May 11, 2025 – Fourth Sunday of Easter
Romans 5.1-5
Ephesians 4.11-16
Matthew 5.9
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Fourth Sunday of Easter
I want to start this morning sharing something that is both personal and professional. It’s something I’ve said to a number of you individually, but you all deserve to hear my thinking about it. In the past six months I find I’ve had two very different reactions to November’s election, one reflexive, one reflective. The reflexive one was the obvious: when I learned the results, I thought to myself, “Well, I won’t have to think of another sermon topic for the next four years,” because it would create a rich harvest of low-hanging sermonic fruit ripe for picking and viewing through the eyes of faith. I figured I could coast straight through to 2029. The reflective reaction, however, led in a different direction because I’ll be darned if I’m going to let this guy dictate the direction of my sermons every week. It is a fine line I’ve been attempting to negotiate ever since; as the idiom has it, it is like being caught between a rock and a hard place.
On his return from the Trojan Wars, Odysseus was warned by the enchantress Circe about a treacherous sea passage he faced. In order to arrive home safely, Odysseus must thread the needle between two monsters that occupy a narrow strait. Hidden in a seaside cave to starboard is the six-headed monster Scylla. As Homer writes in his epic The Odyssey, “[Scylla] has a dozen feet, all deformed, six enormously long necks with a horrific head on each of them, and three rows of teeth packed close together, full of murky death… No sailors yet can boast they and their ship sailed past her without disaster. Each of Scylla’s heads carries off a man, snatching him away.” If this were not enough, to Odysseus’ portside, the danger is worse: it is the home of a living whirlpool, the “divine Charybdis [who] sucks black seawater down. She spews it out three times a day, and then three times a day she gulps it down… may you never meet her when she swallows! Nothing can save you from destruction then, not even Poseidon, Shaker of the Earth.” So this is Odysseus’ choice if he hopes to make it home safely: sail too close to Scylla and she’ll snatch and devour at least six of your crew; sail too close to Charybdis and your entire ship will be sucked down into the watery vortex – and by the way, there is no safe middle passage. The sailor is forced to choose between two extremely undesirable options, both fraught with danger. If Odysseus weren’t at sea, we might say he and his crew were caught between a rock and a hard place.
So you might say that since November I have been feeling stuck between the Scylla of allowing the administration to determine our sermonic voyage for the next four years and the Charybdis of ignoring it entirely and getting sucked into the pretense that all is well with the world. Where is Circe when you need her?
Fortunately, we do not sail alone. With God as our North Star, a veritable crew of canny and capable colleagues, and above all the partnership of all of you, we sail on together.
Earlier this week I received a pastoral epistle of sorts from the Executive Minister of the Southern New England Conference, The Rev. Darrell Goodwin, who brings an encouraging message, not just for us clergy, but I think for all of us as people of faith. Darrell begins,
“Grace and peace to you in the name of the One who renews our strength. We are living in a season that demands much of us as pastors, as leaders, as people of faith. The weight of the world presses hard: war and injustice, political division, spiritual fatigue, and fear that seems to rise with every headline. And yet, here we are: called, chosen, and still standing – in the pulpit, at the bedside, in the community, and at the communion table.”
And, practiced preacher that he is, Darrell offers three “anchor truths drawn from scripture and from our common calling.” Our three brief Bible passages today provide a navigational chart of sorts to help us sail through difficult waters in days when dangerous seas threatens to overtake us. These are Darrell’s three lodestars: 1) Hope is not optional – it is our responsibility. 2) Truth-telling is sacred work – but it must be done in love. And 3) Civility is a spiritual practice. 1) Hope is not optional – it is our responsibility. 2) Truth-telling is sacred work – but it must be done in love. And 3) Civility is a spiritual practice.
Paul wrote to the Roman Christians, “We boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” In other words, hope does not preclude suffering, but is often born through it. We are not a sentimental people, Darrell writes, we are a resurrection people. Today is the fourth Sunday in the season of Easter – you might say we are in the very heart of resurrection season. Where we might otherwise grow world-weary, Paul reminds us to hold a space for holy endurance. And in the proc ss we may not only claim that hope for ourselves, but also become beacons of hope for those who may be foundering on the shoals of hopelessness. Affliction produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.
In his letter to the Ephesians Paul reminds us of the power and necessity of truth-telling. “We must no longer be children,” he wrote, “tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming” – the apostle sounds like he read this morning’s newspaper – “but speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into the One who is the head, into Christ.” I appreciate Darrell’s twist on this verse, that truth-telling is sacred work and it must be done in love. The temptation is strong to weaponize righteousness, to either imply or insist that since right is on our side anyone who disagrees with us is by definition wrong, immoral or just plain corrupt. Not so. Truth spoken in love, with courage and humility, with clarity and compassion, is both powerful and persuasive. It is sacred work, and we who are doing our best to live out God’s truth – sometimes haltingly, but trying, always trying – must live it out with grace and magnanimity. To do otherwise is simply to play into the hands of deceit and falsehood.
This leads to Darrell’s third point: civility is a spiritual practice. I would go him one further and suggest that civility is a spiritual discipline. Last month, when more than 150 of us stood in front of the Deep River Town Hall to witness for democracy and justice, I wasn’t surprised that more than a few passers-by took exception to our witness with certain language and gestures you might be acquainted with. To my knowledge, none of us on that sidewalk responded in kind. To do so would have invalidated the purpose and meaning that undergirded our peaceful gathering. “Blessed are you peacemakers, for you will be called children of God.” Peacemaking is not an avoidance of conflict, because if we are to stand for hope and for truth, we have to expect pushback. Ours is a wounded world that cries out for peace. Peacemaking is a holy calling, a sacred engagement. You and I honor the image of God in others even and especially when we disagree.
It is sometimes between a rock and a hard place you and I walk as people of faith. If right and wrong were in every instance obvious and easily recognizable it would be a much different world we live in. But it is OK to feel stuck in the middle sometimes, because it means we are paying attention – we are not only taking God’s world seriously, but we are taking our own role in God’s world seriously. That role is to be bearers of hope, to be tellers of truth, to be makers of peace.
What Darrell Goodwin wrote to us as ministers and pastors and community leaders he wrote to all of us followers of Jesus.
“Your leadership matters more than ever. I see the weight you carry and I see you. I know the invisible labor or showing up when you feel empty, the grief of change, and the pressure to lead when answers are unclear. Hear this: you are not alone. The God who called you is still with you and the life-giving spirit [remains] aflame within. May we be responsible stewards of hope, truth and peace, not because it is easy, but because it is faithful.”
The newly anointed leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV, sounded a similar note in his inaugural address Thursday from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica. “We have to look together how to be a missionary church,” he said, “building bridges, dialogue, always open to receiving, with open arms for everyone, like this square, open to all, to all who need our charity, our presence, dialogue and love.”
Charity, presence, dialogue, love, hope, truth and peace. May the voyage continue, and our course remain true.