“In the Shadow of the Raven” First Congregational Church, Eugene, Oregon the Rev

“In the Shadow of the Raven” First Congregational Church, Eugene, Oregon The Rev. Don Gall January 12, 2020

Loren Eiseley, in his book The Immense Journey, describes walking through the forest one day and being distracted by a commotion in a small clearing. The light, he said, was slanting down through the pines in such a way that the small glade was illumined like some vast cathedral. And there, on an extended branch overhead, sat an enormous raven with a red, squirming nestling in its beak.

The commotion that had attracted his attention was the outraged cries of the nestling’s parents who flew helplessly in circles about the clearing. The large, sleek monster was indifferent to them as he threw back his head, gulped, and then whetted his beak on the dead branch. Up to that point, the little tragedy had followed the usual pattern. But then a soft sound of complaint began to rise as into the glade fluttered small birds of numerous varieties, drawn by the anguished cries of the tiny parents.

None dared attack the raven, but they cried together in instinctive, common misery. Soon the glade was filled with their rustling and their sounds. They fluttered about as though to point their wings at the murderer. There was a dim, intangible ethic which he had violated, that they knew: he was a bird of death. And he, the murderer, the ominous threat at the heart of life, just sat there, glimmering in the common light, formidable, unmoving, unperturbed and untouchable.

Eventually the sound of the birds’ screeching and fluttering died away, and in its place a profound judgment of life against death was pronounced. In the midst of their protest, the little birds seemed gradually to forget the violence. And there in the clearing the crystal-clear note of a song sparrow was suddenly heard, and then another, and another, until finally the forest was alive once more with the sound of hundreds of birds singing together as birds are wont to do. With watchful eye, they sang beneath the brooding shadow of the raven, because they were creatures of life and light and it was not in their nature to do otherwise.

Birds, in general, do not possess the cognitive ability to reason or to identify alternative courses of action. Therefore, it never occurred to them to organize and drive the monster from their midst or to pack up their nests and move to a gated community where it was safer and more secure. Nor did they think that in the face of such an ominous foe, all of life was now futile and there was nothing left to do but surrender themselves to the murderous beak. They were simple little creatures of life, and although the raven sat unmovable and untouchable in their midst, they went on with their life and song.

You and I, unlike the birds in this story, are both blessed and cursed with mind and emotion. Ours is a life of choices, decisions, and alternative courses of action. We do not respond to life instinctively but are guided into deliberate and purposeful behavior by what we think and feel and believe. Ours is not a life limited to passive responses but includes taking initiatives through which we can actually shape the events and conditions around us. As healthy-minded people, we do not deliberately invite adversity into our lives or those whom we love. But when it comes, as it does

2 to all of us, we will not give up or give in, but will look it in the eye and wrestle from it whatever meaning or purpose it contains.

The pages of history are replete with the stories and experiences of people who, when faced with difficult times, chose not to slink away in despair or bitter defeat but who through the power of their songs and the witness of their lives have helped to bring hope and meaning to the struggles of others. Such courageous expressions of life are sorely needed in our time.

Today the shadow of the raven is spreading over our nation and the world. Its shape is in the form of the black smoke that darkens the skies over Australia, the Amazon and California as unchecked climate change helps fan the flames that consume forests, homes and lives.

American farmers see its ominous shape darken their prospects as they are forced off their land by economic forces beyond their control while elsewhere people continue to starve for lack of food to eat. Inner cities, both here and around the world, decay as neighborhoods turn into drug-dealing, drive-by killing fields and entire families are forced to flee in search of asylum elsewhere. It is felt in the cold and heartless reply that turns refugees away and dashes their hopes with: “Sorry, but we have no room for you here!”

Around the globe, millions of people are abandoning their ancestral homes because of famine, war and pestilence and are then often forced to live like animals in hovels and holes in the ground. Multitudes cringe under the oppressive rule of

3 tyrannical governments while the rich grow richer and more powerful and the poor grow poorer and more desperate. And international catfights that threaten all-out war are heightened by needless military provocations and midnight tweets that ignore the need for serious diplomacy. It is not a solar or lunar eclipse that darkens our skies these days; it is the shadow of the raven that blots out the light and muffles the song.

The overall effects of the Raven’s shadow is seen in the furrowed brows, the harried, hurried, haunted looks of people waiting in soup lines or sleeping in open doorways. It is present in the irritable, short-tempered, impatient struggle against time of the people who are pressed down by the suspicion that life has become an endless circle from which there is no exit and who feel manipulated and powerless over their own destinies. It is felt in the tension that is often on the verge of hysteria, bitter tears, screams of impotence and rage, and actual conflict.

In the shadow of the raven the song of life needs to be heard more fully and felt more powerfully than ever before. It needs to be a song, not of words or notes alone, but of deeds of love and kindness, of courageous and daring acts of justice, of people working together in deliberate and concerted ways that makes real the good news to the poor, that sets free the enslaved, that brings sight to the blind, and healing to the broken. It is a song that must be sung, not only by birds in a forest, but by people like you and me.

We all know the words to the song, because we’ve heard them over and over again in the stories from Scripture and in the lessons we learned on our mother’s

4 knee. We learned them in Sunday School, during moments of enraptured silence, and through sermons and prayers. They are what has shaped us and moved us and given us the will to be people of love and justice in this place. It is what compels us and others to sing under the shadow of the raven--because we, too, are creatures of life and love and because it is not within our God-given nature to do otherwise.

But such songs often come with a price. When James and John asked Jesus for the right to sit, one on his right and one on his left-hand in glory, Jesus replied: “Do you know what you ask? Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” To which they eagerly replied, “We are able!” But little did they know at the time what drinking his cup and being baptized with his baptism really meant. That realization only came later, when the full weight of following him became apparent in his suffering and death--and eventually in their own. “Are you able?” That question has echoed down the corridors of human history ever since, and only those who know and are willing to embrace the pain and joy of following Jesus wherever he leads them can answer with any confidence.

Martin Copenhaver, in his book To Begin at the Beginning, reminds us that Mother Teresa did not wade into the slums of Calcutta because it was one of the ten best vacation spots in the world, but because of her immersion in the spiritual disciplines of her faith. The British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge said at the time that Mother Teresa met Jesus every day in Calcutta, first at Mass where she derived sustenance and strength, then in the face of every needing, suffering person she met on the street. For her, it was the same Jesus in both places, whether at the altar

5 or in the street. When asked one day why she remained in Calcutta, she replied, “Because God told me to come here and God has not yet told me to leave.” And so, she went on singing her songs of hope and love under the brooding shadow of the raven until she drew her last breath on earth.

Congressman John Lewis is another who goes where he is sent and does what he is called to do. He has repeatedly said that “when you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up, you have to say something, you have to do something.” You have to “find a way . . . to get in the way.” His sentiments are completely in line with those of the poet John Russell Lowell, who in 1845 reminded his fellow citizens of their need to choose which side of slavery they were on and whose poem later became one of the great social justice hymns of the Christian Church:

Once to every one and nation, comes the moment to decide in the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight and the choice goes by forever ‘twixt the darkness and that light.

Then to side with Truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust, ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ‘tis prosperous to be just; then it is the brave who chooses, while the coward stands aside, till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

During these days of religious opportunism, political cowardice, and economic disparity, when long-held beliefs about right and wrong, truth and falsehood, hope and injustice must be brought before the public tribunal for final judgement, it is imperative that we not despair or grow weary in the struggle. It is particularly in a time such as this that we are called to say “yes” to life and “no” to death; “yes” to acts of peace and justice and “no” to acts of violence and war; “yes” to ministries of hope and compassion and “no” to policies of discrimination and exclusion.

When demagogues and despots, safe behind their palace or White House walls, decide to rattle their sabers and threaten to engulf the world in war, we need to remember upon whose heads their sins will fall. In today’s wars, eight civilians (mostly children) die for every one combatant that is killed upon the battlefield. That alone should be enough to cause us to stand with hand over heart and promise the children of this world that we will not take part in the killing of any child, no matter how noble the reason: not our neighbor’s child, not the enemies child, not our child. Not by bomb, not by bullet, not by looking the other way. We will be the power that is peace. For if we are not, then the shadow of the raven will surely grow longer and darker in the days to come.

Fifty years ago, a banner stood in the narthex of this very church, its message visible for all to read as people passed by on their way out of this sanctuary. It read: “He came singing love; he lived singing love; he died singing love. He rose in silence. If the song is to continue, we must do the singing.”

TEXT

Matthew 3:13-17

Once again, Christmas has come and gone. The sound of angels singing has died away, the shepherds have returned to their flocks, the Wise Men have taken another road home. And we---we have taken down all the lights, removed the trees, and gone on to other things as well. Perhaps that is why the prescribed text for this Sunday propels us thirty years beyond the manger to the beginning of Jesus ministry, which is the scene of his baptism.

The Gospel won’t let us linger for long in the afterglow of Christmas; instead it abruptly calls us forward to wrestle the very reason Jesus was born in the first place. It is not by accident that Jesus’ baptism is the first recorded event in his life’s story. For it is was his baptism that set the stage and marked him for the life of service, suffering and death that was to follow. And because of that, because of his baptism and all that it represents, you and I are here today. This is Matthew’s version of the event---which is printed in your bulletin:

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordon, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”