Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost
August 31, 2008 Labor Day Weekend
Pastor Anita C. Hill
Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Let’s think about the scripture passages for today against the backdrop of last week’s amazing political events. What Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed of in his speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC forty-five years ago has become reality. A man whose father is from Kenya is experiencing what immigrant parents have dreamed of since this nation was born; that their son or daughter had a chance to succeed and to lead this country.
We gather for worship this morning as another political convention begins here in our own city. And we worry about what might happen as protesters gather, as votes are taken, as another political party takes the stage having announced a woman would be their candidate for vice-president.
What does it mean to take up our cross? To live as St. Paul instructed the Romans?
I want to tell you the story of Achak Deng, one of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” whose real life struggles are recounted in a historical novel titled, What is the What, by Dave Eggers.
Achak was 6 years old when his village in Southern Sudan was attacked and destroyed. At his mother’s urging, he ran into the night. It was so dark he had to keep his arms straight out in front of him like sticks. He saw his mother fall to the ground in her yellow dress. Saw his friend Moses chased down by a man on horseback who raised his sword to strike him down.
Achak met up with other boys walking. They walked at night because they were stalked by the militia during the day. They followed one another in a line, each boy held onto the boy in front of him.
One night a boy was taken by a lion. Achak saw other boys reach the end of their capacity in hunger and exhaustion; their eyes listless, their steps halting. His friend, William K, stopped walking, sat down under a tree, put his head back and died. Death and difficulty faced the thousands who walked night after night, their thirst unabated and their bellies rounded with starvation as their bodies became like walking bags of skin holding bones.
After 16 years in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, Achak was resettled in the United States. The book begins with Achak being robbed in his apartment in Atlanta. As one thief ransacked the place, the other said to Achak: “Sit down, Africa.”
At that moment, the only thing Achak could think of was that he wanted to be back in the camp in Kenya, where he lived in a hut made of plastic and sandbags and owned but one pair of pants. There was only one meal a day, but it had its small pleasures.
Achak was thinking about the camp when he was pistol whipped and knocked out. He awoke in the night with his hands tied behind his back and packing tape across his mouth. A small boy was stationed in front of his television to keep watch until the robbers returned. The boy built a fort of pillows and chairs around Achak on the floor and placed a blanket over the whole thing to completely obliterate “Africa” from sight.
Christians know something about this kind of suffering even though we may not have experienced it ourselves. Jesus, our suffering servant, experienced great suffering, too. He told his followers he would be killed in Jerusalem. It was coming and could not be stopped. Those who want to follow are told to take up their cross and follow Christ.
Paul’s letter to the Romans provides two paragraphs of instructions worthy of any book on how to survive and thrive when faced with evil and suffering. Let love be genuine. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in suffering. Persevere in prayer. Live in harmony. Overcome evil with good.
If we could live by those two paragraphs our world could be a different place. Bearing the cross means standing by these principles: blessing even those who persecute us, leaving judgment to God, overcoming evil with good, and living peaceably with everyone.
If all people lived out of genuine love for our neighbors, then such horrific evil such as that experienced by the Lost Boys might disappear. We wouldn’t have to worry about poverty and homelessness, about the place of the marginalized or the gap between the haves and the have-nots. We wouldn’t have to feel the pain of Darfur and the rest of Sudan.
On Wednesday at 5:30 p.m., the Minnesota Interfaith Darfur Coalition is hosting a gathering on the State Capitol grounds to ask this question: “Where is our moral compass in the face of genocide?” At 7:00 p.m. that same evening, our choir and perhaps many of us here will gather for a worship service at Central Presbyterian Church downtown, where services for peace are being held every day during the convention.
These are times to take action. To persevere in prayer. To tell the story of Jesus and why it makes a difference to us. To take up our cross and to take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.
Too often our thoughts about our faith, and about shaping the world, have not been about laying down our lives and lifting up the cross of getting to know our neighbor who lives in Darfur, or the millions whose understanding of American power comes from what they see Americans drop from the sky. I rather suspect if the instructions that Paul suggests we use in the struggles of life were brought into play, we would have quite a different understanding of our interpersonal and international responsibilities.
In an interview, Achak said: “However I find a way to live, I will tell these stories…I speak to you because I cannot help it. It gives me strength, almost unbelievable strength; to know that you are there…I will fill today and everyday with my words until I am taken back to God. I will tell stories to people who will listen and to people who don’t want to listen.”
We can tell the story, too, in all the ways we live. We have been given the gift of a model of a suffering servant. We can tell our own stories about why the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus make a difference to us and to the life of the world. We can use the instructions of St. Paul as we tackle the problems of our day.
What does it mean to take up our cross?
It means being sensitive to the suffering of the people in Sudan and other places. It means experiencing the redemptive power of suffering when it draws a community together with love and compassion to care for our neighbors here and around the globe.
That’s what Jesus’ suffering and death does for us. That’s what it means to take up our cross and to follow him. Amen.