Jeremiah 8:18 – 9:9 Proverbs 15:1 Matthew 5: 11-19

The Cutting Edge September 22, 2019 Mary R. Brownlow

If you google the phrase “a city on a hill,” as I did this week, the first page of results all refer to a Showtime drama series set in Boston in the 1990’s. It is about crooked cops, a broken justice system, northern racism, and the people who try to fix those things. I think that the reason they chose that biblical phrase from the 5th chapter of Matthew was its resonance with our early New England heritage. Back in 1630, the new governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony gave a talk titled “A Model of Christian Charity” at a church in Southampton before he and the colonists set sail for what was to become Boston. John Winthrop warned the travelers that their new community would be "as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us,… So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world". They were on the cutting edge of a whole new political and religious enterprise: the stakes were high. Their behavior had very particular public consequences.

This vision, or this self-awareness, or self-consciousness continued to be a part of small town New England life. In 1817, two churches were under construction in Norwich. One was this one, though it stood in a different location across the street. The other was about a mile up the road, on a hill. That one was actually a replacement for the first church there, at what was then called Norwich Center. A church on a hill, a church in the Center, to be a beacon and a gathering place for all: a “city built on a hill” as Matthew and our Pilgrim forbears would say. Until the center of gravity actually moved downhill, to this place on the Plain. Less than 40 years after it was built, that big. lovely meeting house on Union Village Road was closed and dismantled. Its congregants transferred their membership down to this church. The light of the Gospel shifted, the lampstand was moved to shed light in a new location.

I wish I could say that, from 1817 on, everyone who entered the doors of this sanctuary was the salt of the earth. I wish I could say that they always let their light so shine before others, that all could see their good works and give glory to their Father in heaven. I wish I could say that they took the 15th chapter of the book of Proverbs seriously and allowed “soft words to turn away wrath.” Our story, and the story of just about any religious community, is one of moments of courage and missed opportunities; of open welcome and closed minds; of acts of mercy and episodes of petty wrangling. As the skeptic George Bernard Shaw said, “Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.”

Luckily, we take time to listen to and learn from our history. We do this intentionally when we hear Scripture on Sunday mornings. We do this whenever we muse on our traditions, or when we teach our children what it means to be in a religious community amongst other religious communities. We listen and learn, wanting to see the light and be the light. We do this when we respond to conflict and tragedy and say “how could these things be avoided?”

Ancient Scriptures give us a lot of answers to that last question. The prophets spoke oracles of warning about avoiding catastrophe, and about “dealing falsely with God.” But sometimes, as in today’s reading from Jeremiah, answers did not come. It is pure lament. The people’s lack of understanding has resulted in an overwhelming sense of grief for both the prophet and God. This sorrow frames the entire scenario. God seems absent, and the people's fate is already sealed. They want soul-healing, but there is no physician and no medicine that can help. The only response left is wailing: "O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!"

Gone is self-righteous judgment. It is good for us to remember that taking a superior, judgmental stance --whether liberal or conservative, traditional or progressive, embodied in an individual or in a community--does not reflect God's unitive way of being. The smug satisfaction of being correct at the expense of others seems common in our increasingly contentious society. However, from a Christian and biblical point of view, these sentiments have no place. God and prophet are broken-hearted and despairing at the fate of the people. The proper response to catastrophic events is not a theologically justifying "I told you so" or "You got what you deserved." It is grief, sorrow, and lament: "Is there no balm in Gilead?" It is empathy.

Perhaps in learning this there is a latent hope. The human community has the ability to receive God's healing and transformation. Even in the rubble of traditions that could no longer help those early dwellers in Jerusalem to explain their current dilemma, there remained the hope that a people could turn or return to God. This spirit of transformation can be found in the great African American spiritual that takes the lamenting question in verse 22 and turns into a declaration of hope: "There IS a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole."

I am reminded of a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln. One of his strongest personality traits was his reconciling spirit. Even during the Civil War he seems to have avoided actual hatred of the “enemy.” He had a great capacity for putting himself in the shoes of the other. 'Would I not do the same thing if I were in my enemy's position?' he would ask himself. And he wondered, "Do I not destroy my enemy by making him my friend?

One of the most basic human needs is the need to belong. This is primal: from infancy we need to be cared for and loved, because that means we will be fed and sheltered. But the emotional hunger runs even deeper: the need for respect and recognition, which is a kind of power; the need to feel that we have choices, which is a kind of freedom; the need to feel the warmth of humor and play, which is a kind of connector. When these things are threatened, we do not always react well. So we develop patterns, rules, sub-groups and communications that build a fortress to preserve our basic human needs. We create the categories of enemy and friend. We use words and actions to wound the enemy and heal the friend. And sometimes actions speak louder than words. The vandalized Bible on our communion table today is a communication gone awry. We do not even know what was being said with that action. What human needs, what power struggles, what community disruption speaks here? As viewers removed by time (but not by space), we are hit with the negative power of the act without knowing the reasons behind it.

What if this were our cutting edge: not the establishment of a new town on the banks of the Charles River, but the establishment of a new way of speaking the truth in love? A whole new consciousness or new awareness of our human condition. We are in desperate need of this today, as we fall into predictable groups based on sincere beliefs and chance associations. We make assumptions about each other without first listening. Even when we do make an attempt to listen, most of our minds is taken with picking holes in the speakers’ words, or composing a self-justifying reply. When something touches a deeply held opinion, we so rarely listen in order to understand. And so the wounds deepen, and we cry wordlessly for the balm to make us whole.

Yesterday the church had a float in the Norwich Parade. We called it “We are All in the Same Boat.” The point is that we, and all living things, share a stake in the existential crisis of climate change. When people are washed out of their homes, it has to matter to me, because eventually I may be driven out of my home. When people lose their livelihood because of the degradation of the soil or the water, it has to matter to me because they might be growing my food. When a group of children is suffering from poisonous water or toxic air, it has to matter to me because they are the future of our species. Just as an act of violence or vandalism speaks volumes of emotional pain, allowing the suffering of these people when it could be prevented speaks volumes of emotional distance. And, each action taken to heal the environment is a good work that gives glory to its Creator.

The first church in Norwich was a light on the hill, living out their faith and devotion to God, wrestling with the issues of their day. Our church, the second church, was founded by people who wanted to be a light on the Plain, embedded in the middle of the busy, growing town center. There were conflicts here: no doubt about it. The Bible on the communion table is evidence of that. Some of the conflicts were serious enough for us to move this structure from its original spot to this location in the 1850’s. But we kept working on shining the light, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing.

We no longer have to move structures to be relevant. Instead we move hearts and minds. We listen to a troubled friend; we listen to the troubled nation and planet. I pray that we will be wise enough to listen to and learn from our history. I pray that we will be wise enough to teach our children what it means to be in a religious community amongst other religious communities. I pray that we will listen and learn, wanting to see the light and be the light. Then we will find the balm in Gilead, dry the tears of the wounded, and rest in the deep and delightful peace of God. Amen.