This Season of Lent, Tariffs and Change

By Rev. Alice Hanson

Isaiah 43: 16-21

Philippians 3

John 12: 1-8

It wasn’t long ago that I shared with you a service where I focused on hope in a difficult, discouraging time, highlighting the struggle and challenging us to live the Christian calling from 1Cor 13 which said: three things remain – faith, hope and love – and the greatest of these is love. Brain McLaren had reminded us that yes, when hope seems so far away, so dim, then default to the way of love in each day.

Discouraging times, political disruptions, social challenges, wars, hostages, homelessness, hunger, these realities face us every day. The chaos we experience now, the uncertain times, some more impacted than others, leaves us uncomfortable, even lost, drifting, looking for an anchor in the midst of the storm we find ourselves caught up in. We have lost our sense of safety and security. What we could trust was always there for us seems to be no more. Our church season of lent seems a fitting metaphor of the external reality around us.

A friend of mine who as long as I have known her would walk, even organized the team of walkers from TUC, for The Coldest Night of the Year. This year I noticed her name missing on the list of walkers and wondered why. Her response expressed so much of what many of us have been experiencing – the Lenten wilderness time of wandering, uncertain of next steps. She just felt lost and wanted to sort out what was going on inside. We know that what goes on outside is dismantling us inside too.

Changes – those uncomfortable disruptions along our journeys – are a universal reality for the human experience and they call for constant adjustments, revisions, shifts. We don’t like them. Some changes are accompanied by fear and anger, some withdrawal. Some changes have come in the form of dramatic shifts, sometimes abruptly, sometimes spontaneously, sometimes gradually, slowly. Can they transform our lives? Will we let our wilderness journey transform us into a new people, more mature, growing in love than before we began this journey?

Diana Butler Bass talks about the great ruptures, fissures in history in the last century that have turned our worlds as we know it upside down. The major ruptures she identified came with gift as well as challenge. In the early 20th C society sought safety as World War 1 threatened life at that time; alliances were formed and reformed, lives were lost; greater peace finally followed …for a while… only to be followed by another significant rupture in society WW2 forcing us to seek security in the form of nuclear disarmament, environmental protections, just a couple examples. She identified 9/11 as another great rupture that dismantled our assumptions of security – 9/11 proved to be a false security, breaking down our trust in in our national and global institutions set in place to keep us safe – leaving us struggling once more, dismantling once more all we had trusted.

2025 Now we seem to be facing another major eruption in the form of threatening neonationalism, our very legal and democratic processes and institutions challenged. The rising nationalism is embedded in the philosophy that Might makes right and political powers are imposing their will on others regardless of borders. IS there a gift here, now, somewhere, in what is going on around us? Could these questions of safety and security be inviting us to another transformation?

Could these difficult times be inviting us to turn to one another, to reconnect, to stand strong together. We had lost so much of our communal connections as individualism and personal rights were idealized in recent decades. We have learnt that we do not stand strong alone. Just maybe together we can be channels of change, of hope, of a better way, the way of justice, dignity, safety and security for all, regardless of colour, nationality, creed, or gender. It is time, and as historians have noted it has been in every generation it seems, today we are challenged once more to reject the spirit of manipulation, dominations and the assumption that might makes right. It is time to see all living things, all peoples and nations as belonging together, in love, in care.

This call to connection is a personal one, a faith calling, a calling for our churches and our communities, for every circle of God’s beloved people. It begins with our connection with God, Creator and the redeeming, living Presence in Christ and through his Spirit, a loving connection with self and with one another.

We know that relationship is what gives life: relationship with God, with the Christ among us today, with the earth, with each other and with our deepest selves. Relationships of every kind offer vitality, in community and in our personal lives. It is the place where we as human beings flourish. Its call reaches out to peoples and nations around the world. It is always expanding and stretching us more and more along the path of an inclusive love. Can you sense your connectedness with another, not only in the way you are alike but also in the way you’re different? Could that connection, the reaching out to others despite differences be what love calls us into now?

Ask yourself: What might this call to connect look like for you right here, in this place? Who in your own personal life, your faith life, are you called to reconnect with? What might this call to connect look like for this faith community, WUC? Who is WUC being called to build new connections with? The invitation goes out beyond this circle to the United Church as a whole. What new connections are we as the United Church being called into in our centennial year?

We turn now to the wisdom in our Scripture Readings for this Sunday, first to the Hebrew reading from Isaiah. Richard Rohr recently in his Lenten series on the prophets, reminded his readers that:

“There is a deep need, then and now, for someone who would call the people to return to God and to justice. Someone who would warn them, critique them, and reveal God’s heart to them. We call them prophets, and every religion needs them.”

Reading 1: Isaiah 43: 16-21

As the prophet Isaiah did in his time, this reading reminds us today to remember the One who created you, who fashioned you, who has called you – challenges us to set aside the past that is not helpful, to let go of our fears, and know that I am with you - Notice Isaiah’s beautiful poetic images …when you pass through the seas…over the rivers…through fire…I will be with you. You are precious to me. Open your eyes, open your ears…gather the people together…I am in the midst of you… Isaiah invites us to let go of what holds us back … to connect … trust in the new thing the Spirit is doing now it springs forth…can’t you see it and once more, as the Creator has multitudinous times before in history, once more my way will usher in a time of blessing.

Reading 2: Philippians 3

This early church story lifts the centrality of the Christ way, the way of transformation and resurrection as Paul, the apostle, turned his old path of justice based on law into a new justice based of love for the most vulnerable in society. A black American pastor recently (Dante Stewart in Shoutin’ in the Fire) in his article in Broadview reminds us all that Justice without love is legalism and Love without justice is sentimentality. Love and Justice must be finally woven, like a marriage. Paul too in this scripture reading lifted up a better way – the way of Christ, pushing on towards a new future. This path took courage, it took determination, and this path was founded in a sure faith in the gospel of love known in the man Jesus.

Reading #3 takes us to the gospel reading for today.

Jesus ushered in a whole new way of being for the those who heard his message – His calling was the way of radical love, of relentless, courageous, defiant love that challenged the political and religious authorities of his time and eventually led to his death. In this Lenten time, we have heard the stories of fishermen leaving their nets to choose a better way of being in the world, a better path than submission to Rome. We have heard stories from the hillside teaching love and care for poor, even for enemies…. those who are different… Jesus challenged his listeners to show acts of care beyond societal expectations and to stand up for the marginalized. We have heard the story of the Jesus’ mandate in Luke 4; here the true nature of God as loving, compassionate and just transformed Jesus ministry and continues to transform us to see with new eyes the vulnerable in our world. His stories and his life were about love, forgiveness, and mercy, not hatred, revenge and judgement. The Christ message then is so urgent for us as followers today. We must ask ourselves: What is our part in living the message of love and kindness today?

Read John 12: 1-8

Here in John 12, we find Jesus visiting friends, the home of Mary and Martha, in the town of Bethany. I have always loved this story – the story of a woman who loved much, who, sensing the atmosphere of conflict out in the streets, even there among the friends of Jesus, sensing the potential threat to Jesus’ life by political authorities, pours her love out for Jesus, lifting up the costly ointment and anointing Jesus’ feet. Her extravagant love, such a costly expression of service fills the entire house, inviting all the guests into this act. But there is more here in this woman’s act of love. Mary’s actions are called into question, challenged by another’s questionable motives. The reference to the poor among us only confirms the central importance the vulnerable in society had for Jesus. Instead, Jesus lifts up Mary’s extravagant, loving act of service. It is a story of a deep intimate connection. Her story raises the question for us: “What will love have you do?”, as an individual, as a community?

It was a question that Bishop Budde – the woman who led Trump’s inaugural service and challenged him to see the lepers in today’s society, the immigrants and the LGBTQ society through a different lens - asked herself and all the followers of Jesus and it cost her dearly. To see and live out our connections in love will take courage and a deep love.

What does this look like for us? How can we respond in love from day to day?

Rosemerry Trommer who wrote “Even in a Time of Intolerance” suggests that you and I can ‘change the world’ one kind act at a time:

There is, in an overfull classroom,

a woman teaching not only history,

but compassion. There’s a barista

making hearts in the foam

of every cappuccino she serves.

There’s man helping another man

on crutches as he struggles to cross

the icy street. There’s a library room full of women

chanting about praying for their enemy.

There are students raising money

to help those with breast cancer and AIDS.

Two girls are laughing for the joy of laughing

’til their faces are tear-streaked

and their ribs and bellies are sore.

There’s a poet who pours courage and music

into every word she shares with the world.

And another woman hears those words

and thinks, “Me. That poet is talking to me.”

This is how we change the world one kind act,

one true word, one long laugh at a time. Because

now, that woman is ablaze with wondering:

What is my part in shifting the story?

— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “Even in a Time of Intolerance”

One small act of love, of joy, of wisdom and of courage at a time.

Summary

Let’s be renewed in the commitment to move forward in a better way, the way of extravagant love because our world today needs this message more than ever. Know deep within you that you do not step forward alone – the Spirit is with us ever inviting us into loving care and service one for another and together. We don’t know where this Lenten journey will take us but walking with each other… What possibilities may wait for us!

From Black Rock Prayer Book (quoted by Diana Butler Bass “Opening a way when there is no way”)

The world now is too dangerous

and too beautiful for anything but love.

May your eyes be so blessed you see God in everyone.

Your ears, so you hear the cry of the poor.

May your hands be so blessed

that everything you touch is a sacrament.

Your lips, so you speak nothing but the truth with love.

May your feet be so blessed you run

to those who need you.

And may your heart be so opened,

so set on fire, that your love,