5/8/22 – Fourth Sunday of Easter
Revelation 7:9-17
After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship her day and night within her temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Acts of Love
There is unrest across the country right now as we anticipate the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. I know, this probably isn’t the topic you expected for the Jazz Sunday Mother’s Day sermon. But, it’s a big deal, and I would be remiss in my responsibilities if I pretended that it wasn’t happening. Also, this is a topic that is intimately connected with motherhood, so in a way, today is the perfect day to talk about it.
I’m going to totally honest with you and say that I grew up with a pretty conservative understanding of Christian theology, and when I was younger, I thought that all forms of abortion were wrong. And, even though I am pro-choice now, I still struggle with the moral implications of it. Obviously, I don’t know what God’s opinions are about everything that we do, and you should be wary of anyone who claims that they do. But, there are few things that I feel comfortable claiming that I know about God: I know that God created everything and is everywhere. God is all-powerful and all-knowing. God loves us and wants us to love each other. God exists as the three-persons of the Trinity, the Creator, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and Jesus the Christ died and was resurrected so that we would have eternal life.
Everything else that I believe about God rises up from these precepts. I try to be logical about it, and of course I was trained in how to think about these things in seminary, but that doesn’t make me special in this regard. I believe that God wants us to take care of each other and the environment, those things go hand-in-hand. I believe that God loves everyone equally, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, social status, or even what they’ve done in their past. I believe that God has gifted us and the universe with free-will, but that gift comes with a cost. God doesn’t control what we do, but at the same time, we must suffer the consequences of what we do, and the natural forces at play in the world. I believe that God’s capacity for forgiveness and ability to redeem us is beyond even our wildest imaginations. And, I believe that most people, if they took the time to stop and think about it, would eventually come to similar conclusions.
Now, here’s what I don’t know. I don’t know what God thinks about social media. I don’t know if God thinks that we have too much screen time in our lives. I don’t know if God is a Grizzley fan or a Bobcat fan. I don’t know what God thinks about helping someone to die if they’re suffering and they don’t want to live anymore. And, I don’t know what God thinks about reproductive rights. What I do know is that if this change in the law happens, it will likely have little impact on the number of abortions that are done in this country. It will only force the most scared and the most desperate to make dangerous and sometimes fatal decisions. Desperate people do desperate things. All I can do is keep going back to the idea that God loves us and wants us to love each other.
Our Revelation text today says, “I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” A great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages. John is having a vision of what the church is supposed to look like, everyone together, from all over the world, all nations, a multitude, uncountable. We’re not supposed to be separated by color or creed, by political affiliation or religious beliefs. It’s the exact opposite of how we live our lives now. More and more, we segregate ourselves into red and blue, conservative and liberal, republican and democrat. And, even though I said earlier that I don’t know what God thinks about social media, I think it’s safe to say that some specific uses of social media have driven us even further apart. We’ve lost our proximity with one another; we no longer have that exposure to thoughts and ideas that are different from our own. And, when we do see it, we think, “Oh, look at what those crazy people are doing over there.” We don’t know how to listen to each other anymore. We don’t understand each other. We’ve forgotten how to care about each other.
When we lose the ability to sympathize with our neighbors, it becomes easy to make decisions that would harm them. We build oil pipelines through indigenous lands and facilities that handle hazardous waste in low-income neighborhoods. We refuse to allow refugees to cross our borders and we destabilize foreign governments. We fail to provide healthcare to millions of people, and we restrict reproductive rights, regardless of circumstance. These are not acts of love or sympathy, they are acts of domination and greed.
I guess what it comes down to is whether or not you think having an abortion is morally wrong. I don’t know if it is or not. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it, and I just don’t know. What I do know is that decision is between the person having the abortion and God. I have no place in that decision. And, I can’t tell any of you what to think about this issue; that is a decison that you will have to figure out on your own. I just pray that whatever decision you make is made with love.
And, I don’t speak for God, on this issue, or any issue. I have the same Bible that you all do, and I try to draw logical conclusions about what I think God wants based on what the Bible says. But, there are a lot of topics that the Bible doesn’t cover, so I’m not going to stand up here and tell you what God thinks about reproductive rights, because I don’t know what God thinks about reproductive rights. What I will say, over and over again, until I am blue in the face, is that God loves you. No matter what you do, no matter what anyone does, no one can get away from the impossible, unending, all-encompassing reach of God’s love.
So, on this Mother’s Day, I encourage you to learn from your mothers, including the Creator Mother of us all. Learn from those women who raised you, and taught you, who set boundaries and goals for you, who stood there supporting you as you grew and explored. Learn from those women who set an example for you of who a grown-up was supposed to be. And, learn from their mistakes and their flaws, because no one is perfect, no matter how hard they try. Learn from them and everyone around you how to be human. And, always look to the nurturing mother-aspect of God, the God who will never abandon you, who will always love you and be with you, no matter what you do. Take your stance from that. Take your stance from love. Amen.
~ Rev. Charles Wei
