Our pastor, Mary Anne Isaak ended her Sunday sermon with the following poem.
It was inspired by Amanda
Gorman’s, The Hill We Climb and
Philippians 2:1-13. I have been
moved by Gorman’s writings, and found that Mary Anne’s reflection also moved
me. Therefore, I requested permission to post it to my blog. I trust you will
enjoy the message.
When discord swells
we ask ourselves
how to navigate polarity.
Friction forces poles apart
Fractures tear the very heart of community.
Echo chambers of the woke
shun silos of the other folk.
Systems recede even more:
Health
care crisis,
Tariff prices,
Raids by ICE, and
ISIS,
Screen devices,
Arthritis,
Hantavirus.
Heads spinning. Margins thinning. Darkness winning.
Everything on pause!
What’s the poss-ibility
of new ways to navigate polarity?
Two
thousand years ago in similar disorder
Christ braves the belly of the beast.
He teaches that quiet isn't always peace,
and the norms and notions
of what just is
isn't always just-ice.
In human fragility,
vulnerability,
Christ chooses humility,
and empties himself to the polarity of
loss,
empties himself unto death,
even death on the cross.
And God
HIGHLY exalts him
with a
name above names,
for chaos
cannot halt the reign of God,
and at
the name of Jesus
every
tongue proclaims
Jesus
Christ is Lord.
The
polarity of universality,
world
influence across the board.
Non-sovereign Lord.
Servant with universal dimension.
Christ, the magnet, holds opposites in tension.
He doesn’t push them wider.
He offers wiser polarity,
holding paradox in complexity.
You cannot split a magnet’s poles.
Their relationship persists.
Snap it small;
North and South will still exist.
And so it is with Christ.
We cannot peel apart the poles.
Christ
IS Lord,
IS Servant who poured
himself out in an act of love.
We shall not sever
the basin from the blessing.
We shall ever hold together
the towel with the cresting,
his exaltation with his emptying.
Now, as Jesus-followers
we are striving to forge
our church with purpose,
to compose a people of diversity,
committed to all
cultures,
colors,
characters
and
conditions of humanity.
And so we lift our gaze,
not to what stands between us,
but to who stands before us.
Because being Christ followers
is more than a name we inherit.
It’s the past we step into
and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force
that could shatter a faith,
rather than share it.
And yet the wisdom is ours before we knew
it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we weather and witness
a faith that isn’t broken,
but simply unfinished.
We, the followers of Christ,
let the same mind
be in us
that was also in
Jesus.
Same mindset,
same
soulset,
same
set of practices,
our lives witnesses of emptying and
influence.
Let the Spirit, if nothing else, say this
is true
that even as we
grieved, we grew,
that even as we
hurt, we hoped,
that even as we
emptied ourselves in love
we made space for the Holy Dove
to gather under her
wings this motley crew
who represents you,
Jesus. Christ. Our.
Lord.
We empty, and with humble influence,
resist the rat-race of
competition,
repel ruthless individualism,
refuse toxic consumerism.
We empty, and with humble influence exhibit to the
world
the reality AND practice,
the art AND science
of common life ordered
‘round this non-sovereign Lord.
We empty, and with humble influence
envision the promise of prophets.
Picture everyone under their own
vine and fig tree
and no one, not you, not me, afraid.
If we’re to live up
to our own time,
then victory joins
supremacy,
but in emptying.
A mission that is bruised but whole,
benevolent
but bold,
fierce and free and emptying,
with God whose specialty is resurrecting.
God calls the church to resurrection,
mystery of reconnection.
We will recover, reconcile, rebuild,
from the bottom
til the whole earth
is filled
with the love of
God
as the water covers
the sea.
God’s dreams for the world
will emerge from the magnetic crucible,
battered and
beautiful,
renewing and
bountiful,
blooming and
hospitable.
God’s dreams for the universe unfurled
from a Jesus
Community for the world.