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There is a line in today’s gospel reading that did not sit well on my heart this week. Jesus is gathered with his disciples, teaching them, and he says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” As I read these words over and over, they felt irrelevant. It was like some platitude or advice out of left field. Like Jesus sort of reaching over and patting my hand, “there, there, Lindsay, do not let your heart be troubled.” Ah, yes. Thank you for your well wishes, Jesus, but these days, my heart is troubled.
The state of my soul has fluctuated emotionally over the last couple of months (perhaps that is a diplomatic way to put it). Yes, this is in great part because our daily routine of work and school has been scrambled. We miss seeing our family and friends. Plans we had for this summer have been cancelled. But on top of our personal little world that has been rocked, I’m rattled by other things too: By the number of folks I know whose jobs have been cut or shuttered. About the spread of covid especially in places like prisons and nursing homes. My heart clenches when I see that the driver who has brought our dinner to our door is a slight white haired man named Miguel (according to my phone) with mannerism that reminds me of my father-in-law. I’m unsettled that the county where my extended family is from in rural Nebraska has exponential growth in covid cases from the local Tyson meat packing plant where predominantly immigrants from Somalia work.
My heart is troubled.
I know some of you share this feeling of troubled right now. Some of us have lost family members and loved ones in the last weeks—some have died of old age and others have died tragically but regardless, we can’t mourn for them in a funeral service how we wish we could. And speaking of grief, there’s the heartbreaking story of the young black man, Ahmuad Arbery who’s violent death was swept aside for many weeks until, by chance, incontestable evidence surfaced this week which was grounds to arrest his killers.
Yes, Jesus: My heart is troubled.
They say that we’re all grieving for all the things right now (whoever they are). We grieve for the little things in life that have shifted. We grieve for our dead who we cannot mourn in the way we long to. We grieve because the covid pandemic has forced us to roll back the polished veneer of who we are as a nation and stare systemic inequality in the face.
In 1936, Langston Hughes wrote:
“Let America be America again
Let it be the dream it used to be
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free
(America never was America to me.)”
Sometimes, it can feel hard to figure out how or where God is working and moving in all of this pain, grit and grief of life. Last fall, the movie “Harriet” came out in theaters. It was a dramatization of the life of one of our great historical figures, the abolitionist, Harriet Tubman. The movie mostly chronicles about 10 years of so of Harriet’s life when she escaped slavery and became a conductor on the underground railroad. According to the Smithsonian, a lot of the movie does parallel Harriet’s real life. The grief illustrated in Harriet’s story and in the movie is very real. Her heart was deeply troubled. She experiences the personal grief, agony and rage for her family suffering in slavery, and then a wider grief and anger for a segregated society and for all Black people living in bondage a slavery-infested south.
I find a strong echo of gospel truth in the life and story of Harriet Tubman. Jesus’ words today remind us that in front of a troubled heart, it’s easy to turn inward. But Harriet Tubman, in the face of the cruelty of life, she turned to love. She was passionate, militant, determined. And in it, she was almost ridiculously committed to loving people. Upon obtaining her freedom, she could have stayed in Philadelphia, turned inward, and created a new life for herself but she dedicated her life outward to the abolitionist movement, to loving people.
Looking at the gospel story for today, Jesus and the disciples are in a terrible situation saturated with grief, fear and pain. Judas has just fled from the meal, Jesus has just told everyone that Peter will abandon him, there is civil unrest as people are exploited under the thumb of Rome, there is danger in the air, Jesus knows that he will soon die (and he will be violently executed by the state). Their souls are deeply troubled. Jesus knows this and offers them words of comfort. Into that night of fear and grief, Jesus’ disciples could have turned inward, hidden, isolated themselves, protected themselves and faded into history. Instead, Jesus tells them to lean into love. “Love one another,” Jesus says. “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
Grief and love, when we open our hearts, are so often two sides of the same coin. They co-exist together. Sometimes, when someone dies, it can inspire people to love more deeply: to set up a scholarship fund in memory of someone, to dedicate ourselves to a particular kind of service or raise money in or memory of the deceased. We can either respond to grief by isolating ourselves, by focusing on protecting ourselves, and intentionally drift away from the social realities that are going on in the world, or we can lean into love.
Culturally, leaning into love isn’t always our forte. In times of crisis, we panic, we look inward, we demonize others, we self-righteously claim our positions. Anyone can critique another group that’s out there. But as people of God in times of grief and heartache, we are called to love, to run towards the needs of our society, to love others as we love ourselves.
Harriet Tubman died as an old woman in her 90s. Her last words, were a quote from today’s gospel reading. As she died, the last thing she said was, “I go to prepare a place for you” which is echoed in the last line of the theme song, “Stand Up” from the movie “Harriet” that I mentioned earlier.
Sometimes, we think of that “place that Jesus prepares for us” as a bright, shiny room for us up in the sky somewhere. While I do think that God does prepare a place for us where we will eternally be with him one day, we are cutting the gospel way short if we think that is the whole story. I think Harriet Tubman brought heaven to earth to prepare a place, in the name of Jesus, where all people were free from the bondage of slavery. And in the face of grief? that is the face of love.
I think that the disciples of Jesus Christ, after he died and rose and ascended, in the face of grief and pain and heartache, they brought heaven to earth and sowed seeds of the first Christian communities where each person in society had a place at the table. A place where there was neither jew nor Greek, nor male nor female, neither slave nor free, where there was room for us all. In the disciples grief and pain, that is the face of love.
I think that we are called as a church—as Christians--out of our grief and heartache, to prepare a place of anti-racism, of equality, of economic justice of safety from abuse. To show up and bring heaven to earth because that is the face of love.
Next week, we’re going to tell you more about a match that we have set up of several thousand dollars for our local food pantry: It’s a need in our midst that is acute, And we’re going to respond. I know that we have folks who Volunteer at this food pantry, and who are also doing important work at some of the other pantries which is so important. Offering money is important, critical in these times of economic disparity, but so is taking a hard look at our history and systemic injustice which we are also called to as a church. And in our grief and pain, that is the challenging face of love.
The last stanza of the song, “Stand Up,” from the movie “Harriet” which Cynthia Erivo sings is:
I'm gonna stand up
Take my people with me
Together we are going
To a brand new home
Far across the river
I hear freedom calling
Calling me to answer
Gonna keep on keepin' on
I can feel it in my bones
I go to prepare a place for you
I go to prepare a place for you
I go to prepare a place for you
I go to prepare a place for you
In your grief, in this moment when our hearts are troubled, what is the place that you are called to prepare?
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