Reality Check
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, November 10, 2024, the 25th Sunday after Pentecost and the Sunday following the presidential election.
Texts: Psalm 46; Matthew11:28-30
One of the things that has become even more clear to me in the past several days is that people in America are living and choosing and voting guided by radically different narratives about what is real in our country. The narratives couldn’t be more different. I believe that people who cast votes for the winning side believe they are doing something good for the country or for their community or for their family. I believe that many were voting from a place of frustration and pain. I don’t blame them for acting on the information they have received from news organizations and religious leaders or for doing what they thought was best. I have grave concerns about the sources of their information and the virulence with which some reject other perspectives, sources, and verified facts. I fear that many don’t know what they’ve done. I know that they would readily say all the same about me. But I don’t blame or hate them because they are my neighbors and among them are people I love dearly.
And their narrative of what is real in our country and my narrative of what is real in our country are very, very different.
This can make reality seem slippery—like the Twilight Zone—and it can cause a sense of disorientation and confusion. Like when someone says 2 plus 2 equals 17. I find myself grappling with questions like, How can a singular unkind word slipping out from one side be perceived to do so much damage and make headlines when a constant stream of ugly, dehumanizing speech on the other side is passed over with a shrug and a grin? How can people be made to believe that a violent insurrection was “a day of love?” How can good people lift to the highest seat of power a person who has shown himself to be unfit to serve in every way? This last is a question that I have observed many trying to answer over the past several days. I won’t try to catalogue the list of responses.
But because I refuse to normalize the cruelty and bullying expressed by the president-elect or ignore or shrink from naming what is factually real so to avoid the risk of backlash, I will hold on to my own sanity by naming some things in this sacred space. Here are some things that I believe are real:
The United States of America has a heart disease; the soul of our nation is wounded; the fabric of our common life is torn; the president-elect has demonstrated authoritarian and dictatorial tendencies; Christian nationalism is a cancer among us; exit polls reveal real fault lines around race and class forged from our nation’s founding; racism and white supremacy are real; sexism is real; homophobia and transphobia are real; Project 2025 is real and most Americans (including myself) don’t know enough history to understand the full impact at home and abroad should it be implemented; cheap gas isn’t cheap—our planet will pay dearly; immigrant neighbors are in danger; prisons for profit—already an immoral industry—are seeing a surge in their stock prices; women’s lives are in danger; LGBTQ rights are in danger; anyone who has spoken out against the president-elect is a target.
It’s real that when the cause of justice and mercy advances—as in the days of mobilization and education around racial justice following the murder of George Floyd in 2020—the empire always strikes back;
It’s real that while there are so many who are feeling relief and joy at the outcome of the election, there is so much fear, sadness, disappointment, and anguish in this room and in the nation and world following the election outcome. And there is deep weariness; because we know, first-hand, the chaos that is on the horizon and are wise enough to realize that we’re not just talking about four years.
There are many other things that you would add—things that are real and real hard and real scary and real disappointing and real sad.
And acknowledging all these things is important not just for the sake of sanity, but as an act of lament, as a prophetic practice of naming the pain that is real for us and for others, of giving voice to what is unjust. All of this is part of sacred resistance. The pain is real. The challenges are real.
Yet as people of faith we know that pain, injustice, and struggle are not the only reality. And as I remind us regularly in the words of poet Jack Gilbert, “To make injustice the only/ measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.” In days like these, sacred resistance calls us to both name the pain AND not lose touch with what is good, beautiful, and true.
Because, honestly, if we can’t keep hold of what is good, we can get swallowed up in our fear and dread and anger. If we don’t stay anchored in God’s love and compassion and power, we will get swept away by the hurtful words and actions of others and risk becoming the very thing we hate. If we fail to pay attention to the beauty around us—the people who care, the song of birds, the cat that yawns in the sunbeam, the laughter of children, the colors of the setting sun, the act of kindness, the moment of grace—then we leave ourselves open to bitterness and ugliness invading our hearts. If we forget what is really real, what is most true, then we might fall into despair in the face of falsehood and gaslighting and cruelty and injustice and all the rest. The work of sacred resistance is to hold more than one stream of reality together—both the pain and the promise. It is not to ignore or diminish the existence of evil, but to remember what is also real: that God gives us freedom and power to resist it.
I don’t know all the ways we may be called upon to resist in the months and years to come, but here is what I do know: kindness is resistance, decency is resistance, telling the truth is resistance, joy is resistance, rest is resistance, patience is resistance, persistence is resistance, being willing to rise every morning choosing to care and to do what you can is resistance, listening is resistance, reconciliation is resistance, love is resistance.
Jesus came into the world—in a time and place of violence and injustice—and showed us how to live in the freedom and power God gives to resist evil and to stay anchored in the love of God.
And today he says to us, “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
The yoke Jesus talks about is his teaching and way of life. It’s a metaphor based on the wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plow or cart that they are to pull. Yokes were carved carefully to fit the animal who would be using the device; a carefully made yoke would rest well on the shoulders and wouldn’t bind or blister. The Greek word for “easy” (chréstos) can also mean “well-fitting.” The well-fitting yoke was used to make carrying a burden or pulling a load easier. And the yoke allowed two animals to share a load, thus lightening the load for both.
Jesus invites us to put on his “yoke,” the way of life he taught and embodied, as a way to lighten our heavy load and to find rest for our souls. It is a way of life guided from start to finish by the great commandment to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbor as ourself. Jesus’ embodiment of love that preaches good news to the poor, healing for the wounded ones, freedom for the captives, mercy, compassion, and peace for a bruised world, gentleness, humility, and justice in our relationships with one another—this, Jesus says, is the yoke that’s “easy,” that’s a good fit for our most human shape. And Jesus’ yoke—Jesus’ way of life—binds us to one another, commits us to one another, connects us, yokes us. That means that we don’t have to confront evil, carry the burdens of life, or do the work of sacred resistance alone. We are yoked with Jesus and with each other. And—get this: whenever we invite Jesus into our life, he brings all his friends with him. And Jesus is friends with people you love AND with those you’ve blocked or who’ve blocked you on social media. It makes me think of what French poet Charles Péguy wrote, “We must be saved together. We cannot go to God alone; else God would ask, ‘Where are the others?’” We are yoked…
The yoke of Jesus is not “easy” in the sense of being easy to do. But is rather the way of life that is fit to be called truly human: it is a way of life that is gracious, loving, generous, and just.
It is OK to sit in lament for a while, to name the pain, to cry out against injustice, to feel all the feels. Jesus did the same. Yet Jesus’ lament didn’t lead to violence or hatred against anyone. Even from the cross he asked God to forgive those who were killing him saying, “they do not know what they are doing.” (Lk 23:34) Jesus didn’t become bitter or numb or cynical, but rather clung to God and sought to do God’s will even when he wanted the cup to be removed from him. (Lk 22:42) If we live the yoke of Jesus, we don’t hate or do violence, nor do our own hearts become bitter or numb. We, like Jesus, may find ourselves targeted or attacked as we seek to do what is right—even by people we love. But our souls can find rest and peace in knowing that we are seeking to be humble and gentle and to love God and neighbor even when it’s hard.
For days, I’ve thought of the exchange between Frodo and Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings when Frodo says, “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.” And Gandalf replies, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
This is the time given to us. And today we don’t need to have a strategy or all the answers to our questions. It’s enough to simply acknowledge and ground ourselves in what is real.
So here’s your reality check: Things are hard and are going to get harder. But you need not be afraid. Because God is with you, a very present help in trouble. God will never leave nor forsake you and will lead you in the ways of peace with justice. When you feel overwhelmed you can be still and know that God is God and you are not, you can lay down your heavy burdens trusting in Jesus’ compassion. Oh, my dear friends, we serve a God who makes a way out of no way and brings new life out of death, a God who gives us power to live and love like Jesus even when it’s hard, who gives our lives meaning and purpose and guards our hearts from hatred and bitterness. We are yoked to one another as Foundry Church and in partnership with countless other people and communities and will continue to practice sacred resistance. And that means that if they’re coming for the most vulnerable they’ll have to come through us; and it means that we will remember that love and kindness and compassion and patience and forgiveness and good food and friends and music and tenderness and babies and solidarity and puppies and sunrises are just as real as all the chaos and injustice in the world—and they are more beautiful, powerful, and true.
Today our lament is real. But that’s not the only reality. Today God’s love is real and all day long God is working for good in our lives and in our nation and in our world. And because of that, even today, hope is real, too. Thanks be to God.
