We are unstoppable. Another world is possible.

 

“We are unstoppable. Another world is possible.”

A Sermon preached on FB Live Broadcast

Sirach 26:10 - The Headstrong Daughter 

Advent IV - December 20, 2020

 

So, I was baking a batch of Snickerdoodle Biscotti for the Christmas Gift Tins and thinking about this Gospel and what I might have to say about the Annunciation. I mean, I’ve been ordained 34 years. That’s a lot of sermons on this same Gospel. 

 

This particular recipe for biscotti requires that you knead the dough about 15-20 times with the warning, “It will be very crumbly”. Which, turns out, was a very serious understatement. It was awful. There were moments when I felt as if I was in a death struggle with an alien being.

 

I don’t know if you bake or if you’ve kneaded dough but there is this moment in the middle of the process when your arms are tired and you are about to quit so you entertain the thought of stopping for awhile but something pushes you on and, the next thing you know, the dough is pliable in your hands!

 

Glory be! You’ve broken through! You made it! You’re going to make it! You will be making the bread or the biscotti! And, a little voice way down deep in your soul cries out, “Alleluia”. Which the little voice in my soul did, but it was just a prelude to an anthem that also arouse from my soul.

 

This is what I heard:

 

Alleluia! We are unstoppable. Another world is possible. Alleluia!

 

No, I’m not crazy. Well, not any crazier than any of the rest of you lot.

 

You have to be a little crazy to be a Christian, you know? It is certifiable insanity to have hope in the midst of these days. There’s the pandemic which now kills more people in one day (and every day these days) than died in one day on 9/11 or at the bombing at Pearl Harbor – and, is now mutating. There’s the tense and ugly political climate. And, the fires and mudslides in California! There have been so many hurricanes that they ran out of names and started naming them by the letters in the Greek alphabet.

 

And yet, we hope. Hope against hope (I love that expression.) We even declare a season of hope we call Advent.

 

And, in the midst of kneading the biscotti dough while thinking about the Annunciation, I had this thought: When Mary said yes, she started the Revolution.

 

There is something absolutely revolutionary about being a Christian. It’s as revolutionary and counter-cultural now, in our time, as it was in the time of Mary. To hold onto hope in the midst of so much despair is a positively revolutionary idea.  

 

The chant I heard in my head was not something original. I had heard it before – about 9 years ago. I had decided to celebrate the 25^th Anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood by participating in the movement known as “Occupy Wall Street”.

 

You may remember that movement. It was only 9 years ago (I know, seems like a lot more). Several of my seminarians were involved in the demonstrations there and I wanted to support them. Actually, truth be told, I wanted to be with them. I was a proper suburban rector of a large parish and I was no longer young and foolish but … well  …. older and foolish.

 

The thing of it is, I come from a long line of activists. My grandparents and parents and aunts and uncles were all part of the Labor Union Movement in the mills and factories of Fall River, MA. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of my family and neighbors and family friends and coworkers gathered around my grandmother’s kitchen table, developing strategy for a negotiation or a strike. Even our parish priest was involved and often opened the parish hall to larger group meetings. So, activism is in my DNA.

 

My journal shows that on December 17, 2011, there was a demonstration planned in a vacant parking lot at Duarte Square which was owned by Trinity Wall Street. Many Episcopal clergy were there, including Bishop George Packard, retired bishop of the Armed Forces, who was in his collar and purple cassock. He had been distributing water bottles to the demonstrators who were encamped at Zuccotti Park.

 

Bishop Packard was the first over the fence that surrounded Duarte Square and was one of the first to be arrested for civil disobedience. Everyone was very calm and polite. I mean, we are Episcopalians, for goodness sake. One of the police who handcuffed one of the priests said, “You know, Father, you Episcopalians put the ‘civil’ in civil disobedience.”

As the demonstrators were being led away in handcuffs, a chant went up from the crowd. “We are unstoppable. Another world is possible.”

 

And, I thought to myself, you know, that is Mary’s song. And, Hannah’s song before her. The demonstrators there, that day, in New York City as well as the ones of my youth in Fall River, Massachusetts were all living out the words Mary sang in The Magnificat:

 

He has shown the strength of his arm,

     he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

 

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,

     And has lifted up the lowly.

 

He has filled the hungry with good things,

     And the rich he has sent away empty.

 

What happened in Nazareth thousands of years ago is still happening today.  God doesn’t just dwell in a tent or in a house made of cedar as we heard in the first lesson. The truth of it is that the Realm of God is inside us, and all around us.

 

The world is a mess and yet the beauty of a community of hope is springing up in the most unexpected places: In demonstrations which assert that Black Lives, in fact, do Matter. In the long lines of cars, waiting to pick up a box of food from a food pantry because jobs have been lost in the pandemic.

 

Caring communities of hope can be seen springing up in faithful people who quietly and without any fanfare or applause or even recognition bring food and warm mittens and books to the Little Red Cupboard outside of St. Paul’s Church in Georgetown, DE and St. Peter’s Church in Lewes, DE, and my neighborhood United Methodist Church in Millsboro, DE

 

And, caring communities of hope are present in people who join together to pray on social media platforms like this on Facebook Live Broadcast or Zoom or Google Meet Up or YouTube who can’t necessarily see each other in what is known as “real time” but live in sure and certain hope in what we know as “God’s Time” that their prayers are joining with others and touching the very center of God’s heart.

 

And, hope arises in people who sit quietly in their chair, alone in their living room or at their kitchen table, and without even a bible or prayer book open, say a silent prayer for people they don’t even know but for whom they have been asked to pray.

 

Sacrificial love is rushing in where there is a void. “We are unstoppable,” says God. “Another world is possible.”

 

If you listen closely, you can hear it, too. You don’t have to knead cookie dough as I did, but I will tell you, that does help.

 

Just try this. Let’s do this now, together: Close your eyes for just a minute. Still the thoughts in your mind. Put your hand on the pulse on your wrist or on your neck. Feel the blood coursing through your veins.

 

Once you feel the rhythm of your pulse, listen to the sound of your heart beating in your chest. Now, listen to the sound of your own breath.

 

Maybe not right this very minute, but maybe later today or tomorrow, when you try this again, if you listen closely, you will hear God whispering into your ear,  “We are unstoppable. Another world is possible.”

 

And, when you hear those words, you, like Mary before you, will find yourself – in spite of yourself, it’s crazy, I know, but you’ll find yourself – saying, “Yes”.

 

And, with that, the revolution of hope and reconciliation and forgiveness and peace and love and joy will begin. Again.

 

Alleluia! We are unstoppable. Another world is possible. Alleluia!

Somebody give me an “Amen!” Amen!