We Will Not Doubt Ourselves, We Will Not Doubt Our Place in History, We Will Not Doubt Our God!
Third Week in the Time of the Harvest
We are in the third week of this year’s “Time of Harvest.” We are reminded that a year of our lives is passing and that we are not the same as we were a year ago. We are asked to recognize the changes that time and life have made in us. We are also asked to recognize our place in the history of our people. Both in each of our lives and in the lives of our people, we are asked to see the hand of God and to see the purpose God gives our lives.
Yet we also have questions. We have doubts. Is there really justice on the road ahead? Where is the justice in innocents dead in a fire in unsafe housing? Where is the justice in yet another family separated? Where is the justice for men and women in ICE detention cells whose only crime has been to work hard for their families?
Yes, we have questions. We have doubts. Yet our most important battle is to overcome those doubts.
During this harvest time we look to the Book of Revelations for guidance. In this Book the prophet begins writing to his seven churches to give them instruction and assurance that there is strength in their little communities of faith, strength that will protect them from the injustices of the Roman empire, the empire which refuses to recognize their humanity, which excludes them from the rights of citizenship, from the right to work and earn a living legally and which often separates them from their families.
In the second week, he reminds them of their “blessed connection”. He reminds them that when they accept the connection of love and support between them and their people, the connection that God gives them, then they are also connected to the God that lives in History. He shows them that angels have stopped time itself long enough to place a seal on their foreheads, a seal that protects them from conquest and violence, from exploitation and even from death.
In the third week, the prophet pleaded with the people in the seven little churches to remember the history of their people, where they had come from – and how God had been with them as they grew in their faith – and how God had saved them when they had finally matured in their faith and their unity. He reminded them of the great struggle for freedom of the people who had been in slavery in Egypt and how Moses had appealed to them to remember their faith and their traditions and how their faith grew with each of the plagues from which they were protected - until finally God parted the waters and led them to freedom.
The prophet tells you today that you don’t have to wait until the end of your life – or even the end of a particular struggle – to find the victory, the peace and the harmony. It can come right in the middle of your life and your struggle, right in the middle of your friendships, of your marriage. There can be a moment that you achieve the spiritual victory in yourself, and among yourselves, that makes you so strong that no enemy can stand against you.
But is God really with us? Terrible things happen to us and to people we know and love. How could a God that calls us his people let these things happen? Those ancients in the seven churches had their doubts – as we do today. So, the prophet not only recalled the history of their freedom from slavery in Egypt, he reminded them of God’s hand on them during the history of their own lifetimes.
In Egypt, God had brought seven plagues on the Egyptians, including the Pharaoh, to get them to let the people of God go free. God brought locusts, turned the river red with blood and many other things. Yet the prophet tells the people of the seven churches that God is also bringing plagues on the Roman Empire in their time to weaken their oppressive power.
The most important lesson, however, that the people are asked to learn, is that God does these things to strengthen their faith and their unity. Remember that when Moses first came to them they doubted that he could lead them to freedom. Moses even doubted himself. Through the plagues, from which they were protected, they increased their faith until they were ready for freedom – and ready to fight for it.
We can easily ask that question, “Is God really with us?”, but we must also ask the question, “Are we ready for the justice we seek, for the equality we seek,” and “are we ready to fight for it together as a people?”
There was no equality in ancient days in Egypt – between slaves and citizens. There was no equality in the time of the Roman empire – between migrants, conquered people and Roman citizens. And today, we are faced with inequality every day, between the undocumented, people of color and rich white citizens.
Inequality separates families. Inequality kills through barriers to health care. Inequality is perpetuated through inequality in education, inequality in jobs. Inequality places more people in U.S. prisons than any other country in the world and inequality places this mass incarceration on the heads of people of color. Inequality drains the wealth of the nations of Latin America into the bank accounts of U.S. corporations and inequality allows the U.S. to intervene in the democracies of those countries through force.
Are we ready for the fight to overcome inequality? Is God making us ready? Where is our Moses – and would we listen to him or her if they called us?
The history of Latinos in the U.S. is a history of miracles, of God’s hand on a people. Many of those who made the dangerous journey across the river and across the desert to the lands that were stolen from Mexico will tell you that it was God’s hand that brought them across. Those that came from El Salvador and Nicaragua and Guatemala and Honduras, those that came from the Caribbean, from Haiti and the Dominican Republic and from Beliz, all faced danger and difficulty - yet God kept them safe.
We hear Donald Trump calling to take America back to its white rulers but through the determined migrations of generations there has come to be a people from many countries that call themselves Latinos, a people so numerous that they can defy Trump and others who would take the country back to its Europeans conquerors.
And can’t you see God’s hand in this? Can’t you see God’s purpose in planting a people here to confront the inequality that has struck an entire continent?
When the prophet talks about the seven plagues that are haunting the Empire he is not talking about natural disasters like floods and earthquakes. He is talking about things that wickedness and racism and greed have brought about. When drugs were destroying lives in Black and Brown communities the government didn’t care – but now we have the Opiad epidemic that has spread to the white suburban and rural communities. The government didn’t care about the effect of cheap guns flowing into Black and Brown communities but now confused, white supremacists are shooting their own children in schools and their own people at concerts. You see, racism brings plagues and those plagues come back around to those who practiced racism.
Greed has brought the great inequality of wealth in this country but that same greed brought the U.S. economy to its knees. When Barak Obama became President he saved that economy and put it on a path to prosperity. Yet Trump has taken the wealth Obama created and – instead of relieving the inequality of wealth – he has given it back to the rich tenfold. The inequality of wealth, the wages that won’t pay the rent and buy food and clothes, increases every day while the wealth of the few has tripled. Those plagues of greed are coming now as the treasure that should have been spent on health and education has been spent luxury for the privileged.
The prophet says that the angels put a seal on the foreheads of the faithful to save them from the plagues. If we look more deeply, we see he meant that God had created a blessed connection for the faithful, through which they would be protected from what the madness of the rulers of today are unleashing in the country – and the continent.
Every day we see that the culture and the language of greed and racism is taking over the country. The racist words and lies that come from the President are multiplied among those who have accepted the stamp of white supremacy. This culture of racism and greed and selfishness is itself a plague – yet those who share in the blessed connection share in a culture of love and unity and respect, sealed from the self-destruction of the culture of death.
Moses was called to show his people that God was with them – and that God protected them from the plagues he put on Egypt. It took protection from all seven plagues before the people had enough faith to seek their own freedom, to seek their own equality. And even then, even after the first born of the Egyptians had all been struck down, they needed to see the waters divided before they could gather up the faith to walk where God had made a way for them!
You are here in one of today’s “seven churches” to which the prophet wrote. You are replacing individual desperation with collective support. You are bringing forth a new generation connected to each other, to their communities – and to God. From your faith has come a new initiative to stop the separation of families. The stronger that blessed connection, the more you will be protected from the plagues this nation is bringing on itself.
In revelations, the angels blow seven trumpets. As each trumpet sounds, more unbelievably terrifying things are done to the Empire and its ruler – but the believers are protected. Finally comes the seventh trumpet. “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.” The angels announce that “The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your people who revere your name, both great and small—and for destroying those who destroy the earth.” The prophet’s vision is showing us that the powers that oppress us are as nothing compared with the power of God and reminding us that God is with the faithful.
How long will it take for the majority in this nation to reject the wave of wickedness that has again swept through it? How long – not long! Put aside doubt. God continues to have his hand on you. The angels continue to offer their seal of protection to those who choose the way of faithfulness. Have patience and perseverance. You are not today what you were a year ago – but you are not yet what you are going to be. Build each day the numbers of those who willingly accept the seal of the faithful and serve righteousness in their lives. The time will come when the waters will be parted. Your God is - and has always been – a willing God! Let’s make ourselves ready! The four horsemen of conquest and violence and greed and death are riding across this land that once belonged to native peoples in harmony with it; the martyrs are crying out to the Lord and the angles have placed the faithful in blessed connection – the Harvest is working its final transformation of the year and each of us will be changed forever…WE WILL NOT DOUBT OURSELVES. WE WILL NOT DOUBT OUR PLACE IN HISTORY. WE WILL NOT DOUBT OUR GOD! Let the People say Amen!
The Holy Scriptures for the Third Week in the Harvest
Exodus 10:13-20 BUT THE LORD HARDENED PHARAOH’S HEART
So Moses stretched out his staff over Egypt, and the Lord made an east wind blow across the land all that day and all that night. By morning the wind had brought the locusts; they invaded all Egypt and settled down in every area of the country in great numbers. Never before had there been such a plague of locusts, nor will there ever be again...Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you. Now forgive my sin once more and pray to the Lord your God to take this deadly plague away from me.” Moses then left Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord. And the Lord changed the wind to a very strong west wind, which caught up the locusts and carried them into the Red Sea. Not a locust was left anywhere in Egypt. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.
REVELATION 11: 15-18 THE SEVENTH TRUMPET
The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.” And the twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying: “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. The nations were angry, and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your people who revere your name, both great and small—and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”
EXODUS 14:21-31 THE WATERS WERE DIVIDED
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea….And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.