Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 24C, October 16, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of our hope, grant us the strength, the wisdom, and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may and cost what it will.

Many of you know that I was away last week for my middle daughter’s wedding.  It was a lovely and joyous opportunity for my extended family to gather.  One of the many blessings of my family’s gatherings, for holidays or for ceremonies, is seeing four generations of siblings and cousins all together, and noticing how similar they all are in appearance and expression.  Then I returned to Emmanuel on Tuesday, in time to get ready for the Yom Kippur Kol Nidre service, and I had a chance to recall that one of the blessings of being in an interfaith family, like the interfaith family Emmanuel Church and Central Reform Temple make together, is sharing in one another’s holiday celebrations, and seeing and hearing the ritual and theological relatedness of our traditions, how similar our traditions are in appearance and expression.

The Kol Nidre service begins with the Rabbi’s Prayer. Standing before the open Ark of the Covenant, facing the Torah scrolls, the rabbi prays in the midst of the people a prayer that is very similar to the prayer that an Episcopal priest prays in the midst of the people when she (or he) becomes a rector of a parish. This year, Rabbi Berman invited me to stand with him and the other rabbis as he prayed the prayer in first person plural to include us in the plea that our congregations not falter on our account, nor we on their accounts; and that Love will strengthen our faith and purify our thoughts and draw a veil over all our failings. Since Tuesday evening, I’ve found tears springing up every time I tell someone of the honor of being invited to stand with my colleagues in that way. I am so grateful for the interfaith family that Emmanuel Church makes with Central Reform Temple.

That family relationship holds me accountable in a way I would not feel so acutely were I not a member of an interfaith family. So I cannot let our beautiful scripture lesson from Jeremiah go by without comment. The prophet Jeremiah wrote about the presence of God’s everlasting love and faithfulness in the middle of utter devastation and chaos, of extreme suffering from violence, of fear and despair. The book of Jeremiah contains four chapters of comfort in the middle of 52 chapters of affliction. [1] The words of comfort and promise in chapter 31 are of a new covenant written not on stone tablets, but on the hearts of the people. Christian supercessionists have, for centuries, misread this text (and misread it loudly) as being evidence of a theological discontinuity between Jews and Christians, rather than a renewed or reestablished or refreshed relationship for Jewish people with the Divine.

The result is that many Christians hear “new” and are conditioned go directly in our heads to “New Testament” and furthermore, to contrast the word new with old or bad or outdated.  It’s why I always refer to the Hebrew Bible or First Testament for scripture that, for so long has been called “The Old Testament.” You know, the “all scripture” referred to in Second Timothy refers to only the Hebrew Bible, because the New Testament didn’t exist yet. It’s fine (it’s right and a good and joyful thing) for Christians to understand Jesus as the complete or perfect embodiment of a new covenant, as long as we don’t think we’re the only ones in the world to ever receive a fresh start, or a new deal with the Holy One. I’m here to tell you that the covenant Love of God is renewed in Judaism, and in Islam, and in other religious and spiritual traditions where compassion and mercy, humility and right-relationship are central and foundational teachings.

Theologian Walter Harrelson has written that major theological contributions of Judaism to Christianity include these three important ideas:

1. Judaism insists “that the arena of God’s revelation and guidance is this concrete, day-to-day world,” in which the coming rule of God is already present. The days are surely coming, says Jeremiah, the days are continually coming.
2. Judaism makes a public demand for justice and compassion that serves as a correction to our Christian tendency to over-emphasize and even glorify submission and suffering.
3. Judaism models candor and persistence in prayer, like the nagging widow, like Moses. [2]

In Luke’s Gospel today, we hear Jesus teaching the disciples about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.  Can I just remind you that if Jesus is telling them about their need to pray and not to lose heart, it’s because they are not always praying and they are losing heart. Jesus assures his beloved disciples that God will grant justice quickly. And yet, what may be quick in God’s time can feel so long to humans.  Do you remember that line from the hymn, “O God our help in ages past”? “A thousand ages in thy sight are like an evening gone; short as the watch that ends the night before the rising sun.”

One way to understand the parable that Jesus offers is as a re-definition of prayer.  Mark Davis writes in his Greek translation blog Leftbehindandlovingit this week that people often think of prayer as talking to God, and yet Jesus is teaching that prayer is any expression of a demand for justice, a plea of any kind, including public proclamation or standing at a vigil or marching in protest, writing letters to the editor or to our legislators. [3]  Jesus is teaching that persistence in pleading for justice is indeed efficacious. That leads me to tell you that this weekend is one of two designated for Moral Declaration Worship by the national coalition being built by The Rev. Dr. William Barber, The Rev. Dr. James Forbes, The Rev. Dr. Traci Blackmon, and Sister Simone Campbell.

To date, more than 3,000 religious leaders have signed the Moral Declaration document that asserts that our political discourse and activity have been “poisoned by the dominance of regressive, immoral and hateful policies,” policies directed at communities of black and brown people, impoverished people, disabled and sick people, women and children, religious minorities and immigrants.  The Moral Declaration calls on people of all religious practice to advance public policies that lift up our deepest moral values to dismantle systemic racism and economic injustice, and to promote access to quality education and healthcare, and equal protection under the law. [4] The coalition is also working hard to get people to uphold those deep moral values by overcoming despair or apathy and voting. Voting matters.  Voting can be a form of prayer. Do not lose heart.

Perhaps you remember Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir from ten years ago, Eat Pray Love.  In it, she wrote, “I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on the water.” I imagine that is something of what Jeremiah means when he describes God’s covenant written on hearts. It was Elizabeth Gilbert’s title, though, that came to me when I was imagining what I wanted to say to you about what difference any of this makes.  Instead of Eat Pray Love, I thought of Vote Pray Love.

Our Torah and Gospel values are so clear in their call to protect those who are most vulnerable from whatever robs vulnerable people of their dignity.  (That’s true of the Qu’ran as well, by the way.) Voting is one important way that we elect leadership to enact such protections of dignity in our society. You may have seen our announcement of Bishop Gates’ call for the Diocese of Massachusetts to hold a prayer vigil for 48 hours, beginning at noon on Sunday, November 6.  At Emmanuel, we will do that in two ways:  we will hold noon day prayers in the days surrounding the election, and we will create a schedule of people in and around our community to take one of the 48 hours to keep watch.  My hope is that we have at least 48 people who will each take an hour to be responsible for the prayers of Emmanuel Church.  I don’t know if any of you have insomnia, but we especially need you if you do. Your insomnia will be a blessing just this one time.  We need you to sign up for the wee hours of the night.  We can also employ Emmanuelites who are in other time zones to cover the nighttime hours.  How you keep watch and pray will be entirely up to you.  We will trust you!  Our parish administrator, Amanda March, will keep a schedule, so you can call or email with the hour that you would like to cover between noon on November 6 and noon on November 8.  Will you please take an hour to pray for Love to guide the people of this land in the election, that by faithful administration and wise laws, the rights and dignity of all might be protected?  This is something that every one of you can do and I hope you will.

It is already written on your hearts. It is a way to carry out your ministry more fully, as the second letter to Timothy urges.  It is a way to persevere, to persist, to press on in prayer and action on behalf of justice and mercy. Meanwhile, in the days and weeks to come, be more kind in your speech and your action. Be more compassionate in your words and in your deeds. The world needs us to change it for the better. We can do this, Emmanuel.  Think of all of the other impossible things this little parish, the first building on Newbury Street has accomplished with God’s help. You know, this parish was founded in 1860, a time that the country was coming apart at the seams in Civil War. Do you need some examples of impossible things that have Emmanuel’s fingerprints on them? We helped inspire the creation of 12-step recovery programs with the Emmanuel Movement. We helped loosen the Episcopal Church divorce and remarriage canons, and we helped ensure the freedom to marry for same-sex couples. We have helped put high quality music education in Boston schools. We have included Bach cantatas in our weekly worship for 46 years! We are helping the City of Boston understand that it needs to collaborate with faith-based communities to house people who are unhoused. That’s just a sample of the impossible things we have done with God’s help. If you find yourself wondering why somebody doesn’t do something, remember that we are somebody. We can do this, Emmanuel. I beseech you: vote and pray and love.

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