RCL Proper 17A
24 July 2011
Saint Faith’s Anglican Church
Vancouver BC
When I bought my new Jeep in November of last year, it came with a particular bonus: satellite radio. Now I am relatively immune from the uncertainties of radio waves and can listen to music without commercial interruption as I travel from Surrey into Vancouver. One of the channels is devoted to Broadway musicals and I frequently tune in to listen to a wonderful selection of the various show tunes from the many musical which have appeared over so many years.
Yesterday the programme I was listening to played an interview with the late Oscar Hammerstein, the great Broadway lyricist. In it he spoke about his philosophy of life, a philosophy based on his belief on the importance of our solidarity with one another and with God. As the interview drew to a close, the interviewer mentioned the title of a song from one of my least favourite musicals, Carousel. Without a breath or a pause Hammerstein recited the song, one that many of you may know.
When you walk through the storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
There's a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of the lark
Walk on, through the wind
Walk on, through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone
His recitation brought back memories of the school choir that I sang in during grades seven, eight and nine when we sang this song to a packed auditorium. When we were finished, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house!
As the past week drew to a close, this song could be the theme song for our world. The United Nations has declared a famine in the Horn of Africa where millions of people are on the move searching for food, water and shelter, while a Somalian militia restricts the access that aid agencies have to the afflicted area. In one refugee camp in Kenya there are an estimated three hundred thousand people with more than a thousand crossing the border every day. Most if not all of these people have walked for days and weeks seeking help and the question is whether they will walk alone or whether the world will follow the lead of our own government which has pledged $50 million and promised to match, dollar for dollar, the gifts made by individuals to various aid agencies.
As if a famine was not enough to burden our consciences, the explosion of a bomb in downtown Oslo and the shooting of more than eighty people, mostly young people, at a summer camp outside the city has most of us shaking our heads and wondering where such violence comes from. Since it appears that the gunman is a self-described Christian fundamentalist, we can prepare ourselves for the barrage of comments in which religious faith will be described as the source of most of the world’s violence. The Norwegian prime minister has spoken about the importance of this event as being a stimulus to strengthen his country’s democracy and reminded people of the quiet but firm pride of the Norwegian people.
So what can religious people say at a time like this? No credible Christian leader can suggest that these events are, in some fashion, an expression of God’s will, but the more difficult question is why God permits such things to happen. Trying to answer this question has been a task undertaken by generation after generation of Christian writers and thinkers with no single answer gaining the theological high ground. At the end of the day all one can say is this: I do not know why God allows such things to happen. I only know that, at times such as this, God calls us to the kind of solidarity Oscar Hammerstein writes of in his song: Keep our heads high. Hold on to the hope that the evil is not God’s last word. Walk on together rather than alone.
Almost two thousand years ago the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome. His purpose was two-fold: to elicit their support in his planned trip to Spain and to quell a developing conflict between Jewish and Gentile Christians. It has to be said that he did not achieve either purpose. There is no evidence that Paul ever travelled to Spain nor that the church in Rome provided any financial support for this venture. There is every piece of evidence that the conflict between Jewish and Gentile Christians escalated. Over the next hundred years any concessions to Jewish believers were withdrawn and in two hundred years to be Jewish and Christian was seen as contradictory. All of us here know the sorry history of the Christian persecution of the Jews over the many centuries, culminating in the events of the Second World War.
While Paul failed to achieve his purposes, he did leave us with a legacy of words which Christians have found meaningful over the centuries as they have faced disappointment, death and tragedy: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8.38-39)
What is the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord? It is love that is willing to give oneself for the well-being of the other. It is love that is willing to chose solidarity with the beloved rather than remain aloof and distance. It is love that is unconditional, reaching out even to those who some may consider as unlovable or as unworthy of love. That love manifests itself even in the midst of tragedy and terror.
When Paul writes that “(we) know that all things work together for good for those who love God” (Romans 8.28), he reminds us that in all things, whether comprehensible or incomprehensible, whether joyful or sorrowful, whether showing us at our best or at our worst, God works for good. God is not complacent nor passive in the face of the tragedies of the past week nor in any of the tragedies we see, whether earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand, forest fires in Canada and political unrest in North Africa and the Middle East. God is working through those who chose to become God’s agents, believers and unbelievers alike.
Famine cannot separate those who hunger from the love of God made known to them in the person of aid workers who risk their lives and devote themselves to providing refugees with the necessities of life. Bombs and gunshots cannot separate those who have been wounded and those who mourn from the love of God made known to them in the person of medical personnel, counsellors and political leaders who refuse to be diverted from the paths of peace and inclusion by those who choose the politics of violence and exclusion. Even in these moments God works to raise up people who have been cast down, to make new circumstances that have grown old and to bring all of creation to its perfection, decade by decade, century by century, millennium by millennium, aeon by aeon.
Oscar Hammerstein was right, you know. We have been created for solidarity with one another and with God. We have been created to love sacrificially and unconditionally. When we face the tragedies of our times, we have a choice to be overwhelmed by them or to rise to the occasion, walking with heads held high and hope in our hearts. Anything less is a denial of our birthright as children of God who need not fear anything that seeks to separate us from the love of the One who created us, who redeemed us and who continues to work in us to bring us to our true selves.
When you walk through the storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
There's a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of the lark
Walk on, through the wind
Walk on, through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone
Amen.
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