And the Lord said…will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to him. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? ~ Luke 18:6-8
Beloved of God, In a book of his collected prayers, Awed to Heaven, Rooted to Earth, Walter Brueggemann addresses God thus: [1] You are the God who is simple, direct, clear with us and for us. You have committed yourself to us. You have said yes to us in creation, yes to us in our birth, yes to us in our baptism, yes to us in our awakening this day. But we are of another kind, more accustomed to “perhaps, maybe, we’ll see,” left in wonderment and ambiguity. We live our lives not back to your yes, but out of our endless “perhaps.”How hard it is to offer an unequivocal YES! to God’s invitation to entrust our lives completely to him, to being Christ to our neighbor, to being the light on the hill. We like to keep our options open; to have an escape route ready in case things don’t work out. We prefer to wait until all the data is in before we plant our feet and say “Here I stand.” The problem, of course, is that the data is never all in. And so our “maybe” becomes “never.”
This month, on October 17th, we have an opportunity to say YES! to God and neighbor by becoming participants in Bread for the World’s Offering of Letters campaign. Annually, the Bread for the World organization invites individuals, congregations and organizations to join together as advocates on a particular hunger related issue that impacts people in this country and around the world. Folks are encouraged to exercise their faith and their citizenship by authoring letters to their congressional delegation in support of specific legislative initiatives.
This year the issue is taxes. (Yes, taxes.) Specifically, changes in tax policies that address the growing poverty in the United States. Nearly one in four children lives in a family that struggles to get enough to eat. Because of rising unemployment, a record number of Americans are receiving help from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly called food stamps). But in spite of this, for most families, food stamps provide only enough food to get through the first three weeks of the month. Too often, parents must choose between paying the rent and providing food for their children. That’s why Bread for the World is urging Congress to protect and strengthen the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit. These tax credits are critical to helping families make ends meet, but they will expire this year.
Throughout the fall in the First Lessons in worship we have heard in the voices of the prophets God’s advocacy on behalf of the poor and vulnerable and God’s dismay over those who neglect them or bring them harm. On October 17th, we will have the opportunity to educate ourselves about a specific issue, and then take action by putting pen to paper in a fundamental exercise of the rights and privileges of citizenship. This is a first of us at Peace; an idea which grew out of the joint Peace/Calvary women’s retreat of last spring. What a great opportunity to teach the next generations how to find and use their voices for the sake of our neighbors near and far. I hope you’ll join us that day, beginning with an intergenerational gathering at 9:15 am in the fellowship hall.
Brueggemann’s prayer concludes:
So we pray for your mercy this day that we may live yes back to you, yes with our time, yes with our money, yes with our sexuality, yes with our strength and with our weakness, yes to our neighbor, yes and no longer “perhaps.” In the name of your enfleshed yes to us, even Jesus who is our yes into your future. Amen.Amen indeed!
Pastor Erik[1] Awed to Heaven, Rooted to Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann. Edwin Searcy, editor. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), p. 91.
What does this mean?