IF WE ARE UNITED IN FAITH, WE WILL PREVAIL
Fourth Week in the Harvest
The Struggle against Trump’s movement of hate is more than a political struggle, it is a spiritual struggle for humanity, a spiritual struggle for each of us…
We organize a lot of things – why do we spend time organizing faith communities at the centers o f our struggles in different communities?
We believe that if we are united in faith, then we will prevail! That is the message for today!
It’s harvest time, the season when God completes us each year. Today God asks us to take up the Spiritual Struggle with courage and faith, in our lives and with our people..
We began our journey through this season with the prophet’s letters to seven churches, churches like ours, filled with people who had been forced from their homelands, living in hostile countries. The prophet gave them faith. He went on to show them they were offered a blessed connection – with God and with each other, and that they were protected by angels from the violence and greed that was around them. Then the prophet showed them their place in history – in their own history and in the history of their people. He showed them how they had been blessed by God so that they could challenge the world around them and could make his Kingdom known. Now the prophet will reveal an ancient miracle, a miracle that came to be part of the history of the people of Latin America.
God gives us a purpose and a blessed connection – he protects us – but when we walk in the footsteps of Jesus we’re confronted by demons. Some of these demons are just wicked men, who oppress and exploit us. Others are demons that attack us inside, inside our thoughts and emotions. And for this struggle God provides us with something very special, something that has sustained the people of Mexico and Latin America for over five hundred years; something that sustains millions who have come north. It is also something that we must defend, something sacred and beautiful.
The addict wants peace from his affliction but when the demon attacks, he gives in. It is as if the thought of resistance has been taken from his mind. The young person seeks purpose in her life but when the demons of acceptability and traditional roles attack, she puts away her drive and her discipline. The couple seeks the freedom from jealousy, in which love will return, but gives in to the habits of a failed relationship. The seeker looks for the righteousness of God but falls to the corruption of life around them.
As we submit to these demons so also do we avoid confrontation with wicked forces in the world. We want legal status, work permits – but we don’t want to put ourselves on the line in struggle. We want the results of the movement for justice but we avoid the demon that opposes hard work and patience.
As we used to say, “Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.”
We are glad to accept the many gifts that God offers – a true love, a family, a group of friends that are loyal. We thank God for the opportunities he gives us, the true joys of life, and when life denies us we pray to God for relief. Yet when someone or some force confronts us and threatens to take these joys away, we back down, hoping the threat will just go away. We hide or pretend that the threat is not really aimed at us. We avoid the struggle in the world just as we avoid the spiritual struggle in each of us.
When Jesus was on the cross, he spoke out to the only disciple that had remained with him, saying to him and to his mother Mary, “Disciple, this is your mother. Mother, this is now your son.” And it is said that John took Mary into his home thereafter.
This was the same Mary, the same young virgin who had accepted with faith her destiny to give birth to a savior. It is the same Mary who said, “From now on all generations will call me blessed for the Mighty one has done great things for me…He has brought down rulers from their throne but has lifted up the humble.” This was the same Mary that walked with Jesus through the lands as he taught and healed and drove out demons, that walked beside him as he carried the heavy cross and that stayed with him as he was nailed to the cross and died.
When Jesus gave her to John and John to her, he gave someone to John who would bring him a great faith and would be his conscience and guide. He also gave John the charge to defend her against all enemies – for the Romans were seeking to kill her as well. Over the year millions and millions have prayed to her and kept her image with them. Many have died defending her.
When the prophet wrote to the seven churches, years after the ascension of Jesus and Mary, he shared with him the vision we find in chapter 12 of the book of Revelations. For God gave John a vision of a lady, pregnant with a child: a beautiful lady that appeared to John in the heavens.
Then as the lady gave birth to her son, a terrible red dragon appeared and began to chase them. This dragon of hate chased them across the desert. And when the angels brought them up to heaven to protect them, the dragon chased them up to heaven. There John saw the battle as Michael and the angels fought with this terrible dragon. They could not defeat the dragon until they were joined by the lamb, the resurrected Jesus, the one who was not afraid to give up his life for his people. Then the dragon was defeated, killed, and thrown down to earth. Defeated and dying, the dragon chased after the Lady and her child, but the earth protected them. And so this dragon of hate went wildly across the earth, chasing after other children.
1500 years later, the lady that was described by the prophet John appeared to Juan Diego at Tepeyac, in the year 1531. The people were oppressed, conquered by the Spaniards, made into slaves, disrespected and degraded, because the Spaniards wanted to steal their gold and their labor. They were disheartened and afraid. They were ashamed that they had been conquered. They saw no hope for themselves.
Then it was that God sent them the Virgin of Guadalupe: the same lady sent to the prophet John. She appeared as she was described in the book of Revelations. Yet when she appeared she looked in her features like them, she was the dark virgin.
And she gave them hope and purpose. And she made them know that God had not forgotten them, that God was with them, and that they would survive this oppression as a people. They understood that the God whom their conquerors talked about was their God.
What is the message of this Lady that appears through the centuries? What is the message that God sends to a people in trouble through her?
She is the symbol of life, a woman giving birth. She is the symbol of the life and love and endurance of a people facing oppression and hatred.
She brings the message of the love of God: you are loved, you are made in his image, you are dignified, God is with you, you are his people and he will not let you be destroyed.
She heals the sick as a sign of that love.
To a people who had lost faith, she comes to restore faith. To a people who thought God had forgotten them, she brings the message that God remembers them. She brings them new confidence and courage. And she asks them to do something. What is it that she asks? The Lady that appeared to Juan Diego asks him to do the same thing that the prophet John was asked to do: build a temple.
Yet what she asked for was not a building, but for a church of Jesus Christ: A church that would join a people together in faith and be a witness to the justice of God, to the love of God for this people. She cries out powerfully, I am your people, loved by God, I am the life God has given you, the families, the children, DEFEND ME!
She cries out, “See the dragon of hate that chases me, that chases my children: defend them, defend my children! Build the church from among you that will be their sanctuary!
We are offered the blessed connection – with God and with each other. Then comes the dragon of hate, powerful, ugly, threatening. It may be one of the little dragons that prey on the addict; that weaken the resolve of a young person; that trouble the peace of a relationship; that corrupt the daily discipline of a righteous life.
We are offered the blessed connection, in our lives, in our history, in our purpose and then comes Donald Trump unleashing the dragon of hate among the fearful and angry racists in this nation. We are paralyzed. We want to hide and “hope for the best.” Our will to organize our people is crippled. We duck. We hide. We give in.
We bow our heads – not to God but before the dragon. Yet God will not let us forget who he is nor what he asks us to do. We see the image of the Virgin on a wall, in a painting. Once in the midst of our struggle the image of the Virgin appeared underneath a bridge on the north side and was visited everyday by the faithful. If we have been to Tepeyac, our mind’s eye remembers the long lines of the faithful walking reverently without hurry to see her.
And if we close our eyes, we see her as Juan Diego saw her. We hear the music. We hear her voice, calling us to faith, calling us to defend her.
You see Guadalupe lives in us when we join together in faith and in God’s purpose for our lives. She is there when a young girl takes first communion,, welcoming her, affirming her. She is there when a couple is married, when they have children. She is there when a mother turns to see her child near drowning in the river on the way to the north. She binds us together. She gives us purpose. She gives us dignity.
Yet she also calls us to defend what she inspires, to stand up to powers of wickedness, to the dragons of hate and deception.
Each of us has demons, little dragons we must confront in our own lives – addictions, jealousies, envies, fears…..Together we face the dragon of hate that stalks our communities, trying to make us cut and run. Trump has made his position clear. He has called you criminals and rapists and murderers. Trump committed his presidency to rolling back every victory we have won: from sanctuary cities to the executive orders.
Just as the Virgin found protection so we found protections over the last years, keeping families together, returning people to their families, renewing DACA for thousands, providing sanctuary for Francesca, bringing Miguel Perez home, providing healthcare to those denied insurance…those are victories of the faith! Now the dragon is enraged and seeks to destroy us, to push us back into the shadows of fear.
The Struggle against Trump’s movement of hate is more than a political struggle, it is a spiritual struggle for humanity, a spiritual struggle for each of us…
Why did the prophet send this vision to the seven churches? He wanted them to see that the beautiful lady, our Guadalupe, was chased by the dragon into heaven. He wanted us to see that the dragon was defeated by the unselfish love of Jesus Christ. The dragon was thrown down to earth and, unable to get to the lady and her child, although he roamed the earth seeking for her other offspring.
Look there behind you. The Lady is coming amongst you. She is bringing the faith and unselfish love that will bind you together. That which gives you peace also gives you power; that which gives you the blessed connection also gives you authority over demons. But you must stand strong against the dragons! Defend this beautiful lady who gives you peace and dignity. Build her temple among your people. Organize your assembly. Defend her!
The Holy Scriptures for the Fourth Week in the Harvest
John 19:25-27 The Death of Jesus
Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman,[a] here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
Revelation 12: 1-9 The Woman and the Dragon (1)
A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days. Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
Revelation 12: 13-17 The Woman and the Dragon (2)
When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.