STANDING IN THE SHADOWS
Rev. Dr. Joyce Antila Phipps
Old First Church November 7, 2021
Texts: 1 Kings 17: 8-24; Mark 12: 38-44
Every year about this time we start getting the charity pitches. They are usually aimed at our heart strings: photos of emaciated children, desperate looking mothers, and occasionally a smiling child in a school built with charitable donations. The need doesn’t just seem to be overwhelming; it is overwhelming. And as we think of the Advent and Christmas season to come, we all wonder how we will be able to fill those stockings of our expectations which have been dampened by the pandemic crisis we continue to face in the United States and the world. We feel the need during hard times to batten down the hatches, draw in and circle the wagons. The question remains whether that is indeed the best approach to the situation we face as a nation or as the community of faith here in Middletown.
The pandemic certainly created a more than a difficult economic time. Although most difficult economic times usually lead to hard decisions that people make and not just whether to buy that totally useless something made in China. Not buying something usually reflects a response to what’s in the wallet or the credit card balance that hangs over our lives. Other kinds of decisions are made that reflect how fearful people are about the future. For instance, there was a little noticed story about a drop in the birth rate in the United States. Prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, many countries in Eastern Europe did not have a birth rate sufficient to replace their population, a response to the combination of political repression and economic difficulties. We don’t have the political repression but in these times the substantial drop in the birth rate reflects the uncertainty that people feel about the future.
Back in the shadows are the people who have lost more than any of us. Many are living more frugally, to be sure, but I daresay that no one here is starving. Most of us are pinching dollars rather than pennies. We consider whether a purchase is really necessary and act accordingly. But standing in the shadows are the families with eviction notices and foreclosed homes with little recourse. They, like many of us, relied on “the economy” to carry them and have found “the economy” failed them as it has failed us.
In their book, The Soprano State: New Jersey’s Culture of Corruption, Bob Ingle and Sandy McClure, two veteran reporters, discuss the way that developers, builders, politicians of both parties -- including those right here in Monmouth County -- have wet the sands of political decision making as the tide wets the beach, soaking into every little bubble hole even as the corruption appears to recede. There hasn’t been a week over the past year that we have not read about some official or other arrested for corruption. Corruption exists across party lines. And who suffers? The people in the shadows because the ripple effect of that corruption was overreaching construction of the McMansions that dot what used to be farmland. Hand in hand the culture of more, more, more and cheap money put people in homes they would lose in a tank-out of the economy. The people in the shadows, the people who have lost jobs, then homes; they are the ones who suffer.
The question for us as a community of faith is our response. None of us here in this room have the power to “cure” it; indeed, I daresay that the President does not possess the power to “cure” it. But we do have the power to make a difference in the lives of the people around us. Making that difference is more than just giving the last two mites as did the widow who, by the way, found herself in that position because she had been exploited by the very people who had been chosen to carefully care for her. There are more than a few parallels here because in a very real way we, too, have been betrayed by those who held power and who exploited us.
Our situation is more like the widow in the traditional story of Elijah and the jar of meal and cruse of oil that were not spent. Spent! What a great word to describe the emptying of the larder. Elijah has asked her for bread and some water. At first, she just is resigned to her fate: she and her son will eat that last meal and then die. Imagine her as the refugees fleeing deforestation in Honduras or climate catastrophe in Guatemala.
They are just as thin and emaciated as that photo from Somalia that I can never, ever forget: the child is ready to keel over and the vulture is just watching and waiting. But then Elijah tells her: No! This is not your fate! And although he is only telling her to make the bread, it is like NGO workers giving refugee women and children hope that something will really change; they just need to have faith and band together. They can change their lives.
Just as Jesus’ comment about the widow referred to the culture of corruption around her, so, too, Elijah took on the corruption that existed in his time. Don’t forget that Elijah was out there preaching against Ahab and Jezebel and was in fear for his life. Changing lives means taking on the powers and principalities, the corrupters.
We have so much more than emaciated refugees. We can change things by pulling together as a community, rather than just muddling about in isolation. Those early settlers who forged a new life in this community pulled together in hard times; that’s what got them through the hard times.
When the old 18th century building burned down, the members of this church all pledged little bits of money towards rebuilding it. Each one pledged what was an enormous sum in those days. Five dollars, three dollars -- that was a week’s pay. And this building stands as the tribute of a community that pulled together.
I’m going to make a proposal. Each of us has something in our home that is gathering dust or that we haven’t used for some time. It could be a pot or a basket, or a scarf that has been sitting in the drawer, but we just haven’t had the common sense to unload it. We think, we will wait until we have more to donate to the Calico Cat. It seems strange to only take one or two items over there. It could be some cooking utensil that we will never use again because we don’t cook every day for a family of four or six anymore. I know what you’re all thinking: Thank God we don’t have to cook like that anymore.
Let’s take a Sunday, say, December 12, and bring the item or items. We’ll sort them out package them up for the Calico Cat. A little thing, but it will make a difference in someone’s life. This is what faith is all about: making that difference because faith is about being generous to others as God has been generous to us. And, then, let’s work to pull the people who stand in the shadows out into the light by committing ourselves to just, fair, and humane policies on affordable housing, health care, immigration, and jobs.
Let us pray: Holy One, who watches over those standing in the shadows, empower and embolden us to create a society where all can live in the light of your love and your grace. Amen.