In just over a week, we will come upon a transition day in the calendar that the Celts call Imbolc. Imbolc is that day half way between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. This year it is on Feb. 1. It is a day about the first stirrings of spring, and is a time to remember we are slowly, but methodically, moving through the dark and into the light.
I once heard a Druid commentator say that Imbolc was established at a time when survival through the winter wasn’t a given. The ancients hoped they’d have enough food stored up from the previous growing season to feed them all winter. The festival of Imbolc was more than ceremonial. It signaled the possibility that because we’ve made it thus far, we can make it all the way into spring. A new growing season. We’ve come 6 weeks since the dead of winter – we can make it six more weeks. They understood that like any long term goal – 2 six-week stints is easier than one 12-week stint.
In essence, at Imbolc we are not out of the darkness, but we are further along in the journey to the light than we have been all winter. Even in the midst of this bitter cold snap, one of our pastors noted on Friday that, ‘hey the days are getting longer. The sun is still out. And so we are reminded, Spring will come.
Our Isaiah and Matthew texts today have some of that same feel. Isaiah 9’s context is the dark backdrop of the Assyrian invasion and oppression in ancient Israel . The year is 732 BCE, ten years before the northern kingdom of Israel, including Galilee, was pulverized and plundered by the Assyrian war machine. Fear was real and justified.
The First Nations version of Matthew frames Isaiah’s words this way, ‘the ones who sit in darkness, where death casts a great shadow, have seen a light of a new sunrise.’
In Matthew, Jesus is pulling forward Isaiah’s promise into the present because his life has grown and evolved to meet yet another longing and another birthing. It could be that John’s arrest was the catalyst. Amidst fear and anger, Jesus gathers two sets of brothers, calling them to follow him. He is laying the foundation for a movement of faithful, compassionate love. His movement, like that of Isaiah’s, will not be overcome by Empire. Like Isaiah, Jesus is pointing to something that no empire can destroy.
This text seems to fit life in Minneapolis, and life in America, like a glove. In the deep dark descent into a country in chaos, we are longing for light. We are yearning for a new sunrise. Tammy and I live a few blocks from where Renee Good was killed two and a half weeks ago. We have a friend who witnessed it. We are a mile from the second ICE killing yesterday of Alex Pretti. Our daughter in law works as a nurse at the same VA hospital where he worked. Our days, filled with the sounds of ICE raids several times a day, have been an emotional and spiritual roller coaster
Solidarity Brass, a grassroots band that arose and still practices weekly on the site of George Floyd’s murder, brought their horns and their voices to the site of Renee Good’s murder one night and led us all in singing, dancing and caring for one another. At one point, one of the singers invoked his ancestors and invited us all to invoke our ancestors. We need their wisdom and compassion and commitment to justice, he said. Their bravery and their courage.
I loved his wisdom even as I clutched this whistle. I’ve used this whistle many times to announce the presence of ICE. It is 50 years old and came from my mom who used it while teaching young children to swim for decades. She was the same mom who advocated and organized for girls sports, organized educational opportunities for at-risk youth, who welcomed strangers of all kinds into our home and embodied love and compassion that still inspires me 20 years after her death.
Isaiah and Matthew offer us the same thing. In the face of a brutal and unleashed empire, we invoke the wisdom of the ancients suffering under Assyrian rule, of the disciples under Roman rule, of our own civil rights leaders from 2 generations ago suffering under Jim Crow rule. We invoke our mothers and fathers and radical aunties and long haired youth directors. We invoke beloved teachers, public and private figures who have faced death or death dealing empire behavior but have none the less proclaimed light and love.
Before yesterday’s additional violence, I was prepared to proclaim and claim the light of compassion. But I realized something last night. I am not feeling that hope. Not in Minneapolis, not in this country, I am not able to embody that trust. I am not used to this feeling, but it is real. I don’t think I’m alone.
One of the curiosities of the Matthew text is that it reads
“Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee.
He left Nazareth – his home town – and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali.”
I am grateful to Nathan, one of our CCR pastors, for noting this often overlooked journey detail in the text yesterday. I am not sure what this means, but this is how I am making sense of it today. I am thinking Jesus went from a place set apart right into the land that symbolized deep darkness. Into the heart of a place that for centuries had symbolized death, chaos, grief and shadow to say, “You are not alone. You are grieving John’s imprisonment, you are in despair that once again empire has quashed hope, but you are not alone.”
Could it be that Jesus wanted to say, in very dramatic terms, “I know right now you don’t believe light will come, That’s okay. I am here with you. I don’t know when light will break, but I am with you, your Holy God is with you, and honestly, we need to create a movement of people who embody this for each other.
This is the holy word of grace I am hearing every day of late. In texts and calls, emails and voice memos, every day. “You all in Minneapolis are not alone. We love you. We are praying with you. Maybe our day will come, but right now, the death dealing chaos is swirling among you. We see you. We see hate and cruelty. We won’t look away.” Holy, precious, graceful presence.
In the midst of writing this homily, I went from one proclaiming hope to one needing someone else to stand nearby and quietly hold hope for me. What I think those of us in despair need now is fewer bold proclamations of hope, and more of this faithful accompaniment of others. Let hope find its way, but don’t leave our side. Don’t leave us alone.
Please know, this isn’t just about me, this isn’t just about Minneapolis. This is us all. This is about the power of community, the power of gentle but fierce companionship. In all of our lives for all the ways we are connected to God’s people and God’s creation.
Isn’t this what the journey of faith is -holding hope for each other. Knowing that today I need your hope and tomorrow you may need mine. And in a week we will both draw on that sacred and bad ass ancestor who holds hope for both of us.
We all need the quiet and comforting presence of Jesus at our side in our despair. And despair comes to all of us – personally, relationally, socially. We need to embody Jesus’ presence for each other until that moment when we can reclaim for ourselves.
We cannot, nor need not, bear this alone.
(I then invited Erin Marth, a pastor from Des Moines to lead this song)
Amen.