"Not Unravelling" | The Rev. Luk de Volder | January 31, 2021
“Not Unravelling”
Sermon by the Rev. Luk de Volder
Deuteronomy 18:15-20 | 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 | Mark 1:21-28 | Psalm 111
Good morning everyone and thanks for joining us here at Trinity. We're celebrating our community today. We have gone through a lot this year. When I arrived at Trinity almost 10 years ago one of the wardens alerted me right away: You aren't arriving soon enough because our parish is starting to unravel at the fringes. Transitions are hard for any community but Trinity, with its rich ministries, its wide geographical reach, and its local challenges on the Green, Trinity does need extra care through clergy leadership and also through leadership of its members but the upheaval we have been going through over the past 12 months has made the stress of that rector transition look like peanuts.
During this pandemic it has been so remarkable to see that the community has not been unraveling. It has been wonderful to notice how are common leadership here at Trinity, of all of us together, has been so strong. Allow me to stress this: your commitment to the well-being of our Trinity parish has been so remarkable and exceptional. It really needs to be celebrated! At every turn people have been stepping up to the plate to reach out to give support and share donations for the people in need here in the city. As best as possible we stuck together and we have showed up when someone got sick when my family, or Heidi and Will, got Covid; when people needed a moment of conversation; when we needed training on resilience during this pandemic; when people needed support during the political crisis or during the times that we face suffering of racism.
During these 12 months you, from home, staff members and clergy colleagues, all of us, working remotely and together, we have reached our hands to each other and to the people outside our community. Our actions as community have been remarkable to the extent that our community has been able to grow. We have also grown closer in different ways all during a time of challenge and frustrations and health risks, risks we haven't seen since the 1918 pandemic.
You have been living the Gospel. And the Gospel of today is exactly one that inspires us for our evangelical way of love and hope. Jesus starts his ministry in today’s Gospel. It’s his ministry of service to the people exactly at the heart of the community in a parish on the day of the Lord and he engages, first not with how the church should be nor with how the community should do more; nor to engage with the community officials. No, Jesus goes straight to the people and engages with the part of the community that is coming undone.
As Jesus is representing the divine intervention the man with the unclean spirit in this Gospel is representing the state of God's people. His unclean spirit doesn't mean exactly that this person is a psychiatric patient. Unclean is a broad category that can mean: occupied, oppressed, someone who has been through a lot. And indeed at that time the people of Capernaum and the Jewish people at the outskirts of the country of Israel, suffered extremely through all the misfortunes of Roman oppression and internal divisions, through the permanent guerilla against Rome, with all that this entailed (severe retaliations, exploitations, collaborations, deportations). The Jewish people at the outskirts of Israel, ranking as a second class citizens in the eyes of the Jerusalem’ elite, they felt battered abandoned and at the point of extinction.
And it is right there where Jesus launches his debut, where he makes his mark, and his programmatic intervention. God hears the cry of God's people. As a shepherd he calls them by name and cares for the people for where it hurts the most he enters in our darkness he joins us when we lose our minds. The shouting of that man in the Capernaum synagogue is a little bit different in the original text, stating: what to us and to you. The Greek text states literally what do you and I have in common? In times of so much division it is very difficult to bridge our gaps to really hear each other. The Gospel shows us less a mentally ill person but more a voice of someone who has endured tremendous suffering and who has stockpiled lots of anger and hurt someone who no longer can have faith in any savior. Right then Jesus enters that stage with therapeutic precision. Jesus intervenes and stays with the unraveling person. He doesn't run away. He doesn't reject him. He listens. And then he quiets the symptom: the angry shouting. And he commands the pain underneath to come out. It is, of course, a impressive feat any -therapist would be jealous of such efficacy.
The Gospel of today is particularly alive for us many of us feel a bit unraveled. All of us have a reason to scream. Oh, wouldn’t it feel so liberating to come to church today and scream it all out? As people of God in America, we have been going through a lot and we have lots of reasons to scream also the Christian communities have been used and abused for political gain. Similarly to God’s people in Jesus’ time, Christianity is terribly divided. And so many people in our country are oppressed, feel occupied, are exploited. People are suffering and have lots of reason to scream and shout. And on top of all this, there is the pandemic, this once in a century challenge that has really left many people to no longer sense that there is a God who cares.
And then, there is Trinity on the Green. I don't want to put to us too much on a pedestal, but once in a while it is important to do so. You have been outstanding, practicing the example of Jesus to show up where hurts, to listen where it was necessary, to choose unity over division, to join the cry for justice while so many prefer to choose camps. Although hard and risky, we sought dialogue and we chose choose to side with persons who are oppressed, especially through racism. And while our approach is far from perfect it deserves recognition. This has been a herculean effort from your side.
As we gathered for our AGM today we want to celebrate the strength you bring to the community, the love and hope you channel through Trinity, into the wider city and relationships and networks of relationships that we share. We really honor the gift that we are for each other. And so I express out of the bottom of my heart gratitude for everyone involved. Inspired by the healing power of Jesus, we at Trinity are continually practicing to create wholeness and balance in this world in our community amongst ourselves. Please know that our ministry means so very much to the people in the community far beyond the bounds of our parish. It may seem utopian to think that our ministry and leadership may even be able to change the course of our country but on this patch of America, on this corner of Temple and Chapel Street, it needs to be said that you are doing something special. Thank you for bringing love and hope, the love and hope of Jesus, in action here in our community. And please honor in yourself that beautiful light that you are sharing with so many people.
We are Trinity on the Green. We are standing together and holding each other’s hands, at least in prayer. And the fact that we have been growing as community during all of this, has been such a miracle. Let us thank God for the gift of community here in our parish. Amen.