Persistent Love

Sermon

Last week in his sermon, Gregg mentioned the story of Corrie Ten Boom, in a Nazi concentration camp, thankful for fleas, because the fleas discouraged the Nazi guards from entering her building. And this afternoon is our “Blessing of the Animals” service at 2 p.m. So I am taking the opportunity now to again encourage our appreciation of fleas.

That’s because fleas are a great illustration of the power of persistence to get a reaction.

Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, said: “Be a flea for justice wherever you are… and help transform America by biting political and business leaders until they respond.”

The scripture we heard this morning is a story of nagging persistence. “Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.”

I know that quite a number of us gathered here and online today could be considered fleas for justice. But even the most persistent of us can at times get discouraged and weary.

There are times in life when a loss upends our expectations and hopes, and losing heart is exactly what happens. I’ve been there. I’ve experienced it personally, but I’ve also felt it as our nation continues to struggle for inclusion, justice, and right relationship. Over the past six years or so, having had the lid ripped off of our nation’s simmering racial hatred, sexism, violence, xenophobia, and outright lies, it has caused me to ask: How do we move forward, truly? And just what is the relationship between prayer and not losing heart?

In today’s parable, we have a corrupt judge who admitted that he doesn’t respect God or anyone. And we have a widow, who in the ancient world is among the most vulnerable and without power in the patriarchal system. The judge is tired of the nagging widow. She just won’t quit.

Pray always. Don’t lose heart.

As we try to discern how the scripture can speak to us today, it’s important to remember that parables have more than one interpretation. When a parable contains anonymous characters, that is an intentional tool to invite us into the story and consider how we are like that character. And be careful about which person in the story you assign the God role to.

What if in this story, the God figure isn’t the judge, but the widow? What if the reason for “praying always” isn’t that we are nagging God for things that we want, but rather, God keeps persisting to be in relationship with us? What if the point of the story is to remind us of the where the greatest power resides: in loving persistence, in soul force?

Human history shows that time and time again, institutions and structures will create and reinforce oppression.

But “ praying always” is the grounding in relationship. Grounding in persistent love actually keeps open the hope of real change. Pray always. Don’t lose heart.

Though our history shows the continual cycle of our failing to live with compassion for one another, God persists with us, constantly luring us to choose what’s best for us, but also allowing us to make our own decisions, for better or for worse. Our freedom to choose, our free will, illuminates those troubling last lines of scripture: “Will not God grant justice to those who cry to God day and night? Will God delay long in helping them? I tell you, God will quickly grant justice to them…” Well, it continues to be human choices that impede justice and peace. GOD doesn’t delay in persisting with us. The delay in justice comes from our turning away from one another and from God.

The parable assures those without power that justice will be served even in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The parable assures the powerless that those who hold power in this world and who use that power unjustly will not have the final word.

My friend and colleague the Reverend Chris Dela Cruz remarked in our staff study of this passage that if you read the gospels through the lens of oppressed people, it is a manual for those seeking justice to keep on going. God’s people have lasted through oppressive empires. That’s the story of the Exodus—God’s enduring love, and freedom from slavery, and the continuing liberation for ALL of us.

None of us can be free until ALL of us are free. If you want a concrete example, consider climate change. The preservation of all of us is at stake. That is reason enough to persist for justice and to persist in grounding ourselves in love. Pray always. Don’t lose heart.

The widow was relentless in seeking and obtaining justice; SHE reveals the way of God.

On August 28, 1963, in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, he said: “No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Dr. King understood the parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge. Remember this important detail: the judge was still in power. Unjust social systems are not quickly changed.

But like fleas that persist, like water that wears down the rock, consistently naming the injustice and persistently allowing the grace of God to be the ground from which we draw our strength—that will be a force than no earthly power can resist.

At times, people talk about social justice work at one end of a spectrum and spirituality at the other end. But in reality, they dance together. Without the grounding of Spirit, justice work will exhaust us. And spirituality without the work of justice completely misses the point.

Persistence in prayer is essential in this work because it roots us in life-giving grace and courage. One of the ways at Westminster we work to keep ourselves grounded in grace is through our many expressions in the arts. Through writing, visual arts, dance, and music, including jazz, these expressions renew us and inspire us to keep heart.

Did you know that between 1948 and 1956, at a time when Westminster was at its numbers peak with more than a hundred children in Sunday school (hence the need for our education wing and Great Hall), Portland was experiencing its Golden Age of Jazz?

According to the Black Music Project and Marc and Christopher Fuller, Portland jazz venues attracted top artists from around the country. Many of those jazz clubs were clustered around Williams Avenue, in the Albina district, including Paul’s Paradise, the Frat Hall, the Savoy, Lil’ Sandy’s, and Jackie’s.

Those jazz venues, through music and dancing, were the first racially integrated public places, going as far back as the 1920s. Because Portland, during its Jazz Golden Age, was still a segregated city, Black jazz artists could not check into downtown hotels and instead stayed with local Black families in the Albina neighborhood. The history of racial injustice is intertwined with jazz, in Portland and in the United States. Take an emancipated and transplanted people, put them up against discrimination during rapid industrialization. That cultural cauldron produced music which criticized segregation with candor, sadness, and humor. Pray always. Don’t lose heart.

Horrible situations can give rise to incredible creations. The dance the lindy hop arose from systemic inequities that plagued Black communities in Harlem. People like dancer Frankie Manning were able to use lindy hop and swing as a medium to bring joy and cohesion into the community.

I listened to an interview about jazz and social justice with Dr. Robert O’Meally, a professor at Columbia University. He was the founder of the Center for Jazz Studies. He was asked, How did social protest figure into the creativity of Louis Armstrong and early jazz musicians?

Dr. O’Meally: “I have to say that each jazz musician would have his or her own story here. But despite that fact, there is, within the music itself, an urgency and a will to celebrate a community. And the will to celebrate a community, because it stems from the black community originally, itself is a political statement. … People have read jazz as being the music of democracy, the music of revolution.

People of the right, the center, and the left all listen to a mainly instrumental music and hear these different things. … if you listen to the music …there’s a sense of urgency…I think jazz refuses the self-pity and sentimentality of most popular American music. And there’s an aggressiveness. There’s a tell-it-like-it-is, truthteller’s impulse in this music. …even when it’s not overtly political, there’s a been there and gone truth-telling passion. Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on. You know, when you’re talking about love and its vagaries. But that impulse to tell the truth…is what makes love—what makes the music so strong in its aggressiveness.”

Pray always. Don’t lose heart.

In closing, I want to draw your attention to the artwork and scripture on front of the worship bulletin. That is a photo of a beautiful work by the Reverend Beth Neel. It’s a picture of Miriam, dancing in victory, at the liberation of the slaves from Egypt. Miriam is best known for helping to save her baby brother, Moses, at the Nile River. She led the Hebrew women in singing, dancing, and playing drums after crossing the Red Sea. Centuries later, she is celebrated as the inaugurator in worship, of song, drums, and dances. Liberation—liberation for the most vulnerable. Liberation for all.

Music and dance can are embodied reminders that God persists in loving us.

Will we also persist? Will we be fleas for justice?