremiah’s lament, into an exclamation point as they affirmed their faith and hope in the living and life-giving God in a song:
There is a balm in Gilead,
To make the wounded whole
There is a balm in Gilead,
To heal the sin-sick soul
Sometimes I feel discouraged
And think my work’s in vain
And then the Holy Spirit
Revives my soul again!
Hope beckons us to love everybody – both our enemies and allies. Hope helps us to see that we can resist giving up on one another because our lives together are animated by the belief that God is present in each and every one of us.
Hope can be found in the possibilities that we will continue to discover ways to capitalize on those experiences and encounters that will lead to us being intentional and inclusive community. This is the hope that must be realized if we are to be the – the Beloved Community that Martin Luther King, Jr. imagined, and that God wills.
In the days ahead, may we continue to conjure the audacity to dream dreams and see visions, and may we have the temerity to hope against all that seems to rise against hope, and may we have the courage to hold onto hope.
On the occasion of the 82nd anniversary of the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the time of year when we celebrate the history of people of the African Diaspora in America, and two years after the historic inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, we continue to experience unprecedented change and challenge across virtually every sector of our society. From the collapse of the economy that has in some way affected all of us – to the wars that are now being fought in at least two places in the Middle East – to the proliferation of violence that affects many of our communities - to the healthcare crisis that continues to result in over 40 million Americans living without adequate healthcare today, these are days of unprecedented change and challenge.
In 1903, W.E.B. DuBois declared in The Souls of Black Folk that the problem of the 20th century was the problem of the color-line. Today, several recent events serve to remind us that one of the critical problems of the 21st century in America remains the problem of the color-line. Among these are the 2009 Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Justice Sonia Sotomayor; the arrest of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates at his home in Cambridge, MA; the emergence of the Tea Party and others across America who seem intent on “taking back the country”; ongoing discourse on issues related to immigration reform; and the ongoing debates surrounding President Obama’s efforts toward reforming our nation’s health care system.
For many people across the nation and world, Obama’s historic election as the first president of African descent renewed (or birthed) a sense of hope. His election seemed to point - for many - to glimmers of hope that our society had somehow arrived at our ideals of “E Pluribus Unum” (out of many one), and the creed shared in our nation’s Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all (persons) are created equal.”
Many also seemed to sense (and hope) that the election of Obama had ushered in an age of post-racialism and post-racism in America – and perhaps across the world. Two years later, we discover that we as a nation are continuing to come to grips with the racial and racist realities that continue to afflict us. During a recent visit to the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL, I and others who were a part of the visit were informed that there were over 800 hate related groups identified in 2008, and that this number is on the rise since Obama’s election as president.
It is clear today that race continues to matter in America, and that we are not yet at the place of being post-racial or post-racist. This is the matter that Michael Eric Dyson addresses in his book, "Can You Hear Me Now?" Dyson insists that the critical question that is before society today is not if we are yet a post-racial society and the question is not even if we should strive to become post-racial, but the question is how might we move closer to becoming a post-racist society?
Near the end of his life, Martin Luther King, Jr.published a book entitled, "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?" In it, he reiterated a point he had made on several other occasions. He pointed out that we are faced with a choice in our life together, and that we will either learn to live together as brothers and sisters, or we will die together as fools.
A part of the moral prerogative of churches, civil rights organizations and all other institutions and persons concerned about the well-being of our world today remains that of speaking to the critical moral and social issues of the contemporary age. It is our task to help articulate a framework for engaging in critical and constructive advocacy for the disinherited among us – the poor, the violated, and the oppressed.
In light of this, where might hope reside among us as we look to the future? King framed his vision of hope within the context of Beloved Community. In one of his later sermons, "The Meaning of Hope," he defined hope as that quality which is "necessary for life."
King asserted that hope was to be viewed as "animated and undergirded by faith and love." In his mind, if you had hope, you had faith in something. For King, hope was the refusal to give up "despite overwhelming odds." In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on August 28, 1963, King shared that a part of his dream was that we would be able “to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”
In Jeremiah 29:11, the prophet offers a vision of hope for a people experiencing exile in a strange city. Here the Israelites were in Babylon – alienated from their land, alienated from their God, and alienated – many of them - from their loved ones. It is against this backdrop of nihilism that Jeremiah shares these words of hope:
“For surely, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare (shalom, wholeness), and not for your harm, plans to give you a future with hope.”
Those were also the same times and conditions that would lead Jeremiah earlier to offer provocative questions to the same people –
“Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no healing there? Why then has the health of my people not been restored?” (Jer. 8:22)
In reflecting on the text from Jeremiah, Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out that the evidence of faith and hope is found in the fact that persons were able to convert the question mark of the prophet Jeremiah’s lament, into an exclamation point as they affirmed their faith and hope in the living and life-giving God in a song:
There is a balm in Gilead,
To make the wounded whole
There is a balm in Gilead,
To heal the sin-sick soul
Sometimes I feel discouraged
And think my work’s in vain
And then the Holy Spirit
Revives my soul again!
Hope beckons us to love everybody – both our enemies and allies. Hope helps us to see that we can resist giving up on one another because our lives together are animated by the belief that God is present in each and every one of us.
Hope can be found in the possibilities that we will continue to discover ways to capitalize on those experiences and encounters that will lead to us being intentional and inclusive community. This is the hope that must be realized if we are to be the – the Beloved Community that Martin Luther King, Jr. imagined, and that God wills.
In the days ahead, may we continue to conjure the audacity to dream dreams and see visions, and may we have the temerity to hope against all that seems to rise against hope, and may we have the courage to hold onto hope.
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