Sermon by Rev. Russell Daye
St. Andrew's United Church, Halifax

Don't Let Them Get You Down

Ecclesiastes 1:4-8, 12-18; Hosea 11:1-11; Colossians 3:1-11

During the month of July only one piece of news concerning Halifax made headlines in Quebec, where Fiona, the boys and I were visiting with family: That was the painting of racist graffiti in Seaview Park on the eve of the annual celebration of black history in Africville. I was watching the news with a friend when this story was reported. We reacted quite differently, but each of us in a way that resonates with one of today's readings from the Hebrew Scriptures.

My friend - a seventy-five year old woman who sang in the choir of the Sutton church when I was minister there - cried out 'God damn!' You'll have to forgive the strong language I repeat here; but I use it because it is illustrative. Joan was not taking God's name in vain. Instead, I suggest, her instant and visceral reaction came from a place in her that most of us share: a place of righteous anger that would call down God's judgement upon acts of injustice and brutality in our world. I had a theology professor who used to say about swearing, 'better to speak to God in anger than never at all.' There is something to that, I think. We have an innate sense of the right and the good. When an act violates that sense we may respond by crying out with an anger that draws God into the equation. There could be worse responses.

We discover something akin to this in the words the prophet Hosea attributes to God, who is watching Israel slip into idolatry and unrighteousness:

The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them. They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. The sword rages in their cities, it consumes their oracle-priests, and devours because of their schemes. My people are bent on turning away from me. To the Most High they call, but he does not raise them up at all.

This kind of passage can be found throughout the prophetic writings in the Hebrew Scriptures. The prophets, sickened and infuriated by the idolatry, infidelity, and systemic exploitation that are corrupting 'God's people,' foretell the wrath of God. Hosea, at the very outset of the book evokes this tradition. But then a turn is made:

How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.

Anger is not the answer, at least not the ultimate one. God chooses not to come in wrath. Righteous anger, calling God into an unjust and ugly situation has its place. But then its place must give way to something else lest the faith we carry be one of hatred and fear, lest the 'god' we beckon be one of destruction.

As I said, my reaction to the news report was different from that of my friend Joan. Mine was more in line with the words of Solomon found at the outset of Ecclesiastes:

… it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted. … I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.

Solomon wrote these words late in life, after decades in the pursuit of wisdom. Legend tells us that he was more successful than most in this chase. But here, looking over what he has learned, he is not exalted by the goodness of humanity or by the beauty of the world. Instead he is deeply weary. The crooked cannot be made straight. The ugliness in the world cannot be expunged. What will be will be, including corruption, hate, and brutality.

I have attained neither Solomon's age nor his wisdom, but his words capture what I felt upon hearing of the latest manifestation of bigotry against Halifax's blacks. How long will the Africville families have to suffer thus? Were not the decades of abandonment enough? The decades when all other boroughs in the city saw roads and water and sewage systems expand but the 400 people in Seaview were left with none. Instead they were gifted with a dump, a slaughterhouse, and an infectious disease hospital. Was not forced removal enough? Being taken away in dump trucks while their houses and church were bulldozed? In a bitter irony, this was happening at just the same time that the apartheid regime in South Africa was bulldozing similar neighbourhoods, like District Six in Cape Town or Sophiatown near Johannesburg. In District Six, at least, the places of worship were spared the bulldozer. Are not decades of legal battles with the city and delayed redress enough?

Donald Brown, one of the people coming back to Seaview Park for last weekend's celebrations was asked if the graffiti would dampen spirits. His response is both encouraging and soul saddening: 'hearts that are already broken can't be broken again.' Besides showing resilience, his words offer a warning to those who would go the way of Solomon, those who would surrender to world-weariness, abandoning hope lest hope be crushed again. Sorrow, even depression can have their place but, like anger, they are at best transitorily helpful. Something else is needed.

For that something else, let us look at our third reading for the day, Colossians, chapter 3:

But now you must get rid of all such things-anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

The Christian response to the sordidness in life must be more than the response of human nature. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying repress the human response. I'm not saying repress the anger or the melancholy; that just causes more problems. But don't rest satisfied with them either. Paul instructs the Colossians to strip off all that goes with the old self and to live in the new self being renewed in the image of God. We are called to do no less. We need new selves. Not selves that abhor or deny the old ones, but new selves guided by selfless love. New selves that turn anger to resolve and world-weariness to compassion, all oriented by love.

It is tempting to respond to the latest expression of racism with plans and programs, with socio-political solutions; and they have their place for certain. But here, in this place of worship, more is demanded of us. A renewal of self is demanded. A renewal of community is demanded. A renewal of the way we move in the world, among rich and poor, male and female, white and black, and native and non-native is demanded. What this city needs now, what its peoples of all colours and backgrounds need is people who truly live the 'renewal (in which) there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ-love is all and in all!'