But You Say It's Just A Sprain

A week and a day ago I sprained my ankle.


In the grand scheme of confessional-type blog openings, that seems kind of lame, doesn't it? But it's the truth. And in spraining my ankle, I have had to come to terms with some truths about myself. But first, let me backtrack and briefly (hopefully) explain how it happened.

In my last blog I mentioned a confirmation retreat that I had gone on last weekend. The Spraining (sounds like a new Stephen King novel) happened the day after the high ropes course I wrote about. Our Sunday adventure was to go on a hike, climbing to the top of Thomas Mountain and Cat Mountain near Lake George. I have to admit, I struggled. I struggled to keep up with the much healthier and spry and physically fit youth. I struggled to not just sit down in the middle of the trail and demand they pick me up on their way back down. I struggled to breathe and not drink too much water because there was no way in hell I was peeing in the woods and yet drink enough to keep me hydrated and justify the two full water bottles I had in my daypack. But the view from the top of Cat Mountain was definitely worth it. Then we headed down the trail. After the steep part of the decline where I was sure my knees were going to give out on me, it got easier. Then it happened. I stepped wrong on a rock. I'm still not sure if I slid off the small rock in an odd way or if it was the way my foot landed on it, but I definitely felt a stab of pain in my left ankle. I even said, "Ouch, that didn't feel good." My friend who was walking in front of me turned to make sure I was okay. I took a few steps and the pain subsided, so I assumed things were good. I went down the rest of the trail, got back to the camp we were staying at and took a shower, walked around, chatted with the other adults, and then sat down to read my book while the youth were off playing games and writing up their statements of faith. As I emerged from the world of The Girl Who Played With Fire I noticed my ankle, which was tucked underneath me, was hurting a little. Not unusual if I stay in one position too long, but when I stood up to put my book away I immediately thought "This doesn't feel right." For the next few hours as we got dinner ready and prepared for our evening presentations, every time I stood up and started walking the pain got worse and worse and my limp was so pronounced that my friend pulled me aside and said that if I needed to see a doctor it could be arranged. I brushed it off, figuring I would see how it played out. How bad could it be? I figured I would wait until morning and if it didn't seem to be better then, maybe I would consider seeing a doctor. Another friend volunteered to drive me that night if I needed it. I thanked her and kept limping on my merry way. But finally, I could deny it no more. As I moved in to position for my part of the presentation all I could picture was me waking up in the morning and collapsing on the floor, unable to hold myself up with my left foot. So I broke down and decided to see the doctor.
Of course both of the closest Urgent Care's were closed by then, so it was off to the emergency room. My first visit to the ER (if you don't count the years I watched ER and Grey's Anatomy). The intake nurse very kindly moved up my X-ray (my first X-ray!) so that I wouldn't have to wait until after I got in a room to get it looked at. I'm thinking perhaps when I said I was there on a youth retreat she realized I was probably on a time deadline and needed to get back to the kids ASAP. The hardest thing about the ER? The waiting. Waiting for my X-ray. Waiting for the room. Once in the room, waiting for the nurse to look at my X-ray. Waiting for the PA to come in and assure me it wasn't broken but it was sprained. Waiting for them to bring me Motrin, since moving my foot so it could be X-rayed amped up the pain. Waiting for them to bring me crutches. All told, it seems that in reality the three and a half hours we were there was actually short compared to a lot of ER visits. I just know that I was really happy to get an ace bandage, drugs, and crutches so I could carry on with my life.

Did I say carry on with my life? So, when I was told that I had sprained my ankle, I was also told that if it didn't feel better in five days I should be sure to follow up with a doctor. In my mind, that translated to "You'll be walking normal again in five days!" Did I mention that until this point I had never sprained or broken anything? Ever? Anyway, when I finally started looking at the papers they had given me, you can imagine my surprise when I read that the recovery time could be four to six weeks. WEEKS!!!! And that in the six weeks after a sprain I am much more likely to sprain it again. In fact, for the rest of my life that ankle will be weaker and the potential for another sprain (or even break?) is higher. What the what now?  So basically the past week and a day I have barely left my apartment, barely left the couch. By Tuesday I was hobbling around the apartment, but I could feel the weakness in my ankle, even with an ace bandage on. I live on the second floor with a lot of stairs, so even the task of going down to catch my Uber so I could go to rehearsal was a strain. Exhausting. Did I also mention that I am very much out of shape? What didn't help was that all the muscles that were sore from the high ropes course and the hike seemed to be the same muscles I was using to crutch my way about. Needless to say, there were a couple days of pain not centered in my ankle.

By Friday, I felt well enough to leave the apartment without my crutches. Up until then I would hobble around my tiny studio apartment without them, but whenever I left the apartment I would crutch it. I wanted to be careful to not push my ankle until it was ready. But Friday, I woke up feeling good. I was going to my sister's, she was going to help me with some laundry, I had friends coming over for Game Night.... it was a good day! I made it downstairs without falling (yay!!!!). But somewhere between hobbling around my sister's and going in to CVS, what I should have realized as the inevitable happened. My ankle had enough. Throughout the week any time I started to push it, the ankle would send twinges of pain to remind me to elevate and take it easy. This was different. It was constant. Luckily, the Motrin helped. But I spent the next day laying on the couch, in a funk for the rest of the weekend. And I had time to analyze myself.


See, I consider myself a strong independent woman. I live alone. I do what I want when I want. I don't think twice about walking two miles to go to a class I audit, to walk just over that distance home from rehearsal. It never occurs to me that I can't walk to the corner for a cup of coffee if I need to get out of the apartment. Now, all of a sudden, I'm thinking "Okay, if I get up to pee now I can start my cup of coffee on the way and it will be done when I get out of the bathroom and do I want something to eat because I better grab it while I'm in the kitchen area and oh shoot my phone needs to charge so I better grab that." You get the idea. Instead of not thinking about it and just hopping up and down and all around to do what I need when I need to do it, I needed to make a plan. Now, normally I love plans and lists and schedules. But this was different. This wasn't making a plan because I wanted to, it was making a plan because I needed to. I felt like I couldn't really leave the apartment. Where would I go? If you've never tried to crutch your way a few hundred feet down the sidewalk, you don't understand where I'm coming from. Plus, once I crutch somewhere I'm stuck there. I can't carry my cup of coffee home. And have you ever tried to rehearse a play where your character is pretty active and all of a sudden you can't really move? Not fun. Not good for character development, even if your director is very understanding, perhaps more than you are. I had good intentions of kicking my more-off-again-than-on-again yoga practice off for real this week. Most importantly, I realized how much I hate feeling weak. How much I hate asking for help. Many people offered, so it's not that. But I couldn't bring myself to ask. Not even of my family. I hate feeling like a burden, and to ask someone to take me grocery shopping or do my laundry, even the fact that I wished I lived with someone who could bring me water or lunch when I needed it.... well, it was hard to deal with. It wasn't just that I felt physically weak, but it was making me feel emotionally and mentally weak as well. I've taught myself to rely heavily on me. There have been a lot of times when I've asked for help, even with little things, and the people I've asked have said no. At times they had valid reasons, but it still doesn't exactly make you want to keep reaching out, you know? So I make do, find a way to do it on my own. And now that wasn't always an option. When my friends were over Friday night and I was hobbling around the apartment they kept offering to help and I kept saying no. My justification? If they weren't over I would have to do it on my own anyway. So see, even when someone is right there offering, and all I have to do is say yes, I still say no. It's not fun to be faced with your own stubbornness and to know that being a "strong independent woman" may just hurt you at the end of the day. I also realized how much of my self-worth was tied up in my body. Like I've said, I'm not necessarily physically fit, but generally my body does what I want it to when I want it to . It treats me pretty good and I do my best to treat it pretty good. But now it was letting me down. It had failed me. And my choices of what to do and where to go were taken from me. I found myself by Sunday night saying "I'm so tired of just sitting on the couch watching TV." And I found myself in a downward spiral all weekend. Not being able to walk was now adding to any and every self-deprecating thought I had been having about myself. I would never find a job and I would run out of money and where would I go and why doesn't anybody want to hire me and obviously you have no friends because nobody's texting you to see how you are don't they realize you're stuck and you need help or just someone to talk to and of course you're alone you'll always be alone what man would want you with your bum ankle and no job and shoot you can't even go anywhere because you don't drive and now your Hallmark Movies Now app on your Blu-ray player won't work because see you don't even deserve to watch stupid cheesy Hallmark movies and..... Well, you get the idea.

So yeah, this past week and one day have been a struggle. But I think today is a good day. I worried I overdid it last night in rehearsal, but the ankle is feeling good. Stronger. I may even attempt to hobble to the bus stop instead of crutch it. I will ask someone to take me grocery shopping and keep asking people until someone says yes. Or splurge and have my groceries delivered. I'm not ready for the coffee shop trip yet, but maybe I'll make a coffee date with someone for the weekend, give myself motivation to get out of the apartment. I'll keep applying for jobs. I'll keep listening to my body as it heals and know that it won't be long before I am able to be back to normal. And when those self-defeating thoughts crop up, I will tell them to shut the fuck up. Being strong doesn't mean that I don't ever feel weak. I can acknowledge the weakness and know that it's temporary. I don't need to wallow in it and I can't let it win.  I know I need to work on asking for help, and to know that I shouldn't stop relying on others. Take the help when it's offered. It doesn't make me less of a person to lean on others. And maybe, once in a while, I need someone to tell me to shut the fuck up. Even if that someone is me.

Life Lessons From a High Ropes Course

There are times in life when God decides to show you something or teach you something, although you're not aware of it at the time. You go through the event, blissfully unaware that later when you take time to reflect on it you will realize God was poking you in the forehead saying "Pay attention!" That's what happened to me this past weekend when I traveled four hours from home to the gorgeous Adirondacks to help chaperone a Confirmation Retreat.

Our big event of Saturday was a high ropes course. I had not done anything like this since I was in college doing Orientation Leader teambuilding, and all I really remembered was being terrified and clinging to every available tree I could. Surprisingly, I was really excited for the chance to get to do this again. And then I was in the trees. Yes, we are wearing harnesses and carabineers keep us safely attached to cable so that if we slip and fall we will not plummet to the ground. But still, when you are up working your way through the challenges, it is easy to only have one thought in your head: please don't fall. Instinct seems to kick in and you almost forget that you are actually safe. In the first couple of courses there are places where you have an option to remove yourself from the course and be done. After one or two particularly rough challenges, I found myself standing on a platform with two options. I could travel the cable down and off the course, or I could keep going. So I stood there. I kept looking at Option 1, the safe option. I had made a good stab at high ropes, nobody would think less of me if I opted out. I looked at the challenges just ahead of me. They looked.....hard. A little scary. I was standing there so long that I let one or two people go ahead of me while I wrestled with this decision. Finally, I realized I had been standing there too long. A decision needed to be made. I looked at our youth flying through the course, laughing as they made their way through the challenges and I told myself "If the kids can do it, so can I." So I took a deep breath, and moved ahead with the ropes course.

Later that night I took a few minutes to sit quietly by myself writing in my journal, something I like to do either first thing in the morning or just before bed. I found myself writing about what I had done that day and it was like God smacked me upside the head. Here was a life lesson! How many times in life are we faced with a decision or a challenge where we have to weigh our options? We can go with a known or safer option, one that falls within our comfort zone or one where we know what the outcome will be. Or we can push ourselves. We see a scary option, full of unknowns, one that we know will challenge us and take us to the edge of or beyond our comfort zone. Which do we choose? There's nothing wrong with either. But I know I was happier with the scary option. I challenged myself. Sure, at one point I needed my friend to come back out on a challenge when I got stuck and help me to the platform. ("No Summer left behind" he said.) Even that was a lesson, because I am not one who likes to ask for help. I'm an independent woman, I can do it on my own! But I pushed myself, did things that I wouldn't normally do, and it was great. How many times do I do that in life? How many times am I faced with a path that leads to the scary, the unknown, the potential for failure, and I back away? How many times do I sit back instead of pushing myself? Even more important, when I do take the unknown, how many times do I end up happy I did?

I hope that the next time I'm faced with a life decision, I am brave enough to go with the road less taken, the one where I can't see the outcome, the one that might be a little scary. I hope that you do the same thing also. Take a chance. It so very often is worth it.

Sermon for August 13th

How Soon is Now?

Matthew 14:22-33

Preached at South Presbyterian Church Fellowship of Faith, August 13, 2017

I love movies. If you know me, this is not a surprising statement. I often speak in movie quotes or recall scenes from a favorite movie in everyday conversation. In fact, my mom and I are at The Cinema on Goodman and Clinton just about every week. I guess you could say it’s in my blood since my great-uncle once owned that specific movie theatre and my mom worked there back in the day. One thing that movies often do is play with time, specifically the passage of time, and they do this in a variety of ways. The movie may open with a scene and down in the bottom corner will be a date, say 1985. Stuff will happen and after a cut or fade to black, our next scene will display 2017. We’ve traveled 32 years in 32 seconds. Or perhaps we’ll get a grouping of flashback scenes with a voice-over narrative explaining a series of events that happened over say a hundred years, condensed down in to just five minutes for us. Or, a favorite of those who make romantic-comedies, the montage. Cue the scenes of our two romantic leads leading their unfulfilling separate lives until the inevitable meet-cute! A whole adult life shortened into half of a cheesy yet catchy pop song. We have become used to this idea of days, weeks, months, or years passing like, no pun intended, no time at all.

When you combine this warping of time we have from movies with our immediate gratification culture we live in, is it any wonder that waiting is not high on our list of favorite things to do? If you don’t know the answer to something, you can get it in as long as it takes you to say “Siri” or “Alexa.” With Amazon Prime we can get items delivered in just two days. Movies and TV shows are available as quick as signing on to Netflix or Hulu, and if it’s Netflix original programming you don’t even have to wait for a new episode every week. You get them all at once! We can preorder books so that they’ll be shipped to us the day they’re released. On many dating sites and apps you can decide within ten seconds whether or not someone is the guy or gal for you based on a picture and a couple sentences. We don’t even like going to a restaurant and having to wait for our food. What do you mean you cook to order? Why can’t I get it as soon as I order it? And etcetera etcetera etcetera. So perhaps when we hear today’s Scripture, we take the word “immediately” at face value. But how immediate was it, especially for Peter?

Let’s look again at verses 30 and 31: “But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’” Sure, for Jesus it probably was immediately. But what did it feel like for Peter? How long before he realized he was sinking? Once he realized he was sinking, how long before he started panicking? Once he started panicking, how long before he cried out? And how long did it feel between when he cried out and when he felt Jesus grab him? Did time speed up like in one of our movies? Or did time slow down? Did every second feel like a minute? Did he wonder if Jesus would in fact save him? I think he did. I think that time seemed to slow to a crawl for Peter as he waited to be pulled from the water. I’m sure he couldn’t think beyond one breath to the next as he sunk further and further in to the sea, arms flailing frantically as he tried to keep his head above water.

I can relate to Peter in today’s passage, both literally and figuratively. I recently had the, opportunity shall we say, to try white water rafting. Has anyone ever been? (If so) By any chance were you thrown from the boat? I was (thrown from the boat). Twice. Considering my first words to my friend Mike, who coordinated the trip were “Why are you trying to kill me?!” I think you know what my thoughts on the whole event are. Anyway, the second time I was thrown in to the rapids our safety guides threw a rope in to me. Yes, I was wearing a helmet and a vest so perhaps I wasn’t going to drown the way Peter thought he was, but when the water is pushing you forward and the rope you’re trying desperately to hold on to keeps sliding through your hands, time seems to slow down, at least in looking back. You’re trying not to swallow the water that’s slamming in to your face and your entire focus is on the next breath, on hoping that the rope will finally catch so you can be pulled to safety. Now, obviously I am fine. The rope caught, I was pulled to safety, and I got back in the boat and continued down the rest of the river without getting thrown in again. But when I read this passage, that was the picture that first popped in to my head, and I went from usually reading these verses thinking “Poor Peter, you foolish man of little faith” to thinking “Dude, I understand.” You’re trying desperately to have faith in being pulled to safety, but as the immediacy of rescue seems to be getting farther and farther away, so does your faith. You start embracing that doubt that in normal circumstances you can push away rather easily.

Why is it that the times we should have the most faith we often have the least? Because that’s the other angle of this story where I relate to Peter. That period of time where time seems to be dragged out can come out of that feeling that our cries for help are not being heard, so we start to lose our faith. We sort of expect that once we cry out “Lord save me” the response will be immediate. Once we pray for help or guidance or clarity or an answer or a sign we say our Amen and then expect the answer to be dropped in to our lap. Come on God, it’s been five minutes. Are you even listening? Now, yes, sometimes immediately really is immediately. We lift something up to God and in a relatively short time we get a response. In fact, it happens so quickly we’ve almost forgotten we asked for it in the first place. We smile and skip along thinking, Boy, God really does answer prayers! Awesome!! Then, there’s those other times. When we ask and ask and ask and we swear all we hear is crickets. We pray and we pray. We’re so busy praying that we can’t hear the answer. Or we hear the answer but it’s not the one we want so we keep praying. Or we’re afraid of what we might hear, so we stop listening. Perhaps Peter was so afraid he wouldn’t be saved that rather than opening his eyes to see Jesus standing before him with his hand outstretched, he had his eyes closed tightly, too busy sinking to see what was in front of him. I can just imagine Jesus standing right in front of a sinking Peter, waving his hand right in front of Peter’s face, kind of like “Hello! I’m right here! Open your eyes.” I can imagine how many times Jesus has done that to each of us.

Why is it that we become too impatient when “immediately” is in God’s time and not ours? Why aren’t we willing to wait, to draw on our faith to get us through? What is it about waiting that freaks us out? What are we so afraid of? Waiting for an answer should be a time to enjoy being in God’s time, but rather than allowing ourselves to be pulled towards God, we try to pull God toward us. We try to make God work within our parameters when God just wants us to sit with God, to be still in God’s presence. It’s not that God doesn’t want to answer us or chooses not to answer us, but that God is trying to have a conversation with us in that perceived silence. When you think about it that way, why wouldn’t we want to stop and enjoy the time of waiting? It’s so easy for us to see waiting as an inconvenience. We have other stuff to do, after all. People to see. Plans to make. Lives to live. We can’t do all of that if we are busy waiting.

One of the hardest things to do is pray and feel the Spirit saying “Wait.” I imagine the conversation going something like this:

Okay, God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit what do you say?

Wait.

What do you mean, wait?

Wait. Be patient.

Okay, but seriously, everyone is asking me what I’m going to do here and I don’t know what to tell them.

Wait for now.

But can’t now be, well, now?

Now will come.

But when?

Soon.

How soon is soon? I can’t keep going on like this.

Wait.

Sound familiar? Theologian Howard Thurman wrote the following in the book The Inward Journey:

            “’To him that waits, all things reveal themselves, provided that he has the courage not to deny in the darkness what he has seen in the light.’

            “Waiting is a window opening on many landscapes. For some, waiting means the cessation of all activity when energy is gone and exhaustion is all that the heart can manage. It is the long slow panting of the spirit. There is no will to will- ‘spent’ is the word. There is no hope, not hopelessness- there is no sense of anticipation or even awareness of a loss of hope. Perhaps even the memory of function itself has faded. There is now and before- there is no after.

            “For some, waiting is a time of intense preparation for the next leg of the journey. Here at last comes a moment when forces can be realigned and a new attack on an old problem can be set in order. Or it may be a time of reassessment of all plans and of checking past failures against present insight. It may be the moment of the long look ahead when the landscape stretches far in many directions and the chance to select one’s way among many choices cannot be denied.

            For some, waiting is a sense of disaster of the soul. It is what Francis Thompson suggests in the line: ‘Naked I wait Thy love’s uplifted stroke!’ The last hiding place has been abandoned because even the idea of escape is without meaning. Here is no fear, no panic, only the sheer excruciation of utter disaster. It is a kind of emotional blackout in the final moment before the crash- it is the passage through the Zone of Treacherous Quiet.

            “For many, waiting is something more than all of this. It is the experience of recovering balance when catapulted from one’s place. It is the quiet forming of a pattern of recollection in which there is called into focus the fragmentary values from myriad encounters of many kinds in a lifetime of living. It is to watch a gathering darkness until all light is swallowed up completely without the power to interfere or bring a halt. Then to continue one’s journey in the darkness with one’s footsteps guided by the illumination of remembered radiance is to know courage of a peculiar kind-the courage to demand that light continue to be light even in the surrounding darkness. To walk in the light while darkness invades, envelops, and surrounds is to wait on the Lord. This is to know the renewal of strength. This is to walk and faint not.”[1]

So waiting can be a good thing. God’s now does not have to be our now. It shouldn’t be our now. Rather than waiting to be pulled from the water to have our little faith become big faith, we should go in to the water with big faith in the first place. Jesus is right there in front of us, reaching out a hand, even when we don’t see it, even when it feels like it can’t possibly be there. How soon is now? As soon as it needs to be.

AMEN.

---

[1] Thurman, Howard. The Inward Journey. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. Pp. 81-82.

Sermon for 1/22/17

Today I got the opportunity to do what we call pulpit supply. This is where a pastor is unable to preach on a Sunday (usually due to vacation or taking a Sunday off) and they find someone to fill in and preach for that day. Think a substitute teacher. I went a little out of my comfort zone with my sermon today, mostly because I delved a bit in to politics which is not something I normally do. It seemed to go well and since I think the message is one that maybe should be heard, I give you my sermon for today.

 Divided We Fall

Isaiah 9:1-4, 1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Preached at Laurelton United Presbyterian Church

January 22, 2017

When I first heard a few months ago that Laurelton was looking for someone to fill in for a few Sundays and I picked the date that did not involve communion (I am not ordained and do not have the magic hands to preside over communion) and was not at the end of my last semester of school, I was not aware of the, shall we say, political significance of January 22^nd. Or more specifically, of January 20^th. I was more focused on the excitement of getting to preach before a group of people that was not my school community, my home church, or the church where I did my field education. The election hadn’t happened yet. And then it did. And then I was out to breakfast in December with my fellow Presbyterian folks from CRCDS and a couple pastors from the presbytery and during the conversation I realized: I would be preaching two days after the inauguration. Intimidating for any pastor I’m sure, extremely intimidating for a newbie such as myself. But then I said, “Self, why don’t you wait and see what the lectionary texts are before you get all worked up?” As an aside, if you don’t know, many churches and pastors follow something called the Revised Common Lectionary. This breaks the Bible down in to a three year cycle and gives us an Old Testament, Psalm, Gospel, and New Testament text to preach from every week, so that by the end of three years, in theory, one will have heard a good chunk of the Bible. All of this is to say that you can imagine my surprise when I read the texts for this week, texts that were not chosen based on what is going on in our country, and yet….. incredibly appropriate. We have here a passage written to a people in darkness and a people divided. In both our Old Testament and New Testament worlds we have a community that is full of tension, strain, frustration, a community trying to do the best they can but stumbling in the process. We have a community in anguish and a community who can’t seem to stop quarreling. In short, we have a community not unlike America in 2017.

Now, let me confess something before we go much further. On the list of things that I enjoy, politics is nowhere near the top. As I said recently on my Facebook page, I like my politics fictionalized in a TV series. But in the past year, it has been almost impossible to hide from politics. And it’s not just on our news or in our papers. Social media is saturated with it. I don’t know about you, but I can’t be on my Facebook or Twitter for more than five minutes before the political posts start filling my feed. Even my Instagram, which is supposed to just be pictures of cute animals and celebrities exotic vacations! And of course in the past couple of weeks it’s been nothing but cabinet hearings, the inauguration, the protests surrounding the inauguration, or farewell’s to the Obama’s. It’s been overwhelming and exhausting and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. The division isn’t going away.

            If only we had a Chloe to deliver a letter to a Paul for us. We don’t know who Chloe is, and in fact she’s not mentioned anywhere else. We don’t know what she said, only that her and her people have reported quarreling among the people of the church of Corinth. The people are claiming to belong to or follow a certain person, whether it be Paul, Apollos, Cephas (aka Peter), or Christ. They are divided and seem to be more focused on what separates them rather than what brings them together. They are more concerned with following a specific person’s views than following what the Church as a whole is doing. Paul isn’t quite on board with that. For him, the only person they should be concerned with is Jesus. “Has Christ been divided?” he says. “Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.” The gospel of Christ speaks for itself. The people of Corinth shouldn’t be swayed by the words of someone, no matter how pretty they are. It’s easy for someone to say what you want to hear, to twist words so that you see things a certain way, but what is the truth underneath it? That’s what Paul wants the Corinthians to see. If one speaks the gospel plainly and clearly then there will be no division. Everyone will be on the same page. No one will be able to hold up a specific person and say, “See, they know more. They’re better. Their way of gospel is the right way.” Paul can’t even remember who he baptized, that’s how unimportant what he does or says is in comparison to Jesus. What Jesus did, what Jesus said, that’s what’s important.

            What would a modern day Chloe say if she was writing a letter in 2017? What divisions would she talk about, what names would be mentioned? Would she talk about the abuses the African American community face at the hands of cops and the cops who are killed in retaliation? Would she talk about the LGBTQ community who just want the same rights as their heterosexual neighbors and the heterosexuals who claim that by doing so it goes against what they believe in? Would she talk about the parents who have lost their children to gun violence and the parents who are afraid that without a gun they can’t protect their children? Would she talk about refugees, women’s rights, unemployment, immigration, or any one of a thousand topics that have led us to see ourselves as an us versus them? Would she mention Trump versus Hillary? Hillary versus Bernie? Obama? Would she even find room in the letter to talk about Jesus Christ? God?

            We are a people in darkness. No matter who you voted for or even if you voted at all, whether you were glued to the TV watching the inauguration or made a point to be nowhere near a TV, it is clear that we are divided. We are in anguish. Our yoke is heavy on our shoulders. We are all, as a nation, hurting in some way. We feel misunderstood, unheard, pushed aside. For some of us, this is more recent. For others, they’ve felt this way for the past eight years, or longer. For most of us when we’re hurt we either lash out or we shut down. There’s a saying that hurt people hurt people. When we’re hurting we want others to hurt just as bad, either to make ourselves feel better or so that we’re not alone in our pain. Or we don’t want to risk being hurt even more so we close ourselves off from those around us. But what is happening in these situations, or rather, what isn’t happening? We aren’t communicating. We aren’t talking and we sure aren’t listening. We become so self-focused that others don’t exist, or if they do, only as an object to lash out at. It is all too easy to point fingers and cast blame. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

            But you know what? You’re here. We’re here. We are here, in this space, together. Now, I won’t ask you who you voted for or what your feelings on our newest president are. I don’t want to know and I don’t need to know. That isn’t what’s important. What is important is that we’re trying. We’re trying to learn how to be in community with each other. We are trying to be the light. One of the things I love about my faith and this denomination is that there is room for people on either end of the spectrum and everything in between. I know that the person sitting next to me doesn’t have to believe the same way I do. We may not see eye to eye on everything we read or hear on any given Sunday. But our faith teaches us to love each other. Love isn’t about agreeing or thinking the same way. It’s about listening. It’s about understanding. Sometimes it’s about agreeing to disagree. There is no harm in saying I don’t agree with you but we can be friends anyway. I think the greater harm is saying agree with me or else. It is that very “or else” that has led to the division that we see all too clearly today.

            But make no mistake, it is hard. It is so so very hard to do this. The temptation at times is too great to surround ourselves with like-minded people and call it a day. It is so hard to look someone in the eyes when they express a feeling or an opinion or a belief that goes against everything you stand for or believe in and to accept them. But if we are called to love our neighbors, if we are going to follow Christ, then friends, this is exactly what we need to do. Christ didn’t tell us to love our neighbors as long as they think and act like us. He also didn’t say that following him would be easy. But the world needs us, our country needs us. If we ever went to emerge from this darkness, if we ever want the rod of oppression to break, then we need to be the light of Christ in the world.

            Now here’s where it gets harder: we are also called to stand up for the marginalized and oppressed, and there are plenty of times when that seems to contradict accepting people who think and act in opposition to that very notion. So, we’re supposed to love our neighbor who is doing whatever they can to put down the ones we are standing up for? Yes. I did mention following Christ was hard, right? I struggle with this too. All the time. How can I love someone whose actions seem to say they oppose the things I stand for? How is that being a light? Because Martin Luther King Jr said it best: Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can. If hate is darkness, then love is light. We will continue to be in darkness if we continue to hate. If we continue to hate we will continue to be divided. And we cannot remain divided. It will end us. What we see happening now will get worse and worse until we can’t come back. We need the love. We need the light. This may be the hardest thing we as Christians will ever do. I wish I had an easy fix, an easy answer, a magic spell to make this easier. Believe me, I wish I did. I wish I could tell you that if you do this or if you say that then everything will be okay. I wish I could tell you that love means being unafraid. But I can’t. I’m right there with you, wondering how all of this is supposed to fit together, wondering how things can get better, wondering if maybe this is all being a bit naïve. But we have to trust the Gospel. We have to trust the model of Christ. We have to accept the hard road ahead.

            Isaiah prophesied that the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. We can be that light. If we are to be Christ’s disciples then we are called to bring the light to those that are still in the darkness. Love your neighbor, even when you don’t want to. Talk to them. Listen to them. Realize that there is a reason they feel the way they do, and remember that their reasons are just as valid to them as yours are to you. Don’t be afraid to stand up for others. Give voice to those who can’t be heard, and do it with love. And pray, not that the other person will see your way, but that you can both see God’s way. You will stumble. You will fall. You’ll act in hatred and spend time in the darkness. But the light will shine on you. We can be united in the same mind and the same purpose some day, but that day will never come if we don’t try.  We are all God’s children. We can see Jesus in everyone around us. And if we hold on to that, if that is the one constant in our hurt and our struggle, then we will make it to the other side. Maybe we’ll be bruised or broken, but when that light shines on our faces….. we will be divided no more.

Amen.