Called to Rescue and Make Alive!
Indianapolis First Friends
Pastor Bob Henry
July 5, 2020
Psalm 27:7-14 The Message (MSG)
7-9 Listen, God, I’m calling at the top of my lungs: “Be good to me! Answer me!”
When my heart whispered, “Seek God,” my whole being replied,
“I’m seeking him!”
Don’t hide from me now!9-10 You’ve always been right there for me; don’t turn your back on me now.
Don’t throw me out, don’t abandon me; you’ve always kept the door open.
My father and mother walked out and left me, but God took me in.
11-12 Point me down your highway, God; direct me along a well-lighted street; show my enemies whose side you’re on.
Don’t throw me to the dogs,
those liars who are out to get me, filling the air with their threats.13-14 I’m sure now I’ll see God’s goodness in the exuberant earth.
Stay with God!
Take heart. Don’t quit.I’ll say it again: Stay with God.
Good morning, Friends and happy Independence weekend. Lately, as I have reflected on the July 4th holiday, I have found myself wrestling with all that our history presents and the inconsistencies that the people of this nation experience in regard to our independence. Instead of celebrating independence, I have sensed lately a need for a more dependent posture and a continued need for the rescue from oppression. This morning, I am sharing a previous teaching that I believe flows from last week’s message and gets to our deep need for being rescued so we all may live life free and to the full.
There is much in our world today that is crying out for a rescue. Actually, the Bible itself is full of imagery of God’s rescuing, liberating, or saving people from literal storms at sea (which I discussed early on in this pandemic), to one’s own struggles and hardships that get in the way of truly living.
For most of us, we remember a time when we needed to be rescued. Times when we literally cried out that God would come and miraculously save us from some situation. Maybe that is the cry of your heart right now.
God rescue me from this Covid-19 pandemic.
God rescue me from this political year.
God rescue me from the racial unrest.
God rescue me from the people who disagree with me on Facebook.
I think you get my point.
As I have been thinking about summer and the 4th of July, I am often taken back to memories of camp as a kid. Yet, not all memories are great. Actually, one of the earliest memories of needing to be “physically” rescued was my first time at camp when I was in 5th grade. If you have heard this story, bear with me.
One afternoon at free time, my fellow camper and I went swimming. It was popular back then to play “Chicken” where one person gets up on the shoulders of another and then tries to stay up while two other friends try and knock them down.
It is really “King of the Hill” in the water.
Since I was a little bigger than my friend, I quickly put him on my shoulders and we waded out into the water. We were doing rather well, we had won a couple battles and lost only one.
I noticed as we wrestled people down we were heading further and further into deeper water. Soon just the tops of my shoulders and head were sticking out of the water.
In a flash, another team of larger boys gave my friend a huge blow to the chest and down we started to go. Now, we had been warned to stay away from the floating dock, but as we fell my friend locked his legs firmly around my neck. He went below the water and ended up caught under the floating dock.
Everything seemed to be in slow motion. I quickly opened my eyes to see the sunlight above me and about 6 inches of water in between. I tried hard to push my friends legs up and over my head, but he continued to push me down.
I wanted to cry out for help, but I couldn’t. I immediately became scared and started to flap my arms. And then suddenly in one fell swoop, the lifeguard blew her whistle, jumped in the water and pulled us out.
I had taken in a lot of lake water, but I had been rescued. The lifeguard had saved my life.
This incident has been burned into my memory. I can almost remember it as if it happened yesterday. It still gives me an uneasy feeling just retelling the story.
But even more, as I recall that experience, I realize it is much like many of the other times I have needed rescued in my life.
Some of the same basic things I wrestled with when I was at camp needing “saved” continue to be relevant, today.
Like, those times when I think things are under control – when I seemed to be “winning in life,” yet don’t notice that in reality things are actually spinning out of control around me or in the lives of my neighbors, or
Those times when the weight of my friendships or relationships have such a deep impact on my life that I don’t understand their complexity and find myself needing to be saved from them, or
Those times I sense the warnings – sometime recognizing them and at other times completely ignoring or missing them – only to find myself crying out for help, or
Those times when I seem to experience life in slow motion – life passing before my eyes, having me wondering what I am to do and how I will get out of this, or
Those times I try hard to cry out for help, but find myself reluctant or unable because of pride, fear, or even privilege – and life quickly takes me down.
Folks, needing “saved” can take on many faces.
And I know when all of those elements come together, they often form the perfect storm – and its then that I have been found in deep despair needing rescued. Crying out to God or anyone who would save me.
I think it is safe to say, we all at times need to be saved.
We need rescued.
We need liberated from those things that oppress and keep us from truly living.
One of the themes that seem to reoccur throughout human and biblical history is this need to be rescued. For some people of faith, that is all religion is about – being rescued from this planet and the suffering here.
But if we go back to the very beginning of the Bible to what scholars believe is where the story of “salvation” or being rescued began – we find the book of Exodus and the rescue from Egypt.
It was Rob Bell in his book, Jesus Wants to Save Christians where I first began to wrestle with what was actually meant by being rescued, liberated, and saved. Rob says,
“Egypt, the superpower of its day, was ruled by Pharaoh, who responded to the threat of the growing number of Israelites in his country by forcing them into slavery.
They had to work every day without a break making bricks, building storehouses for Pharaoh.
Egypt is an empire, built on the backs of Israelite slave labor, brick, by brick, by brick.
But right away in the book of Exodus, there is a disruption. Things change. And the change begins with God saying...
‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people...’
‘I have heard them crying out...’
‘I have come down to rescue them...’”
Now, this is a familiar story that continues to play out throughout our history.
The children of Israel under the oppression of the Egyptian regime, is the story of of the
First Nations people in America
Africans who were brought here enslaved.
Women suffragettes who 100 years ago this year stood up and made their voice heard.
LatinX families in cages on our borders.
The LGBTQ and Stonewall Generation who have been standing up for 50+ years.
All the refugees fleeing oppressive regimes around the world.
But it is also the story of the South Africans during apartheid,
The Jewish people in Nazi Germany,
The people of Rawanda and Darfur during genocide,
The Syrians, and the people of Gaza...oh...and the list never seems to end...
Each oppressed people have cried out to be rescued, from the drowning bondage, the slavery, the abuse, the oppression that kept them from truly living.
Each has and still wants to be saved, liberated, rescued, and free. The cries continue on our streets today, as protests, marches, peaceful demonstrations hold up the voices of the oppressed.
It is as Dr. King once said, “Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.”
And just like that original story from Exodus...God did not simply intervene and change the course of history with a wave of his hand (yes, at times, I believe there were miracles that took place).
But most of the time, God sent a human (one of us) filled with God’s transforming Light to intervene. Just like I believe that lifeguard was sent to rescue me in 5th grade God sent a deliverer named Moses to the people in Egypt.
And if we look carefully at history, God has been sending Light-filled humans to intervene throughout time. From…
Nelson Mandela
Elizabeth Fry
Galileo
Leonardo da Vinci
Mother Theresa
Abraham Lincoln
Rosa Parks
Martin Luther King Jr.
Susan B. Anthony
Gandhi
John Woolman
Harvey Milk
Billy Jean King
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Albert Einstein
Cesar Chavez
Sitting Bull
And the list could go on and on...
God has been raising up ordinary people to intervene, recue, liberate, and help save our neighbors all along.
The reality is, as Rob Bell points out,
“God needs a body. God needs flesh and blood. God needs bones and skin so that Pharaoh will know just who this God is he’s dealing with and how this God acts in the world. And not just so Pharaoh will know but so that all of humanity will know.”
I don’t need to explain this much, you know there have been and currently are many “Pharoah’s” in our world, which, I believe, God is in need of a body to resist and begin the liberation process for those oppressed.
God is calling women and men to be raised up, to bring the Good News, the hope of liberation, and rescue to the people of our world.
This is what I said last week about who we are – we are people who embrace the transforming power of love and the power of nonviolence. When we strive to live this out in our daily lives – not in extraordinary ways but starting with our interactions with family, neighbors, fellow community members – we can begin to make a difference.
People are slaves to many things today.
Maybe someone watching is being called to embrace the transforming power of love and free someone from the oppression of judgement, verbal or physical abuse, or even a Facebook troll.
Maybe someone is being called to embrace the transforming power of love and rescue a friend who is a slave to technology, their work schedule, personal isolation, pornography, or an addiction that is destroying their life.
Maybe someone is being called to embrace the transforming power of love and save a friend from that unhealthy relationship, family member, boss, political ideology, or racist conviction.
Again the list could go on and on...
As Rob Bell states,
“It’s as if God is saying, “The thing that has happened to you – go make it happen for others. The freedom from oppression that you are now experiencing – help others experience that same freedom. The grace that has been extended to you when you were at your lowest – extend it to others. In the same way that I heard your cry, go and hear the cry of others and act on their behalf.”
I think too often we pray or cry out expecting a miracle, or for God to “magically” intervene, and while we are fervently praying or crying out and waiting for a miracle, we are missing our call, our opportunity, our moment where we become the hands and feet of Jesus to our neighbor. Folks, I believe God is wanting to utilize people like you and me - who have needed rescued, liberated and saved ourselves.
Like a life preserver, God wants to use us in his saving process.
I remember once teaching a college class and a student challenged a classmate on her fervent prayers. She said, “You say you continue to pray the same prayer each morning hoping for a change and looking for God to intervene...but have you ever thought that your prayer is a crutch not allowing you to be God’s instrument in the situation? Just maybe God wants to answer that prayer through you.”
The American Church is obsessed with the phrase “Jesus Saves” – but if we are going to see that transformation taking place in the lives of our neighbors, I think we need to go one step further and ask ourselves…
How does Jesus save?
How does Jesus rescue us?
How do we experience the rescue?
It might take a life guard jumping in the water to physically save you.
It might take a teacher educating you.
It might take a friend willing to say “no” to you.
It might take someone reminding you that you are loved.
It might take a welcoming smile.
It might take a person to stand up for your rights.
It might take a person willing to sacrifice their life to get your attention.
Did you know that in the original Aramaic language of Jesus’ day, there was no word for salvation – or “being saved.”
Salvation was understood as a bestowal of life, and to be saved was “to be made alive.”
Civil Rights leader, theologian, and philosopher, Howard Thurman, was a man who understood oppression, who understood what it meant to be rescued or saved in the truest sense – to be made alive. He said,
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go and do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
I am telling you – if we turned off the news and turned to our neighbors and actually came alive and lived out of that transforming power of love – I sense the world would be a way better place – we would bring “salvation” to our neighbors (they too would come alive)!
Also, please hear me on this, I strongly believe if there is ANY oppression in this world, there is still work to do...and as Quakers whose distinctives flow out of equality, peace, integrity, and community we have an obligation to respond.
God is calling us to join the rescue effort.
God is calling us to be liberators of the oppressed!
God is calling us to find ways to lessen the oppression so all people can live together in peace.
So that ALL people can come alive to their full potential.
Quaker Rex Ambler put it this way in Rediscovering the Quaker Way,
“When we open ourselves to the truth of our life, our self-deceptions and denials are revealed, including the false image we have of ourselves, and at the same time we discover the true self that lies behind these images. We discover who we really are, not isolated and apart from others, but one with them, and with life itself. This awareness awakens a great feeling for life, and for others, that we can only call love...We are able to act out of love, that is, out of warm respect for other people and other creatures, so that we want spontaneously to help them and not harm them.”
I am so glad that lifeguard jumped in the water and saved me and my friend. I am so glad that God has called people throughout history to rise up and help our world come alive in the truest sense. And I am happy for people watching today who are being raised up to help, save, rescue, liberate, and bring alive their neighbors, family and friends…because folks, God is wanting to use you in his great plan of salvation, starting TODAY!
Now as we enter a time of waiting worship, ask yourself the following queries...
How am I coming alive in this world, today?
In what area do I need rescued, liberated, or saved?
Who do I know who is living oppressed and needing rescued – that I am being called to join God in helping?