Sermons

November 13th 2005

Angels and Addicts

Reverend Dr Cheri DiNovo

As I speak you will witness some of the faces of our congregation. They are all, each one of them, an angel and an addict. We are all angels and addicts. The ones who see themselves as addicts are angels and addicts and the ones who see themselves as angels are addicts and angels. That is what we all are, we humans. look in our eyes. You will see longing, wisdom, hope, trauma, dreams, love, pain, angels all.

Jesus held out for those beaten down by life and by systems that they could not control, the image of the promised land. Revolutionaries and resisters who are without faith forget that the resistance called civil rights was birthed in Churches, the resistance called solidarity against state communism was birthed in Churches, the resistance against state sanctioned homophobia, started in Churches. We are the fearless inheritors of a faith based on fearlessness. We are Christians. These are our faces. Look in to these eyes.

The parable of the talents speaks of the one who feared and hoarded, a beautiful metaphor for addiction, and addiction can be to money, status, love, sex, food, drugs, gambling, alcohol, work, power, violence, being "good", or to other folk who are angels and addicts themselves, and addiction is fear, fear that says I must hold on to the pathetic inheritance I have received because it’s all I’m ever going to get as contrasted with faith where one can give everything away, even their very lives, for something greater, more worthy, because fear was displaced by Christ. Didn’t he teach us that death has no dominion? If we can be generous with our lives, we can be generous with everything. We have nothing to lose but fear. These are our faces. We have feared. We have hoarded, but we know there is a greater path. We have tasted freedom. That is what makes us angels.

We addicts know what love is. We know in contrast to the culture around us, that love is not something that you catch. It is not a virus. It is a calling and a choice. We are called in to love with those we distrust, those we fear, those who mean us harm, those who mean us well, those we are attracted to, those who frighten us, those who meet us on the streetcar, the street, the workplace, the office, the social gathering, the family function, who we will never meet yet stare up at us from the newspaper, those all, we call brothers and sisters. We don’t care what they say they believe, what faith they subscribe to, what opinions they hold. It is enough for us to know that Christ has invited all to the heavenly feast, to know that means we need to welcome as well. Who are we to keep them away from the holy banquet? These are our faces, we addicts. Look in our eyes.

Christ called us. We are here witnessing this moment because we are the ones given a special ministry. It is the ministry of healing and hope. We are called in to risk, terrifying risk, to live out the dream, to dream the dream, to share the dream and the dream is impossible. The dream is that all of God’s children, all people of faith, will create a new world God being their helper, the divine in their midst, the divine empowering the visioning and the construction, the divine the template and the inspiration. The dream is that a place might exist where everyone can be, where everyone can be celebrated, where everyone can find and give love, because you can’t find love unless you give love, and where everyone can experience freedom from fear. This somewhere and this someplace is here. The dream is that creating it for here and for part of our lives, it will serve as model for the rest of our lives and for the world. We are angels after all. We have loosed our grip on that talent we were so frightened of losing. These are our faces. Look at the dignity in those eyes, look at their beauty.

We know what faith is. It is a choice we make. It is the practice of faith. It is attending Church and hearing the stories of our ancestors wrestling with God, loving God, confronting God, disappointing God, pleasing God, terrified of God, in love with God and one with God. Faith is making their stories, our stories. We are a testament, the newer Testament, the latest addition to canon. Faith is practicing compassion, love in all that we do and say and failing and trying again. Faith is trusting when there is nothing left to trust, hoping when all our hope is lost, praying when we don’t know if anyone is listening. We are listening. We finally trust because every time we arrive, we meet Christ. We meet Christ in our children, in the elderly, in those who give and those who can’t, in words and sounds and dreams and silence, in the crazy and in the realization and absolute freedom in the discovery that we are all crazy here. We’re here aren’t we? Only the crazy would be. These are our faces.

And we gather waiting. And we gather in perfect and loving and generous resistance to all that would tell us that our faces are not beautiful. We join together in an uprising of the spirit to all those who would tell us we are not wise. We may have hoarded and feared but no more. From this moment on we have nothing to be afraid of. We do not fear natural disaster, economic hardship, old age, abandonment, illness, craziness (we’re already crazy) failure, hatred, silence, death. We gather together to confront those who would tell us that we are only angels, that we do not know failure, fear, illness, abandonment, craziness, silence, death. We correct them. We risk everything anyway. We have nothing to lose. Look in those eyes. It is not as if they have not lived through. We’ve already lost everything and gained everything. Here we know Christ and lose the world. These are our faces. See the depth of experience and strength looking back at us.
We know that this is just a stopping place. We know that our task is to gather courage, strength, assurance of love at the ready, the resurrection, the lives of the saints so that we can go from here to there. We the new saints of the new world can meet our lives beyond the doors of this sanctuary, so strong, so loved, so beautiful, so wise, so faithful, so fearless, that nothing and no one can ever, not for a moment, deter us. Neither powers nor principalities, nor things seen or unseen, will keep us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. We look like God. God made us in God’s image. These are our faces.

Finally, what a mission lies before us. Surely we must say to our friends and colleagues, our acquaintances and our fellow workers, how inspiring a task and sure the outcome that lies ahead. For we have a special knowledge. We know humans can live without war. We live in peace here.We know the lakes and soil and air can be cleansed. We live simply here. We know violence and hatred can be overcome. We have overcome them here. We know that Christ can return in the person of the Sikh, the Hindhu, the Jew again, the Buddhist, the Bahai, the Wiccan, the agnositc or the atheist, to test if our love of our neighbour is true. We know it is true. We’ve practiced that here. Every week we gather to witness, to learn how to witness, to rejoice and rage, to cry and laugh, to argue and give up, to be born and die, to marry and divorce, to finally simply pray. With God nothing is impossible. With God nothing is impossible. We gather to witness, enact and be, miracles. 12 people under Roman rule, hunted, tortured, imprisoned, killed overcame the empire. We can overcome the world. We have overcome the world here.

Pray big and pray deep. Pray as if our survival depended on it. Pray for everyone not just for your ones. Pray for the world not just for your world. Pray for heaven on earth. It is our birthright and sooner or later one of our children will walk out of this door and in to heaven on earth because of our prayers. Mark my words this place will still be here and look out over just that world. Nothing less than the New Jerusalem. Nothing less than peace, and freedom and food and homes and meaningful work and equality for all God’s people. Nothing less. And our children or their children or our children’s children will see this. It is not the promised land any more It is the guaranteed land. God, who will you send, we ask? Who will stand up to hatred and selfishness in the workplace, in our families, in our city, country, world? Who, having recovered through You, will heal others? Who will lead that radical restructuring of your earth? Who will lead that crossing of the Jordan? Who will lead that force of love that will sweep all enemies beneath it’s feet. Who will overcome some day? We angels and addicts will oh God of our love, God of our desire, oh brother Christ oh constant companion. We will. Send us oh Lord. These are our faces. See in these eyes the very light of Christ.

Amen