INVINCIBLE
SUMMER
I
John 4:18
“There
is no fear on love, but perfect love drives out fear.”
Good
evening friends. I am humbled and honor for the opportunity to be here with you
this evening. I’m deeply grateful for Nancy Coren, the spiritual leader of this
congregation, for extending me this invitation to speak tonight. To all, grace
and peace.
Last
May, I had the opportunity to tour the Nebraska capitol building. There I was
shown the murals that decorate the great hall of the building. One of the
murals depicted a scene from the 1888 Blizzard, also known as the children’s
blizzard.
“On
January 12th, 1888 was unseasonably warm. Cattle were out in the
fields. School children in some areas played outside during the noon recess. In
some cases, men were reported to have worked out-of-doors in their
shirt-sleeves. Then, the wind suddenly changed to the north, driving before it
a great mass of thick, blinding snow. Men and animals alike were trapped in a
freezing, white wasteland. The thermometer plummeted to 34 degrees below zero.
The
storm lasted from 12 to 18 hours over most of the area, and was followed by
minor local storms. The state was two weeks digging itself out. When the
newspapers finally were able to assemble the details from isolated farms and
ranches, it was evident that the loss of life and property sustained in the
great blizzard was the greatest ever know in the West. Estimates as to the
number who died in Nebraska ran as high as 100.
A
particularly harrowing aspect of the storm was the fact that it caught so many
school children away from home in tiny one-room school houses, with no food and
little fuel. The heroism displayed by a number of school teachers, and their
older pupils, in caring for the young children will always share a place in the
annals of Nebraska. Of all these, the one who probably gained the most fame was
Minnie Freeman of Mira Valley, Valley County. When the storm broke there were
13 children in her school. She tied them together, single file, with herself at
the head of the line, and ably assisted by the older pupils managed to get them
to the nearest farmhouse.” (https://history.nebraska.gov/publications/blizzard-1888)
These
days, our world seems clouded. We know we can be better, we can do better, but
there is no reward. It is like walking blind in a blizzard
As
a young boy, I was raised in a loving faith community. I remember going to
church every Sunday, and every Sunday attending Sunday school. I can still hear
today the voice of my teacher singing for us to learn verses from the Bible. My
earliest memory is of a song that taught us that God is love. At that early age
I was not able to grasp the concepts of God being always present, or of our
role as God’s children in the world, but I did understand God being love.
As
a child, fear was very real, very palpable for me. When I was very young it was
discovered I was dangerously allergic to something. I remember as if it was
today walking in the doctor’s office and being injected over 30 times with
different allergens so the doctor could identify which one I was allergic to.
After finding out, I remember as if it was today going weekly to the doctor’s
office to build up my resistance to the allergen. I understood then and there
what fear was. Because of this experience I became afraid of needles, a fear
that still persists to this day. But then and there I understood also the love
of God as my mom held my hand during the whole ordeal. I understood God loved
me like my mom loved me in those times where I was engulfed with fear.
Fear
of needles was not my only fear. I was also taught to fear people according to
where they lived, according to the color of their skin, according to their
accent. We fear not only what hurts us most, but also that which we think might
hurt us. The things we have been conditioned to believe will hurt us.
Those
things we fear are the things we grow to hate. Hatred is born out of our fear,
because if we hate something enough, we believe that thing will never hurt us.
What we don’t come to realize is that our deepest fears turn back to hurt us as
well.
The
late Texan journalist, Molly Ivins told a story about her mentor, John Henry
Faulk.
“John
Henry Faulk used to tell a story about when he was a Texas Ranger, a captain in
fact. He was seven at the time. His friend Boots Cooper, who was six, was
sheriff, and the two of them used to do a lot of heavy law enforcement out
behind the Faulk place in south Austin. One day Johnny’s mama, having two such
fine officers on the place, asked them to go down to the hen house and rout out
the chicken snake that had been doing some damage there.
Johnny
and Boots loped down to the hen house on their trusty brooms (which they
tethered outside) and commenced to search for the snake. They went all through
the nests on the bottom shelf of the hen house and couldn’t find it, so the
both of them stood on tippy-toes to look on the top shelf. I myself have never
been nose-to-nose with a chicken snake, but I always took Johnny’s word for it
that it will just scare the living [daylights] out of you. Scared those boys so
bad that they both tried to exit the hen house at the same time, doing
considerable damage to both themselves and the door.
Johnny’s
mama, Miz Faulk, was a kindly lady, but watching all this, it struck her funny.
She was still laughin’ when the captain and the sheriff trailed back up to the
front porch. “Boys, boys, ” said Miz Faulk, “what is wrong with you? You know
perfectly well a chicken snake cannot hurt you.”
That’s
when Boots Cooper made his semi-immortal observation. “Yes ma’am,” he said,
“but there’s some things’ll scare you so bad, you hurt yourself.” (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1993/05/funs-fight)
Has
there been a time that you have been so scared, that you have hurt yourself?
That others have been hurt? That their fear has hurt you?
Years
after learning that God is love I learned something new. Fear is true in our
lives. Fear hurts us. Fear produces hate. But I learned also that there is a
greater power than fear. It was in that same Sunday school room, that our
Sunday school teacher read to us, just a few lines after the ones that read
that God is love, that the opposite of fear is love.
1
John 4:18- “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.” Yes, The
opposite of fear is love.
When
I was sitting on that chair at the doctor’s office, I was paralyzed by fear but
love helped me through.
It
is that same love that defeated fear when in 2011 thousands of Egyptian Muslims
made a shield around a Christian Coptic church. It is that same love that
defeated fear when hundreds of thousands of people marched through the streets
of our nation to demand equal rights for women and for African Americans. It
was that same love that that defeated fear in our own city with thousands of
high schoolers demanded our government to keep them safe in school by
increasing sensible gun laws. In all of these cases, when people arm themselves
with love, hatred and fear cannot withstand.
Fear
and hatred cannot withstand the power of love.
In
her book Radical Dharma, Rev. angel Kyodo Williams understood this when
she wrote, “We cannot have a healed society, we cannot have change, we cannot
have justice if we do not reclaim and repair the human spirit.”
And
in his sermon on November 17, 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke, “In the
final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s
not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for
all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level
of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems.
Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek
to defeat the system.”
What
does it need healing in our society? Where are we afraid? Where is love needed?
Activist
and community organizer Eboo Patel told recently a folk story that have great
implications for us here today.
The
story is told of a village that was going through a great famine. There was a
witch, who was considered a wise woman, always looking after the members of the
village. One day the villagers approached her and asked her to work some magic
that would help them overcome their hunger.
She
proceeded to tell them of this magic stone soup that she could prepare. She
took her cauldron, our water on it. Set it on top of a fire and dropped some
stones in it. One villager asked her, “When will it be ready?” She said, “Not
quite, it could use some carrots.” “I have some!” A villager said who then
proceeded to provide the carrots. “Is it ready?” Another villager asked.
“Almost” the witch responded “but it needs onions.” “No problem there” another
villager said, “I have grown some. I will look for them.” After adding the
onions another villager said, “I’m so hungry!” “Patience,” said the witch, “I
wonder if we could find some potatoes…” A villager went home and brought a few
potatoes that she was keeping for a special day. “The soup is almost ready” the
witch said. The smell of it had filled the village. “With some meat it will be
complete.” Another villager brought some meat his family have been keeping for
a really bad day. “The magic stone soup is now ready” the witch said, “and
everyone is welcome to eat from it.”
One
of us might not be able to fight hatred, or fear. But together, what we all
bring together, will help transform our city and beyond. We fight hate with
forgiveness. We fight hate with courage. We fight fear with love. In truth,
there is no other way.
I
think of those brave school children in that blizzard of 1888. I think of them
holding to the rope as hard as they could knowing that in spite of all they
feared the most, they would live. I think of them and I think of the words of
French philosopher Albert Camus, “In the midst of winter, there is within me,
an invincible summer.”
It
was an invincible summer that lead them out of the snow and into life. It was
the invincible summer that have led those who have marched for so many years
for freedom, for the equality of women, African Americans and immigrants. It
has been that invincible summer that have moved our young people to dream
dreams and have visions for safety that have changed the laws of our city and
our state. It is that same invincible summer that dissipates our fears to
overcome the systems of oppression even in our own state. That invincible
summer is love. May that love be alive in us and may we be wise enough to teach
it to those who will follow us. May it be so.
No comments:
Post a Comment